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	<title>Toronto &#187; Jose Bautista</title>
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		<title>The Season That Was: Exaggerated, Oversold, and Bound to Disappoint</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/17/the-season-that-was-exaggerated-oversold-and-bound-to-disappoint/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/17/the-season-that-was-exaggerated-oversold-and-bound-to-disappoint/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Oct 2017 11:07:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Gwin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2017 Blue Jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Disappointment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13664</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many years ago, when I was just entering high school, I took a business class. The teacher, let&#8217;s call him Mr. Stewart, was a quirky fellow &#8211; and quite honestly not that great of a teacher &#8211; but on the first day of class he told us something that he said we&#8217;d remember for the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Many years ago, when I was just entering high school, I took a business class. The teacher, let&#8217;s call him Mr. Stewart, was a quirky fellow &#8211; and quite honestly not that great of a teacher &#8211; but on the first day of class he told us something that he said we&#8217;d remember for the rest of our lives: the happiness formula. He wrote it on the board.</p>
<p>Results &#8211; Expectations = Level of Happiness</p>
<p>It seemed too simple to care about, silly even. He then shared with us a seemingly sillier example:</p>
<p>&#8220;If a friend asks to borrow $10 from you and you expect that  $10 back at some point, but never get it, you&#8217;ll surely be unhappy&#8221;</p>
<p>0 &#8211; 10 = -10 → very unhappy</p>
<p>&#8220;If a friend asks to borrow $10 from you and you oblige out of the goodness of your heart, not expecting that you&#8217;ll receive the $10 back at some point, you&#8217;ll surely be content&#8221;</p>
<p>0 &#8211; 0 = 0 → throughly content</p>
<p>His example seemed poor. Why would one be content having lost $10? When I have experienced that very situation, however, I&#8217;ve found the happiness formula to ring true.</p>
<p>Now consider the 2017 Toronto Blue Jays. The team was coming off a season in which they&#8217;d won 89 games — their seventh highest total —and yet again come one stop short of the World Series. Pretty exciting stuff. The team then proceeded to lose their second best player, make Kendrys Morales their marquee signing, and have their already old starting roster age another year. The result? Projected records that put the Blue Jays well below the same projections in the previous season and even further below the team&#8217;s actual 2016 record.</p>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160404055301/http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/" target="_blank">Projected 2016 Record</a>: 86-76<br />
<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2016-standings.shtml" target="_blank">Actual 2016 Record</a>: 89-73<br />
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170402051004/http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/" target="_blank">Projected 2017 Record</a>: 81-81<br />
<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2017-standings.shtml" target="_blank">Actual 2017 Record</a>: 76-86</p>
<p>But because the team had surprised each of the last two seasons, the general consensus was that there was still a good shot at the playoffs again in the 2017. Statistically speaking, the consensus wasn&#8217;t wrong; any team projected to have at least as many wins as losses is bound to have 30 percent plus playoff odds. Though, compared to previous seasons, fans were no longer betting on a great season from a great team, they had to bet on a lucky season from an ok team. When that works, it&#8217;s incredibly exciting, but when it doesn&#8217;t it&#8217;s bound to disappoint. In either case expectations need to be set well in order to get a happy conclusion.</p>
<p>Results &#8211; Expectations = Level of Happiness</p>
<p>The problem, however, is that expectations weren&#8217;t set well at all, and we at BP Toronto were as big a culprit as any. In our preseason bold predictions piece, only one person seriously predicted a record at or below .500, and that was Bennett Brauer at 81-81, but we were by no means alone. TSN <a href="http://www.tsn.ca/al-east-preview-pitching-will-carry-blue-jays-1.694961">predicted that the Blue Jays would win the AL East title</a> on the backs of another successful year of pitching. Every one of <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/mlb-roundtable-award-predictions-world-series-picks-2017/" target="_blank">Sportsnet&#8217;s baseball analysts forecasted that Toronto would be in the playoffs</a>, and a few had the team as the AL East division winners. NBC Sports predicted that the team would <a href="http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/03/19/2017-preview-toronto-blue-jays/" target="_blank">place second in the AL East</a>. Even <a href="https://nesn.com/2017/03/al-east-preview-which-team-has-best-chance-to-knock-off-red-sox-in-2017/" target="_blank">Boston-based NESN thought the Blue Jays would be pressing the Red Sox for the division title</a>, noting that, &#8220;Toronto easily is the second-most complete team in the AL East, and if the Red Sox slack off at all, the Jays likely will be poised to snatch the top spot.&#8221; We set the expectations quite high, but we had no logical reason to.</p>
<p>This was prevalent beyond the beginning of the season as well. Even as the team dwindled in the standings in April, May, and June, there was still widespread thought that a push for the playoffs could come, which I <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/24/reframing-the-rest-of-the-blue-jays-season/" target="_blank">wrote about at the time</a>.</p>
<p>In reality, as we know, the team didn&#8217;t meet those expectations, but it was due to more than just bad luck, indicating that it was an issue with expectations, not with results. Yes, Aaron Sanchez&#8217;s nagging blisters didn&#8217;t help, and the Bringer of Rain&#8217;s injury induced drought was a disaster. But even if those two things hadn&#8217;t occurred it&#8217;s entirely possible that the Blue Jays would have found themselves without meaningful October baseball. In other words, there were a myriad of issues.</p>
<p>Per PECOTA&#8217;s projections, Toronto lost out on 1.5 WARP from Aaron Sanchez and 1.1 WARP from Josh Donaldson, which, even when generously extrapolated to additionally lost value from the two players&#8217; replacements, wouldn&#8217;t have been enough to make them competitive. The team wasn&#8217;t good enough. Of the Blue Jays&#8217; primary starters — the 25 players on the team&#8217;s roster on Opening Day plus Roberto Osuna — 14 underperformed their PECOTA projections while 12 over performed them.</p>
<p>If we accept that reality, then in order to take the team from &#8216;not good enough&#8217; to a playoff spot, one of two things would&#8217;ve had to have happened.</p>
<p><strong>1. Play Out All the Games and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NV6Rdv1a3I" target="_blank">Get Lucky</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Even though it&#8217;s most likely that a team plays <em>at</em> their true talent level, in any given season a team can play roughly ten games above or below their expected win total. The most recent and most prominent example of this is the 2016 Texas Rangers. They finished the 2016 season with 95 wins while only scoring eight more runs than they gave up over the full season. Had those runs been more evenly distributed, they would&#8217;ve missed the playoffs, but instead they won the division. However, as you can imagine, betting on this luck is an incredibly unsustainable strategy. When a team plays that high above their true talent level, it&#8217;s the outlier not the norm.</p>
<p><strong>2. Make Major Deadline Additions</strong></p>
<p>This was the 2015 Blue Jays&#8217; playoff strategy. In April, May, and June of 2015, Toronto&#8217;s playoff odds hovered between 10 and 20 percent, which is actually fairly similar to where the 2017 team was. At the 2015 deadline, however, the team added David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, and relief depth, thereby increasing the team&#8217;s true talent level. Given the prospect — and $ cost — of this path, this too is unsustainable.</p>
<p>Because you can&#8217;t make lucky happen and because the team is trying to create a sustainable contender, neither of those two things happened. As such, there were high expectations with no path to matching results.</p>
<p>Ok Results &#8211; High Expectations = A lot of unhappy Jays fans</p>
