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	<title>Toronto &#187; Russell Martin</title>
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	<description>Comprehensive coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays</description>
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		<title>Toronto&#8217;s Future Plans Will Have a Lot to Do With Russell Martin</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/20/torontos-future-plans-have-a-lot-to-do-with-russell-martin/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Jul 2017 10:40:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Andrew Munn]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12442</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Blue Jays are currently caught in a tough spot. They continue to boast a core group of players with several years of control remaining: Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Roberto Osuna, Devon Travis, Joe Biagini, and Kevin Pillar. They also have money tied up long term to some aging players to help complement the young [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Blue Jays are currently caught in a tough spot. They continue to boast a core group of players with several years of control remaining: Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Roberto Osuna, Devon Travis, Joe Biagini, and Kevin Pillar. They also have money tied up long term to some aging players to help complement the young guys, including Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin, Kendrys Morales, and J.A. Happ.</p>
<p>While this roster structure of young players and veterans is valuable for contenders, it makes for some tough decisions when the team isn&#8217;t playing at that level. Depending on who you talk to, Toronto&#8217;s struggles this season have been the result of either players underperforming based on their true talent levels, or an aging roster declining to the point that their current on-field performance is what can be expected moving forward. The Blue Jays have decisions to make regarding their future based on what they believe is the reason, and it is not unthinkable that some of the older players on the roster will not be back next season as part of a rebuilding or retooling phase.</p>
<p>Russell Martin&#8217;s play in 2017 could lead to a crossroads for the franchise. After a two-week bout with nerve troubles in his neck and shoulder, Martin has returned from the disabled list hitting .237/.361/.396, bringing his true average up to .257 for the season. To this point, Martin has bounced back from a down year in 2016, and his 1.5 WARP is currently best among Blue Jays position players not named Justin Smoak. He has played well enough that he could be considered a trade candidate, a possibility that should have the Blue Jays contemplating what direction they see this team going.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for Martin’s resurgence can probably be attributed to him just being healthy again. He&#8217;s battled with injuries through much of his tenure with the Blue Jays, and the backup catcher situation (or lack thereof) has forced Martin to play more than the optimal amount for a 34 year old catcher. After recovering from a couple of nagging injuries, we may finally be seeing Martin play at near full health.</p>
<p>However, Martin&#8217;s rejuvenation might also have to do with a change in approach. Martin is currently walking at a rate of 15.6% percent. If he finishes the season at that mark it would be a career high for him and well above his career average of 11.7%. This improved plate discipline appears in Martin’s underlying swing numbers as well. His chase percentage is down to 19% percent, an improvement from last season&#8217;s mark of 21.49%. Meanwhile, he is also swinging at more pitches inside the strike zone, up 3.7% from last year. Martin seems to be hitting with a more focused approach this season, something that he needs to be able to do to sustain his offensive production as he ages.</p>
<p>Martin&#8217;s improved approach at the plate has appeared in his expected production as well. His xWOBA of .349 this season has improved over his .325 mark in 2016, even with a similar batted ball profile. In 2017, the average ball off of Martin&#8217;s bat is leaving at a speed of 89.5 mph at a launch angle of 7.9°, in comparison to last season at 89.1 mph and 9.3°.</p>
<p><em>*An interesting tidbit that has come from Martin&#8217;s new approach at the plate has been its occurrence in high leverage situations. In a small sample of 25 high leverage plate appearances, Martin has worked a walk 10 times. He has only two singles in these same situations, but still sports a wild slash line of .133/.480/.133.*</em></p>
<p>If Martin can sustain this improved offensive performance for the rest of the season, he has the potential to make for an interesting trade piece. After 2017, Martin has 2 years/$40 million left on his contract, which may be a steep price to pay for some teams.  However, the catching market this offseason is thin once again, headlined by Alex Avila, a mightily struggling Johnathan Lucroy, Kurt Suzuki, and Welington Castillo. The Jays would very likely have to eat some money on a deal, but in return could receive some quality prospects to help along a potential rebuild.</p>
<p>Tantalizing as it is, trading Martin is predicated on what the Blue Jays plans are for 2018 and beyond. If they&#8217;re expecting to contend next season, then there is no good reason to deal the backstop. Even as some of his skills have declined with age, he is still an excellent framer, a lauded pitch sequencer, and is showing signs that his offensive production may be able to age gracefully. In addition, there isn&#8217;t a clear successor to Martin at catcher. Now at AA, Danny Jansen is having a fantastic 2017 campaign, but the Blue Jays may be understandably weary about handing the starting job to him next season given his age and relative inexperience. After him, there isn&#8217;t much to speak of in terms of in-house options, and attempting to replace Martin with another catcher &#8211; either in-season or with a free agent in the winter &#8211; would present a challenging task in itself.</p>
<p>As we have seen the last couple of years, Martin&#8217;s value is at its highest on a contending team. If there&#8217;s any player that could be worth more than their production due to intangibles like clubhouse presence and leadership, Martin has proven that he is it. When combining these characteristics with the tools he&#8217;s shown he still has in his rebound 2017 campaign, the possibility of trading Russell Martin presents a considerable juncture moving forward, one whose impact will have far-reaching implications on the future of the franchise.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Bold Predictions for the Blue Jays in the Second Half</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/07/bold-predictions-for-the-blue-jays-in-the-second-half/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/07/07/bold-predictions-for-the-blue-jays-in-the-second-half/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2017 11:05:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nick Dika]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kendrys Morales]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=12176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Monday night’s game against the Yankees marked the official midpoint of the 2017 Blue Jays’ season. While the season hasn’t played out the way Blue Jays fans would have liked thus far, there are 78 games still to be played. And a lot can happen in 78 games. Speaking of a lot happening in 78 [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Monday night’s game against the Yankees marked the official midpoint of the 2017 Blue Jays’ season. While the season hasn’t played out the way Blue Jays fans would have liked thus far, there are 78 games still to be played. And a lot can happen in 78 games. Speaking of a lot happening in 78 games, this season has given us plenty of surprises so far: Justin Smoak raking, a month of Kevin Pillar walking, and the Rogers Centre roof being closed almost every damn day.</p>
<p>Making predictions might be a fool’s errand, but you can’t say I told you so if you don’t make them. And given the Blue Jays recent losing streak, looking to the near future may be more appealing than venting or unpacking the team’s current struggles. With that in mind, here are some bold predictions for the second half of the 2017 season. Bold, bold. Not Doritos “bold taste” bold, but that Indian place you have to remind yourself not to get the hot option bold.</p>
<h4>Russ Martin Moves to Second, Josh Donaldson to Catcher</h4>
<p>So far this season, injuries and poor performance have wreaked havoc with the Blue Jays starting lineup. John Gibbons has been forced to start players out of position. Jose Bautista has seen time at third base and Russ Martin has started at both second and third. With the Blue Jays trading for catcher Miguel Montero today, there is some speculation that Martin could play even more second base.</p>
<p>Stars playing out of position will go to an even further extreme in the second half when Gibbons experiments with starting Josh Donaldson behind the plate. Donaldson, who last caught in 2012, will push Russell Martin to second base &#8211; allowing Martin to avoid the physical tolls of catching everyday and Gibbons to keep Ryan Goins on the bench. Despite playing below average defense at the position, Donaldson’s bat makes him worth 4.5 Wins Above Replacement in just over 40 innings. Donaldson becomes the most effective Blue Jays catcher at stopping the running game. We still don’t see Kendrys Morales in the outfield.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>The AL East Continues to Get Great Production from Unexpected First Basemen</h4>
