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	<title>Toronto &#187; Marcus Stroman</title>
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		<title>Artificial Turf Wars Ep. 82: Time to ZiP(S) Up for Winter</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/12/06/artificial-turf-wars-ep-82-time-to-zips-up-for-winter/</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Dec 2017 11:52:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Artifical Turf Wars]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aledmys Diaz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Artificial Turf Wars]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ryan Goins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shohei Ohtani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shohei Otani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Swing and a Drive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TurfPod]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ZiPS]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Episode 82 ESPN&#8217;s Dan Szymborski stops by to discuss his ZiPS projections for the Blue Jays in 2018, with specific discussion about the middle infield, Aaron Sanchez, and the general direction of the team. Greg, Josh, and Nick then discuss the Aledmys Diaz pickup, Shohei Ohtani not joining the Jays, the non-tenders of Ryan Goins [&#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 82</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DSzymborski" target="_blank">ESPN&#8217;s Dan Szymborski</a> stops by to discuss his ZiPS projections for the Blue Jays in 2018, with specific discussion about the middle infield, Aaron Sanchez, and the general direction of the team. Greg, Josh, and Nick then discuss the Aledmys Diaz pickup, Shohei Ohtani not joining the Jays, the non-tenders of Ryan Goins and Tom Koehler, the Marcus Stroman/Jeff Blair feud, and Gregg Zaun being fired by Sportsnet. They also answer listener questions and bring on a Patron to play Swing and a Drive.</p>
<p><strong>Note: The show is now going biweekly unless something important breaks, but there will be occasional special bonus episodes of &#8220;Extra Pellets&#8221; with in depth content exclusively for <a href="https://www.patreon.com/turfpod" target="_blank">Patreon donors</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong>Podcast</strong>: <a class="powerpress_link_pinw" title="Play in New Window" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/044/show_10445925_2017_12_06_03_40_46.mp3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Play in new window</a> | <a class="powerpress_link_d" title="Download" href="http://d1at8ppinvdju8.cloudfront.net/1/044/show_10445925_2017_12_06_03_40_46.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>Three Things to Watch for Against the Tigers</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/08/three-things-to-watch-for-against-the-tigers/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/09/08/three-things-to-watch-for-against-the-tigers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Sep 2017 16:29:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[BP Toronto Team]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Series Preview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit Tigers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Hicks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13348</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Written by Andrew Munn, Greg Wisniewski, and Elie Waitzer More Than A Little Hicks-up? This weekend’s series between the Tigers and Blue Jays will have little to zero (probably zero) effect on how things shake out in the 2017 playoff race. This will allow for many players who don’t get regular playing time to get [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><em>Written by Andrew Munn, Greg Wisniewski, and Elie Waitzer</em></p>
<h3>More Than A Little Hicks-up?</h3>
<p>This weekend’s series between the Tigers and Blue Jays will have little to zero (probably zero) effect on how things shake out in the 2017 playoff race. This will allow for many players who don’t get regular playing time to get some reps in before the season ends. For the Tigers, this languishing period has been occurring since well before September, as their playoff odds have sat below 10% since mid-June. Things have really taken a turn in the past couple months, as Detroit has traded the likes of Alex Avila, J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, and Justin Verlander to bring about opportunities for some fresh faces.</p>
<p>One player who’s taken advantage of his opportunity is John Hicks. The catcher/first baseman hybrid has been hitting rather impressively during his 2017 campaign, with his numbers standing at .313/.372/.537 over 148 plate appearances this season. This production wasn’t exactly expected from Hicks, who had hit .269/.281/.428 in 218 AAA appearances this season. Nonetheless, Hicks ranks third in tAV among Tigers with at least 50 plate appearances at .291 and first among players who have not been traded away.</p>
<p>In all likelihood, this outburst from Hicks will not propel him far into the Tigers’ plans for the future. Nothing in his minor-league numbers has suggested that he could hit like <em>this</em> and he <em>is</em> currently sporting a .391 BABIP. This number is peculiarly high for a 6-2, 230 lb catcher, even one with a career minor league BABIP of .332. He has also never shown power like this before, as his ISO has never hit the .224 mark in the minors that he is currently at right now, and is currently hitting home runs on a whopping 21.4% of his fly balls.</p>
<p>Having said this, Hicks’ sparkling 2017 campaign should still be one to be celebrated. A fourth-round pick by the Mariners in 2008, Hicks has taken his first real opportunity with the Tigers and ran with it this year, potentially causing them to rethink their plans for next season’s Opening Day catcher. If nothing more comes of it past this season, two months of productive MLB play is still an incredible achievement. And if more does come of it, this certainly wouldn’t be the first time a prospect rose from relative anonymity to major leaguer.</p>
<h3>A Lesson About Pitchers</h3>
<p>A lot of times, people like to throw up two stat lines and discuss Player A and Player B, without naming names. At the end of their explanation it is always revealed that Player A was some guy you liked and should have recognized, and Player B was a hamster in a fat suit and funny glasses, and clearly the superior option. I don&#8217;t do that very often, but I&#8217;m going to ask you to indulge me in that little cliché now.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/09/stroman-all.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-13352" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/09/stroman-all.jpg" alt="stroman all" width="820" height="75" /></a></p>
<p>There we are. Two stat lines for your consider. The first thing I would like you to notice is how many similarities there are. Opponent&#8217;s TAv, and his H/9, K/9, GB %, even FIP and DRA are not that far off. One pitcher has only made 28 starts, but that might not be his fault, depending on injuries and rotation slot. The difference that jumps right out is ERA. Pitcher B is a full run and a third better than pitcher A. That is often the difference between a win and a loss for the team on any given day.</p>
<p>So which pitcher would you choose to make a start against the Tigers this weekend? If you said pitcher B, congratulations, you&#8217;ve chosen the Toronto staff workhorse Marcus Stroman. If you said Pitcher A, congratulations, you have also chosen the Toronto staff workhorse Marcus Stroman! I told you that there&#8217;s always a twist at the end of these things.</p>
<p>Pitcher A is Stroman in 2016, and Pitcher B is Stroman in 2017. The point here is an illustration of an old Sabermetric problem. ERA tells you how well a particular season went for a pitcher, but it tells you very little about <em>how things might go for him if he continues to do the same things the next season</em>. Perhaps you already knew a bit about that, or perhaps you&#8217;ve been curious about FIP and DRA and why they might be valuable to you as a baseball fan. Stroman&#8217;s FIP and DRA both moved by only a third of a run between the two years (oddly, in the opposite directions), and they are a much better indicator of the results Marcus might get if he keeps &#8216;being himself&#8217; next year.</p>
<p>So, on Friday night, enjoy 2017 Marcus Stroman, who is every bit the pitcher 2016 Marcus Stroman was, with a little bit more luck going his way.</p>
<h3>He Mahtook Us All By Surprise</h3>
<p>Any guess as to who currently leads the Tigers with a .276 batting average (minimum 250 PA)? Hint: He spent the first two years of his career in Tampa Bay before coming to Detroit. Still nothing? Does the name Mikie Mahtook ring any bells?</p>
