Good swing decisions are a core component of the Toronto Blue Jays’ organizational hitting philosophy. That doesn’t make the American League East club unique — every team wants its hitters to be disciplined at the plate — but the degree to which they accentuate attacking the right pitches is noteworthy. From the lowest levels of the minors all the way up to the big leagues, swing decisions are not only a focus, they’re assigned grades.

Hunter Mense has played a key role in the practice. Now doing double-duty as the big league assistant hitting coach, the 37-year-old former Florida Marlins farmhand has been Toronto’s minor league hitting coordinator since 2019.

Mense discussed the organization’s efforts to develop disciplined hitters when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park last week.

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David Laurila: What can you tell me about the Blue Jays’ organizational hitting philosophy?

Hunter Mense: “A lot of it has really just filtered over from 2019 and continued to build. Nothing has drastically changed. But I will say this: The things that have changed, probably — what I’ve seen up here — are some of the more important things that play in the big leagues. It’s us doing a better job of that, and learning how to develop it more in the minor leagues.”

Laurila: What plays in the big leagues? Read the rest of this entry »

The Toronto Blue Jays have two of the best pitchers in baseball this season. Kevin Gausman possesses a 3.00 ERA and a 1.99 FIP to go with 116 strikeouts in 99 innings. Alek Manoah boasts a 2.24 ERA and a 3.34 FIP with 110 strikeouts in 120.2 innings. The latter pitched a scoreless inning in last week’s All-Star Game; the former, who surprisingly was not named to the squad, has arguably out-performed his teammate.

Each of the two garnered wins over the weekend. On Friday, Gausman ran his hard-luck record to 7–7, fanning 10 batters over five innings in Toronto’s 28–5 rout of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. On Saturday, Manoah allowed one run over six innings, striking out seven Boston batters along the way, to raise his record to 11–4.

On Sunday, I asked the right-handers about each other. In short, why is the other one of the best pitchers in baseball?

“I would say his character,” Manoah said of Gausman. “His character, his competitiveness, the way he goes about his work every day. He’s had his teeth punched out before, and he’s found ways to get back to the top. So I think his resilience is big. There’s also his ability to adjust from pitch to pitch, from lineup to lineup. He’s very strategic. Read the rest of this entry »

The trade deadline is nearly here and once again, team behavior will be affected by 40-man roster dynamics. Teams with an especially high number of currently-rostered players under contract for 2023 and prospects who need to be added to the 40-man in the offseason have what is often called a 40-man “crunch,” “overage,” or need to “churn.” This means the team has incentive to clear its overflow of players by either packaging several to acquire just one in return, or by trading for something the club can keep — international pool space, comp picks, or, more typically, younger players whose 40-man clocks are further from midnight — rather than do nothing and later lose some of those players to waivers or in the Rule 5 Draft. Teams can take care of this issue with transactions between the end of the season and the 40-man roster deadline in November, but a contending team with a crunch has more incentive to do something before the trade deadline so the results of those deals can bolster the club’s ability to reach the postseason.

In an effort to see whose depth might influence trade behavior, I assess teams’ 40-man futures every year. This exercise is done by using the RosterResource Depth Chart pages to examine current 40-man situations, subtracting pending free agents using the Team Payroll tab, and then weighing the December 2022 Rule 5 eligible prospects (or players who became eligible in past seasons and are having a strong year) to see which clubs have the biggest crunch coming. I then make an educated guess about which of those orgs might behave differently in the trade market as a result.

Some quick rules about 40-man rosters. Almost none of them contain exactly 40 players in-season because teams can add a player to the 40 to replace one who is on the 60-day injured list. In the offseason, teams don’t get extra spots for injured players and have to get down to 40 precisely, so if they want to keep some of their injury fill-ins, they have to cut someone else from the 40-man to make room. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Mense had some talented teammates during his relatively brief playing career. None were more talented than a teenager who went by one of his middle names. Now the assistant hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, Mense played alongside Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton during their time together as Florida Marlins farmhands.

“I knew him as Mike,” Mense said of the the 2022 All-Star Game MVP, who began going by his given first name after reaching the big leagues. “I remember reading about, and him telling me that he could have played D1 basketball or D1 football. He looked more like a D1 football player than he’s ever looked like a baseball player.”

It goes without saying that the Brobdingnagian superstar is a stupendously good baseball player. According to Mense, who doubles as Toronto’s minor-league hitting coordinator, Stanton’s work ethic was off the charts. Wanting to improve defensively, the 6-foot-6, 245-pound outfielder would often “drag a coach out to the field” and have him hit balls in his dirction before batting practice.

