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	<title>Toronto &#187; Hitting</title>
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		<title>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 66: Teaching Hitting is Tough</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/19/artificial-turf-wars-ep-66-teaching-hitting-is-tough/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jul 2017 09:52:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12488</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Episode 66 Former Blue Jays Assistant Hitting Coach Eric Owens stops by to discuss working with major and minor league hitters, the issues plaguing the recent Blue Jays clubs, Josh Donaldson&#8217;s swing techniques, and why many clubs now have two hitting coaches. Greg and Josh then discuss the returning members of the Blue Jays bullpen, [&#8230;]]]></description>
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<strong><br />
Episode 66</strong></p>
<p>Former Blue Jays Assistant Hitting Coach Eric Owens stops by to discuss working with major and minor league hitters, the issues plaguing the recent Blue Jays clubs, Josh Donaldson&#8217;s swing techniques, and why many clubs now have two hitting coaches. Greg and Josh then discuss the returning members of the Blue Jays bullpen, the continues excellence of Marcus Stroman and Roberto Osuna, the struggles of Marco Estrada and the defence, and Dalton Pompey&#8217;s sad tale. They also answer listener questions and discuss the trades from around the league and their impact on the Blue Jays.</p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/014/show_10149775_2017_07_19_04_47_27.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/014/show_10149775_2017_07_19_04_47_27.mp3" rel="nofollow">Download</a></p>
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<p>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>
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		<title>Steve Pearce on Breaking Through an Early Season Slump</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/25/steve-pearce-on-breaking-through-an-early-season-slump/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/25/steve-pearce-on-breaking-through-an-early-season-slump/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:02:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Evan Peaslee]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[AL East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boston Red Sox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hitting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Gibbons]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Steve Pearce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TORONTO &#8212; Baseball can be a funny game. The harder you try the more the game tends to slip away from you. The entirety of the Toronto Blue Jays roster has frustratingly dealt with this all season with the team breaking out of the gates to a dismal 5-13 record. They know they’re a good [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>TORONTO &#8212; Baseball can be a funny game. The harder you try the more the game tends to slip away from you.</p>
<p>The entirety of the Toronto Blue Jays roster has frustratingly dealt with this all season with the team breaking out of the gates to a dismal 5-13 record. They know they’re a good team, but when they press and try to overcome their slow art in a single game nothing seems to break right.</p>
<p>Few individually have felt this more than newcomer Steve Pearce. After a scorching Opening Day start where the 34-year-old got three hits and scored a run, Pearce managed to equal his first game output of three hits in his next 32 at-bats.</p>
<p>What Pearce has been trying to focus on during this rut is simple, “just getting better.”</p>
<p>“Bottom line we got to get better, individually and as a team.” Pearce said prior to the Jays’ 3-0 win over the Boston Red Sox last Wednesday night at Rogers Centre.</p>
<p>Pearce has admitted to pressing in the opening weeks of the season and trying to do too much at times. What he’s lost during that time is his feel for the game. The feel of the game coming to him instead of chasing it. Seeing the ball out of the pitcher’s hand and making solid contact on a consistent basis.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Bottom line we got to get better, individually and as a team.” &#8211; Steve Pearce</p></blockquote>
<p>As funny as it may sound, in baseball sometimes less is more. When you start to try to do too much you end up pressing and making things more complicated for yourself.</p>
<p>“That’s when everything gets tense. You can’t play the kind of game you want to play when you’re tense,” Pearce said. “The looser you are, the better you feel, the better your production’s going to be, the better you’re going to feel, the better chance you have to get a base hit.</p>