<p>If it did, you probably only know him from <a href="https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/09/03/mikie-mahtook-tigers-home-run-blunder-video">this </a>infamous web gem.</p>
<p>To be fair, leading the gutted carcass of the Detroit Tigers in batting average isn&#8217;t high praise, but Mahtook&#8217;s relative success this season has come out of nowhere. The biggest difference for the 27-year-old outfielder has come in the strikeout department, where he&#8217;s posted a career-low 21% rate. Compared to his 37% rate last season, that&#8217;s one of the most drastic reductions of any player in the league &#8211; right next to breakout Cardinal Tommy Pham. Mahtook has also tapped into his power by pulling the ball more often, which has gotten him into double-digit homer totals for the first time in his career.</p>
<p>Throw in a handful of steals and solid fielding ratings and you&#8217;ve got a player that the Tigers are probably happy to start in center field throughout their rebuilding process.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Toronto Blue Jays Stuff Report &#8211; Volume 2, Issue 6</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/23/toronto-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-6/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/08/23/toronto-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-6/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Aug 2017 14:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fatigue Units]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13067</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Even in the darkest days of the Toronto Blue Jays 2017 season, there will still be Stuff to discuss. Let&#8217;s look and see how this tire fire has played out in the world of advanced pitching metrics. Starting Pitchers The Starters who have managed to stick around for more than spot starts or one inning [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Even in the darkest days of the Toronto Blue Jays 2017 season, there will still be Stuff to discuss. Let&#8217;s look and see how this tire fire has played out in the world of advanced pitching metrics.</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13071" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starters-Table-1024x184.png" alt="Starters Table" width="700" height="126" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13079" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Starter-Stuff.png" alt="Starter Stuff" width="650" height="471" /></a></p>
<p>The Starters who have managed to stick around for more than spot starts or one inning blow outs (looking at you, Frankie) have had their ups and downs this season. Marco Estrada has an interesting relationship with the Stuff Metric &#8211; when he throws his Curveball, things look a lot better (due to an increased separation between pitches). His Stuff is never going to be elite &#8211; not when his fastball sits nearly a full standard deviation below league average, but when he doesn&#8217;t throw the curve at all, his Stuff falls completely off a cliff. His season started out with a lot of variability, then hit a declining phase &#8211; but after the All Star break &#8211; the Stuff has looked a lot more consistent.</p>
<p>Stroman has had some very consistent Stuff &#8211; a coefficient of variation on the season of 60%. While this is high with respect to his peers, he has the least amount of variability on the Blue Jays staff (amongst starters who have appeared in at least 15 weeks). From an injury perspective, lower variability in Stuff on a weekly basis is linked to reduced injury chances which obviously is a point in Stroman&#8217;s favour. On the flip side, Happ and Estrada have some of the most variability in their Stuff in the entire MLB.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13069" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Relievers-Table-1024x154.png" alt="Relievers Table" width="700" height="105" /></a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-13072" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/Reliever-Stuff-1024x743.png" alt="Reliever Stuff" width="650" height="471" /></a></p>
<p>Well now, this doesn&#8217;t look good at all. Last year, the Blue Jays had elite Stuff relievers in both Joe Biagini and Roberto Osuna. This year, Osuna has had an up and down year with his Stuff and has hovered right below league average Stuff (0.4). The Twitterverse started getting huffy with me this week when <a href="https://twitter.com/DrMikeSonne/status/899392674754592768" target="_blank">I tweeted that Roberto Osuna should be shut down for the year</a> to prevent injury and ensure he will be a huge part of the team for seasons to come. Like I had mentioned, Osuna&#8217;s Stuff is way down &#8211; he has lost a significant amount off of his fastball and he seems to just refuse to throw the fourseamer anymore.</p>
<p>Not only has his fastball dropped off, but Osunas has lost Stuff in all other areas too. There&#8217;s less separation between his pitches and less range of velocity between the pitch arsenal.</p>
<table style="height: 230px" width="441">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Roberto Osuna</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2015</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2016</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400"> 2017</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Stuff</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.82</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.84</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">0.38</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Fastball Velo (mph)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">95.51</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">95.75</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">94.87</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Change in Velo (%)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">13.79%</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">9.91%</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">8.17%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="font-weight: 400">Break Distance (&#8220;)</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">10.31</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">11.60</td>
<td style="font-weight: 400">8.08</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>I wrote an article that examined workloads in pitchers that tried to come up with a metric that compared relievers to starters in the same light. Looking closely at these values (in the PitchFX era), there has only been one pitcher that had a higher workload before they turned 23  &#8211; Madison Bumgarner.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/before-23.png"><img class=" wp-image-13076 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/08/before-23.png" alt="before 23" width="600" height="352" /></a></p>
<p>In addition, no pitcher had appeared in more games than Osuna. These are uncharted waters &#8211; and if the Jays are seeing these same signs, a tough decision is coming; is it worth risking the health of one of baseball&#8217;s best young closers for an outside shot at the second wildcard, in exchange for losing him for parts of the next two?</p>
<p><em> Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>It&#8217;s Been A Forgettable Month (and Season) for the Blue Jays&#8217; Rotation</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/28/its-been-a-forgettable-month-and-season-for-the-blue-jays-rotation/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/28/its-been-a-forgettable-month-and-season-for-the-blue-jays-rotation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Jul 2017 11:04:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dave Church]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12509</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Blue Jays&#8217; month of July has been like every other month so far this season: not good enough. Their record thus far hasn&#8217;t gotten them back into any kind of shape to make a run at the playoffs, putting them more likely to sell than buy at the deadline. Even the moral victories have [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Blue Jays&#8217; month of July has been like every other month so far this season: not good enough. Their record thus far hasn&#8217;t gotten them back into any kind of shape to make a run at the playoffs, putting them more likely to sell than buy at the deadline. Even the moral victories have felt hollow: a series split against the league-leading Astros earlier in the month had two blowout losses. A winning streak against the A&#8217;s has the feel of too little, too late. The team has needed to make up ground ever since that disastrous start to the season, and have continually been unable to do so.</p>
<p>While there are many reasons the Jays have continued to be mediocre, one problem has been the struggles of the starting rotation. Remember before the season, when Fangraphs <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-positional-power-rankings-starting-rotation-16-30/">ranked the Blue Jays rotation 16th in baseball?</a> Every Blue Jays fan and analyst thought this ranking sold them short.</p>
