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	<title>Toronto &#187; Stroman</title>
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		<title>The 2017 Stuffies! Volume 2 &#8211; The Best Stuff in Baseball</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/10/26/the-2017-stuffies-volume-2-the-best-stuff-in-baseball/</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Oct 2017 10:20:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=13985</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome back to the Stuffies! It has been a thrilling ride through the first few rounds of the playoffs, but to really increase your appetite for the World Series, Nick and I are here to help you understand which pitchers in baseball had the best Stuff. Off the hop &#8211; a bit of a lesson [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome back to the Stuffies! It has been a thrilling ride through the first few rounds of the playoffs, but to really increase your appetite for the World Series, Nick and I are here to help you understand which pitchers in baseball had the best Stuff.</p>
<p>Off the hop &#8211; a bit of a lesson on the Stuff metric used here; instead of average STUFF for teams, we&#8217;re using &#8220;Weighted STUFF&#8221;. Essentially, it&#8217;s each pitcher&#8217;s stuff, multiplied by the % of pitches they threw with respect to their rotation or bullpen mates. This was also repeated for all of the inputs that went into the STUFF metric &#8211; velocity, change, and break distance. For the individual pitchers, they had to throw 1000 pitches in the season to be included in the awards competition.</p>
<h2>Best Team Stuff &#8211; Starters</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-starters.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13990" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-starters.png" alt="weighted starters" width="700" height="559" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3><strong>Dodgers</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; </span>It’s no surprise to see the Dodgers’ starting rotation (all 9 of them) up here at the top of the stuff list this season. Much to the frustration of the rest of baseball, the Dodgers used their deep pockets to trot out talented starter after talented starter this season. It’s not hard to take home a Stuffy when your 4-7 starters are Alex Wood, Brandon McCarthy, Hyun-jin Ryu and Kenta Maeda. But in a true embarrassment of riches, it’s not just depth that makes the Dodgers great – Kershaw, Darvish and Rich Hill aren’t a bad top three either. Money might not be able to buy you happiness, but it can definitely buy you a lot of great starting pitching.</span></p>
<h3>Pirates</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Gerrit Cole? Stud. Tyler Glasnow? Beast. Jamieson Taillon? Monster. The Pirates have the flame throwers to make a formidable rotation&#8230; but youth and inexperience has held them back from really taking the next step. There&#8217;s no mystery to the madness here: Look at what the Pirates lead the league in &#8211; a 94.47 mph weighted fastball velocity. From their starters&#8230; You better be ready to swing early!</p>
<h3><strong>Mets</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> Everyone knows that the Mets have a talented, young rotation full of great pitchers. What nobody knows is what the hell the Mets training staff are doing that makes these poor guys get hurt so damn often. Even if Matt Harvey might have (allegedly) partied his way onto the disabled list, that doesn’t explain their inability to keep Steven Matz, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, and Seth Lugo reasonably healthy over the past season. We all know pitchers get hurt but geez…..</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">This is the part of the Stuffies where the award winner starts uncontrollably sobbing on stage and everyone in the audience is left kind of looking at each other, really awkwardly, not knowing what to do with their hands. It was fine when there were some sniffles, but now we&#8217;re getting the big snot bubbles and it sounds like the person is choking. Please Mickey Callaway &#8211; find a way to make this rotation everything that it could be.</span></span></p>
<h3>(dis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Toronto Blue Jays</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> It certainly didn&#8217;t help the Jays that the guy on their roster with the best STUFF was blistered up all season, but the Jays ranked 24th in total Stuff. Stroman (to be discussed later) lead the team in Stuff out of the rotation and swingman Joe Biagini also had great STUFF, while Brett Anderson chimed in some some good STUFF near the end of the season &#8211; but the Metric didn&#8217;t favour soft-tossing Marco Estrada, fastball dominant J.A. Happ, or the slew of other jabronis that took their turn getting smashed throughout this 2017 season.</p>
<h2><strong>Best Team Stuff &#8211; Bullpens</strong></h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-relievers.png"><img class=" wp-image-13989 aligncenter" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/weighted-relievers.png" alt="weighted relievers" width="700" height="559" /></a></p>
<h3><span style="color: #000000">Red Sox</span></h3>