<p>“This game can move so fast. The pitchers are so good that you really have to be in the best position in order to get base hits. They’re throwing 95 mph and if you’re tense that’s going to get blown right by you. You need your body free, and you need to be able to see the ball and unload on it.</p>
<p>“You know what they say, ‘if you’re thinking, you’re stinking.’ …You got to go up there and just see the ball and hit the ball.”</p>
<p>Manager John Gibbons knows this too.</p>
<p>“Baseball’s a different sport. In other sports you can run harder, you can hit somebody harder, you can give a better effort and that can work to your benefit. (In) baseball the harder you try the worse it gets sometimes,” Gibbons said.</p>
<blockquote><p>Baseball’s a different sport. In other sports you can run harder, you can hit somebody harder, you can give a better effort and that can work to your benefit. (In) baseball the harder you try the worse it gets sometimes.” &#8211; John Gibbons</p></blockquote>
<p>For Pearce that has led to a dreadfully slow start to his season slashing a meagre .162/.205/.162. It’s not for lack of talent either as Pearce has averaged 93 games, 16 home runs, 41 RBIs with a slash line of .267/.347/.493 over the last three seasons. All spent in the AL East.</p>
<p>His familiarity of the division however has not benefitted the Lakeland, FL. native, despite all but two of Toronto’s first 15 games coming against the AL East.</p>
<p>Even left-handed pitchers, Pearce’s bread and butter, have kept his offense at bay. Pearce hit .309 with seven home runs in 81 at-bats last season against lefties, and has slashed .264/.347/.489 in his career versus southpaws, but is just 2-for-19 with eight  strikeouts against them this season.</p>
<p>The sample size is small, and the stats magnified this early in the season, but there’s no denying that the first few weeks of the season have been less than ideal for Pearce.</p>
<p>When he’s slumping Pearce relies on video, stats sheets, pitching tendencies, and any other source available to Major Leaguers these days to try and break out of it, but at the end of the day it essentially comes down to feel.</p>
<p>“It’s mostly about feel. You just got to find a feel,” Pearce said. “Your mechanics they could be on or off, but if you feel good that’s really the most important part.</p>
<p>“If you get in that box and you feel good it’s definitely a heck of a lot better than anything. You could be mechanically sound, you could have the perfect BP, the perfect cage swing, but underneath the lights it’s a completely different ball game.”</p>
<p>With three hits in his last four games, Pearce is is at his best production level since his first game as a Blue Jay. A baby step in the right direction.</p>
<p>It’s more than enough for his manager, who has full confidence in his team, and the men on it.</p>
<p>“Pearcey is going to hit,” Gibbons said. “He’s going to hit some home runs, he’s going to swing it for us pretty good.”</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>One Potential Fix for Kevin Pillar&#8217;s Hitting Woes</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/02/one-potential-fix-for-kevin-pillars-hitting-woes/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/02/one-potential-fix-for-kevin-pillars-hitting-woes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Feb 2017 12:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hitting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Pillar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plate Discipline]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8819</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Late last week, Gideon Turk wondered what would happen if Kevin Pillar were more like Vladimir Guerrero. The seemingly ridiculous question was actually anything but, predicated on the idea that Guerrero was unnaturally good at getting hits when he made contact on balls out of the zone, whereas most of Pillar’s such contact turns into [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Late last week, Gideon Turk <a title="What If Kevin Pillar Was Vladimir Guerrero?" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/01/27/what-if-kevin-pillar-was-vladimir-guerrero/" target="_blank">wondered what would happen</a> if Kevin Pillar were more like Vladimir Guerrero. The seemingly ridiculous question was actually anything but, predicated on the idea that Guerrero was unnaturally good at getting hits when he made contact on balls out of the zone, whereas most of Pillar’s such contact turns into outs. It was mostly a hypothetical thought experiment (though an interesting one) looking at how Pillar’s numbers would be changed, but nothing more.</p>
<p>As it turns out, there is an adjustment that could actually improve his hard contact both in <em>and </em>out of the zone, while also raising his walk rate: standing closer to the plate.</p>
<p>Pillar always sets up roughly in the middle of the box. From watching him over the years I’ve begun to notice he has pretty unusual plate coverage. I believed his batters box placement is at least partially to blame, so I decided to test it as best I could.</p>
