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	<title>Toronto &#187; STUFF</title>
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		<title>The 2017 Stuffies! Volume 2 &#8211; The Best Stuff in Baseball</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/26/the-2017-stuffies-volume-2-the-best-stuff-in-baseball/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/26/the-2017-stuffies-volume-2-the-best-stuff-in-baseball/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Oct 2017 10:20:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13985</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome back to the Stuffies! It has been a thrilling ride through the first few rounds of the playoffs, but to really increase your appetite for the World Series, Nick and I are here to help you understand which pitchers in baseball had the best Stuff. Off the hop &#8211; a bit of a lesson [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome back to the Stuffies! It has been a thrilling ride through the first few rounds of the playoffs, but to really increase your appetite for the World Series, Nick and I are here to help you understand which pitchers in baseball had the best Stuff.</p>
<p>Off the hop &#8211; a bit of a lesson on the Stuff metric used here; instead of average STUFF for teams, we&#8217;re using &#8220;Weighted STUFF&#8221;. Essentially, it&#8217;s each pitcher&#8217;s stuff, multiplied by the % of pitches they threw with respect to their rotation or bullpen mates. This was also repeated for all of the inputs that went into the STUFF metric &#8211; velocity, change, and break distance. For the individual pitchers, they had to throw 1000 pitches in the season to be included in the awards competition.</p>
<h2>Best Team Stuff &#8211; Starters</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-starters.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13990" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-starters.png" alt="weighted starters" width="700" height="559" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Dodgers</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; </span>It’s no surprise to see the Dodgers’ starting rotation (all 9 of them) up here at the top of the stuff list this season. Much to the frustration of the rest of baseball, the Dodgers used their deep pockets to trot out talented starter after talented starter this season. It’s not hard to take home a Stuffy when your 4-7 starters are Alex Wood, Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-jin Ryu and Kenta Maeda. But in a true embarrassment of riches, it’s not just depth that makes the Dodgers great – Kershaw, Darvish and Rich Hill aren’t a bad top three either. Money might not be able to buy you happiness, but it can definitely buy you a lot of great starting pitching.</span></p>
<h3>Pirates</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Gerrit Cole? Stud. Tyler Glasnow? Beast. Jamieson Taillon? Monster. The Pirates have the flame throwers to make a formidable rotation&#8230; but youth and inexperience has held them back from really taking the next step. There&#8217;s no mystery to the madness here: Look at what the Pirates lead the league in &#8211; a 94.47 mph weighted fastball velocity. From their starters&#8230; You better be ready to swing early!</p>
<h3><strong>Mets</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> Everyone knows that the Mets have a talented, young rotation full of great pitchers. What nobody knows is what the hell the Mets training staff are doing that makes these poor guys get hurt so damn often. Even if Matt Harvey might have (allegedly) partied his way onto the disabled list, that doesn’t explain their inability to keep Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, and Seth Lugo reasonably healthy over the past season. We all know pitchers get hurt but geez…..</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">This is the part of the Stuffies where the award winner starts uncontrollably sobbing on stage and everyone in the audience is left kind of looking at each other, really awkwardly, not knowing what to do with their hands. It was fine when there were some sniffles, but now we&#8217;re getting the big snot bubbles and it sounds like the person is choking. Please Mickey Callaway &#8211; find a way to make this rotation everything that it could be.</span></span></p>
<h3>(dis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Toronto Blue Jays</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> It certainly didn&#8217;t help the Jays that the guy on their roster with the best STUFF was blistered up all season, but the Jays ranked 24th in total Stuff. Stroman (to be discussed later) lead the team in Stuff out of the rotation and swingman Joe Biagini also had great STUFF, while Brett Anderson chimed in some some good STUFF near the end of the season &#8211; but the Metric didn&#8217;t favour soft-tossing Marco Estrada, fastball dominant J.A. Happ, or the slew of other jabronis that took their turn getting smashed throughout this 2017 season.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Team Stuff &#8211; Bullpens</strong></h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-relievers.png"><img class=" wp-image-13989 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-relievers.png" alt="weighted relievers" width="700" height="559" /></a></p>
<h3><span style="color: #000000">Red Sox</span></h3>
<p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> John Farrell had the best STUFF in the world to work with out of his bullpen and that still couldn&#8217;t get him to the ALCS. It also couldn&#8217;t get him his job for the 2018 season&#8230; but I swear that doesn&#8217;t come from a place of bitterness and resentment. The Red Sox threw absolute gas out of their bullpen, but they also had a lot of consistency &#8211; both Kimbrel, Joe Kelly, and Matt Barnes put in great seasons and appeared in a lot of Red Sox innings &#8211; partially due to a starting rotation that had its question marks. All of those guys look to be ready to put in great seasons in 2018, so there&#8217;s no reason to think the Red Sox STUFF is going anywhere.<br />
</span></p>
<h3>Yankees</h3>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; </span>Sometime in July, Joe Girardi must have paid Brian Cashman a visit and suggested that the Yankees would have a better chance of winning if their opponents weren’t able to make contact after the fifth inning. Cashman then spent the 2017 trade deadline assembling a super bullpen that sits number two on the reliever stuff list this season. Teams usually talk about a two or three-headed monster at the end of a game but the Yankees bullpen eats those for breakfast.</p>
<h3><span style="color: #0000ff"><span style="color: #000000">(Dis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Toronto Blue Jays</span></span></h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">Dear Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins &#8211; Stuff is good for bullpens. Like, it&#8217;s really good. It helps strike batters out and it helps keep the ball out of the 3rd deck. Can we please get some more for the bullpen in 2018? I&#8217;m not saying that Stuff is the only way to get hitters out&#8230; but it acts like an insurance policy against bad control. Like the kind a certain father of the Jays Bullpen had in the early part of the season (#NEVERFORGETGRILLI2016). </span></span></p>
<h3>(SuperDis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Baltimore OriLOLs</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Ha! Showalter you clown! Just like in the AL East Standings, the Jays jumped ahead of the Orioles at the last minute to stay out of the basement! The Orioles, while having some elite bullpen arms in Zach Britton and Brad Brach, don&#8217;t fare that well in the STUFF category because they rely on velocity alone &#8211; a bunch of these guys don&#8217;t have secondary pitches to rely on.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; <span style="color: #000000"><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">One of the biggest surprises of the Stuffies this season is seeing Baltimore take home the Stuffy for worst reliever stuff. The Baltimore bullpen is considered one of the better pens in the American League. While many teams across the league would love to have Zach Britton, Brad Brach and Darren O’Day at the back of their pens, all of those groundballs don’t impress the stuffy judging committee. Or Jose Bautista.<br />
</span></strong></span></span></p>
<h2>Best Stuff &#8211; Starters</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/starters-ranked.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13988" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/starters-ranked.png" alt="starters ranked" width="700" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Clayton Kershaw</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Any time you create a pitching metric that is supposed to represent success at the MLB level and Clayton Kershaw comes out on top &#8211; you feel pretty good that the metric is accurate. Kershaw takes home the 2017 crown with an absolutely absurd Stuff level of 2.1. Kershaw has great fastball velocity &#8211; almost 93 mph&#8230; but it&#8217;s the change in speeds and the distance between the pitches that truly sets him apart. Go and watch a bunch of PitchingNinja gifs about Kershaw now &#8211; you deserve it.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> Water is also wet. Sun rises in the east. Despite spending much of the second half of the season on the disabled list, Kershaw once again takes home the stuffy for best starting pitcher. Do you really need a Ph.D and a complicated multi-variable formula to know Kersh is the best starter in baseball? What are they teaching these people in grad school?</span></strong></p>