<p>Our reaction was justified. The Jays had just come off a season where the rotation had performed very well, and drove most of the success of the team. The basic stats were impressive as Blue Jays starters led the league in innings pitched, were fourth in both wins and ERA, and fifth in WHIP. They had added a potential bounce-back candidate in Francisco Liriano, whose tantalizing stuff led many to expect better results than they&#8217;d gotten from knuckleballer R.A. Dickey. There was reason to expect improvement from Marcus Stroman, and continued excellence from the rest of the rotation. It was even argued here that their rotation could have been <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/07/the-blue-jays-rotation-might-be-just-as-good-as-bostons/">even better than Boston</a>.</p>
<p>Thus far this year, it seems Fangraphs might have been optimistic. Of those four stats we mentioned earlier—innings pitched, wins, ERA, and WHIP—Jays starters are as high as 16th in baseball, in ERA. Almost nothing has worked out as planned. After a Cy-Young caliber season in 2016, Aaron Sanchez has had <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/21/aaron-sanchezs-latest-blister-woes-are-a-fitting-unofficial-end-to-the-season/">continual blister issues</a> that have held him to just eight starts this season, several of them cut short by said blisters. Marco Estrada&#8217;s 2016 excellence has been <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/10/whats-wrong-with-marco-estrada/">missing in action</a> since the calendar turned to June. J.A. Happ missed several weeks with an injury, and has been slow to round back into form. Liriano has been a disaster, with injuries and inconsistency nagging at him. Only Stroman has been both healthy and good, something no other regular member of the rotation can say.</p>
<p>July has been especially ugly, with short outings and crooked numbers marking so many of those losses. Of those twelve losses this month, the Jays have lost five of them by ten runs or more. The rotation&#8217;s ineffectiveness has forced a heavy workload on the bullpen, a workload the Jays have generally <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/15/mid-season-workloads-fatigue-units-for-the-toronto-blue-jays/">managed well</a>, given how often the bullpen has worked. This workload is in contrast to last year, when the rotation consistently went deep into games. This ensured fewer innings for the bullpen, which was occasionally volatile outside of closer Roberto Osuna. Fewer innings for worse pitchers is a good recipe for success.</p>
<p>Here are some numbers for the Jays&#8217; starters in July. Avert your eyes, children, because they&#8217;re ugly.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/startnum2.png"><br />
</a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/startnum4.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12674" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/startnum4.png" alt="startnum4" width="755" height="193" /></a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/startnum3.png"><br />
</a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/startnum.png"><br />
</a></p>
<p>That&#8217;s, uh&#8230; that&#8217;s almost all bad. Even after their four-game winning streak against the lowly A&#8217;s, there&#8217;s a lot of high numbers in that bunch. Only Stroman and spot starter Cesar Valdez have averaged more than  5 and 1/3 innings a start. Liriano has been downright awful. Seeing Sanchez and Estrada with similar numbers to Liriano is startling, given their prior success. Happ wasn&#8217;t really bad until his start Sunday, but hasn&#8217;t had his usual long outings. Stroman has been as good as we could expect, holding down the rotation as it collapses around him.</p>
<p>The slide in Toronto&#8217;s defense probably hasn&#8217;t helped. The Jays have allowed a league leading 138 runs this month (18 of them unearned), 14 more than the second-worst team in baseball. Those blowout losses have surely padded the total, but they all count the same. All those runs (and all those pitches that lead to those runs) wear down a pitching staff that was already thin. The starters have been bad, forcing the bullpen to work more, meaning more innings for guys who probably shouldn&#8217;t be getting them. Mike Bolsinger, who wasn&#8217;t on the opening day roster, has as many innings as Estrada and more than Sanchez this month (and has pitched much better than both of them).</p>
<p>It&#8217;s been a very rough stretch for the Jays&#8217; starters, but it will turn around. They certainly aren&#8217;t <em>this</em> bad, even if they may not reach their 2016 heights or hopes again. Luck, talent, or randomness will happen, and things will get better. Sanchez should eventually figure out those blisters, Happ will get back to doing what he does best, and Estrada should find a level that&#8217;s comfortably higher than what we&#8217;ve seen recently. With 2016&#8217;s excellence a fading memory, and the playoffs probably out of reach, the Jays have some questions to answer about next year&#8217;s pitching staff. They need to figure out who&#8217;s worth keeping, and who they can or should move on from.</p>
<p><em>Stats as of July 27th 2017</em></p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Top 10 Blue Jays by Trade Deadline Value (No. 1 &#8211; 5)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/26/the-top-10-blue-jays-by-trade-deadline-value-5-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jul 2017 10:35:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vladimir Guerrero]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12570</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at BP Toronto yesterday. As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets: #10: RHP Joe Biagini #9: 2B Devon Travis #8: 1B Justin [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is part two of the Blue Jays deadline 2017 top-ten trade value series. The introduction, as well as the tenth through sixth most valuable, went up at <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12567&amp;utm_content=buffer992d4&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=buffer">BP Toronto yesterday.</a> As a brief recap before, your tenth to sixth most valuable Blue Jays trade assets:</p>
<p>#10: RHP Joe Biagini</p>
<p>#9: 2B Devon Travis</p>
<p>#8: 1B Justin Smoak</p>
<p>#7: SS Bo Bichette</p>
<p>#6: LHP J.A. Happ</p>
<p>And now into the top five most valuable Blue Jays.</p>
<p><strong>#5: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=107184">3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12588" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/5-Guerrero.png" alt="#5 Guerrero" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>This was an appropriate spot for a break because when I was first getting started on this exercise, identifying the five most valuable trade chips in the organization was easy. While it may not appear that way on a numerical list, you could run the St. Lawrence River through the gulf between Happ and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Guerrero is one of the most highly regarded prospects in all of baseball, placing 13th on the mid-season list at <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=32224">Baseball Prospectus</a> and an astounding <em>second overall </em>at <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/2017-midseason-top-100-prospects-july-7/#6qXSA461V3KqGhzi.97">Baseball America</a>. These types of prospects simply don&#8217;t get moved very often, and when they do—see Yoan Moncada for Chris Sale and Eloy Jimenez for Jose Quintana—it&#8217;s for a cost controlled elite major league talent. In fact, Guerrero has a strong case for being number four on the list. If he shows even a glimmer against Florida State League pitching over the final six weeks of the minor league season, that leap will be a much easier call on the offseason iteration of the Blue Jays trade value series here at BP Toronto.</p>
<p>It can sometimes be challenging trying to compare minor leaguers to major leaguers using the same scale, as it feels a bit awkward trying to assign value to someone so far from the show. <a href="http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/mlb-prospect-surplus-values-2016-updated-edition/">Kevin Creagh and Steve DiMiceli of The Point of Pittsburgh</a> have developed and tweaked a model over the years to help make that comparison a bit easier to digest. The whole article is worth your time, but in short, they have divided historical top 100 prospects into hitters and pitchers, and then further subdivided them into buckets based upon specific ranges of rankings. For each of these ten buckets, they provide the average WAR and surplus value over the six years of team control, as well as some bust metrics (less than 3 WAR; 0 or less WAR).</p>
