Baseball teams are like most entities operating with finite resources: If you want to know what they value, look where those resources get spent. The Toronto Blue Jays clearly value starting pitching. They spent $80 million over four years on Hyun Jin Ryu, two top prospects plus a seven-year, $131 million extension on José Berríos, $110 million over five years on Kevin Gausman, and $36 million over three years on Yusei Kikuchi.

Gausman has been as good as advertised this year, but behind him, the Blue Jays’ most important pitcher hasn’t been one of their big-money acquisitions, but Alek Manoah, a 24-year-old on a pre-arbitration contract. And he’s not even the 6-foot-6 Floridian most people expected to become Toronto’s homegrown frontline starter. In 2017, the Blue Jays spent a first-round pick on Nate Pearson, he of the 102 mph fastball and slider that touched 95. Pearson tickled the top 10 of the global prospect rankings in 2020, while Manoah — despite being a first-rounder himself — worked in relative obscurity.

Pearson’s career has stalled, thanks to an array of setbacks that would be at home in the Book of Job, ranging from a sports hernia to mononucleosis. And into that niche has stepped Manoah, who possesses less eye-popping stuff but the finesse and durability of which frontline starters are made.

Manoah is in the top 15 among qualified starters in innings, ERA, strikeouts, and WAR, but his pitching approach belies his youth. He throws reasonably hard — though an average fastball velocity of 93.9 mph is nothing to write home about in this day and age — but this year his ERA has gone down by eight tenths of a run while his strikeout rate has fallen by five percentage points. That’s because he’s allowing less hard contact than any other qualified starter in the game.

The key to Manoah’s success is the combination of his four-seamer and his sinker, two pitches that resemble each other closely in velocity and flight path until diverging wildly in late break. That combination doesn’t always result in a swing and miss, but it’s exceptionally hard for a hitter to square up, making it the baseball equivalent of putting your palm on your little brother’s forehead and straightening your arm so he can’t hit you back.

“I think the biggest thing I like to do is watch hitters’ approaches, watch their swing path, watch the way they swing, the way they take pitches, and see certain pitches they’re looking for,” Manoah said. “For me that will dictate whether I’m going sinker or four-seam or how I want to set it up.”

Of course, Manoah didn’t invent this strategy; numerous pitchers have used it to great effect, even during the height of the four-seamer-heavy, swing-and-miss tulip fever that gripped baseball at the end of the past decade. In fact, several of those pitchers have worked for Toronto in recent years, specifically Ryu and Berríos, whom Baseball Savant lists as one of the most similar pitchers in the league to Manoah in terms of velocity and movement.

Manoah’s taken the opportunity to learn as much as he can from his older teammates.

“[Ryu’s] pitch design might not be the same, but the way he gets into his legs and his mechanics and his rhythm are very similar to mine,” Manoah said. “For Berríos, it’s really the way he sets up his sinker and his changeup. For me, I wasn’t really much of a changeup guy, but I’ve been able to watch him, and he’s not worried about certain movements — as long as he’s tunneling it off the sinker, he can use them together.” He also mentioned Ray, Gausman, and David Phelps as players he’d picked up lessons from during his time in the majors.

Manoah has had to be a quick learner, because as much as it seems like he just burst onto the scene as a rookie last year, his rise is even more meteoric than you’d think. Despite his physical gifts, he was undrafted out of high school, and in three years at West Virginia, he spent only one as a full-time starter. After being drafted 11th overall in 2019, he spent all of 2020 pitching at Toronto’s alternate site.

“I feel like we had a pretty good simulated season,” he said of the alternate site camp. “Still training, still long tossing, still facing live hitters. There was a sense of motivation because it was that time when people were going to know who was working and who wasn’t. I didn’t have to focus on the results because there were no results. Being able to work on my changeup, my body, my work ethic, and routine without having to worry about results — I think it allowed me to enjoy that process and be ready for spring training.”

So Manoah went into the big league rotation in May of 2021 after just nine minor league appearances ever, at any level, and just two seasons of more than 80 total innings. And he was immediately one of Toronto’s best pitchers, striking out more than a batter an inning and posting a 3.22 ERA in 111 2/3 innings over 20 starts.