<p>Forget Miguel Cabrera, Edwin Encarnacion, and the rest of name brand first basemen of the AL Central. The AL East provides more first base production for a fraction of the price. Seeing Justin Smoak and Logan Morrison on the American League offensive leaderboards has been a surprise to everyone. So much so that no one seems to notice the Red Sox’s Mitch Moreland having himself a nice little season of his own – posting a .264/.350/.468 slash line through Sunday.</p>
<p>Expect the trend to continue in the second half when James Loney signs with the Orioles and posts a career highs in home runs, on-base percentage and RBIs – all in half a season while filling in for the injured Chris Davis.</p>
<p>And speaking of Justin Smoak…</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Justin Smoak’s Success Leads to Many Emulating His Approach</h4>
<p>As Smoak continues to mash the baseball from both sides of the plate, his unorthodox diet begins to catch on with the rest of the team. Players like Jose Bautista and Russell Martin, known for their dedication to healthy eating and training, begin to emulate Smoak’s nutritional regiment and start eating pasta topped with mayonnaise instead of their preferred tomato sauce.</p>
<p>Bautista and Martin also begin to listen to country music and chewing Skoal brand tobacco. Their production spikes accordingly.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>The Blue Jays Sign Taz Tulowitzki</h4>
<p>With Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the midst of impressive seasons with the single-A Lansing Lugnuts, the Blue Jays front office begins to believe they have identified a new market inefficiency in the quest to build a winning baseball team: employing the children of former major league players.</p>
<p>In a piece of shrewd business, Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins sign Troy Tulowitzki’s 3-year-old son, Taz, to a 30-year contract reminiscent of shady backroom dealings that happen in professional soccer. Scouts project Taz to contribute on both offense and defense in the middle of the diamond but fear a steep drop in his offensive production during his early 30s. The younger Tulo is paid a signing bonus significantly higher than that given to Cavan Biggio.</p>
<p>The contract will run through Taz’s age 34 season &#8211; which is the age the Blue Jays had wished his father’s contract would have expired.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Kendrys Morales Hits the Longest, Hardest Single of the Season</h4>
<p>Kendrys Morales has always hit the baseball hard. The Blue Jays designated hitter is regularly atop Major League Baseball’s year-end exit velocity leader boards. Unfortunately for Kendrys, a lot of his scorched balls are hit on the ground, where they do minimal damage. In another spat of bad luck, Morales hits the longest single of the season when he laces a 400-foot line drive off the top of the centre field wall at the Rogers Centre.</p>
<p>The ill-fated combination of Morales’ lack of footspeed and an incredibly well-struck baseball leaves Kendrys standing at first base and the proud owner of baseball’s longest and hardest hit single of the season (and the Statcast era).</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Blue Jays High Performance Department Hires Eddie Van Halen to work with Aaron Sanchez</h4>
<p>With more traditional baseball remedies remaining ineffective, Gil Kim enlists the help of 80s guitarist Eddie Van Halen to help keep Sanchez’s blister’s and fingernails in check. Kim, who was impressed with the famous guitarist’s ability to practice for hours on end without ruining his hands, hopes Eddie will be able to transfer some of his hand preservation secrets to the Blue Jays’ young ace.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>After Winning the World Series, the Jays are Invited to Meet PM Trudeau. Several Players Elect to Not Attend.</h4>
<p>After being eliminated in the American League Championship Series two years in a row, the Blue Jays finally do the dang thing and advance to the World Series, where they beat the Nationals in seven games.</p>
<p>As per tradition, the team is invited to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the offseason. However, several notable players don’t show up.</p>
<p>The consummate professional, Troy Tulowitzki elects to remain at the Blue Jays’ spring training facilities in order to not disrupt his offseason workouts. Coming off another MVP-caliber season, Josh Donaldson, who recently purchased Battlefied 4 for Xbox 360, has some buddies over to his place to play multiplayer and declines the invitation (but he does invite PM Trudeau to join their online game). And like the Cubs’ <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2017/6/28/15891598/cubs-carl-edwards-jr-skipped-white-house-visit-for-dinosaur-museums">Carl Edwards Jr.</a>, Joe Biagini skips the meeting in order to take in the dinosaur exhibit at the nearby Museum of Natural History in Ottawa.</p>
<p>Before you call these too bold, go ahead and pull up Justin Smoak’s 2017 stats. And after you do that, remember that what makes baseball so great is all of the improbable things that happen each and every season. And with that in mind…cue the second half comeback, Blue Jays!</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Fly Ball Revolution Has Arrived in Toronto</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/17/the-fly-ball-revolution-has-arrived-in-toronto/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/17/the-fly-ball-revolution-has-arrived-in-toronto/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Mar 2017 10:04:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Elie Waitzer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Devon Travis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edwin Encarnacion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Josh Donaldson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Justin Smoak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Troy Tulowitzki]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[2016 was an odd year for home runs; they went up by 14% between 2015 and 2016. The last time we saw so many home runs was in 2000, when the home run leaderboard looked like this. When this historic spike began to come into focus down the stretch last season, baseball writers had a [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>2016 was an odd year for home runs; they went up by 14% between 2015 and 2016. The last time we saw so many home runs was in 2000, when the home run leaderboard looked like <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2000-batting-leaders.shtml">this</a>. When this historic spike began to come into focus down the stretch last season, baseball writers had a field day trying to explain it. They enlisted physicists and statisticians. They said that the balls might be <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-juiced-balls-the-new-steroids/">juiced</a>. They blamed the historically bad Reds&#8217; bullpen. They thought maybe steroids were back.</p>
<p>But when nobody could find a satisfying stats-based explanation for the long ball lunacy, a few writers began to turn to philosophy. The explanation here isn&#8217;t as easy as hitters closing their eyes and meditating about glorious dingers. According to interviews with several players, any explanation behind the power surge starts with the general shift in the Majors from a line drive-based approach to a fly ball-heavy hitting philosophy. Leading that group of players are Josh Donaldson, J.D. Martinez, Marlon Byrd, and Justin Turner.</p>
<p>This theory has two parts. The first is that it just makes more sense to go for fly balls. In 2016, batters hit <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=bat&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2016&amp;month=18&amp;season1=2016&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0,ss&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0">.241 with a .715 slugging mark on fly balls</a> versus a .238 average and .258 slugging mark on ground balls. The second part is that when this approach turns someone like J.D. Martinez or Justin Turner into a superstar, other Major League hitters take notice and try to emulate it.</p>
<p>At Fangraphs, Jeff Sullivan and Travis Sawchik have been compiling mostly anecdotal evidence for this theory that you can read about <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/has-the-fly-ball-revolution-begun/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/j-d-martinez-debunks-conventional-wisdom-thinks-a-tipping-point-is-near/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-hitters-are-getting-off-the-ground/">here</a>. I won&#8217;t go any deeper into the weeds, because what interests me in this is Josh Donaldson&#8217;s role at the vanguard of this fly ball revolution.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just say NO&#8230;. to ground balls. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLB?src=hash">#MLB</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/striveforexcellence?src=hash">#striveforexcellence</a> <a href="https://t.co/6YANrOZHQE">pic.twitter.com/6YANrOZHQE</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Josh Donaldson (@BringerOfRain20) <a href="https://twitter.com/BringerOfRain20/status/837061212705812488">March 1, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>There&#8217;s that tweet, and there&#8217;s this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyWNCrxVzPU">amazing video</a> on MLB Network. You could argue that Donaldson has been the highest profile proselytiser for the fly ball approach, which makes Toronto the perfect test case for this theory. If I was a struggling bat in the Jays lineup, I would take every piece of advice I could from Donaldson. Players on the same team talk, a lot. That&#8217;s why the Rays pitchers all throw the <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-power-of-pitch-lineage/">same change up</a>.</p>