<p>Take this swing on opening day against Dana Eveland:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bAxjcjT15gY/WJJBfQBSu0I/AAAAAAAADS0/YuD2pBNmmqAAkjLjDDcOiuG-5pC-9bNsQCL0B/h262/PillarF2.gif" alt="" width="475" height="262" /></p>
<p>Or this one against the Angels’ Daniel Wright:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A416RBlLhVQ/WJI6QvwfBOI/AAAAAAAADQ4/kZ41JEVpiPcYsGbyPlgJ1dePtdPdtRkcQCL0B/h263/Pillar2.gif" alt="" width="475" height="263" /></p>
<p>Do you notice how in both of those gifs, Pillar falls towards the first base side after fouling off mediocre fastballs on the outer third of the plate (especially the Wright gif)? His balance is thrown off by the nature of the twist in his swing, but also with the fact that he is reaching down and away and can&#8217;t quite get there.</p>
<p>Now take a look at this one, against the Orioles’ Vance Worley:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9LFp8qhd4uk/WJI7amkmTsI/AAAAAAAADRU/yfkkTn2006gsiwLk1yWQsU0b9nbK95lOwCL0B/h248/PillarDinger.gif" alt="" width="475" height="248" /></p>
<p>That pitch is in off the plate and Pillar hammers it to left field for a home run. After he finishes his swing, he is able to hold his balance before starting his run towards first base, which differs from the uncontrolled fall in the previous two swings.</p>
<p>Obviously those are very specific examples, but they were included so that you have a visual representation of what I am about to show you statistically.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/ISO-combined.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8820" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/ISO-combined.png" alt="ISO combined" width="700" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>The charts above show Pillar’s Isolated Power rates for both 2016 (left) and his career (right) by location (from the catcher&#8217;s point of view). Last year, Pillar hit for more power in every single spot inside off the plate than he did on the outer third of the strike zone. Even for his career, the only area where he is better on the plate is in the upper outside corner. If a player has plate coverage issues, it would make sense that he would still be able to drive the ball up high, as that’s where his arms are going straight and he can get the most reach.</p>
<p>This shows up with exit velocities as well (<a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&amp;hfZ=&amp;hfGT=R%7C&amp;hfPR=&amp;hfAB=6%7C17%7C30%7C&amp;stadium=&amp;hfBBT=&amp;hfBBL=&amp;player_lookup%5B%5D=607680&amp;hfC=&amp;season=2016&amp;player_type=batter&amp;hfOuts=&amp;pitcher_throws=&amp;batter_stands=&amp;start_speed_gt=&amp;start_speed_lt=&amp;perceived_speed_gt=&amp;perceived_speed_lt=&amp;spin_rate_gt=&amp;spin_rate_lt=&amp;exit_velocity_gt=&amp;exit_velocity_lt=&amp;launch_angle_gt=&amp;launch_angle_lt=&amp;distance_gt=&amp;distance_lt=&amp;batted_ball_angle_gt=&amp;batted_ball_angle_lt=&amp;game_date_gt=&amp;game_date_lt=&amp;team=&amp;position=&amp;hfRO=&amp;home_road=&amp;hfInn=&amp;min_pitches=0&amp;min_results=0&amp;group_by=name&amp;sort_col=pitches&amp;player_event_sort=start_speed&amp;sort_order=desc&amp;min_abs=0&amp;xba_gt=&amp;xba_lt=&amp;px1=&amp;px2=&amp;pz1=&amp;pz2=&amp;ss_gt=&amp;ss_lt=&amp;is_barrel=#results_pitchChart_name_607680_" target="_blank">via Statcast</a>):</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Kevin-Pillar-11.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8849" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Kevin-Pillar-11.png" alt="Kevin Pillar (1)" width="353" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>The image above shows all extra-base hits for Pillar last season and in his career, broken down by exit velocity. As you can see, all the dark red dots are on the inner half.</p>
<p>With this information, it’s very clear that Pillar hits for much more power on pitches off the plate inside than he does on the outside edge. Now, this is somewhat logical; most hitters have much more power to their pull side than to the opposite field. As such, we need to look at overall contact as well.</p>
<p>Here are Kevin Pillar’s swinging strike rates by pitch location for both 2016 (left) and his entire career (right), again taken from the catcher’s perspective.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Pillar-swing-and-miss.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8822" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/Pillar-swing-and-miss.png" alt="Pillar swing and miss" width="700" height="350" /></a></p>
<p>Those are broken down into specific locations and using swing and miss rates, but thankfully they give us the raw data so we can get nice totals and represent them as the cleaner contact rates:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/contact.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8853" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/contact.png" alt="contact" width="272" height="67" /></a></p>
