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	<title>Toronto &#187; Joe Biagini</title>
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		<title>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 72: The DA Rests</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/30/artificial-turf-wars-ep-72-the-da-rests/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Aug 2017 09:59:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Episode 72 Former major league pitcher David Aardsma stops by to talk about playing out the string on a losing club, dealing with watching the game while injured from the sidelines, and MLB&#8217;s current issues with the juiced ball. Greg and guest host Nick Dika also discuss the debut of Brett Anderson, Joe Biagini&#8217;s attempt [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/turfpod"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-9098" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/02/patreon_logo-300x94.png" alt="patreon_logo" width="252" height="79" /></a><br />
<strong><br />
Episode 72</strong></p>
<p>Former major league pitcher <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=45369" target="_blank">David Aardsma</a> stops by to talk about playing out the string on a losing club, dealing with watching the game while injured from the sidelines, and MLB&#8217;s current issues with the juiced ball. Greg and guest host <a href="https://twitter.com/NickDika" target="_blank">Nick Dika</a> also discuss the debut of Brett Anderson, Joe Biagini&#8217;s attempt to rejoin the rotation, another week of poor play from the Jays, and the new Player&#8217;s Weekend. Finally, they answer listener questions, give a Do Over to the Texas Rangers, and a Gold Star to die hard Blue Jays fans.</p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/024/show_10240883_2017_08_30_03_59_18.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/024/show_10240883_2017_08_30_03_59_18.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></p>
<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>The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 6 &#8211; 10)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/25/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-no-6-10/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jul 2017 10:59:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bo Bichette]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12567</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Twice a year over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron publishes a list of who, in his opinion, are the fifty most valuable trade assets in baseball. Cameron&#8217;s most recent update was published over the All-Star break earlier this month. Rather than simply listing the best players, he has attempted to blend past performance and future projection [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Twice a year over at FanGraphs, Dave Cameron publishes a list of who, in his opinion, are the fifty most valuable trade assets in baseball. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-trade-value-honorable-mentions/">Cameron&#8217;s most recent update</a> was published over the All-Star break earlier this month. Rather than simply listing the best players, he has attempted to blend past performance and future projection with age, team control, and remaining salary. It&#8217;s why, for example, Clayton Kershaw falls outside of the top fifty despite being undeniably the best pitcher in baseball. Not only does he have a salary prohibitive to all but a small handful of clubs, but his contract has a clause that allows him to opt-out at the conclusion of any season in which he&#8217;s traded. Kershaw is the best pitcher on the planet. He&#8217;s nowhere near the most valuable to anyone but the Los Angeles Dodgers.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think Dave is the first to come up with the concept, but in terms of both execution and quality, it&#8217;s his that I look forward to most during the lulls of the baseball calendar. With that being said, it&#8217;s always a tad disappointing that we only get his insights and rankings of one, two, or maybe three Blue Jays players, if we&#8217;re lucky. This is why I&#8217;m going to tangent off Dave&#8217;s work, in an effort to offer you my perspective on the ten most valuable trade assets in the Toronto Blue Jays organization. If you have a differing view, please don&#8217;t be afraid to let me hear it.</p>
<p>With the trade deadline only a week away, there may be no more appropriate time for such an endeavour. Not only is the Blue Jays&#8217; 2017 season at a crossroads, but both their short- and long-term outlooks are as well. Few would argue that standing pat and hoping for better luck with the same aging roster seems untenable. Does the front office throw good prospects and money after bad players and try to make one final push, or begin unloading some legitimately valuable assets in an effort to avoid a Phillies-esque unrewarding collapse to the bottom of the division for the next five years?</p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t meant to be the blueprint for a tear down or a shopping list for other teams; there are plenty of both floating around. The players that Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are most likely to move aren&#8217;t going to shift the needle substantially either way. In fact, I&#8217;d be shocked if any of these ten get moved in the coming days. But just in case they do, here are, numerically, one man&#8217;s outlook of the Blue Jays&#8217; ten most valuable trade chips. Ten to six will be published this morning, with five to one released tomorrow.</p>
<p style="text-align: left"><strong>#10: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70988">RHP Joe Biagini</a></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/10B-Biagini.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12598" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/10B-Biagini.png" alt="#10B Biagini" width="466" height="104" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: left">The tenth most valuable trade asset in the Toronto Blue Jays organization is right handed pitcher Joe Biagini. Since being claimed as a Rule 5 pick from San Francisco, the 27-year old has worked long relief, late innings, and even in the starting rotation. He certainly has the repertoire to stick in the rotation as his four-pitch mix has always graded exceptionally well by <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/12/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-5-all-star-break-edition/">Mike Sonne&#8217;s &#8220;Stuff&#8221; metric</a>. Biagini has produced modest strikeout rates, but offsets this with a remarkable proficiency for inducing groundballs. Belying his advanced age, Biagini has accumulated fewer than two years of service time and thus is under team control through 2021—including next season at league minimum. Biagini has the potential to build up significantly more trade value if he is able to settle into a role in the coming months and give teams a bit more certainty about what he is. The most recent rotation/bullpen swingman of similar quality with three-plus years of control to be traded was Drew Smyly, though he had affixed himself in the rotation by the time he was used as a piece in the <em>first</em> David Price trade back in 2014.</p>
<p>Biagini narrowly edged out catcher Russell Martin, who would have been the eleventh name on the list. Martin is still a top ten or fifteen catcher in baseball, but with the club owing him 40 million over the next two years, he&#8217;s paid like someone in the top three. Not only that, but he&#8217;ll be 35 years old in 2018 and nagging injuries have begun to take their toll on his game—particularly his arm behind the dish. Were the Blue Jays to pay his salary down, something that wasn&#8217;t considered in building the list, he could certainly net some interesting pieces. Look no further than the Astros acquisition of Brian McCann last winter, with the Yankees picking up 11 of the 34 million remaining on his deal in order to get a pair of intriguing prospects.</p>