<p>Now, the Jays are one of only six teams that actually hit <em>fewer</em> home runs in 2016 than in 2015. So Toronto&#8217;s offence was explosive independent of whatever mystery juice may have crept into baseball last season, but let&#8217;s see if we can find any evidence of how Donaldson&#8217;s philosophy has shaped the Blue Jays.</p>
<p>The best place to start is at the root of this philosophy: average launch angles. Unfortunately, Statcast data only goes back to 2015, so we can&#8217;t compare the pre-Donaldson Jays to the current core, but even the past two years are revealing. For starters, the team&#8217;s average launch angle rose from 8.8° to 10.5°. Here are the batters who gained the most lift on average.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-9573" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/launch-angle-gainers.png" alt="launch angle gainers" width="510" height="229" /></p>
<p>Donaldson practiced what he preached, adding 4.5° on average according to Baseball Savant. Travis and Martin had big jumps. Encarnacion had one of highest average launch angles in the league (top 20). And at the very top of the list is Smoak, who exemplifies the kind of struggling hitter who might try to seek advice from a successful hitter such as Donaldson. Seven degrees makes me want to bust out a protractor.</p>
<p>Now that we&#8217;ve identified Donaldson&#8217;s disciples, let&#8217;s see if those increased launch angles translated into more fly balls.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="aligncenter  wp-image-9583" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/fb-gainers1.png" alt="fb gainers" width="510" height="295" /></a></p>
<p>Again, Smoak and Travis saw big increases. Somehow, Tulowitzki managed to increase his fly ball percentage by 10% despite only raising his average launch angle by 2.2°. That massive jump in FB% pushed his home run total up from 17 to 24 and raised his ISO from .160 to .189, but Tulowitzki&#8217;s slugging percentage actually remained the same due to a corresponding drop-off in doubles. This could be a sign of Tulowitzki over-emphasizing fly balls at the expense of line drives to the gaps.</p>
<p>Of those six Jays, Tulowitzki was actually the only home run gainer on a rate basis. You might expect Donaldson and Encarnacion to take small steps back after beastly 2015 campaigns, but Smoak and Travis seemed like candidates for power surges according to their FB% and launch angle gains.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="  aligncenter wp-image-9622" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/hr-gainers1.png" alt="hr gainers" width="499" height="263" /></a></p>
<p>Again, we only have average launch angle data for the past two years, but for an entire team to jump from an average 8.8° to 10.5° seem significant to me. What&#8217;s more, the team&#8217;s hard hit rate jumped from 29.7% to 33.1% while the team&#8217;s HR/FB and average exit velocity remained essentially the same. That suggests that the Jays got a little unlucky with homers in 2016.</p>
<p>It&#8217;d be interesting to talk to Tulowitzki, Smoak and Travis to see if they&#8217;ve intentionally adopted Donaldson&#8217;s fly ball heavy approach. Looking at stats can only tell us so much. Still, if those three maintain their launch angle and fly ball gains from 2016, they could be primed for juicy home run totals this year.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Russell Martin on the Art of Pitch Calling: A Masters in Communication</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/03/07/the-art-of-pitch-calling-a-masters-in-communication/</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:22:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joshua Howsam]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jarrod Saltalamacchia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reese McGuire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=9239</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience, it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.&#8221; - Bob Feller DUNEDIN &#8211; Catcher defense is an interesting thing. When trying to evaluate it, most of the talk has shifted towards pitch framing (or [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><em>&#8220;If you believe your catcher is intelligent and you know that he has considerable experience,<br />
it is a good thing to leave the game almost entirely in his hands.&#8221; </em>- Bob Feller</p>
<p>DUNEDIN &#8211; Catcher defense is an interesting thing. When trying to evaluate it, most of the talk has shifted towards pitch framing (or receiving), with cursory mentions of “controlling the running game” and blocking ability. This makes some sense, as we have data to quantify all of these things. But if you were to ask most catchers, their primary objective is guiding a pitcher through the game &#8211; pitch calling.</p>
<p>As a pitcher, this area of the game has always held the deepest fascination for me. There is something truly unique in the battle between the batter and the battery, yet it often goes completely unnoticed by anybody but the most die hard of baseball fans. In an effort to correct that, I talked to the Blue Jays catchers (and a pitcher) to see how they approach this esoteric segment of the game.</p>
<p>For Russell Martin, everything begins with communication:</p>
<p><em>“Most pitchers &#8211; young or old &#8211; have a good idea of what they like to do when they go out on the mound…just talking to the guys is the first aspect of my preparation; I feel like it helps build the chemistry with the player itself; just listening to what Marco has to say, just listening to what Stroman likes to say, listening to what the pitching coach has to say too. Everybody&#8217;s got information and my job is to keep the information that&#8217;s helpful to me and what I&#8217;m trying to accomplish.</em></p>
<p>It’s a simple enough concept to get your head around: Ask the guy what he wants to throw beforehand, so that things go much smoother in the game. But communication doesn’t just mean asking, “what do you want to throw?” If that were the case, there would be no such thing as a good pitch calling catcher. Communication also means knowing when to put your foot down.</p>
<p>For the most part, a catcher will suggest a pitch and the pitcher will throw it. If the guy on the mound wants to throw something else, they’ll shake off and the catcher will suggest a different pitch. However, that&#8217;s not always the case.</p>
<p><em>&#8220;There are times, [and] it&#8217;s not often, where your gut will tell you, &#8216;ugh, I don&#8217;t really feel like it&#8217;s the situation&#8217; or you feel like a hitter is sitting on a certain pitch and that&#8217;s the pitch the pitcher wants to throw. There are times where time needs to be called and you need to have a quick conversation with the guy on the mound.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>&#8220;I&#8217;m just trying to help them, or guide them through a game, using what they have that day.”</em></p>
<p>Even that is a fine line, however. There are considerations beyond simply getting to the &#8216;right&#8217; pitch for the situation:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;You have to be very intuitive when you go talk to [the pitcher]&#8230;the best pitch is the one that&#8217;s going to be thrown with conviction. So if the pitcher really believes in the pitch that he&#8217;s going to make, it&#8217;s probably the best pitch. Because if I go up there and I talk to him and say, &#8216;hey, I was thinking this&#8217; and he just goes off what I was thinking, but he doesn&#8217;t throw the pitch with conviction, then it&#8217;s not necessarily the pitch that I was thinking anymore.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>That’s something we hear about with occasional frequency on the broadcast, but never really much in depth. It can be difficult to get your head around the idea that merely suggesting a curveball when the pitcher was thinking fastball could mean you get a bad curveball instead. People expect that a major league pitcher should have confidence in all of his stuff. Martin agrees, noting that it&#8217;s &#8220;the job of the pitcher.&#8221; However, while a pitcher can try to make himself believe it, &#8220;sometimes what we say as people is not necessarily how feel inside.&#8221; In fact, Marco Estrada <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">had to teach himself to trust all of his stuff</a> as recently as last year.</p>
<p>Communication matters and it&#8217;s more than just talking to someone; you have to know just what to say. Martin happens to be one of the best in the game at reading pitches, so when he talks, pitchers listen. We saw some evidence of this last year with J.A. Happ.</p>