<p>Unless Toronto can convince Shoehei Otani to join MLB&#8217;s only Canadian team, the Blue Jays are likely to be in the same position again next year. These aren&#8217;t the dominant, AL East title winning Blue Jays of yesteryear and a year of aging without any top prospects ready to graduate to the major league level won&#8217;t help matters. <span style="font-size: 16px">I&#8217;m not going to tell you how you should carry out your fandom, but I will say that if we don&#8217;t all set our expectations more realistically in 2018, we&#8217;re in store for another disappointing season in </span><a style="font-size: 16px" href="https://bluejaysplus.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/unproductive-middle/" target="_blank">the unproductive middle</a><span style="font-size: 16px">. </span></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 77: And Now our Watch is Ended</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/04/artificial-turf-wars-ep-77-and-now-our-watch-is-ended/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/04/artificial-turf-wars-ep-77-and-now-our-watch-is-ended/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Oct 2017 10:34:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Artificial Turf Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Gibbons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark shapiro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Offseason]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ross atkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TurfPod]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13685</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Episode 77 Greg and Josh go over the final week of the season and the decisions and press conferences from the immediate aftermath. They discuss Jose Bautista&#8217;s final games and the declining of his option, Josh Donaldson&#8217;s desire to remain in Toronto, the early outlook for the upcoming offseason based on comments from Ross Atkins, [&#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 77</strong></p>
<p>Greg and Josh go over the final week of the season and the decisions and press conferences from the immediate aftermath. They discuss Jose Bautista&#8217;s final games and the declining of his option, Josh Donaldson&#8217;s desire to remain in Toronto, the early outlook for the upcoming offseason based on comments from Ross Atkins, the murky future for Devon Travis, and the ballot goofiness from the Blue Jays team award voting. They also answer listener questions and give out two Do Overs, one to MLB and one the Giancarlo Stanton. </p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/031/show_10311991_2017_10_04_03_35_15.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/031/show_10311991_2017_10_04_03_35_15.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>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 76: AFL and a Fond Farewell</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/28/artificial-turf-wars-ep-76-afl-and-a-fond-farewell/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/28/artificial-turf-wars-ep-76-afl-and-a-fond-farewell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Sep 2017 10:44:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Artificial Turf Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[T.J. Zeuch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teoscar Hernandez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13604</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Episode 76 2016 first round draft pick and Blue Jays prospect T.J. Zeuch stops by to discuss life leading up to the draft, how he picked his university, the nomadic lifestyle of a recent draftee, and prepping for the upcoming Arizona Fall League. Greg and Josh also go deep on the legacy and (likely) final [&#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 76</strong></p>
<p>2016 first round draft pick and Blue Jays prospect <a href="https://twitter.com/TJZeuch" target="_blank">T.J. Zeuch</a> stops by to discuss life leading up to the draft, how he picked his university, the nomadic lifestyle of a recent draftee, and prepping for the upcoming Arizona Fall League. Greg and Josh also go deep on the legacy and (likely) final home days for Jose Bautista, the unreal finish for Josh Donaldson, the Bautista-esque September from Teoscar Hernandez, and Marcus Stroman&#8217;s quest for 200 innings. Finally, they take listener questions and give out a Cliché of the Week and a Gold Star.</p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/029/show_10299843_2017_09_28_03_44_26.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/029/show_10299843_2017_09_28_03_44_26.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>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>He May Lay Down his Crown, but Bautista Will Always be King</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/25/jose-bautista-king-last-game-blue-jays/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/25/jose-bautista-king-last-game-blue-jays/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Sep 2017 11:27:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Wisniewski]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13551</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Wherever there was a hello, surely, in time there has to be a goodbye. The greeting, the initial unfamiliar acknowledgement of a beginning is something clean. At one moment, you were unaware of the existence of someone at all. Then, suddenly, they have a name and a face and presence. Some people, some relationships are [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Wherever there was a hello, surely, in time there has to be a goodbye. The greeting, the initial unfamiliar acknowledgement of a beginning is something clean. At one moment, you were unaware of the existence of someone at all. Then, suddenly, they have a name and a face and presence. Some people, some relationships are fleeting, momentary. The “hello” is hardly done passing one’s lips, and then they are gone. Other times though, when that awareness spreads, when time and circumstance cement a relationship as real and significant and meaningful, people do not simply ‘leave’. For those names and faces that appear in our lives year after year make us feel joy and pain, cause us to think about them even when they are not around. It is never just ‘goodbye’. It is long and blurry and messy and complicated.</p>
<p>There was a day in my life, my full grown adult life, that I did not know his name. And then I did.</p>
<p>Jose Bautista.</p>
<p>It seemed simple. He could play third base. The Pittsburgh Pirates had no need of his services anymore. The Blue Jays did. He was a new face on a team desperately in need of new faces. He was clean shaven and ready to play. He wasn’t as good as Andy LaRoche.</p>
<p>It could have stayed simple. The name Jose Bautista could be on the same level of interest as Brad Wilkerson or Kevin Mench or David Delucci. It could have been a passing association, a name on the roster map and then a wave and a tip of the cap.</p>
<p>As you well know, it did not end so quickly and cleanly. With Jose Bautista, it became the affair that every Blue Jays fan would be involved in. Jose became something that nobody expected: one of the game’s most elite hitters. In a moment of great self awareness, Bautista decided that doing things the way he had always done them wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Between Dwayne Murphy, Cito Gaston, Vernon Wells, and (most critically) himself, Bautista was convinced he could try something crazy at the game’s most elite level. He was already failing to live up to his potential, so it could only get better, right?</p>
<p>In September of 2009 Jose Bautista started his leg kick so early and got his foot down so soon in the pitcher’s delivery that he felt silly. And he started to hit the ball out of the ballpark. He was finally ready on time. Blue Jays fans were ready for him to be born.</p>
<p>Suddenly, there was a giant among us, a hitter who would be King. His plate appearances were must-see TV. He hit bombs with alarming regularity. He won player of the month awards. Far away, in the Great White North, he garnered All-Star votes. Like, all the All-Star votes. Jose Bautista was a phenomenon.</p>
<p>We began to see a man who was confident in his abilities. Many would call him cocky. On August 23rd, 2010, Jose hit a homer off of rookie Ivan Nova. In his next at-bat, Nova threw wild and inside, making Bautista bail out of the box and lose his footing. Bautista came up with ‘the stare’. This is the first time that I had seen that expression on Jose’s face, but I would come to know it very well. As Bautista eyes locked on Nova, it looked like laser beams were about to shoot out and cut the pitcher down. Bautista would fly out then, but got his revenge against the Yankees later that night, breaking the tie and winning the game with a homer off of David Robertson. Jose Bautista didn’t just want to beat you, he knew he would. All he asked for was the opportunity.</p>
<p>We, Blue Jays fans, were thrust into the tornado of a record breaking season from a player who was anything but meek or mild. It wasn’t very Canadian, you know, but wow, did it get results.</p>
<p>Jose just seemed to make games come alive. For his 50th home run, he would do just that. Not only would he homer off of Felix Hernandez, the AL strikeout and ERA leader and eventual Cy Young Award, but it would prove to be the only run in a 1-0 Jays victory. Joey Bats was unstoppable.</p>
<p>He would also develop a reputation for freaking out at umpires when they blew strike calls &#8211; and his 100 or more walks that year made it seem like he might have a legitimate gripe. His attitude came through with reporters, too. &#8220;Sometimes I have trouble more than other players dealing with my production being affected by somebody else&#8217;s mediocrity,” he was quoted as saying. This was more fuel for both his fans and his critics. Could Jose Bautista be for real?</p>