<h3>Gerrit Cole</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> There&#8217;s absolute hot nasty fire flames being thrown when former first overall pick Gerrit Cole is on the mound. His season was a rocky one &#8211; a lot of injury concerns, paired with an underperforming Pirates team, and you get the end result of Cole&#8217;s career worst 4.26 ERA. There&#8217;s a ton of upside for young Gerrit &#8211; he&#8217;s only entering his age 27 season.</p>
<h3>Jesse Hahn</h3>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">Injuries and inconsistency torched Hahn’s 2017 season but the stuff-o-meter seems to really like him. Paired with pitching in the spacious O.co Coliseum and we might have a 2018 fantasy baseball sleeper on our hands….if you’re into that sort of thing.</span></span></p>
<h3>Honorable Mention &#8211; Marcus Stroman</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">The StroShow put up his best STUFF season in 2017 and continued doing what he does best &#8211; being completely consistent. His 2017 Stuff was elevated from 2016, with nearly a 2&#8243; increase in pitch separation and a slight increase in his fastball velocity. Earlier this year, Stro was talking with The Pitching Ninja on Twitter and started chiming in on how nasty Corey Knebel&#8217;s curveball was. The two exchanged pleasantries, but what would it look like if Stro added the Knebel Knuckle Curve? Well, it would nearly double his stuff &#8211; increasing separation for both break and velocity. That&#8217;s the the type of pitch that would really change things for Stro, and may get those strikeout numbers climbing.</span></span></p>
<h2>Best Stuff &#8211; Relievers</h2>
<h3><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/relievers-ranked.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13987" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/relievers-ranked.png" alt="relievers ranked" width="700" height="285" /></a></h3>
<h3>Joe Kelly</h3>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> One of these things is not like the others. Kelly finds himself atop the reliever stuffy list without piling up the K’s (his K/9 was a very pedestrian 8.07) that so many of the other top relievers do. All grit, moxey, and tattoos, Kelly’s fastball velo keeps him atop the stuff leaderboards despite middle of the road results.</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">At this point, people start to regurgitate their lunch whenever someone tells them Joe Kelly has great STUFF. But are people objectively quantifying it? Usually not! So, suck on that haters. Full disclosure &#8211; Joe Kelly seems like he might be a bit of a dork, and those are my people. </span></span></p>
<h3>Dellin Betances</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; </span><span style="color: #000000">That Yankees bullpen is filled with absolute nasty STUFF &#8211; the only reason Chapman isn&#8217;t on this list is because of his injuries this season; he just never crossed that 1000 pitch threshold. But you know who did? Dellin Betances. Betances pairs an absolutely next level fastball with huge pitch separation. His Stuff is legendary and his strikeout rate matches. One thing to watch for &#8211; there&#8217;s no one who has had a higher workload since 2012 than Betances. By the time his huge free agency contract signing comes up, the Yankees may have bled him dry. More reason to hate them, I guess.</span></p>
<p>ND &#8211; This year&#8217;s judging committee didn&#8217;t put too much weight in being able to control the stuff each pitcher unleashes, because if they did, Betances might not be taking home a Stuffy. The big reliever walked 44 batters in 59 innings. That&#8217;s not ideal, but when you&#8217;re as nasty as Betances, you can afford to miss a little more often than not.</p>
<h3>Craig Kimbrel</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Do you like pitchers who throw gas but also look like a weird bird before they do it? Craig Kimbrel is the guy for you, my friend. Not much else to say here &#8211; Kimbrel is one of the best in the game and he throws some of the nastiest junk in baseball.</p>
<h3>Honorable Mention &#8211; Ryan Tepera</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Tepera is not talked about enough. Maybe he is? But not enough by me. Relievers have a very hard job &#8211; they have to go into games on short rest, get out the best hitters, and forget about bad results that happened in the recent past. When I looked at workload, Tepera was in the top 10 of the entire MLB. His Stuff sits at 32nd overall for relievers who threw 1000 pitches this season &#8211; and it&#8217;s his giant fastball that is pretty much the only contributor to that. Great work, Ryan &#8211; let&#8217;s keep it going in 2018.</p>
<h2>The Wrap Up</h2>
<p>From an MLB wide perspective, Stuff has never been better than it was in 2017. Velocity has its pros (striking fools out) and cons (ouch), but boy is it fun to watch and write about. On behalf of my friend and colleague Nick, thank you for reading about STUFF! It has been a pleasure once again. Let&#8217;s hope the Jays can give us some more STUFF to look at in 2018 &#8211; looking at you, Connor Greene!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>The 2017 Stuffies! Volume 1 &#8211; Rookies of the Year, and Not So Stuffies</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/18/the-2017-stuffies-volume-1-rookies-of-the-year-and-not-so-stuffies/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/18/the-2017-stuffies-volume-1-rookies-of-the-year-and-not-so-stuffies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 18 Oct 2017 10:53:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Stuffies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13900</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Good evening everyone! With the regular season complete and us all having a lot more stress free time on our hands this postseason, we&#8217;re proud to bring you the 2017 Stuffy awards! I&#8217;ll be your co-host, Mike Sonne. I&#8217;m proud to have alongside me, Canada&#8217;s second favourite bass playing baseball fan, Nick Dika! (Sorry, Geddy [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Good evening everyone! With the regular season complete and us all having a lot more stress free time on our hands this postseason, we&#8217;re proud to bring you the 2017 Stuffy awards! I&#8217;ll be your co-host, Mike Sonne. I&#8217;m proud to have alongside me, Canada&#8217;s second favourite bass playing baseball fan, Nick Dika! (Sorry, Geddy Lee was busy&#8230; and he won&#8217;t return my calls and sent a restraining order&#8230;weird).</p>
<p>Like <a title="The Stuffies! 2016 – Stuff Rookies of the Year" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/12/the-stuffies-2016-stuff-rookies-of-the-year/" target="_blank">last year</a>, we&#8217;re going to break this down in two parts &#8211; part 1 &#8211; we have our rookies of the year, along with the &#8220;not so Stuffies&#8221;. In part 2, the team awards for the best Stuff, and the pitchers with the best Stuff in the MLB.</p>
<p>Without further ado, Nick, let&#8217;s start the show with the Stuff Rookies of the Year.</p>
<h2>Rookies of the Year</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/Stuffy-ROY.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13902" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/Stuffy-ROY.png" alt="Stuffy ROY" width="800" height="205" /></a></p>
<h4>Walker Buehler</h4>
<p><span style="color: #993300">Nick Dika &#8211; </span>Ugh. Really Dodgers? You have the best rookie pitcher too? The Dodgers are proving how truly horrifying it can be when a team with deep pockets simultaneously focuses on building a deep and talented farm system. Seeing Buehler gas 98 out of the Dodgers’ pen makes me want to contract the Rays immediately.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">Mike Sonne &#8211; </span>Beuhler is a monster. That velocity on the fastball, but also the velocity on the slider, is ELITE. Then he pairs it with 19&#8243; of separation between the arsenal of pitches. That&#8217;s nearly 5&#8243; more than the league average. PLUS, he was named after a very famous Texas Ranger (the good kind, not the pant peeing kind).</p>
<h4>Dovydas Neverauskas</h4>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">MS &#8211; </span>Lithuania&#8217;s first MLB player is a beast of a man, probably harnessing his velocity from his rage at watching Jonas Valanciunas&#8217; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccNbR9kclgk" target="_blank">Itty Bitty Baller commercials</a>. A lot like Walker Buehler, this is a pitcher with insane slider velocity and well above average fastball velocity. For those of you counting at home, that&#8217;s two legitimate monsters the Pirates now have for Stuff &#8211; Felipe Rivero, and Neverauskas. Oh&#8230; and that Gerrit Cole guy isn&#8217;t too bad either.</p>
<p><strong><em>Honorable Starter Mention</em></strong></p>
<h4>Nick Pivetta</h4>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">MS -</span> In science, whenever we develop a tool, we need to establish its validity. That means, is this tool measuring what it&#8217;s really supposed to be measuring? In my baseball science work, my main source of validation comes from Eno Sarris agreeing with me.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Nick Pivetta and Jesse Hahn: I do not understand why you haven’t seen better results. <a href="https://t.co/IWgByoIb6K">https://t.co/IWgByoIb6K</a></p>
