After finally getting the John Farrrell situation resolved, the Blue Jays can move on to other matters coming off of a frustrating season. They have a number of decisions to make, and one of those involves the future of shortstop Yunel Escobar. The Eyeblack Incident and its clumsy aftermath (Andrew Stoeten wrote a good take on the various aspects) was a big embarrassment for the organization. There is little doubt the incident played a big role in the Blue Jays’ rumored desire to trade Escobar. Toronto’s potential success or failure to trade Escobar and get value back for him casts an interesting light on how teams view personality issues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every weekday morning, I have the exact same routine. The alarm on my cell phone goes off, I yell at it for a few minutes, it doesn’t stop making noise, then I succumb and get up and turn on the coffee maker. My first walk is always to the kitchen, to start making coffee, and then the rest of the day begins. Yet as certain as I am every morning that I’m going to make myself coffee, I’m still less certain of that each day than I was that the Red Sox would dismiss manager Bobby Valentine. If anything the surprise was that he lasted through the end of the year. Valentine was a dead man sitting, and now a year after finding a new manager, the Red Sox are in the early stages of finding a new manager.

And the guy reportedly at the top of their wish list is one-time Red Sox coach and current Blue Jays manager John Farrell. Last year, the Red Sox tried to get Farrell until the Blue Jays were like, “wait, no.” Now the Red Sox want Farrell again, and the Blue Jays are listening. Farrell’s still got another year on his contract, so while the Jays are open to the idea of him bolting for Boston, a trade would have to be worked out. That’s a trade involving a manager, which, as you can imagine, is historically pretty rare.

Read the rest of this entry »

See bottom of post for note on what is likely not an abandoned — but, rather, a distinctly harder — changeup.

Here’s an exchange that could very well occur between two mostly knowledgeable baseball fans:

Person No. 1: “A young pitcher whose fastball sits at 92 to 93 mph — and touches around 97 or 98 — struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “I have no reason to doubt it.”

And here’s another, also entirely possible, exchange on a similar theme:

Person No. 1: “Toronto right-hander Henderson Alvarez struck out seven batters in as many innings yesterday.”

Person No. 2: “Remove yourself from my sight, you gutless liar!”

One reason why that first conversation might exist is because many pitchers — like, Aaron Harang, to name one — have struck out seven batters in as many (or fewer) innings this season. Another reason is because pitchers who throw harder also tend to post both more strikeouts and lower xFIPs (a metric informed in no small part by strikeout rate).

Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent article discussing the latest crop of international talent, valued commenter “Nate” offered a great, concise preview of soon-to-be international free agent Kyuji Fujikawa, who’s presently playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball league:

Kyuji Fujikawa – Closer for the Hanshin Tigers. Closest thing Japan has had lately to a Mariano Rivera-type. He’s 32, but will be a full free agent, so won’t require a posting fee. Expensive teams that forgot to buy a bullpen should look at him *cough* Angels *cough*.

And Nate is correct many times over; not only does one of Japan’s best relievers appear ready for a jump across the river, but he also has every chance to be an elite reliever in the United States.

Take a look at his numbers in Japan:

This is legit. And he could make for a talented addition to a number of teams in 2013.
Read the rest of this entry »

There are rate stats for just about every kind of opportunity a hitter faces in a game. Batting average tells you how often a player reaches base via a hit. On-base percentage tells you how often a player avoids making an out per plate appearance. But what about swings as opportunities?

Last year, I played around with the idea of production per swing. The idea was to examine what hitters gave the most value when they took a swing. The methodology was pretty simple: calculate the Weighted On-base Average (wOBA) each hitter generated using their swings — instead of plate appearances — as the denominator*.

Of course, there is a healthy correlation between actual wOBA and wOBA per swing (.83 in 2012), but less so Isolated Power (ISO). (wOBA/swing and ISO share only a .53 correlation.) Some of the results may not be all that surprising, but many certainly are.

