While it did keep the record-setting streak of days with a position player pitching alive — it’s now up to seven, running the already record-level total number of such appearances this season to 80 — Richard Ureña‘s mop-and-bucket outing at the tail end of the Blue Jays’ 16-3 loss to the Dodgers was not the most notable thing about Tuesday night’s game. No, that would be Bo Bichette’s utter annihilation of two Clayton Kershaw pitches, one on the ace southpaw’s second pitch of the game, and the other in the sixth inning, before things really got out of hand:

For a brief and perhaps unprecedented moment, my Twitter timeline was unanimous:

Per Statcast, both of Bichette’s blasts came off his bat at 105.8 mph, the first one with a 25 degree launch angle and an estimated distance of 423 feet, the second with a 30 degree angle and a distance of 411 feet. None of those numbers were out of character for the 21-year-old rookie shortstop, who at this writing has clubbed seven homers in 103 plate appearances since being recalled on July 29, in a move that appeared timed to take some of the sting out of Marcus Stroman being traded to the Mets. Among Bichette’s blasts are a 107.5 mph, 441-footer off the Yankees’ Domingo Germán and a 107.7 mph, 436-footer off the Royals’ Jakob Junis, the latter his first in the majors on August 1. This was his first multi-homer game, and his first homers off a pitcher who had made an All-Star team or won a Cy Young award, though, so it counts as a momentous occasion.

Read the rest of this entry »

We have a sizable collection of players to talk about this week because the two of us have been busy wrapping up our summer looks at the 2020 Draft class over the last couple weeks. This equates to every prospect added to or moved on THE BOARD since the Trade Deadline.

Top 100 Changes
We had two players enter the 50 FV tier in Diamondbacks SS Geraldo Perdomo and Padres C Luis Campusano. Perdomo is in the “Advanced Baseball Skills” player bucket with players like Vidal Brujan, Brayan Rocchio and Xavier Edwards. He’s added visible power since first arriving in the States and had as many walks as strikeouts at Low-A before he was promoted to the Cal League, which has been Campusano’s stomping ground all summer. He’s still not a great catcher but he does have an impact arm, big power, and he’s a good enough athlete that we’re optimistic he’ll both catch and make the necessary adjustments to get to his power in games down the line.

We also moved a D-back and a Padre down in RHP Taylor Widener and 1B Tirso Ornelas. Widener has been very homer prone at Triple-A a year after leading the minors in K’s. His fastball has natural cut rather than ride and while we still like him as a rotation piece, there’s a chance he continues to be very susceptible to the long ball. Ornelas has dealt with injury and swing issues.

On Aristides Aquino
Aristides Aquino was a 50 FV on the 2017 Reds list; at the time, he was a traditional right field profile with big power undermined by the strikeout issues that would eventually cause his performance to tank so badly that he became a minor league free agent. A swing change visually similar to the one Justin Turner made before his breakout (Reds hitting coach Turner Ward comes from the Dodgers) is evident here, so we’re cautiously optimistic Aquino will be a productive role player, but we don’t think he’ll keep up a star’s pace. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Web Developer

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Work closely with the entire Baseball Operations department to design and develop new applications to help support the decision process around player development and player evaluation.
• Work closely with the Research & Development Department to support existing applications that directly support front office and field personnel decision making.
• Update existing applications to utilize newer client- and server-side frameworks
• Collaborate with members of the Baseball Operations department to create internal best practices for application development, QA testing and deployment
• Communicate with users to gather system requirements
• Create tests and documentation for bug fixes and new application features/functions

Experiences and Job Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent professional experience required
• Experience with both front and back-end development is preferred
• Demonstrated ability to successfully develop and deploy data driven web applications is required
• Understanding of full-stack web development and agile software development concepts, including CSS, Git, HTML5, Javascript, and responsive design is required
• Experience using Python web frameworks such as Django, Flask, or Pyramid
• Experience with at least one of Python, Ruby, Perl, C++ and/or other programming languages is required
• Experience using jQuery and Bootstrap or other front-end framework
• Experience using Plotly, D3.js and other data visualization tools is a plus
• Experience with SQL and relational databases is required, including experience creating complex queries, stored procedures and functions
• Knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server database design is a plus
• Experience working with baseball data or delivering sports analysis tools and/or applications is a plus
• Ability to read, speak and comprehend English effectively
• Legally able to work in Canada

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To apply, please visit this site and complete the application.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Toronto Blue Jays.

