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	<title>Toronto &#187; Rotation Review</title>
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		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Beasts vs the East</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/19/blue-jays-rotation-review-beasts-vs-the-east/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/19/blue-jays-rotation-review-beasts-vs-the-east/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Apr 2016 17:07:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1687</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read all past Rotation Reviews here. After an [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/category/rotation-review/" target="_blank">all past Rotation Reviews here</a>.</em></p>
<p>After an up-and-down second trip through the rotation, the Jays starters didn&#8217;t exactly get a respite, as they continue their run through the gauntlet that is their early AL East schedule. This week&#8217;s slate included the series finale against the New York Yankees, and a four game set in Boston against the rival Red Sox. Let&#8217;s see how they did.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>Marcus Stroman</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 8.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 1 HBP, 0 HR, 67 Strikes, 39 Balls</strong><br />
<strong> Pitch mix: 64 Sinkers, 8 Changeups, 14 Sliders, 13 Curveballs, 7 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>Coming off a lackluster outing against the Boston Red Sox in the the Toronto home opener, the Blue Jays and their faithful were looking for a rebound from their nominal ace. As you can see from that line above, Stroman delivered in spades. It may not have looked like that early on though. After cruising through three innings, Stroman ran into some trouble in the fourth. With the score still knotted at 0-0, the Toronto righty proceeded to give up two hits, a walk, a hit by pitch, and a wild pitch to stake the Yankees to a two run lead. That would be it for the Bronx Bombers though. After that point, Stroman completely shut them down. Literally. They didn&#8217;t get another baserunner the rest of the game.</p>
<p>There isn&#8217;t exactly a huge secret to how this one went. Stroman&#8217;s groundout to flyout ratio in this game was 17-2. 17-2! When you toss in the hits, and other balls in play, Stroman&#8217;s overall groundball rate for the game was a whopping 73.9%. For reference, last year&#8217;s MLB leader was Brett Anderson at 66.3% for the season. What makes this even more impressive is that the Yankees have a couple of extreme flyball hitters (Beltran, and McCann) and two other big bats (Arod and Teixeira) who are flyball/groundball neutral. Typically when flyball hitters meet groundball pitchers (or vice versa), the bat and ball meet in the middle and <a href="http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/94781376/v523054683/textor-gm5-bautista-hammers-goahead-threerun-shot" target="_blank">exciting things happen</a>. That wasn&#8217;t the case in this game. Stroman did a decent job getting ahead of hitters (63.3 percent first pitch strikes), then just pounded the bottom of the zone with his sinker. He sprinkled in enough breaking balls to mess with the hitters&#8217; timing, and the Yankees just kept driving the ball into the rug. When Stroman is pitching like that, there aren&#8217;t a lot of teams that are going to beat him.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=573186&amp;game=gid_2016_04_14_nyamlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=2&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 3 K, 0 HBP 0 HR, 62 Strikes, 44 Balls</strong><br />
<strong> Pitch Mix: 100 Knuckleballs, 6 Two-Seam Fastballs</strong></p>
<p>For the third straight outing, R.A. Dickey failed to register an out in the sixth inning, this time bowing out with just four and two thirds innings under his belt. It was much of the same from the 41 year old knuckleballer, as he just couldn&#8217;t command the pitch, walking four while also leaving a number of knuckleballs up in the zone. His line still probably could have been better had Josh Thole been able to corral a third strike offering to Hanley Ramirez in the first. Ramirez instead reached first base, and then Travis Shaw smoked a two-run double (David Ortiz was on base as well) to put the Blue Jays in a three run hole. However, that&#8217;s just one of the many pitfalls of being a knuckleball pitcher; getting the batter to swing and miss is just part of the equation.</p>
<p>This was just one of those days where Dickey had no command of his knuckler. He fell behind a bunch of hitters (only 45.8 percent first pitch strikes), and left a lot of balls out over the plate. As a result, the Red Sox were able to do some damage. On the plus side, Dickey&#8217;s velocity rebounded a little from the drop he showed in his second start (up from an average of 74.6 mph to 75.7 mph). It&#8217;s still not where he wants to be, as he is most successful in the 77-80 range, but it&#8217;s a step in the right direction.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1688" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<h3>Marco Estrada</h3>