<p><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> John Farrell had the best STUFF in the world to work with out of his bullpen and that still couldn&#8217;t get him to the ALCS. It also couldn&#8217;t get him his job for the 2018 season&#8230; but I swear that doesn&#8217;t come from a place of bitterness and resentment. The Red Sox threw absolute gas out of their bullpen, but they also had a lot of consistency &#8211; both Kimbrel, Joe Kelly, and Matt Barnes put in great seasons and appeared in a lot of Red Sox innings &#8211; partially due to a starting rotation that had its question marks. All of those guys look to be ready to put in great seasons in 2018, so there&#8217;s no reason to think the Red Sox STUFF is going anywhere.<br />
</span></p>
<h3>Yankees</h3>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; </span>Sometime in July, Joe Girardi must have paid Brian Cashman a visit and suggested that the Yankees would have a better chance of winning if their opponents weren’t able to make contact after the fifth inning. Cashman then spent the 2017 trade deadline assembling a super bullpen that sits number two on the reliever stuff list this season. Teams usually talk about a two or three-headed monster at the end of a game but the Yankees bullpen eats those for breakfast.</p>
<h3><span style="color: #0000ff"><span style="color: #000000">(Dis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Toronto Blue Jays</span></span></h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">Dear Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins &#8211; Stuff is good for bullpens. Like, it&#8217;s really good. It helps strike batters out and it helps keep the ball out of the 3rd deck. Can we please get some more for the bullpen in 2018? I&#8217;m not saying that Stuff is the only way to get hitters out&#8230; but it acts like an insurance policy against bad control. Like the kind a certain father of the Jays Bullpen had in the early part of the season (#NEVERFORGETGRILLI2016). </span></span></p>
<h3>(SuperDis)Honorable Mention &#8211; Baltimore OriLOLs</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Ha! Showalter you clown! Just like in the AL East Standings, the Jays jumped ahead of the Orioles at the last minute to stay out of the basement! The Orioles, while having some elite bullpen arms in Zach Britton and Brad Brach, don&#8217;t fare that well in the STUFF category because they rely on velocity alone &#8211; a bunch of these guys don&#8217;t have secondary pitches to rely on.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; <span style="color: #000000"><strong><span style="font-weight: 400">One of the biggest surprises of the Stuffies this season is seeing Baltimore take home the Stuffy for worst reliever stuff. The Baltimore bullpen is considered one of the better pens in the American League. While many teams across the league would love to have Zach Britton, Brad Brach and Darren O’Day at the back of their pens, all of those groundballs don’t impress the stuffy judging committee. Or Jose Bautista.<br />
</span></strong></span></span></p>
<h2>Best Stuff &#8211; Starters</h2>
<p><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/starters-ranked.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13988" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/starters-ranked.png" alt="starters ranked" width="700" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Clayton Kershaw</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Any time you create a pitching metric that is supposed to represent success at the MLB level and Clayton Kershaw comes out on top &#8211; you feel pretty good that the metric is accurate. Kershaw takes home the 2017 crown with an absolutely absurd Stuff level of 2.1. Kershaw has great fastball velocity &#8211; almost 93 mph&#8230; but it&#8217;s the change in speeds and the distance between the pitches that truly sets him apart. Go and watch a bunch of PitchingNinja gifs about Kershaw now &#8211; you deserve it.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> Water is also wet. Sun rises in the east. Despite spending much of the second half of the season on the disabled list, Kershaw once again takes home the stuffy for best starting pitcher. Do you really need a Ph.D and a complicated multi-variable formula to know Kersh is the best starter in baseball? What are they teaching these people in grad school?</span></strong></p>
<h3>Gerrit Cole</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> There&#8217;s absolute hot nasty fire flames being thrown when former first overall pick Gerrit Cole is on the mound. His season was a rocky one &#8211; a lot of injury concerns, paired with an underperforming Pirates team, and you get the end result of Cole&#8217;s career worst 4.26 ERA. There&#8217;s a ton of upside for young Gerrit &#8211; he&#8217;s only entering his age 27 season.</p>
<h3>Jesse Hahn</h3>
<p><span style="color: #0000ff">ND &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">Injuries and inconsistency torched Hahn’s 2017 season but the stuff-o-meter seems to really like him. Paired with pitching in the spacious O.co Coliseum and we might have a 2018 fantasy baseball sleeper on our hands….if you’re into that sort of thing.</span></span></p>
