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	<title>Toronto &#187; Aaron Sanchez</title>
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		<title>Which of 2017&#8217;s Disappointing Blue Jays are Poised to Bounce Back?</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/23/which-2017s-disappointing-blue-jays-are-poised-to-bounce-back/</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Oct 2017 13:59:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Passador]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kendrys Morales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Pillar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13958</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It should go without saying at this point, but just in case you weren’t paying attention for the last six months or so, not a lot went right for the Blue Jays this season. It could also be said that way more than expected did go right for the team in 2015 and 2016, but [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It should go without saying at this point, but just in case you weren’t paying attention for the last six months or so, not a lot went right for the Blue Jays this season. It could also be said that way more than expected did go right for the team in 2015 and 2016, but there’s no denying that 2017 saw a number of declines and poor fortunes that <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/17/the-season-that-was-exaggerated-oversold-and-bound-to-disappoint/" target="_blank">we either didn’t expect to see or willfully ignored</a>.</p>
<p>Rather than go over the current state of baseball, which would involve either talking about random Twitter beefs or giving even marginal praise to the recently-eliminated Yankees, I decided to wade through the muck of last season to catch up on a few Jays who were letdowns and look at whether a bounce back could be in order.</p>
<h3>Aaron Sanchez</h3>
<p>This one is essentially a free space, as Sanchez was limited to just 36 innings due to persistent blister issues. He had poor numbers across his eight starts, no doubt helped along by his finger troubles. Sanchez surrendered career-highs with 10.5 H/9 and 5.0 BB/9 and watched his strikeout rate sink to boot. For a guy with a deadly sinker, Sanchez also achieved just a 48 percent ground ball rate, this after topping 55 percent in each of his first three seasons.</p>
<p>Even though things weren’t going great in general, he still had room for some rotten luck. His HR/FB ratio jumped from 10.7 to 17.1% and he was stuck with a BABIP of .310 despite no substantial change in the amount of hard contact he gave up. Somehow, Sanchez’s 5.71 ERA actually outperformed his Deserved Run Average (DRA), which sat at a ghastly 6.96 mark.</p>
<p>In fact, Sanchez actually had the worst season of any Blue Jays pitcher by WARP, accumulating a -0.56 mark in his abbreviated campaign. J.P. Howell was at 0.14. Even Jason Grilli was at 0.17. If Sanchez can get his fingers back to full strength, there’s plenty of reason to believe that he’s going to return to form in 2018. If nothing else, he almost has to get better results than these.</p>
<h3>Kendrys Morales</h3>
<p>Morales hit a few timely early-season homers when the rest of the batters were struggling &#8211; and the fact that we can point to his season achievement as “being the best of a bad bunch for a couple minutes” will tell you most of what you need to know. With a line of .258/.308/.445, it was a major letdown from Toronto’s supposed stalwart at DH. Do not be fooled by the 28 homers and 85 RBI – this was a dreadful season by just about any measure that goes past the surface level.</p>
<p>Among 206 hitters with 400 or more plate appearances, Morales’ WARP of -.50 put him 193<sup>rd</sup>overall. His TAv of .254 puts him at a much more palatable 166<sup>th</sup> on the same list, but we’re not going over a very high bar here.</p>
<p>Are there signs of hope? Maybe, sort of. Morales has rebounded from ugly seasons before. In 2014 he posted -0.6 WARP in 39 games with Minnesota and tacked on another -0.2 in 59 games with the Mariners. He followed that up with years of 2.3 and 1.2 WARP in Kansas City. Additionally, Morales continued to hit the ball incredibly hard. Among players with at least 150 batted ball events, Morales was ninth in the league with an average exit velocity of 91.1 miles per hour.</p>
<p>Now for the bad part. Morales hit far more grounders than he did in Kansas City, meaning his hard hit balls had much lower chances of turning into hits than they did in the past two years. He continued to have a hard time with breaking pitches and saw curveballs on 16 percent of pitches this season, well up from the 11.8 percent he saw in 2016. How much of a hard time, you ask? Morales posted a career-worst season in terms of contact rate (the percentage of pitches swung on where contact is made; 71 percent against a career average of 75.8 percent), zone contact rate (81 percent in 2017 with a career average of 86 percent) while also shattering his career high in terms of swinging strike rate (29 percent easily surpassed his previous career-worst of 25.7 percent from 2012).</p>
<p>At age 34, hoping for a complete turnaround in so many areas is asking for a lot.</p>
<p>Morales’s presence on the roster has suddenly become an unavoidable obstacle following Justin Smoak’s breakout. With Smoak now deserving full-time at bats at first, Steve Pearce loses playing time at one spot he was signed to shore up. That forces the injury-prone Pearce into the outfield, which is bad news for everyone involved. Given the need to keep players like Pearce and Josh Donaldson healthy, the team would be wise to open up DH at bats for both. Suddenly the Jays have $23 million on the books for a part-time DH, lest they choose to play him regularly for the rest of his decline.</p>
<p>With few attractive ways to offload this contract, there’s going to be some more days off in Morales’ future. Getting less playing time might be better for the on field product, but it’s far from ideal for a team with oft-discussed payroll limitations.</p>
<h3>Kevin Pillar</h3>
<p>Remember when Kevin Pillar talked the talk about <a title="How Kevin Pillar Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Plate Discipline" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/29/how-kevin-pillar-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-plate-discipline/" target="_blank">changing his approach</a>? And then when he did it for a little bit? Well things didn’t go so great the rest of the way.</p>
<p>He posted OBPs of .339 and .328 in April/March and May, drawing 15 walks in his first 51 games. Pillar would then go on to walk 18 times over his last 103 games of the year, posting an OBP of .282 in that time – well down from his career .302 mark. That list of hitters with 400 plate appearances? The one where Morales ranked 193<sup>rd</sup>? Pillar was 187<sup>th</sup> with a WARP of -.05. This all happened despite Pillar setting a career high in zone swing rate and posting a sterling 93.3 percent zone contact rate.</p>
<p>Pillar’s reality isn’t exactly an untenable situation, but the sudden decline of so many other spots in the lineup around him only highlighted the problem. When this team is at full health, Pillar really won’t need to be occupying a high-profile spot in the lineup. Of course, counting on this particular roster (as currently constructed, at least) to stay at full health for long might be a big ask.</p>
<p>Still, Teoscar Hernandez’s presence should at least give the Jays a viable alternative if they insist on going with a traditional leadoff man. Lord knows they need it after Pillar logged 270 of his 632 plate appearances atop the order. For reference, Pillar made just 184 plate appearances from the bottom third of the order. We often wring our hands far too much about lineup construction, but this is pretty blatant.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that first chunk of the season looks like a mirage; a window that let us look at a better world for about 50 games of bliss (if you focus on his production only and not, you know, everything else). You hope Pillar will bounce back in the sense that his last two thirds of the year were well under his career numbers, but it’d be silly to count on a return to the .330-plus OBP levels unless there’s a noticeable, sustained change in approach. Here’s hoping that it sticks next time around.</p>
<h3>Roberto Osuna</h3>
<p>Osuna presents the most curious case of the bunch, though there is a pretty quick and convenient explanation for his second half struggles.</p>
<p>The first half of that story, however, is that Osuna actually had a very strong season by several advanced measures. He posted a career-best 2.1 WARP in a career-low 64 innings. He also posted career-bests in BB/9 (1.3), K/9 (11.7), ground ball rate (47 percent) and HR/9 (a minuscule 0.4). Digging deeper, he also posted his personal bests in out-of-zone swing rate, swinging strike rate and contact rate.</p>
<p>Things begin to diverge with his zone rate – simply the percentage of pitches thrown in the strike zone. After two years above 50 percent, Osuna slipped down to just 43.9 percent this season. On pitches he did land in the zone, contact was made on over 80 percent of them – up from 78 percent a year ago and just 73 percent as a rookie.</p>
<p>Piecing that all together, it seems like Osuna got lots of swings and misses on his pitches, but primarily on those that were out of the zone. Hitters were able to make contact with anything in the zone better than ever before, which brings us to the elephant in the room.</p>
<p>Osuna famously lost some fastball velocity in July and August, leading to a handful of painful blown saves and close losses where the team’s previously-dependable closer wilted at the worst possible time. Those rough outings followed stretches <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/14/whats-up-with-roberto-osunas-fastball/" target="_blank">where Osuna was called on multiple times with limited rest</a>, as he averaged just 1.2 days off between appearances while working in 21 games from the All Star break to the end of August.</p>
<p>His fastball velocity actually increased in September and October when he averaged 3.4 days between outings. Though he certainly would’ve traded the days off for a spot in the hunt, nobody benefited more than Osuna from the team’s quick exit from the playoff picture. Hopefully a long winter (with no World Baseball Classic this time) keeps him a bit fresher.</p>
<p>The anatomy of a losing season is deep and complex and the front office should be cooking up all sorts of fixes for the offseason. While newcomers, either promotions from the lower levels or new faces from other organizations, are always a welcome sight after a disappointing campaign, there’s a few reasons to believe that some of Toronto’s disappointments in 2017 will come back looking a little more like their usual selves. This team is going to need some new blood, no doubt – but for a team with visions of retooling on the fly, every little bit helps.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Season That Was: Exaggerated, Oversold, and Bound to Disappoint</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/17/the-season-that-was-exaggerated-oversold-and-bound-to-disappoint/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/17/the-season-that-was-exaggerated-oversold-and-bound-to-disappoint/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2017 11:07:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Gwin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2017 Blue Jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Disappointment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13664</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many years ago, when I was just entering high school, I took a business class. The teacher, let&#8217;s call him Mr. Stewart, was a quirky fellow &#8211; and quite honestly not that great of a teacher &#8211; but on the first day of class he told us something that he said we&#8217;d remember for the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Many years ago, when I was just entering high school, I took a business class. The teacher, let&#8217;s call him Mr. Stewart, was a quirky fellow &#8211; and quite honestly not that great of a teacher &#8211; but on the first day of class he told us something that he said we&#8217;d remember for the rest of our lives: the happiness formula. He wrote it on the board.</p>