<p><strong>Line: 6.0 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 64 strikes, 32 balls</strong><br />
<strong> Pitch Mix: 38 Fourseam Fastballs, 28 Changeups, 16, Curveballs, 13 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>It would have been tough for Estrada to repeat the dominance he exhibited in his season debut, but overall he still put up another very solid performance. It started off the same way, with a Mookie Betts strikeout, but this time Estrada ran into trouble in the third inning. With two men on, Estrada served up a low fastball to Xander Bogaerts that he deposited into the seats atop the Green Monster for a three-run homer. Remember what I said above about flyball/groundball clashes? Bogaerts is a heavy groundball guy, Estrada is a heavy flyball guy&#8230;ball meets in middle for a line drive. The Red Sox would add another run in the inning to make it 4-0 game. However, it wasn&#8217;t as bad as it looked. Had it not been for a Josh Donaldson misplay on Dustin Pedroia&#8217;s grounder, Boston likely only scores two runs in instead of four (and possibly zero, though it would have been a tough double play). For the rest of the game, Estrada was great, allowing only a few singles and a solitary walk.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for Estrada&#8217;s mediocre outing was that he wasn&#8217;t pitching in areas that are conducive to his success. <a href="http://www.bluejaysplus.com/how-much-should-we-believe-in-marco-estrada/" target="_blank">As has been established in the past</a> Estrada&#8217;s best success comes when he&#8217;s using that good &#8220;rising&#8221; fastball up in the zone. Unfortunately, that wasn&#8217;t the case against Boston. Despite Estrada&#8217;s heater fighting gravity at even greater rates than the past (see below), most of his work in this game was in the lower part of the strike zone. Many of the outs were still on balls up, but of the eight hits he allowed &#8211; including the aforementioned home run &#8211; six were below the belt.</p>
<p>All that said, with a less than optimal pitch mix, Estrada still pitched a solid game and continues to provide hope for another excellent season.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-1.jpeg"><img class="wp-image-1689 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-1.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (1)" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 66 strikes, 39 balls</strong><br />
<strong> Pitch Mix: 19 Fourseam Fastballs, 68 Sinkers, 1 Changeups, 12 Curveballs, 5 Cutters</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s getting pretty hard to keep coming up with superlatives to describe games started by Aaron Sanchez. Fresh off a three-hit masterpiece against the Yankees, the fireballing righty decided to one up himself by carrying a no-hitter into the fifth that was ended by a broken bat flare. In the end, Sanchez gave up just two hits against Boston, the flare and a groundball up the middle. He walked four, but two of those seemed like &#8220;unintentional intentional walks&#8221; to David Oritz (he seemed to be heavily pitching around the dangerous hitter). Overall, the young hurler was in command from start to finish, striking out seven and inducing groundballs on 56.3 percent of balls in play (actually his lowest mark of the season).</p>
<p>In one of the funnier managerial decisions thus far, John Farrell did Sanchez a huge favour by inserting Chris Young into the lineup instead of Brock Holt. A career .224/.292/.410 hitter against righties, Young entered this game 0/4 on the season with three strikeouts against right-handed pitching. Meanwhile, Sanchez has a career .145/.215/.173 line against right handed batters. Young went hitless and struck out another three times. It probably wouldn&#8217;t have mattered who was hitting though, as Sanchez was just simply dominant.</p>
<p>A big part of Sanchez&#8217;s success in this game was his ability to get ahead. He threw strikes to 63 percent of hitters, and finished 20 of the 27 batters he faced either even or ahead in the count. Sanchez also picked his velocity back up from his previous start (95.8 mph average sinker vs 94.4), and threw his hardest pitch of the season at 98.7 mph (we&#8217;ll come back to that one). He had a bit of trouble getting the curveball down and out of the zone, but he was able to throw a bunch of them for strikes (66.7 percent), which helped set up his dominant fastball by keeping the Red Sox hitters guessing. This was evident by the four strikeouts looking.</p>
<p>I want to highlight one of those called strikeouts because it ended with the most impressive pitch I&#8217;ve seen Sanchez throw in his entire career. A big part of his trouble against left-handed batters has been <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/profile.php?player=592717&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=02/27/2014&amp;endDate=01/05/2016&amp;balls=-1&amp;strikes=-1&amp;b_hand=L" target="_blank">his inability to throw strikes inside with any consistency</a>. Far too often he would either miss down and in, or the ball would leak back out over the plate away. Don&#8217;t tell that to Travis Shaw. After missing outside with a fastball to start the plate appearance, Sanchez threw an inside sinker for strike one, a curveball in the zone for strike two, then dropped this monstrosity.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/SanchezShawK.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1686" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/SanchezShawK.gif" alt="SanchezShawK" width="475" height="260" /></a></p>