<p><strong>#9: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=100193">2B Devon Travis</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/9-Travis.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12582" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/9-Travis.png" alt="#9 Travis" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Devon Travis is 26-years old. He&#8217;s under control through 2020 with his first of three trips through arbitration on the horizon this winter. He capably plays an up-the-middle position, and is a career .292/.331/.462 hitter. This is the résumé of a player who should be one of the most valuable assets in any organization. Of course, as always, the story with Travis isn&#8217;t his performance on the field, but how much time he spends off it. In his brief career the second baseman has already been placed on the disabled list four times, two of which included subsequent transfers to the 60-day disabled list.</p>
<p>If he doesn&#8217;t play another game with the Blue Jays in 2017, shoulder and knee injuries will have limited him to 213 of a potential 486 regular season games since he made the Opening Day roster in 2015. Put another way: by the end of the season he&#8217;ll have accumulated three years of service time despite playing in just 44 percent of the team&#8217;s games over that time. Jedd Gyorko and Dee Gordon are second baseman with similar service time to have been moved in recent years, with the former landing Jon Jay in San Diego and the latter Andrew Heaney with the Dodgers, though neither has the tantalizing all-around upside that Travis possesses. With this kind of asset, the obvious most is to hold. You&#8217;d be selling for pennies on the dollar today, and a healthy Devon Travis is a piece that any team would love to build around tomorrow.</p>
<p><strong>#8: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=58692">1B Justin Smoak</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/8-Smoak.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12583" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/8-Smoak.png" alt="#8 Smoak" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Of all of the players to receive consideration for the top ten, Justin Smoak&#8217;s value was the hardest to nail down. He was the 11th overall pick in the 2008 amateur draft and a highly touted prospect in the years that followed, but the first seven years of his major league career &#8212; across three organizations &#8212; were a complete nightmare. He hit .223/.308/.392 over nearly <em>three thousand </em>plate appearances, and entering 2017, most Blue Jays fans were hoping the front office could find a way to bury him for as little money as possible. Yet incredibly here on July 23rd, he&#8217;s sporting a .302/.377/.598 slash line and is tied for fourth in all of baseball with 27 home runs.</p>
<p>Better than most others, Blue Jays fans have seen something like this before. Jose Bautista transformed himself from a league average bat to an elite slugger, and while most were skeptical of that production lasting in the long run, he&#8217;s proved us and everybody else but Alex Anthopoulos wrong. On the flip side, we also saw Michael Saunders hit .298/.372/.551 in the first half just last season, followed by a .178/.282/.357 second half, a .205/.257/.360 line with the Phillies in 2017, and his eventual release once they grew tired of him.</p>
<p>Thankfully, that much-maligned contract extension he received last summer gives the Blue Jays—and other teams—extra time to view Smoak with a dubious but intrigued eye without having to pre-emptively commit serious coin in support of this breakout. He&#8217;s under control for 2018 at a modest salary of $4.1 million, with a club option for 2019 that starts at $6.0 million and contains playing time incentives that could push it to $8.0 million. Smoak is the eighth most valuable player in the Blue Jays organization as of this summer, but not unlike the two men behind him, could shoot up the list if he can continue to prove that the last four months are more relevant than the previous seven years. If the Athletics move Yonder Alonso in the coming days, that would set the absolute floor for a Justin Smoak trade if the Blue Jays were to push him to market with the sustainability questions still lurking.</p>
<p><strong>#7: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=107491">SS Bo Bichette</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/7-Bichette.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12584" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/7-Bichette.png" alt="#7 Bichette" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>The Blue Jay with the seventh most trade value is the first of two prospects to make the list, shortstop Bo Bichette. Bichette has taken the prospect world by storm this season, hitting nearly .400 with Single-A Lansing as a 19-year old, and ascending from the back end of the organization&#8217;s top ten to inside the top fifty in all of baseball (#29 on the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32224">Baseball Prospectus</a> mid-season update; #44 on <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-midseason-top-100-prospects-july-7/#YwyoFbAuhiRBP8uX.97">Baseball America&#8217;s</a> list).</p>
<p>Bichette is an exceptionally interesting prospect, as his ranking on both of those lists—and this one as well—is an attempt to find the balance between his immense upside and the legitimate concerns about how his swing will hold up against more advanced pitching. Some evaluators see him as a 6/6 bat and power guy, which at an up-the-middle position is an unbelievably valuable piece for any organization. There are others, however,  who see his fielding necessitating a move to third base and his bat wrap causing issues when he reaches the upper minors. Still, there are plenty of teams who would gamble on the former, and it&#8217;s why despite being in just the Florida State League he could be the main—or only—trade chip used to acquire a legitimate big league talent.</p>
<p>Last summer the Cubs used Gleyber Torres (BP midseason #34) to land Aroldis Chapman, and Cleveland sent Clint Frazier (BP Midseason #26) to the Yankees to land Andrew Miller. More recently, Blake Rutherford (BA Midseason #36) was sent to the Chicago White Sox as the centerpiece for a package of David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, and Todd Frazier. Each of those three prospects falls in the neighbourhood of Bichette&#8217;s current ranking, and provides comparables for the type of return he could potentially net.</p>
<p><strong>#6: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=46084">LHP J.A. Happ</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/6-Happ.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12585" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/6-Happ.png" alt="#6 Happ" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>I went back-and-forth between Bichette and Happ on who should be six and who should be seven, and in reality, it probably is more of a 6A and 6B situation. Just last summer a pair of left handed starters with similar production and contract status were moved, with the Padres landing Anderson Espinosa for Drew Pomeranz and the Tampa Bay Rays receiving Lucius Fox (and Matt Duffy) for Matt Moore. Those returns aren&#8217;t dissimilar to the value most are placing on Bo Bichette today.</p>
<p>J.A. Happ will be 35-years old next season, but he&#8217;s yet to show any signs of age catching up to him. His average fastball velocity has remained steady at around 92 miles per hour for the last four seasons, and he ranks in the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=L&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=P&amp;month=&amp;year=2017&amp;pitch=FA&amp;ds=velo&amp;lim=200">upper third among left handed starters</a> by that metric. One potential drain on Happ&#8217;s value is that he&#8217;s only under contract for one more year after 2017, and while it&#8217;s certainly below market value given his performance the last three years, the 13 million he&#8217;s owed isn&#8217;t nothing to a team like Milwaukee or Pittsburgh trying to make a push.</p>