<p>— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) <a href="https://twitter.com/enosarris/status/914982422260834305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 2, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>So yeah, there it is. Poor Nick &#8211; hopefully brighter days are coming for you my man! I wrote an article on Rotographs last week, looking at <a href="https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/when-good-stuff-goes-bad/" target="_blank">how pitchers with good stuff can have bad results</a>. Nothing jumps out with Pivetta, but it looks like he&#8217;s not getting many calls on the black and he&#8217;s keeping his pitches in the zone more frequently than other starting pitchers. Keep an eye on this guy for your upcoming fantasy seasons.</p>
<h2>The Not So Stuffies</h2>
<p>Here at the Stuffies, we prefer style over substance. Sure, you can get guys out with an 89 mph, but we prefer our pitchers to get their 98 mph fastball put into the upper deck (then claim they have a live arm, tons of potential and over draft them in fantasy next year). Who didn&#8217;t have the right stuff this year? <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/stuffy-worst.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13905" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/stuffy-worst.png" alt="stuffy worst" width="800" height="240" /></a></p>
<h4>Kyle Hendricks</h4>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">You know, back at the start of June, when Kyle Hendricks&#8217; sky was falling and he was getting shelled, it looked a lot like hitters finally found the professor&#8217;s kryptonite. 86 mph fastballs don&#8217;t normally play up (unless paired with a knuckle ball). Yet, here we are &#8211; the Cubs are in the NLCS, and Hendricks is throwing filth like this:</span> </span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Kyle Hendricks, Crazy Fastball Movement (4 Pitch K/4 FBs/Isolated). <a href="https://t.co/wnyAE9Xk3o">pic.twitter.com/wnyAE9Xk3o</a></p>
<p>— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/916649365170802688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>So, you do you, wild man. Sometimes it&#8217;s the metrics who are wrong.</p>
<h4><strong>Wade LeBlanc</strong></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #993300">ND -</span> LeBlanc is actually a French word for “zero stuff”. But let’s not be too hard on the guy. We’d all swing through his cement mixer curveballs and his 87 mph fastballs. It’s just that no one in the major leagues (or triple-A) would.</span></p>
<h4><strong>Vance Worley</strong></h4>
<p><span style="color: #993300">ND -</span> While the “Vanimal” may have done something nasty to earn himself the nickname, his stuff in 2017 wasn’t nasty in the least. This season, Vance Worley was a walking bullpen game waiting to happen. In the twelve starts he made for the Marlins, he was only able to make it through five innings three times. With an average fastball velocity under 90 mph and not much in the way of breaking stuff, his signature sports goggles might actually be for his own protection rather than enhancing his vision.</p>
<p>***Orchestra music starts up, giant hook appears at the side of the stage***</p>
<p>Looks like we&#8217;re cutting into <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13742" target="_blank">Joshua Howsam&#8217;s 19th watch</a> of The Wire &#8211; we&#8217;ll be back soon with the best team stuff in the MLB!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Toronto Blue Jays Stuff Report &#8211; Volume 2, Issue 6</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/23/toronto-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-6/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/23/toronto-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-6/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Aug 2017 14:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fatigue Units]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13067</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even in the darkest days of the Toronto Blue Jays 2017 season, there will still be Stuff to discuss. Let&#8217;s look and see how this tire fire has played out in the world of advanced pitching metrics. Starting Pitchers The Starters who have managed to stick around for more than spot starts or one inning [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Even in the darkest days of the Toronto Blue Jays 2017 season, there will still be Stuff to discuss. Let&#8217;s look and see how this tire fire has played out in the world of advanced pitching metrics.</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13071" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starters-Table-1024x184.png" alt="Starters Table" width="700" height="126" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13079" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png" alt="Starter Stuff" width="650" height="471" /></a></p>
<p>The Starters who have managed to stick around for more than spot starts or one inning blow outs (looking at you, Frankie) have had their ups and downs this season. Marco Estrada has an interesting relationship with the Stuff Metric &#8211; when he throws his Curveball, things look a lot better (due to an increased separation between pitches). His Stuff is never going to be elite &#8211; not when his fastball sits nearly a full standard deviation below league average, but when he doesn&#8217;t throw the curve at all, his Stuff falls completely off a cliff. His season started out with a lot of variability, then hit a declining phase &#8211; but after the All Star break &#8211; the Stuff has looked a lot more consistent.</p>
<p>Stroman has had some very consistent Stuff &#8211; a coefficient of variation on the season of 60%. While this is high with respect to his peers, he has the least amount of variability on the Blue Jays staff (amongst starters who have appeared in at least 15 weeks). From an injury perspective, lower variability in Stuff on a weekly basis is linked to reduced injury chances which obviously is a point in Stroman&#8217;s favour. On the flip side, Happ and Estrada have some of the most variability in their Stuff in the entire MLB.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13069" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Relievers-Table-1024x154.png" alt="Relievers Table" width="700" height="105" /></a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13072" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff-1024x743.png" alt="Reliever Stuff" width="650" height="471" /></a></p>
<p>Well now, this doesn&#8217;t look good at all. Last year, the Blue Jays had elite Stuff relievers in both Joe Biagini and Roberto Osuna. This year, Osuna has had an up and down year with his Stuff and has hovered right below league average Stuff (0.4). The Twitterverse started getting huffy with me this week when <a href="https://twitter.com/DrMikeSonne/status/899392674754592768" target="_blank">I tweeted that Roberto Osuna should be shut down for the year</a> to prevent injury and ensure he will be a huge part of the team for seasons to come. Like I had mentioned, Osuna&#8217;s Stuff is way down &#8211; he has lost a significant amount off of his fastball and he seems to just refuse to throw the fourseamer anymore.</p>
<p>Not only has his fastball dropped off, but Osunas has lost Stuff in all other areas too. There&#8217;s less separation between his pitches and less range of velocity between the pitch arsenal.</p>
<table style="height: 230px" width="441">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Roberto Osuna</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2015</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2016</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2017</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Stuff</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.82</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.84</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.38</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Fastball Velo (mph)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">95.51</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">95.75</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">94.87</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Change in Velo (%)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">13.79%</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">9.91%</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">8.17%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Break Distance (&#8220;)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">10.31</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">11.60</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">8.08</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>I wrote an article that examined workloads in pitchers that tried to come up with a metric that compared relievers to starters in the same light. Looking closely at these values (in the PitchFX era), there has only been one pitcher that had a higher workload before they turned 23  &#8211; Madison Bumgarner.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/before-23.png"><img class=" wp-image-13076 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/before-23.png" alt="before 23" width="600" height="352" /></a></p>
<p>In addition, no pitcher had appeared in more games than Osuna. These are uncharted waters &#8211; and if the Jays are seeing these same signs, a tough decision is coming; is it worth risking the health of one of baseball&#8217;s best young closers for an outside shot at the second wildcard, in exchange for losing him for parts of the next two?</p>