<p>Remember how I said Aaron Sanchez threw his hardest pitch of the season? That&#8217;s it right there. A 98.7 mph comeback fastball with 9.6 inches of horizontal movement, <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/numlocation.php-pitchSel=592717&amp;game=gid_2016_04_17_tormlb_bosmlb_1&amp;batterX=16&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=11&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" target="_blank">on the black</a>. Barry Bonds probably couldn&#8217;t have hit that pitch.</p>
<p>When Aaron Sanchez is doing that, he&#8217;s just untouchable. Thankfully for Jays fans, there are no signs of him stopping any time soon.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p><strong>Line: 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 59 strikes, 34 balls.</strong><br />
<strong> Pitch Mix: 34 Fourseam Fastballs, 24 Sinkers, 21 Cutters, 7 Changeups and 7 Curveballs.</strong></p>
<p>In his first start of the season, J.A. Happ gave up two runs in six innings of work. In his second outing, he gave up <em>one</em> in six innings of work. During Monday&#8217;s Patriot&#8217;s Day matinee, the tall lefty gave up one run in <em>seven</em> innings pitched. At this rate, J.A. Happ is going to start throwing complete games by early May.</p>
<p>Simply put, J.A. Happ was outstanding in his outing against Boston. It must be rough for Red Sox fans to see your team win the first two games of a four game set, then run into Sanchez and Happ throwing like that. It must be even more frustrating for Red Sox <em>hitters</em> when they get ahead 1-0 in 54 percent of their plate appearances and manage just five baserunners in seven innings. They couldn&#8217;t get anything going against the born-again Blue Jay, as he kept them off balance for the entire start. In the end, the Bosox hit only three balls that even made it to the warning track (which is very shallow in left field).</p>
<p>In similar fashion to his outing against the Yankees, Happ was <a href="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=457918&amp;game=gid_2016_04_18_tormlb_bosmlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" target="_blank">all over the strike zone</a>, making it very hard for the Red Sox hitters to get comfortable. He and Russell Martin also did a tremendous job using subtle speed changes between the fastballs and changeups, then dropping in the slow curve when they really wanted to mess up the batter&#8217;s timing. This is how you pitch successfully even without top notch stuff.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/speed.php-pitchSel=457918&amp;game=gid_2016_04_18_tormlb_bosmlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week<br />
</strong>32.2 IP, 23 H, 12 R, 10 ER, 12 BB, 20 K, 1 HBP, 1 HR. 3-2, 2.76 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
88.0 IP, 76 H, 36 R, 32 ER, 29 BB, 70 K, 2 HBP, 6 HR. 7-3, 3.27 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Despite yet another stumble from R.A. Dickey, and a solid, but not great start from Marco Estrada, the rotation once again did a tremendous job. As a group, they averaged over six innings per start, and held two excellent offenses down for the better part of five games. The most encouraging thing is that the guys who have been the most consistent are the ones for whom there was expected to be the most variability.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>All pitch charts courtesy of Brooks Baseball</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Marco&#8217;s Back</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/blue-jays-rotation-review-marcos-back/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/blue-jays-rotation-review-marcos-back/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Apr 2016 17:01:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marco Estrada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read all past Rotation Reviews here. The first [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Since they say starting pitching wins championships, each time through the rotation we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score. You can read <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/category/rotation-review/" target="_blank">all past Rotation Reviews here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The first trip through the four-man version of the Blue Jays starting rotation saw a lot of really encouraging performances. Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez were lights out, and J.A. Happ was very solid in his turn on the bump. Only R.A. Dickey struggled, and even so, put up a passable performance. Week two was a little bit of a different story, with a little bit more inconsistency in the outings.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>Marcus Stroman</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 56 Strikes, 46 Balls<br />
