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	<title>Toronto &#187; Dioner Navarro</title>
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		<title>He&#8217;s Back: Blue Jays Trade for Dioner Navarro</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/26/news-dioner-navarro-just-when-he-thought-he-was-out-they-pulled-him-back-in/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/26/news-dioner-navarro-just-when-he-thought-he-was-out-they-pulled-him-back-in/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 27 Aug 2016 00:36:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jenn Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dioner Navarro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[playoffs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trade]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5959</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In a surprise move that was announced just prior to the start of Friday’s game, the Jays have traded for catcher Dioner Navarro in exchange for minor-league left-handed pitcher Colton Turner. The @BlueJays have acquired C Dioner Navarro from Chicago in exchange for LHP Colton Turner. Welcome back Dioner! pic.twitter.com/cRFcXhhbGh &#8212; Blue Jays (@BlueJays) August [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In a surprise move that was announced just prior to the start of Friday’s game, the Jays have traded for catcher Dioner Navarro in exchange for minor-league left-handed pitcher Colton Turner.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJays">@BlueJays</a> have acquired C Dioner Navarro from Chicago in exchange for LHP Colton Turner. Welcome back Dioner! <a href="https://t.co/cRFcXhhbGh">pic.twitter.com/cRFcXhhbGh</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/769313683176423424">August 26, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Navarro, of course, was the Jays’ full time catcher in 2014 and the back-up catcher behind Russell Martin last season. He left Toronto at the end of 2015 as a free agent and signed a one-year $4 million deal with the Chicago White Sox. In 85 games thus far this season, he’s batting .210/.267/.339 with an OPS of .606. He provides a switch-hitting bat off the bench and will likely back-up Martin once again, which is of particular importance given the likelihood of R.A. Dickey being left off the playoff roster, negating the need for Josh Thole.</p>
<p>It is also noteworthy that Narvarro caught Marco Estrada last season. Given Estrada&#8217;s recent struggles on the mound, it will be interesting to see if the two become battery mates once again. The Jays have often looked to carry a third catcher during September&#8217;s expanded roster period, and without an heir apparent in the Jays system, Navarro fills that role.</p>
<p>Colton Turner is a twenty-five year old lefty who had been playing with the Double-A New Hampshire Fishercats, where he had a 3-1 record with an ERA of 1.33 and a WHIP of 1.09 in 54 innings pitched.</p>
<p><em> Lead photo- Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Why Josh Thole Makes Some Sense For The Blue Jays</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/10/why-josh-thole-makes-some-sense-for-the-blue-jays/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/10/why-josh-thole-makes-some-sense-for-the-blue-jays/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2016 13:46:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dave Church]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dioner Navarro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[josh thole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=2108</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s beyond difficult to defend the performance of Josh Thole so far this year. He has one job, and has barely been doing that. Even so, talk among Jays fans of upgrading at backup catcher in the off-season was, to my mind, a waste of breath; as long as R.A. Dickey remained on the roster, [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It&#8217;s beyond difficult to defend the performance of <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=46730">Josh Thole</a> so far this year. He has one job, and has barely been doing that. Even so, talk among Jays fans of upgrading at backup catcher in the off-season was, to my mind, a waste of breath; as long as R.A. Dickey remained on the roster, so too was Thole assured of a spot as his caddy. Even with Dickey having had his typically putrid April, he&#8217;s unlikely to go anywhere. So Jays fans will likely have to suffer through Thole&#8217;s pop-gun hitting and spotty receiving for the remainder of the year, all because of his history with Dickey and his role as someone who can (allegedly) catch the knuckleball.</p>
<p>We don&#8217;t necessarily need to be happy with Thole as the backup. Again, he has been bad by most measurements this year. But when we break it down, we can find several reasons as to why the Jays were mostly quiet on the backup catcher front this off-season, and why they probably will be during the regular season, barring a disastrous injury or three.</p>
<h3>Russell Martin is Really Good</h3>
<p>Over his career, Russell Martin has been a great catcher &#8211; a rare one who is great both offensively <em>and</em> defensively (even if his hitting so far this season has left a lot to be desired). Prior to the season, PECOTA projected him to be the best catcher in the AL by WARP this year. This is why the Jays signed him to a rich five-year contract prior to last season: To be great. And he was in 2015, finishing with a great-for-a-catcher .240/.329/.458 slash line, 23 home runs, and 77 RBIs.</p>
