Reworking the Blue Jays Pitching Staff

Making wholesale role changes two weeks into the season is not likely a sound strategy, as the decisions leading up to Opening Day take in much more reliable information with considerably more history than a few appearances in April. Likewise, taking promising starters who have yet to prove they cannot start and sending them to the bullpen where they will pitch considerably fewer innings is not ideal either. Yet that is where the Toronto Blue Jays sit heading into the third week of the season. The Blue Jays were dealt a blow in Spring Training when Marcus Stroman was lost for the year after a knee injury that required surgery, and they are still reeling from that loss.

A battle for the fifth spot in the rotation between Daniel Norris, Aaron Sanchez, and Marco Estrada shifted as the Blue Jays anointed two of their top three prospects as starters to begin the season. With Aaron Sanchez struggling, Daniel Norris beginning the season with a dead arm, and a young bullpen that has already switched closers, the Blue Jays pitching staff has provided more questions than answers.

In five starts this season, Norris and Sanchez have combined for 22 innings and 15 strikeouts while giving up 12 walks and five home runs. The poor performance and low innings totals thus far have put a strain on an inexperienced bullpen. The Blue Jays 47 2/3 innings pitched out of the bullpen are tied for fourth Major League Baseball, but they’re not getting worked so much because they’re dominating when called upon; those innings have come with a 4.16 FIP, ranking 26th in MLB. The Blue Jays bullpen is both performing poorly and getting overworked, never a good combination for mid-April.

Balancing short-term success with long-term projections for prospects is a difficult proposition. Aaron Sanchez is just 22 years old and pitched well out of the bullpen in limited time in 2014. He gave up just four earned runs in 33 innings while striking out 27, giving up just one home run and putting up a very good 2.80 FIP. He has already given up six earned runs this year with two home runs in under nine innings. The Blue Jays are likely wary about pulling the plug on Sanchez as starter so soon after the season’s start, and two starts is not enough to determine success or failure on the starting experiment, but Sanchez could help stabilize the bullpen, and Marco Estrada could assume his spot in the rotation providing equivalent present production as a starter with Sanchez’s stuff playing up in the bullpen and upgrading high leverage situations as well.

Heading into the season, there were questions about Sanchez’s future role between starting and relief. Kiley McDaniel ranked Sanchez the No. 3 prospect in Toronto’s system and No. 70 overall, and in his notes from the Blue Jays’ evaluations discussed Sanchez as a starter and his potential future role in the bullpen.

Sanchez sits 93-97 and hits 99 mph [as] a starter with good life to his plus plus heater. His curveball often flashes plus but could be more consistent, while his changeup has made strides in recent years to now flash solid average, but it will back up at times when he’s more thrower than pitcher. Sanchez has worked hard at the upper level sto try to develop the starter traits necessary to stick in a rotation, but the question remains if he fits better there or as a closer.

The Blue Jays could provide Sanchez with a prominent role coming out of the bullpen, and let him go multiple innings in some spots to continue his development. A full season in the bullpen could cement his role there, but it does not foreclose his opportunity as a starter if the organization still feels he has a shot to stick in the rotation similar to what the St. Louis Cardinals have done with Carlos Martinez over the last year. Marco Estrada is not going to be a huge upgrade over Sanchez, but he will do Marco Estrada-like things, striking hitters out at an average to above average rate, walking hitters at an average clip and generating a ton of infield flies, while giving up home runs in the process. He will not be great, likely not even good, but he should provide innings at above a replacement level and be more valuable in the rotation than out of the pen. The combination of Estrada starting and Sanchez relieving is likely to be more impactful for the Jays than vice versa.

While there has been some debate about Sanchez being better suited as a reliever, fewer questions exist regarding Daniel Norris. Kiley McDaniel ranked Norris as the top Blue Jays’ prospect entering the season and No. 17 in all of baseball.

Norris runs his fastball up to 96 mph with above average to plus off-speed pitches and good feel to pitch; there’s #2/3 starter upside and he likely won’t spend much more time in the minors.

The velocity on Norris’ fastball has not been as good as it was when he hit 96 miles per hour in his debut last season, sitting around 91-92 miles per hour with just one pitch above 95 miles per hour this season, per Brooks Baseball. After yesterday’s start where he could not make through the third inning against the Atlanta Braves, Norris believes he has identified the culprit–the dreaded dead arm.

Daniel Norris: “I’m going through a little bit of a dead-arm phase.” #BlueJays #MLB

— Scott MacArthur (@TSNScottyMac) April 19, 2015

Norris admitted his pitches have not come out with the same life and that his problems surfaced in the exhibition series in Montreal, but that he believed his dead arm period should resolve itself shortly, per the Toronto Sun. That would be very good news for Toronto because their options to replace Norris if he needs to dial things down or move to the bullpen are underwhelming.

Jeff Francis came up from Triple-A and relieved Norris on Sunday, pitching 3 1/3 scoreless innings. After getting major league shots with three different organizations last year, it is not clear he has much to offer, especially as a starter. Randy Wolf has made two starts for the Blue Jays Triple-A team in Buffalo, but missed all of 2013 after Tommy John surgery and spent time in four different organizations last season. Roberto Osuna has pitched well out of the bullpen, striking out nine against three walks in eight scoreless innings, but like closer and fellow rookie Miguel Castro, he has never pitched above A-ball before this season. Liam Hendricks has starting experience, but has not been able to stick long-term and has actually pitched well out of the bullpen so far this season.

The Blue Jays offense has scored more runs than any other MLB team after the first two weeks of the season, and it should continue to be a strength moving forward. While the team could probably use a few more innings from Drew Hutchison, the performance of the team’s top three starters in R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Hutchison should be fairly stable as the season goes on. 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.