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	<title>Toronto &#187; Depth</title>
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		<title>Blue Jays Sign Brett Oberholtzer for Depth</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/07/blue-jays-sign-brett-oberholtzer-for-depth/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/07/blue-jays-sign-brett-oberholtzer-for-depth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:24:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Wisniewski]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bjue Jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[milb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[winter meetings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8269</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Blue Jays have added a depth arm. Per John Heyman: Jays sign rhp brett oberholtzer &#8212; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 7, 2016 How important is this move? Well, Heyman is notorious for his dislike of the &#8216;shift&#8217; key, making him the ee cummings of twitter. He normally makes an exception for player names though. [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Blue Jays have added a depth arm. Per John Heyman:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jays sign rhp brett oberholtzer</p>
<p>&mdash; Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/806603992692379649">December 7, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>How important is this move? Well, Heyman is notorious for his dislike of the &#8216;shift&#8217; key, making him the ee cummings of twitter. He normally makes an exception for player names though. Our man Brett doesn&#8217;t even get that consideration. He also has to change which arm he throws with.</p>
<p>He&#8217;s been brought on board via a minor league deal. It&#8217;s clear the Jays aren&#8217;t looking for Brett Oberholzter to make any great impact in the MLB bullpen, but the AAA team needs arms too. He has a WHIP of 1.50 over the last two seasons in he majors, and an ERA of 5.89. However, he&#8217;s 27 and left handed, so he&#8217;ll be able to find a job somewhere until just prior to the heat death of the universe.</p>
<p>Welcome to the roster Mr. Oberholtzer, we&#8217;ll certainly see you in a Bisons&#8217; cap and maybe in a Jays one.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Ross Atkins Speaks: Change to Gibbons Contract, Pitching, Pompey, and More</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/21/ross-atkins-interview-john-gibbons-dalton-pompey-pitching/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/21/ross-atkins-interview-john-gibbons-dalton-pompey-pitching/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2016 15:40:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ewan Ross]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dalton Pompey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Gibbons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Saunders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ross atkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sunday night, Sirius XM’s MLB Network’s Spring Training Tour reached Dunedin and the Blue Jays camp. As part of that program MLB Network hosts Todd Hollandsworth &#38; Steve Phillips interviewed new Toronto GM, Ross Atkins. You can listen to the Gibbons portion of the audio here, but I&#8217;ve pulled a few extra notable quotes to come out [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Sunday night, Sirius XM’s MLB Network’s Spring Training Tour reached Dunedin and the Blue Jays camp. As part of that program MLB Network hosts Todd Hollandsworth &amp; Steve Phillips interviewed new Toronto GM, Ross Atkins. You can listen to the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/mlbnetworkradio/ross-atkins-tor-gm-weve-taken-the-rolling-year-out-of-john-gibbons-contract" target="_blank">Gibbons portion of the audio here</a>, but I&#8217;ve pulled a few extra notable quotes to come out of the short, five minute interview.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><em>Steve Phillips &#8211; </em></strong><em>In John Gibbons, you have a manager that you and Mark inherited. A guy that we both know; I go back to the Mets organization with Gibby, and he’s as easy a guy to get along with as there is, and you guys are too, so it’s a nice fit in that way. But philosophically his deal in the past used to be the rolling year, where he’d never be a lame duck. Is that structure something that is part of your thought process going forward, or is it something that you’ll address things as time goes on?</em></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong><em>Ross Atkins –</em></strong><em> No, we’ve already addressed that. That’s already come out of his contract. That’s the short answer, but not taking anything away from what it was. I think every situation is different. Gibby has been unbelievable, I love being around him, I can see why players trust and respect him. He’s an extremely consistent human being, with great values and morals. And really has set a nice tone here. He’s obviously a good decision maker, and handles himself great in pressure situations.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>This was easily the most interesting subject touched upon in the entire interview. Gibbons thus has 2 seasons left on his contract, 2016 and 2017, which was picked up on January 1st. Starting next January 1st, Gibbons won&#8217;t have the rolling option available in his contract.</p>