<p>Starting pitching is always in demand, but the type of that demand varies greatly between the summer and winter. Almost every team is looking to bolster their rotation in the offseason, but the market takes a bit of a shift at the trade deadline. The bubble teams may be salivating over someone like J.A. Happ, but the division leaders with plenty of heft at the front end of their rotation might be hesitant to give up a ton of value for someone who would be their fourth starter and might only make one start in the postseason. The Washington Nationals, for example, could see the Blue Jays lefty as a perfect plug for the fifth spot in their rotation over the next two months, but might barely use him come October behind Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Gio Gonzalez.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/" title="The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 1 – 5)" target="_blank">Click here for the rest of the list</a> as we run from number five down to the most valuable player in the Blue Jays organization.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>There&#8217;s No Need to Worry About Joe Biagini&#8217;s Workload</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/16/are-we-asking-for-a-4th-wish-pitching-workloads-and-joe-biagini/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/16/are-we-asking-for-a-4th-wish-pitching-workloads-and-joe-biagini/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Jun 2017 10:09:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Workload]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Joe Biagini has moved from his role as bullpen stalwart to the Jays rotation and has filled Aaron Sanchez’s starting spot admirably. While the wins seem to be eluding him, Biagini is racking up the strikeouts, keeping the runs to a minimum, and looking every bit like a Major League starting pitcher. Of course, a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Joe Biagini has moved from his role as bullpen stalwart to the Jays rotation and has filled Aaron Sanchez’s starting spot admirably. While the wins seem to be eluding him, Biagini is racking up the strikeouts, keeping the runs to a minimum, and looking every bit like a Major League starting pitcher.</p>
<p>Of course, a transition from the bullpen to the starting rotation does tend to lead to a few concerns – and if you check around the Twitterverse, the big one with Joe is his workload. His career high in innings pitched at the Major League level is 67.2 – set last season. In 2017, he’s already at 56.0 innings. Remember though – Biagini rose through the Giants system as a starting pitcher – and his career high in innings as a professional is from the 2015 season where he threw 130.1 innings to the tune of a 2.42 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. (Sorry, these stats are irrelevant. I’m just looking at the baseball reference page and I can’t believe the Giants didn’t have a spot on their roster for Joe. Thanks, guys.)</p>
<p>So back to the topic at hand – Biagini is going to blow away his career inning total this season if he stays in the rotation. Tom Verducci is probably just cackling away, eagerly awaiting the moment when poor Joe’s arm flies off because he passes the dreaded 30% innings increase. I am here to tell you; do not worry about Joe Biagini’s workload. Everything is going to be fine.</p>
<p>Innings pitched alone is an ineffective method of determining if a pitcher is at a high risk of getting injured. Overall pitch counts don’t really do the job either. <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/an-introduction-to-fatigue-units-a-new-method-for-evaluating-workloads/">Taking you back a bit to some of my previous work, I came up with a metric called “Fatigue Units”. </a>This incorporates the work from other researchers to produce a metric that includes known risk factors for injury &#8211; such as days rest between appearances, fastball velocity, pitches per inning, and the total innings pitched in a season. Using this analysis method, fatigue units were a more effective approach identifying workloads that lead to UCL reconstructions in subsequent seasons than were innings pitched. So, what do Joe Biagini’s 2017 and 2016 workloads look like?</p>
<div id="attachment_11646" style="width: 743px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/biagini-workload.png"><img class="wp-image-11646" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/biagini-workload-1024x784.png" alt="biagini workload" width="733" height="561" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Figure 1. Various Workload Metrics for Joe Biagini during the 2016, and 2017 seasons. Inning Appearances, Pitches, and Fatigue Units (starting from top left, and going clockwise.</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The first two graphs probably concern you &#8211; and that&#8217;s fine. He is throwing a lot more innings &#8211; and that is a risk factor &#8211; but what I&#8217;m trying to get at is that these innings are much less stressful on Joe. Looking at the days between his appearances, Biagini had an average of 2.83 days between appearances in 2016 (if you&#8217;re doing this math at home : if there is ever a period of greater than 10 days between appearances, I just removed it from the calculation). During the 2017 season &#8211; that&#8217;s up to 3.35 days between appearances, and in the past two months &#8211; he&#8217;s closer to six days between appearances (thanks to the new role).</p>
<p>Joe has also become more efficient in 2017 &#8211; moving from an average of 16.6 pitches per inning in 2016 to 14.6 pitches per inning in 2017. A while ago, <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/fatigue-inferences-on-a-100-pitch-limit/">I wrote about how throwing more pitches per inning is likely the cause of more fatigue</a>, and not total pitches per game &#8211; so, I was really happy to read this.</p>
<div id="attachment_11647" style="width: 723px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/fatigue-per-inning.png"><img class="size-large wp-image-11647" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/fatigue-per-inning-1024x510.png" alt="Fatigue per inning, based on pitches per inning. Each line represents a 100 pitch start, divided between 4 - 9 inning appearance lengths." width="713" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Figure 2. Fatigue per inning, based on pitches per inning. Each line represents a 100 pitch start, divided between 4 &#8211; 9 inning appearance lengths.</p></div>