<p>Results &#8211; Expectations = Level of Happiness</p>
<p>It seemed too simple to care about, silly even. He then shared with us a seemingly sillier example:</p>
<p>&#8220;If a friend asks to borrow $10 from you and you expect that  $10 back at some point, but never get it, you&#8217;ll surely be unhappy&#8221;</p>
<p>0 &#8211; 10 = -10 → very unhappy</p>
<p>&#8220;If a friend asks to borrow $10 from you and you oblige out of the goodness of your heart, not expecting that you&#8217;ll receive the $10 back at some point, you&#8217;ll surely be content&#8221;</p>
<p>0 &#8211; 0 = 0 → throughly content</p>
<p>His example seemed poor. Why would one be content having lost $10? When I have experienced that very situation, however, I&#8217;ve found the happiness formula to ring true.</p>
<p>Now consider the 2017 Toronto Blue Jays. The team was coming off a season in which they&#8217;d won 89 games — their seventh highest total —and yet again come one stop short of the World Series. Pretty exciting stuff. The team then proceeded to lose their second best player, make Kendrys Morales their marquee signing, and have their already old starting roster age another year. The result? Projected records that put the Blue Jays well below the same projections in the previous season and even further below the team&#8217;s actual 2016 record.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160404055301/http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/" target="_blank">Projected 2016 Record</a>: 86-76<br />
<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2016-standings.shtml" target="_blank">Actual 2016 Record</a>: 89-73<br />
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170402051004/http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/" target="_blank">Projected 2017 Record</a>: 81-81<br />
<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2017-standings.shtml" target="_blank">Actual 2017 Record</a>: 76-86</p>
<p>But because the team had surprised each of the last two seasons, the general consensus was that there was still a good shot at the playoffs again in the 2017. Statistically speaking, the consensus wasn&#8217;t wrong; any team projected to have at least as many wins as losses is bound to have 30 percent plus playoff odds. Though, compared to previous seasons, fans were no longer betting on a great season from a great team, they had to bet on a lucky season from an ok team. When that works, it&#8217;s incredibly exciting, but when it doesn&#8217;t it&#8217;s bound to disappoint. In either case expectations need to be set well in order to get a happy conclusion.</p>
<p>Results &#8211; Expectations = Level of Happiness</p>
<p>The problem, however, is that expectations weren&#8217;t set well at all, and we at BP Toronto were as big a culprit as any. In our preseason bold predictions piece, only one person seriously predicted a record at or below .500, and that was Bennett Brauer at 81-81, but we were by no means alone. TSN <a href="http://www.tsn.ca/al-east-preview-pitching-will-carry-blue-jays-1.694961">predicted that the Blue Jays would win the AL East title</a> on the backs of another successful year of pitching. Every one of <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/mlb-roundtable-award-predictions-world-series-picks-2017/" target="_blank">Sportsnet&#8217;s baseball analysts forecasted that Toronto would be in the playoffs</a>, and a few had the team as the AL East division winners. NBC Sports predicted that the team would <a href="http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/03/19/2017-preview-toronto-blue-jays/" target="_blank">place second in the AL East</a>. Even <a href="https://nesn.com/2017/03/al-east-preview-which-team-has-best-chance-to-knock-off-red-sox-in-2017/" target="_blank">Boston-based NESN thought the Blue Jays would be pressing the Red Sox for the division title</a>, noting that, &#8220;Toronto easily is the second-most complete team in the AL East, and if the Red Sox slack off at all, the Jays likely will be poised to snatch the top spot.&#8221; We set the expectations quite high, but we had no logical reason to.</p>
<p>This was prevalent beyond the beginning of the season as well. Even as the team dwindled in the standings in April, May, and June, there was still widespread thought that a push for the playoffs could come, which I <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/24/reframing-the-rest-of-the-blue-jays-season/" target="_blank">wrote about at the time</a>.</p>
<p>In reality, as we know, the team didn&#8217;t meet those expectations, but it was due to more than just bad luck, indicating that it was an issue with expectations, not with results. Yes, Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s nagging blisters didn&#8217;t help, and the Bringer of Rain&#8217;s injury induced drought was a disaster. But even if those two things hadn&#8217;t occurred it&#8217;s entirely possible that the Blue Jays would have found themselves without meaningful October baseball. In other words, there were a myriad of issues.</p>
<p>Per PECOTA&#8217;s projections, Toronto lost out on 1.5 WARP from Aaron Sanchez and 1.1 WARP from Josh Donaldson, which, even when generously extrapolated to additionally lost value from the two players&#8217; replacements, wouldn&#8217;t have been enough to make them competitive. The team wasn&#8217;t good enough. Of the Blue Jays&#8217; primary starters — the 25 players on the team&#8217;s roster on Opening Day plus Roberto Osuna — 14 underperformed their PECOTA projections while 12 over performed them.</p>
<p>If we accept that reality, then in order to take the team from &#8216;not good enough&#8217; to a playoff spot, one of two things would&#8217;ve had to have happened.</p>
<p><strong>1. Play Out All the Games and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I" target="_blank">Get Lucky</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Even though it&#8217;s most likely that a team plays <em>at</em> their true talent level, in any given season a team can play roughly ten games above or below their expected win total. The most recent and most prominent example of this is the 2016 Texas Rangers. They finished the 2016 season with 95 wins while only scoring eight more runs than they gave up over the full season. Had those runs been more evenly distributed, they would&#8217;ve missed the playoffs, but instead they won the division. However, as you can imagine, betting on this luck is an incredibly unsustainable strategy. When a team plays that high above their true talent level, it&#8217;s the outlier not the norm.</p>
<p><strong>2. Make Major Deadline Additions</strong></p>
<p>This was the 2015 Blue Jays&#8217; playoff strategy. In April, May, and June of 2015, Toronto&#8217;s playoff odds hovered between 10 and 20 percent, which is actually fairly similar to where the 2017 team was. At the 2015 deadline, however, the team added David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, and relief depth, thereby increasing the team&#8217;s true talent level. Given the prospect — and $ cost — of this path, this too is unsustainable.</p>
<p>Because you can&#8217;t make lucky happen and because the team is trying to create a sustainable contender, neither of those two things happened. As such, there were high expectations with no path to matching results.</p>
<p>Ok Results &#8211; High Expectations = A lot of unhappy Jays fans</p>
<p>Unless Toronto can convince Shoehei Otani to join MLB&#8217;s only Canadian team, the Blue Jays are likely to be in the same position again next year. These aren&#8217;t the dominant, AL East title winning Blue Jays of yesteryear and a year of aging without any top prospects ready to graduate to the major league level won&#8217;t help matters. <span style="font-size: 16px">I&#8217;m not going to tell you how you should carry out your fandom, but I will say that if we don&#8217;t all set our expectations more realistically in 2018, we&#8217;re in store for another disappointing season in </span><a style="font-size: 16px" href="https://bluejaysplus.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/unproductive-middle/" target="_blank">the unproductive middle</a><span style="font-size: 16px">. </span></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 1 &#8211; 5)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2017 10:35:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir Guerrero]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at BP Toronto yesterday. As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets: #10: RHP Joe Biagini #9: 2B Devon Travis #8: 1B Justin [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12567&amp;utm_content=buffer992d4&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">BP Toronto yesterday.</a> As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets:</p>
<p>#10: RHP Joe Biagini</p>
<p>#9: 2B Devon Travis</p>
<p>#8: 1B Justin Smoak</p>
<p>#7: SS Bo Bichette</p>
<p>#6: LHP J.A. Happ</p>
<p>And now into the top five most valuable Blue Jays.</p>
<p><strong>#5: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=107184">3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12588" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png" alt="#5 Guerrero" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>This was an appropriate spot for a break because when I was first getting started on this exercise, identifying the five most valuable trade chips in the organization was easy. While it may not appear that way on a numerical list, you could run the St. Lawrence River through the gulf between Happ and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Guerrero is one of the most highly regarded prospects in all of baseball, placing 13th on the mid-season list at <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32224">Baseball Prospectus</a> and an astounding <em>second overall </em>at <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-midseason-top-100-prospects-july-7/#6qXSA461V3KqGhzi.97">Baseball America</a>. These types of prospects simply don&#8217;t get moved very often, and when they do—see Yoan Moncada for Chris Sale and Eloy Jimenez for Jose Quintana—it&#8217;s for a cost controlled elite major league talent. In fact, Guerrero has a strong case for being number four on the list. If he shows even a glimmer against Florida State League pitching over the final six weeks of the minor league season, that leap will be a much easier call on the offseason iteration of the Blue Jays trade value series here at BP Toronto.</p>
<p>It can sometimes be challenging trying to compare minor leaguers to major leaguers using the same scale, as it feels a bit awkward trying to assign value to someone so far from the show. <a href="http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/mlb-prospect-surplus-values-2016-updated-edition/">Kevin Creagh and Steve DiMiceli of The Point of Pittsburgh</a> have developed and tweaked a model over the years to help make that comparison a bit easier to digest. The whole article is worth your time, but in short, they have divided historical top 100 prospects into hitters and pitchers, and then further subdivided them into buckets based upon specific ranges of rankings. For each of these ten buckets, they provide the average WAR and surplus value over the six years of team control, as well as some bust metrics (less than 3 WAR; 0 or less WAR).</p>
<p>Using Baseball Prospectus&#8217; rankings, the average prospect in Guerrero&#8217;s bucket has produced 13.0 WAR and 62 million in surplus value over the six team-controlled years. Buying into Baseball America&#8217;s #2 overall ranking, those numbers jump to 15.3 WAR and nearly 74 million in surplus value. Only 7 of the 96 from those two buckets produced 0 or less WAR, so historically, someone like Guerrero has more than a 90 percent chance of becoming <em>something</em>. Comparatively, hitters in Bo Bichette&#8217;s bucket averaged 8.1 WAR and 38 million in surplus value. In other words, despite being ranked as the top two prospect in the minor league system and only two spots apart on this list, it wouldn&#8217;t be a stretch to say Guerrero has twice the value as a trade asset. Hence the gulf.</p>