<p>In 2011 he proved that he was. Somehow, after a breakout season in which he hit 54 home runs, he got better. His average and OBP jumped and he led the league in home runs again, with 43. He was, frankly, amazing. His arm was still a cannon in right field, too, making up for his limited range in the outfield. Jose Bautista could carry himself like the King of Toronto because he was the King of Toronto.</p>
<p>You couldn’t have a conversation about the Blue Jays without talking about Joey Bats. Some would adore him, some would respect him, some would appreciate him. Others would complain about him, be irritated by him, and question him. Certainly the Jays couldn’t do without him.</p>
<p>Of course, after all the personal goals are met, a player tends to start making louder noises about wanting to make the playoffs. After a season in 2012 in which injuries limited him to 92 games, we were happy to have Jose back on the field for a lineup and rotation invigorated by a blockbuster trade. As history teaches us, the arrival of Reyes, Johnson, Buehrle, Dickey, and Bonifacio would do nothing to improve a team’s playoff aspirations. Jose’s injuries that year were hardly the make-or-break moment in the season, though they did cast a shadow over his image as a healthy and reliable player. His OPS was sliding too, from ‘elite’ level to ‘pretty good’. Some fans and talk radio personalities began to beat the ‘trade Bautista’ drum again, as they would every time things took a turn south in Blue Jays Nation.</p>
<p>By this point, Jose was a fixture in Toronto. And as he climbed Blue Jays career leaderboards in home runs, RBI and walks, it became clear that we had a franchise player on our hands. He was never going to change into the cliché spouting ‘good kid,’ thankful for every opportunity given to him by the good Lord above. He would not invoke days of stickball in the dirty streets of a Caribbean Island (his parents were middle class and got him into a good school). Instead he would be what a lot of fans and media can’t handle. Articulate, intelligent, and an independent thinker. He was also interested in his own well being, aware of the bigger picture of the teams’ success and its place in Canada’s sports consciousness. Frankly, he was someone who you couldn’t push around.</p>
<p>This led to one of the greatest Twitter exchanges of all time when writer Steve Simmons decided to bash Jose for using a PR person to run his account. It was an account that followed an amazingly large number of people, into the hundreds of thousands. His attempt to de-legitimize Jose’s involvement in his own twitter account went like this.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/simmonssteve">@simmonssteve</a> who are you and why are you talking to me?</p>
<p>&mdash; Jose Bautista (@JoeyBats19) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeyBats19/status/517179902215585792">October 1, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Lesson learned: Thou shalt not mess around with Joey Bats. He’s always watching.</p>
<p>Now we get to 2015. At this point, I feel like I should stop, write a complete thesis on 2015, and come back. In the context of the franchise, 2015 was the Year They Got Their Mojo Back. In a stunning twist, they didn’t even look like they would get it back until the first few days of August. This piece isn’t about the team in 2015 though, it’s about Jose Bautista. Healthy and deadly for all of 2015, he formed one third of a trio (with Donaldson and Encarnacion) that dropped bombs on American League pitching for six months straight. Jose hit 40 home runs at the side of his MVP teammate, but if you’re reading this, you know that none of those 40 home runs are what a Jays fan pictures when you say “Bautista in 2015”.</p>
<p>The only home run that comes to mind in 2015 is one off of Sam Dyson in the 7th inning of Game 5 of the ALDS. A game &#8211; no, a single inning &#8211; that also could have a series of essays devoted to it. And there, at the pivotal moment, was Jose, flipping his bat like a knight in shining armour would have tossed his lance at the end of a tournament. The bat is forever frozen in time, still rising, after Jose watched the baseball land in the left field seats and launched that piece of lumber into the air. That one image, that frozen moment, wiped away 22 years of wondering what it might be like for the Blue Jays to matter again. His face was calm and stoic, a moment of perfect serenity, in a building literally shaking from the pent up emotions he just unleashed.</p>
<p>That moment will live forever, right alongside Roberto Alomar reaching skyward after Eckersley gave him one he could handle. Right beside Joe Carter springing around the bases like a kid with a brand new rocket powered pogo stick. Players often attain immortality in sport by being in the right place at the right time and doing exactly the right thing. The home run was only half of it. Without the bat flip it is a moment that’s great, but not quite epic. The bat flip was like the signature in the corner of a Renoir; if it isn’t there, anyone could have done it.</p>
<p>Lost in the long shadow of the game five bat flip is the fact that 2015 was the year that Bautista did everything he could to drag his team into the World Series. Facing elimination in ALCS Game 6, Bautista homered in the 4th off of Yordano Ventura, then again in the 8th off of Ryan Madson. And except for the fan grabbing at a ‘home run’ in that grey area between the top of the wall and the front row of seats in Knsas City, Jose may have brought the team into the 9th inning in a tie game all by himself. And where did his 2015 end? Standing on deck, helpless as Josh Donaldson grounded out.</p>
<p>By the time 2016 rolled around, you would have thought that his place in Blue Jays history was assured and that it would be a drive to the World Series unhampered by distractions and gossip. Instead, early in the spring the spectre of Jose’s free agency demands (reported at more than five years and around 30 million in AAV) lurked around every interview with him. Some around the fair city of Toronto wanted to see ‘greedy Bautista’ left to wade out into the seas of free agency on his own. Bautista, for his part, felt he had given the team more than what they had paid for over the last six years (he was never paid as much as the best hitters in the game, even when he was one) and wanted to finally be rewarded for what he was really worth.</p>
<p>Again, Jose spoke his mind, was eloquent, and pulled no punches. He was reminding his detractors about all the reasons they didn’t like who he was, but also finding that they had to acknowledge what great things he had done for the franchise. The Blue Jays, however, didn’t see the point of paying for a player through five or six years of decline; just as Jose wasn’t giving a ‘hometown discount,’ they were not going to give him a ‘family premium’ salary. And it looked like the great stalemate would only result in an awkward goodbye after another deep run into playoff baseball.</p>
<p>That would have been sad, but also kind of poetic; like some rogue member of the Magnificent Seven, riding off on his own to try and save another town before he reached the end of the line. Somehow, though, much like the rest of his career, something unexpected came where there seemed to be no hope at all.</p>
<p>Jose had looked over his options and was returning to Toronto. The Franchise would return on a ‘three year’ deal. Of course, the structure of the three years was such that it was nearly impossible for both the team and the player to see the option in year two as a good deal at the same time. Effectively, it was a one year contract with a ‘we do love you though’ clause. So it would be, at the very least, a year to make another run at the playoffs in comfortable surroundings.</p>
<p>And then none of that happened. The team stumbled out of the gate and fell below .500, never even for a single day being able to call itself a ‘winning team’. Bautista himself stumbled through April at .179/.309/.244. He stayed healthy the whole season though, making his clear struggles at the plate all the more depressing. He passed the single season batter strikeout record (goodbye Messrs. K. Johnson and J. Canseco) and stood to have the lowest batting average of any qualified Blue Jays hitter ever.</p>
<p>It is anything but poetic. It is, however, very much like Jose himself: Unanticipated and undeniably interesting. He came out of nowhere, forced us to watch, glued our eyes to his every move, and made us believers. He was never a poet. He was a King.</p>
<p>In a few days he will lay down his crown, but Toronto will still be his kingdom. Whether you were a loyal subject or rebellious detractor, you had to look up. Sometimes to the man, often to the player, but always, always, to the bat.</p>
<p>Goodbye Jose, even though there will always be a part of you here, waiting at home plate for a hard one middle-in.</p>
<p><i>Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</i></p>