<p>The moral of this story is: do not just think of an innings increase as a kiss of death for a pitcher &#8211; not all innings are created equal. Giving Joe Biagini more time between his outings will help him out immensely when it comes to recovering &#8211; and remember: he has a starter&#8217;s pedigree. Instead of worrying about Biagini&#8217;s innings increase, go back to thanking the baseball gods that the Giants didn&#8217;t have room for him on their 40 man.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The STUFF report &#8211; Vol. 2, Issue 3</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/18/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-3/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/18/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 May 2017 10:24:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10971</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Things are looking up &#8211; arms have stopped flying off pitcher&#8217;s bodies and some wins have started coming around (until this series). But &#8211; what about the Stuff? We always want to know about the Stuff. Starting Pitchers &#160; Now, the STUFF report gets a bit messy here &#8211; because Joe Biagini has become a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Things are looking up &#8211; arms have stopped flying off pitcher&#8217;s bodies and some wins have started coming around (until this series). But &#8211; what about the Stuff? We always want to know about the Stuff.</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Teable.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10974" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Teable-1024x192.png" alt="Starter Teable" width="700px" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph1.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10975" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph1-1024x742.png" alt="Starters - Graph" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, the STUFF report gets a bit messy here &#8211; because Joe Biagini has become a very bad man as a starter. When you look at his Starting Stuff &#8211; it&#8217;s pretty comparable with the known beast of STUFF &#8211; Aaron Sanchez. Just how similar are the two?</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/sanchez-vs-biagini.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10976" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/sanchez-vs-biagini-1024x328.png" alt="sanchez vs biagini" width="700" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>A limitation of the STUFF metric is that it doesn&#8217;t look at pitches individually &#8211; it looks at the pitcher&#8217;s arsenal as a whole. When you do this &#8211; it&#8217;s pretty evident just how similar Sanchez and Biagini look. Obviously Joe doesn&#8217;t have the nasty sinker that Sanchez posses as a main weapon, but the velocity is comparable, the change in speed is very similar, and Sanchez gets a bit more separation between his pitches. One advantage that Biagini has over Sanchez is that he tends to use more of his arsenal. This plays very well when considering the prospect of Biagini being a starter over the long term.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relief-Table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10972" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relief-Table-1024x227.png" alt="Relief Table" width="700" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph1.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-10973" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph1-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Graph" width="700" /></a></p>
<p>After some down weeks to begin the season (and some down results to follow), Roberto Osuna&#8217;s STUFF has started to climb towards its 2016 level. There have also been increases in STUFF by Joe Smith, Dominic Leone, and Jason Grilli. This has had mixed results for the pen &#8211; as Smith has been lights out, Leone has been hit or miss, and Grilli has been a bit of a punching bag. The Bullpen had a bad one this week, but they&#8217;ve had a lot of success recently. Let&#8217;s hope they can keep it up.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays continue facing the worst Stuff rotation in the Majors on Thursday &#8211; the Braves, lead by Colon and Dickey, aren&#8217;t lighting up the radar guns. Let&#8217;s hope the hitters can take advantage and steal a game.</p>
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		<title>Joe Biagini Is Going to Be Starting on Sunday&#8230;Because It&#8217;s 2017!</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/05/joe-biagini-is-going-to-be-starting-on-sunday-because-its-2017/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/05/joe-biagini-is-going-to-be-starting-on-sunday-because-its-2017/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 May 2017 20:55:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Gideon Turk]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mat Latos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10723</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You read the title. You&#8217;ve heard the news. Joe Biagini, the Rule Five draft pick from a year ago who took the Toronto bullpen by storm (topical weather joke!) in 2016 will be starting for the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field. Joe Biagini will start for #BlueJays Sunday per manager John Gibbons [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You read the title. You&#8217;ve heard the news. Joe Biagini, the Rule Five draft pick from a year ago who took the Toronto bullpen by storm (topical weather joke!) in 2016 will be starting for the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Joe Biagini will start for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a> Sunday per manager John Gibbons</p>
<p>&mdash; Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) <a href="https://twitter.com/bnicholsonsmith/status/860590844872732674">May 5, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Biagini, 26, has been off to another dominant start in the bullpen this season, showing increased command and a higher affinity for striking batters out. This has resulted in an increase of his K-BB% by over five percentage points over 2016. In February, Matt Gwin <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/joe-biagini-should-start-the-season-as-a-starting-pitcher/" target="_blank">wrote a piece</a> explaining why Biagini is a great fit as a starter, and it boils down to just having a ton of pitches that he can use to get through an opponent&#8217;s lineup multiple times in a game. Biagini hasn&#8217;t started games in the regular season since he was in AA in 2015 with the Giants organization, but he did so pretty successfully with a 2.42 ERA in over 130 innings. It&#8217;s unclear how his velocity will be impacted when he has to pace himself, but his broad repertoire should help him mitigate any drop-offs.</p>
<p>With Mat Latos being designated for assignment earlier in the day, J.A. Happ still &#8220;a ways off&#8221; according to John Gibbons on Wednesday, and <a href="https://twitter.com/bnicholsonsmith/status/860592973750427648" target="_blank">Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s return</a> now being slowed down, the Blue Jays were in need of two starters in their current rotation. To solve the issue, the Blue Jays will be going with Biagini on Sunday, while Marcus Stroman, originally scheduled for Tuesday, will move up to pitch on normal rest on Monday. That means the Blue Jays still need a starter for Tuesday&#8217;s game. It appears as if it will likely be Mike Bolsinger, as he was <a href="https://twitter.com/baseballexis/status/860596173165481988" target="_blank">scratched from his start</a> in Buffalo tonight and <a href="https://twitter.com/Panikkar37/status/860582756631425024" target="_blank">threw a 90 pitch bullpen</a> last night. That puts him in line to start next week.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays pitching staff is in shambles because they were not prepared to deal with so many injuries at once. Because of that, the bullpen has been overtaxed and has struggled. No bullpen, no matter how good, will be able to give you five or six brilliant innings night in and night out, so moving Biagini to the rotation is being done in hopes of stabilizing another rotation spot. Although <a href="https://twitter.com/ArashMadani/status/860592593515802625" target="_blank">Gibby is only hoping</a> for four innings in Sunday&#8217;s start out of Biagini, the hope here is building him up into a successful starter who can give the bullpen a rest instead of having to come in and put out fires started by Mat Latos.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays will need some good luck as the season gets closer and closer to slipping away and hopefully Biagini will be able to grant their wishes with this move.</p>