Pitch mix: 57 Sinkers, 14 Changeups, 10 Sliders, 9 Cutters, and 2 Curveballs</p>
<p>What a difference a week can make. From a gem of a start on opening day to a stinker in the home opener. Given that the Boston Red Sox offense is slightly more daunting than the Rays, a small step back was to be expected, but this outing wasn&#8217;t even close. The key to Stroman’s performance against Tampa Bay was his supreme command of the fringes of the strike zone, combined with his ability to get ahead of hitters. Both of those things abandoned him against Boston. In particular, Stroman struggled to get ahead of hitters, starting only 37.5 percent of batters off with a strike. His overall strike rate fell from 78.7 percent against Tampa to 58.8 percent against Boston. Boston isn&#8217;t as aggressive as Tampa, but Stroman was also just having trouble locating.</p>
<p>Also, because he was falling behind so often during the game, Stroman was forced to resort to throwing more pitches in the bigger parts of the zone. This creates more hittable pitches just to get back into the count, leading to harder contact. As you can see in the image below, there are not nearly as many pitches that were hitting the edges of the plate. Walks and fat pitches&#8230;that&#8217;s usually a bad combination.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=573186&amp;game=gid_2016_04_08_bosmlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>On a positive side, Stroman had a very good changeup in this outing, registering a couple of strikeouts and four missed swings with the offering. This could come in handy with all the lefty mashers in the American League East, starting with his very next time out against the Yankees. If Stroman can continue to get ahead of batters early to let his pitch variety and ability to hit the fringes of the strike zone play up, he will be successful.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 7 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 0 HBP 0 HR, 60 Strikes, 41 Balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 95 Knuckleballs, 3 Four-Seam Fastballs, 2 Two-Seam Fastballs</p>
<p>To look at R.A. Dickey’s line from his first start at the Rogers Centre in 2016, you would have thought Brandon Morrow had tossed on Dickey’s jersey and a fake beard and taken the mound. Five innings of two walk, nine strikeout ball looks great, particular in terms of FIP, but seven runs (six earned) isn&#8217;t exactly ideal. Once you factor in the 8 hits allowed and generally hard (40% of balls in play were line drives) contact, it was clearly a pretty lacklustre outing. Like Stroman, Dickey struggled to get ahead of hitters after doing a good job of it in his 2016 debut. Unlike Stroman though, Dickey struggled to find the zone<em> at all</em> for most of the game.</p>
<p>Dickey wasn&#8217;t helped by his defense, though. He made an error himself on a pickoff to second base, and Josh Thole was having all kinds of problems handling the knuckleball behind the plate.</p>
<p>Last time out, Dickey’s knuckleball velocity was up a tick from his 2015 April, but that wasn’t the case against the Red Sox, as he dropped down to 75.2 mph for the game. His pitch mix also changed quite drastically; his fastball usage dropped from 13.4 percent in his first start to just 5 percent against Boston. Dickey struggled in both games as he looks for consistency from the least consistent pitch in existence. When Dickey is getting ahead of hitters he is much more effective at generating weak contact and generally eating up innings. It will be something to watch for in start number three of the season.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-11.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1485" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooksbaseball-Chart-11.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (11)" width="750" height="254" /></a></p>
<h3>Marco Estrada</h3>
<p>Line: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 62 strikes, 29 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 37 Fourseam Fastballs, 27 Changeups, 16 Cutters, and 11 Curveballs</p>
<p>The last time Jays fans saw Marco Estrada in a major league game, he was walking off the mound to an enormous ovation after dominating the Kansas City Royals in game five of the ALCS. Armed with a new contract, Estrada missed a bunch of time in spring training with a sore back and actually started the season on the disabled list. Well, if there were any lingering concerns over Estrada&#8217;s health, I think he put them to bed nicely.</p>
<p>Estrada was dominant from the first batter (a strikeout of Mookie Betts) until the last (a similar fate for Jackie Bradley Jr.). He had even more &#8220;rise&#8221; on his fastball than last year, at 13.6 inches, and combined it with a strong cutter and his world-class changeup to keep the Red Sox hitters off balance for the entire game. In classic Estrada fashion, he induced six popups, as hitters simply have trouble adjusting to a fastball that stays up at that rate. He also worked ahead of hitters with consistency, throwing first pitch strikes to two-thirds of hitters that stepped into the box.</p>