<p><em> Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>THE STUFF REPORT – VOL. 2, ISSUE 4</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/30/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-4/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/30/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 May 2017 14:35:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Loup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11248</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thank you for tuning into the 2-4 Stuff report. It&#8217;s a week late for celebrating the real 2-4, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t grab a 2-4 with your buds and enjoy some statistical bliss. And that doesn&#8217;t mean beer! There&#8217;s a great sale on Blue Label sparking water at Fortino&#8217;s right now. Have you [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for tuning into the 2-4 Stuff report. It&#8217;s a week late for celebrating the real 2-4, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t grab a 2-4 with your buds and enjoy some statistical bliss. And that doesn&#8217;t mean beer! There&#8217;s a great sale on Blue Label sparking water at Fortino&#8217;s right now. Have you tried it? Delicious. What was I talking about?</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11252" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Table-1024x208.png" alt="Starters Table" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11251" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Figure-1024x742.png" alt="Starters Figure" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>My favourite pitcher to watch on the Stuff report has been Marcus Stroman. Stro has better stuff in 2017 than he did in 2016 &#8211; actually, his Stuff has increased by double, from 0.24 to 0.58. Last season, <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/">Kyle Matte wrote about how Stroman&#8217;s pitches looked too similar.</a> It&#8217;s great that you can throw 6 different pitches, but if the hitter can&#8217;t tell the difference between them &#8211; they might as well all be fastballs to him.  This year &#8211; Stro is doing something different.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stro-Show.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11254" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stro-Show-1024x243.png" alt="Stro Show" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>Take a look at how he is changing speeds in 2017 &#8211; and how he is gaining separation between his pitches. The change in velocity is slight, but the 16.6&#8243; separation between his fastball and breaking stuff in the past two weeks is excellent. This separation actually ranks in the top 25 percent of all pitchers in the MLB in the 2017 this season. The 10.2&#8243; he had in 2016? 75 percent of pitchers were better. The current numbers mean a lot more space to induce swings and misses. This is reflected in his increased strikeout rate as well:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/stro-break-and-k9.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-11255" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/stro-break-and-k9.png" alt="stro break and k9" width="700px" /></a>\</p>
<p>You obviously can&#8217;t infer that much from this graph &#8211; it is too small of a sample to say that this is a sustainable trend &#8211; but the relationship sure is interesting. We can look back at the end of the season and see how Stro&#8217;s pitch separation leads to punching more tickets.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/relievers-table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11250" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/relievers-table-1024x224.png" alt="relievers table" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11249" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Figure-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Figure" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Blue Jays Bullpen Stuff resembles a lot of their season in general &#8211; a rocky start, followed by a lot of stability. In fact, this graph is boring as hell. Here class, may I show you a bunch of straight lines? The exciting thing is about how straight they are. Do you like Molson Canadian and White Wonderbread? I also enjoy going to bed at 10pm and having Swiss Chalet at 4:30 on Wednesdays.</p>
<p>There are two guys that I have some concerns with though &#8211; Roberto Osuna and Aaron Loup. Right now, Osuna&#8217;s stuff is 33 of what it was in 2016. As for Aaron Loup, his stuff has fallen completely off the map. While the culprit with Osuna looks like it&#8217;s a lot of velocity loss, Loup is not separating between his pitches at all in 2017. The Loup concern is something that is a bit more strategic &#8211; if he&#8217;s really feeling that fastball, there&#8217;s no need to throw the slider &#8211; especially if it&#8217;s getting guys out. Osuna&#8217;s leaking velocity is a bit more insidious &#8211; this could be a sign of fatigue and worse, a chance he&#8217;s injured. </p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Loup-and-OSuna.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11257" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Loup-and-OSuna-1024x316.png" alt="Loup and OSuna" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>Stuff will continue to educate us all on the miracles of pitching.</p>
<p>Ok, back to my quarter chicken dinner.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The STUFF report &#8211; Vol. 2, Issue 3</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/18/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-3/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/18/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2017 10:24:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10971</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Things are looking up &#8211; arms have stopped flying off pitcher&#8217;s bodies and some wins have started coming around (until this series). But &#8211; what about the Stuff? We always want to know about the Stuff. Starting Pitchers &#160; Now, the STUFF report gets a bit messy here &#8211; because Joe Biagini has become a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Things are looking up &#8211; arms have stopped flying off pitcher&#8217;s bodies and some wins have started coming around (until this series). But &#8211; what about the Stuff? We always want to know about the Stuff.</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Teable.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10974" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Teable-1024x192.png" alt="Starter Teable" width="700px" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph1.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10975" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph1-1024x742.png" alt="Starters - Graph" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, the STUFF report gets a bit messy here &#8211; because Joe Biagini has become a very bad man as a starter. When you look at his Starting Stuff &#8211; it&#8217;s pretty comparable with the known beast of STUFF &#8211; Aaron Sanchez. Just how similar are the two?</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/sanchez-vs-biagini.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10976" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/sanchez-vs-biagini-1024x328.png" alt="sanchez vs biagini" width="700" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>A limitation of the STUFF metric is that it doesn&#8217;t look at pitches individually &#8211; it looks at the pitcher&#8217;s arsenal as a whole. When you do this &#8211; it&#8217;s pretty evident just how similar Sanchez and Biagini look. Obviously Joe doesn&#8217;t have the nasty sinker that Sanchez posses as a main weapon, but the velocity is comparable, the change in speed is very similar, and Sanchez gets a bit more separation between his pitches. One advantage that Biagini has over Sanchez is that he tends to use more of his arsenal. This plays very well when considering the prospect of Biagini being a starter over the long term.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relief-Table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10972" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relief-Table-1024x227.png" alt="Relief Table" width="700" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph1.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10973" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph1-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Graph" width="700" /></a></p>
<p>After some down weeks to begin the season (and some down results to follow), Roberto Osuna&#8217;s STUFF has started to climb towards its 2016 level. There have also been increases in STUFF by Joe Smith, Dominic Leone, and Jason Grilli. This has had mixed results for the pen &#8211; as Smith has been lights out, Leone has been hit or miss, and Grilli has been a bit of a punching bag. The Bullpen had a bad one this week, but they&#8217;ve had a lot of success recently. Let&#8217;s hope they can keep it up.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays continue facing the worst Stuff rotation in the Majors on Thursday &#8211; the Braves, lead by Colon and Dickey, aren&#8217;t lighting up the radar guns. Let&#8217;s hope the hitters can take advantage and steal a game.</p>
