Blue Jays’ Pitching Problems Continue
The Toronto Blue Jays are contenders. They are currently four games above .500, two games out of first place, and their positive run differential of 81 is first in the American League by nearly 30 runs. The FanGraphs playoff odds give the Jays a roughly one-in-two chance to qualify for the playoffs. The Jays offense has been the key, scoring close to five-and-a-half runs per game. The Blue Jays are 60 runs above average on offense, first in major-league baseball, and their 115 wRC+ for non-pitchers is second to only the Dodgers — and those two teams have a 25-run gap on the bases. Their Base Runs record is four games better than their actual record, indicating the team easily could have better results than their current record indicates. The problem for the Blue Jays has been the pitching staff, both in the rotation and in the bullpen. The easy answer is to trade for outside help, but deploying internal solutions in different roles could prove helpful as well.
Before moving to the pitching, a final note on the offense. The offense has carried the team thus far, but it is unlikely to continue to be as great over the course of the rest of the season. The graph below shows every team’s actual runs per game so far this season compared with their Base Runs, which should be a better representation of how a team’s offense has performed.
The Twins have been benefited the most, but the Blue Jays are not far behind. Even if the Blue Jays had scored at their Base Runs level, those five runs per game would still lead MLB. The projections agree that the Blue Jays should still have a terrific offense going forward, averaging 4.6 runs per game, even with the Red Sox for the best in baseball. No matter which angle we look from, the Blue Jays have and will continue to have a great offense. The same does not hold true for the pitching staff.
Losing Marcus Stroman before the season was a major blow for the Blue Jays. It moved Drew Hutchison to Opening Day starter and forced both Aaron Sanchez and Daniel Norris into the rotation to start the season. The pitching has struggled all year, with their 4.25 ERA and 4.19 FIP near the bottom of the league. While we might expect the Blue Jays offense to regress a little bit going forward, the underlying statistics do not support an opposite turnaround for the pitching staff. Using the same method from above, here is every team’s runs allowed minus Base Runs allowed thus far.
The Blue Jays might have been expected to allow fewer runs, but it is not a significant amount. Like the offense, the projections align with the current performance, as Toronto is expected to allow 4.5 runs per game, a slight increase from the performance so far this season. At first glance the main problem appears to be the rotation: its 4.47 ERA and 4.52 FIP are very poor and the starters’ 2.9 WAR is ahead of only the Colorado Rockies and Philadelphia Phillies. The bullpen’s 3.67 ERA and 3.63 FIP are both in the middle of the pack, but the Blue Jays have yet to find a reliable presence at the back end of games. The Blue Jays have tied the A’s for most blown saves with 12, and their -3.78 win probability added (WPA) is better than the aforementioned A’s.
On the Fangraphs player pages and leaderboards, Shutdowns and Meltdowns can help provide more context for reliever performance than saves or blown saves. These statistics are based on WPA, with a performance of at least +.06 considered a shutdown and a performance of -.06 or worse considered a meltdown. These statistics are performance-based and not predictive, but do show how effective a bullpen has been. The Blue Jays have 40 shutdowns, slightly better than only the A’s (again) and the Cleveland Indians. They also have 39 meltdowns, worse than the A’s and better than only Diamondbacks, Cubs, Rangers, and Braves. The below graph shows shutdowns minus meltdowns for every team. Only the A’s have a lower differential than the Blue Jays.
Identifying the problem is only half the battle; solutions are much more difficult. Bullpens are notoriously volatile and in such a small sample of innings, drastic changes are possible, but not much was expected of this bullpen at the beginning of the year so the current performance cannot be a big surprise. I wrote about the Blue Jays’ very same pitching problems two weeks into the season with the following closing thoughts:
The team could flip the roles of Aaron Sanchez and Marco Estrada to potentially help both the bullpen and the rotation, but if Daniel Norris’ dead arm does not recover soon, the Blue Jays have few options to keep the back end of the rotation productive.
Marco Estrada did enter the rotation and has pitched well and benefited from plays like this:
Estrada did not enter the rotation due to a change in strategy. Daniel Norris had trouble recovering from dead arm and was sent to the minors. Sanchez never had a chance to go to the bullpen and, despite an ERA of 3.55, he’s produced a 5.19 FIP with 37 walks to just 42 strikeouts. It is questionable whether he will be a real benefit to the rotation after returning from the disabled list. The Blue Jays are currently operating without a fifth starter after sending fill-in Scott Copeland back to the minors. Drew Hutchison was originally thought to receive Saturday’s start due to an off-day yesterday, but after he struggled on Monday, the choice may come down to Felix Doubront and Todd Redmond (Edit: or maybe prospect Matt Boyd).