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		<title>Jose Bautista and the Unpredictability of Baseball</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/12/jose-bautista-and-the-unpredictability-of-baseball/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/12/jose-bautista-and-the-unpredictability-of-baseball/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Sep 2017 10:14:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard Lee-Sam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13378</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the past few weeks, there has been spirited debate over who deserves the title of &#8220;The Greatest Blue Jay of All-Time.&#8221; Everybody&#8217;s top five consisted of a mix of players that captivated a country and rose to immortality like Roberto Alomar, Roy Halladay, Dave Stieb, Carlos Delgado, Tony Fernandez, and maybe even George Bell [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span lang="EN-CA">Over the past few weeks, there has been spirited debate over who deserves the title of &#8220;The Greatest Blue Jay of All-Time.&#8221; Everybody&#8217;s top five consisted of a mix of p</span>layers that captivated a country and rose to immortality like Roberto Alomar, Roy Halladay, Dave Stieb, Carlos Delgado, Tony Fernandez, and maybe even George Bell or Roger Clemens if you argued enough. When you look at the men I listed, you see a bunch of stars. These players all broke into the league at a young age and stuck, establishing themselves as household names in their mid-twenties, most of them right here in Toronto. All of those players worked hard, but they all pretty much became what they were supposed to become.</p>
<p>Who would have thought back in 2008 that a newly acquired 27-year-old journeyman utility player arriving via a waiver-wire trade would also throw his hat into the ring as one of the best ever to suit up for the franchise? After bouncing around from franchise to franchise, Jose Bautista developed a leg kick and became the mashing, bat-flipping, defiant-to-the-traditional-rules saviour that a new wave of baseball fans wanted to see.</p>
<p>We know how the Bautista story goes; he helped plug a few holes in his first season and a half, playing respectable baseball, and then in 2010…bang. A bearded hero and the new face of the franchise was born. Bautista clubbed 54 home runs after combining to hit just 43 in the three seasons prior. Not only that, he did it his way, dripping with confidence after becoming one of the best players in the league. Less than three years after joining his fifth team in five seasons, the former journeyman finally found stability and inked a five-year deal with the Blue Jays.</p>
<p>But this isn’t about Jose Bautista. As the 2017 season – and what looks like Jose’s time in Toronto – winds down in heartbreaking fashion, we’ll begin to look back on the past nine seasons and, over the coming weeks, tributes will begin to pour in. Undoubtedly, everything the player who was once traded straight up for Robinson Diaz has done will be immortalized with his name on the Level of Excellence whenever he decides to call it a career.</p>
<p>Jose Bautista and the rest of the 2017 Toronto Blue Jays are proof that you really can’t predict baseball. And that’s why the sport is so beautiful.</p>
<p>Anything can happen at any given time. Fans spent all winter telling each other that this team could get back to the ALCS for a third straight year if everything just went according to plan. And they were right. The team that the Blue Jays fielded in April certainly wasn&#8217;t supposed to end up in the American League East basement all year.</p>
<p>But if everything went according to plan, the Blue Jays probably don’t go from being 53-51 at the trade deadline to chasing down the Yankees in 2015 to capture their first division title in 22 years. If everything went according to plan, Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish probably don’t drop both Games 1 and 2 of the 2016 ALDS and we’re robbed of getting to see Josh Donaldson’s mad dash to complete the sweep in Game 3.</p>
<p><span lang="EN-CA"> </span>“What if they just stayed healthy?”</p>
<p>“What if they got better luck on balls in play?”</p>
<p><span lang="EN-CA">“What if they didn’t blow so many games in the ninth?”<br />
</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-CA">We’ve all spent this season watching in agony as the Blue Jays not only stumbled right out of the gate, but constantly came up short over and over again. Frustration turned to anger, which turned to delusion as fans wondered if a team that couldn’t even get back to .500 could will themselves into a playoff race.<br />
</span></p>
<p>But without these trying times, do the highs feel as good? Do we feel the rush in those finally meaningful September games in 2015 where we could literally feel our heart beating in our chest in the late innings and wonder how we’d ever survive the thrill of October baseball?</p>
<p>The unpredictable nature of this game is exhilarating. Ask any Jays fan where they were when they were blindsided with the Josh Donaldson trade news.</p>
<p>The story of the 2017 Blue Jays isn’t just one thing or another. Instead, it was a comedy of errors. As quick as the flame was lit somewhere in the middle of the 2015 season, it went out as this team just forgot how to play baseball. After being just four wins away from the World Series in back-to-back years, the Blue Jays became bad again.</p>
<p>But like our friend Jose Bautista – <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/08/putting-justin-smoak-into-jose-bautistas-context/" target="_blank">and hopefully another late-blooming Jays star in Justin Smoak</a> – taught us, the beauty in this game is when preseason predictions and ideas of what what should happen are thrown out the window and the ones that are overlooked and second guessed triumph. Just when you think you completely understand this game, it hits you like a bat-flipped three-run home run in a winner-take-all elimination game.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Putting Justin Smoak into Jose Bautista&#8217;s Context</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/08/putting-justin-smoak-into-jose-bautistas-context/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/08/putting-justin-smoak-into-jose-bautistas-context/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 10:10:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Gideon Turk]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Blue Jays have been defined by no player better in the past decade than Jose Bautista, the former utility journeyman turned home run king. His transformation was the only thing that got fans through the lean years between Roy Halladay and the 2015 playoff run. He was the star. But before he was able to [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Blue Jays have been defined by no player better in the past decade than Jose Bautista, the former utility journeyman turned home run king. His transformation was the only thing that got fans through the lean years between Roy Halladay and the 2015 playoff run. He was the star.</p>
<p>But before he was able to do that, Jose Bautista had doubters. Hitting 54 home runs in 2010 was nice, but because he was going to be a free agent after the 2011 season, the Blue Jays had to make a decision about whether they believed in his talent or if he was a fluke. The decision polarized Toronto, with both sides of the debate having ample support. Alex Anthopoulos ended up betting on Bautista and extended him for five years before the 2011 season started. He decided that what he saw in 2010 was worth the risk. But throughout that process, Jose Bautista had his doubters.</p>
<p>Justin Smoak does not.</p>
<p>Smoak, of course, is going through a breakout of his own this season. With 137 games played in 2017, Smoak has received 552 plate appearances and hit a gaudy .283/.361/.561 with 37 home runs. I posed a question <a href=" I%20posed a question on Twitter earlier in the week, asking " target="_blank">on Twitter</a> earlier in the week, asking whether people were buying Smoak&#8217;s breakout more than they did Bautista&#8217;s and if so, why they were doing so. I received a few answers and I want to explore them in a bit more detail here. So why is Justin Smoak turning into an All-star more believable than Jose Bautista doing the same?</p>
<h3><strong>Prospect Status</strong></h3>
<p>When Jose Bautista became an All-Star at the age of 29, it was the first time in a while people believed in his talent. He was never listed on any top prospect lists while developing in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. His comments in the Baseball Prospectus Annual in the mid 2000&#8217;s were about his future as a utility man and he ended up bouncing around from team to team in the Rule Five Draft. Nobody was jumping to get their hands on Bautista in hopes that he would become the next big thing.</p>
<p>The complete opposite is true for Justin Smoak. He was taken 11th overall in the 2008 MLB Draft by the Texas Rangers, then rose as high as 17 on Baseball Prospectus&#8217; top prospect list and 13 on Baseball America&#8217;s. When the Rangers wanted to Cliff Lee to front their playoff rotation in 2010, they needed to part with Smoak because he was a can&#8217;t miss prospect. In 2009, BP said this of Smoak:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Think Justin Morneau with the ability to switch-hit—he could be that scary.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>It&#8217;s easy to see why people believe in Smoak today more than they did in Bautista eight years ago. For Smoak, it has been a matter of figuring things out and reaching his potential. In Bautista&#8217;s case, it was like he made a change to his baseball DNA, allowing him to reach heights nobody ever saw coming.</p>
<h3><strong>Contract Details</strong></h3>