<p>As you can see, both last year and for his entire career, Kevin Pillar has done a better job making contact on pitches in off the plate than those that would be called strikes on the outer third. The power is one thing, but that difference in contact is reasonably staggering. He is clearly a much better hitter on inside pitches than on those that are actually in the zone on the outer edge.</p>
<p>This gets back to the issue of standing closer to the plate. Imagine how good Pillar’s numbers would look if you could slide each of those boxes (on both the ISO and contact grids) half a spot to the right. All of a sudden, Pillar is driving the ball on the outer third. Heck, he’d even be making better contact on pitches off the plate away.</p>
<p>That covers the plate coverage issue, but as I mentioned up at the top, this could also raise Pillar’s walk rate. That may sound a bit silly, as moving in the box doesn’t change a player’s desire to swing, but it will change what pitches he&#8217;s<em> able </em>to swing at.</p>
<p>Take a look at this pitch from Sonny Gray on July 16.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LMK7PX59ilg/WJI_Vc6J1YI/AAAAAAAADSM/C7fj4nQgrrMy491PExxlFdWqbZ3QliS5wCL0B/h261/PillarCheck.gif" alt="" width="475" height="261" /></p>
<p>Pillar tries to check his swing, but he goes around for a strike. The video makes it look bad, but the camera angle can fool you. We better check where it was actually located:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/pillar-inside.gif"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8824" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/pillar-inside.gif" alt="pillar inside" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>Ok, that&#8217;s even worse. That pitch is over a <em>foot </em>inside. Moving closer to the plate would mean that pitches like that simply <em>can’t</em> be swung at. Pillar would either be diving out of the way or wearing it on his hip. That’s how the walk (and HBP) rate goes up on pitches on the inside.</p>
<p>The obvious corollary to that is that Pillar is going to swing at more pitches off the plate, and while Pillar has always been more likely to chase inside than outside (below), you are adding some swings that were in the zone before.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/swings.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8825" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/swings.png" alt="swings" width="500" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>If everything above moves a half grid to the right, you’re definitely getting some extra chase outside, but you’re also probably going to see more takes on those offerings that are now <em>way</em> outside. Pitchers simply don’t like to throw the ball that far off the plate on purpose, even to free swingers like Pillar. All of their training is to build the muscle memory to throw strikes. They’ll certainly push the boundaries occasionally, especially with right-handed sliders, but for the most part they’re going to attack a non-power hitter like Pillar because that&#8217;s what their bodies are telling them to do.</p>
<p>Now, for this plate shift to work Pillar <em>would</em> have to get used to seeing the ball from an entirely different angle, but this is something that he does every time a new pitcher comes to the mound. While it’s true that there are certain clusters where most pitchers release the ball, there is more than enough variance that any major league hitter should be able to make this adjustment.</p>
<p>Whatever they’ve tried with Pillar to this point clearly hasn’t worked. This move at least gives him a chance. As has been shown, the move closer to the plate could improve the quality and frequency of contact for Pillar both in and out of the zone, and even increase his ability to get on base without a hit. If he can even get <em>slightly</em> better at those things, he’s a star player with his work in centre field.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s time for Pillar to take that next step, and it could be as easy as stepping toward the plate.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><i>Charts via <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/h_landing.php?player=607680" target="_blank">Brooks Baseball</a><br />
GIFs created with special thanks to <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca" target="_blank">Sportsnet</a> and <a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp?product=INTL" target="_blank">MLB.TV</a></i></p>