<p>Once the Gibbons talk was exhausted, Hollandsworth moved the discussion to how to better the team on the field:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><em>Todd Hollandsworth &#8211; </em></strong><em>In spring training, if we wanted to accomplish THIS, what would that be, and is there some tweaking that maybe needs to happen.</em></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong><em>Atkins &#8211; </em></strong><em>Yeah, we wanted to make sure we had enough depth for our pitching. I think throughout the offseason the acquisitions that Mark and Tony made before I was here in Happ, &amp; Estrada the trade for Chavez, and then adding some more pieces to that, the trade for Storen, the acquisition of Gavin Floyd and some of the other minor league free agents. We feel good about our starting options. We feel good about the depth of our bullpen. We need to continue to be creative, to not stop thinking that that’s going to be OK for the rest of the year. </em><em>It’s not too often you go through the season with five starters. I think the last time that happened was five years ago. We’re going to need depth and that was our goal through the off-season and into spring training. </em><em>I will say, what I’ve been really encouraged by is the depth in the minor leagues. I have really been impressed with 1) that there is some talent, but even more impressed with how they carried themselves here in the major league environment. From Conner Greene &amp; Reid-Foley (who wasn’t here), guys like Anthony Alford &amp; Richie Urena. Wow Dalton Pompey’s gonna be a great player, there are very good pieces in this organization.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>The Blue Jays are coming off a season where they gave 10 starts to the collection of Felix Doubront, Scott Copeland, Matt Boyd &amp; Todd Redmond, where they contributed a piddling -2.1 WARP. It’s clear that pitching depth was a major area of concern for the Jays coming into this off-season. While acquisitions at the top of the roster are much more glamorous, it’s quite possible that the Jays could improve just as much by replacing the detritus on the back end of the roster with merely replacement level players.</p>
<p>Since there are so many more players available to target by taking this approach to team building, it’s much less likely that a team will wind up in a bidding war. As a result this tends to be much more economical, and given Shapiro &amp; Atkins previous tenure was with the small budget Indians, it’s hardly surprising that’s the approach they would focus most upon. So far, <a title="How the Blue Jays Finally Created a Deep Roster" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/08/bluejays-depth-spring-training/" target="_blank">the results seem to be pretty good</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><em>Hollandsworth &#8211; </em></strong><em>Michael Saunders, it’s kind of the one spot on your team where there’s a bit of a position battle. My guess is you wanted to make sure that Saunders was completely healthy. He’s come into camp, he’s had a really strong camp offensively. Pompey’s going back to Triple A, is that for playing time?</em></li>
<li><strong><em>Atkins</em></strong><em> – Yah, I think for Dalton it’s more about foundation for him. The guys that are coming and going, the old adage you wanna get there and stay. Dalton’s probably heard that way too much. So it’s about how do you give him the best foundation to deal with the struggles of a major league season, the ups and downs. The best place for him to get that foundation is in the minor leagues not in the major leagues. Yes it is about playing time, but it’s also about he has also moved quickly, and there’s been a lot asked of him. He’s a great player, I get it. He’s gonna be special, he really is. I have a lot of confidence in saying that.  </em><em>Saunders has been awesome. Dealing with the rumours of a trade, handling the expectations of coming off of this injury. Not only has he looked good, but his commitment and his drive of &#8216;this is going to be the best trade rumour that never happened.&#8217; We’re really encouraged by him, and to think that he is just an addition to this lineup is remarkable.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>The measured approach being taken with Dalton Pompey stands directly in contrast with how the Jays threw him into the fire at the beginning of the 2015 season, and links back to the previous point I made about moral hazard. It’s interesting to see the different approaches that a front office with years of security under their belt takes, as opposed to someone like Alex Anthopoulos, who came into the 2015 season with an immense amount of pressure to perform. Rather than letting the team’s situation dictate whether Pompey would be forced into major league duty, Atkins and seems to be taking the more measured approach, and is instead letting Pompey&#8217;s performance be the deciding factor. I firmly believe that in previous years the team would&#8217;ve taken the marginal upgrade by having Pompey serve as the team&#8217;s 4th outfielder, and I believe this approach will be much more advantageous for both Pompey &amp; the club in the long term.</p>