<p>Using Baseball Prospectus&#8217; rankings, the average prospect in Guerrero&#8217;s bucket has produced 13.0 WAR and 62 million in surplus value over the six team-controlled years. Buying into Baseball America&#8217;s #2 overall ranking, those numbers jump to 15.3 WAR and nearly 74 million in surplus value. Only 7 of the 96 from those two buckets produced 0 or less WAR, so historically, someone like Guerrero has more than a 90 percent chance of becoming <em>something</em>. Comparatively, hitters in Bo Bichette&#8217;s bucket averaged 8.1 WAR and 38 million in surplus value. In other words, despite being ranked as the top two prospect in the minor league system and only two spots apart on this list, it wouldn&#8217;t be a stretch to say Guerrero has twice the value as a trade asset. Hence the gulf.</p>
<p><strong>#4: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=56185">3B Josh Donaldson</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12589" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/4-Donaldson.png" alt="#4 Donaldson" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Josh Donaldson has garnered the most attention as the poster boy for a potential rebuild in Toronto, but in reality, despite having a Most Valuable Player trophy with his name on it, a .291/.387/.559 slash line, and 19.8 WARP over his last three full seasons, he may actually be only the fourth most valuable trade asset the Blue Jays have.</p>
<p>This ranking isn&#8217;t a slight against Josh, as even with his struggles since returning from the disabled list he&#8217;s clearly still the <em>best </em>player in the organization. Unfortunately, Donaldson has two key factors working against his value. First, he&#8217;ll be a free agent following the 2018 season—a year in which he&#8217;ll be paid in the neighbourhood of 25 million for his fourth trip through arbitration. Any interested team would have to be both willing and capable of stomaching that short term salary and the long term cost of elite young talent in order to have Josh Donaldson play upwards of 200 regular season games and participate in potentially two postseason runs in their uniform. The second is that, while a great story, Donaldson&#8217;s epiphany and renaissance as a hitter led to his service clock starting much later than it does for most players. After 2018, he&#8217;ll be entering free agency looking ahead to his age-33 season, meaning that Donaldson isn&#8217;t necessarily the type of guy that a team pays an exorbitant cost to acquire so that they can throw a lengthy extension on him, too.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, recent comparables for a trade of an MVP-caliber hitter with 1.5 years of control remaining don&#8217;t exist. These days, players like this simply don&#8217;t get traded. Pitchers live in a completely different market; there are 150 rotation spots and even more bullpen jobs across baseball, but there are only thirty spots at each position and only a handful of teams that would match up on both need and the ability to pay. With such a narrow pool of suitors for elite position players on the verge of free agency, opposing teams are likely wary of bidding against themselves, leading to lesser offers. Consequently, rather than enraging their fan base and dealing their star for a pittance—like J.D. Martinez, as one example—front offices choose to hold out hope that an extension with their star will eventually be reached. In a vacuum he may be the fourth most valuable trade asset, but history suggests that Donaldson and the Blue Jays are likely to ride things out for the at least the next two years regardless.</p>
<p><strong>#3: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=68997">RHP Roberto Osuna</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12590" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/3-Osuna.png" alt="#3 Osuna" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>With the chronic blister and fingernail issues that Aaron Sanchez has battled this season, Roberto Osuna could make a legitimate case as the second most valuable trade asset in the organization. What kept him behind Sanchez, at least in my book, was that you could throw Sanchez in the bullpen tomorrow, tell him to exclusively throw 98 to 99 mile per hour two-seam fastballs, and he&#8217;d probably be 80 or 90 percent of the reliever Osuna is. Even with the optimism from the fan base about moving Osuna to the rotation, I&#8217;m not sure he could do an equally similar impersonation of Sanchez&#8217; 2016 season if the roles were reversed. But Osuna doesn&#8217;t need to throw 200 innings a year to be an extraordinarily valuable trade asset. The 22-year old has settled in as one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the game today, and is on pace for a career-high 2.2 WARP this season.</p>
<p>Relievers are the most commonly moved asset, but few have the combination of dominance, team control and experience that can Osuna boast. He&#8217;s controllable through 2020 with three arbitration years forthcoming, and while they&#8217;ll be at less than market value due to the nature of the process itself, the salaries won&#8217;t be inconsequential with his ever increasing save totals. And while most of us have moved past this primitive line of thought, some may still see value in Osuna being a &#8220;proven playoff closer&#8221;. To wit, the Blue Jays pushed into the American League Championship Series in Osuna&#8217;s rookie and sophomore campaigns, and he has answered the bell with a career 1.04 ERA/2.22 FIP across 14 career postseason games. Those were the highest of high leverage situations, and Osuna showed no qualms with being deployed in any type of situation by manager John Gibbons.</p>
<p>Just last year both Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller got moved for massive prospect packages, but Chapman had just a couple of months remaining on his deal and Miller was owed about 20 million over two and a half years on his. Osuna has achieved their level of performance on the field, but offers far more team control with the added bonus of going year-to-year as protection against injury. Looking back another seven months prior for a third comparable, the Phillies moved Ken Giles to the Houston Astros in another blockbuster. Giles had the dominance and team control, but not the ninth inning experience. Still, he landed Mark Appel (when he was still well regarded) and Vince Velasquez in Philadelphia, as well as a handful of other lesser pieces. For Shapiro and Atkins to seriously consider moving Osuna, any package would have to dwarf what those arms got. Incredibly, it&#8217;s not a stretch to think someone might just do it.</p>
<p><strong>#2: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=67107">RHP Aaron Sanchez</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12591" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/2-Sanchez.png" alt="#2 Sanchez" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>Prior to the 2017 season I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s any question that Aaron Sanchez was the most valuable pitcher in the Blue Jays organization, and he&#8217;d have had a strong argument as the most valuable overall. We&#8217;ve evolved beyond ERA and win-loss record as tools for evaluating pitchers, but there&#8217;s still a certain degree of coolness in leading the league in the former and running a glorious 15-2 mark in the latter, which is exactly what Aaron Sanchez did in 2016 while fighting off questions about being shut down or moved to the bullpen. As a 24-year old he produced 3.7, 3.9, and 4.9 wins above replacement by Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, and Baseball Reference respectively, and Sanchez&#8217; star was burning as bright as a summer day at the ballpark.</p>
<p>Then came the blisters. Sanchez has been placed on the disabled list four times already this season—April 15th, May 1st, May 20th, and July 22nd—for middle finger issues, and unfortunately, they&#8217;re not the same as those that <a href="http://nypost.com/2017/06/01/fan-says-mr-met-showered-with-profane-heckles-before-bird-flip/">surrounded Mr. Met</a> earlier this year. But what seems to have been long forgotten is that these issues first popped up last year. Sanchez was removed from a start on September 11, 2016 with blister issues, and in speaking to <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/can-aaron-sanchez-speed-healing-process-blister/">Sportsnet&#8217;s Shi Davidi</a> afterwards, the right hander revealed he&#8217;d been dealing with blister issues since spring training of <em>that year</em>. Whatever solution he and the training staff used to quietly manage the problem last year clearly hasn&#8217;t translated into 2017. Sanchez dealt with blister issues <em>this </em>spring as well, which led to his delayed start to his year and likely contributed to his trip to the disabled list in April.</p>