<p>That sentence wasn&#8217;t as bad as watching Mat Latos pitch, so I don&#8217;t apologize.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Joe Biagini is Making his ERA Disappear</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/24/joe-biagini-is-making-his-era-disappear/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/24/joe-biagini-is-making-his-era-disappear/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Apr 2017 13:15:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dave Church]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pitcher of the Week]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10341</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every week in this space, we&#8217;re going to be running down the &#8220;Pitcher of the Week&#8221; for the Toronto Blue Jays. This won&#8217;t always be the best pitcher, but it will always be someone who did something notable that we can break down further. Using information from games through Friday (Saturday-Friday), we will try to [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Every week in this space, we&#8217;re going to be running down the &#8220;<strong>Pitcher of the Week</strong>&#8221; for the Toronto Blue Jays. This won&#8217;t always be the best pitcher, but it <strong>will</strong> always be someone who did something notable that we can break down further. Using information from games through Friday (Saturday-Friday), we will try to show you something interesting each and every week. </em></p>
<p>Despite some injuries and some struggles, the Jays&#8217; pitching in 2017 has had many several sterling performances. This week had no shortage of candidates to highlight: Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano put up zeroes in their outings and Danny Barnes had three scoreless outings after being called up. But we&#8217;re going to highlight the workhorse of the Blue Jays&#8217; bullpen: Joe Biagini. He had five outings in a busy week with zero earned runs, lowering his already excellent ERA to a much nicer 0.69.</p>
<p>Coming into the season, there were no shortage of questions surrounding the former Rule 5 draft pick. Would he continue being effective in his second season? Would the Jays convert him to a starter? Would he supplant Grilli as a setup man, or perhaps be used as a long man, in preparation for a future conversion? While some of those questions remain, one certainty is that Biagini&#8217;s effectiveness has dismissed a lot of the worry surrounding his performance. With a bullpen that&#8217;s had it&#8217;s share of turmoil, Biagini has been a rock of stability, someone John Gibbons has had no hesitation calling upon when the situation called for it.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at a recent time Biagini bailed the Jays out of a tight spot, in Friday&#8217;s game against the Angels. It wasn&#8217;t pretty, but he notched the save, battling through a few tough at-bats to get there.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s the 13th inning. Jose Bautista had hit his first home run of the season in the top half, off old friend Jesse Chavez, giving the Jays a three-run lead. With Roberto Osuna unavailable, Gibbons&#8217; first call to close the game out is Aaron Loup. A couple of errors and a walk loaded the bases, and had Jays fans (the seven or so that were still awake for a west coast, extra inning game) gripping their armrests a little tighter. Gibbons ambles out, and Joe Biagini comes in. The bases are loaded, nobody is out, and Mike Trout- merely the best player in existence- is lurking two batters away.</p>
<p>The first victim is Cliff Pennington, another familiar face to Jays fans. He, like Chavez in the top half of the inning, does his old squad a solid, striking out on four pitches. Biagini is now a double-play away from getting out of the inning without any damage, and avoiding the Angels&#8217; best hitter.</p>
<p>Kole Calhoun would have none of that, however.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginicalhoun.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10343" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginicalhoun.png" alt="biaginicalhoun" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to blame Biagini for this. A cutter down and away, followed by a 95 mph fastball in a nice spot off the plate away that Calhoun drives it into left field and scoring a run. Tip your cap, and move on.</p>
<p>Now, it&#8217;s Trout, with the tying run but two bases away. Biagini&#8217;s painted himself into a bit of a corner. So what does he do?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginitrout.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10344" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginitrout.png" alt="biaginitrout" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Biagini is smart in his approach to Trout. There&#8217;s nothing to hit here after a first pitch fastball on the inside part of the plate, throwing three more fastballs to get it to 2-2, getting a call on the close fourth pitch. The fifth pitch (right at the 1.5 on the graph) is a curveball in the dirt, trying to get Trout to chase. Biagini, correctly, wants none of the Angels&#8217; biggest threat, but has now run the count to 3-2.</p>
<p>Hitting Trout with a cutter probably wasn&#8217;t the ideal outcome for this, but continued with the strategy of giving Trout nothing to hit. It pulled the Angels within one, adding another unearned run to Aaron Loup&#8217;s ledger. Biagini still needs two more outs, and don&#8217;t worry, it&#8217;s only one of the best hitters of this generation coming up, Albert Pujols.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginipujols1.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10346" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginipujols1.png" alt="biaginipujols" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>If Jays fans were uneasy after the Trout at-bat, they were probably feeling better after this three-pitch strikeout. A fastball just off the plate inside, a curveball on the plate, and a 96 mph fastball well in, off the plate that Pujols swings at and misses for strike three. Straight gas from Biagini, just blowing him away.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s one more to go, and this one one just might have been Biagini&#8217;s best work of the night.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginicron.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10347" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/biaginicron.png" alt="biaginicron" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Biagini keeps the heat coming to start out against Cron, throwing three fastballs, and getting Cron down 0-2 quickly. A curveball misses outside for the fourth, but it&#8217;s in a good spot- just off the plate, trying to get Cron to chase. The Angels first baseman fouls off the next two, leaving the count at 1-2 before the seventh pitch. Biagini, for the first time in his outing, busts out a changeup, just below the zone, that gets Cron to fly out to centre field, ending the threat and the game.</p>
<p>This wasn&#8217;t Biagini&#8217;s best outing of the week, with him hitting a batter, occasionally missing his spots, and having two runs score on his watch (that weren&#8217;t charged to anyone because of errors). That Gibbons called on him here speaks to the trust that the young pitcher has earned from his skipper, a trust he rewarded by closing out the victory.</p>