<p>The tall lefty was coming off one of the best ten start stretches a pitcher can have, posting a 1.37 ERA and 9.6 K/9 through the end of the 2015 season with Pittsburgh. He had that extreme success while throwing an inordinate number of fourseam fastballs. Yet right from the get-go, Martin was calling way more <em>twoseamers</em> to go with that fourseamer.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/Brooksbaseball-Chart-6.jpeg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-9246" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/03/Brooksbaseball-Chart-6-1024x683.jpeg" alt="Brooksbaseball-Chart (6)" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>It wasn’t just some random experiment, either. Martin knew what he was doing:</p>
<p><em>“[Happ]&#8217;s able to locate that fourseam fastball up and in on righties&#8217; hands and then the two-seamer, it’s a pitch that&#8217;s moving out of the zone at the bottom of the zone. So, having to cover the up and in and then down and away; one moving away from you, the other one boring in on you. That’s TOUGH to do. You can put a ball that&#8217;s not moving in those spots and they&#8217;re hard to hit, right? So if you can get a little velocity with that and a little movement, it&#8217;s even harder.”</em></p>
<p>Without that read from Martin and then the ability to get that across to Happ, we may have only seen fourseam Happ all year. Thankfully, he and Martin were on the same page. Happ:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;I was focused a little bit on mechanics and just being aggressive in Pittsburgh. And here I just started tinkering a little bit &#8211; trying to keep that same mindset, but also keep that two-seamer because I know in the past that has been a big pitch for me.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>&#8220;I always say [the pitcher/catcher relationship] is an underrated thing and it’s nice to have a spring training &#8211; especially when you&#8217;re on a new team &#8211; to get to know that new catcher and develop that relationship. They know how you pitch, how you work, how your stuff works and plays. That&#8217;s huge to have a guy who understands that.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>The results speak for themselves, as Happ had easily the best season of his career, very heavily due to his pitch mix. However, when I mentioned <a title="How J.A. Happ Evolved Into One of Baseball’s Best" href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/31/how-j-a-happ-evolved-into-one-of-baseballs-best/" target="_blank">Happ’s unique fastball movement</a> and asked if it was part of the decision to change things up, Martin wasn’t fully aware:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;I felt it, but I didn&#8217;t know that…I&#8217;m glad there are people out there that are gathering that information and giving it a numerical meaning and explaining why it&#8217;s effective. For me it&#8217;s more of an instinctual thing. What I&#8217;m seeing from behind the plate is guys not hit the ball hard and guys having a hard time catching up to it. And it&#8217;s like a more simplistic way, but then if you want to quantify it with data, that&#8217;s great &#8211; I&#8217;m all for that.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>It makes some sense. As a catcher, it’s Martin’s job to see the pitches and, “[try] to stay one step ahead&#8230;finding out what works in certain situations against a certain type of hitter.” He needs to be able to read the swings and the quality of the pitches with his eyes, even if PITCHf/x data might suggest something else. Essentially, raw &#8220;stuff&#8221; isn&#8217;t the major factor when it comes to Martin&#8217;s pitch-calling:</p>
<p><em>“A pitcher can have a nasty cutter, but if that cutter is down the middle a lot, there&#8217;s a good chance hitters are going to get good swings on it. Then I don&#8217;t know what the numbers are on that pitch, but I don&#8217;t even need to know the numbers. I&#8217;m like ok, if this guy makes mistakes with this pitch often in the middle of the plate, it&#8217;s not a high percentage quality pitch. But if he has another pitch that he locates and when he misses, he misses off the plate &#8211; and when he gets it, it&#8217;s in a hard area to hit with any power&#8230; There are certain pitches that are just tough to hit.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><em>&#8220;In all honesty, every pitcher has strengths and things he&#8217;s not as good at. I wouldn&#8217;t call them weaknesses, because every single pitcher&#8217;s pitches are good. There are just certain pitches that they command a bit better, that they have more confidence in. And you have to know your pitcher.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>So while Martin appreciates our attempts to see the why, it seems he prefers to trust his own intuition. He makes the best selection with what his eyes tell him &#8211; monitoring stuff, location, and hitter swings &#8211; but not the numbers. It has gotten him this far, so there’s no reason to doubt it. But even if he doesn’t know it, he is still subconsciously embracing the data and passing it onto the next generation. When I spoke to catching prospect Reese McGuire, he had this to say:</p>
<p><em>&#8220;We&#8217;re constantly trying to learn as catchers and Russell and [Jarrod Saltalamacchia] have both been tremendous with leading that.&#8221; </em></p>
<p><em>&#8220;I think that [PITCHf/x data and Statcast] is the next step &#8211; that&#8217;s the next level &#8211; when they&#8217;re going to have a little bit more information. I&#8217;ve already heard Russell and Salty talk about that too, where a certain pitcher, he&#8217;s coming from a certain side of the rubber and he might not get a certain call percentage wise, say he gets screwed on a strike because of the angle his ball is coming across the plate.&#8221;</em></p>
<p>That was very fun to hear, as it&#8217;s not something we ever really consider when looking at whether a pitch was called correctly. We tend to blame the umpire or credit the catcher&#8217;s receiving, but it sounds like it&#8217;s also a big part of the catcher knowing what pitches are easier and tougher for an umpire to call correctly and then calling pitches in or away from those locations. That information can be huge in getting or not getting strikes in key spots.</p>
<p>Pitch sequencing is a constant game of cat-and-mouse, with the pitchers and catchers trying to outsmart the best hitters in the world. Get this guy to reach for this, or to totally misread that. Change your angle on this to make him miss that. It’s fascinating to watch and just as fun to learn. Martin is the professor teaching a master class.</p>
<p><em>“My goal…is to stay one step ahead and find out what works in certain situations against a certain type of hitter. The game changes &#8211; the hitters are trying to make adjustments too &#8211; and there&#8217;s not just one right call I can make, but as long as I know my pitcher and he believes that I know him and we feel confident together, then we&#8217;re a better team.”</em></p>
<p>A better team? That&#8217;s a good call.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Re-assessing How We View Russell Martin for 2017</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/13/russell-martin-going-forward/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/12/13/russell-martin-going-forward/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Dec 2016 11:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dave Church]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=8227</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Russell Martin is the best catcher that has ever played for the Blue Jays, and he&#8217;s a stark contrast for a history littered with with fan favourites, defensive wizards who couldn&#8217;t hit, the occasional serviceable veteran who put in a few good years, and several catchers-of-the-future who never quite lived up to their billing. It&#8217;s [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Russell Martin is the best catcher that has ever played for the Blue Jays, and he&#8217;s a stark contrast for a history littered with with fan favourites, defensive wizards who couldn&#8217;t hit, the occasional serviceable veteran who put in a few good years, and several catchers-of-the-future who never quite lived up to their billing. It&#8217;s been a tough spot for the team to fill historically, and the team has never had someone as capable as Martin suiting up behind the plate.</p>
<p>When the Jays signed Martin to a five year, 85 million dollar deal prior to the 2015 season, the understanding was that the team would compete soon. He would be 32 before he took his first at-bat with the team, and catchers age faster than most players. No matter how well Martin kept himself in shape, he wouldn&#8217;t be able to outrun time forever. The understanding was simple: they were paying for an elite catcher on the front end of the contract, one that would help the Jays become contenders, and hoping that his athleticism insulated them against the decline as long as it could.</p>