<p>It was interesting to see how Estrada was going to work in this game, as all of his success last year came from throwing to Dioner Navarro, who is now in Chicago. However, Russell Martin and Pete Walker <a title="Marco Estrada Embraces Leadership Role; Ready to Repeat 2015" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/03/16/marco-estrada-embraces-his-leadership-role-ready-to-repeat-2015/" target="_blank">made a point of watching video</a> from last year&#8217;s plans of attack. Joshua will be tracking this as the season goes on (with monthly updates), but so far it looks like some of the lessons were taken to heart. Estrada mixed fastballs at the top of the zone with the other offspeed pitches to generate a lot of soft flyball contact, which is something that Navarro stressed in their outings last year.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The opposition was hopeless against Marco Estrada today: <a href="https://t.co/HxW4kzHMB3">https://t.co/HxW4kzHMB3</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OurMoment?src=hash">#OurMoment</a> <a href="https://t.co/2jDL5wWHFh">pic.twitter.com/2jDL5wWHFh</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/719272038318284800">April 10, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 54 strikes, 43 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 11 Fourseam Fastballs, 60 Sinkers, 6 Changeups, 20 Curveballs</p>
<p>All eyes were on Sanchez in this start to see if he could repeat the dominance he showed in his first start against Tampa Bay. While he wasn&#8217;t quite as strong, it was still an overall very solid outing for the young righty. Throughout his career, Sanchez has had his struggles against left-handed batters, and the New York Yankees are absolutely loaded with them. In this game they set a lineup that included four lefties and three switch-hitters, so Sanchez was working on the wrong side of the platoon an awful lot. The parade of lefty batters makes it interesting that Sanchez threw so many fewer changeups in this outing (6) compared to his start in Tampa (15), instead going to the curveball as his out offspeed pitch. Whatever the reason for that decision, it seemed to work as the Yankees did very little damage all game.</p>
<p>Sanchez struggled a bit with his command, especially in the second inning (he walked two), but he <a title="How Bad Umpiring and Mental Mistakes Cost the Blue Jays" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/13/how-bad-umpiring-and-mental-mistakes-cost-the-blue-jays/" target="_blank">really wasn&#8217;t helped by the home plate umpire</a>. Hoye was really struggling with pitches on the first base side of home plate for both teams, but this particularly hurt Sanchez in that second inning. Both walks came as a result of missed strike calls inside to left-handed batters.</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-1420 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/SanchezCurveBM041216.gif" alt="SanchezCurveBM041216" width="475" height="262" /></p>
<p>Overall though, Sanchez was able to get key strikes when he needed to, despite not throwing nearly as hard in this outing as he was against Tampa; his average fastball velocity was 95.0 mph compared to 96.6 mph last time out. However, he did a good job of keeping the ball down in the strike zone to avoid damage, with the only real exception being the home run ball to Brian McCann in the sixth. That pitch was almost completely center cut, and McCann did what you&#8217;re supposed to do with those.</p>
<p>Overall, it was another very encouraging outing for the young fireballer. Sanchez showed that he can succeed against a lefty-dominated lineup, even without his best command or his best stuff.</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 63 strikes, 38 balls.<br />
Pitch Mix: 39 Fourseam Fastballs, 25 Sinkers, 13 Cutters, 5 Changeups and 19 Curveballs.</p>
<p>For the second straight outing, Happ has made it look like whatever he learned from Ray Searage in Pittsburgh wasn&#8217;t lost as soon as he left the Steel City. The tall lefty kept the Yankees off-balance for pretty much the entire game. He used the entire strike zone (see plot below) to keep the Yankees hitters from honing in on one particular location. This was a problem for Happ in Seattle, as he would work almost exclusively away, especially to right-handed batters. That wasn&#8217;t the case here though, as Martin made a point of crowding some of the powerful righties that Joe Girardi trotted out there.</p>