<p>Martin also continues to be an excellent game-caller. There was some concern coming into this season about Marco Estrada, who mostly pitched to Dioner Navarro last year, and whether he would keep that up with Martin behind the plate. Estrada hasn&#8217;t missed a beat, and that&#8217;s a credit to both he and Martin, <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/10/marco-estrada-is-using-the-change-in-more-ways-than-one/" target="_blank">as Joshua Howsam explains</a>.</p>
<p>If Martin gets hurt, Thole can&#8217;t replace him. But no one could, reasonably. It&#8217;s the same with a lot of the Jays&#8217; star studded roster: Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki, Marcus Stroman, and others. You wouldn&#8217;t really replace any of them, either. You <em>could</em> argue that Martin is probably more valuable than any of them, because of his position. At least if Bautista goes down, Dalton Pompey would excite the Canadian flag bearers for a few weeks.</p>
<p>Because of his contract, the Jays want to maximize what they get out of Martin. He ended up playing in 129 games last season, the most he has played since 2012. That also meant having him try to catch R.A. Dickey as they attempted to free themselves from their obligation to have Thole on the major league roster. Unfortunately, Martin and the Jays discovered that catching the knuckleball wasn&#8217;t as easy as it looked.</p>
<h3>Catching a Knuckleball Is Hard</h3>
<p>Martin became a passable receiver for Dickey last year, but it took a toll on him. Kyle Matte (who now writes for BP Toronto) wrote a fantastic piece on Capital Jays about how <a href="https://capitaljays.com/2015/11/04/the-knuckleball-effect-on-russell-martin/">catching Dickey made Martin much worse on days Dickey started</a>. As Matte laid out, he basically turned into- wait for it- Josh Thole. So, rather than have your really good catcher be bad, why not just have the bad catcher in there, taking the lumps and preserving the health and effectiveness of your star?</p>
<p>The Jays faced Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright twice early in the season, and fans got another team&#8217;s take on catching the trick pitch. It was interesting to note that he had different catchers each time: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70407">Blake Swihart</a> for the first outing, and <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=36585">Ryan Hanigan</a> for the second. Neither seemed to have as much trouble as Thole has this year. This begs the obvious question: CAN anyone catch the knuckleball? Or is there something special about Dickey&#8217;s that makes it more difficult?</p>
<p>We need only go back to opening day of 2013, watching J.P. Arencibia flail away behind the dish, to see the potential problems with bringing in a new face to catch the knuckler. It&#8217;s a testament to Martin&#8217;s ability that he got to the point where we didn&#8217;t really notice any struggles he had catching the pitch. But if Martin could be trained up- and Swihart and Hanigan can figure out Wright- could the Jays get someone else?</p>
<h3>Most Backup Catchers are Bad</h3>
<p>Consider potential knuckleball catchers Swihart and Hanigan: They combined for 0.8 WARP in 118 combined games for the Red Sox last season. Would the Jays be immediately better with either one of them? Probably not. The two of them didn&#8217;t even make a win&#8217;s difference over the course of two-thirds of a season. Backing up Russell Martin (who, for what it&#8217;s worth, had 4.4 WARP in his 2015 season), they&#8217;re not going to play enough to budge the needle, based on that pace.</p>
<p>We could also look at the aforementioned Navarro, who started in 2014 and was an overpaid backup last season (mostly because the Jays couldn&#8217;t trade him). Though he developed good chemistry with Estrada and Mark Buehrle, he wasn&#8217;t good statistically, actually ending up below replacement by WARP during his time in Toronto. Should the Jays have kept him? Not for what it would have cost. He wanted to start, and sure wasn&#8217;t going to do that in Toronto. With $82 million invested in their starter, why waste money on Navarro when he didn&#8217;t so much as break even?</p>
<p>There are internal options as well, in former prospects Tony Sanchez and A.J. Jimenez, toiling away at AAA Buffalo. They represent hope, and the potential for something more than Josh Thole. But the simplest explanation works here: there&#8217;s a reason neither has stuck on a major league roster. Sanchez, a former high pick, couldn&#8217;t get a major league deal. The Jays thought so much of Jimenez that he was exiled from the 40 man roster prior to the start of the season, and not a single other team claimed him. Maybe either of them would be better than Thole. But while familiarity with Thole has bred contempt with fans, there was probably some comfort in that familiarity to the current front office. They know what Thole is by now, and the certainty of the role Thole would have on this team. It wasn&#8217;t worth change for the sake of change to them.</p>
<p>When we look around the league, we can see there aren&#8217;t a lot of a good backup catchers out there. When they do exist, it&#8217;s often because the starting catcher isn&#8217;t good, or they themselves are on track to starting eventually. For a team like the Jays, who have an elite starting catcher, the backup isn&#8217;t a priority. Their goals should be to use Martin as much as they reasonably can, while also protecting the $82 million investment they have in him. In Thole, they have someone who accomplishes both of those things. He gives Martin a scheduled day off, removes the burden of catching the most difficult pitch, and doesn&#8217;t make enough money for them to be worried.</p>