Let’s first look at the top-25 so far this year:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays acquisition of Colby Rasmus last season was considered a steal by many. Though the team surrendered five players in companion deals with the White Sox and Cardinals, Alex Anthopolous brought in a young, cost-controlled centerfielder for three relievers, a starter that was never really meant for them in the first place, and Mark Teahen’s contract. Rasmus was worth the risk as a change-of-scenery candidate, as he had proven himself productive in spite of well-publicized spats with his manager.

However, since joining the Jays last summer, Rasmus has failed to live up to the production standards he set with the Cardinals, and he has realistically been one of the least productive players in that span. Over the last two calendar years, Rasmus has the 13th-lowest wOBA, 14th-lowest wRC+, and 18th-lowest WAR out of the 115 qualified players.

Which is why the Blue Jays supposed focus on negotiating a contract extension isn’t immediately regarded as a given, an obvious move for a team taking important steps towards winning baseball’s toughest division. The Jays have been fiscally responsible in the Anthopolous era and have locked up a number of core players recently. Richard Griffin is reporting that Rasmus is on deck in this regard, and it seems that many within the organization value his contributions. It’s just tough to determine what those contributions are, as Rasmus hasn’t hit well, hasn’t fielded well, and with four years of service time under his belt at the end of this season, he isn’t likely to come cheap anymore.

Keeping Rasmus around for another couple of seasons is a decision with some merit, for sure, but the Jays need to be careful here. Rasmus hasn’t shown any true sign of turning the corner or improving his productivity, and he simply isn’t the same player that topped 4 WAR with the 2010 Cardinals.

Read the rest of this entry »

For a little while, Toronto was showing the makings of a playoff contender. An excellent offense built around Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion and a surprisingly solid starting rotation built around Brandon Morrow kept the Blue Jays in games for the first half of the season. But the injuries piled up, particularly on the pitching end, prompting inquiries into record-setting injury paces.

And so it’s no surprise the Blue Jays own one of the league’s worst starting rotations with respect to WAR (+4.5, 26th) and ERA (4.81, 25th). From beneath this heap of pain and misery, however, one bright spot has emerged. Rotation replacement Carlos Villanueva continued to groove as a starter Thursday against the Rays, tossing six shutout innings with seven strikeouts and just six baserunners allowed.

Read the rest of this entry »

There exists the idea of a kind of proof-of-concept game, that I’m rather fond of. In any individual baseball game, a player’s performance is essentially unpredictable. The range of possible outcomes spans every possible outcome, as looking at one game is no way to evaluate a player’s true talent. But it stands to reason that a guy can fluctuate around his true talent by a magnitude of only so much. Kerry Wood established in one game that he was capable of 20 strikeouts, and, say, Kirk Rueter could never have done that. Juan Pierre has had games where he’s finished with zero hits and five hits, but he’s never had a game where he finished with multiple homers or four or five strikeouts. Extreme performances are notable, because they demonstrate that a given player is capable of such an extreme performance. It’s within the error bars around his true talent.

Tuesday night, against the Tigers, Ricky Romero put together such a proof-of-concept game. Those who followed along know I don’t mean that in a good way. Tuesday night, against the Tigers, Ricky Romero faced 29 batters, and he walked eight of them while striking out zero of them. Romero and the Blue Jays, unsurprisingly, lost.

Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto Blue Jays General Manager Alex Anthopolous, in a bid to get people to start calling him “Double Down,” has re-signed back-up catcher and Angels legend Jeff Mathis for a guaranteed two years and $3 million with a club option for 2015. I just went back and checked — this does not seem to be an Onion article. Seriously, though, teams have their reasons for doing things like this, even if they are not always apparent (or good). Let’s try and think it through.

Read the rest of this entry »

Aaron Hill hit 62 home runs between the 2009 and 2010 seasons. It took him just two years to over triple the home run output of more than 1800 prior plate appearances.

Hill is just one beneficiary of Rogers Centre’s kind left field, a list that now includes Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and apparently Jeff Mathis. The main difference between pre-2009 Hill and post-2009 Hill was a change in fly ball rates — an increase of about seven percentage points. By lofting the ball and utilizing that left field, Hill turned from an unremarkable contact-hitting second basemen into an elite power force at the position — for reference, Robinson Cano has 61 home runs over the past two calendar years (covering 320 games).

Read the rest of this entry »