<p>We saw the first signs of that decline last season on offense, as Martin had several long stretches where he simply could not hit. This could be explained away with injury, as he had that neck issue that hampered him early in the season, but the injury itself was only part of the problem: older players get hurt more. Even as the Jays smartly kept him away from R.A. Dickey&#8217;s knuckleball, there were still opportunities for Martin to get hurt in the normal day-to-day of being a catcher. With an older player at a demanding position, we can&#8217;t simply wave away the injury. It affected Martin&#8217;s ability to contribute offensively and it could change how we view Russell going forward.</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinexitvelocity.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8229" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinexitvelocity-1024x683.png" alt="martinexitvelocity" width="500" height="333" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinwhiffpercentage.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8230" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinwhiffpercentage.png" alt="martinwhiffpercentage" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>A decline in exit velocity and an increase in swings-and-misses (see graphs above) are normal trends for players as they get older. Russell Martin was far from the only culprit during a disappointing season for the Jays&#8217; offense, but the length of his early season struggles (and their muted return late in the season and in the playoffs) was a visible anchor in the lineup. As such the Jays were forced to move him down in the order. He&#8217;s become easier to pitch to as well. Consider his isolated power profile from 2014-2015, and the one below it from 2016:</p>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinzone2014.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8231" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinzone2014.png" alt="martinzone2014" width="450" height="450" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinzone2016.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-8232" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/12/martinzone2016.png" alt="martinzone2016" width="450" height="450" /></a></p>
<p>Once a notorious high-ball hitter, Martin has become someone you can get out with a solid plan. The book is soft stuff that isn&#8217;t middle-middle, a game plan Cleveland deployed against the Jays very well in the playoffs. Watching Martin come up with runners on base became a depressing inevitability: he went 2-for-17 with 9 strikeouts in the ALCS.</p>
<p>We certainly shouldn&#8217;t ignore Martin&#8217;s full contributions. He was signed partially for his defense and handling of pitchers, which still grades out well. For all the hand-wringing about Marco Estrada losing his personal catcher, Martin came in and Estrada didn&#8217;t lose a beat, en route to an All-Star appearance. Baseball Prospectus has Martin as the <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1927234">seventh best catcher in baseball by WARP</a>, and there aren&#8217;t many catchers his age in the top tier. Those who are in similar ages and contract brackets reinforce our point, however.</p>
<p>Consider <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=31391">Yadier Molina</a> and <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/card/card.php?id=45449">Brian McCann</a>, 5th and 14th on the list respectively. Molina is similar to Martin: a good reputation both offensively and defensively, and has been great for many years. But even he had struggled the last two seasons with injury, before rebounding to 4.0 WARP in 2016. McCann&#8217;s primary value was offense when he a signed a six year contract with the Yankees prior to the 2014 season. His bat has declined to the point where they traded him to the Astros this offseason.</p>
<p>In an off-season where the Jays could lose two franchise-altering bats, the team has to be concerned about the trends they see in Martin&#8217;s hitting. There are ways the team can help that. Better depth at the position would be great, as they lacked a decent backup for the entire season. That kind of depth could lead to more days off for Martin, giving him a little more spring in his step, but it&#8217;s a tricky balance. The team wants to justify it&#8217;s investment in their catcher, but also not to overspend at a position they already have a lot of money committed.</p>
<p>A catching prospect who&#8217;s ready for a taste of the bigs would be ideal given Martin&#8217;s timeline, but their troubled history with catcher-of-the-future types has bitten them here. A.J. Jimenez has bounced on and off the 40 man recently, and newly acquired Reese McGuire isn&#8217;t close and may not be anyone&#8217;s idea of a starting catcher. So there may not be much help on the way here either.</p>
<p>Again, to be clear: Russell Martin is the best catcher the Jays have ever had, and he&#8217;s still one of the best catchers in baseball. However, there are holes in his game, and if the Jays want to contend again in 2017, they&#8217;d be wise to work around some of his limitations. An actual, functional backup catcher would be one way, limiting his wear and tear as the season goes along. Some more bats to reduce his responsibility on the lineup would be another. Better injury luck might help as well, but it&#8217;s hard to see his odds getting better on that front as he gets older. Martin is a key piece of the Jays&#8217; puzzle over the next few years, and the team will have to be realistic as to how he best fits.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>An Early End to the Blue Jays Comeback (and Season)</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/20/an-early-end-to-the-blue-jays-comeback-and-season/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/20/an-early-end-to-the-blue-jays-comeback-and-season/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 Oct 2016 16:52:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Evan Peaslee]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7626</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TORONTO – Well, that didn’t last long. The hope, the optimism, the belief &#8211; they all died quickly in the Blue Jays’ ALCS Game 5 matinee against Cleveland. Cleveland scored three times, once in the first, then again in the third and fourth, and the Jays hardly threatened, if ever. Ryan Merritt threw slop that [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>TORONTO – Well, that didn’t last long. The hope, the optimism, the belief &#8211; they all died quickly in the Blue Jays’ ALCS Game 5 matinee against Cleveland.</p>
<p>Cleveland scored three times, once in the first, then again in the third and fourth, and the Jays hardly threatened, if ever. Ryan Merritt threw slop that Toronto couldn’t hit, and then the bullpen came in and did bullpen things.</p>
<p>It was another exciting season in Toronto, but now it’s over. An offense that struggled all September reared its ugly head at the worst possible time. Even solid pitching up and down the Jays staff couldn’t help them. They needed to be perfect and they weren’t.</p>
<p>If you’re a Jays fan there’s a lot to bemoan. The team is better than it performed in the ALCS, and certainly better than their 11-16 September. But you also must tip your cap to Cleveland. With two fantastic starters out with injury manager, Terry Francona mixed and matched his way to a World Series berth.</p>
<p>“We grinded. We battled. The other team just did a bit more than us,” Russell Martin said. “They pitched extremely well all the way through the whole series – their starters, their bullpen, everybody, they played good defence. They didn’t make too many mistakes. I feel like they made one mistake and that was the game we won…But overall they deserved it, they played really well.”</p>
<p>With neither offense performing at peak levels it came down to pitching and key hits, and it seemed that more often than not Cleveland found a way to come through at critical times, especially early in games. In fact Toronto outhit Cleveland 32-25 in the series but were outscored 12-8 in an extremely low-scoring series.</p>
<p>The loss hit the players pretty hard. The clubhouse was very sombre after the game. A lot of man hugs and best wishes were given, and players were packing up and putting things into boxes, some knowing they may never be in that clubhouse again. Part of that mood stemmed from the attitude and belief that they were better than they performed, and had a whole lot more fight left in them. None of them ready for the season to be over.</p>
<p>“I wish we were still playing. This team had a lot left in it. Just came up a little short,” Marco Estrada said.</p>
<blockquote><p>“I wish we were still playing. This team had a lot left in it. Just came up a little short.” &#8211; Marco Estrada</p></blockquote>
<p>“I think not winning games is the biggest disappointment,” Kevin Pillar said. “We were in every game and that’s all you can ask for this time of year we just didn’t come up with a big hit.</p>
<p>“Each and every one of us, you can look at everyone in this room, everyone had opportunities to drive in some runs and it just didn’t work out that way. It’s unfortunate, but everyone’s going to go home, reflect on it, improve, and come back and look forward to doing it again.”</p>
<p>That was the overwhelming silver lining of a season now lost. There’s a returning core for the Blue Jays that should make them a viable playoff candidate regardless of what moves are made in the offseason.</p>
<p>The strength of the team, the rotation, stays fully intact &#8211; minus the likely departure of R.A. Dickey &#8211; with Francisco Liriano the heir to the fifth starter role. Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki, Devon Travis, Kevin Pillar, and Russell Martin are also all under contract, meaning the defence up the middle and a part of the heart of the order will be returning. Lastly, the team’s best bullpen piece, closer Roberto Osuna, will continue to close out games and Joe Biagini and likely Jason Grilli will be there to help get him the ball. There’s a lot to work with even if Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Michael Saunders, and Brett Cecil find work elsewhere. Those holes will be filled, but it all starts with starting pitching and defense, and the Jays should have that in spades entering 2017.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I’m sure there will be some disappointments and grumbling and complaining about how you fell short again, but that’s not coming from me, because I know what these guys did, and I think it’s a pretty good accomplishment.&#8221; &#8211; John Gibbons</p></blockquote>