“I think every step of my journey has been preparing me for this,” Manoah said.

Now, despite his youth, Manoah is one of the most essential players on a team that’s a near-lock to make the postseason. He made his first All-Star team in July, and his inning while mic’d up made him one of the game’s breakout stars. When a Montreal radio host made insensitive comments about Alejandro Kirk last week, it was Manoah who jumped to defend his catcher. He’s a veteran, in every respect but age.

And now, one of the big questions facing Toronto interim manager John Schneider is how hard to ride Manoah down the stretch. On the one hand, home-field advantage in the first round could be huge for Toronto, but on the other, the young righty is now some 54 innings past his previous career high with two weeks, plus the postseason, left on the calendar. Manoah is currently 16 1/3 innings from 200, a milestone he views as important because reaching it is evidence of a good work ethic, but he’s happy to pitch or sit if asked.

“I literally told them I don’t want to be the one to make that decision,” he said with a chuckle. He’s simply pleased to be pitching so well that the Blue Jays are scheduling their playoff rotation with him in mind.

“Last year, I got moved because we wanted to set up Robbie Ray and our horses,” he said. “I remember telling myself I want to be one of the guys they’re setting up for big games. Now that we’re there, it’s pretty cool.”

“Even in the minors I’ve just always had good extension,” said Jordan Romano. “I think that’s just the way my delivery worked out, but never something I pursued.”

This was in response to the first question I asked him before Wednesday night’s game. He’d always been among the league leaders in extension — how far in front of the rubber a pitcher releases the ball.

Here’s what happened right before I asked the question: Romano stood up. Some ballplayers will take questions seated, but in my experience most prefer to stand when being interviewed, usually at a sort of parade rest posture. I don’t know if they teach this stance, but it seems like the physical process of leaving the aimlessly-scrolling-through-Instagram headspace for the taking-questions-on-the-record headspace.

And when I say Romano “stood up,” he unfurled himself from the chair in front of his locker like a folded air mattress being inflated. It brought to mind a story a teacher of mine once told about seeing Manute Bol get out of his car at a gas station. Romano stands a slender but imperious 6-foot-5, all limbs. Of course extension has always come naturally to him. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Gausman entered Thursday leading the American League in both FIP and WAR, but any shred of hope that he had of winning this year’s AL Cy Young award flew out the window faster than the ball left the bat on Yandy Díaz’s three-run homer on Thursday afternoon in Toronto. For the second outing in a row, Gausman served up two homers and was touched for five runs en route to an 11–0 trouncing by Tampa, leaving him with numbers likely to be overlooked by awards voters.

In recent weeks, while writing about a few AL Cy Young contenders, I quickly dismissed Gausman’s candidacy. But even before the Rays knocked the 31-year-old righty around, I resolved that at some point I’d dig deeper into his campaign — which, to be clear, has been a very good one — to explore the reasons why.

Gausman entered the season surrounded by high expectations and, for the first time in his career, long-term security. The fourth pick of the 2012 draft by the Orioles hasn’t always lived up to expectations; some years he’s pitched well enough to lead a rotation, and in others he’s been trade fodder and even waiver bait. On the heels of a solid (if abbreviated) 2020 campaign with the Giants, last year he fully broke out, earning his first All-Star selection and placing sixth in the NL Cy Young voting following a 14–6 season with a 2.81 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 227 strikeouts, and 4.8 WAR with the 107-win Nl West champions. That set him up for a huge payday, and just a few days before the lockout began, the Blue Jays opted for Gausman via a five-year, $110 million deal.

Thanks in part to the fact that he didn’t allow a walk or a homer in any of his first five starts — he actually didn’t serve up his first homer until his seventh start and his 50th inning — Gausman has led the league in FIP and WAR since mid-April and still does, with marks of 2.41 and 5.2 despite his recent bumpy ride. Among qualifiers, he additionally owns the league’s lowest walk rate (3.8%), third-highest strikeout-walk differential (24.3%), and fourth-highest strikeout rate (28.1%). That’s impressive stuff, and it certainly suggests a viable Cy Young candidate. Read the rest of this entry »

The top prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system lost one of his baseball “brothers” a month ago. Not literally — Alex De Jesus is alive and well — but rather by dint of a trade-deadline deal. A 20-year-old infielder who’d been playing with the High-A Great Lakes Loons, De Jesus went to the Toronto Blue Jays organization, along with Mitch White, in exchange for Moises Brito and Nick Frasso.