<p><strong>#4: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=56185">3B Josh Donaldson</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12589" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png" alt="#4 Donaldson" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Josh Donaldson has garnered the most attention as the poster boy for a potential rebuild in Toronto, but in reality, despite having a Most Valuable Player trophy with his name on it, a .291/.387/.559 slash line, and 19.8 WARP over his last three full seasons, he may actually be only the fourth most valuable trade asset the Blue Jays have.</p>
<p>This ranking isn&#8217;t a slight against Josh, as even with his struggles since returning from the disabled list he&#8217;s clearly still the <em>best </em>player in the organization. Unfortunately, Donaldson has two key factors working against his value. First, he&#8217;ll be a free agent following the 2018 season—a year in which he&#8217;ll be paid in the neighbourhood of 25 million for his fourth trip through arbitration. Any interested team would have to be both willing and capable of stomaching that short term salary and the long term cost of elite young talent in order to have Josh Donaldson play upwards of 200 regular season games and participate in potentially two postseason runs in their uniform. The second is that, while a great story, Donaldson&#8217;s epiphany and renaissance as a hitter led to his service clock starting much later than it does for most players. After 2018, he&#8217;ll be entering free agency looking ahead to his age-33 season, meaning that Donaldson isn&#8217;t necessarily the type of guy that a team pays an exorbitant cost to acquire so that they can throw a lengthy extension on him, too.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, recent comparables for a trade of an MVP-caliber hitter with 1.5 years of control remaining don&#8217;t exist. These days, players like this simply don&#8217;t get traded. Pitchers live in a completely different market; there are 150 rotation spots and even more bullpen jobs across baseball, but there are only thirty spots at each position and only a handful of teams that would match up on both need and the ability to pay. With such a narrow pool of suitors for elite position players on the verge of free agency, opposing teams are likely wary of bidding against themselves, leading to lesser offers. Consequently, rather than enraging their fan base and dealing their star for a pittance—like J.D. Martinez, as one example—front offices choose to hold out hope that an extension with their star will eventually be reached. In a vacuum he may be the fourth most valuable trade asset, but history suggests that Donaldson and the Blue Jays are likely to ride things out for the at least the next two years regardless.</p>
<p><strong>#3: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=68997">RHP Roberto Osuna</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12590" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png" alt="#3 Osuna" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>With the chronic blister and fingernail issues that Aaron Sanchez has battled this season, Roberto Osuna could make a legitimate case as the second most valuable trade asset in the organization. What kept him behind Sanchez, at least in my book, was that you could throw Sanchez in the bullpen tomorrow, tell him to exclusively throw 98 to 99 mile per hour two-seam fastballs, and he&#8217;d probably be 80 or 90 percent of the reliever Osuna is. Even with the optimism from the fan base about moving Osuna to the rotation, I&#8217;m not sure he could do an equally similar impersonation of Sanchez&#8217; 2016 season if the roles were reversed. But Osuna doesn&#8217;t need to throw 200 innings a year to be an extraordinarily valuable trade asset. The 22-year old has settled in as one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game today, and is on pace for a career-high 2.2 WARP this season.</p>
<p>Relievers are the most commonly moved asset, but few have the combination of dominance, team control and experience that can Osuna boast. He&#8217;s controllable through 2020 with three arbitration years forthcoming, and while they&#8217;ll be at less than market value due to the nature of the process itself, the salaries won&#8217;t be inconsequential with his ever increasing save totals. And while most of us have moved past this primitive line of thought, some may still see value in Osuna being a &#8220;proven playoff closer&#8221;. To wit, the Blue Jays pushed into the American League Championship Series in Osuna&#8217;s rookie and sophomore campaigns, and he has answered the bell with a career 1.04 ERA/2.22 FIP across 14 career postseason games. Those were the highest of high leverage situations, and Osuna showed no qualms with being deployed in any type of situation by manager John Gibbons.</p>
<p>Just last year both Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller got moved for massive prospect packages, but Chapman had just a couple of months remaining on his deal and Miller was owed about 20 million over two and a half years on his. Osuna has achieved their level of performance on the field, but offers far more team control with the added bonus of going year-to-year as protection against injury. Looking back another seven months prior for a third comparable, the Phillies moved Ken Giles to the Houston Astros in another blockbuster. Giles had the dominance and team control, but not the ninth inning experience. Still, he landed Mark Appel (when he was still well regarded) and Vince Velasquez in Philadelphia, as well as a handful of other lesser pieces. For Shapiro and Atkins to seriously consider moving Osuna, any package would have to dwarf what those arms got. Incredibly, it&#8217;s not a stretch to think someone might just do it.</p>
<p><strong>#2: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=67107">RHP Aaron Sanchez</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12591" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png" alt="#2 Sanchez" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Prior to the 2017 season I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any question that Aaron Sanchez was the most valuable pitcher in the Blue Jays organization, and he&#8217;d have had a strong argument as the most valuable overall. We&#8217;ve evolved beyond ERA and win-loss record as tools for evaluating pitchers, but there&#8217;s still a certain degree of coolness in leading the league in the former and running a glorious 15-2 mark in the latter, which is exactly what Aaron Sanchez did in 2016 while fighting off questions about being shut down or moved to the bullpen. As a 24-year old he produced 3.7, 3.9, and 4.9 wins above replacement by Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, and Baseball Reference respectively, and Sanchez&#8217; star was burning as bright as a summer day at the ballpark.</p>
<p>Then came the blisters. Sanchez has been placed on the disabled list four times already this season—April 15th, May 1st, May 20th, and July 22nd—for middle finger issues, and unfortunately, they&#8217;re not the same as those that <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/06/01/fan-says-mr-met-showered-with-profane-heckles-before-bird-flip/">surrounded Mr. Met</a> earlier this year. But what seems to have been long forgotten is that these issues first popped up last year. Sanchez was removed from a start on September 11, 2016 with blister issues, and in speaking to <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/can-aaron-sanchez-speed-healing-process-blister/">Sportsnet&#8217;s Shi Davidi</a> afterwards, the right hander revealed he&#8217;d been dealing with blister issues since spring training of <em>that year</em>. Whatever solution he and the training staff used to quietly manage the problem last year clearly hasn&#8217;t translated into 2017. Sanchez dealt with blister issues <em>this </em>spring as well, which led to his delayed start to his year and likely contributed to his trip to the disabled list in April.</p>
<p>With this much uncertainty surrounding his finger, it&#8217;s hard to peg down exactly what kind of value Sanchez has at this point in time. Blisters are supposed to be a bit of a nuisance, not something that will cost a pitcher three quarters of the season when it&#8217;s all said and done. If he had just 36 innings under his belt in late July due to arm-related issues, he&#8217;d be much lower on this list &#8212; were he to make the top ten at all. Yet I feel comfortable that if Aaron Sanchez&#8217; name were floated on the trade market, opposing general managers would be tripping over themselves trying to get the Blue Jays on the line as they barked at their interns to provide them with an exhaustive list of each and every blister fix known to man.</p>
<p>If you take the stance that Sanchez will get over this issue in the coming months, the trade that sent Shelby Miller to Arizona provides something of a parallel comparison. In the 2015/2016 offseason, Miller was entering his first year of arbitration coming off a 5.1 WARP season in Atlanta. In exchange, the Braves received prospects Dansby Swanson and Aaron Blair (who immediately slotted as Atlanta&#8217;s #1 and 4 prospects, <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28165">according to Chris Crawford</a>), as well as criminally underrated outfielder Ender Inciarte who was coming off a 4.1 WARP season of his own. Of course, the Diamondbacks were brutalized in the public domain for the package they surrendered, and general manager Dave Stewart was fired less than a year after making the trade. Sanchez wouldn&#8217;t net that strong of a return, but needless to say, cheap, young, dominant right handed starting pitching is more valuable than gold.</p>
<p><strong>#1: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70371">RHP Marcus Stroman</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12592" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png" alt="#1 Stroman" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>The most valuable trade asset in the Toronto Blue Jays organization is right handed starter Marcus Stroman. Still only 26-years old, Stroman has already built the reputation as an unbelievably hard worker and a fearless big-game pitcher, and his performance on the field has more than backed up all of the narratives. Never shy to tinker or evolve his repertoire over the course of a game or season if dictated by results or opponents , Stroman has pitched like a top of the rotation starter pretty much from the moment he made his major league debut. As a rookie he produced 3.3 WARP over 20 starts in 2014, added 0.3 WARP over 4 starts in September 2015 after miraculously returning from a torn ACL, produced 3.5 WARP over 32 starts in 2016, and is currently on pace for a career best 5.1 WARP this season. According to Baseball Reference, he&#8217;s on track to eclipse 7 WAR. But it takes more than just great numbers to truly be heralded as an ace.</p>
<p>Stroman is reliable. Stroman is the easiest guy in the world to root for. In aggregate, this July has seen the most embarrassing pitching I&#8217;ve experienced in Blue Jays history. Starters have seemingly failed to complete four innings more often than not, forcing manager John Gibbons to churn through the relief arms in both Toronto and Buffalo like a butter mill. His one saving grace has been his ace, Marcus Stroman. Over his four starts in July, Stroman has faced nothing but terrific offense deployed by the Yankees, Astros, Red Sox, and Indians—all of whom currently sit in playoff spots— and responded with 5.0, 7.0, 6.2, and 7.2 innings pitched. He developed a blister in the first inning against Cleveland on Saturday, but still battled through 117 pitches because he knew his manager and his teammates needed him.</p>