<p>That, however, doesn’t take the sting out of Wednesday’s loss for fans. But after 22 years without a playoff berth, coupled with back to back trips to the American League Championship Series, there’s a lot to be thankful for too.</p>
<p>“The tough part is getting in (to the playoffs),” manager John Gibbons. “So many good teams out there. In the American League we look at it all the time. All the divisions are good and competitive. To stay on top or get close to the top, near the top, it takes a lot. A lot of things have got to go your way.</p>
<p>“I’m sure there will be some disappointments and grumbling and complaining about how you fell short again, but that’s not coming from me, because I know what these guys did, and I think it’s a pretty good accomplishment. The key is we want to take that next step on of these days, hopefully it’s next year. But these guys, they did a hell of a job.”</p>
<p>That doesn’t make the result any easier to swallow. Everyone wanted more; the fans, the players, the coaches, the staff. Everyone thought this team had more to give, but just like last season they fell just short. An admirable accomplishment, it’s just that they wanted more.</p>
<p>“Both times that we lost it sucked equally,” Martin said. “This sucks. It’s part of the game. Only one team goes home happy. Unfortunately it’s not us.”</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Blue Jays Bats Stay Silent</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/18/blue-jays-bats-stay-silent/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/18/blue-jays-bats-stay-silent/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2016 14:22:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Evan Peaslee]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7552</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TORONTO – It’s no fun to pile on when a person is down, but so far in the American League Championship Series the Toronto Blue Jays have been completely outplayed in every facet. No one is going to point fingers at the Jays’ pitching, but a whole lot of weight falls on the shoulders of [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>TORONTO – It’s no fun to pile on when a person is down, but so far in the American League Championship Series the Toronto Blue Jays have been completely outplayed in every facet. No one is going to point fingers at the Jays’ pitching, but a whole lot of weight falls on the shoulders of an offense that simply isn’t getting it done.</p>
<p>The Toronto offense is Arctic cold right now; they have scored a season-low in runs over a three game stretch in the most important time of the year. If you’re a Jays fan there isn’t a whole lot to hang your hat on at the moment. They’ve squandered alarmingly favourable matchups the last two games, one of which came against 8.1 innings from the Cleveland bullpen and the other versus Josh Tomlin.</p>
<p>“They shut us down,&#8221; Jays manager John Gibbons said. &#8220;They did a great job going through a number of guys and did a good job shutting us down.</p>
<p>“I still believe our offense is due to erupt. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’ve seen it too many times. Hopefully (Tuesday) is that day, we’ll see.”</p>
<p>While certainly the Cleveland pitching staff deserves a ton of credit for making the Toronto hitters look completely lifeless at the plate, the simple matter of the fact is that some of the Jays&#8217; big bats are just missing pitches. Take the fifth inning of Monday’s game. The Blue Jays had just tied the game at two on a groundout by Ryan Goins that scored Ezequiel Carrera and the heart of the Toronto lineup was coming up to bat to face Bryan Shaw. All three of them had a pitch to hit, and only Josh Donaldson was able to do something with it.</p>
<p>Take a look at what Jose Bautista had to hit(below).</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/Bautista.gif"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-7565" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/Bautista.gif" alt="Bautista" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>That blue dot is a cutter that Cleveland righty Bryan Shaw threw right down the middle of the plate. Bautista flied out to left field about 20 feet short of the wall.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/eddie.gif"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-7566" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/eddie.gif" alt="eddie" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>
<p>That&#8217;s the cutter that Encarnacion missed(above). Typically he smashes those pitches if this heat map is any indication(below):</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/slug.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-7567" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/slug.png" alt="slug" width="500" height="500" /></a></p>
<p>Now, these charts and missed pitches don&#8217;t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things. Just like pitchers, hitters miss sometimes. Baseball is an extremely hard and complicated game. The best of the best miss less often than everyone else, which Bautista and Encarnacion are certainly in that category. What it <em>does </em>indicate is what anyone can see with their eyes; the Jays&#8217; offense is off. The likelihood of either of them missing those pitches when they&#8217;re seeing the ball well is slim. However, even if both sluggers would&#8217;ve reached base versus Shaw it doesn&#8217;t mean the Jays would&#8217;ve won, but for a team that hasn&#8217;t even held the lead at any point in the the series, at least one hit could&#8217;ve gone a long way to building some form of momentum.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not just the big bats that are missing either. Troy Tulowitzki, Bautista, Kevin Pillar, and Russell Martin are a combined 4-for-41 in the series, with Martin looking particularly lost at the plate. Dioner Navarro has as many hits as each of them, and that came in one at-bat. However, after the loss in Game 3 Gibbons didn&#8217;t sound like he was thinking about changing the lineup once again in hopes of sparking the offense.</p>
<p>“I may have already done that enough,&#8221; Gibbons said. &#8220;No, we’ll run the boys out there tomorrow that got us to this point. It’s a pretty good group. And they’re due. They’re due. We’ll see. We’ll see if it’s (Tuesday).”</p>
<p>The task will be a whole lot harder with Corey Kluber, the 2014 Cy Young winner on the mound for Cleveland. The man who escaped trouble in the first three innings of Game 1 before getting locked in and shutting out the Blue Jays over 6.1 innings and allowing just six hits.</p>
<p>While the task may be daunting, what the Jays need is pretty simple.</p>
<p>&#8220;We just got to play better,&#8221; Pillar said. &#8220;We got to figure out a way to get to their starting pitching early, get a lead, and play from ahead for once.</p>
<p>“This [team] is filled with guys that would damn near sell their soul to get to the World Series and we understand we still have that opportunity we just need to play better. It’s that simple.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Blue Jays&#8217; Canadian Trio on the Playoffs in Toronto</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/03/the-blue-jays-canadian-trio-on-the-playoffs-in-toronto/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/03/the-blue-jays-canadian-trio-on-the-playoffs-in-toronto/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2016 11:22:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Evan Peaslee]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dalton Pompey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Saunders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto Blue Jays]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7157</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Toronto – The postseason is the biggest stage that Major League Baseball has to offer. It’s a time of high intensity, high pressure, and high stakes. Every little detail matters. In the course of a season, or even a game, a misplay or poor decision can go unnoticed. Lost in the greater context of events [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Toronto – The postseason is the biggest stage that Major League Baseball has to offer. It’s a time of high intensity, high pressure, and high stakes. Every little detail matters. In the course of a season, or even a game, a misplay or poor decision can go unnoticed. Lost in the greater context of events that a marathon season requires. In the postseason those decisions and plays are scrutinized to the Nth degree.</p>
<p>With those stakes comes a lot of pressure. Not just in the postseason but also those meaningful games down the stretch to get there. There’s not one player in the league that doesn&#8217;t want to be in that spotlight, living under the intensity of those must-win games.</p>
<p>Russell Martin has become no stranger to playing under the spotlight on baseball’s biggest stage. With the Blue Jays having clinched a playoff spot Sunday Martin will make his sixth straight postseason appearance and ninth overall in his 11-year career and he wouldn&#8217;t have it any other way.</p>