<p>Those were the main takeaways from Atkins&#8217; discussion with Hollandsworth. It will be interesting to see how this relationship between general manager and the media evolves over time. With Alex Anthopoulos, he learned that he could say a bit more, but also ended up rounding into even more doublespeak. We&#8217;ll be watching Mr. Atkins closely.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Note: This article previously stated that John Gibbons could be a lame duck manager in 2016, depending on when the clause was removed. This has been corrected, as Gibbons&#8217; contract has been renegotiated to end after the 2017, with a slight pay bump for Gibby. The same analysis from the piece still applies to next season, which would not have been the case if the rollover option was still intact. </em></p>
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		<title>How the Blue Jays Finally Created a Deep Roster</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/08/bluejays-depth-spring-training/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/08/bluejays-depth-spring-training/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2016 14:00:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Depth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Domonic Brown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gavin Floyd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Offseason]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rafael Soriano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ross atkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tony Sanchez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=107</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With exhibition games starting up and the stars we know and love finally starting to take the field, fans are ready to embrace the optimism that comes around this time of year. With camps full of players from the 40-man roster, prospects hoping to impress, and veterans looking for one last kick at the can, [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>With exhibition games starting up and the stars we know and love finally starting to take the field, fans are ready to embrace the optimism that comes around this time of year. With camps full of players from the 40-man roster, prospects hoping to impress, and veterans looking for one last kick at the can, the long winter shuffle is officially over.</p>
<p>I’m sure it wasn’t exactly the way Ross Atkins imagined his first offseason as a general manager was going to go. By the time he took his place on the hotseat, most of the heavy lifting had already been done. While acting as interim GM, Tony LaCava had added/re-signed J.A. Happ, Jesse Chavez, and Marco Estrada, addressing the one true area of weakness: the rotation. The big splash, the franchise-changing move&#8230;those doors were already closed to Mr. Atkins. But that doesn’t mean there was nothing left for him to do. In fact, the new head honcho had one very clear, public mandate: Add depth.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s often difficult for the common fan to care about what lies beyond the 25-man roster on Opening Day. Nobody wants to imagine a world where their star players aren&#8217;t on the field. Alas, that&#8217;s not how it usually plays out once the games begin. Players get hurt or under perform and need to be replaced. Just last year the AL East champion Blue Jays saw Chris Colabello play 46 games in left field, and Danny Valencia was out there for another 31. Neither of those men is an outfielder. In fact, when the season started, they were probably 7th and 8th on the outfield depth chart. Yet, there they were, stumbling around after fly balls.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, depth was supposed to be Alex Anthopoulos&#8217; specialty. He was always known as the man who would make a waiver claim on just about anybody, hoping to find a diamond in the rough. He certainly had some successes last season; Colabello turned in an incredible season at the plate, and Bo Schultz helped the bullpen before the trade deadline. Although, in spite of those successes, depth was still a problem for the 2015 Blue Jays. Prior to the David Price trade the rotation was in shambles, and the middle infield needed some external help.</p>
<p>Up until January, it didn’t look like this year’s group was going to be any different. There seemed to be a couple of options for the fifth starter position, but beyond that there were serious concerns around the diamond. Then, starting with the Revere for Storen swap, all of that began to change.</p>
<p>The Storen move opened up options for the Blue Jays. By adding another late inning reliever, Aaron Sanchez was officially put back into the mix for a role in the starting rotation. In turn, that left seven men whom could be reasonably counted on for solid or better work as starting pitchers. For the beginning of the season, that&#8217;s not an awful mark, but it isn&#8217;t enough. Nothing happened for a few more weeks until just before Spring Training. At this point, GM Ross Atkins made a flurry of moves that have drastically improved this club’s chances of surviving injury.</p>