<h3>Honorable Mention &#8211; Marcus Stroman</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">The StroShow put up his best STUFF season in 2017 and continued doing what he does best &#8211; being completely consistent. His 2017 Stuff was elevated from 2016, with nearly a 2&#8243; increase in pitch separation and a slight increase in his fastball velocity. Earlier this year, Stro was talking with The Pitching Ninja on Twitter and started chiming in on how nasty Corey Knebel&#8217;s curveball was. The two exchanged pleasantries, but what would it look like if Stro added the Knebel Knuckle Curve? Well, it would nearly double his stuff &#8211; increasing separation for both break and velocity. That&#8217;s the the type of pitch that would really change things for Stro, and may get those strikeout numbers climbing.</span></span></p>
<h2>Best Stuff &#8211; Relievers</h2>
<h3><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/relievers-ranked.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-13987" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/relievers-ranked.png" alt="relievers ranked" width="700" height="285" /></a></h3>
<h3>Joe Kelly</h3>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight: 400"><span style="color: #0000ff">ND -</span> One of these things is not like the others. Kelly finds himself atop the reliever stuffy list without piling up the K’s (his K/9 was a very pedestrian 8.07) that so many of the other top relievers do. All grit, moxey, and tattoos, Kelly’s fastball velo keeps him atop the stuff leaderboards despite middle of the road results.</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; <span style="color: #000000">At this point, people start to regurgitate their lunch whenever someone tells them Joe Kelly has great STUFF. But are people objectively quantifying it? Usually not! So, suck on that haters. Full disclosure &#8211; Joe Kelly seems like he might be a bit of a dork, and those are my people. </span></span></p>
<h3>Dellin Betances</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS &#8211; </span><span style="color: #000000">That Yankees bullpen is filled with absolute nasty STUFF &#8211; the only reason Chapman isn&#8217;t on this list is because of his injuries this season; he just never crossed that 1000 pitch threshold. But you know who did? Dellin Betances. Betances pairs an absolutely next level fastball with huge pitch separation. His Stuff is legendary and his strikeout rate matches. One thing to watch for &#8211; there&#8217;s no one who has had a higher workload since 2012 than Betances. By the time his huge free agency contract signing comes up, the Yankees may have bled him dry. More reason to hate them, I guess.</span></p>
<p>ND &#8211; This year&#8217;s judging committee didn&#8217;t put too much weight in being able to control the stuff each pitcher unleashes, because if they did, Betances might not be taking home a Stuffy. The big reliever walked 44 batters in 59 innings. That&#8217;s not ideal, but when you&#8217;re as nasty as Betances, you can afford to miss a little more often than not.</p>
<h3>Craig Kimbrel</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Do you like pitchers who throw gas but also look like a weird bird before they do it? Craig Kimbrel is the guy for you, my friend. Not much else to say here &#8211; Kimbrel is one of the best in the game and he throws some of the nastiest junk in baseball.</p>
<h3>Honorable Mention &#8211; Ryan Tepera</h3>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000">MS -</span> Tepera is not talked about enough. Maybe he is? But not enough by me. Relievers have a very hard job &#8211; they have to go into games on short rest, get out the best hitters, and forget about bad results that happened in the recent past. When I looked at workload, Tepera was in the top 10 of the entire MLB. His Stuff sits at 32nd overall for relievers who threw 1000 pitches this season &#8211; and it&#8217;s his giant fastball that is pretty much the only contributor to that. Great work, Ryan &#8211; let&#8217;s keep it going in 2018.</p>
<h2>The Wrap Up</h2>
<p>From an MLB wide perspective, Stuff has never been better than it was in 2017. Velocity has its pros (striking fools out) and cons (ouch), but boy is it fun to watch and write about. On behalf of my friend and colleague Nick, thank you for reading about STUFF! It has been a pleasure once again. Let&#8217;s hope the Jays can give us some more STUFF to look at in 2018 &#8211; looking at you, Connor Greene!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>The Final Regular Season Blue Jays “STUFF” Report</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/03/the-final-regular-season-blue-jays-stuff-report/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/10/03/the-final-regular-season-blue-jays-stuff-report/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2016 16:03:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biagini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=7192</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We did it!!! We&#8217;ve made it to the end of the season, and this is going to be the final regular season Stuff report. If you&#8217;ve read one, or you&#8217;ve read them all &#8211; thank you so much for making this such a fun experience. This Stuff report looks at the Jays pitchers over the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We did it!!! We&#8217;ve made it to the end of the season, and this is going to be the final regular season Stuff report. If you&#8217;ve read one, or you&#8217;ve read them all &#8211; thank you so much for making this such a fun experience. This Stuff report looks at the Jays pitchers over the past 7 days &#8211; as opposed to normal, where we look at two week periods. Stay tuned later this week, where Nick Dika and I will be presenting the <strong>2016 Stuffy Awards</strong>. It&#8217;ll be a black tie affair. On to the Stuff!</p>