<p>With this much uncertainty surrounding his finger, it&#8217;s hard to peg down exactly what kind of value Sanchez has at this point in time. Blisters are supposed to be a bit of a nuisance, not something that will cost a pitcher three quarters of the season when it&#8217;s all said and done. If he had just 36 innings under his belt in late July due to arm-related issues, he&#8217;d be much lower on this list &#8212; were he to make the top ten at all. Yet I feel comfortable that if Aaron Sanchez&#8217; name were floated on the trade market, opposing general managers would be tripping over themselves trying to get the Blue Jays on the line as they barked at their interns to provide them with an exhaustive list of each and every blister fix known to man.</p>
<p>If you take the stance that Sanchez will get over this issue in the coming months, the trade that sent Shelby Miller to Arizona provides something of a parallel comparison. In the 2015/2016 offseason, Miller was entering his first year of arbitration coming off a 5.1 WARP season in Atlanta. In exchange, the Braves received prospects Dansby Swanson and Aaron Blair (who immediately slotted as Atlanta&#8217;s #1 and 4 prospects, <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28165">according to Chris Crawford</a>), as well as criminally underrated outfielder Ender Inciarte who was coming off a 4.1 WARP season of his own. Of course, the Diamondbacks were brutalized in the public domain for the package they surrendered, and general manager Dave Stewart was fired less than a year after making the trade. Sanchez wouldn&#8217;t net that strong of a return, but needless to say, cheap, young, dominant right handed starting pitching is more valuable than gold.</p>
<p><strong>#1: <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=70371">RHP Marcus Stroman</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12592" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/1-Stroman.png" alt="#1 Stroman" width="466" height="101" /></a></p>
<p>The most valuable trade asset in the Toronto Blue Jays organization is right handed starter Marcus Stroman. Still only 26-years old, Stroman has already built the reputation as an unbelievably hard worker and a fearless big-game pitcher, and his performance on the field has more than backed up all of the narratives. Never shy to tinker or evolve his repertoire over the course of a game or season if dictated by results or opponents , Stroman has pitched like a top of the rotation starter pretty much from the moment he made his major league debut. As a rookie he produced 3.3 WARP over 20 starts in 2014, added 0.3 WARP over 4 starts in September 2015 after miraculously returning from a torn ACL, produced 3.5 WARP over 32 starts in 2016, and is currently on pace for a career best 5.1 WARP this season. According to Baseball Reference, he&#8217;s on track to eclipse 7 WAR. But it takes more than just great numbers to truly be heralded as an ace.</p>
<p>Stroman is reliable. Stroman is the easiest guy in the world to root for. In aggregate, this July has seen the most embarrassing pitching I&#8217;ve experienced in Blue Jays history. Starters have seemingly failed to complete four innings more often than not, forcing manager John Gibbons to churn through the relief arms in both Toronto and Buffalo like a butter mill. His one saving grace has been his ace, Marcus Stroman. Over his four starts in July, Stroman has faced nothing but terrific offense deployed by the Yankees, Astros, Red Sox, and Indians—all of whom currently sit in playoff spots— and responded with 5.0, 7.0, 6.2, and 7.2 innings pitched. He developed a blister in the first inning against Cleveland on Saturday, but still battled through 117 pitches because he knew his manager and his teammates needed him.</p>
<p>Marcus Stroman has never been on the disabled list with an arm injury and is under control through 2020. He took the Blue Jays to arbitration and won last winter, meaning his second, third, and fourth trips through the process are likely to cost in the neighbourhood of 30 to 40 million total, depending upon the number of Cy Young votes he earns over the next couple of seasons. That&#8217;s not unlike what Chris Sale had left on his contract when the Boston Red Sox swung a deal for him last offseason. As you&#8217;ll of course remember, they forfeited Yoan Moncada, the number one prospect in all of baseball, as well as elite right handed pitcher Michael Kopech and a pair of other intriguing prospects for the privilege of paying him that money.</p>
<p>Now, Marcus Stroman isn&#8217;t Chris Sale, and the Blue Jays window to buy out a few of his free agent years with a long term extension has likely come and gone (if it existed at all in the first place). His trade value likely falls somewhere between that of Sale and Sale&#8217;s former teammate, Jose Quintana. In a word: enormous. Already at the top of this list, if the Blue Jays were serious about moving him—which I&#8217;m skeptical of as his 3.5 years of control provide ample opportunity to trade him later if the team can&#8217;t turn things around in the short term—he would immediately soar to the top of everyone else&#8217;s list, too.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Gary A. Vasquez, USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The STUFF report – Vol. 2, Issue 5 &#8211; All Star Break Edition</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/12/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-5-all-star-break-edition/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/12/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-5-all-star-break-edition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jul 2017 10:45:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12292</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Hey Sorry &#8211; I broke my own Stuff report &#8211; but it&#8217;s all fixed now and we&#8217;re ready to rock again. I think it might even be new, and improved. Let&#8217;s get to it. Starting Pitchers The usual suspects are all here; and the numbers don&#8217;t look a whole lot different than they did in [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey Sorry &#8211; I broke my own Stuff report &#8211; but it&#8217;s all fixed now and we&#8217;re ready to rock again. I think it might even be new, and improved. Let&#8217;s get to it.</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Starters-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-12294" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Starters-Table-1024x240.png" alt="Starters Table" width="801" /><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-12293" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Starters-Graph-1024x742.png" alt="Starters Graph" width="801" /></a></p>
<p>The usual suspects are all here; and the numbers don&#8217;t look a whole lot different than they did in 2016. Stroman&#8217;s Stuff is much better in 2017, driven by a bit more fastball velocity but significantly (nearly 4&#8243;) more separation between his pitches. That&#8217;s a lot more room to miss bats. In 2017, Stroman is giving up contact on 76.9% of his pitches, compared to 80.2% of his pitches in 2016.</p>
<p>Obviously though &#8211; the Jays starting rotation is struggling in 2017 compared to their banner year of 2016. If the Stuff looks like it is still there, what&#8217;s going on with these guys? I took a look at Baseball Prospectus&#8217; command and control statistics to see what&#8217;s happening. For a quick refresher, command refers to a pitcher&#8217;s ability to hit his spots &#8211; measured in the % of called strikes above average a pitcher receives. Control refers to the ability for a pitcher to put their pitch in the strike zone &#8211; measured as the called strike probability of their pitches.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/command-control.png"><img class="alignnone wp-image-12295" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/command-control-1024x851.png" alt="command control" width="550" height="457" /></a></p>
<p>Remember if the Stuff stays the same &#8211; which, it has for the most part, something else is happening to make the pitches more hittable. For the brief time we&#8217;ve seen Aaron Sanchez this season &#8211; he has gotten rocked, or his hand has fallen off. He&#8217;s getting fewer called strikes on the edges of the zone and then he&#8217;s putting the ball in the zone less frequently. The blister issues that he&#8217;s had relate directly to this; if the finger tip is hurt, there&#8217;s less sensation. He will struggle with release point, and his fine control. Hopefully he gets the rust off and has a great second half.</p>
<p>Marco Estrada is likely the biggest example of the command/control/stuff interaction. His Stuff has remained relatively the same, but his command is way down, and his control is up. That means his easily hittable, lower velocity and movement pitches are staying in the zone &#8211; and they&#8217;re getting hammered.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Relievers-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-12297" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Relievers-Table-1024x344.png" alt="Relievers Table" width="801" /><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-12296" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/Relievers-Graph-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Graph" width="801" /></a></p>