<p>“You battle your butt off all year to earn the right to play the most meaningful games possible,” Martin said last week. “Just the opportunity to play under those circumstances is all you need.</p>
<p>“Derek Jeter said it best ‘you have 162 games of practice before the real season starts.’ And that’s what it feels like. It’s like you earn your right to play under the big lights.”</p>
<blockquote><p>“Derek Jeter said it best ‘you have 162 games of practice before the real season starts.’ And that’s what it feels like. It’s like you earn your right to play under the big lights.” &#8211; Russell Martin</p></blockquote>
<p>While Martin has played nearly 50 games under those postseason lights for Michael Saunders Tuesday&#8217;s Wild Card game at the Rogers Centre versus the Baltimore Orioles will be his first. A sprinkler head in Spring Training last season spoiled his chances of embarking on Toronto’s historic run to the postseason in 2015, leaving the 29-year-old Canadian with bittersweet feelings and pinned to the Jays’ bench as the club’s biggest cheerleader.</p>
<p>After a healthy 2016 where he set career highs in at-bats, games played, and home runs, Saunders is looking forward to making up for last year’s freak accident and playing under those bright lights.</p>
<p>“(The playoffs), that’s what I’m looking forward to,” Saunders said. “I think I was more nervous than the guys were who were actually playing with me sitting on the bench and knowing all I could do was watch. That’s what I’m looking forward to. I know it’s what we’re all looking forward to. This year around, for me personally, actually being able to contribute and being on the field is a big deal for me.</p>
<p>“It’s why we train all off season, go through Spring Training, play five months every day is to try and play meaningful games in September.”</p>
<p>For Saunders this is only the second time he’s had the chance to experience firsthand impact games down the stretch. His old club, the Seattle Mariners, finished one game back of the Oakland Athletics for the second Wild Card in 2014. Through it all though the Mariners were never in the position the Jays were; controlling their destiny in their own hands with a mere handful of games left.</p>
<p>Despite having little experience in those type of games down the stretch Saunders refused to let the pressure or the high intensity of the game get to him, the game itself is the same after all.</p>
<p>“We don’t feel any pressure. This is why we play the game,” Saunders said before the Jays&#8217; 5-1 win over the Orioles last Tuesday. “To get to this level I feel like you&#8217;ve got to learn to slow your heart beat down a little bit, and not get too amped up. So for us, we understand the importance of this series but this is just another game for us.”</p>
<p>Martin, who’s seen just about everything in the postseason except the World Series, echoes Saunders’ sentiment.</p>
<p>“I don’t make any conscious changes (this time of year),” Martin said. “I think everybody is prone to reacting to their environment. The environment becomes a little bit more excited, a little more amped up. So that might affect me a little bit. But other than that I feel like I just go out there, play my game, play hard, and play to win.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I just go out there, play my game, play hard, and play to win.&#8221; &#8211; Russell Martin</p></blockquote>
<p>“It’s easy to get excited. When you rush things you tend to make mistakes. I think the best thing you can do sometimes is just step back, gather your thoughts, get your breathing where it needs to be, lower your heart rate if you need to do that. But ultimately you just go out there and do things that you&#8217;ve been successful at and keep doing those things.”</p>
<p>While that may be easy for veteran players like Martin and Saunders, for Dalton Pompey, who’s spent the majority of his 59 Major League Baseball games in high intensity moments in September and October, it doesn&#8217;t come quite as easy for him. He hasn&#8217;t had the time to establish himself as a Major Leaguer, and in reality is experiencing baptism by fire. He just has to hope all that he’s learned in the minors will translate to success at the game’s highest level.</p>
<p>As a result, nerves play a role for the 23-year-old Mississauga, ON native and he feels the pressure of the moment.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I do (feel the pressure),” Pompey said. “Every time I run out there to run for something I get nervous. But once I’m on the base it feels like any other game to me.</p>
<p>“You still feel it. You still feel nerves throughout the whole season any game that you’re in. I mean, if you don’t have nerves I don’t think you should really be playing.”</p>
<blockquote><p>“Growing up here I never really saw a winning team, so to be part of a winning team (in Toronto) for a change and actually be on the team is special to me, special to my family.” &#8211; Dalton Pompey</p></blockquote>
<p>While the elder Canadian statesmen of the team refuses to call it pressure, they admit that they can become over-excited and know the reality of the moment and in turn have to consciously try and stay calm and focus on what’s in front of them. With over 2,100 games between them they&#8217;ve had the luxury of dealing with these situations head on for years and have found their own method of dealing with it and mentally blocking out any form of pressure.</p>
<p>Despite appearing in less than three percent of the regular season games Martin and Saunders has, Pompey has already experienced more postseason time than Saunders and gone equally as far as Martin ever has. A quirky stat that has Pompey out hitting Saunders in the postseason despite just one at-bat in the game’s brightest lights. Having accomplished the feat with the team he grew up cheering for makes that reality even more special.</p>
<p>“It’s obviously a great thing to be part of a playoff roster, a playoff race,” Pompey said. “Getting that experience is only going to be invaluable to me for the rest of my career. Obviously, I’d like to be here more than just September, but I’m grateful to be here altogether because some guys don’t get that opportunity.</p>
<p>“Growing up here I never really saw a winning team, so to be part of a winning team (in Toronto) for a change and actually be on the team is special to me, special to my family.”</p>
<p>Postseason experience and individual accomplishments aside, this trio, along with their teammates have one goal in mind. Martin admits that despite his personal regular season success baseball is a team sport, and to accomplish greater things one has to look beyond personal statistics.</p>
<p>“Luck is definitely (a factor), because it’s not just one person that’s going to change the whole season,” Martin said. “It takes a group of guys that share the same mindset, that work together to achieve one goal. I think that’s what you have on this team. Obviously, this team is made up of individuals that have to accomplish their own things individually, but I think that we’re all united with the fact that we all want to win, and you can sense it in this room.”</p>
<p>With a Wild Card date looming, they&#8217;ll continue to work towards that ultimate goal.</p>
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		<title>Assessing the Trade Deadline: The Upgrades We Haven&#8217;t Talked About</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/04/assessing-the-trade-deadline-the-upgrades-we-havent-talked-about/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Aug 2016 19:23:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nick Dika]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drew Storen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Francisco Liriano]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jose Bautista]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Melvin Upton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Scott Feldman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wade Miley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5162</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This week marked the passing of the Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline. With the Blue Jays a year removed from the trade deadline to end all trade deadlines, this season’s transactional activity lacked the same excitement as 2015. While this year’s moves may not be as sexy, that doesn’t mean the Blue Jays’ front [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This week marked the passing of the Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline. With the Blue Jays a year removed from the trade deadline to end all trade deadlines, this season’s transactional activity lacked the same excitement as 2015. While this year’s moves may not be as sexy, that doesn’t mean the Blue Jays’ front office did nothing to improve their already strong ball club.</p>
<p>Lost in this year&#8217;s trade analysis however, were many of the intangible improvements the Blue Jays made at this year&#8217;s deadline, which, according to Chris &#8216;Mad Dog&#8217; Russo, are key ingredients in the championship elixir. With this in mind, here is an assessment of the under-reported upgrades that the Blue Jays did and didn’t make at the 2016 deadline.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Melvin Upton and AL East Experience</h3>
<p>While many note that Upton amounts to a solid depth acquisition – a defensive replacement who can hit against left-handed pitching and play all three outfield positions, they are underselling one important part of Upton’s portfolio: AL East Experience. Long heralded as baseball’s toughest division, the AL East is presumed in a class of its own when it comes to the caliber of competition (although this can not be verified numerically in recent years).</p>