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		<title>How the Blue Jays &#8220;Walked&#8221; to a Division Title</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/14/toronto-blue-jays-walks-2015/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/14/toronto-blue-jays-walks-2015/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2016 10:00:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Wisniewski]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Walks]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[As the 2016 season is about to begin, let&#8217;s start by reminding ourselves that the Toronto Blue Jays of 2015 won with a particular group of players, and a particular brand of baseball. The method they chose, even when it didn&#8217;t get them the results they deserved, was, more or less, as follows: Score a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As the 2016 season is about to begin, let&#8217;s start by reminding ourselves that the Toronto Blue Jays of 2015 won with a particular group of players, and a particular brand of baseball. The method they chose, even when it didn&#8217;t get them the results they deserved, was, more or less, as follows: Score a lot of runs. Lots and lots of runs. Score so many runs other teams are embarrassed to compare their totals to yours. And then, after you&#8217;ve done that for a few months, figure out how to pitch like an average team. In a world of limited resources (both players and cash), not every team finds themselves with the ability to have other-worldy run scoring, or unbelievably stingy pitching. However, the Jays did handle one end of the game from both sides of the ball exceedingly well. They knew how to work the walk.</p>
<p>Offensively, the Jays took what they had and ran with it. They were an elite offense in many different ways. For the moment, I&#8217;m going to set aside the home runs, doubles and stolen bases. As you can probably guess from the previous paragraph, I&#8217;m going to talk about walks. I&#8217;m doing this because nobody remembers a really heroic walk, and they deserve better. Until last year, the Jays have historically not been a &#8220;tough out,&#8221; even with their power heavy lineup over the last five years. However, in 2015, the lineup made other pitchers hand out free passes plate appearances at a league leading level. The Jays had the highest walk rate in the American league, at 9.1 percent, and missed being the walkiest team in all of MLB, just 0.1 percentage points behind the Dodgers. In the last five years, over 150 combined seasons of baseball, last year&#8217;s Jays sit tenth on the list. When you combined that with the Jays&#8217; aversion to striking out, you get something special. On a scatter plot, with K rate and walk rate, you can see the relative strength of the 2015 team vs. all the other seasons in the sample. Previous Jays seasons are highlighted for reference.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-hitters-seasons_edited-11.jpg"><img class=" size-full wp-image-199 alignnone" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-hitters-seasons_edited-11.jpg" alt="BB hitters seasons_edited-1" width="571" height="397" /></a></p>
<p>This team is up around the sparsely populated &#8220;happy&#8221; end of the graph. That would certainly help a team score a lot of runs. Of course, we&#8217;ve come to expect an offense that is better than average, so the 2015 offense isn&#8217;t a huge shock.</p>
<p>From the mound, things were a bit more surprising. The Jays have enjoyed a recent history of being some of the most generous pitchers in baseball. And I don&#8217;t mean that in a good way. Take those same 150 seasons of baseball from above, and flip them to the pitching side of the equation, and they reveal a staff that, on multiple occasions, did its best to hand out as many free passes as possible. The 2012 Jays were the fourth most walk prone team in the last five years, and the 2011 team comes in at 23rd. They  did drop to 66th in 2013, and 69th in 2014, but those are both still on the wrong side of the midpoint. It needs to be mentioned that the strike zone, which is fixed in the rulebook, has been growing in the real world. As the <a href="http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/the-impact-of-the-evolving-strike-zone-090914">strike zone continues to expand at the bottom</a>, it gets more difficult to walk batters each year. In 2014, however, the Jays were still walking 8.0 percent of the batters they faced. Then in 2015, the Jays started off the same way, leading the AL in walks into the month of may. And that&#8217;s when something remarkable happened. The Blue Jays suddenly turned into a unit of pitchers with elite control. So much so, that by the end of the season, they had the fourth fewest walks in MLB. On our five year list of teams, the 2015 Jays sit at 144 of 150, and this is a list you want to be right at the bottom of.</p>
<p>When we look at a scatter plot the difference comes into sharp focus.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-Pitchers-seasons_edited-1.jpg"><img class=" size-full wp-image-198 alignnone" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-Pitchers-seasons_edited-1.jpg" alt="BB Pitchers seasons_edited-1" width="571" height="397" /></a></p>
<p>That&#8217;s a long trip from 2012 to 2015, but even the switch from 2014 to 2015 is a huge jump. The ability to limit the base on balls was truly out of character for recent Toronto teams.</p>