A trade is the easy answer, and Jeff Sullivan has previously floated a monster Aroldis Chapman–Johnny Cueto blockbuster that would immediately fill the Blue Jays’ needs. Removing Brett Cecil from the closer role and inserting 20-year-old Roberto Osuna could help some of the Blue Jays’ problems. Daniel Norris has been inconsistent in the minors, but he could be a start away from coming back up to the big leagues.
Blue Jays’ general manager Alex Anthopolous has said that the rotation is more of a priority than the bullpen and they still view Sanchez as a starter this season and long-term. Sanchez could help the rotation once he comes off the disabled list, but that still leaves problems in the bullpen. For this season, what was true two months ago is still true today: Aaron Sanchez could help stabilize the bullpen, but without Daniel Norris at the back of the rotation the Blue Jays have limited options. If the team is not satisfied with Norris’ progress, the only reasonable option to bolster the pitching staff might be outside the organization.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Prepare yourself for a torrent of Jays-plaining comments.
Pretty easy to Jaysplain. Jays are 6 games behind their pythag, so any luck they have had in base runs is more than made up for by the fact that they win blowouts and have been unlucky in close games. Scoring a couple more runs than expected in a 12-2 win like last night doesn’t really mean you are lucky
And losing close ball games doesn’t mean you are entirely unlucky. The blown saves are not accidents.
once again we have this website not even recognizing the jays superiority while they keep making excuses for the red sox starters being ok but unlucky.
Man, you have a serious inferiority complex about the Jays.
That’s the fake everdiso, still trolling again.
That’s the fake pete up there too. The real pete would never dis the fake everdiso like that.
This place should really have a registration system for comments.
ok
Geez dude, chill.
I’m guessing that’s one of the bitter red sox fans who’s still trying to make everdiso look bad for being dead right about his overrated team.
“The” fake everdiso? Like there’s only one?
Whatever it is, all the back and forth about that crap is so dumb it makes my head hurt.
You probably do guess that, everdiso. Don’t worry, no one knows that you also post under the names holymoly and damaso. No one knows!
What about Matt Boyd? I thought he was being pushed off to start on Saturday?
He’s the most likely option.
Thanks. Added him in. Still no official announcement yet.
It’s official
https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/614802118059421696
Great, another Craig Edwards bird themed article
Next up will be a career retrospective on Dave Winfield.
Not Mark Fidrych?
Can’t wait for mine!
Cecil has been demoted from closer and it’s probably gonna be Osuna and Delabar in the 9th until it needs to be changed. Bullpen has actually been totally fine but adding a Jon Niese type would help a lot if Sanchez can head back there once he’s back.
Also I think at this point it seems like Matt Boyd will pitch for the Jays in Toronto on Saturday no?
How is the Jays bullpen fine? It’s been bad, as this article shows.
well the article shows that they’ve been awful in high leverage situatiins. the question is whether that means they’re bad or just unlucky.
Because overall the jays bullpen ranks 8th AL in era, 6th in fip, 3rd in xfip, and 2nd in siera…which really is kinda good.
yeah, it seems they only fail when the game is on the line
I find it kind of odd how the author is evaluating the bullpen primarily on context based stats, when a big part of fangraphs is using context neutral stats to determine a player or team’s effectiveness. The amount of blown saves/meltdowns etc will likely stabilize and what will result is an average/above average pen that will not be a weakness on a contending team. The rotation on the other hand….
Well they’re 3rd in AL in xFIP, 6th in FIP, and 8th in ERA. That pretty fine, good even. The article was saying that they’ve had bad performances at the worst times. Take that for what you will (e.g. that they don’t have pitchers with “closer material” or something), but most analysts believe that’s an indication of bad luck moreso than bad pitching.
Why don’t they bring Miguel Castro back up? He seemed like he could be a useful reliever, just not a closer.
He’s had injury issues and not pitched well.
There’s also a non-zero possibility that stroman joins either the rotation or the bullpen for September or (hopefully) October, since his injury happened so early in spring training.