<p>Happ just had really good command in this game, and that&#8217;s how he was able to carve up a lineup loaded with righties (and four switch-hitters). He got ahead of hitters, throwing first pitch strikes to 18 of the 26 batters he faced, and threw strikes on 62.3 percent of his pitches overall. By throwing first pitch strikes, the hitters were forced to be on the defensive, which led to a lot of ugly swings and softly hit balls. In fact, the only time that Happ was ever really in any sort of trouble was the fifth inning when Ronald Torreyes and Austin Romine started the inning by going double-single to put runners on the corners with nobody out. However, Happ was able to use the high fastball to get Ellsbury to pop up, then induced a weak grounder from from Aaron Hicks, before getting an easy fly ball to right from Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees scored their lone run (against Happ), but he did an incredible job minimizing the damage.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=457918&amp;game=gid_2016_04_13_nyamlb_tormlb_1&amp;batterX=&amp;innings=yyyyyyyyy&amp;sp_type=1&amp;s_type=&amp;league=mlb&amp;pnf=&amp;zlpo=&amp;cache=1.gif" alt="" width="600" height="400" /></p>
<p>If Happ can keep pitching like this, the Jays are going to get a lot of value out of their $36M investment, and more importantly, be in great position for a repeat of the division title.</p>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week</strong><br />
29.1 IP, 29 H, 15 R, 13 ER, 13 BB, 30 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR. 2-1, 4.02 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
55.1 IP, 53 H, 24 R, 22 ER, 17 BB, 50 K, 1 HBP, 5 HR. 4-1, 3.58 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Overall, it was a pretty decent turn for the rotation as Estrada, Sanchez, and Happ were all very good, but Stroman and Dickey both need to be better than they showed this time out. They&#8217;ll get quick chances for redemption though, as Stroman faces the Yankees on Thursday (April 14) and Dickey gets to exact his revenge on the Red Sox in Boston on Friday.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>All pitch charts courtesy of Brooks Baseball</em></p>
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		<title>Blue Jays Rotation Review: Week One Wonders</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/07/blue-jays-rotation-review-week-one-wonders/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/07/blue-jays-rotation-review-week-one-wonders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2016 10:56:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam and Steve McEwen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rotation Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[J.A. Happ]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marcus Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[r.a. dickey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Starting Pitching]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1182</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[They say that pitching wins championships. We&#8217;re not quite sure who &#8220;they&#8221; are, and we think the Toronto bats could probably disagree, but who are we to argue? So here at BP Toronto we&#8217;ve decided to make starting pitching a focus, so that when the Jays finally raise that World Series banner, we can look [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>They say that pitching wins championships. We&#8217;re not quite sure who &#8220;they&#8221; are, and we think the Toronto bats could probably disagree, but who are we to argue? So here at BP Toronto we&#8217;ve decided to make starting pitching a focus, so that when the Jays finally raise that World Series banner, we can look back and say &#8220;here&#8217;s how they got there.&#8221; We started with this over at Blue Jays Plus, and now we&#8217;re launching our first Rotation Review for Baseball Prospectus.</p>
<p>Every time through the rotation, we&#8217;re going to break down each individual start to see what the pitchers did well and what they didn&#8217;t, with an attempt to go a little bit deeper than just the box score.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong><strong>Marcus Stroman</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 8.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 0 HBP, 1 HR, 74 Strikes, 24 Balls<br />
Pitch mix: 47 Sinkers,  16 Sliders, 14 Cutters, 13 4 Seamers, 7 Changeups, and 1 Curve</p>
<p>After an inspiring recovery, from a torn ACL to being a key member of the Blue Jays playoff success, Marcus Stroman has sky high expectations amongst fans. It may be one year delayed, but Marcus Stroman finally made his first opening day start for the Blue Jays and he did not disappoint.</p>
<p>Using his usual mix of quality pitches and supreme command, Stroman pitched deep into the game without much hard contact made against him. For Stroman, his dominance started with the sinker and his ability to throw it for strikes. Pitching is so much easier when you are ahead of hitters and Stroman was ahead all night. 27 of the 32 hitters Stroman faced ended up behind in the count, and only four plate appearances ended with Stroman chasing in the count. Even if you count two run 9th inning against him, the Blue Jays ace threw an absolute gem as he pounded the lower part of the zone with his sinker. In the end 62 of his 98 pitches were down in the zone, which led to 17 ground balls and a serious lack of rallies from the Rays.</p>