<p>The first notable move was the signing of Gavin Floyd to a one year, $1 million contract. Coming off of his second broken pitching elbow in as many years, Floyd was thought to be done. Floyd may have his warts, but there is tremendous upside in the deal, especially if Floyd can continue to pitch the way he did last September.</p>
<p>The aforementioned upside is a common thread that joined every move that followed it. On the same day as the Floyd pickup, Atkins added David Aardsma (the guest on yesterday’s <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/07/artficial-turf-wars-ep-1-david-aardsma-debuts-and-dingers/">Artificial Turf Wars podcast</a>), then in the following weeks picked up Domonic Brown, Tony Sanchez, and Rafael Soriano.</p>
<p>With the exception of Floyd, all of those players have minor league deals. This makes sense, given that all of these players have flaws, as can be seen in their PECOTA projections.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Pecota-real.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-108 size-full" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Pecota-real.jpg" alt="Pecota real" width="406" height="171" /></a></p>
<p>However, the depth advantage is that these players all have real upside. If any of them hits their 80th percentile projection, things look totally different.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Pecota1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-166" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Pecota1.png" alt="Pecota" width="406" height="171" /></a></p>
<p>As you can see, PECOTA says that every one of the recent additions has the potential for a very solid season. The reason the projections see this upside is simple: all of these players have done it before. This is the biggest departure from the Alex Anthopoulos moves of year’s past. In recent years, the Blue Jays depth moves included more AAA fodder than anything else. The &#8220;depth&#8221; comprised of the guys like Mauro Gomez, Brad Glenn, Cole Gillespie and Steve Tolleson. They&#8217;d never grabbed many guys who had previously shown the ability to play at an above major league average level.</p>
<p>What changed?</p>
<p>Well, under the last regime, the Jays had an anti-contract-incentives policy. Anthopoulos famously refused to offer them; almost certainly because he was often right up against the ceiling of his budget. In fact, the only time that he deviated from this policy was for Johan Santana, in a situation where he was recovering from injury. In that case, if Santana hadn&#8217;t rebounded, the Jays would have been on the hook for nothing, but if he had, he&#8217;d almost certainly be worth the money.</p>
<p>Until Floyd, it had been a long time since a “healthy” Blue Jay had potential to earn more money simply by staying on the field. If you’re not willing to offer a player the chance to earn extra cash, you’re never going to be able to get high end depth. It’s a simple truth: players will always bet on themselves. They wouldn’t be professional athletes if they didn’t.</p>
<p>With those pickups, the Jays now have at least one major league quality backup at every position, along with solid depth in both the rotation and the bullpen.</p>
<h4>Position Player Backups</h4>
<p>C: Tony Sanchez, Josh Thole<br />
<span style="line-height: 1.5">1B: Justin Smoak/Chris Colabello (whoever isn&#8217;t starting)<br />
</span><span style="line-height: 1.5">2B/SS: Darwin Barney (then Ryan Goins with Devon Travis returns)<br />
</span><span style="line-height: 1.5">3B: Matt Dominguez<br />
</span><span style="line-height: 1.5">OF: Domonic Brown, Dalton Pompey, Junior Lake, Ezequiel Carrera</span></p>
<h4>Pitching Depth</h4>
<p>SP: Marcus Stroman, R.A. Dickey, Marco Estrada, J.A. Happ, Jesse Chavez, Aaron Sanchez, Gavin Floyd, Drew Hutchison<br />
RP: Drew Storen, Roberto Osuna, Brett Cecil, Aaron Loup, Jesse Chavez, Aaron Sanchez, Gavin Floyd, Bo Schultz, David Aardsma, Steve Delabar</p>
<p>Every single one of those position players has spent at least some time as a regular in the big leagues. Then when you a<span style="line-height: 1.5">dd in guys like Pat Venditte, Chad Jenkins, Rule V draft pick Joe Biagini, and prospects Connor Greene and Chad Girodo, the Blue Jays have an awful lot of pitching depth. </span>In fact, a couple of the other players are already showing value. Ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte and submariner Chad Girodo are ready to step in as the second lefty in the pen for the first few weeks of the season while Aaron Loup recovers from a forearm strain. In an admittedly small sample size, Venditte held lefties to a paltry .116/.191/.256 line in 2015, and Girodo has dominated lefties in the minors.</p>
<p>This 2016 Blue Jays roster is so talented that the only thing that could&#8217;ve sunk them completely would have been injury. Now that they have depth, one of their stars can go down and someone will be ready to step in. As a result, it&#8217;s a real stretch to imagine this team not being contenders in the American League East&#8230;unless the Baseball Gods simply decide to smite the city of Toronto.</p>
<p>The offseason was a job well done, Mr. Atkins. I look forward to seeing what you can do next.</p>
<p><em>Lead photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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