<p>As previously mentioned, Bautista was scheduled to hit free agency after the 2011 season, so there was a sense of urgency when it came to deciding what to do with him after his monstrous 2010. The Blue Jays could either have him play out the 2011 season, see if 2010 was a fluke and then make a contract offer, or they were able to extend him before 2011 and risk owing a lot of money to a player with just one good year. They decided on the latter, and it paid off for them.</p>
<p>With Smoak, the urgency doesn&#8217;t exist. Much to the chagrin of Blue Jays fans last year, Smoak was given a contract extension for the 2017 and 2018 seasons with a six million dollar option for 2019. Although the move was widely questioned at the time, the Blue Jays brass defended it. Now they can enjoy the fruits of their labor for the next two seasons.</p>
<p>What this means is that while for Bautista, people felt the need to question his talent because a lot of money was on the line, that just isn&#8217;t the case for Smoak. Even if he crashes back down to earth next season, the Blue Jays still just owe him fewer than five million dollars. If he repeats his 2017 next season and then crashes in 2019, the Blue Jays will owe him for that team option, another small price that would have virtually no financial impact on the club. Believe in Smoak or don&#8217;t believe in him, but either way, there isn&#8217;t a lot riding on him compared to Bautista after his breakout.</p>
<h3>Becoming &#8220;Good&#8221;</h3>
<p>Nobody mentioned this one when responding to my tweet, but I do think it is pretty important to discuss. Jose Bautista&#8217;s ascent to stardom was well documented. Everybody knew about his leg kick. He made a dramatic change that led to dramatic results. It was very easy to point to one specific thing and say that is what caused him to become a superstar. He perfected his timing and was able to increase his power because of it. It didn&#8217;t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.</p>
<p>Ask somebody how Smoak has turned his career around, and the answers you&#8217;ll get will likely be a lot murkier. That&#8217;s because there hasn&#8217;t been some drastic change. Rachael McDaniel <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/08/justin-smoak-is-finally-having-fun-playing-baseball/" target="_blank">wrote about</a> Smoak&#8217;s emotional well being and how he is finally having fun while playing baseball. That could be it, but we obviously have no way to quantify that to see if it is responsible. Matt Gwin <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/24/the-new-and-improved-justin-smoak-is-here-to-stay/" target="_blank">wrote about</a> the more statistical and mechanical changes that have occurred, but if you go and read that article, you&#8217;ll see that it is a combination of changes that have got Smoak where he is today. It wasn&#8217;t just one leg kick thing, it&#8217;s a whole host of mechanical and discipline-based changes.</p>
<p>Knowing this, you&#8217;d think that people may not believe in Smoak as much as Bautista. For Bautista it was there for all to see. For Smoak, you have to be a pretty smart person to be able to break down his swing into parts and see the minor details that have been altered. If something looks the same but produces different results, usually we&#8217;d think it wasn&#8217;t sustainable.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">***</p>
<p>In the end though, I think people believe in Smoak because there isn&#8217;t much else to believe in right now when it comes to the Blue Jays big league team. It&#8217;s been a very disappointing season and Smoak has been the only breath of fresh air since it started. Sure, the Blue Jays didn&#8217;t make the playoffs in 2010, but they won 85 games. They were a good team! There was more at stake with that club, even though they ended up taking a step back, than there is with this one. Combine that with the fact that he&#8217;s cheap and had an entire industry pegging him to be the next big thing fewer than 10 years ago and Smoak&#8217;s breakout lasting for a long time doesn&#8217;t seem so far-fetched.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Murky Mosaic of the Blue Jays Post Trade Deadline</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/02/the-murky-mosaic-of-the-blue-jays-post-trade-deadline/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Aug 2017 10:03:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Gideon Turk]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[July 31st is in the rearview mirror, and the Toronto Blue Jays look a little bit different than they did a few days ago. Gone are Francisco Liriano and Joe Smith. Nori Aoki is here, although whatever that means remains to be seen. However, the biggest story of the deadline for the Blue Jays wasn&#8217;t the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>July 31st is in the rearview mirror, and the Toronto Blue Jays look a little bit different than they did a few days ago. Gone are Francisco Liriano and Joe Smith. Nori Aoki is here, although whatever that means remains to be seen. However, the biggest story of the deadline for the Blue Jays wasn&#8217;t the trades that were made or the prospects they were able to coax out of them. For me, it was who remained in Toronto, namely Marco Estrada and Jose Bautista.</p>
<p>The Blue Jays <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/07/source-blue-jays-finalize-plans-for-july-trades/" target="_blank">went into July</a> open and willing to trade their pending free agents, but enter August with half of them still on the team. That&#8217;s telling, and provides the Blue Jays with some questions that they must try to answer over the next two months or in the off-season.</p>
<p>The first question mark deals with Estrada and where he will be in 2018. The Blue Jays decided to keep Estrada on Monday because they weren&#8217;t offered anything of value for him leading up to the deadline. Deals presented themselves in many different iterations, but all of them provided little to no substance returning to the Blue Jays for two months of Estrada&#8217;s services. In the end, Ross Atkins and his team decided that instead of getting a low level minor league player or some international slot money, they would rather keep Estrada for the next two months. As <a href="https://twitter.com/BProToronto/status/892204781204320257" target="_blank">we reported</a> on Monday night, both sides are interested in an extension, but it remains to be seen whether talks will start now, or will wait until after the season.</p>
<p>But how much should the Blue Jays be willing to pay Estrada given how poorly he has performed in 2017? I don&#8217;t think there is any easy answer to that question. Estrada&#8217;s agent will surely point to this fantastic 2015 and 2016 seasons and make the case that this year is the outlier, but is it? Estrada&#8217;s stuff is unquestionably better in 2017, but the results aren&#8217;t showing up. His velocity is higher than it has been in years and his movement is almost the same. Yet it is August 2nd and Estrada has had two good performances in the past two months, one of those coming against the second worst offensive team in the American League. Something is wrong, and the Blue Jays have to be very sure they can fix that before committing millions of dollars to a 34-year-old.</p>
<p>Then there is Jose Bautista, a franchise icon who has started a rapid decline phase in his career, with a TAv that has sunk from .332 in 2014 to .248 this season. Other teams weren&#8217;t oblivious to that fact, and like Estrada, no good deals were offered that would have made the Blue Jays braintrust <a href="https://twitter.com/ShiDavidi/status/892149015499898880" target="_blank">go to Bautista</a> to ask him to waive his 10/5 rights that he has accrued as a long time member of the club. However, Bautista told club officials that he wants to be here, so even if a good deal <em>did</em> present itself, he may not have accepted.</p>
<p>With Bautista still in the fold, the club will also need to decide what to do with him. The decision makers on this team believe that the Blue Jays are a better team with Bautista on it than without him and they still have a &#8220;slight glimmer of hope&#8221; in his future performance according to a source with the club. That said, they still plan on declining their end of Bautista&#8217;s mutual option when the time comes in a few months and then deciding what to do with him.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s clear to me that if the team wants to contend, Bautista can&#8217;t be an everyday player anymore. His defense has been below average for years, but as he approaches the last few years of his 30&#8217;s, it is getting to the point of being unplayable. That would be fine if he could make up for it with his bat, but that is so obviously not the case anymore. His walk rate has fallen at the same time his strikeout rate has jumped. His power numbers have nosedived and the ball has left his bat almost four mph slower this season than it did in 2015. Those four points may not be scary individually, but taken together they make up the perfect recipe for a player who isn&#8217;t very good anymore.</p>