Shortly after the trade, I asked Diego Cartaya what it’s like to have a teammate who is also a close friend leave the organization.

“It’s not easy, but I’m kind of happy for him,” replied Cartaya, who along with being L.A.’s top prospect is No. 31 in our MLB prospect rankings. “He’s going to get a better opportunity with Toronto, so we’re pretty excited for him. But it’s hard. As teammates, we spend more time together than we do with our families. He’s just like my brother.”

Cartaya’s real family is in Venezuela, and it was his father who initially taught him how to hit. The tutoring he’s received since entering pro ball at age 16 has resulted in occasional tweaks, both to his stance and his swing. Cartaya told me that he used to be “more of a big launch-angle guy,” but now has a flatter swing. Upon hearing that, I noted that the home run I’d seen him hit the previous night was more of a line drive than a moonshot. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a thing that you could say about José Berríos: he’s been a lousy pitcher this year. I don’t even think he would argue with you on that one; after signing a seven-year, $131 million deal with the Blue Jays, he’s having comfortably his worst season in the majors. His 5.28 ERA is more than a run higher than his career mark coming into the year despite the declining offensive environment. He’s striking fewer batters out and giving up home runs at an alarming rate. Whether you’re talking about advanced or standard metrics, new school or old school, it’s been a disaster of a year.

Here’s another thing you could say about Berríos: he’s a solid pitcher who’s sticking with the approach that got him here in the first place. If you thought he was good last year — and you probably did, given that he put up a mid-3s ERA in both Minnesota and Toronto with the peripherals to match — you’d expect him to be good again this year. He’s not losing velocity. He didn’t change his pitch mix. He didn’t suddenly lose command of the zone. What the heck is happening here?

Before we go any further in this investigation, I’m going to spoil the conclusion a little bit: I don’t know the answer. I don’t think there’s an obvious answer at all, in fact. If there were, I’m fairly certain the Jays would have figured it out by now. Whatever’s ailing Berríos, it’s somewhere on the margins. Read the rest of this entry »

Mitch White brought a new-ish slider to Toronto when the Blue Jays acquired him at this year’s trade deadline. He also brought a nerdy approach to pitching. That should come as no surprise. The 27-year-old right-hander had pitched in the Los Angeles Dodgers system since being selected in the second round of the 2016 draft out of Santa Clara University.

White also had a big-league resume when he changed organizations. Having debuted with the Dodgers in August of 2020’s COVID-truncated campaign, he had 105-and-two-thirds innings under his belt when the four-player swap occurred. Since coming to Toronto, White has a 5.89 ERA over four starts.

White discussed his new and old sliders, and the blister issues that have dogged his career, when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park last week.

———

On his path to the big leagues and dealing with blisters:
“A lot of it was staying healthy. I’ve had a few things go on every year, whether it was blisters or some back stuff. I had a broken toe at one point. Right now, I have this little guy [blister]. The slider really puts a lot of pressure there because I’m trying to get to the side of the ball and spin it, and for whatever reason, I guess my skin is soft. I’ve had to learn how to manage that stuff in between outings. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday’s interview with Michael Harris II focused on his career path, the 21-year-old Atlanta Braves rookie having excelled as a multiple-sport athlete while growing up in Stockbridge, Georgia. Moreover, he’d been a two-way player whom many scouts preferred as a pitcher. While baseball and outfielder-only are proving to be prudent choices, he had options along the way.

Jordan Romano’s path shares some similarities with Harris’s. Not only was the Toronto Blue Jays closer a multi-sport athlete in his formative years, he originally excelled as a position player. That he became a pitcher was circumstantial. Choosing baseball was a matter of passion.