<p>Marcus Stroman has never been on the disabled list with an arm injury and is under control through 2020. He took the Blue Jays to arbitration and won last winter, meaning his second, third, and fourth trips through the process are likely to cost in the neighbourhood of 30 to 40 million total, depending upon the number of Cy Young votes he earns over the next couple of seasons. That&#8217;s not unlike what Chris Sale had left on his contract when the Boston Red Sox swung a deal for him last offseason. As you&#8217;ll of course remember, they forfeited Yoan Moncada, the number one prospect in all of baseball, as well as elite right handed pitcher Michael Kopech and a pair of other intriguing prospects for the privilege of paying him that money.</p>
<p>Now, Marcus Stroman isn&#8217;t Chris Sale, and the Blue Jays window to buy out a few of his free agent years with a long term extension has likely come and gone (if it existed at all in the first place). His trade value likely falls somewhere between that of Sale and Sale&#8217;s former teammate, Jose Quintana. In a word: enormous. Already at the top of this list, if the Blue Jays were serious about moving him—which I&#8217;m skeptical of as his 3.5 years of control provide ample opportunity to trade him later if the team can&#8217;t turn things around in the short term—he would immediately soar to the top of everyone else&#8217;s list, too.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Gary A. Vasquez, USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Bold Predictions for the Blue Jays in the Second Half</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/07/bold-predictions-for-the-blue-jays-in-the-second-half/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2017 11:05:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nick Dika]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kendrys Morales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Monday night’s game against the Yankees marked the official midpoint of the 2017 Blue Jays’ season. While the season hasn’t played out the way Blue Jays fans would have liked thus far, there are 78 games still to be played. And a lot can happen in 78 games. Speaking of a lot happening in 78 [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Monday night’s game against the Yankees marked the official midpoint of the 2017 Blue Jays’ season. While the season hasn’t played out the way Blue Jays fans would have liked thus far, there are 78 games still to be played. And a lot can happen in 78 games. Speaking of a lot happening in 78 games, this season has given us plenty of surprises so far: Justin Smoak raking, a month of Kevin Pillar walking, and the Rogers Centre roof being closed almost every damn day.</p>
<p>Making predictions might be a fool’s errand, but you can’t say I told you so if you don’t make them. And given the Blue Jays recent losing streak, looking to the near future may be more appealing than venting or unpacking the team’s current struggles. With that in mind, here are some bold predictions for the second half of the 2017 season. Bold, bold. Not Doritos “bold taste” bold, but that Indian place you have to remind yourself not to get the hot option bold.</p>
<h4>Russ Martin Moves to Second, Josh Donaldson to Catcher</h4>
<p>So far this season, injuries and poor performance have wreaked havoc with the Blue Jays starting lineup. John Gibbons has been forced to start players out of position. Jose Bautista has seen time at third base and Russ Martin has started at both second and third. With the Blue Jays trading for catcher Miguel Montero today, there is some speculation that Martin could play even more second base.</p>
<p>Stars playing out of position will go to an even further extreme in the second half when Gibbons experiments with starting Josh Donaldson behind the plate. Donaldson, who last caught in 2012, will push Russell Martin to second base &#8211; allowing Martin to avoid the physical tolls of catching everyday and Gibbons to keep Ryan Goins on the bench. Despite playing below average defense at the position, Donaldson’s bat makes him worth 4.5 Wins Above Replacement in just over 40 innings. Donaldson becomes the most effective Blue Jays catcher at stopping the running game. We still don’t see Kendrys Morales in the outfield.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>The AL East Continues to Get Great Production from Unexpected First Basemen</h4>
<p>Forget Miguel Cabrera, Edwin Encarnacion, and the rest of name brand first basemen of the AL Central. The AL East provides more first base production for a fraction of the price. Seeing Justin Smoak and Logan Morrison on the American League offensive leaderboards has been a surprise to everyone. So much so that no one seems to notice the Red Sox’s Mitch Moreland having himself a nice little season of his own – posting a .264/.350/.468 slash line through Sunday.</p>
<p>Expect the trend to continue in the second half when James Loney signs with the Orioles and posts a career highs in home runs, on-base percentage and RBIs – all in half a season while filling in for the injured Chris Davis.</p>
<p>And speaking of Justin Smoak…</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Justin Smoak’s Success Leads to Many Emulating His Approach</h4>
<p>As Smoak continues to mash the baseball from both sides of the plate, his unorthodox diet begins to catch on with the rest of the team. Players like Jose Bautista and Russell Martin, known for their dedication to healthy eating and training, begin to emulate Smoak’s nutritional regiment and start eating pasta topped with mayonnaise instead of their preferred tomato sauce.</p>
<p>Bautista and Martin also begin to listen to country music and chewing Skoal brand tobacco. Their production spikes accordingly.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>The Blue Jays Sign Taz Tulowitzki</h4>
<p>With Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the midst of impressive seasons with the single-A Lansing Lugnuts, the Blue Jays front office begins to believe they have identified a new market inefficiency in the quest to build a winning baseball team: employing the children of former major league players.</p>
<p>In a piece of shrewd business, Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins sign Troy Tulowitzki’s 3-year-old son, Taz, to a 30-year contract reminiscent of shady backroom dealings that happen in professional soccer. Scouts project Taz to contribute on both offense and defense in the middle of the diamond but fear a steep drop in his offensive production during his early 30s. The younger Tulo is paid a signing bonus significantly higher than that given to Cavan Biggio.</p>
<p>The contract will run through Taz’s age 34 season &#8211; which is the age the Blue Jays had wished his father’s contract would have expired.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Kendrys Morales Hits the Longest, Hardest Single of the Season</h4>
<p>Kendrys Morales has always hit the baseball hard. The Blue Jays designated hitter is regularly atop Major League Baseball’s year-end exit velocity leader boards. Unfortunately for Kendrys, a lot of his scorched balls are hit on the ground, where they do minimal damage. In another spat of bad luck, Morales hits the longest single of the season when he laces a 400-foot line drive off the top of the centre field wall at the Rogers Centre.</p>
<p>The ill-fated combination of Morales’ lack of footspeed and an incredibly well-struck baseball leaves Kendrys standing at first base and the proud owner of baseball’s longest and hardest hit single of the season (and the Statcast era).</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Blue Jays High Performance Department Hires Eddie Van Halen to work with Aaron Sanchez</h4>
<p>With more traditional baseball remedies remaining ineffective, Gil Kim enlists the help of 80s guitarist Eddie Van Halen to help keep Sanchez’s blister’s and fingernails in check. Kim, who was impressed with the famous guitarist’s ability to practice for hours on end without ruining his hands, hopes Eddie will be able to transfer some of his hand preservation secrets to the Blue Jays’ young ace.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>After Winning the World Series, the Jays are Invited to Meet PM Trudeau. Several Players Elect to Not Attend.</h4>
<p>After being eliminated in the American League Championship Series two years in a row, the Blue Jays finally do the dang thing and advance to the World Series, where they beat the Nationals in seven games.</p>
<p>As per tradition, the team is invited to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the offseason. However, several notable players don’t show up.</p>
<p>The consummate professional, Troy Tulowitzki elects to remain at the Blue Jays’ spring training facilities in order to not disrupt his offseason workouts. Coming off another MVP-caliber season, Josh Donaldson, who recently purchased Battlefied 4 for Xbox 360, has some buddies over to his place to play multiplayer and declines the invitation (but he does invite PM Trudeau to join their online game). And like the Cubs’ <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2017/6/28/15891598/cubs-carl-edwards-jr-skipped-white-house-visit-for-dinosaur-museums">Carl Edwards Jr.</a>, Joe Biagini skips the meeting in order to take in the dinosaur exhibit at the nearby Museum of Natural History in Ottawa.</p>
<p>Before you call these too bold, go ahead and pull up Justin Smoak’s 2017 stats. And after you do that, remember that what makes baseball so great is all of the improbable things that happen each and every season. And with that in mind…cue the second half comeback, Blue Jays!</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>3 Things to Watch for in the Blue Jays Series vs. Tampa Bay</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/28/3-things-to-watch-for-in-the-blue-jays-series-vs-tampa-bay/</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Apr 2017 14:17:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[BP Toronto Team]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Series Preview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blake Snell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steven Souza Jr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tampa Bay Rays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Written by Rachael McDaniel, Gideon Turk, and Elie Waitzer Steven Souza Jr.: A Familiar Foe, Now with Added Plate Discipline Steven Souza Jr. has been a thorn in the side of Blue Jays pitching for the entirety of his two seasons with the Rays. In his 34 career games against the Jays, he is slashing [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><strong><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Written by Rachael McDaniel, Gideon Turk, and Elie Waitzer</span></i></strong></p>