<p>While Upton may not be able to overtake Michael Saunders or Kevin Pillar in terms of playing time, he will be able to tell you the name of a great steakhouse in Baltimore or the best park to take your wife and kids to near Yankee Stadium. These kinds of intangibles are crucial to any team with its sights set on a division championship or just enjoys eating well on the road.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Bearded Swingman Scott Feldman</h3>
<p>While the Blue Jays were rumored to be in on many of the starting pitchers available, the Scott Feldman acquisition came as a surprise. Feldman, however, provides valuable beard depth on a team that may lose two of its more elite beards (Jose Bautista and Michael Saunders) to free agency this off season.</p>
<p>Despite possessing a strong crop of young pitchers in Roberto Osuna, Marcus Stroman, and Aaron Sanchez, none of the youngsters have demonstrated the ability to grow the facial hair the team may need come 2017. Aside from his ability to pitch in both the rotation and the bullpen, Feldman has long possessed an 80-grade beard that could slot in nicely as the replacement for either Bautista or Saunders, should the team not be able to re-sign them. The Jays were unable to add anyone that could offset the potential loss of Edwin Encarnacion’s chinstrap, however.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Jays Install a Safety Railing in Russell Martin’s Shower</h3>
<p>Catching depth is one of the scarcest commodities in the Major Leagues. Very few teams are lucky enough to have one high-quality player behind the plate let alone two. This is why one of the Blue Jays’ small but important moves at the deadline was to install a safety railing in Russell Martin’s shower.</p>
<p>The Jays realize that protecting Martin, who was forced to miss a handful of games in mid-July (due to a sauna-induced slip in in the shower) needed to be a top priority for the club. The cost of the installation is said to be a fraction of what the Blue Jays would pay to keep Eric Kratz on the Major League roster and the team was able to get a great deal on a contractor because Jason Grilli knew a guy.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Jays Exercise Restraint and Don’t Trade Jose Bautista to the Nationals</h3>
<p>Jose Bautista, who’s contract expires after the World Series, may be nearing the end of his Blue Jays’ tenure if management decides they don’t want to pay what it will cost to keep him into his early 40s.</p>
<p>This uncertainty led to the circulation of rumors that Bautista might be headed to the Nationals before the non-waiver trade deadline. While Atkins was no doubt tempted by his hatred of all things connected to the previous management regime, not to mention strong Nationals’ trade packages built around Ryan Zimmerman or Jayson Werth, the Blue Jays’ GM opted to hold on to Bautista. Mike Rizzo’s “it never hurts to ask” policy typically only works when he’s asking about players like Johnathan Papelbon.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Hidden Value in the Francisco Liriano Trade</h3>
<p>The most notable acquisition the Blue Jays made this month was Monday’s trade for Pirates’ lefty Francisco Liriano. In addition to Liriano, the Blue Jays acquired two prospects and three weeks of extra media content in the deal.</p>
<p>While many praised the move as a savvy way to acquire Major League talent and prospects at the same time, the real get is the additional columns, video segments and radio discussions about how the Blue Jays may now replace Aaron Sanchez in the rotation. Excited at the possibility of filling their airwaves with further discussion and analysis of the great Sanchez debate, one Sportsnet big wig was quoted as saying: “the ratings generated when Zauny turns bright red on Tim and Sid alone will justify paying Liriano’s $13 million dollar salary in 2017”.</p>
<p>Rusell Martin’s framing abilities will be counted on to help Liriano turn his season around and to offer a players&#8217; perspective in the Sanchez shutdown debates.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Blue Jays Insist that Orioles Acquire Wade Miley</h3>
<p>With few high level arms available via trade this season, the market demand for starting pitching saw general managers acting like Canadian house hunters in their attempt to secure rotation upgrades.</p>
<p>Understanding that the Blue Jays’ best chance at success lies in having hurlers like Wade Miley pitch against the club rather than start for it, the team wisely decided against acquiring a back of the rotation innings-eater. While Jose Bautista and company may have been actively petitioning the club to acquire pitchers at the deadline in years past, the Jays’ offence is likely asking for more opportunities to face off against this year’s crop of trade targets.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Jays Trade Drew Storen to Seattle for Slightly Older Drew Storen</h3>
<p>The Drew Storen experiment didn’t work out in Toronto. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, the once-excellent Storen lost enough miles per hour on his fastball that he was unable to pitch effectively.</p>
<p>Instead of waiting until the end of the year to cut ties with Storen, Atkins shipped him to Seattle last week in exchange for Joaquin Benoit , a reliever with a similar record of long term success and short term struggles. The best-case scenario is that Benoit returns to form and the Jays have another reliable bullpen arm. The worst-case is that Blue Jay fans will get to spend a few innings a week wondering the same thing they did when Storen was pitching: Is he really this bad now? And, can he turn things around? Consistency is important.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro skillfully added talent to both their major and minor league teams without subtracting any significant pieces from the current roster. Lost in these upgrades, were a series of intangible improvements that often go unnoticed &#8211; beard depth is just as important as pitching depth. It might not be exciting but it was productive. If you still don’t think the Blue Jays did enough at the deadline, you can always count Darwin Barney and Ryan Goins playing the outfield as new additions too…right???</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Kevin Sousa-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>Recap: Blue Jays 10, Orioles 9; Two Unlikely Homers Lead the Jays to Victory</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/06/12/recap-blue-jays-10-orioles-9-two-unlikely-homers-lead-the-jays-to-victory/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sun, 12 Jun 2016 20:29:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Molly Tissenbaum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Recaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Russell Martin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=3730</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[With four doubles, the Blue Jays put up five runs in the bottom of the first inning and appeared to be on their way to a smooth Sunday win. Ubaldo Jiminez made his shortest start of the season, getting just one out and giving up five runs before giving way to Vance Worley. Aaron Sanchez [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>With four doubles, the Blue Jays put up five runs in the bottom of the first inning and appeared to be on their way to a smooth Sunday win. Ubaldo Jiminez made his shortest start of the season, getting just one out and giving up five runs before giving way to Vance Worley. Aaron Sanchez took the hill this afternoon looking to pitch deep into the ball game like he did last time out against the Tigers. In 8 of his 12 starts this year, he has allowed just two earned runs or less, but that was not the case for Sanchez today. He labored through the first four innings but only gave up one run in the second. But things would get ugly for Sanchez as he gave up four home runs in the top of the 5th inning, to bring the Orioles back within one run of the Blue Jays. Kevin Pillar extended his hit streak to five games, including a towering homerun off the fourth deck in left field. Jason Grilli came into the game in the 9th and picked up his first save as a Blue Jay. In the 4 game series, the Jays and O&#8217;s combined to hit 19 homeruns.</p>
<h3>Top Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>Russel Martin hit his 5th homerun of the season this afternoon, with Michael Saunders and Edwin Encarnacion on base which put the Jays ahead 10-6 in the bottom of the 6th inning (.173)</p>
<h3>Bottom Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>Following 4 Oriole homeruns in the 5th inning, Ryan Flaherty came to the plate with runners on first and second and struck out looking to end the inning (-.061).</p>
<h3>Kevin Pillar&#8217;s Week</h3>
<p>Kevin Pillar extended his hit streak to five games straight today. In the last week, he&#8217;s hitting .391, with a .462 OBP and he&#8217;s slugging .609. He&#8217;s had two homers and batter in five runners over that time. He&#8217;s also walked twice and scored six times.</p>
<h3>Up Next</h3>
<p>Coming off a series win and three game win streak, the Blue Jays are set to start a four game series against the Philadelphia Phillies (29-33) who come to town Monday. Jerad Eickhoff will face R.A. Dickey at 7:07 pm at Rogers Center.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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