<p>Looking at this, we can see why the Jays continue to use Josh Thole, even as we fans clamor for someone, anyone else, on the nights when he flails away both at and behind the plate. The Jays having a knuckleballer is an additional problem (especially when he&#8217;s pitching poorly), but also a solution in that it gives Martin a logical, consistent break. As much as the Jays want to use Martin, catchers can&#8217;t play every day. No, Thole isn&#8217;t good. But most backups aren&#8217;t good. And whether the backup is Thole or someone else, he&#8217;s not going to be nearly as good as Martin. That&#8217;s the situation the Jays are in, and for one day out of five, we can probably live with the drop off.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY SPORTS</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Marco Estrada Embraces Leadership Role; Ready to Repeat 2015</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/16/marco-estrada-embraces-his-leadership-role-ready-to-repeat-2015/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/16/marco-estrada-embraces-his-leadership-role-ready-to-repeat-2015/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Mar 2016 11:00:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dioner Navarro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=355</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Things certainly didn’t start well this spring for Marco Estrada. Before exhibition games even began, he found himself sidelined with a sore back caused by an errant stretching exercise. As each of the other seven men battling for rotation spots put up good outings and impressed the coaching staff, Estrada could only watch and wait for [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Things certainly didn’t start well this spring for Marco Estrada. Before exhibition games even began, he found himself sidelined with a sore back caused by an errant stretching exercise. As each of the other seven men battling for rotation spots put up good outings and impressed the coaching staff, Estrada could only watch and wait for his body to heal up. Many assumed that his issues stemmed from a career high 200⅓ innings last year (including the playoffs), but when I spoke to him in Dunedin, it became clear that wasn&#8217;t an issue.</p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400">“I&#8217;ve always been a second half pitcher,so last year I felt even stronger in the months of August and September, then in October I felt great. I think if the season lasted until November I would&#8217;ve felt even better.”</span></em></p>
<blockquote><p><em><span style="font-weight: 400">“I&#8217;ve always been a second half pitcher,so last year I felt even stronger in the months of August and September, then in October I felt great. I think if the season lasted until November I would&#8217;ve felt even better.”</span></em></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When asked if he had changed anything in his offseason workouts, Estrada said that he had “maintained everything the same,” so the injury was likely just one of those fluke things. Regardless, Estrada is finally back on the mound, having tossed 2 innings in a simulated game on Tuesday. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">With the injury behind him, the 32 year old is facing a big year, as he hopes to repeat last year’s success. Most people and projections, PECOTA included, are expecting quite a bit of regression. That&#8217;s mostly due to the rate at which flyballs off Estrada stayed in the yard in 2015. However, the Mexican righthander has a different view on things. While some would call him a flyball pitcher, Estrada likes to refer to himself as a &#8216;pop-up&#8217; pitcher.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When you look at the numbers from last year, it sort of starts to make sense. Yes, Estrada had an incredibly low HR/FB rate of 8.7 percent, but he also posted a career low “hard hit rate” of 27.2 percent, <a href="http://fangraphs.com">per FanGraphs</a>. While batters were hitting the ball in the air, they weren’t doing it with any sort of power; that was no accident.</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400">“I just try and stay away from the thigh. Over the belt, to the letters is kind of the safe area. So I try to maintain that&#8230; I&#8217;ve elevated, gotten a lot of swings and misses.”</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">While it’s true that Estrada has always worked up in the zone more than most pitchers, he took it to an extreme last year. The heat map on the left is fastballs from 2007 to 2014, while the heat map on the right is solely from last season.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Estrada-Pre-2015.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-356" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Estrada-Pre-2015.png" alt="Estrada Pre 2015" width="350" height="350" /></a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Estrada-2015-actual.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-370" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/Estrada-2015-actual.png" alt="Estrada 2015 actual" width="350" height="350" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">As you can see, Estrada threw above the belt more often than he ever has before. Of course, not everybody can get away with that, especially when they only throw 88-90 mph and aren’t 6’10” like Chris Young. Many attribute Estrada’s success to his spin rate, but he has another viewpoint:</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400">“I know guys talk about how I only throw 90 mph and I&#8217;m throwing it by guys&#8230;They&#8217;re like ‘Well it&#8217;s because of your spin rate’ and I told them ‘No. It&#8217;s because I have a good changeup and it makes the fastball look harder.’ And I&#8217;ve talked to hitters, and that&#8217;s what </span><span style="font-weight: 400">they </span><span style="font-weight: 400">tell me. ‘Well dude, I&#8217;m thinking changeup and you just have to honour the fastball because the changeup is so good.’</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Whether it&#8217;s spin, pitch mix, or some combination of the two, it’s very clear that whatever Estrada was doing last year worked. However, he did that work almost exclusively with Dioner Navarro, who is now handling catching duties for the Chicago White Sox. This year, Estrada will be working with the Blue Jays starting catcher, Russell Martin. Thankfully, the Jays are on the ball:</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400">“I know (Martin) has a video with Pete Walker. I know they&#8217;ve gone over certain sequences that I had done with Navarro and to just try to get a feel for how he called the game.”</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Of course, none of that should be a surprise, as Martin is a catcher who takes pride in his ability to call a game. In <a title="Jayson Stark's piece on ESPN" href="http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/page/springtraining_bluejaysd/toronto-blue-jays-define-strong-middle">Jayson Stark’s piece on ESPN</a> about the Jays up the middle defense, Russell Martin said that &#8220;[his]</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400"> most important job is trying to get the best out of each individual who&#8217;s on that mound that day. And [he feels</span></em><em><span style="font-weight: 400">] like [he has] a knack for understanding somebody&#8217;s strengths and somebody&#8217;s weaknesses. &#8230; A lot of it&#8217;s instinctual too. It&#8217;s feel&#8230;you can go over a scouting report. But the hitter&#8217;s out there making adjustments as well&#8230;it&#8217;s kind of like jazz. There&#8217;s a certain beat and rhythm. But sometimes, it&#8217;s unpredictable. And [Russell wants his] pitcher, in a way, to be unpredictable.&#8221;</span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">This is important, because, as you may or may not have noticed, Estrada almost never shook off Dioner Navarro. He picked up that mentality from Mark Buehrle. There are few pitchers more respected in the game than the pseudo-retired Buehrle, so Estrada was more than willing to lend an ear. The wily old lefty always stressed that it was important to have conviction behind every pitch. The important takeaway for Estrada was that if he’s asked “to throw 4-5 fastballs in a row down and a way, all [he] needs to know is if [he hits his] spot [he&#8217;s] going to be pretty successful.” This philosophy is about removing pressure. If you have trust in your catcher and conviction in your ability to execute any pitch, “it&#8217;s going to make the game a lot easier and a lot more fun.” And in the end “you&#8217;ll be a lot more successful.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Estrada has tried to pass this message on to his younger teammates, knowing how hard things can be early in one&#8217;s career. When he first started out, Estrada’s mind “was going a million miles an hour.” And then even after trying to slow the game down following his chat with Buehrle, things didn’t switch immediately. It took “a few games” for Estrada to move his mindset from merely telling himself “whatever they call I&#8217;m throwing it” to “yep, I’m going to hit that glove.” However, once he figured it out, it made the game “a lot easier and a lot more fun.” If any of the Jays young starters take this message to heart, things could apparently go a lot smoother for them in 2016. I’m looking at you, Aaron Sanchez.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Of course, Estrada isn’t done trying to get better just because he seems to have acquired this zen-like trust in his catcher. Like any great athlete, Estrada is always striving to adapt so that he can be the best. He learned his now famous changeup in the minors (from Clint Everts) when he realized he didn’t have enough of a repertoire to get pro hitters out. Then, just last year Estrada added his current cutter, which he now feels comfortable throwing in any count. </span><span style="font-weight: 400">It seems Estrada is also toying with a sinker, which he has learned from Brad Penny, but only for situations where he </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400">absolutely </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400">needs a double play. He is fully aware that all of his current offerings have four-seam spin, so a sinker would assuredly stand out&#8230;and not in a good way. Still, it would be a nice weapon to have, and just another thing to put in the back of a hitter’s mind.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">When you consider Estrada&#8217;s leadership, the drive to get better, and the understanding of what makes him successful, it’s easy to see why the Blue Jays were willing to invest $26M in a pitcher who&#8217;s previous high salary was $4 million.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">They Blue Jays were willing to bet on Marco Estrada, and after speaking with him, I am too.</span></strong></p>
<p><em><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</span></strong></em></p>
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