<p><strong>Steven Souza Jr.: A Familiar Foe, Now with Added Plate Discipline</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Steven Souza Jr. has been a thorn in the side of Blue Jays pitching for the entirety of his two seasons with the Rays. In his 34 career games against the Jays, he is slashing .307/.385/.551. Unfortunately, he seems primed to become an even bigger problem this season, thanks to his embracing the magic of plate discipline. While the 2015 and 2016 seasons had Souza’s K% at 33.8 percent and 34.0 percent, the latter number the highest among MLB hitters with a minimum of 600 PA, he’s managed to knock that number down to 25.3 percent so far in 2017. He’s also improved upon his BB%, raising it to 11.6 percent from 6.6 percent last season.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Much like our very own Kevin Pillar, Souza in his 2017 incarnation appears to have gotten better at laying off pitches outside of the strike zone. His O-swing% is down to 24.2 percent from 30.6 percent last year. (This difference of 6.4 percentage points is, incidentally, almost the exact same as the difference between Pillar’s 2016 and 2017 O-swing% &#8211; Kevin has dropped his by 6.5 points.) Souza has also dropped his swinging strike rate by 3.7 percentage points from last year. So not only has he toned down his propensity for chasing pitches that aren’t strikes, but Souza has vastly improved his contact rate on pitches that </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">are </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">strikes. Even though Souza has actually seen a smaller proportion of pitches in the zone this year than last year, his zone contact rate has risen from 75.3 percent to 81.7 percent.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">All of these changes have combined to give Souza quite the hot start to 2017. As of April 27th, he was batting .330/.404/.557. He was named AL Player of the Week for April 17th-24th after batting .414 with two homers, and he has already had a chance to rough up the Blue Jays this season, with seven hits (including three doubles and a home run) during a four-game series in the accursed confines of the Trop. He tagged Marcus Stroman, who opens this series, for three of those hits.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Souza has also been the beneficiary of an absurd .455 BABIP so far this season. It’s virtually impossible that he stays this hot forever. But for the Blue Jays to win this series, they’ll have to at least slow Souza’s roll somewhat. And sadly, Troy Tulowitzki isn’t eligible to return from his DL stint until May 2nd, meaning he won’t be able to distract Souza from hitting by stoking the flames of </span><a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/v1266074683/?query=tulowitzki%2Bsouza"><span style="font-weight: 400">their ongoing feud.</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> But who knows? Maybe he’ll show up just to get some jeers in.</span><strong><strong> </strong></strong></p>
<p><b>The Return of Aaron Sanchez&#8230;and His Fastball?</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">It&#8217;s been a disaster start for the Blue Jays this season, and despite the assurances from </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Wilnerness590/status/857782947293921280"><span style="font-weight: 400">certain radio hosts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that everything is fine, it isn’t. The team is quickly running out of time before the hole they are digging will be too deep for them to escape. One player that could help them immensely is Aaron Sanchez, with the most recent reports saying that he could be pitching the last game of this series on Sunday afternoon. Sanchez has only made two starts on the year because of his blister issue, but the first of those was against these same Rays, and he shoved. He allowed one baserunner for every inning he pitched, going seven strong while allowing just one batter to cross the plate.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">How Sanchez shut down the Rays on April 8th is an interesting story because he was a different pitcher than he was in 2016, or his other start this year. Sanchez threw 101 pitches on the evening, with 43 percent of those being four seam fastballs. Only once in 2016 did he surpass that mark. What this meant is that he relied less on his otherworldly sinker, throwing it only 33 percent of the time rather than the 54 percent he averaged in 2016. This was no doubt a deliberate strategy by Sanchez and his catcher, Russell Martin, and it worked, as the Rays whiffed on over a quarter of their swings and registered only one hit against the fourseamer. Against pitches that are greater than 95 mph this season, the Rays are 24th in baseball in OPS at just .571, so Sanchez could go back to the heavy fastball mix again if he makes this start. </span></strong></p>
<p><strong><b>Blake Snell: Too Filthy For His Own Good</b></strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When you think of Blake Snell, you think ridiculous curveball, power fastball, and command issues. After an intriguing debut season in which he went from dominant to disastrous from start to start, many picked him to breakout as a filthy number two starter behind Chris Archer on the Rays staff. How could you not fall in love with his potential when his heater gets some of the </span><a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/"><span style="font-weight: 400">most vertical rise</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in the majors and his hook <a href="http://imgur.com/pbf2mc7" target="_blank">looks like this</a>?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">But while his 3.38 ERA thus far has been good to fantasy owners, he’s still struggling with the same problems that plagued him last year.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Exhibit A: He has as many walks as he has strikeouts (15:15).<br />
Exhibit B: He’s missing the zone over 60 percent of the time, and not in an intentional, Liriano kind of way.<br />
</span>Exhibit C: His first-strike percentage ranks in the bottom ten. Filthiness only gets you so far in the majors; you still have to throw strikes.</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">In the three times the Jays have seen Snell in his career, they’ve struck out 14 times, but they’ve also walked 11 times. Expect more of the same, but don’t expect Snell to stick to his old game plan. He’s rolled with a fastball-change heavy mix in the past (over 85 percent combined), but given how the Jays have fared against the breaking ball early on, this would be a good occasion to lean more on his curveball.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">For the Jays, I propose a counter-adjustment. Snell is a lock to walk three to five batters. The way the Jays have been hitting with RISP, they should be ultra-aggressive on the basepaths to squeeze every run out of their baserunners instead of trying to hit home runs off of his breaking stuff. Although, that’s easier said than done when Kevin Pillar is your only speed threat.</span></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo:  Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></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>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 44: A Canadian Classic</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/17/atw-episode-44-canadian-training/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/17/atw-episode-44-canadian-training/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Feb 2017 11:00:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Artificial Turf Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bullpen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Agency]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spring Training]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WBC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World Baseball Classic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9053</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Greg Hamilton, coach and director of national teams for Baseball Canada, stops by to discuss Canada&#8217;s World Baseball Classic team. He details the selection process for the roster, the need for a blend of youth and experience, and how the team reacted to the absence of so many top players. Greg and Josh also break [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Greg Hamilton, coach and director of national teams for Baseball Canada, stops by to discuss Canada&#8217;s World Baseball Classic team. He details the selection process for the roster, the need for a blend of youth and experience, and how the team reacted to the absence of so many top players. Greg and Josh also break down the last couple weeks of Blue Jays news with a look at the Joe Smith and Mat Latos signings, Aaron Sanchez&#8217; being let loose, and the loss of the latest &#8220;Catcher of the Future.&#8221; Finally, they answer listener questions and give a Do-Over to their good buddy, Rob Manfred.</p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/9/826/show_9826433_2017_02_17_05_11_20.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/9/826/show_9826433_2017_02_17_05_11_20.mp3" rel="nofollow">Download</a></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/blue-jays-plus-podcast/id705699884?mt=2"><img class="alignnone wp-image-63" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/itunes1.png" alt="itunes" width="168" height="62" /></a><a href="https://soundcloud.com/turfpod"><img class=" wp-image-9054 alignleft" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/soundcloud.jpg" alt="soundcloud" width="123" height="60" /></a><br />
&nbsp;<br />
Follow the guys on twitter: <a title="@coolhead2010" href="https://twitter.com/coolhead2010" target="_blank">@coolhead2010</a> and <a title="@JoshuaHowsam" href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaHowsam" target="_blank">@JoshuaHowsam</a>.</p>
<p>Intro music is Slow Burn (<a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/" rel="cc:attributionURL">Kevin MacLeod</a>) under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" rel="license">CC BY 3.0</a>.</p>
<div><strong>Podcast Email</strong>-<a href="mailto:artificialturfwars@baseballprospectus.com" target="_blank">artificialturfwars@baseballprospectus.com</a> Please drop us a line if there is a guest you&#8217;d particularly like us to interview, to submit a question to <strong>Stump the Josh</strong>, or to simply give us feedback on the podcast. We&#8217;d love to hear from you!</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Aaron Sanchez Reportedly Hires Scott Boras</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/03/aaron-sanchez-reportedly-hires-scott-boras/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/03/aaron-sanchez-reportedly-hires-scott-boras/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Jan 2017 22:53:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Scott Boras]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8469</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We normally only cover player agents when they make colossal errors, such as the one made by Paul Kinzer with Edwin Encarnacion. However, today we&#8217;re making an exception as, per Hazel Mae, Aaron Sanchez has hired Scott Boras. Source informed me #BlueJays RHP Aaron Sanchez has joined @borascorp and is now being represented by super [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We normally only cover player agents when they make colossal errors, such as the one made by Paul Kinzer with Edwin Encarnacion. However, today we&#8217;re making an exception as, per Hazel Mae, Aaron Sanchez has hired Scott Boras.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Source informed me <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a> RHP Aaron Sanchez has joined <a href="https://twitter.com/borascorp">@borascorp</a> and is now being represented by super agent Scott Boras. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLB?src=hash">#MLB</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehazelmae/status/816404231792062464">January 3, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>It&#8217;s been a long time since the Blue Jays had a notable Scott Boras client, and this one should not make any Toronto fans happy.</p>
<p>Sanchez broke out in a big way last year, going 15-2 while leading the AL in ERA (3.00) and pitching a career high 192 innings. He was every bit the ace that Jays fans hoped he would become, and he&#8217;s still just 25 years old. That&#8217;s the good news.</p>
<p>The bad news is that Boras is the super agent, as Hazel Mae points out. He very rarely has his players sign deals before free agency, and is known for getting top dollar out of teams. While it may seem like that&#8217;s something of a non-issue right now, with Sanchez still four years from free agency, this pretty much shuts the door on any type of extension to buy out arbitration and free agent years and save a few dollars.</p>