Even if he’s back i dont know how much you could expect from him. He basically hasnt pitched in a full year.
Hi, I enjoyed the article. Is there a historical precedence for a team with a bad rotation and a top offense making the playoffs or the world series?
2006 Cardinals maybe?
I’m not sure I would call their offense a top offense that year. They had a lot of the same players as other years, but there were a lot of injuries. Plus the pitching was good down the stretch so it wasn’t a high runs scored and high runs allowed situation in the playoffs
The 2008 Phillies won the World Series with an excellent offense and bad pitching – they scored nearly 900 runs but also allowed over 800. Their ballpark had something to do with that, granted, but when you give 30 starts each to an old Jon Lieber and a geriatric Jamie Moyer, that’ll do it.
1995 and 1997 Indians both came very close to winning the ws
I don’t think there has been any team that made world series with such a good offense and poor pitching like the 1995 Indians. The thing about those offensive teams is that when they are on a hot streak it seems like it would be possible for them to win it all but as soon as they encounter good pitching they become very beatable.
i think if you’re gonna say their offense wi regress back towards their baseruns, then you shouls probably argue that the bullpen is doing well but have just been unlucky.
starting pitching is a definite necessary upgrade, though.
but i think i might argue that overall things aren’t quite as dire as their overall numbers make it seem, as i’m willing to bet the horrific starting pitchijg they received the first 6 weeks or so was a bit of an abberation, and that the pitching is likely to continue to move up towards league average the rest of the way.
so the good news is the hole is easy to identify and upgrades will make a noticeable difference
they only need mediocre pitching with that offense, and if early the pitching had been terrible instead of un-watchable…..well it doesn’t matter
What a silly fucking obvious article this is.
Thanks for your contribution!
Keep writing articles that have excuses to show that GIF from a variety of angles.
I think it’s odd timing for the article, considering that the pitching has been quite good overall in June. They’re 3rd in the AL with an ERA of 3.35 (and all of the more technical statistics are quite good as well), and that’s been based on contributions from the bullpen and starting staff. I think that the bullpen has been much better than the eye test suggests, simply because, as fans, we remember the blowups much more than we remember all the days in between where they simply do their job effectively.
We certainly remember when Cecil snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
the june xfip and siera are still in the mid 4s. they need an sp upgrade.
The Jays starter ERA is pretty solid in June, somewhere in the mid threes. Buerlhe, Estrada, and Dickey have all done well this month, and Sanchez had a solid start before tightness issues. Hutchinson has been an awful mess, but you have to factors new a new catcher in Martin, and that he’s getting used to entire rotation, and his pitch framing reputation. That said, there might not be as much urgency in acquiring another starter. There may be enough there to get to October, but admittedly without an ace the chances of advancing are slim. However, after a 22 year playoff drought, one and done in the post season would be a major accomplishment. The Jays have traded away a lot of talent in the past few years, in order to maintain any extended success they are going to need to retain young talent.
On yeah, they do need a closer though. A lefty whose best pitch is the curve, what was Gibby thinking? Cecil can’t blame bad luck when he frequently puts a runner on first with a walk with no or one outs. Don’t necessarily need Papelbon, just a right who has a plus power pitch and control. Maybe Osuna fits that role.
The thing is, yes the offense is getting some cluster luck, but taking a step back given their adjusted base runs run differential, they really should have a better record
Also, when looking at the pitching. It is obviously not great, but it doesn’t have to be. Once you remove the complete atrocity that was April and look at the last two months (which given the track records of 4 of the pitchers is fair), the pitching has been more than adequate.
The bullpen has been terrible in high leverage, but unless you believe that that is some kind of anti-clutch thing then that could turn around too
So the Mariners are supposed to be WORSE then their record shows?
Given how poorly they’ve played, they should have lost even more games. But they’re not expected to keep playing this poorly.
Donaldson for MVP! He’s got my vote. Catch of the year, in my opinion.
Jays are a damned mess. They seem to have taken notes from the Tigers and concentrate all focus on the bats and ignore all aspects of pitching. Jays are also in an awkward situation because it’s their prospects who are failing, not dudes they traded for or sign in free agency. They can’t give up on the future while they are trying to win now.
Not sure what you’re talking about re: Tigers, who have had the likes of Price, Scherzer, Verlander, Fister, Sanchez, etc. pitch for them in recent years.