The 2019 trade deadline has passed and, with it, dozens of prospects have begun a new journey toward the major leagues with a different organization. We have all of the prospects who have been traded since the Nick Solak/Peter Fairbanks deal ranked below, with brief scouting snippets for each of them. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. Those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “From” column below. We’ve moved all of the players below to their new orgs over on THE BOARD, so you can see where they rank among their new teammates; our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline. Thanks to the scouts, analysts, and executives who helped us compile notes on players we didn’t know about.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just as the clock struck 4 pm Eastern, the Astros completed a significant trade with the Blue Jays, acquiring both right-handed starter Aaron Sanchez and right-handed reliever Joe Biagini in one fell swoop. As first reported by Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, the full deal looks like this:

Astros Receive:

• RHP Joe Biagini

• RHP Aaron Sanchez

• OF Cal Stevenson

Blue Jays Receive:

• OF Derek Fisher

That is quite the haul for the Astros. A trade like this kills two birds with one stone: It allows them to add depth to both the starting rotation and the bullpen, two areas of need.

The Astros’ rotation has been quite good this season, but they have lacked depth, with Brad Peacock (shoulder discomfort), Lance McCullers Jr. (Tommy John surgery), and Corbin Martin (Tommy John surgery again) currently out on the IL, and Collin McHugh relegated to the bullpen after an ineffective start. The minor league options to replace them have had varying degrees of success.

Sanchez will certainly provide depth in the Astros’ rotation, but there is the potential for him to be much more than that. He is now three years removed from his last significant run of success, having battled a combination of injuries and ineffectiveness since 2016. But what remains encouraging about the 27-year-old Sanchez, despite his abysmal 2019 performance, are his underlying metrics. He still possesses a good fastball, though it is currently a few ticks below of what it was pre-injuries. More intriguing is his curveball. The spin rate on the pitch ranks in the 94th percentile, and hitters have been held to just a .273 wOBA (.234 xwOBA) against it, all while whiffing on 37% of swings. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hardly a National secret that Washington is in need of bullpen help. Even as the team has put themselves back into playoff position over the the last month or so, the bullpen has a 4.67 FIP and a 5.06 ERA in July. To help in the late innings, the Nationals have acquired Daniel Hudson of the Toronto Blue Jays, as first reported by Scott Mitchell. The return was first reported by Ken Rosenthal and the trade looks like this:
Nationals Receive:

• RHP Daniel Hudson

Blue Jays Receive:

• RHP Kyle Johnston

After a couple solid years in the Diamondbacks pen in 2015 and 2016, Hudson was near replacement-level for the Pirates in 2017 and then worse than that for the Dodgers a year ago. After signing a minor league contract with the Angels in the offseason, he was released near the end of spring training before the Blue Jays guaranteed him $1.5 million. With Toronto, the 32-year-old righty has been solid, putting up a better-than-average 4.21 FIP along with a very-good 3.00 ERA. His strikeout rate is pretty even from a year ago at 23%, with his walk rate up to 11% this season, but he’s only allowed five homers in 48 innings.

He throws a mid-90s four-seamer around 60% of the time and used his sinker about 10% this season, which might help explain some of his homer-suppressing tendencies. As a result, he’s throwing his slider only a quarter of the time, down from more than 40% last year with the Dodgers. This might not be an impact move for the Nationals, but they needed help and Hudson should be an improvement over what they have in-house. Lefty Roenis Elías from the Mariners should help as well.

As for Johnston, he’s a righty who didn’t make the Nationals prospect list before the season. He was a sixth-round pick in 2017 by Washington and his control problems in college carried over to the pros with double-digit walk rates in his first two minor league seasons. He is repeating High-A this year and just turned 23, but he has turned in a solid season. He’s got a 23% strikeout rate and his walk rate is down to 9% on the season in 20 starts. Over 20% of his fly balls have been infield flies, and his swinging strike rate is very good at 15%. As for a scouring report, Eric Longenhagen adds the following:

Johnston sits 89-94, and touches 97, and he can manipulate the fastball to sink or sometimes cut. He also has an above-average slider in the mid-80s, typically 82-85 but sometimes harder. While he also has a splitter, Johnston doesn’t use it often. He’s a potential reliever.

Johnston still has a ways to go, but there’s enough there to think he has a shot as a bullpen arm in the future. That seems about right for two months of Daniel Hudson.

The Cubs and Blue Jays agreed to a trade this afternoon, sending David Phelps to the North Siders in exchange for pitching prospect Thomas Hatch. The Cubs are locked in a tight divisional race with the Cardinals and the Brewers, tied for first place entering today’s play. They are the favorites to win the division (we have their division odds at 56.8%), but they have been hampered by a weak bullpen all year. The Phelps trade is an attempt to shore their biggest weakness up.

The Cubs relief corps is a motley assortment of over-30 stalwarts (Steve Cishek, Brandon Kintzler, Brad Brach, and Pedro Strop), converted starters (Tyler Chatwood and new addition Derek Holland), and Craig Kimbrels (Craig Kimbrel). Out of the entire bullpen, only Kyle Ryan, Rowan Wick, and Kintzler have provided even 10 innings of sub-4 FIP performance, which explains the group’s collective 4.22 ERA, 4.66 FIP, and 0.1 WAR. While some of that dicey performance was traded (Mike Montgomery) or optioned to Triple-A (Carl Edwards Jr.), it’s still a position of need.