<p>While his velocity was down almost a half a MPH from 2015, it doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about. Pitchers are still getting their arms back into game shape, and that only comes with more starts. Following up a performance like this one will be tough to do, but perhaps Stroman can build off of his game one success and keep his velocity a bit deeper into the start.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Stroman-plot.gif"><img class=" size-full wp-image-1204 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Stroman-plot.gif" alt="Stroman plot" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<h4></h4>
<h3><strong><strong>R.A. Dickey</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, 0 HBP 1 HR, 54 Strikes, 28 Balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 71 Knuckleballs, 11 Two-Seam Fastballs</p>
<p>R.A. Dickey has always been somewhat of a disappointment for Blue Jays fans. Coming off his Cy Young season, he had a high acquisition cost, leading to sky high expectations. Still, he has always been a very valuable starter overall by eating innings with league average run prevention. However, he has often had issues at the start of each year. In each season since joining the Blue Jays, Dickey has seen his ERA rise for the month of April; it was 4.15 in 2013, 5.23 in 2014, and 5.40 last year.</p>
<p>In his first start this season, it was a bit more of the same from Dickey, as he struggled from the outset against Tampa. The Rays had runners on against the knuckleball specialist in the first, second, fifth and sixth innings (he faced one batter before being removed). Dickey was probably lucky to escape with only three runs allowed. He escaped a first and third, one out situation in the first inning, and a first and second nobody out situation in the fifth. In those two innings Dickey&#8217;s strike rate fell to below 60 percent (53 and 55, respectively). It&#8217;s often pretty simple for Dickey: when he throws strikes, he gets outs, and when he falls behind, he is forced to throw fastballs hurt him.</p>
<p>Still, there were some encouraging signs from the 41 year-old. Dickey’s knuckler was a little harder in his first start than it was last April, averaging 76.2 MPH, up from 75.2 mph in 2015. He also threw more strikes than he has in any April since joining the Blue Jays, at 65.9% against Tampa. From 2013 to 2015, Dickey&#8217;s numbers in that category ranged from 62.6% to 62.9%. It&#8217;s also worth noting that Dickey didn&#8217;t throw a single fourseam fastball in this game, per Brooks Baseball. In his career, he has mostly split between two and fourseam pitches when in trouble, with the occasional changeup against a left-handed batter, but yesterday it was all knucklers and sinkers. Given how much damage hitters tend to do when Dickey goes away from the knuckleball, it&#8217;s good to see him aiming for a bit more movement to at least give himself a chance &#8211; he get about an inch of extra run and two inches of &#8220;drop&#8221; on the sinker compared to the fourseam.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooks-Dickey.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1183" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Brooks-Dickey.gif" alt="Brooks Dickey" width="600" height="400" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Aaron Sanchez</strong></h3>
<p>Line: 7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K, 0 HBP, 0 HR, 64 strikes, 27 balls<br />
Pitch Mix: 14 Fourseam Fastballs, 49 Sinkers, 15 Changeups, 1 Cutter, 12 Curveballs</p>
<p>Without a doubt, the pitcher facing the most scrutiny coming into the season was Aaron Sanchez. He put on a lot of weight in the offseason, then got locked into a serious rotation battle with Gavin Floyd &#8211; one that lasted the entire spring. The young righty emerged victorious in the end, and made his season debut Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays. There were a lot of people who had doubted his ability to pitch as a starter before the outing, but I&#8217;m betting a lot of them have been converted.</p>
<p>Simply put, Sanchez was awesome. In fact, he was so good that it&#8217;s actually quite difficult to decide what was most encouraging from this performance. The first thing that probably sticks out is that Sanchez didn&#8217;t walk a single batter, a feat which he accomplished only once all last year. He has had control issues throughout his career, but showed vast improvement this spring. It has only been one start, but it was nice to see it carry into the regular season.</p>
<p>The other thing that stood out in this start was his strikeout totals. Sanchez was a big time strikeout pitcher in the lower minors, but as he has risen through the system and eventually reached the major leagues, his ability to generate swings and misses has gone away. In his career, Sanchez has a swing and miss rate of just over 18 percent. That all changed on Tuesday, as Tampa missed on a whopping 32.7 percent of their swings. To get an idea of how good that is, last year Francisco Liriano led the major leagues with a swing and miss rate of 33.5 percent, and Clayton Kershaw was third at 32.6 percent. If he can keep up anything close to that kind of bat-missing ability, he&#8217;s going to be very tough to hit.</p>