<p>It also increased the likelihood of more hardball in arbitration hearings, as the Blue Jays are a &#8220;File and Trial&#8221; team. What this means is if the two teams can&#8217;t agree on a contract, and arbitration numbers are filed, the Jays will not negotiate a new one year deal at or near the midpoint as so many other teams are willing to do. This almost became a problem last year with Josh Donaldson, but the club and player eventually worked out a two year deal. With Boras, that two year deal is less likely. The arbitration is often acrimonious, as the team is doing its best to show how a player <i>isn&#8217;t</i> valuable in order to keep costs down. In the end it isn&#8217;t usually a big problem (after all, Donaldson went through arbitration his <em>first</em> year in Toronto and lost, and I&#8217;d say things are going just fine), but the Jays likely don&#8217;t want to alienate their young stars in any way.</p>
<p>This is good for Aaron Sanchez &#8211; he&#8217;s going to get paid &#8211; and likely somewhat unpleasant for Atkins and Shapiro, but Shapiro does have history dealing with Boras (The Jays actually signed a Boras client last year &#8211; Franklin Morales), so it could all work out just fine.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Blue Jays Rotation Might be Just as Good as Boston&#8217;s</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/07/the-blue-jays-rotation-might-be-just-as-good-as-bostons/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/07/the-blue-jays-rotation-might-be-just-as-good-as-bostons/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Dec 2016 19:09:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chris Sale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Price]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Red Sox]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8238</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It sounds crazy. The Red Sox just traded for Chris Sale. Rick Porcello just won the Cy Young Award (even though he shouldn’t have). David Price could be their third starter. That rotation should scare every team in the American League. And yet, I’m here to say that it might not even be the best [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It sounds crazy. The Red Sox just <a href="http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/12/red-sox-to-acquire-chris-sale.html" target="_blank">traded for Chris Sale</a>. Rick Porcello just won the Cy Young Award (even though he shouldn’t have). David Price could be their third starter. That rotation should scare every team in the American League. And yet, I’m here to say that it <em>might</em> not even be the best in the division.</p>
<p>The simple way would be to just stick Sale on the Red Sox from last year and see how things would turn out with the projected five starters based on their work in Toronto/Boston.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/pitchers.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8239" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/pitchers.png" alt="pitchers" width="704" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Hooray! The Blue Jays pitchers have the better ERA! It’s over!</p>
<p>Obviously you come here for better analysis than that, and some of those numbers are very cherry-picked (no bad Pittsburgh Liriano, no good San Diego Pomeranz), but it actually provides a decent starting point. The Jays pitchers DID outperform their Red Sox counterparts. It’s a matter of whether they can do it again.</p>
<p>The Jays pitchers may not have the sexy names, or the big time strikeout to walk ratios, but they possess traits that have actually made them really, really good at run prevention. While Boston does have a bunch of big time strikeout pitchers, some of their arms did show a few red flags that hurt their numbers and could carry over into 2017.</p>
<p>I’m going to break down each club’s expected rotations to look at how they project out for the upcoming season.</p>
<h2>Blue Jays</h2>
<p>It’s not hard to see the extreme upside in the Jays rotation. Four of the five starters have received Cy Young votes in the last few years (sorry Marcus!), and they led the league in ERA as a group just last year. They’re also replacing R.A. Dickey’s mediocre production with Liriano.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, on the surface, those numbers up top also scream for some potential regression. The only pitcher with an above league-average K/9 was Marco Estrada. Four of them had opposing BABIPs under .270. Those same four guys had DRAs well above their ERAs (You’re doing better here, Marcus!). However, there are reasons to believe each of those guys can continue to outpitch their peripherals.</p>
<h4>Marco Estrada</h4>
<p>When it comes to regressions candidates, the first person people always point to is the soon-to-be 33 year old Estrada. One would think that back to back seasons where he has stymied AL East foes with his fastball-changeup combo would convince people that he is for real, especially since the strikeouts came back. However, his league-low BABIP of .234 was 2.3 standard deviations away from the league mean among starters (.292) in 2016. That makes two years in a row that he has been extremely far from the norm in the category (.221 and 3.1 SDs in 2015). Typically, that screams “good luck” that won’t be repeated, or suggests that a team had otherworldly defence.</p>
<p>We can dismiss the latter effect right away. While the Jays do have one of the game’s best defenders in Kevin Pillar (21 DRS), his impact was almost completely negated by having two of the league’s worst everyday outfielders on his flank in Jose Bautista (-8 DRS) and Michael Saunders (-11 DRS). The Jays have good infielders, but Estrada doesn&#8217;t see much benefit with his 35 percent groundball rate.</p>
<p>As for the “luck” factor, as I broke down <a title="How Marco Estrada Dominated Baseball’s First Half" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/07/08/how-marco-estrada-dominated-baseballs-first-half/" target="_blank">here</a>, <a title="Marco Estrada Is Changing Things Up" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/10/marco-estrada-is-using-the-change-in-more-ways-than-one/" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/how-much-should-we-believe-in-marco-estrada/" target="_blank">here</a>, Estrada’s unique “rise” on both his fourseam fastball and changeup led him to post a popup rate (16.2 percent) that was 3.7 standard deviations better than the MLB average. Those numbers are increases over his 2015 totals (14.5% and 3.1 SDs), but this actually makes sense with his increased movement.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart1.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8240" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart1.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>As his ball continues to fight gravity, his lazy flyballs increase which help him outpitch his peripheral stats. The fact that this skill can be easily identified suggests that it’s repeatable, and as such very little regression should be expected from Estrada. In fact, improved outfield defence could even improve the numbers for the “popup pitcher”.</p>
<h4>J.A. Happ</h4>
<p>Right after Estrada on the list of “he was just lucky” pitchers is 2016’s surprise Cy Young candidate:, J.A. Happ.</p>
<p>After bouncing around as a back of the rotation starter for years, Happ finally seemed to find himself after a 2015 deadline deal to Pittsburgh. Ray Searage worked with Happ to clean up his delivery, and he dominated for two months. He took things to another level in his return to Toronto, where he was able to post a career high in innings while posting a career-best (as a starter) 3.18 ERA.</p>
<p>Like Estrada, there is an identifiable reason for his success in outpitching his peripherals. Also like Estrada, Happ uses special fastball movement to generate favourable results.</p>
<p>Once again, you can <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">read this in more depth here</a>, but J.A. Happ just happens to have a unique fastball. Or should I say set of fastballs. With a “rise” of 10.2” on his fourseamer and 5.2” on his sinker, J.A. Happ gets more separation between the two pitches than any other qualified starter (500+ of each pitch) in the game.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-6.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8241" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-6.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (6)" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>This means that even if the hitter guessed fastball, the unpredictability of the movement still had him at a disadvantage. By combining the two offerings effectively, Happ gets grounders when he needed to (a career high 21 double play grounders), while also jumping the swing and miss rate on his fourseam by over nine percentage points from his previous average as a full-time starter.</p>
<p>This was his first season doing this, so it’s possible there could be some slight regression coming, but the unique nature of his arsenal should mitigate the overall effect. Like Estrada, improved corner OF defence could also help Happ&#8217;s overall numbers.</p>
<h4>Francisco Liriano</h4>
<p>Francisco Liriano has the widest range of outcomes. I could tell you he’s going to be the best starter on the team, or the worst, and I guarantee I’d get a large chunk of people who would agree with me either way.</p>
<p>Where there should be little disagreement is that Liriano is going to take a small step backwards from his time with the Jays at the end of the season. His 2.92 ERA and 2.9 BB/9 would be the best marks he has put up in since his early career in Minnesota when people viewed him as the next Johan Santana.</p>
<p>There’s also the fact that he was absolutely shelled last year in Pittsburgh. The interesting thing there is that the outliers were in the completely opposite direction. His control went in the complete opposite direction (5.5 BB/9). Now, that’s not exactly a crazy notion when it comes to the notoriously wild Liriano, but his walk rate over the previous three years had stabilized and was down to 3.8 per nine from his five plus years with the Twins and White Sox. The Jays bet on that being the real guy and hit in a big way.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just pure regression that the Jays were betting on though. Take a look at the following chart (Pittsburgh on top):</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/liriano.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8242" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/liriano.png" alt="liriano" width="640" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>When Russell Martin was Liriano’s catcher with the Pirates, he made a point of having the power lefty use his changeup liberally. Over the last couple of years that has declined, before cratering in favour of the fastball last year. When Liriano came to Toronto, Martin made him start throwing it again and his command improved. It’ll be interesting to see if he can make that continue.</p>
<p>The safe money would be on Liriano pitching much more like the player he was from 2013-2015 (3.26 ERA, DRAs of 2.90, 3.56, and 3.22). That’s probably a 3.50-3.75 ERA guy in the AL East with this team’s infield defence and Liriano’s groundball rates (52% or higher the last 4 years).</p>
<h4>Marcus Stroman</h4>
<p>Marcus Stroman’s results were pretty bad. His 4.37 ERA was barely better than R.A. Dickey, he averaged over a hit allowed per inning, and his strikeout rate was only 7.3 per nine. However, like Liriano’s Pirates numbers, there are reasons to expect much better numbers from Stroman in 2017. His DRA alone (a team-best 3.43) suggests there was more.</p>
<p>Marcus Stroman debuted a new sinker when he returned in 2015 that <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marcus-stroman-discovered-roy-halladays-sinker/" target="_blank">had people comparing him to Roy Halladay</a>.</p>
<p>Given the extreme movement on the pitch—<a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=P&amp;month=&amp;year=2016&amp;pitch=SI&amp;ds=vmov&amp;lim=500" target="_blank">it has the most sink in all of baseball among qualified starters</a>— Stroman started the season featuring it heavily. Three months in and the results weren&#8217;t good: his ERA was 5.33 and his K/9 was 6.3. The sinker had a ton of movement, but he threw it so often that players could sit on it. As a high contact offering, he was just getting killed with balls going through holes.</p>