<p>Biagini has been a horse so far this year: he&#8217;s already pitched in 10 of 16 games, throwing 13 innings, a pace that would be unheard of in today&#8217;s era of bullpen specialization and shorter relief outings. With some of the struggles the Jays have had, Biagini has been a reliable contributor and has a bright future with the Jays in whatever role they want to put him in.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-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>Joe Biagini Should Start the Season as a Starting Pitcher</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/joe-biagini-should-start-the-season-as-a-starting-pitcher/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/24/joe-biagini-should-start-the-season-as-a-starting-pitcher/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2017 15:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Gwin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9129</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When the Blue Jays selected Joe Biagini in the Rule 5 Draft last offseason, he had made just two relief appearances in his entire career. Both came in 2012, when he was in low-A ball playing for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. Biagini was a starter, through and through. Yet the Blue Jays took Biagini with the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>When the Blue Jays selected Joe Biagini in the Rule 5 Draft last offseason, he had made just two relief appearances in his entire career. Both came in 2012, when he was in low-A ball playing for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. Biagini was a starter, through and through. Yet the Blue Jays took Biagini with the clear purpose of using him as a reliever in 2016. Picks from the Rule 5 Draft rarely work out, but choosing Joe Biagini certainly did. He was a mainstay at the back of the bullpen and posted a 3.06 ERA and 3.69 DRA over 67.2 innings. His success, while intriguing, isn&#8217;t the most interesting thing about Biagini&#8217;s 2016 season. Instead it&#8217;s that he was successful as a &#8220;starter in a reliever&#8217;s uniform,&#8221; a phrase which my colleague Joshua Howsam <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/09/joe-biagini-a-starter-in-a-relievers-uniform/" target="_blank">coined back in September</a>.</p>
<p>It didn&#8217;t start that way: Joe Biagini began the season throwing one of his fastball or curveball 94 percent of the time. However, by the time playoff baseball rolled around in October Biagini was mixing between four pitches on a fairly consistent basis: fastball, changeup, curveball, slider. That&#8217;s a starter&#8217;s repertoire.</p>
<p>As we&#8217;ve found already this Spring, the Blue Jays appear to believe in Joe Biagini&#8217;s potential as a starter. <a href="http://m.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article/215972742/joe-biagini-could-be-starter-or-reliever/" target="_blank">MLB.com&#8217;s Gregor Chisolm notes</a> that the Jays told him to &#8220;prepare for both roles,&#8221; referring to the possibility that he could pitch out of the rotation at some point in 2017. Doing so would likely require that Biagini start the season at AAA Buffalo, where he would get stretched out and reacquaint himself to a starting role. In turn, that would make for a Biagini-less bullpen.</p>
<p>Some are concerned by this prospect, but there are three compelling reasons why the start-liever should just be a starter &#8211; at least for the time being.</p>
<h2>Joe Biagini Has a Starter&#8217;s Repertoire</h2>
<p>As we&#8217;ve already noted, Biagini isn&#8217;t a typical reliever. Not only has he spent almost all of his time in the minors in the rotation, but he has a very usable four pitch mix. To draw some comparisons, I used the method that Jeff Sullivan utilized to generate and point out <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marcus-stromans-absurd-set-of-pitch-comps/" target="_blank">Marcus Stroman&#8217;s absurd set of pitch comps</a>.</p>
<h4>Slider</h4>
<p>The slider is one of Joe Biagini&#8217;s two big out pitches, but with a whiff rate of 23 percent, it&#8217;s definitely the more effective of the two.</p>
<p><strong>Top Comps:</strong> Tyler Yates, Matt Harvey<br />
<strong>Comp Rating:</strong> 1.2</p>
<p>You&#8217;ve probably never heard of Tyler Yates and there&#8217;s good reason for that. He was a journeyman reliever for the Mets, Braves, and Pirates. His slider was glorious, but his command was not. Matt Harvey on the other hand has one of the nastier sliders in the league.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone" src="http://www.fangraphs.com/not/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Harvey-Slider-1.gif" alt="" width="390" height="213" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center">GIF via <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com" target="_blank">FanGraphs</a></p>
<p>Joe Biagini&#8217;s slider is similarly speedy with an average velocity above 90 MPH (<a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=ALL&amp;month=&amp;year=&amp;pitch=SL&amp;ds=velo&amp;lim=100" target="_blank">7th highest in the PITCHf/x era</a>) and has nasty late bite. At 4.97 inches, the degree to which it fights gravity is also particularly notable (<a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pitchfx/leaderboards/index.php?hand=&amp;reportType=pfx&amp;prp=ALL&amp;month=&amp;year=&amp;pitch=SL&amp;ds=vmov&amp;lim=100" target="_blank">17th highest in the PITCHf/x era</a>), mimicking the Harvey slider above.</p>
<h4>Fastball</h4>
<p>While high in velocity, Joe Biagini&#8217;s fastball isn&#8217;t an out pitch, but instead a set-up for his secondary offerings. This was borne out in the results as it had a relatively average <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/outcome.php?player=607352&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;time=year&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=whiff&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=03/30/2007&amp;endDate=02/23/2017" target="_blank">eight percent whiff rate</a>.</p>
<p><b>Top Comp: </b>Jim Johnson<br />
<strong>Comp Rating:</strong> 0.4</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not an outstanding comp at the outset, but a comparison to Jim Johnson makes sense. Johnson similarly throws a relatively straight four-seam fastball with a lot of velocity. In Johnson&#8217;s case, he uses the four seam as an occasional alternative to the sinker that dominates his arsenal. As a starter Biagini would do the same for his slider.</p>
<h4>Changeup</h4>
<p>The changeup is often what differentiates a potential starter and a pitcher destined for a relief role. Interestingly enough, while Biagini throws a solid changeup now, it wasn&#8217;t a large part of his pitch mix up until the end of the season. Up until the end of August changeups comprised less than five percent of Joe Biagini&#8217;s pitches. However, in September and October he used it almost twice as much and it had a comparable amount of whiffs to his wipeout slider.</p>
<p><b>Top Comp: </b>Andrew Cashner<br />
<strong>Comp Rating: </strong>0.4</p>
<p>Cashner had a great changeup when he first dominated with the Padres, but this is a less than inspiring comp.</p>
<p><strong>Curveball</strong></p>
<p>When the Blue Jays acquired Joe Biagini, he came to them as a fastball/changeup/curveball pitcher, with the curveball being his main out pitch. As was noted above, that changed in 2016, with Biagini establishing his slider as a true menace.</p>
<p><strong>Top Comp: </strong>Scot Shields<br />
<strong>Comp Rating:</strong> 0.3</p>
<p>The switch to the slider is probably for the best; though Scot Shields carved out a nice career as a reliever using a just a fastball/curveball combo, by the time the PITCHf/x era came around he was a shadow of his former self.</p>
<h2>The Blue Jays Have Relief Depth</h2>
<p>Even if you take out Joe Biagini, the Blue Jays have three potential set up men in Jason Grilli, J.P. Howell, and Joe Smith. Only Grilli is close to a guarantee at back of the bullpen, but there are reasons to believe that Howell and Smith could be formidable. Between 2012 and 2015, Howell and Smith had the 12th and 29th best ERAs among qualified relievers.</p>
<p>Beyond them, the Blue Jays have 11 options to fill four spots in Aaron Loup, Glenn Sparkman, Mat Latos, Gavin Floyd, Ryan Tepera, Bo Schultz, Danny Barnes, Dominic Leone, Matt Dermody, Chris Smith, and <a title="ATW Episode 45: All Mike’d Up" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/podcasts/atw-episode-45-all-miked-up/" target="_blank">recent podcast guest</a>, Mike Bolsinger. Of that group, five had a K/9 of over 10 in the minors in 2016 (Barnes, Bolsinger, Leone, Smith, and Sparkman). Then, there are others have had previous success, be it in the rotation or in the bullpen (Bolsinger, Loup, Latos, and Floyd).</p>