<h1>Starting Pitchers</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starters-table.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7197" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starters-table-1024x216.png" alt="starters table" width="844" height="178" /></a><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starters-table.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7195" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/starter-figure-1024x743.png" alt="starter figure" width="666" height="483" /></a></p>
<p>A lot was made of the spring training battle between Gavin Floyd and Aaron Sanchez for the Starting Rotation. How silly we all were back then. Sanchez dominated, and the rest was history. Then just yesterday, on a day when Toronto needed him to be at his best, he carried a no hitter into the late portion of the game and silenced the best offensive team in the American League. His Stuff has remained legendary, and consistent all season &#8211; there are no signs of fatigue setting in. Pitchers are fragile &#8211; there is no arguing that. Who knows what the future holds for Aaron Sanchez, but it looks like we haven&#8217;t seen his ceiling yet.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Aaron Sanchez, arm action/glove side (front view) <a href="https://t.co/oHUGaQiClL">pic.twitter.com/oHUGaQiClL</a></p>
<p>— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/782906147212660736">October 3, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p>While not as mind blowing, Marcus Stroman also had a very consistent season from a Stuff perspective. He had his performance ups and downs, without a doubt, but in another game where the Jays needed a huge performance from their starter, Stroman pitched into the eighth inning against the Orioles (in a losing effort), and was cost a couple of runs by some shaky defence. Both of these young guns were there when their team needed them the most. All of Jays starters appear to be firing on all cylinders right now &#8211; and with a bit of luck (and hopefully some offence), it&#8217;s going to be exciting to see what these beasts can do in the playoffs.</p>
<h1>Relief Pitchers</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/reliever-table.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7194" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/reliever-table-1024x216.png" alt="reliever table" width="787" height="166" /></a> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/relief-figure.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-7193" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/relief-figure-1024x742.png" alt="relief figure" width="778" height="564" /></a></p>
<p>Consensus Blue Jays Rookie of the Year, Joe Biagini, saved his best stuff for last. In fact, Biagini had better stuff than all but four other pitchers in the MLB last week (Aroldis Chapman, Arquimedes Camineiro, Matt Bush, and Joe Kelly narrowly edged him out). Biagini has been put through the ringer this season &#8211; he has the second highest workload on the Blue Jays (per the Fatigue Unit&#8217;s metric &#8211; <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/giving-a-big-fu-to-workload-metrics-in-pitchers-part-2b-cumulative-fus-from-fangraphs/">which you can read about here</a>). He&#8217;s also been a great teammate &#8211; exhibit A.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Biagini kisses Grilli. Drunk already? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a> <a href="https://t.co/AjdRWc2GXf">pic.twitter.com/AjdRWc2GXf</a></p>
<p>— Adam Virani (@adamv_23) <a href="https://twitter.com/adamv_23/status/782713621801558016">October 2, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/Bullpen-Workload.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-7198" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/10/Bullpen-Workload.png" alt="Bullpen Workload" width="738" height="312" /></a></p>
<p>If you were concerned about big spikes in workload, Biagini should be number one on your warning list. I do believe that his recent struggles can be tied directly to his huge workload this season &#8211; but if you look at it from a Stuff perspective &#8211; Biagini does not appear to be showing physiological signs of fatigue. These last few bumps in the road may just be a matter of other teams finally getting a good scouting report on him, and hitters facing him for the second and third time.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it! The end of the 2016 Regular Season Blue Jays Stuff report. Let&#8217;s hope there are a bunch of games we can use to evaluate stuff this postseason!</p>