Not surprisingly, Stanton also went the extra mile as a hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Among catchers this season, Willson Contreras has been the talk of the baseball town. It’s easy to understand why: Here’s a fan favorite suddenly having a career-best season in a walk year. That grabs everyone’s attention. Suddenly, fans of others teams find themselves hoping that their favorite club will land him at the deadline or possibly this offseason. On the sabermetric side, there’s mounting evidence that Contreras has indeed taken a step forward. A catcher with this much offensive upside is a rarity, and with a robust 161 wRC+, the veteran has turned himself into prized jewel.

But enough about the Cubs or Contreras. Do you know who’s second in catcher wRC+ this season? That’s right, it’s Alejandro Kirk, who’s been the Blue Jays’ primary backstop ever since Danny Jansen headed to the IL with a fractured finger. His 146 wRC+ isn’t too far behind Contreras’, and the corresponding triple slash is a beauty: a .311/.392/.469 line is somewhat of a rarity in today’s game.

Kirk’s output might not be so surprising if you paid attention to his minor league numbers. Starting with Rookie ball in 2017, he raked at every level to which he was assigned, notching more walks than strikeouts, which led to a well-deserved big-league promotion in 2020. The Blue Jays gave him a proper chance the following year, and while he was serviceable, a 106 wRC+ in 189 plate appearances didn’t exactly leave a strong impression. This year, however, Kirk looks like the unstoppable force his minor league track record suggested he could be. Read the rest of this entry »

Two major bits of unpleasant injury-related news hit the headlines on Tuesday afternoon. First, the Blue Jays announced that Hyun Jin Ryu, a key cog in the rotation, would undergo elbow surgery that would result in him missing the rest of the entire 2022 season. Over in the NL West, a scheduled CT scan revealed that Fernando Tatis Jr. had not seen enough healing in his wrist to allow him to start swinging a bat. Both of these injuries are of the type that could impact the divisional races.

For both Ryu and the Jays, his sore elbow is a major hit. Jay Jaffe has already touched on the impact to Toronto’s rotation from the loss of Ryu. In his case, there were clear signs of something being not quite right leading up to his initial trip to the shelf. Per Jay:

This is already Ryu’s second trip to the injured list this season. After lasting just 7.1 innings over his first two starts and allowing a total of 11 runs, he landed on the IL on April 17 with what was described as forearm inflammation. Upon returning to the Blue Jays on May 14, he fared somewhat better, yielding just six runs (five earned) in 19.2 innings over four starts, but his average four-seam fastball velocity decreased by about one mile per hour from outing to outing, from a high of 90.3 mph on May 14 to a low of 87.6 on June 1 — a troubling trend.

Back then, the timetable was reported to be at least multiple weeks. Full Tommy John surgery would obviously end Ryu’s 2022 campaign, but we’re far enough into the season that even repair of a partially torn UCL wouldn’t allow him to return in the fall. If he should require the full surgery, his 2023 season would definitely be in peril, with only a late-season return being feasible. He’s a free agent after the 2023 season, too, so there’s a very real possibility that he’s played his last game in a Jays uniform.

I wouldn’t characterize it as good news, but Ryu’s previous Tommy John surgery was a long time ago, undergone in 2004 when he was still in high school, meaning he got most of a professional career out of his first surgery before a possible revision procedure. Unfortunately, in one study, less than half of pitchers needing a second procedure returned to pitch at least 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin will have periodic minor league roundup post that run during the week. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Before we get to this post’s analysis, some housekeeping. I’m continuing to trudge through the last few team lists, and hope readers will understand that part of why this has taken so long is because a) we lost multiple writers to teams during the process and b) it takes a lot for me to compromise my vision for the depth and quality of my work. I’m on pace to finish just before the draft while also updating and expanding the draft prospect list so that draftees can quickly be added to their club’s pro list right after they’re picked. I realize that continuing this way during future cycles would leave valuable and relevant info unpublished for too long, and that I need to make changes. For instance, I don’t have a Cardinals list out yet while guys like Andre Pallante, Brendan Donovan and Juan Yepez are all playing big league roles. I’ve had well-formed thoughts on that group of guys since they were part of last year’s Arizona Fall League, and need to find a way to shorten the lag between when I’m taking those notes and when they’re turned into actionable info on the site, especially when it comes to short-term big leaguers.

My approach for in-season updates (which have already underway — duh, you are reading this post) will again be to group teams based on the geographic location of their spring training facility (for example, teams with East Valley facilities in Arizona are already being updated) and drill down deepest on contending clubs (within that East Valley cluster, the Giants) as they’re more likely to part with prospects ahead of the trade deadline. There will still be à la carte updates where I see a player and add them, or where someone’s performance prompts me to source info from scouting and front office contacts and brings about a change in their evaluation or valuation. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter how good we are at what we do, mistakes are inevitable. They happen. That doesn’t make them any less embarrassing, of course, but such a reminder helps us to get over our mishaps. And though I’m no major leaguer, I assume hitters and pitchers alike need the occasional self-therapy session. Baseball is a taxing and capricious endeavor – one week you’re striking out batter after batter, the next you’re getting shelled. It takes quite a bit of mental fortitude.