<p>With relievers, it&#8217;s important to remember that any player with promise can be successful over a small sample, which is what a relief season amounts to. As a result, if you can&#8217;t get the quality at the top end of the relief market then quantity is often a better strategy. If the Blue Jays hit on one of the high strikeout relievers, then they could have a 2017 Joe Biagini.</p>
<h2>It&#8217;s Easier to Go One Way Than the Other</h2>
<p>Converting a reliever to a starting role takes time. The pitcher not only needs to build up arm strength, but they&#8217;ll often need to adjust their approach. This is why we don&#8217;t see many relief to starter switches in the middle of the season (outside of spot starts). However, there&#8217;s plenty time in Spring Training. Joe Biagini can start building up to a starter&#8217;s work load now and be ready for the AAA rotation. Then if something goes awry in the bullpen, it&#8217;s easier to convert him back to a reliever. There could be a strategic adjustment, but there&#8217;s less ramp up time.</p>
<p>Joe Biagini was a starter in the minors. He developed a full four-pitch repertoire in 2016. He has an out pitch that one could reasonably compare to that of Matt Harvey. There are options to replace him in the bullpen in the near term. In other words, the Blue Jays shouldn&#8217;t be asking themselves &#8216;why&#8217; try Biagini as a starter, but &#8216;why not.&#8217;</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Joe Biagini: A Starter in a Reliever&#8217;s Uniform</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/09/joe-biagini-a-starter-in-a-relievers-uniform/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/09/joe-biagini-a-starter-in-a-relievers-uniform/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:11:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=6430</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Joe Biagini has been nothing short of a revelation this season. He started off as an irreverent Rule 5 pick who didn’t even know the rules about if/how he could stay on the Blue Jays. And even with the Rule 5 designation, he needed injuries to earn a real chance at making the team out [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Joe Biagini has been nothing short of a revelation this season. He started off as an irreverent Rule 5 pick who didn’t even know the rules about if/how he could stay on the Blue Jays. And even with the Rule 5 designation, he needed injuries to earn a real chance at making the team out of spring. He was such a wild card that even he was <a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2016/03/30/pitcher-joe-biagini-awestruck-at-being-named-to-blue-jays-roster.html" target="_blank">surprised that he actually earned a spot</a>. Now he’s carrying a 2.43 ERA across 59 1/3 innings and has become one of the most trusted men in John Gibbons’ bullpen. He won’t get many Rookie of the Year votes, Michael Fullmer seems to have that locked up, but he has clearly made way more impact than anybody could have hoped for from a freshman reliever.</p>
<p>Clearly, Biagini has been very good. What’s interesting though, is how he has gotten here. To Jays fans, he is a reliever. That’s all they’ve seen, and he’s been great there. But should he actually stay there? Probably not.</p>
<p>Because he was in another organization, most people aren’t aware that Joe Biagini was a starter for his entire minor league career. He stuggled at the outset, but finally broke through in 2015 with Double-A Richmond, where he posted a 2.42 ERA with a career best 2.3 BB/9. His strikeouts fell, however, so the Giants left him off their 40-man roster and thus eligible to be selected by the Blue Jays.</p>
<p>The Jays didn’t need a starter with Sanchez, Floyd, Chavez, and Hutchison battling for one rotation spot, so Biagini was never given a chance in that role. But as the season has gone on, we’ve seen more of that version of the tall righty. Most relievers have two, maybe three pitches that they rely on to get outs. At the outset of 2016, this was certainly true for Biagini, as over 95 percent of his offerings were either fastballs or curveballs. With the depth on his breaking ball and the movement on his fastball, this made some sense, and it helped him go through his first month of the season allowing just a solitary earned run across 6 2/3 innings.</p>
<p>As the season has gone along, however, Biagini has continued to add. He started throwing a slider in May and continued to get very good results, once again allowing just a single earned run but across 14 1/3 innings this time. By that point, Biagini had taken over the role of eighth-inning reliever thanks both to his 0.86 ERA and the struggles of Drew Storen and Brett Cecil.</p>
<p>The league started to figure Biagini out in June, however, hitting .400/.455/.525 and scoring in six of the righty’s ten appearances. It was an ugly month, and to many, it seemed as though the rookie had just run out of that magic that sometimes shows up at the start of a season. He wasn’t satisfied with that though. Instead of just trying to work through the trouble using the same three main pitches he’d been getting by with all year, Biagini added two more to the mix. He increased his changeup usage to 8.3 percent, and introduced a cut fastball 6.8 percent of the time that is slightly harder than his slider, but with a little less movement.</p>
<p>That gave him five pitches to get hitters out, with all four non-fourseamers being used between 6.8-12.7 percent of the time in July. The curveball is still the preferred out pitch, but he is now a true, five pitch guy. Since going to his full repertoire, Biagini has put up a 2.03 ERA with a strikeout rate of 24 percent and a walk rate of just 3.2 percent.</p>
<p>Now, those stats alone don’t really show anything more than the variance that happens within any single season. The numbers in the following tables do a slightly better job:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/09/biga.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6439" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/09/biga.png" alt="biga" width="495" height="179" /></a></p>
<p>Every single one of Biagini’s pitches misses bats at basically a league-average rate or better, with the curve and slider sitting well above average. Being able to miss bats is a big part of being successful as a pitcher, and certainly helps explain that increased strikeout rate. But there’s more to pitching than just missing bats; what happens after contact is made is important too. Thankfully, Biagini seems to be excelling in that area as well:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/09/biag-ground1.png"><img src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/09/biag-ground1.png" alt="biag-ground" width="496" height="50" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7667" /></a></p>
<p>So not only do all his pitches miss bats, but every one of them gets groundballs over half the time they&#8217;re put into play with the sole exception of the cutter, which still generates them at a solid 44.4 percent clip.</p>
<p>Joe Biagini is a man with five league average or better pitches, good command of the strike zone (season walk rate of 5.5 percent), and gets a ton of groundballs (55 percent for the season). Does that really sound like a relief pitcher to <em>anybody</em>?</p>
<p>This isn’t to say there aren’t real reasons to keep Biagini in the pen. There are. The first and most important is that stuff always plays up in the bullpen when a reliever can just go out there and give everything in short burts and never has to face a batter twice (he has only done so on two occasions: One single, one strikeout). As such, the performance would certainly be expected to dip somewhat with a move to a starting role.</p>