<p>The only elite Stuff guy in the Jays Bullpen remains Joe Biagini, and that has been a bit of a mixed bag with his entrance and exit to the starting rotation. If you&#8217;re looking for a light at the end of the tunnel for Biagini, his &#8220;Deserved Runs Average&#8221; is actually lower in 2017 than it was in 2016. His Stuff is there, and his command/control numbers look consistent. The evidence points to him breaking out of his funk and being a great pitcher once again.</p>
<p>Osuna&#8217;s Stuff is down in 2017 when compared to his 2016 numbers, but with this comes refined command and control. There is no doubt that Roberto Osuna is one of the best pitchers in the world right now. His fastball velocity is well above average, though the separation between his pitches is much less than it was in 2016 (13.8&#8243; in 2016, compared to 8.1&#8243; in 2017). Where he&#8217;s totally dominating is in the command/control segment. He has more than doubled the amount of command he has on the edges, while leaving fewer pitches in the zone to hit. This has resulted in staggering changes in swinging strike profiles &#8211; batters are making contact on nearly 6% fewer pitches, while swinging at nearly 8% more of his pitches that are out of the zone. In general, he&#8217;s getting 4% more swinging strikes in 2017 than in 2016. Roberto, never leave us. You are a king.</p>
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
<p>In general, what we&#8217;re seeing out of this Blue Jays team is a ton of injuries, which have a significant effect on the pitcher&#8217;s ability to throw strikes where they want them. Last year, the Blue Jays pitchers got more called strikes than the average team &#8211; this year, they&#8217;re under that average mark. <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/but-greg-maddux/">While I&#8217;m sure to attract the &#8220;But Greg Maddux&#8221; crowd with this statement, velocity is king.</a> It trumps command and control and is a huge predictor of MLB success. You can see this in the evaluation of the Stuff metric as well &#8211; it&#8217;s easier to succeed with great stuff than it is with mediocre, or bad stuff. That doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t succeed, though. Think of Stuff and Velocity as an insurance policy against bad command &#8211; missing your spot at 97 has way more margin for error than missing your spot at 89. The Jays are not a pitching staff with a whole lot of insurance policies, and now that they aren&#8217;t threading the needle like they did last year, they&#8217;re paying for it.</p>
<p>Well, welcome back to the Stuff report! I promise I won&#8217;t leave you again.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>THE STUFF REPORT – VOL. 2, ISSUE 4</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/30/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-4/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/30/the-stuff-report-vol-2-issue-4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 May 2017 14:35:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Loup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=11248</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Thank you for tuning into the 2-4 Stuff report. It&#8217;s a week late for celebrating the real 2-4, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t grab a 2-4 with your buds and enjoy some statistical bliss. And that doesn&#8217;t mean beer! There&#8217;s a great sale on Blue Label sparking water at Fortino&#8217;s right now. Have you [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Thank you for tuning into the 2-4 Stuff report. It&#8217;s a week late for celebrating the real 2-4, but that doesn&#8217;t mean you can&#8217;t grab a 2-4 with your buds and enjoy some statistical bliss. And that doesn&#8217;t mean beer! There&#8217;s a great sale on Blue Label sparking water at Fortino&#8217;s right now. Have you tried it? Delicious. What was I talking about?</p>
<h2>Starting Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11252" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Table-1024x208.png" alt="Starters Table" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11251" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Figure-1024x742.png" alt="Starters Figure" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>My favourite pitcher to watch on the Stuff report has been Marcus Stroman. Stro has better stuff in 2017 than he did in 2016 &#8211; actually, his Stuff has increased by double, from 0.24 to 0.58. Last season, <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/01/pitch-homogenization-and-marcus-stromans-breaking-balls/">Kyle Matte wrote about how Stroman&#8217;s pitches looked too similar.</a> It&#8217;s great that you can throw 6 different pitches, but if the hitter can&#8217;t tell the difference between them &#8211; they might as well all be fastballs to him.  This year &#8211; Stro is doing something different.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stro-Show.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11254" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stro-Show-1024x243.png" alt="Stro Show" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>Take a look at how he is changing speeds in 2017 &#8211; and how he is gaining separation between his pitches. The change in velocity is slight, but the 16.6&#8243; separation between his fastball and breaking stuff in the past two weeks is excellent. This separation actually ranks in the top 25 percent of all pitchers in the MLB in the 2017 this season. The 10.2&#8243; he had in 2016? 75 percent of pitchers were better. The current numbers mean a lot more space to induce swings and misses. This is reflected in his increased strikeout rate as well:</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/stro-break-and-k9.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-11255" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/stro-break-and-k9.png" alt="stro break and k9" width="700px" /></a>\</p>
<p>You obviously can&#8217;t infer that much from this graph &#8211; it is too small of a sample to say that this is a sustainable trend &#8211; but the relationship sure is interesting. We can look back at the end of the season and see how Stro&#8217;s pitch separation leads to punching more tickets.</p>
<h2>Relief Pitchers</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/relievers-table.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11250" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/relievers-table-1024x224.png" alt="relievers table" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Figure.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11249" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Figure-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Figure" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Blue Jays Bullpen Stuff resembles a lot of their season in general &#8211; a rocky start, followed by a lot of stability. In fact, this graph is boring as hell. Here class, may I show you a bunch of straight lines? The exciting thing is about how straight they are. Do you like Molson Canadian and White Wonderbread? I also enjoy going to bed at 10pm and having Swiss Chalet at 4:30 on Wednesdays.</p>
<p>There are two guys that I have some concerns with though &#8211; Roberto Osuna and Aaron Loup. Right now, Osuna&#8217;s stuff is 33 of what it was in 2016. As for Aaron Loup, his stuff has fallen completely off the map. While the culprit with Osuna looks like it&#8217;s a lot of velocity loss, Loup is not separating between his pitches at all in 2017. The Loup concern is something that is a bit more strategic &#8211; if he&#8217;s really feeling that fastball, there&#8217;s no need to throw the slider &#8211; especially if it&#8217;s getting guys out. Osuna&#8217;s leaking velocity is a bit more insidious &#8211; this could be a sign of fatigue and worse, a chance he&#8217;s injured. </p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Loup-and-OSuna.png"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-11257" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Loup-and-OSuna-1024x316.png" alt="Loup and OSuna" width="700px" /></a></p>
<p>Stuff will continue to educate us all on the miracles of pitching.</p>
<p>Ok, back to my quarter chicken dinner.</p>