Saturday, Kevin Gausman didn’t have the best start. It wasn’t a disaster by any means – he went six innings and gave up a single run – but with three walks and just four strikeouts, it paled in comparison to his typical dominance. Not only that, two of those walks were issued to Javier Báez. If you’re reading this, you know how unlikely that is. No qualified pitcher in baseball induces a higher rate of swings against pitches outside the zone than Gausman. No qualified hitter in baseball swings at pitches outside the zone more often than Báez. Based on the numbers, it seems like a foregone conclusion: Báez would struggle, while Gausman would triumph. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees have been the hottest team in baseball over the past two weeks. Thanks in large part to an impressive run by their rotation, they’ve won six in a row and 10 out of 12 to open up a seven-game AL East lead. The Blue Jays have quietly kept pace during that stretch, overtaking the Rays for second place in the division by winning 10 of 12 themselves, including eight straight from May 24 to June 2. Even so, their chances of closing the gap on the Yankees have taken a hit with the loss of Hyun Jin Ryu. Last week, the team revealed that the 35-year-old lefty has suffered a forearm strain and elbow inflammation and will be out “multiple weeks” at the very least.

This is already Ryu’s second trip to the injured list this season. After lasting just 7.1 innings over his first two starts and allowing a total of 11 runs, he landed on the IL on April 17 with what was described as forearm inflammation. Upon returning to the Blue Jays on May 14, he fared somewhat better, yielding just six runs (five earned) in 19.2 innings over four starts, but his average four-seam fastball velocity decreased by about one mile per hour from outing to outing, from a high of 90.3 mph on May 14 to a low of 87.6 on June 1 — a troubling trend.

Overall, Ryu has pitched to a 5.33 ERA and 4.81 FIP in 27 innings, that on the heels of a season in which he was merely solid (4.37 ERA, 4.02 FIP, 2.5 WAR in 169 innings) rather than the Cy Young contender he had been in 2019 with the Dodgers (when he led the NL with a 2.32 ERA and made his first All-Star team) and ’20 with the Blue Jays.

“Forearm strain” is always an ominous phrase when it comes to pitcher injuries because of its lack of specificity. Sometimes such a strain turns out to be UCL-related, a precursor to Tommy John surgery; even when it’s not, a flexor strain can mean anything from a few weeks to multiple months lost. In the wake of the announcement, Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo wouldn’t speculate as to whether surgery would be required and said that the team is getting second opinions on Ryu’s injury. Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays started a short road trip off in style on Monday night with an 8–0 shellacking of the Royals. It was a feel-good kind of an evening — at least if you’re not a resident of Kansas City — in that the Jays got homers from two young players falling short of lofty expectations (Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette) and that a recently struggling bullpen (4.70 FIP, -0.5 WAR over the last 30 days) one-hit the Royals over four innings in closing out the rout. It was one of the 10 games in which the Jays play teams at the bottom of the American League before heading to New York to square off against the first-place Yankees.

One of the questions I was asked on one of my radio hits yesterday, this one with Blake Murphy of Sportsnet 590 in Toronto, was if the next two weeks were especially important for the Jays, coming against the weakest teams and with a seven-game divisional deficit. I believed it was, but it did make me curious just how important it was. And since I can’t run a ZiPS projection in my own head but need a computer, here we are! Just how important are the next two weeks for Toronto?

It would be hard to characterize the Blue Jays as a struggling team. While they were hovering just above the .500 mark in mid-May, they’ve been on a bit of a tear lately, winning 14 of 19 games. A 32–22 record stands at a 96-win pace, comfortably above the 88-win median that ZiPS projected for each of the top four AL East teams back in April. The problem is that the Yankees have been even better at 39–15, or a 117-win pace.

Still, Toronto’s record is impressive, and even more so when you consider how tough a schedule it’s had. The team’s average opponent this year has had a .544 winning percentage, which translates into an 88–74 record. In other words, a typical game for the Jays has seen them face off against a team projected by ZiPS to be as strong as the average non-Orioles AL East team. From a projection standpoint, ZiPS believes that they have had the toughest schedule in baseball so far.

A seven-game deficit is a significant one. Even if you thought the Jays were as solid as the Yankees at the start of the season, winning one more game over 162 games is an easier task than winning eight more over 108. Even if New York plays just .500 ball the rest of the season, Toronto has to maintain its pace (62–46, .574) in order to finish with a one-game lead (avoiding a tiebreaker now that MLB has killed off game 163).

Opening up ZiPS, I ran some experiments on the team’s fate over the next two weeks. Let’s start with the current projections. Read the rest of this entry »