<p>The Jays rotation is also already full next season with Stroman, Sanchez, Estrada, Happ, and Liriano. However, the Jays will also definitely need more than five starting pitchers throughout the year. They have been extremely lucky healthy-wise this year, with only Marco Estrada being forced to miss any starts due to injury (and it was only three). They’ll need to have at least two people lined up to step in in an emergency, and preferably more. Biagini has the minor league experience in the rotation and the many multiple inning stints this year (20/51 appearances), so he definitely has the stamina for the gig.</p>
<p>Joe Biagini should be told to train next season for a spot in the starting rotation, and then come into camp and continue to pitch as though he could make the rotation. He can always be sent back to the pen at that point, and then be used in the Carlos Villanueva role that Jesse Chavez was supposed to fill this year: The swing man who can go multiple innings in relief and then step into the rotation quickly if somebody gets hurt. And if he can’t do it, they already know they have a very capable reliever. It’s a no-lose scenario.</p>
<p>The Jays roster is starting to get expensive, and nothing costs more than starting pitching. Joe Biagini can be a solution to that issue, all while providing tremendous depth and at no risk.</p>
<p>Say it is so, Joe.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Blue Jays &#8220;Stuff&#8221; Report &#8211; Volume 4</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/31/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-4/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/31/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 31 May 2016 14:19:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drew Storen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Biagini]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Blue Jays Stuff Report will be appearing in this space every two weeks. The metric was created by Dr. Mike Sonne, who has a PhD in biomechanics from McMaster University. For his work on pitcher fatigue, injury, and other baseball related research, please visit his website over at www.mikesonne.ca. It&#8217;s that time of the month [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>The Blue Jays Stuff Report will be appearing in this space every two weeks. The metric was created by Dr. Mike Sonne, who has a PhD in biomechanics from McMaster University. For his work on pitcher fatigue, injury, and other baseball related research, please visit his website over at<a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/who-has-the-best-stuff-in-baseball-volume-1/"> www.mikesonne.ca</a>.</em></p>
<p>It&#8217;s that time of the month where you gather up your family, curl up in front of the window AC unit, and look at the Blue Jays Stuff report.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/18/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-1/">Stuff Report Volume 1</a></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/02/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2/">Stuff Report Volume 2</a></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/16/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-3/">Stuff Report Volume 3</a></p>
<h1>Blue Jays Starters</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-3254" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Starters-v4-1024x197.png" alt="Jays Starters v4" width="707" height="136" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Starters-Graph-v4.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3253" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Starters-Graph-v4-1024x743.png" alt="Jays Starters - Graph - v4" width="500" height="363" /></a></p>
<p>There are no real surprises in the Jays starting rotation when it come to Stuff &#8211; Sanchez remains well above the league average, and at last count &#8211; had the 10th best stuff of all starting pitchers in the MLB. A concerning trend to watch is that Marcus Stroman has had three consecutive weeks where his stuff has dropped off. Two of his last three starts have been less than desired. We all know that height does not measure heart &#8211; neither does Stuff #SDMH, but this is a disconcerting trend, especially with the way it has shown up in the results on the field. Happ and Estrada are pitching with below league average stuff, but their location and pitch mix have been so good, that they keep getting hitters out.</p>
<p>In the past two weeks, RA Dickey has seen a slight increase in velocity, and added some range to his break movement. Knuckleballs tend not to be best represented by the Stuff metric, but it&#8217;s interesting to see the how the change is still reflected in better recent performance. And let&#8217;s face it, Dickey&#8217;s innings are going to be very important with possible limits coming for Stroman and Sanchez, so the better he is, the better for the Jays.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="http://m.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=752038783&amp;topic_id=6479266&amp;width=500&amp;height=280&amp;property=mlb" width="500" height="280" ></iframe></p>
<h1>Blue Jays Relievers</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Relievers-v4.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3252" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Relievers-v4-1024x287.png" alt="Jays Relievers v4" width="707" height="198" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Relievers-Graph-v4.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-3251" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/05/Jays-Relievers-Graph-v4-1024x742.png" alt="Jays Relievers - Graph - v4" width="500" height="362" /></a></p>
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<p>It&#8217;s been quite fun to see Joe Biagini pitch as well as he has this season, and you can see that his stuff lead has started to increase over Roberto Osuna in the past two weeks. As his stuff continues to trend upward, so too has his role and performance. He is now arguably the second most trusted reliever in the Blue Jays bullpen. It&#8217;s quite the rise for a man who wasn&#8217;t even protected from the Rule V draft by the Giants. Clearly though, the quirky reliever has been loved wherever he has gone: </p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Joe Biagini video. Remarkable yet disturbing <a href="https://t.co/WZMQkzB8eU">https://t.co/WZMQkzB8eU</a></p>
<p>— Jeff Blair (@SNJeffBlair) <a href="https://twitter.com/SNJeffBlair/status/674992823188504577">December 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Aaron Loup debuts with a great stuff profile at 0.99. That&#8217;s just below the elite level of stuff. It&#8217;s interesting that despite the large loss in velocity &#8211; almost three miles per hour &#8211; Loup still grades high because of his incredible movement. One trend that is interesting to follow is that of Drew Storen. Storen has always profiled with excellent stuff because of the nasty movement on his slider. However, he has seen a large drop in stuff in the past two weeks. Looking a bit closer, his velocity, pitch composition, change of speed, and breaking ball velocity all appear to be holding steady. If you look at the Volume 3 of the stuff report, you&#8217;ll notice that Drew has seen the break distance in his repertoire reduce from 19&#8243; down to 13.8&#8243;. Is this a result of injury? Weather? Evil spirits? I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m not that kind of doctor.</p>
<p>Overall, the Blue Jays relievers seem to have the stuff, but not the performance. Hopefully they can begin to turn things around, as the talent is still clearly there.</p>
<p><em>For more information on the “Stuff Metric”, visit <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/who-has-the-best-stuff-in-baseball-volume-1/">www.mikesonne.ca</a>.</em></p>
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