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		<title>The STUFF report – Volume 2, Issue 2</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/02/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-2/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/02/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 May 2017 13:01:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[EVERYTHING IS STILL AWFUL, BUT WE’RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. DO YOU HEAR ME??! TOGETHER! Hey, it’s issue 2 of the Stuff report! The Stuff report examines changes in the Blue Jays pitching staff to look at changes in performance, risk of injury, or for the deeper meaning of life and a cold [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="font-weight: 400">EVERYTHING IS STILL AWFUL, BUT WE’RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. DO YOU HEAR ME??! TOGETHER!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Hey, it’s issue 2 of the Stuff report! The Stuff report examines changes in the Blue Jays pitching staff to look at changes in performance, risk of injury, or for the deeper meaning of life and a cold rationalization as to why we put ourselves through the agony of donating three hours of our time to something that will only bring us suffering.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The reason for that last one, is Stuff. Stuff brings us all together.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Starting Pitchers</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There are two new, unfortunate debuts on the Stuff report this week with Cat Latos’ dad and Casey Lawrence joining in while getting pummeled on the field (Lawrence more than Latos). </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><strong><strong><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10619" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Table-1024x192.png" alt="Starter Table" width="816" height="153" /></a></strong></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10620" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph-1024x744.png" alt="Starters Graph" width="527" height="383" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Both of the new guys profile with less than stellar STUFF &#8211; so it’ll be interesting to see whether they go down the Estrada route and dominate with awesome secondary STUFF or turn into cannon fodder. The pitcher who gets the most amount of excitement is none other than yesterday&#8217;s birthday boy himself, Marcus Stroman. Fresh off a time frame that saw two complete games and a 10 K performance, Stroman is becoming the ace of the staff people expected last year. What has changed between this year and last year in his Stuff?</span></p>
<p><strong><strong> </strong></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stroman.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10621" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stroman.png" alt="Stroman" width="657" height="151" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">First, be warned because there were some changes in velocity readings that lead to pitchers having inflated numbers this season &#8211; that’s been addressed in the STUFF score, but not necessarily in just looking at the average velocity values. Stro looks to be throwing harder this year, but looking at his average fastball velocity &#8211; it isn’t up by a lot &#8211; is not enough to buoy a massive change in results. When it comes to the components of his Stuff, the big change is in the separation between his pitches; he is getting nearly five extra inches of separation than the 2016 season. That’s a lot of space to miss bats!</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Bullpen</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Reliever-Table.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10617" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Reliever-Table-1024x258.png" alt="Reliever Table" width="727" height="183" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10618" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Graph" width="619" height="449" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There’s not much positive to to write about in terms of the reliever Stuff, but Roberto Osuna’s steady decline in Stuff is worth noting. While his velocity looks down from the previous seasons, it’s the fact that he isn’t using his fastball that has lead to the largest drop in his Stuff. The movement and the change in speeds looks relatively constant &#8211; but let’s hope this is just a matter of Bob getting his confidence back and using the fastball that got him to this level more frequently.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Osuna.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10616" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Osuna.png" alt="Osuna" width="618" height="142" /></a></p>
<h2><b>Team Report</b></h2>
<p>Before the season, I ran a projected Stuff Report to see where we could expect to see the Jays rotation and bullpen rank in terms of their Stuff. This projection pegged the bullpen at 20th overall, and the starting rotation at 16th overall.</p>
<h3>Bullpen</h3>
<p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-weight: 400"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10614" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/all-relievers.png" alt="all relievers" width="599" height="446" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On a whole, the bullpen looks to be matching their previewed Stuff fairly well &#8211; and with Osuna starting to throw his fastball with more frequency, that should be looking even better in the future. They still look pretty good, sitting at 16th in weighted Stuff.</span></p>
<h3>Starters</h3>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/All-Rotations.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10615" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/All-Rotations.png" alt="All Rotations" width="598" height="449" /></a></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">As for the rotation, they look a lot worse than their projected numbers. When you replace one of the best Stuff pitchers in the world (Aaron Sanchez), with Mat Latos and Casey Lawrence, that’s bound to happen no matter how much junk the Stro Show throws. The Jays were projected to have the 16th best Stuff, but they&#8217;re near the bottom of the league now at 26th.</span></strong></p>
<p>Just remember &#8211; when it was January and -20 and we were all freezing our faces off, we were desperate to watch baseball. This beats the alternative&#8230; I think.</p>
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		<title>The STUFF report &#8211; Volume 2, Issue 1</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/18/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-1/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/18/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Apr 2017 10:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10278</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[***Sunday morning, Mike wakes up, knowing he has a Stuff report to file on Monday. He&#8217;s frustrated by the Blue Jays play, but relieved that he at least has an elite pitching rotation to write about*** 7:38 am Aaron Sanchez to the 10-day DL with a blister. Matt Dermody recalled, will give bullpen second Lefty [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>***Sunday morning, Mike wakes up, knowing he has a Stuff report to file on Monday. He&#8217;s frustrated by the Blue Jays play, but relieved that he at least has an elite pitching rotation to write about***</p>
<p>7:38 am</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Aaron Sanchez to the 10-day DL with a blister. Matt Dermody recalled, will give bullpen second Lefty for now.</p>
<p>— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) <a href="https://twitter.com/KeeganMatheson/status/853607998283022337">April 16, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>***Swearing begins to intensify&#8230; but at least we get to watch the 20 game winner, J.A. Happ pitch today*** Approx 2:30 pm</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Blue Jays starter JA Happ leaves game after 4.1 IP with apparent arm issue.<br />
Jays 0 Orioles 0 (5th) on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TSN1040?src=hash">#TSN1040</a> right now. <a href="https://t.co/I85fhW2JXT">pic.twitter.com/I85fhW2JXT</a></p>
<p>— TSN Radio Vancouver (@TSN1040) <a href="https://twitter.com/TSN1040/status/853676836420714496">April 16, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>***Swearing reaches a peak level. Neighbours begin getting concerned.****</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">JA Happ will have an MRI tomorrow; Blue Jays will reevaluate after that.</p>
<p>— Arden Zwelling (@ArdenZwelling) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArdenZwelling/status/853711578079875073">April 16, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p>***There is no sound. There is only pain. There is only darkness, death and despair. Joy was created to make pain feel worse***</p>
<p>Welcome to the 2017 Stuff report! I know, I know &#8211; not the most positive way to start the season, but let&#8217;s try and use numbers to numb our senses, and prevent the inevitable onset of alcoholism that this season will induce!</p>
<p>To bring you back to speed, STUFF is a metric that I created last year, to help win bar arguments with your friends about who has the best STUFF in baseball. The graphic at the top of this article should help with understanding how things are calculated, but to summarize: STUFF is the interaction of fastball and breaking pitch velocity, change in speeds, and separation distance between all pitches at the plate. If you want to read a bit more &#8211; check out some of these articles:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/22/">Development of the Stuff metric</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/using-the-stuff-metric-as-an-injury-identification-tool/">The Stuff metric as an injury identification tool</a></p>
<p>But let&#8217;s get into the meat of our 2017 Toronto Blue Jays pitching staff.</p>