<p>But Bautista is the Blue Jays and the Blue Jays are Bautista. Until he decides to retire, he should be with this team. However, the trades yesterday indicate that the Blue Jays are going to try to contend in 2018, and if that is the case, Bautista&#8217;s only role on that team should be off of the bench.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Many Versions of Jose Bautista We&#8217;ve Seen in 2017</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/02/the-many-versions-of-jose-bautista-that-weve-seen-in-2017/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/06/02/the-many-versions-of-jose-bautista-that-weve-seen-in-2017/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Jun 2017 11:23:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Munn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11305</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jose Bautista&#8217;s career with the Blue Jays has been nothing if not eventful. From walks to bat flips and punches to home runs, Bautista has been through it all over his 1132 games with the Blue Jays. Through all of this, he&#8217;s managed to be an extremely productive hitter.  Even last season, in which he [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Jose Bautista&#8217;s career with the Blue Jays has been nothing if not eventful. From walks to bat flips and punches to home runs, Bautista has been through it all over his 1132 games with the Blue Jays. Through all of this, he&#8217;s managed to be an extremely productive hitter.  Even last season, in which he missed time due to injury and had his worst offensive showing since 2009, he produced a true average of .270. He&#8217;s had his ups and downs throughout the years production wise, but has always ended the season with the numbers of an all-star caliber hitter. Bautista looks to be on a similar path in 2017.</p>
<p>Through May 31, Bautista is hitting .251/.362/.455 with a .287 tAV. He&#8217;s been producing well so far, but glancing at his slash line doesn&#8217;t tell you the whole story. These numbers don&#8217;t give the true sense of the ups and downs of a major league season, especially during one as tumultuous as Bautista&#8217;s. The Toronto outfielder has gone through very different stretches of baseball in 2017, and luckily for us, these stretches can be fairly easily divvied up four ways. These four stretches of Jose Bautista&#8217;s 2017 season are what we are going to look at today.</p>
<p>Before we get to the numbers, it would be irresponsible to avoid running through a couple of disclaimers. Firstly, this article deals with completely arbitrary endpoints. Second, the sections that are divided  up below span no longer than 17 days, which means we are barrelling head-first into small sample size territory. It would be unwise to make any bold, sweeping claims about how the rest of Bautista’s season will go down based on some of the trends outlined below. But it sure is fun!</p>
<p>Now that we have that out of the way, we can get right to it. Here are the numbers for the four different Jose Bautista&#8217;s that we&#8217;ve seen in the 2017 campaign to date:</p>
<table width="443">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="100">Period</td>
<td width="64">PA</td>
<td width="64">BA</td>
<td width="64">OBP</td>
<td width="64">SLG</td>
<td width="87">OPS</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>April 3 &#8211; April 20</td>
<td>66</td>
<td>0.109</td>
<td>0.242</td>
<td>0.145</td>
<td>0.387</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>April 21 &#8211; May 3</td>
<td>59</td>
<td>0.298</td>
<td>0.424</td>
<td>0.468</td>
<td>0.892</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>May 5 &#8211; May 16</td>
<td>50</td>
<td>0.186</td>
<td>0.300</td>
<td>0.442</td>
<td>0.742</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>May 17 &#8211; May 31</td>
<td>54</td>
<td>0.435</td>
<td>0.500</td>
<td>0.826</td>
<td>1.326</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h4></h4>
<h4><strong>The Struggles</strong></h4>
<p>Bautista started off the season particularly poorly, as was thoroughly documented early on. His power had completely disappeared, he was missing the ball loads more than usual, and when he was making contact, was not seeing his batted balls fall for hits. Even more uncharacteristically, he struck out in one third of his plate appearances, while his walk rate continued to decline from its previous absurdity.</p>
<p>Essentially, everything that made Jose Bautista one of the most feared players in the MLB had vanished. His poor start seemed to erase the excellent spring training and World Baseball Classic that he had, and brought about debates as to whether or not he was over the hill. Even with his <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/31426364/v1237303883/must-c-cannon-bautista-cuts-down-mercado-at-home">arm</a> seeming to <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/v1255082383?game_pk=490112">reappear</a> on the <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/vtp_opening_week/v1255389683?game_pk=490112">defensive</a> side of the <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/vtp_review/v1305357283?game_pk=490327">ball</a>, Bautista&#8217;s offensive woes were painful for everyone involved.</p>
<h4></h4>
<h4><strong>The Renaissance</strong></h4>
<p>Bautista put an end to his April struggles with a <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/vtp_game_changers/v1311222083?game_pk=490349">glorious three-run shot</a> in extra innings over the Angels in late April, a momentous first home run of the season. This game marked the start of his own renaissance, where Jose reminded everyone why he is known as one of the league&#8217;s premier power threats. The most notable indicator of his turnaround lies in his contact rates. Take a look at the fastballs Bautista was missing during his early season struggles, and compare it to the renaissance:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Bautista-Fastballs-1.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-11350" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Bautista-Fastballs-1.png" alt="Bautista Fastballs 1" width="400" height="400" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Bautista-Fastballs-2.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-11351" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/Bautista-Fastballs-2.png" alt="Bautista Fastballs 2" width="400" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>Bautista seemed unusually prone to missing fastballs stright down the middle of the plate, a problem which he seems to have corrected now. After a dreadful start, Bautista reminded us of his greatness through phase two of the 2017 season. We were treated to some fantastic moments from this period as well, including the game-changing home run mentioned above, a pair of key RBI singles in a win against the Cardinals overshadowed by leaps and pitcher doubles, and yet another <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/v1338802883?game_pk=490474">clutch hit after nearly getting hit</a> by a pitch earlier in the game. Jose was back and better than ever.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4><strong>The Lull</strong></h4>
<p>The next portion of the season is the lull, which may be an ill-fitting name considering that Bautista didn&#8217;t hit all too poorly. He produced at around a league average rate, making contact like his normal self and carrying over the power stroke he reclaimed in the Renaissance. While it wasn&#8217;t necessarily a bad offensive stretch, his offensive production did decrease, largely due to a drop in BABIP (.192, down from .364 during the previous stretch) that brought Bautista&#8217;s batting average down to .193 on the season. This matters less than most players due to his power and walks, but even considering this, Bautista&#8217;s OPS sat at a low .658 on May 16.</p>
<p>Bautista still provided some memorable moments over his quick lull in production &#8211; most of all, a couple of key lead-changing three-run home runs against <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/v1374637683?game_pk=490602">Cleveland</a> and <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/69490714/v1383381383/seator-bautista-hits-clutch-threerun-homer/?game_pk=490652">Seattle</a> as the Blue Jays began to pick up steam . Nonetheless, these home runs didn&#8217;t dispel the fact that his offense had started to slow once again, whether or not it was due to an unlucky stretch of balls in play. Thankfully, this would all change as the Blue Jays headed south, where a bat flip marks the start of one of Bautista&#8217;s more intriguing stretches in recent memory.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/NY2Z4PHlzehyw" width="480" height="270" frameborder="0" ></iframe></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4><strong>The Tear</strong></h4>
<p>Since May 17, Jose Bautista has been making opposing pitchers fear for their lives every time he steps into the box. He is hitting .435, reaching base in half of his plate appearances, and has earned a mind-boggling .826 slugging percentage. He has hit safely in 11 of these 13 games, while recording a multi-hit game in seven, over half of his games.</p>
<p>Bautista&#8217;s post-Atlanta bat flip stretch has been especially notable not only for its downright deadliness, but for how it has been accomplished. For starters, take a look at Bautista&#8217;s average exit velocity and launch angle divided up over the four above mentioned sections, along with his expected production level over each period:</p>
<table width="356">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="100">Period</td>
<td width="64">PA</td>
<td width="64">Velocity</td>
<td width="64">Angle</td>