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		<title>Recap: Yankees 2, Blue Jays 0; Jays Hitters Weren&#8217;t So Bomb-y in the Bronx</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/07/recap/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/09/07/recap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Sep 2016 02:19:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tammy Rainey]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blue jays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yankees]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=6398</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The first thing you would have noticed looking at the lineup from tonight&#8217;s critical game against the Yankees was the clean-up hitter. For the first time this season, Jose Bautista hit as low as fourth in the order. If you decide that you want Travis leading off, that&#8217;s really not the worst idea. Donaldson and [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The first thing you would have noticed looking at the lineup from tonight&#8217;s critical game against the Yankees was the clean-up hitter. For the first time this season, Jose Bautista hit as low as fourth in the order. If you decide that you want Travis leading off, that&#8217;s really not the worst idea. Donaldson and Encarnacion have been the linchpins of the offense this year and moving them down in order to favor Bautista isn&#8217;t the best idea, and Jose has been clear he&#8217;s willing to hit wherever he best helps the team. In fact, this may be the most logical batting order Gibbons has used this year. With the Blue Jays tied for first with a persistent Boston team that enjoys the benefit of playing the Padres tonight, the fans were looking for a better outcome than last night&#8217;s exciting but ultimately heartbreaking result.</p>
<p>With the Yankees forced to resort to recovering young starter Bryan Mitchell, Jays fans might normally have assumed they&#8217;d have a leg up with Marcus Stroman on the mound, but these are not normal times. Memories of Jays hitters stifled by the likes of Wade Miley and Jared Weaver in recent weeks are still fresh in everyones&#8217; minds. On the plus side, the Blue Jays beat up the Yankees&#8217; bullpen last night and started this game knowing they wouldn&#8217;t see anything of Dellin Bentances tonight.</p>
<p>With that recent track record in mind, the game started in an all too familiar fashion, a quiet turn through the batting order until the last two hitters walked to lead off the third, who were then promptly stranded thanks to a double play and a ground ball out. The Yankees then went to work on Stroman in the bottom of the third after two outs were in the books. Homer, double, walk, single and the Yankees lead 2-0. Stroman&#8217;s laboured in that inning, and again in the fourth when he gave up back-to-back two-out hits, and drove up his pitch count. He was at 97 pitches through five innings.</p>
<p>The Jays got something going in the seventh after a hurting Russell Martin made the first out, Troy Tulowitzki doubled sharply to left and Michael Saunders was called safe on a single right behind him. However, first and third with one out, turned into a runner on third and two outs when Saunders was ruled out on the appeal of the play at first base. The Yankees&#8217; Luis Severino then proceeded to strike out Melvin Upton, Jr. to snuff out the threat.</p>
<p>Even with the two threats, the Blue Jays never looked or felt like they were in this game despite being only two runs down.</p>
<h3>Top Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>With two outs in the third and the bases empty, Marcus Stroman who&#8217;d been rolling to that point hung a curve to Starlin Castro and the Yankess&#8217; second baseman cranked it just over the wall in left to give the New Yorkers all the lead they would need. That one run increased their chances of winning 12.4%</p>
<h3>Bottom Play of the Game by WPA</h3>
<p>The bottom play of the game came early courtesy of a Devon Travis double play grounder in the third inning. With runners on first and second with no outs, Travis&#8217;s grounder to third was the major factor in crushing the best scoring opportunity of the hight. It dropped their chances of winning by 11.5%</p>
<h3>Russell Martin&#8230;Knee Injury?</h3>
<p>At bat in the fourth, and again in the seventh, Martin looked very much like his left knee was giving way on him as he swung the bat, and in both at bats he was moving gingerly after making contact. Surprisingly, he stayed in the game even after the second ugly at-bat and it&#8217;s not impossible the Jays will not have his services Friday night as the Jays open the most critical series of the year.</p>
<h3>Offensive Struggles Continue</h3>
<p>A lot was said by the announcing crew tonight about the current road trip, but the Blue Jays have been flat for three full weeks now. They are 8-10 over that span while playing mostly opponents that should have been fodder for building their division lead. Most concerning is the lack of offense. The three game pounding of the Twins&#8217; bullpen excepted, in the other 15 games they scored a mere 57 runs (3.8 per game) and that trend absolutely must reverse before they take the field again.</p>
<h3>Up Next</h3>
<p>As of this writing, the Boston Red Sox are tied with the lowly Padres 2-2 in the third and it remains to be seen whether they will end the night one game up on the Blue Jays as they come to Toronto over the weekend for what looks to be a white-knuckle affair for Jays fans.  Whatever is causing their offensive doldrums, the Jays need to sacrifice a chicken or something.</p>
<p><em>Lead Photo: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports</em></p>
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		<title>The Blue Jays &#8220;Stuff&#8221; Report &#8211; Volume 9</title>
		<link>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/15/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-9/</link>