<p>A word of warning here: This season, MLB has changed the way that pitching numbers are collected, and velocities are appearing a bit wonky. I&#8217;ve normalized the 2017 data to the velocities and break movements that have been collected &#8211; so hopefully it all makes sense.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s see what we&#8217;ve got:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stuff-Table.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-10290" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stuff-Table-1024x423.png" alt="Stuff Table" width="726" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stargers-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-10289" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stargers-Figure-1024x744.png" alt="Stargers Figure" width="500" height="363" /></a></p>
<p>What else could be said about the Jays starting pitchers that hasn&#8217;t been said already? They&#8217;re awesome &#8211; well, they were when they were intact. Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s stuff is better than it was in 2016, and Marcus Stroman&#8217;s has improved dramatically. Ol&#8217; Steady Francisco Liriano remains just where he was in 2016, but both Estrada and Happ look to be falling off. While Marco went through phases last season where his Stuff declined, the main reason for this happening was more of a byproduct of the STUFF calculation than it was with his performance. There was a period where his velocity declined, which hurt his Stuff in 2016 &#8211; but, the main reason for a huge drop in Estrada&#8217;s stuff is not throwing his curveball as much. If he gets that curve ball over 10% of his usage his Stuff climbs dramatically.</p>
<p>Happ is another Story. Joshua Howsam wrote about <a title="How J.A. Happ Evolved Into One of Baseball’s Best" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/31/how-j-a-happ-evolved-into-one-of-baseballs-best/" target="_blank">how Happ&#8217;s fastballs differentiate</a> more from each other than any other pitcher in the MLB. This was a huge key to his success in the past two seasons. His commitment to the fastball is the main reason why he doesn&#8217;t have great STUFF &#8211; neither of his fastballs are particularly scorching, and his seldom used change up only differentiates in velocity by 3%. His results had been great, even up until the point where he left the game. I recently wrote about Zach Britton&#8217;s recent trip to the disabled list, and referenced a paper which cited a small repertoire of pitches as a possible risk factor for UCL injury. Happ&#8217;s arsenal is about as small as it gets. Hopefully he returns to the rotation as soon as possible.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Relievers-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-10288" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Relievers-Figure-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Figure" width="500" height="362" /></a></p>
<p>Joe Biagini continues to be a shining beacon for watching this Jays team. He is so, so good. Furthermore &#8211; he has such great STUFF. Biagini continues to impress on the metric, as his early season STUFF looks exceptional. His change in velocity and separation between pitches is elite, plus he pairs that with a very good fastball at 94.3 mph. For the most part, the Jays relievers have looked fairly consistent with their 2016 number. Roberto Osuna has a bit of a drop off &#8211; this might be him working through the rust of his early season DL trip. There isn&#8217;t much to worry about with Joe Smith, as Stuff isn&#8217;t the name of his game, and<a title="Joe Smith: Pitching Backwards and Getting Strikeouts" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/16/joe-smith-pitching-backwards-and-getting-strikeouts/" target="_blank"> his approach to hitters</a> looks like it is spot on right now.</p>
<p>The Stuff report will continue every 2 weeks over the course of the season &#8211; let&#8217;s hope we have something more interesting (and happy) to talk about other than cool graphs in the next issue.</p>
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		<title>Projecting the 2017 Blue Jays STUFF</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/01/the-2017-toronto-blue-jays-stuff-projection/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/01/the-2017-toronto-blue-jays-stuff-projection/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 01 Apr 2017 14:09:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9702</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Stuff is a known contributor to success in MLB pitchers that also can be used to look at injury trends in pitchers. In 2016, we tracked the Stuff of the Blue Jays pitching staff – the Starters, and the Bullpen. We learned that Aaron Sanchez is a monster amongst men, and that Marco Estrada was [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_9841" style="width: 632px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/stuffiest2.png"><img src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/stuffiest2.png" alt="Is this the Stuffiest group of Starters in Major League Baseball? (Original Frank Gunn, CP)" width="622" height="355" class="size-full wp-image-9841" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Is this the Stuffiest group of Starters in Major League Baseball? (Original Frank Gunn, CP)</p></div>
<p>Stuff is a known contributor to success in MLB pitchers that also can be used to look at injury trends in pitchers. In 2016, we tracked the Stuff of the Blue Jays pitching staff – the Starters, and the Bullpen. <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/03/the-final-regular-season-blue-jays-stuff-report/">We learned that Aaron Sanchez is a monster amongst men</a>, and that <a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2016/09/13/there-are-worrying-trends-for-blue-jays-starter-marco-estrada.html">Marco Estrada was really affected by his back injur</a>y in the middle part of the season. While the Jays didn’t have the best Stuff of any team in 2016, they did have some of the best results.</p>
<p>Stuff is important &#8211; good Stuff trumps all when it comes to results. That&#8217;s not to say that there are no great pitchers without good Stuff, but as a whole -<a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/frankenstuff-combining-stuff-with-tunnels-and-command-metrics/"> pitchers with good stuff are more likely to be successful than those without good stuff.</a></p>
<p>What can we expect from the Blue Jays Stuff in 2017? How do they compare to the rest of the MLB? Let’s dive in.</p>
<h2>Methods</h2>
<p>So, to examine each team’s Stuff, I calculated the weighted Stuff, based on innings pitched. That formula looks like:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/weighted-stuff-equation1.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-9839" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/weighted-stuff-equation1.png" alt="weighted stuff equation" width="668" height="61" /></a></p>
<p>Where n= the total number of starters or relievers, and Total Team IP is the sum total of starter innings, or reliever innings.</p>
<p>This was done to prevent pitchers with small sample sizes from interfering with the team’s average Stuff. I’m not quite fancy enough to build in age related Stuff adjustments, so I’m just going to use the 2016 Stuff values, paired with the projected innings totals from Fangraphs Depth Chart projection systems.</p>
<h3>Starting Pitching</h3>
<p>The Jays finished the 2016 season with the lowest Stuff amongst all Starting Staffs in the MLB. There’s no need to mince words – Marco Estrada and the Stuff metric do not get along very well, and R.A. Dickey and Stuff aren&#8217;t even on talking terms. The weighted Stuff for the Blue Jays in 2016 was 0.04… that&#8217;s pretty bad.</p>
<p>But then, a big bad man who goes by Frankie Liriano came to town, and everything changed.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/starting-rotations.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-9837" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/starting-rotations-1024x944.png" alt="starting rotations" width="563" height="519" /></a></p>
<p>The projected weighted Stuff for the Blue Jays Rotation in 2017 is much higher – +0.46 – for a change of 0.43. This is the biggest improvement among any staff in the MLB. This is a factor of replacing R.A. Dickey’s innings with Francisco Liriano’s, which is increasing the separation between pitches by approximately 1” (15.2” in 2016; 16.2” in 2017). The rotation switch is also raising the average fastball velocity in Blue Jays starting pitching from 90.74 mph in 2016 to 91.3 mph in 2017. Velocity is a big contributor to pitching success, so this is a good sign for the Jays starters. The other reason for the boost in Stuff for the Jays Rotation? Untethered Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman contributing more innings to the Jays starters Stuff in 2017.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/jays-starters.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-9845" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/jays-starters.png" alt="jays starters" width="514" height="150" /></a></p>
<h3>Bullpen</h3>
<p>The story in the bullpen is a bit different. The Jays had the 5<sup>th</sup> best Stuff of all relief corps in 2016, but project to have the 28<sup>th</sup> best Stuff in 2017. The news out of Blue Jays camp this week doesn’t paint a prettier picture either, as the third best Stuff on the team belonged to Bo Schultz – who will now miss 2017 with Tommy John Surgery.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/bullpens.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-9834" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/bullpens-1024x924.png" alt="bullpens" width="587" height="530" /></a></p>