<td width="64">xWOBA</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>April 3 &#8211; April 20</td>
<td>66</td>
<td>88</td>
<td>21.2</td>
<td>0.264</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>April 21 &#8211; May 3</td>
<td>59</td>
<td>91.4</td>
<td>21.8</td>
<td>0.388</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>May 5 &#8211; May 16</td>
<td>50</td>
<td>90.9</td>
<td>15.3</td>
<td>0.346</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>May 17 &#8211; May 31</td>
<td>54</td>
<td>88.8</td>
<td>11.6</td>
<td>0.474</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>While Bautista&#8217;s average exit velocity has declined, he&#8217;s hitting balls at a much lower angle than earlier this season. This lower average launch angle is leading to more hits for Bautista, as his expected production has been even better than his actual production over the same stretch. One would think that by lowering the angle at which he&#8217;s hitting would decrease a hitter&#8217;s power, but Bautista has found a way to make it work over the past two weeks. He&#8217;s hit five of his ten home runs over the same stretch, meaning he doesn&#8217;t seem to be sacrificing his power at all.</p>
<p>Another thing to note about Bautista&#8217;s latest stretch is how often he&#8217;s been swinging the bat. His swing rate from May 17 through May 31 is at 70.8%, which is a massive leap from the 53.4% it was at before Bautista&#8217;s insane offensive run. Impressively, his contact rates have not wavered even with the increased amounts of swings, leading to more and better contact.</p>
<p>In the midst of a career filled with up and down swings, Jose Bautista&#8217;s 2017 season seems to be following a similar pattern through the first couple of months. Bautista has struggled, rebounded from those struggles, and then gone on a ridiculous tear all before the season is even a third finished. Much like the Blue Jays as a whole, Bautista has been on both sides of the coin in 2017.</p>
<p>Will his latest historic streak continue? Probably not. A lot of things can happen in 13 games, and it looks as if everything has gone right for Jose Bautista over the last two weeks. While it may not continue, his performance at the plate will be something to continue to watch, specifically his recent launch angle and swing trends. Even the trends reverse and Bautista goes back to his usual self, it still will be worth noting. At the end of the day, watching one of the greatest sluggers in Blue Jays history do things a little bit differently than normal has still been an utterly enjoyable experience.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo</em>: © John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports</p>
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		<title>Which Blue Jays are Putting the Barrel on the Ball?</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/23/which-blue-jays-are-finding-the-barrel/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/23/which-blue-jays-are-finding-the-barrel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 May 2017 10:51:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Greg Wisniewski]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kevin Pillar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Non-Roster Invitees]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11056</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Back in February I wrote an article around the Statcast &#8216;Barrels&#8217; metric and how the Blue Jays (new and returning) stacked up in regards to that metric. If you haven&#8217;t heard much about Barrels and their &#8216;official&#8217; definition, that article would be a great spot to brush up on them. You can see the leaderboard here. Just [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Back in February I wrote an <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/17/barrels-of-fun…the-sweet-spot/">article around the Statcast &#8216;Barrels&#8217; metric</a> and how the Blue Jays (new and returning) stacked up in regards to that metric. If you haven&#8217;t heard much about Barrels and their &#8216;official&#8217; definition, that article would be a great spot to brush up on them. You can see the leaderboard <a href="https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard" target="_blank">here.</a> Just the other day, Tom Tango tweeted out some visualizations of the different definitions of contact.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">These are the six categories of the Radial Launch Profile.<a href="https://t.co/oZpa2tqSwu">https://t.co/oZpa2tqSwu</a> <br />Top line is Teddies, bottom line is ?!?Alfredos <a href="https://t.co/sja9MQhhXJ">pic.twitter.com/sja9MQhhXJ</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Tangotiger (@tangotiger) <a href="https://twitter.com/tangotiger/status/866271088413749251">May 21, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>These are some nice tight visual groupings. And some R scores very close to 1. This means that from 2015-2016, the same batters generally had similar batted ball profiles. That&#8217;s a good indication that it isn&#8217;t a statistic that is a product of luck (like hitting with RISP vs. bases empty). Players who know how to barrel the ball one year tend not to forget how to do it the next. But can you change your batted ball profile if you know what you want to do differently? Let&#8217;s explore.</p>
<p>When we look at the 2016, we can see some winners and losers based on Barrels per Batter Ball Event (Brls_DIV_BBE).</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/barrels-jays-20161.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11060" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/barrels-jays-20161.png" alt="barrels jays 2016" width="737" height="462" /></a></p>
<p>Who might be interesting to look at? Well, I highlighted them for us. Especially since we want to see what&#8217;s happened to their numbers this season. This is the 2017 chart.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/barrels-jays-2017.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11059" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/barrels-jays-2017.png" alt="barrels jays 2017" width="773" height="464" /></a></p>
<p>Ah, yes. I&#8217;ve left Ceciliani and Stroman on the chart. That&#8217;s really to demonstrate how intuitive &#8220;Barrels&#8221; are. Both of them have a home run and a double in very limited PA and, as a result, have unsustainable numbers in the barrels categories. Instead, let&#8217;s look at a few of the players that are more worth highlighting.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Justin Smoak&#8217;s Made Real Changes</h4>
<p>Smoak&#8217;s always been at the top of the ranking when considering batted ball events, but fell off significantly in Brls/PA in 2016 because he struck out 32.6% of the time. He simply did not make enough contact to do damage in a high percentage of his plate appearances. The 2017 version of Justin Smoak is more disciplined, and, back in the spring, he mentioned making a conscious decision to <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/12/blue-jays-justin-smoak-to-ditch-all-or-nothing-approach">not try to hit a home run every time</a> he got to the plate.</p>
<p>As a result, he&#8217;s jumped from barreling the ball in 6.5% of his plate appearances to 10.5%, which tops everyone on the Jays who plays regularly. This follows along with his strikeout rate, which dropped from 32% to 19%. Another way to measure this change in approach is with contact rate in the zone. According to FanGraphs, his zone contact rate jumped from 82% last year to 94% this year. Not swinging like everything needs to clear the fence has paid huge dividends for Smoak.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Jose Bautista Might be Worth Worrying About</h4>
<p>Bautista was once one of the great power hitting threats in all of baseball. We know that these kinds of hitter have a barrel per batted event percentage of between 18 and 25 percent, and a barrel per plate appearance percentage of between 9 and 11 percent. When Bautista makes contact, he does so with authority, showing up with a high rank in average flyball distance. He also has one of the better peak and average exit velocities on the team. What it doesn&#8217;t quite translate into, however, is barrels. Alex Avila, Aaron Judge and Miguel Sano can barrel the ball over 20% of the time. Jose can only make it happen 9% of the time, which is Jean Segura and Kyle Seager territory. At this point in his career, Jose is still able to get on base, but not do the kind of damage he once did. You could certainly keep him up in the lineup, but it&#8217;s possible that the cleanup spot isn&#8217;t where he&#8217;s meant to be anymore.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Kevin Pillar&#8217;s Making Good on His Promise</h4>
<p>Much has been made of Pillar&#8217;s very public declaration to change his approach at the plate. In 2016, he barreled up the ball about as often as Ryan Goins, which is to say, not often at all. In 2017, he&#8217;s taken a great leap forward, going from barreling the ball in 2.7% of his batted balls to 6.7%, and from barreling the ball in 1.9% of plate appearances to 5.3%. Kevin Pillar now hits the ball with authority, even slightly more often than Bautista does over all his plate appearances. This is very strong evidence that he has been able to make a meaningful change in his approach. Remember, Barrels are about process, not results. In Pillar&#8217;s case the results have certainly followed. His tAV has jumped from .232 to .302 with the new approach, his walks are up significantly, and his strikeouts are down. Pillar wanted to confine his swings to pitches that were really hittable, and every measure we have has shown him to be successful in that regard.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Steve Pearce and Devon Travis&#8217; Numbers Are Diverging</h4>