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		<title>Marcus Stroman is Unapologetically Good and That&#8217;s Not a Bad Thing</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/03/marcus-stroman-is-unapologetically-good-and-thats-not-a-bad-thing/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/03/marcus-stroman-is-unapologetically-good-and-thats-not-a-bad-thing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 May 2017 11:15:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard Lee-Sam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10488</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman is a character. Even baseball fans that aren’t that familiar with the Blue Jays have seen his act before. The only two things bigger than his six-pitch repertoire are his collection of shoes and his mouth when he’s on the mound. The 26-year-old, 5-foot-8, trash-talking, Jordan-wearing, strutting, strike-throwing machine seems to become a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Marcus Stroman is a character.</p>
<p>Even baseball fans that aren’t that familiar with the Blue Jays have seen his act before. The only two things bigger than his six-pitch repertoire are his collection of shoes and his mouth when he’s on the mound. The 26-year-old, 5-foot-8, trash-talking, Jordan-wearing, strutting, strike-throwing machine seems to become a topic every fifth day when old school baseball fans think he should just do his job.</p>
<p>The thing about Marcus Stroman is that he does his job pretty well. Marcus Stroman’s 3.71 Earned Run Average since he joined the Blue Jays rotation in 2014 ranks 45<sup>th</sup> among all qualified pitchers. What he does exceptionally well is keep the ball on the ground, and his ground ball rate of 58.2% post-2014 is third among all starters, 2.9 points back of leader Dallas Keuchel.</p>
<p>He was good enough to join Team USA at the World Baseball Classic this spring and shimmied to the WBC MVP after taking a no-hitter into the 7<sup>th</sup> inning of the final against Puerto Rico. Let’s just say Puerto Rican’s weren’t too happy with him after the championship game <a href="https://twitter.com/RLeesam/status/844763219625308160" target="_blank">for some reason</a>.</p>
<p>It’s fair to say that Marcus Stroman is unapologetically good and doesn’t care what anybody thinks. As a result, he’s taken a lot of heat for it.</p>
<p>Many times, people have taken issue with him screaming at his infielders after a good play, hyping himself up, or getting too worked up and glaring into the opposing dugout after the third out is recorded.</p>
<p>My question is, how is any of that bad for the game?</p>
<p>Major League Baseball has two problems: an aging fan base and more time being taken to play games. Over the past few seasons, commissioner Rob Manfred and the rest of the MLB have been looking to find ways to shorten the game in an attempt to draw in new, younger fans.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2014%20Reports/year-in-sports-media-report-2013.pdf" target="_blank">Nielsen’s Year in Sports Media Report</a> for the 2013 season, Major League Baseball had the oldest fans among the big four North American sports (MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL) with about 50% of total viewers being over the age of 55.</p>
<p>We live in a social media age where everything is captured and shared instantly. Make a highlight reel play and fans from around the league will see it almost instantly on their Twitter timelines or their Instagram home page. When Chris Coghlan soared over Yadier Molina last week, even the popular WorldStar Hip Hop page on Instagram had to post it for their ten million followers to see. Less than 24 hours later, it had over 1.2 million loops.</p>
<p>Charismatic players like Marcus Stroman – and the way they carry themselves on the field – bring a certain swagger to baseball that will help draw in young fans in ways pace of play rules never could. That’s not even to say that you should love him. Even if you don’t like him, you’ll still pay attention to see what he ends up doing throughout the duration of a start.</p>
<p>This is a sport where achievements are meant to be handled stone-faced and stoic. From a young age, players are taught to &#8216;act like they’ve been there before&#8217; in an attempt to not make any opposing pitcher, hitter, plays, or manager angry for failing.</p>
<p>If the MLB wants to appeal to young people and draw in new fans to the game, eliminating the little things like the intentional walk won’t do it. Personality will. It’s time for the traditionalists to accept that fun sells. I get that it’s going to be hard to imply to children that playing this game is fun, especially since throwing at a hitter’s head because he made you angry was accepted until such a short time ago, but it’s time for a new era.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The STUFF report – Volume 2, Issue 2</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/02/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-2/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/05/02/the-stuff-report-volume-2-issue-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 02 May 2017 13:01:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roberto Osuna]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10613</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[EVERYTHING IS STILL AWFUL, BUT WE’RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. DO YOU HEAR ME??! TOGETHER! Hey, it’s issue 2 of the Stuff report! The Stuff report examines changes in the Blue Jays pitching staff to look at changes in performance, risk of injury, or for the deeper meaning of life and a cold [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="font-weight: 400">EVERYTHING IS STILL AWFUL, BUT WE’RE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER. DO YOU HEAR ME??! TOGETHER!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Hey, it’s issue 2 of the Stuff report! The Stuff report examines changes in the Blue Jays pitching staff to look at changes in performance, risk of injury, or for the deeper meaning of life and a cold rationalization as to why we put ourselves through the agony of donating three hours of our time to something that will only bring us suffering.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">The reason for that last one, is Stuff. Stuff brings us all together.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Starting Pitchers</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There are two new, unfortunate debuts on the Stuff report this week with Cat Latos’ dad and Casey Lawrence joining in while getting pummeled on the field (Lawrence more than Latos). </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><strong><strong><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10619" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starter-Table-1024x192.png" alt="Starter Table" width="816" height="153" /></a></strong></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10620" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Starters-Graph-1024x744.png" alt="Starters Graph" width="527" height="383" /></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Both of the new guys profile with less than stellar STUFF &#8211; so it’ll be interesting to see whether they go down the Estrada route and dominate with awesome secondary STUFF or turn into cannon fodder. The pitcher who gets the most amount of excitement is none other than yesterday&#8217;s birthday boy himself, Marcus Stroman. Fresh off a time frame that saw two complete games and a 10 K performance, Stroman is becoming the ace of the staff people expected last year. What has changed between this year and last year in his Stuff?</span></p>
<p><strong><strong> </strong></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stroman.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10621" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Stroman.png" alt="Stroman" width="657" height="151" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">First, be warned because there were some changes in velocity readings that lead to pitchers having inflated numbers this season &#8211; that’s been addressed in the STUFF score, but not necessarily in just looking at the average velocity values. Stro looks to be throwing harder this year, but looking at his average fastball velocity &#8211; it isn’t up by a lot &#8211; is not enough to buoy a massive change in results. When it comes to the components of his Stuff, the big change is in the separation between his pitches; he is getting nearly five extra inches of separation than the 2016 season. That’s a lot of space to miss bats!</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400">Bullpen</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Reliever-Table.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10617" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Reliever-Table-1024x258.png" alt="Reliever Table" width="727" height="183" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10618" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Relievers-Graph-1024x742.png" alt="Relievers Graph" width="619" height="449" /></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">There’s not much positive to to write about in terms of the reliever Stuff, but Roberto Osuna’s steady decline in Stuff is worth noting. While his velocity looks down from the previous seasons, it’s the fact that he isn’t using his fastball that has lead to the largest drop in his Stuff. The movement and the change in speeds looks relatively constant &#8211; but let’s hope this is just a matter of Bob getting his confidence back and using the fastball that got him to this level more frequently.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Osuna.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10616" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/Osuna.png" alt="Osuna" width="618" height="142" /></a></p>