<p>Brett Cecil was never really a monster of Stuff, but he did sit in the slightly below average range. The newest Jays acquisitions for the &#8216;pen, J.P. Howell and Joe Smith, sit much lower on the metric. Howell checks in with an average fastball of 86.15 mph and Stuff rating of -1.09, while Joe Smith is more of the same with a fastball of 88.6 mph and a Stuff value of -0.44. The Jays <em>are</em> still anchored by Stuff beasts Joe Biagini and Roberto Osuna along with respectable Stuffsman Jason Grilli, which is why they&#8217;re not at the bottom of the list, but the late innings are going to have to be navigated with control and command more so than blow away Stuff.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/jays-relief.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-9840" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/jays-relief.png" alt="jays relief" width="542" height="277" /></a></p>
<h2>A glimpse into the rest of the league</h2>
<h2>Starting Rotations</h2>
<p>Getting a full season out of Matt Harvey (who’s back up to 97 mph), combined with Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, and Jacob deGrom, gives the Mets the best Stuff out of any starting rotation in the MLB. That’s not to mention the vicious curveball that Seth Lugo possesses. The Mets average fastball velocity sits at 94.53 mph – over a full mile per hour faster than the second place velocity starting rotation – the Yankees. If they can stay healthy – it will be something else to watch.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, adding in upwards of 400 innings from R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon will not pay dividends to the Braves starting Stuff. They have the lowest average fastball velocity in the major leagues and the 23<sup>rd</sup> best distance between pitches (14.07”). There’s no real expectation that these guys will miss a whole lot of bats in 2017.</p>
<h2>Bullpens</h2>
<p>If you hate the Red Sox, you will not magically start to like them after reading this. Their Bullpen has the best projected Stuff in 2017, lead by Filthy Stuff monsters Craig Kimbrel (1.95), Joe Kelly (1.66), and Tyler Thornburg (1.37). They were nasty last season as well, with the 5<sup>th</sup> Stuffiest bullpen in the MLB, but the subtraction of Koji Uehara and addition of Thornburg have taken them to the next level.</p>
<p>The Orioles have a lot of Stuff at the back end of their bullpen as well (Zach Britton, 1.15; Brad Brach, 0.86) – assuming that their relievers actually make it into the game &#8211; but the rest of their bullpen focuses on the other finer points of pitching to get hitters out. Darren O’Day will handle a large share of the relief innings, but only has a Stuff value of -1.11 – thanks to an 86 mph fastball.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Stuff doesn’t decide who is successful, or who gets rocked – but it sure helps. There are significant, positive relationships between Stuff and just about every outcome measure. More variable stuff is tied to pitchers who get injured. The Jays have a lot to look forward to in 2017 – and I look forward to quantifying their Stuff along the way.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports<br />
</em></p>
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		<title>The Stuffies! The Big One – The Best Stuff of 2016</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/23/the-stuffies-the-big-one-the-best-stuff-of-2016/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/23/the-stuffies-the-big-one-the-best-stuff-of-2016/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 23 Oct 2016 15:16:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7470</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome back! We delayed a bit for the Blue Jays run through the postseason, but this is the moment you&#8217;ve all been waiting for. Not the presentation of the World Series Trophy&#8230;the delivery of the top pitcher Stuffies. It seems like it was just yesterday that the Stuff Metric came into this world, and now [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome back! We delayed a bit for the Blue Jays run through the postseason, but this is the moment you&#8217;ve all been waiting for. Not the presentation of the World Series Trophy&#8230;the delivery of the top pitcher Stuffies. It seems like it was just yesterday that the Stuff Metric came into this world, and now we&#8217;re using it to anoint our pitchers with honour.</p>
<p>Nick and I will now present &#8211; the Stuffy awards for top Starters, and Relief pitchers</p>
<h2><b>The Best Starters</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/top-starters-stuffies.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7471" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/top-starters-stuffies-1024x182.png" alt="top starters stuffies" width="951" height="169" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><strong>Yordano Ventura </strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is why people want science to be wrong. Yordano seems to get himself into flare ups with just about everyone. You know what they say: “If you run into an a-hole in the morning, you run into an a-hole. If you run into a-holes all day, you’re probably the a-hole”.<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/bal-yordano-ventura-s-incident-with-manny-machado-wasn-t-his-first-incident-20160608-story.html"> Even the usually mild-mannered Mike Trout has gotten into dustups with the troublemaker with electric stuff. </a>While he might be talented, it sure is hard to root for him. Here’s to hoping a lot of his elite stuff is promptly deposited over the outfield fences</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">It&#8217;s fun being a baseball fan when <a href="https://twitter.com/YordanoVentura">@YordanoVentura</a> has his Curveball working (h/t <a href="https://twitter.com/keptin_james">@keptin_james</a>) <a href="https://t.co/h7b2NqT1NO">pic.twitter.com/h7b2NqT1NO</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/783012545510662144">October 3, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Noah Syndergaard</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Thor, the Metropolitan God of Thunder and byproduct of an R.A. Dickey trade (sorry, I’m not over that yet), takes home the silver medal for starter Stuff. Watching Syndergaard pitch was a treat this season &#8211; his velocity and movement are elite, and he overpowers hitters with his power slider. He will without a doubt, be a permanent resident on the Stuff list for years to come. </span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Check out <a href="https://twitter.com/Noahsyndergaard">@Noahsyndergaard</a> spotting 98mph on the black to Hunter Pence last night <a href="https://t.co/nfaxBjcsuQ">pic.twitter.com/nfaxBjcsuQ</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/784075913386401793">October 6, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Jake Arrieta</strong></p>
<p>The starter with the best stuff &#8211; is none other than the 2015 Cy Young winner, and linchpin of the Chicago Cubs rotation &#8211; Jake Arrieta. Arrieta has above average fastball velocity and average change in velocity, but exceptional movement separation. While his season had ups and downs for his results, his Stuff remained exceptional throughout the season. Congratulations to Jake the Snake Arrieta, the 2016 Stuffie Gold Medalist!</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Classic Slutter from <a href="https://twitter.com/JArrieta34">@JArrieta34</a> to get out of the 2nd inning against Gregor Blanco. So tough to resist. <a href="https://t.co/I0CIvz5fWM">pic.twitter.com/I0CIvz5fWM</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/785670391641411585">October 11, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<h2><b>The Best Relievers</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/top-stuff-relievers.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7472" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/top-stuff-relievers-1024x191.png" alt="top stuff relievers" width="868" height="162" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Michael Lorenzen</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Taking home the Bronze Stuff medal for Relievers is Michael Lorenzen. The 2016 Cincinnati bullpen could be anointed the &#8220;Nasty Boys 2.0&#8243; given that watching them implode night in and night out was about as nasty an experience as you could imagine as a Reds fan. Lorenzen gives them some hope for the future. He classified as a reliever this year, but his potential to start combined with his nasty stuff, leaves the Reds in a good position for the future.</span></p>
<p><iframe src="http://m.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=245292883&amp;topic_id=6479266&amp;width=500&amp;height=280&amp;property=mlb" width="500" height="280" frameborder="0" ></iframe><br />
<strong>Matt Bush and Aroldis Chapman</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Now, the top of the list features relievers with the best Stuff in the game &#8211; but it reads a lot like a poster from America’s Most Wanted. Matt Bush showed the baseball world how great his stuff is in a three inning relief appearance against the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALDS. He features an exceptional fastball and elite breaking pitch velocity. This is combined with above average separation between his pitches. Arolids Chapman is more of the same &#8211; the best fastball in the world, which is paired with average break distance, and exceptional breaking pitch velocity.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>This is crazy. <a href="https://twitter.com/AChapman_105">@AChapman_105</a> sealed Saturday&#8217;s victory with this 103mph fastball with run. What. <a href="https://t.co/YWLLdd8dBb">pic.twitter.com/YWLLdd8dBb</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/785537895369154561">October 10, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Matt Bush bringing the 98mph heat to freeze Jose Bautista for the K <a href="https://t.co/YPuvMHgTOD">pic.twitter.com/YPuvMHgTOD</a></p>