<p>The biggest reason that Sanchez got more whiffs was that he was able to mix his pitches up very well, which kept the Rays off balance for the entire outing. All of his offerings were working well, and the Rays hitters just couldn&#8217;t adjust. For a graphic representation of how good Sanchez was last night, see below:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I&#39;m going to quantify stuff for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a> pitchers over at <a href="https://twitter.com/BProToronto">@BProToronto</a>. Here&#39;s a sample from the first 3 games. <a href="https://t.co/8QNHxGIR52">pic.twitter.com/8QNHxGIR52</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Mike Sonne (@DrMikeSonne) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrMikeSonne/status/717865165090213890">April 7, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>That&#8217;s the <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/22/" target="_blank">&#8220;STUFF&#8221; metric</a> that has been developed by Dr. Mike Sonne (and will soon start appearing on this site regularly). Click that link for a more accurate primer, but basically, the metric uses velocity and movement variables to assign value to a pitcher&#8217;s &#8216;stuff&#8217;. Aaron Sanchez&#8217; rating from yesterday&#8217;s start would have put him in the top three in all of baseball last year, which matches up nicely with the strikeout rates. In the end, this was about as good as anybody could have possibly hoped for. If Aaron Sanchez is even close to this good going forward, the Jays are in for a real treat.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong><strong>J.A. Happ</strong></strong></h3>
<p>Line: 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 1 HBP, 1 HR, 54 strikes, 35 balls.<br />
Pitch Mix: 31 4 Seamers, 25 Sinkers, 18 Cutters, 9 Changeups and 5 Curveballs.</p>
<p>Coming into the season, J.A. Happ was possibly the largest question mark in the Blue Jays rotation. After being shipped off Pittsburgh Pirates in the middle of last season, J.A. Happ had a career resurgence, posting a 1.85 ERA over his last 63+ innings with the Bucs. Over the past few years Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage has helped revitalize the careers of several pitchers, including the likes of A.J. Burnett and Francisco Liriano. However, unlike Liriano and Burnett, Happ has never been a groundball pitcher, which seems to be a part of the Pirates success with their pet pitcher projects.</p>
<p>Instead, what Happ did do was increase his fastball usage even further to around 87%. Mind you this 87% is spread across 3 pitches, his cutter, four-seamer, and sinker. Combined with a far more consistent release point, this led to more strikes for Happ, and better command around the zone. Many of these aspects were apparent in Happ’s first start with the Blue Jays in 2016. He started off 17 of 26 batters with first pitch strikes and maintained his delivery well. The strike-zone was poor and extremely inconsistent for both pitchers and that somewhat hindered just how effective Happ was. Happ did a very good job of keeping the ball along the black, with very few pitches over the heart of the plate.</p>
<p>The one pitch that stood out in particular for Happ&#8217;s first start was his cutter. He threw 18, and four were whiffed on, including a beautiful one thrown on the outside corner to strike out Tim Beckham. Some may argue that his cutter is more of a slutter (slider/cutter), but no matter what you call it, it is a truly effective compliment to his sinker. Happ held his velocity well and should hold up if he goes deeper into his starts. It will be interesting to see if he can build off of this start and go a bit deeper into the game next time out, but overall his start was extremely impressive and a terrific building block to start the season on.</p>
<h4><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Happ-Velo.gif"><img class=" wp-image-1203 size-full aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/04/Happ-Velo.gif" alt="Happ Velo" width="600" height="400" /></a></h4>
<p><strong>Rotation Stats for the Week</strong><br />
26.0 IP, 24 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 20 K, 1 HBP, 4 HR. 2-0, 3.12 ERA</p>
<p><strong>YTD Stats</strong><br />
26.0 IP, 24 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 4 BB, 20 K, 1 HBP, 4 HR. 2-0, 3.12 ERA</p>
<p><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></p>
<p>Overall, it&#8217;s hard to be disappointed with the performance of the temporary four-man rotation. Sanchez and Stroman were excellent, Happ was very solid, and Dickey wasn&#8217;t half bad himself.</p>
<p>That concludes the first rotation review of the season. Stay tuned for the next one which will drop some time in the middle of next week. If there is anything else you would like to see, or something you&#8217;d like us to focus on, let us know in the comments and we&#8217;ll do our best to incorporate it next time around.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo:Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
<p><em>All pitch charts courtesy of Brooks Baseball</em></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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