<h2><b>Team Report</b></h2>
<p>Before the season, I ran a projected Stuff Report to see where we could expect to see the Jays rotation and bullpen rank in terms of their Stuff. This projection pegged the bullpen at 20th overall, and the starting rotation at 16th overall.</p>
<h3>Bullpen</h3>
<p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-weight: 400"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10614" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/all-relievers.png" alt="all relievers" width="599" height="446" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400">On a whole, the bullpen looks to be matching their previewed Stuff fairly well &#8211; and with Osuna starting to throw his fastball with more frequency, that should be looking even better in the future. They still look pretty good, sitting at 16th in weighted Stuff.</span></p>
<h3>Starters</h3>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/All-Rotations.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-10615" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/All-Rotations.png" alt="All Rotations" width="598" height="449" /></a></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">As for the rotation, they look a lot worse than their projected numbers. When you replace one of the best Stuff pitchers in the world (Aaron Sanchez), with Mat Latos and Casey Lawrence, that’s bound to happen no matter how much junk the Stro Show throws. The Jays were projected to have the 16th best Stuff, but they&#8217;re near the bottom of the league now at 26th.</span></strong></p>
<p>Just remember &#8211; when it was January and -20 and we were all freezing our faces off, we were desperate to watch baseball. This beats the alternative&#8230; I think.</p>
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		<title>Stroman Might Use His WBC Strategy Against the Familiar Rays</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/06/stroman-might-use-his-wbc-strategy-against-the-familiar-rays/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Apr 2017 16:13:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kyle Matte]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=10071</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Toronto Blue Jays may have two games in the books, but Marcus Stroman’s 2017 season will kick off tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays – the second consecutive year in which he’s debuted down at Tropicana Field. While it’s only his first of hopefully thirty-two, it’s an important start for Stroman at the beginning [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Toronto Blue Jays may have two games in the books, but Marcus Stroman’s 2017 season will kick off tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays – the second consecutive year in which he’s debuted down at Tropicana Field. While it’s only his first of hopefully thirty-two, it’s an important start for Stroman at the beginning of what everyone expects to be a very big year. The 2016 season was something of a mixed bag in his return from knee reconstruction, as the playoff hero faced questions about the deployment of his arsenal and struggles to strand runners on his way to a disappointing 4.37 ERA; all despite underlying numbers suggesting he’d pitched much better.</p>
<p>His first test will come against a familiar opponent, as Stroman faced the Rays four more times after his Opening Day start last season. The particulars of Stroman’s six-pitch mix – four seam fastball, sinker, changeup, slider, curveball, and cutter – are widely documented, but what was most interesting about the head-to-head matchups last season was how he chose to use it to attack a team with which he’d become increasingly well-versed. With data from <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/outcome.php?player=573186&amp;b_hand=-1&amp;gFilt=&amp;pFilt=FA|SI|FC|CU|SL|CS|KN|CH|FS|SB&amp;time=game&amp;minmax=ci&amp;var=count&amp;s_type=2&amp;startDate=01/01/2016&amp;endDate=01/01/2017">Brooks Baseball</a>, the table below shows his pitch usage across the five Tampa starts in 2016.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stroman-vs-Rays.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-10072" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/Stroman-vs-Rays.png" alt="Stroman vs Rays" width="552" height="150" /></a></p>
<p>Stroman opened the year clearly focusing on his sinker and slider with a few four seamers and cutters mixed in, but when facing the Rays again four weeks later, he brought the curveball out of the workshop. With 19 thrown, it was his second most relied upon pitch in a game where he induced 13 whiffs and nine total strikeouts.</p>
<p>In round three on May 17th, Stroman again focused on the sinker, but threw each of his changeup, slider, curveball, and cutter between eight and 15 times. The Rays totalled seven runs on a career-worst 13 hits for Stroman, battering him from the first pitch, so this seems less like an intentionally diverse approach and more of an attempt to find something – anything – that they wouldn’t crush in hopes of keeping his head above water.</p>
<p>The fourth and fifth battles wouldn’t occur for another three and a half months, with Stroman facing the Rays twice in the month of September. In their penultimate matchup he went back to his opening day approach with mostly sinkers, sliders, and cutters, then two weeks later, went in an entirely new J.A. Happ-esque direction with four seam fastballs, sinkers, and cutters accounting for 86 percent of his total pitches thrown.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, Stroman had two starts picked up by the Trackman cameras during the World Baseball Classic in March, and while the sample size is extremely small given the pitch count limits, it gives us some insight into how Stroman might be looking to use his arsenal after an offseason of study and self-evaluation. Against the Dominican Republic he threw 36 sinkers on 64 pitches, with the curveball (12) serving as secondary support. A few four seamers, changeups, and cutters were mixed in, but Stroman threw zero sliders. Eleven days later in the final against Puerto Rico, 53 of 73 pitches were sinkers, and he flipped his breaking ball usage with 11 sliders against just one curveball. Again, the other three pitches served as tertiary support.</p>
<p>If this (admittedly brief) trend carries any meaning, we should expect Stroman to again employ a sinker heavy approach against Tampa Bay. Though that wouldn’t at all be shocking, it still represents something of an adjustment after the four seam fastball was reintroduced with more regularity in the second half last year. The bigger question seems to be whether the slider or curveball plays second fiddle. According to <a href="http://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-tampa-bay-rays/">Roster Resource</a> the Rays are likely to send five lefties out against Stroman, but this is unlikely to be a deciding factor. In 2016 the slider and curveball were equally effective against southpaws as they hit just .169 and .147 off the breaking balls, respectively. He went slider heavy against the Rays in three of his five starts and limited damage each time, but also had his most success when the curveball was his number two offering. What he has never tried against the Rays is a sinker/curveball attack without the slider as backup – the Dominican Republic method, as it were.</p>
<p>Stroman could continue his World Baseball Classic breaking ball approach but also show Tampa Bay a new look by using this Dominican Republic strategy, with a handful of four seam fastballs, changeups, and/or cutters used only as filler. A different tactic would certainly help get Evan Longoria out of his comfort zone, which at this point feels necessary as the future Hall of Famer is a <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/04/06/3-things-to-watch-for-against-the-rays/" target="_blank">career .364/.391/.727 hitter against Stroman</a> in 23 plate appearances.</p>
<p>Thirsty for baseball, most fans will be plenty attentive to the game already. But how Stroman chooses to attack the Rays will be an interesting and deserving storyline all by itself. If the right hander can look as good as he did against a pair of stacked lineups in the World Baseball Classic over most of the 162-game season, the Blue Jays might just find themselves with more aces than a deck of cards.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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