Can Phelps fulfill that need? It’s an interesting question, and Phelps is about as interesting as you can get for a journeyman reliever with 0 WAR on the year. As recently as 2016, Phelps was a dominant reliever (in his first year after converting from starting), throwing 86.2 innings and amassing a 2.28 ERA and 2.8 FIP. In the middle of a strong 2017, he was traded, as all players must eventually be, to the Mariners, where he promptly had elbow problems. A bone spur in his throwing arm cut that season short, and if that sounds ominous to you, it should: he subsequently tore his UCL in spring training, and missed all of 2018 and the start of 2019 recovering.

Before his injury, Phelps was a prototypical bullpen arm. He sat 94-95 with a sinker/four-seam combination and occasionally touched 98. The velocity hasn’t come back, at least not completely; he’s closer to 92-93 in his 17 appearances with the Blue Jays this year. To compensate for that lost velocity, he’s featured a cutter much more since returning (32.3% of his pitches this year). He also boasts a swooping curveball that he uses mainly as a change of pace. Read the rest of this entry »

Bo Bichette was ahead of his time. When he first hit the national scouting radar on the summer showcase circuit after his high school junior season, it was before the fly ball revolution had fully penetrated the big leagues. The 2016 draft class included a number of players who would be looked at differently just a few years later, as front offices saw the value of a big leg kick and an uppercut, high-intent swing (when it came with tools and performance). Bichette, Kyle Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, and Joe Rizzo all come to mind, with a number of others partially-qualifying like Josh Lowe, Will Benson, and Pete Alonso.

I remember talking with some scouts in 2015 who only got on Bichette, Kiriloff, and Rizzo at end of a summer of positive performance because their swings were of the aforementioned type, the kind scouts didn’t want to like until it was proven that they should.

Bichette got the short end of the stick even from this group, despite having the most defensive value, a pro lineage from his father Dante, solid game performance, and close to, if not as much raw power as all of them. Lowe went 10th, Lewis went 11th, Benson went 14th, Kiriloff went 15th, Rizzo went 50th, Jones went 55th, and Alonso went 64th; Bichette went 66th.

The other variable was the career of Bichette’s little brother, Dante Jr., whom the Yankees took 51st overall in 2011. Dante had a similar-looking swing and similarly solid amateur performance; he played the infield and by draft day 2016 was in Double-A, one full season of plate appearances from being out of baseball. Just 12 months after Bo Bichette’s draft free fall, scouts still pointed to Dante Jr.’s career and Bo’s loud swing mechanics as the reasons they missed on Bo so badly. Here’s video of Bichette playing in a high school tournament that was held at the Blue Jays spring training facility near his home:

Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three former pitchers — Jason Frasor, Brandon Gomes, and Pete Walker — on how they learned and developed their versions of the split-finger fastball.

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Jason Frasor, Toronto Blue Jays all-time leader in appearances

“I always called it a changeup, but I did split my fingers. If you saw it, you’d be like, ‘Oh, he throws a splitter,’ but the problem was, my hands are really small. I could never spread them really far. I came off three elbow surgeries, including two Tommy Johns, OK? So I just didn’t know how to spin the ball anymore. All I had was a fastball.

“One day, Bruce Walton — remember Bruce Walton? — was like, ‘Try this.’ He said to spread my fingers and throw it like a fastball. I practiced it for a little bit, then took it out to a game. And it was great. That was my rookie year, and for the rest of my career it was my secondary pitch.

“How deep I held the ball in my hand depended on the day. And the climate. If I was in Seattle, where it was cool — it was dry and cool — I usually had a great one. If I was in Texas, I was worried. The pitch would kind of just squirt out of my hand. Weather effected my changeup. Therefore, I’d maybe have a little pine tar in my hat. Read the rest of this entry »

Like Nomar Garciaparra before him, Troy Tulowitzki had the primary attributes of a Hall of Fame shortstop. He dazzled us with his combination of a powerful bat, good range, sure hands, the occasional spectacular leap, and a strong and accurate arm while making a case for himself as the position’s best. And like Garciaparra, Tulowtzki has been forced away from the game in his mid-30s after a seemingly endless string of injuries, leaving us to wonder what might have been. The 34-year-old shortstop announced his retirement in a statement released by the Yankees last Thursday.

Tulowitzki’s Yankees career lasted just five games, a blink of an eye compared to the 1,048 he played for the Rockies, or even the 238 he played for the Blue Jays. He wound up a Yankee after being released by Toronto in November 2018, that following a full season spent on the sidelines recuperating from surgery to remove bone spurs in both heels. The Blue Jays cut him while he still had $38 million in guaranteed salary remaining on the 10-year, $157.75 million deal he signed back in November 2010. Given that he would cost his next employer no more than the minimum salary, interest in him was heavy following a December showcase, with as many as many as 16 teams reportedly interested. Read the rest of this entry »