“Being Canadian, I played a lot of hockey in high school,”said Romano, who grew up a Toronto Maple Leafs fan in Markham, Ontario. “I also played a little basketball and was pretty decent at volleyball. But with baseball, you kind of had to drag me off the field, even in practice. My parents wanted me to play a bunch of different sports, and while I really enjoyed hockey — I still do — I didn’t have the passion for it that I did for baseball.”

Romano never considered himself NHL material, but he does feel he had the potential to play collegiately, or in juniors, had he stuck with it. The decision to forgo that possibility came at age 17, and while it shaped his future, it didn’t end his time on the ice. Romano kept lacing up the skates for another year. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles were nine games under. 500 when I talked to Jordan Lyles in late May, and they were only a smattering of games better when the veteran right-hander was featured here in Sunday Notes on June 26. Not much changed over a month’s time. Moreover, most signs pointed to the rebuilding Birds’ going on to have a sixth straight losing season.

A revisiting of what I wrote seven weeks ago is in order. Not only has Baltimore morphed into one of baseball’s hottest teams, the crux of that column was Lyles’s bad-club background. Now in his 12th big-league season, the journeyman hurler came into the current campaign having never played a full year with a team that finished above .500.

That might be about to change. With 24 wins in their last 33 games, the Orioles went into last night with a record of 59-53, in third place in the American League East and in possession of the final wildcard slot. Earlier this week, I asked Lyles about the team’s unexpected ascent in the standings.

“When we talked, there was a different atmosphere around our ball club, our clubhouse,” said Lyles. “Things definitely turned around and got moving in a better direction for us. It’s been a joyful ride. It’s been fun to see these young guys start to grow, and to grow quickly.”

Amid that growth, the Orioles front office saw fit to take one step backward in hopes of taking two steps forward. In moves that weren’t well-received by much of the fan base, Baltimore traded Trey Mancini and Jorge Lopez. On back-to-back days, an impact bat and a closer departed town in exchange for a further influx of promising, yet mostly-unproven, talent. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 987

This week on the program, we get into some Blue Jays banter before looking at how some other squads are faring after the trade deadline.

• In the first half, David Laurila welcomes Kaitlyn McGrath, a writer and podcaster for The Athletic focused on the Toronto Blue Jays. They talk about the surprisingly competitive Baltimore Orioles, compare Kevin Gausman and Alek Manoah’s great seasons, consider the concerning campaigns of Yusei Kikuchi and José Berríos, and discuss the interesting acquisitions of Jackie Bradley Jr. and Whit Merrifield. We also hear how fans wish the club was a bit more aggressive even as the front office often leans in a more practical direction. [3:02]
• In the second half, Ben Clemens and Dan Szymborski convene to chat about the landscape of both Central divisions and their respective races. The White Sox just lost Tim Anderson at a terrible time, while the Cardinals are surging following some successful deadline deals. The pair talk about the Harrison Bader/Jordan Montgomery trade, how Milwaukee was too passive at the deadline, Jed Lowrie being DFA’d, Chris Sale’s latest unfortunate injury, and Dan’s own history of embarrassing accidents. Finally, they give the Rockies some credit after they claimed Dinelson Lamet off waivers. [36:53]

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If you’re a one-number kind of analyst, Teoscar Hernández is having an unremarkable season. After posting a 132 wRC+ last year, he’s back at it with a 129 mark this year. His overall batting line is down – .274/.326/.495 compared to .296/.346/.524 in 2021 – but between playing all of his home games in Toronto instead of Dunedin and Buffalo and the overall decline in league-wide offense, he’s been roughly the same hitter relative to league average in both years.

If you look at his underlying rates, you still won’t see much difference. Hernández is walking 0.5 percentage points more often this season than last season. He’s striking out 1.4 percentage points more often. He’s running a similar ISO, a similar BABIP, and a similar barrel rate. But zoom in juuust a little bit and things splinter:

Here’s one story you could tell about his season: he scuffled to start the year, made some adjustments that righted the ship somewhat but resulted in too many strikeouts, and finally dialed things in. You wouldn’t even necessarily be wrong; descriptively, those things all happened. Under the hood, though, Hernández made a big adjustment, one you won’t see in that data. Read the rest of this entry »