<p>I grouped Steve Pearce and Devon Travis together for a reason. In 2016, in a platoon role, Pearce was the far superior power hitter, and Travis looked like a middle infielder with little to no pop in his bat. In 2017, Travis got of to a rough start, but he&#8217;s been tearing the cover off the ball recently. Meanwhile, Pearce got incosistent playing time and then got hurt. Their Statcast profiles, however, come out incredibly similar in 2017. They max velocity, average distance, barrels per batted event, and barrels per plate appearance are all within a digit or two of one another. It&#8217;s no surprise Pearce&#8217;s tAV sits at .215 and Travis&#8217; sits at .224. Again, the process predicts the results—both players have been worth -0.2 WARP. We should watch and see if their fortunes diverge once Pearce returns from injury.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>The Blue Jays Aren&#8217;t Barrelling</h4>
<p>Looking at the chart as a whole, one other thing becomes clear. The Blue Jays are not, as a group, barrelling up the ball nearly as much as they did in 2016. Jose Bautista&#8217;s 8.8% and 4.8% were buried in the middle of the list last year, but now his 9.0% and 5.2% are, essentially, fourth on the team. The lineup simply isn&#8217;t made up of guys who hit a lot of homers or doubles into the gap. That isn&#8217;t the only way to score runs, of course, since the 2017 team has scored 186 runs after 45 games, and the 2016 team has scored only 183. Maybe some of John Gibbons&#8217; bunt and squeeze tactics are a result of him not seeing anyone who can hit the ball with authority and reacting accordingly.</p>
<p>Either way, there are things that we can learn from barrelled balls. First off, we can see that, over and over again, the nature of the contact with the ball is consistent with the quality of the result. There is no way to defend against a barrelled ball, and if you&#8217;re aware of a way to nudge the launch angle and exit velocity into a certain zone as a hitter, you should absolutely do that. The other lesson, from Smoak and Pillar, is that a change in approach can help a hitter with a hole in his game. Smoak didn&#8217;t need to make harder or better contact, he needed to make it more often. Pillar didn&#8217;t need to make more contact overall, he needed to make it in the strike zone. Teams can use this type of data (obviously with more sophistication) to target players where small changes might offer big payoffs. The small sliver of Statcast data that the public has access to offers an opportunity to change what skills are valued in the game, imagine what teams will be doing with the whole database at their fingertips.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo:</em> <em>Nick Turchiaro</em>-USA TODAY Sports</p>
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		<title>Jose Bautista&#8217;s Hitting May Have Turned a Corner</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/08/the-early-season-struggles-of-jose-bautista/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/08/the-early-season-struggles-of-jose-bautista/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 May 2017 10:42:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nick Dika]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Hitter of the Week]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10746</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s been another tough week for the Toronto Blue Jays. Central to the Jays early season struggles is an offence that continues to perform in fits and starts. The Blue Jays offence has been limited to scoring one run three times since last Sunday (granted two of those games were started by Masahiro Tanaka and [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It’s been another tough week for the Toronto Blue Jays. Central to the Jays early season struggles is an offence that continues to perform in fits and starts. The Blue Jays offence has been limited to scoring one run three times since last Sunday (granted two of those games were started by Masahiro Tanaka and Chris Archer). Currently, the offence sits a lowly 26th in runs scored, on-base (.297) and slugging (.373) percentage. Justin Smoak’s barreled balls and Steve Pearce’s three home run week be damned.</p>
<p>With Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Donaldson on the disabled list, some of the team’s offensive struggles are related to bench players like Ryan Goins and Chris Coghlan being exposed to everyday at bats. But some of the Blue Jays more established and relied upon offensive players have struggled as well. One of these players is Jose Bautista, our hitter of the week.</p>
<p>Overall, Jose Bautista has struggled at the plate this season, slashing .180/.306/.270 with 2 home runs. Not great. This week, however, there have been signs of life. In 26 plate appearances, Bautista hit .240/.321/.440 with three extra base hits.</p>
<p>Has Jose turned a corner? Hopefully. A closer look at his swing data indicates there may still be adjustments needed before he reverts to the Jose Bautista of years past.</p>
<p>The rate at which Jose Bautista is swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone(O-Swing%) has remained relatively stable. Where there has been a change is in the number of pitches Bautista is swinging at inside the strike zone. This season, Bautista is swinging at 54.1% of pitches inside the strike zone (Z-Swing%), compared to 60.5% in his stellar 2015 and a career mark of 58%.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<table style="height: 281px" width="684">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="74"></td>
<td width="116">% of Pitches Swung at Outside the Strike Zone</td>
<td width="135">
<p style="text-align: center">% of Pitches Swung at Inside the Strike Zone</p>
</td>
<td width="118">
<p style="text-align: center">Swing%</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="74">2015</td>
<td width="116">21.1</td>
<td width="135">60.5</td>
<td width="118">39.3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="74">2016</td>
<td width="116">20.2</td>
<td width="135">56.9</td>
<td width="118">36.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="74"><em>2017</em></td>
<td width="116"><em>20.6</em></td>
<td width="135"><em>54.1</em></td>
<td width="118"><em>36.5</em></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="74"><strong>Career</strong></td>
<td width="116"><strong>21.5</strong></td>
<td width="135"><strong>58</strong></td>
<td width="118"><strong>39</strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>When he does swing, Bautista appears to be whiffing on more pitches both in and outside the zone. While the average major leaguer makes contact with 87% of pitches in the strike zone (Z-Contact%), Bautista is only making contact at a rate of 80.3% this season. For pitches outside the zone (O-Contact%), the major league average is 66%, 16% higher than Bautista’s 50%. Bautista’s numbers are also down from his own career norms, which are in line with the major league average. It’s possible that age or injuries have left Bautista with the bat on his shoulder more often and swinging through pitches he would normally hit.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<table style="height: 258px" width="662">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="69"></td>
<td width="152">
<p style="text-align: center">Outside the Strike zone Contact%</p>
</td>
<td width="111">
<p style="text-align: center">Inside the Strike Zone Contact%</p>
</td>
<td width="111">
<p style="text-align: center">Contact%</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="69">2015</td>
<td width="152">64.5</td>
<td width="111">87.8</td>
<td width="111">81.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="69">2016</td>
<td width="152">60.4</td>
<td width="111">88.7</td>
<td width="111">80.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="69"><em>2017</em></td>
<td width="152"><em>50</em></td>
<td width="111"><em>80.3</em></td>
<td width="111"><em>71.3</em></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width="69"><strong>Career</strong></td>
<td width="152"><strong>64.3</strong></td>
<td width="111"><strong>87.3</strong></td>
<td width="111"><strong>80.7</strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>After 134 plate appearances this season, it’s entirely possible that Bautista’s lost ability to make contact is more slump than recession of his skills. Something similar happened last season with <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-worrisome-trend-for-troy-tulowitzki/">Troy Tulowitzki</a>. Tulo’s declining contact rates had some concerned his offensive struggles were irreversible. This of course proved untrue and Tulo rebounded to have a solid season at the plate in 2016. Here’s hoping that Jose’s early season struggles are just that, and not the sign of a more worrisome trend moving forward.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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