		<comments>http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/15/the-blue-jays-stuff-report-volume-9/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Aug 2016 15:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mike Sonne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[STUFF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Osuna]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sanchez]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stroman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=5548</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Welcome to the Stuff report for your Toronto Blue Jays. Is it just me, or does Benoit have a huge head??? Starters Let&#8217;s face it &#8211; the Stuff report is about Aaron Sanchez, and looking for signs that he&#8217;s somehow losing his stuff as a result of fatigue. While there have been ebbs and flows [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the Stuff report for your Toronto Blue Jays. Is it just me, or does Benoit have a huge head???</p>
<h1>Starters</h1>
<p>Let&#8217;s face it &#8211; the Stuff report is about Aaron Sanchez, and looking for signs that he&#8217;s somehow losing his stuff as a result of fatigue. While there have been ebbs and flows in his Stuff &#8211; he has remained shockingly consistent throughout the year. Last week, <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/who-has-the-best-stuff-in-baseball-volume-7/">I looked into the Stuff metric a bit deeper</a>. One of the things I wanted to find out was how consistent Stuff was throughout the course of the season. Sanchez has been in the top 20 of all starters for his consistency. Using PitchF/X data, there are just no signs that Sanchez is wearing down.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="ht">Aaron Sanchez, dirty 95 MPH two seam movement. <a href="https://t.co/DxMtxSxKid">pic.twitter.com/DxMtxSxKid</a></p>
<p>— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href="https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/764796725668306948">August 14, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Sorry for all of the links, but another pitcher I have written about is J.A. Happ. <a href="http://www.mikesonne.ca/baseball/let-it-happ-en/">When Happ signed with the Jays, I noted that his stuff has gotten better every year since he was last with the team.</a> In this volume of the Stuff report &#8211; you can see that his stuff has jumped back up to the 2015 levels &#8211; very encouraging, given how well J.A. has pitched this year. Marco Estrada is an elite pitcher, but it wasn&#8217;t necessarily because of his stuff &#8211; <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/08/15/marco-estradas-changeup-and-its-place-among-royalty/">though his change up is legendary</a>. Throughout his back troubles, Estrada saw a steady decline in his Stuff. This marks the third week in a row that his Stuff has stabilized, and improved. Maybe Marco&#8217;s back is feeling a bit better again.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-5552" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Starters-Table-1024x221.png" alt="Starters - Table" width="598" height="129" /> <a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Relievers-Picture.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-5551" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Starters-Picture-1024x742.png" alt="Starters - Picture" width="570" height="413" /></a></p>
<h1>Relievers</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Relievers-Picture.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-5550" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Relievers-Table-1024x244.png" alt="Relievers Table" width="596" height="142" /><img class="alignnone  wp-image-5549" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/Relievers-Picture-1024x741.png" alt="Relievers - Picture" width="550" height="399" /></a></p>
<p>Roberto Osuna has continued to dominate for the Jays in his closer&#8217;s role, but looking at his season, he appears to have made some sort of a change in how he&#8217;s approached hitters. Looking at Volume 5 of the Stuff Report &#8211; Osuna had his best stuff of the season. Since then, it has dropped off a bit, but his performance has arguably been better.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/table-comp.png"><img class="alignnone  wp-image-5553" src="http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/08/table-comp-1024x116.png" alt="table - comp" width="697" height="79" /></a></p>
<p>Osuna&#8217;s velocity is down nearly one mph. He is also not separating his pitches on velocity, or break distance. Obviously, there are many ways to get hitters out &#8211; and it looks like Osuna has simply just gone to his best pitches more frequently. There is no reason to think that Roberto isn&#8217;t knocking at greatness&#8217; door.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>This is Osuna &amp; Martin&#8217;s best yet. <a href="https://t.co/n12pfUWWAl">pic.twitter.com/n12pfUWWAl</a></p>
<p>— Ian Hunter (@BlueJayHunter) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJayHunter/status/764548964632793088">August 13, 2016</a></p></blockquote>
<p>It is also really encouraging to see Brett Cecil increase his Stuff since his stay on the DL. Benoit, Grilli, and Tepera have all shown increases in Stuff. This bullpen struggled early in the season, but they are starting to look like a real weapon for this Blue Jays team.</p>
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