<p>He forgot that what made him partricularly special was <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marcus-stromans-absurd-set-of-pitch-comps" target="_blank">his possession of many plus pitches</a>. It seems someone reminded him of this fact when the calendar turned to July.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-1.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8243" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-1.png" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (1)" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Starting in July, Stroman started throwing his slider a lot more, and then started featuring even more of his offerings as the season went on. With hitters no longer able to just sit on the same pitch, everything in his arsenal played up. For the rest of the season, his strikeout rate was a very respectable 8.3. When combined with his still extreme groundball rate, Stroman posted an ERA of 3.42, which was much closer to what people expected out of the diminutive hurler.</p>
<p>Given his previous success and the change in repertoire, it seems likely that this is much closer to the real Marcus Stroman than the player we saw in the first half of 2016.</p>
<h4>Aaron Sanchez</h4>
<p>Aaron Sanchez is a bit easier to explain. The 24 year old finally had his shackles removed and all he did was lead the American League in ERA. His <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-sanchez-excited-about-total-transformation-of-his-body/" target="_blank">added bulk</a> and improved mechanics helped him reach a career high in innings (192) and lower his walk rate down to a very manageable three per nine.</p>
<p>The skill was always there, as Sanchez&#8217;s power sinker had made numerous hitters look extremely stupid. However, while he had always dominated same-sided hitters, the issue was his ability to get lefthanders out. In 2015, lefties hit the Californian righty to the tune of .282/.390/.488. That’s pretty bad. He certainly turned that around though. In 2016, they hit .217/.306/.352. That’s good.</p>
<p>The sinker is a pitch with pretty heavy platoon splits. When he was a reliever, Sanchez almost threw the two seamers exclusively. In 2016, he started expanding his repertoire, and it really <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/06/sanchez-versus-lefties-has-been-an-unexpected-kind-of-story/" target="_blank">helped him against southpaws</a>.</p>
<p>The two biggest differences were his curveball and the development of his changeup, but he also showed an increased willingness to pitch inside with his fastball.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Sanchez-20151.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8246" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Sanchez-20151.png" alt="Sanchez 2015" width="600" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>The fastballs in combined with the breaking balls away made for a pitcher who could really keep lefties at bay. With his continued destruction of righties, Sanchez became a true top of the rotation pitcher.</p>
<p>He does still rely on getting outs on the ground, which is somewhat susceptible to random variance. As such that 3.00 ERA should regress some. Though Sanchez is still an elite arm, and he should be able to go to 220 innings this year if he has to, which is a huge plus for Toronto.</p>
<h2>BOSTON</h2>
<h4>Chris Sale</h4>
<p>Chris Sale is awesome. He’s the best pitcher on either of these two teams. I don’t think I need to spend a ton of time on him, but there are a few interesting notes.</p>
<p>First, he’s moving to a better hitters park. While Comiskey (the name changes so often I’m just using this) has historically been a hitters park, it actually played as a pitchers park the last few years. Meanwhile Fenway is as good of a hitters park as exists in the American League.</p>
<p>Sale’s extreme bat-missing abilities and control certainly help mitigate this effect, but they don’t eliminate it completely. His results once hitters make contact should go up a little bit.</p>
<p>There was also some thought that he whould also be helped by simply getting away from Dioner Navarro. As Jeff Sullivan wrote over at Fangraphs, Sale’s catchers killed him last year, and game calling won&#8217;t get much better with Sandy Leon being the plate. As a flyball pitcher, though, he will get some boost from the excellent work done by Jackie Bradley Jr. in that large center and right field in Boston.</p>
<p>All that said, Chris Sale is really good and we should expect him to be basically what he has been the last few years.</p>
<h4>Rick Porcello</h4>
<p>The reigning AL Cy Young winner took a huge step forward in 2015. He put up career-bests in tossed innings (223), ERA (3.15), K/BB (league-leading 5.91), and strikeouts (189). It was an incredible season, and while he didn’t deserve the award he won, he was one of the league’s best starters.</p>
<p>There wasn’t much of a change in repertoire that led to his monster season, but there was a change in approach.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/porcello-2015.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8245" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/porcello-2015.png" alt="porcello 2015" width="599" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>In 2016, Porcello started working heavily up in the zone with his fourseam fastball. This helped him get more swings and misses on the pitch (career best 15.5%), and also throw more strikes. It also turned Porcello into something of a flyball pitcher.</p>
<p>This made some sense with the expansive RF in Fenway, and came with more infield popups (though only slightly more than average), while not having a huge effect on his home run rate (the HR/FB was about average).</p>
<p>He probably falls back a bit just simply due to the extreme BABIP luck and no clear reason for him to fall all the way to .269 from a career .307 (he should drop some due to more FBs), but he’s likely going to be something close to a 3.50 ERA guy in 2017.</p>
<h4>David Price</h4>
<p>Price is by far the most interesting member of the Red Sox rotation. Expected to be a true number one pitcher and lead Boston to the World Series, Price stumbled in 2016. His 3.99 ERA was a career-worst which also came with all-time high hit and HR/9 rates. His strikeout rate of 8.9 was also a three year low. The strikeouts were high in the awful first half, but they were lower in his better second half. In short, he wasn’t “David Price.”</p>
<p>While there is obviously expected to be <em>some</em> regression back to his career levels, there was one very big red flag associated with Mr. Price.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-7.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8247" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-7.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (7)" width="883" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Price’s velocity fell to an all-time low of 93.75 mph; that’s bad. It wasn’t some blip either as he started down and finished there.</p>
<p>To compensate, Price threw more cutters and changeups than ever before. They’re both very good offerings from the big lefty, but the need to reinvent himself during a season where he underperformed is a very worrying sign for Red Sox fans.</p>
<p>There are some indicators that would normally project that some regression will occur, but even those come with red flags. His HR/FB rose from a career 9.6 percent to 13.5, and his BABIP from .290 to .310. Those should suggest he was somewhat unlucky. Unfortunately, he was also hit a lot harder.</p>
<p>His overall exit velocity rose from 87.7 to 88.3, but he got crushed on line drives. His exit velocity on line drives and fly balls rose 1.5 mph from 90.9 to 92.4 mph. That’s going to lead to more hits and to more home runs.</p>
<p>While David Price track record suggests he&#8217;ll still regress a bit back to normal, if he doesn’t get that fastball back, he’s not an ace anymore.</p>
<h4>Drew Pomeranz</h4>
<p>2016 was Drew Pomeranz’ first year as a full-time MLB starter and he didn’t disappoint. Pomeranz put up a 3.32 ERA with two teams, a career-best strikeout rate of 9.8 per nine, and even made his first All-Star team. Aside from simply making more starts, there was a very clear reason for Pomeranz’ increased success: his curveball.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-3.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8248" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-3.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (3)" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>His nine inches of drop on the curveball is 10th most among starters. Among starters who thew over 500 of them, he’s third. Over 550, first. He has a good curveball, and he likes to use it. Hitters miss on 31.7 percent of the swings they take at Pomeranz&#8217;s curveball. With San Diego, batters hit just .201 with a .262 slugging percentage against the offering, so even when they did hit it, they couldn’t do much with it.</p>
<p>Drew Pomeranz absolutely dominated using this strategy with the Padres, but things didn’t go quite as swimmingly in Boston. While AL batters still missed the pitch at a 32 percent rate, they did damage when they connected, hitting .264/.364 against the hook. They also teed off on his other offerings, with an ISO of .314 against his fastball and .303 against the cutter.</p>
<p>It would be easier to decide what to do with Pomeranz if he had recovered fully at some point after the deal, or simply never recovered. After giving up 12 runs in his first 14 innings in a Red Sox uniform, Pomeranz posted a 2.70 ERA in August. Then September rolled around and he failed to pitch six innings in any of his four starts, allowing 12 runs in 16 innings, and giving up five home runs. His only two decent outings that month were on the road in San Diego and Tampa (who also play in a notorious pitcher&#8217;s park). In the postseason he only lasted 3 2/3 innings. He struck out seven, but he also gave up two runs including a home run.</p>
<p>Pomeranz may still be an elite strikeout pitcher, but he also gives up his share of flyballs, and that’s going to mean a lot of home runs in the AL East. Yes, he’ll benefit when the ball goes to RF, but as a left-handed pitcher who will face lots of righties, the ball will more often be heading towards the green monster.</p>
<p>His numbers will get better than the disastrous 4.59 showing with Boston, but they may not break the 4.00 barrier and almost certainly won&#8217;t top 3.50, and he hasn&#8217;t gone deep into games.</p>
<h4>Eduardo Rodriguez</h4>
<p>Here is the absolute best progression candidate for the Red Sox rotation. Rodriguez’ overall season numbers were bad, but the 23 year old was coming off an injury to his landing knee, and his early results skewed the results heavily.</p>
<p>In his first six starts, Rodriguez posted an 8.59 ERA across 29 1/3 innings. Across his last fourteen outings, he posted a 3.24 ERA, a 9.2 K/9, and allowed more than three runs only twice. Now, normally you can’t just take out the first six starts of a guy’s season and proclaim greatness, but with Rodriguez there’s a very real reason: He couldn’t throw his best pitch.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-4.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8249" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/Brooksbaseball-Chart-4.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (4)" width="891" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>In the first few outings back from injury, Rodriguez’ slider wasn’t getting the horizontal movement he expected (graph on right), so he didn’t throw it (left). Without the slider in his arsenal, hitters were able to sit back on the fastball/changeup combo, and they hit the young southpaw hard. When he started throwing the slider again at the start of July, his performance immediately took off. This follows logically, since his miss rate on the pitch was 30.7 percent of swings until the end of the season.</p>