<p>So the question arises, how often does a team do these things, both take walks and limit walks at an elite level? Looking back at the top 15 teams (the top 10 percent) in each side of that five season sample, we come back with four teams on both lists. The 2014 Athletics ranked third best at taking walks, with the 14th fewest issued. The 2015 Dodgers were eighth and ninth, respectively. The 2015 Jays, as mentioned were 10th and seventh, and the 2015 Cubs were 11th and 13th. These teams won 88, 92, 93 and 97 games, and all of them got to at least a wild card game. Now, this is a nice correlation, but I&#8217;m not suggesting walk management is the only path to the playoffs. The elephant in the room here is the KC Royals, who wouldn&#8217;t take a walk even if they found a little old lady desperate to cross the street. They finished, in 2014 and 2015, with the fewest and second fewest walks taken in our five year sample. They still won the World Series. But that&#8217;s probably a story for a completely different post on a different website. Let&#8217;s focus on the Jays, and what walks mean for them.</p>
<p>The 2016 season is almost here, and I am curious to know whether either of those walk management performances are within the grasp of this new edition of the Toronto Blue Jays. I could get the back of this napkin all covered in pen marks trying to figure out what happens when you replace <a title="Ben Revere" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=56615" target="_blank">Ben Revere</a> with <a title="Michael Saunders" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=48766" target="_blank">Michael Saunders</a>, and wave goodbye to <a title="Mark Buehrle" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/p/1526" target="_blank">Mark Buerhle</a> and put <a title="Marcus Stroman" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70371" target="_blank">Marcus Stroman</a> in his place, or make any number of other possible roster tweaks. Why do that though, when I have the 2016 PECOTA spreadsheet at my disposal?</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s get to the bad news first. If I remove all the pitchers that I don&#8217;t expect to see at the MLB level this year from the mix&#8230;I still get way too many innings for a whole season. Projections systems can be funny like that. But I&#8217;m more concerned about the rate of walks, not the total number, so that&#8217;s just fine. Factoring in IP, walks, hits and hit batters, I come up with a walk rate of 8.4 percent. Batters reaching or error will factor in during the real games, skewing the number down slightly, but we don&#8217;t have a projection for how many errors the Jays will commit. On the graph it looks like this.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-Pitchers-seasons_with-2016_edited-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-201" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-Pitchers-seasons_with-2016_edited-1.jpg" alt="BB Pitchers seasons_with 2016_edited-1" width="571" height="397" /></a>I told you it was bad news. Nothing about the revised pitching staff that the Jays take into 2016 projects to prevent walks the way they did in 2015. It would be nice, but it&#8217;s just not looking likely.</p>
<p>And quickly now, before we get depressed, let&#8217;s move on to the good news! Taking the PECOTA projections for batters, I pull out all of those not expected to see time at the major league level this year, and I&#8217;m left with 16 players. Using PECOTA&#8217;s projected walk and PA numbers, I do the simple division, and I get a walk rate of 9.4 percent. It looks like this:</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-hitters-seasons_with-2016-projection_edited-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-202" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/03/BB-hitters-seasons_with-2016-projection_edited-1.jpg" alt="BB hitters seasons_with 2016 projection_edited-1" width="571" height="397" /></a>Yes, the lineup is projected to get even better at taking bases for free. So, if you enjoy opposing pitchers struggling to nibble away at the corners, and glancing into the on deck circle to contemplate their fate, <a title="Troy Tulowitzki" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=46724" target="_blank">Troy Tulowitzki</a>, <a title="Jose Bautista" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=32570" target="_blank">Jose Bautista</a>, <a title="Josh Donaldson" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=56185" target="_blank">Josh Donaldson</a>, <a title="Edwin Encarnacion" href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=31564" target="_blank">Edwin Encarnacion</a>, and company figure to be doing that even more than in previous years.</p>
<p>Of course, only time will tell what 2016 has in store. I encourage you, however, to remember the walks, even though they don&#8217;t make the highlight packages very often. They are an important part of the puzzle that makes a winning team, so they deserve their recognition.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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