<p>— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThePitcherList/status/784481926262427648">October 7, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Curtain Call</strong><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400">All good things must come to an end &#8211; and this includes the Stuffy awards. It has been a pleasure quantifying the league’s most abstract term &#8211; Stuff. If you see Jake Arrieta, Aroldis Chapman, Mauricio Cabrera, or Jon Gray on the street &#8211; let them know, they are the Kings of Stuff.</span></p>
<p><em>For those of you who want to know more about Stuff &#8211; check out the full list, with no innings pitched cut off values, at the link below. Nerds!</em></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fX-nGv5gXUaoSZJKfZwNOBPaAy7tquekEM7uwvIGErM/edit?usp=sharing">Appendix &#8211; All Stuff (no cutoffs)</a></strong></p>
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		<title>THE STUFFIES! Part Two: Top Team Stuff and the Not-so-Stuffies</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/14/the-stuffies-part-two-top-team-stuff-and-the-not-so-stuffies/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/14/the-stuffies-part-two-top-team-stuff-and-the-not-so-stuffies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:33:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bullpen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Rotation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7453</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome back to the Stuffies! Now that we&#8217;ve covered the Rookies of the Year, let&#8217;s take a look at what teams brought the best Stuff on the season. Best Starting Rotation Chicago Cubs In third place, we saw the Chicago Cubs &#8211; a team with an overpowering starting rotation that destroyed their competition. They were [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome back to the Stuffies! Now that we&#8217;ve covered the Rookies of the Year, let&#8217;s take a look at what teams brought the best Stuff on the season.</p>
<h2><b>Best Starting Rotation</b></h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starting-rotation-stuffies-.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7454" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starting-rotation-stuffies--1024x666.png" alt="starting rotation stuffies" width="832" height="541" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Chicago Cubs</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In third place, we saw the Chicago Cubs &#8211; a team with an overpowering starting rotation that destroyed their competition. They were lead by the league leader in Stuff &#8211; Jake Arrieta. Jason Hammel also utilized a huge separation of 22” between his pitches, and 17% change in speed to help propel the Cubs into the Stuffy finals. </span></p>
<p><strong>Los Angeles Dodgers</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Had the Dodgers managed to stay healthy in 2016, there is a very good chance they would have taken home the Stuffy title. Kershaw, and Maeda have Stuff that is in the 96%+ range &#8211; something that is truly elite. This was bolstered by a lot of above average Stuff starters (Urias, Anderson, McCarthy, and Kazmir), who just couldn’t put together enough innings to catch up to first place.</span></p>
<p><strong>Kansas City Royals</strong></p>
<p>And, in an extremely tight battle, it’s the Kansas City Royals who emerge as the 2016 Stuff Champions! Who needs to follow up a World Series win with another title run, when you have the honour of hoisting the very first Team Rotation Stuffy award, right?? The Royals were lead by the four horsemen of the AStuffcolypse &#8211; Ventura, Volquez, Kennedy, and Danny Duffy. These Stuff monsters all had Stuff values of greater than 1.0 &#8211; or better than 80% of all MLB pitchers. A worthy achievement, for sure. Congrats to the Royals on their Stuff title. The prospect of having to watch the Royals dominate again based on their starting pitching truly is vomit-inducing.</p>
<h2><b>Best Bullpen</b></h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/bullpen-stuffies-.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7455" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/bullpen-stuffies--1024x683.png" alt="bullpen stuffies" width="834" height="556" /></a><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400">The top 3 teams for Bullpen Stuff really distanced themselves from the pack in 2016.</span></p>
<p><strong>Cincinatti Reds</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The third best Stuff belongs to a team that didn’t have a lot go well for them this season. The Cincinnati Reds wind up with a Bronze Stuffy, led by the power arm of Michael Lorenzen. Lorenzen had an elite fastball at 96mph, and paired that with a 90+ mph breaking ball. </span></p>
<p><strong>Minnesota Twins</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Another team that will take solace in a Stuffy medal is the Minnesota Twins. The Twins take home the silver Stuffy for bullpens &#8211; with huge Stuff performances by Ryan Pressly, Trevor May, and Taylor Rogers leading the way. All of these power arms featured strong pitch mixes, and elite Stuff. I guess this just goes to show you &#8211; success is more about location, than it is about lighting up the radar gun!</span></p>
<p><b>Texas Rangers</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">That brings us to our 2016 Bullpen Stuff champions &#8211; the Texas Rangers! When the Rangers aren’t pumping fastballs into the lower backs of hitters who hurt their poor little feelings, they’re usually locking down one run games on the backs of Matt Bush, Cesar Ramos, and Sam Dyson &#8211; all pitchers who had stuff better than 97% of all pitchers in the MLB. When looking at every relief pitcher on the Rangers, and turning off any sort of innings cut-off, their reliever with the 8th best numbers (Keone Kela) has Stuff at 1.02 &#8211; that’s still better than 81% of all other relievers. They are without a doubt, the undisputed Stuff champions of Major League Baseball Bullpens.</span></p>
<h2><b>Not So Stuffies</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">With our strict selection criteria for the Stuffies, there were a total of 77 eligible starting pitchers included in the analysis. We didn’t include knuckleballers, or relief pitchers (too many guys that only throw one pitch &#8211; thus hurting them in the Stuff metric).</span></p>
<p><strong>Bartolo Colon</strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">DYK: Bartolo takes 50 BP swings a day. His first home run wasn&#8217;t entirely an accident: <a href="https://t.co/yzfOND2FYH">https://t.co/yzfOND2FYH</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mets?src=hash">#Mets</a> <a href="https://t.co/OGhk7IKSi3">pic.twitter.com/OGhk7IKSi3</a></p>
<p>— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnthonyDiComo/status/729355873080872960">May 8, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It’s hard to argue with the results Bartolo Colon put up this year. 2016’s most memorable home run, and some hot nasty fastball action out of the bullpen and rotation. Bartolo looks like the type of guy that you’d make on the create-a-player in the show, when you’re trying to make your friends laugh at your create a team. I don’t want to be on big sexy’s bad side &#8211; Bartolo might not get love from the Stuff Metric, but let it be known I think he’s the man.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>This GIF gets me PUMPED UP. Get&#8217;m, <a href="https://twitter.com/CC_Sabathia">@CC_Sabathia</a>. Let&#8217;s see this every start. <a href="https://twitter.com/Yankees">@Yankees</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Yankees?src=hash">#Yankees</a> <a href="http://t.co/oCtaNCLaWK">pic.twitter.com/oCtaNCLaWK</a></p>
<p>— Mushin (@MetalMushin) <a href="https://twitter.com/MetalMushin/status/629675840482062336">August 7, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>CC Sabathia</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">CC Sabathia once ruled the roost (and, he still can generate some nasty stuff now and then). He pushed for Cy Youngs, put in 220+ inning seasons, and was the most highly sought after prize in all of free agency. However, his Stuff has fallen off completely, dropping to a very low level in 2016 &#8211; That is not an encouraging trend. Now in 2016, he sits near the bottom of the Stuff list.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GottaSeeIt?src=hash">#GottaSeeIt</a>: Jose Bautista hits his second home run of spring training, a three-run rocket off Doug Fister. <a href="https://t.co/YMYhY2ELtu">https://t.co/YMYhY2ELtu</a></p>
<p>— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sportsnet/status/710891248152928256">March 18, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Doug Fister</strong></p>
<p>Doug &#8220;Twisted&#8221; Fister &#8211; Doug Fister owns the honour of being the only starter on the Non-Stuffies list that weighs under 300 lbs. Is there a direct correlation between body mass and pitching effectiveness? David Wells sure doesn’t think so. Doug Fister now has a unique title &#8211; the least amount of Stuff in the MLB.</p>
<p>The appetizers are done! Next time, we finish things off with the big awards. The best Stuff of the year.</p>
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