<p>He doesn’t generate many groundballs, so he’s likely always going to be susceptible to the home run, but Rodriguez should probably be expected to put up a mid 3.00s ERA in 2017: he’s good.</p>
<h4>CONCLUSION</h4>
<p>In the end, there&#8217;s few reasons to suggest that the Blue Jays starters as a whole would be any worse than they were in 2016, save for health. Marcus Stroman should be much better, while Liriano and Happ could fall back a little.</p>
<p>It’s a rotation that could have four pitchers at or around 3.50 ERAs, with one guy in the low 3.00 range (Sanchez). Three of those guys should be able to throw 200 or more innings (Stroman, Sanchez, and Estrada), while a couple of the lefties could top around 180-190 or so (Happ and Liriano).</p>
<p>On the Boston side, Sale is likely to be mostly the same guy he always has been, and Rodriguez should take a big leap. Pomeranz will improve on his Boston numbers, but likely not to his SD levels, Price should improve a bit, but not to his former ace levels. Porcello should take a tiny step back, but not a notable one.</p>
<p>It’s a rotation that could also have four pitchers at or around 3.50 ERAs, with one guy in the low 3.00 range (Sale). Three of the guys should be able to throw 200 or more innings (Price, Porcello, Sale), while a couple of the lefties could top around 180-190 (Pomeranz and Rodriguez).</p>
<p>Those sound kinda similar, don’t they? The Red Sox have the best guy (Sale), but the Jays could have three of the next four best (Sanchez, Stroman, Estrada vs Porcello and Price). Boston has more depth with Steven Wright and Clay Buchholz, which should help them as the injuries roll out. However, in the end, Boston and Toronto&#8217;s rotations are going to perform much closer than you&#8217;d think.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>This Week in Blue Jays: What the Aaron Sanchez Decision Says About the Jays</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/07/this-week-in-blue-jays-the-fallout-of-the-aaron-sanchez-debate/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 07 Aug 2016 12:21:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jenn Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[This Week in Blue Jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5240</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Aaron Sanchez debate has finally been put to rest. After months of insisting that their young all-star would at some point be transitioned to the bullpen in order to avoid an unprecedented increase in his workload – reiterated by both president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins earlier this week – the Jays [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Aaron Sanchez debate has finally been put to rest.</p>
<p>After months of insisting that their young all-star would at some point be transitioned to the bullpen in order to avoid an unprecedented increase in his workload – reiterated by both president Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins earlier this week – <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/atkins-blue-jays-sanchez-remaining-rotation-time/" target="_blank">the Jays announced on Thursday </a>that the Cy Young candidate would remain in the rotation for the foreseeable future. The acquisition of Francisco Liriano on Monday’s trade deadline provided the flexibility to roll with a six-man rotation, which will reduce Sanchez’s total remaining starts by two. If he is skipped once or twice and has his innings limited from start to start, it is possible that he could pitch into the postseason while reaching only 200 innings. The beauty of the decision lies not just in the fact that it keeps Sanchez starting, but it provides a very fluid option, one that can go in a number of different directions should the need arise.</p>
<p>One can debate the inconclusive science related to pitcher workload, or how similar situations with other players have been dealt with, or the merits of a six-man rotation. “Evidence” exists to support either side in each of those debates. What is more interesting to me is what it took to arrive at this decision, and what it says about both this front office and clubhouse.</p>
<p>When Shapiro first came to Toronto, he said takes a collaborative approach to running an organization, and although the decision of how to manage Aaron Sanchez rested solely with management, it appears he stayed true to his stated philosophy. Let&#8217;s be honest here. The plan to move Sanchez to the bullpen in order to avoid a potentially harmful increase in workload was a noble one, based on risk-assessment and erring on the side of caution. Sanchez, unfortunately, was handled delicately by the organization during his development, and thus it is incumbent upon the organization to balance the risk with the reward of ramping up his workload. Given his performance this season and the fact that the Jays are once again poised to play in October, one could argue that the sending Sanchez to the bullpen for the remainder of the season was the more difficult choice. Shapiro and Atkins were attempting to put the long-term health of Sanchez first, and while I believe the science did not support their logic and, admittedly, would have been unhappy had they moved him to the bullpen, as a business move, I understood it.</p>
<p>The greatest obstacle, however, was that seemingly no one in that clubhouse supported the decision. From Marco Estrada to Josh Donaldson to Sanchez himself, the dissent was becoming louder and much more public. Undoubtedly, when Russell Martin <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/dont-like-russell-martin-sanchez-moving-bullpen/" target="_blank">expressed his unequivocal disapproval </a>of the plan to transition Sanchez to the bullpen, he represented the other 24 men on the team, each of whom has a stake in the success of this year&#8217;s team. When it became clear on Wednesday that even manager John Gibbons was not on board with the plan, Atkins flew to Houston to speak with Sanchez, Gibbons and pitching coach Pete Walker in an attempt to arrive at a mutually agreeable decision, subsequently announcing later that day the plan to keep Sanchez in the rotation.</p>
<p>There are three things here that are critical. The first is that Sanchez was directly involved in the decision. From the moment he arrived at spring training having packed on 20 pounds of muscle he made clear his intent on being a starter. And, man, has his season been special. His American League-leading ERA puts him in squarely in the Cy Young conversation, and his insistence that he feels good (plus the fact that he has not yet shown signs of fatigue) deserved to be taken into consideration. The team has the tools to monitor the stress on Sanchez&#8217;s arm; they&#8217;ve been employing them all season. Given the imperfect science of increasing a pitcher&#8217;s workload and the varied results scattered around the MLB, a tailored, individualized approach is not only the most logical, but also on the leading-edge.</p>
<p>Second, the decision to use a six-man rotation could not have happened without the buy-in of the other starters.  Marco Estrada and his back may benefit from the additional rest, and one might argue that Marcus Stroman would do anything to help his best friend remain in the rotation. However, starters are notoriously creatures of habit. Both Estrada and J.A. Happ, who is on pace for twenty wins this season, are also Cy Young candidates, and a disruption to their routine is not insignificant. Even the newest member of the team, Francisco Liriano, had input, and his unselfish offer to do whatever it took, including pitching out of the bullpen if necessary, presented the front office with viable options that allowed them to view the situation differently.</p>
<p>This is not the first time individual players have put their own self-interest well behind the team&#8217;s best interests this season. When the team was struggling offensively through the first few months of the season, Jose Bautista, after brainstorming with Russell Martin and others, suggested he hit lead-off to jump-start the offense, despite the fact that doing so would limit his RBI production and thus could impact the quality of free-agent contract he&#8217;s offered at the end of this season. We&#8217;ve heard in the past about malcontents in the clubhouse; this is clearly a team that is all on the same page.</p>
<p>Finally, this decision represents a willingness on the part of the front office to take a step back rather than digging in their heels, involving all stakeholders in such a pivotal decision. This management style suggests both flexibility and transparency. Moreover, the option to use a six-man rotation would not have been possible had front office not made the deadline acquisitions that they did &#8211; moves which required the team to take on payroll, indicating that the entire organization is committed to winning now.</p>
<p>The decision on how to best manage Sanchez was one being heavily scrutinized by not just the Jays and their fan base, but by major league baseball as a whole. The manner in which the Jays handled this situation would help guide what other teams would do when faced with a similar scenario. No one wants to put a young pitcher at risk for injury; equally, no one wants to give their team less of a chance to win. As Ross Atkins stated, &#8220;It wasn’t really about being right…but let’s try to get it right.&#8221;</p>
<p>For what it&#8217;s worth, I think they did.</p>
<p>Quick Hits:</p>
<ul>
<li> With all the discussion about Sanchez recently, it is worth remembering that the entire starting rotation will be counted upon to perform down the stretch. One of the wild cards thus far has been Marcus Stroman, who’s not-so-great May and abysmal June left him looking for answers. Stroman altered his delivery a bit, moving his hands and changing his release point, while also varying his pitches. What is most interesting, however, is that he <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-marcus-stroman-may-have-learned-from-david-price/" target="_blank">learned these adjustments</a> from David Price.</li>
<li>Did you know that Benoit holds the MLB record for the longest save, with a seven-inning relief appearance?Trade deadlines often shake up a team and new acquisitions are thrown into the mix without skipping a beat. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/what-marcus-stroman-may-have-learned-from-david-price/" target="_blank">Meet the newest Jays</a>: Melvin Upton Jr., Joaquin Benoit, Scott Feldman and Francisco Liriano.</li>
<li>Let’s not forget about Danny Barnes, who made his <a href="http://bluejaysnation.com/2016/8/5/lott-danny-barnes-hopes-to-stick-around-after-an-impressive-debut-in-houston%20" target="_blank">impressive major league debut </a>in Houston during which he featured a beauty of a changeup to help nail down a 2-1 victory. A Princeton graduate who wrote his thesis on the economics of free agency, the former 35<sup>th</sup>-round draft pick, had an ERA of 0.84 with a 0.51 WHIP in 53.1 innings at double-A and triple-A before his call-up last Tuesday. There’s no telling how long he’ll remain with the big club, but there’s no doubt that he’s caught everyone’s attention.</li>
<li>In a post-game interview on Wednesday, Sportsnet reporter Barry Davis asked Josh Donaldson what he thought of the new-look Jays. Josh&#8217;s response, &#8220;<a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/donaldson-like-team/" target="_blank">We like our team, Barry</a>,&#8221;</li>
<li>And, finally. Though he&#8217;s become an very valuable member of the bullpen, Joe Biagini&#8217;s pitching has been nearly overshadowed by his quirky interviews. Whether you find his sense of humour endearing or irritating, if you brush aside the jokes his actual answers are typically quite thoughtful. His <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/gotta-hear-biagini-will-consider-twitter-four-minutes/%20" target="_blank">latest interview</a> is my personal favourite.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>Lead Photo: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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