Tag Archives: Blue Jays

Predicting the W-L record of the 2012 Blue Jays using WAR

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 2 Comments

By Eric Han

Sky Kalkman of Beyond the Boxscore updated his WAR spreadsheet today. What’s a WAR spreadsheet? Well, it’s a magical tool that lets you punch in a bunch of numbers, and shoots out some other numbers in return! It’s kind of cool.

To be specific, the tool uses an inputted value of a team’s total plate appearances, weighted on base average, baserunning value, fielding value, total innings pitched, and earned run average, and estimates the total WAR value, and thus the estimated win count, of that team.  You can download it here.

I assumed in this exercise that the Jays’ roster for 2012 is roughly the same as they had at the end of the 2011 season.

Hit the jump for my predictions for the position players:

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The value of Arizona’s middle infield

Posted on November 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

By Travis Reitsma

Yesterday, former Blue Jay Aaron Hill signed a 2yr/$10-million extension with the Arizona Diamondbacks after the team declined his $8-million option just a few days prior.  Hill hit well in his late season stint with Arizona after coming over in an August trade with the Jays along with John McDonald for Kelly Johnson, but finished the season with an underwhelming .246/.299/.356 slash line, hitting just eight home runs.  Although he rebounded from an absolutely disastrous 2010, his .356 slugging percentage was a career low and a far cry from his 2009 mark of .499.  He actually posted a lower WAR in 2011 than he did in 2010.

So, did the D’Backs overpay Hill?

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Posted in Statistical Analysis

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Should the Blue Jays sign Jonathan Broxton?

Posted on November 12, 2011 | 6 Comments

By Eric Han

Jerry Crasnick of ESPN reports that several teams, including the Toronto Blue Jays, have shown interest in Dodger’s closer, Jonathan Broxton. Good idea? Bad?

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Posted in Rumours

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The myth of Eric Thames’ fast-balls

Posted on August 5, 2011 | 5 Comments

A while back, I took to the blog to decry a myth that Corey Patterson was seeing more fastballs (or more strikes) while hitting in the two-spot in the Jays’ lineup.  It was found that there was virtually no difference.

You see, it’s a common myth in baseball that whoever is hitting in front of your best hitter (usually the number three hitter) will see more fastballs and strikes (i.e. controllable, hittable pitches).  Several studies have found that there is virtually no difference at all.

Then last night on the Twitter, someone speculated that Blue Jays new call-up and Canadian Baseball Moses Brett Lawrie should hit second in the lineup because he would see more hittable pitches and more fastballs.  When I calmly questioned the logic (and didn’t deny that he wouldn’t be the worst choice on the team for the two-spot), I was blasted from several angles.  The biggest argument against me was that Eric Thames was “tearing it up” whilst hitting in the number-two spot earlier this year; which was sort of true, although he hasn’t hit much worse in the six-hole in decidedly less games.

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Trade Deadline Reactions — July 27th

Posted on July 28, 2011 | 2 Comments

Like most Jays’ fans, words cannot describe just how happy I am with the Colby Rasmus trade(s).  Enough words have been spent on the deal by my many, many, many contemporaries in the Blue Jays blogosphere, and there are more than a few professional opinions on the matter, so I shan’t bore you with mine.  Needless to say, this one is an unequivocal win for Alex Anthopoulos and his front office of ninjas.  It seems like every trade he makes, he doesn’t just come out on top, he leaves the entire industry dumb-founded.

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Posted in Trades

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How bad is the Jays’ bullpen, really?

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 7 Comments

The Jays’ bullpen has been the ire of a frustrated fan base over the course of this season.  The often cited statistic is the ‘blown save’ which the Blue Jays are tied with the Angels for the most in the American League at 17.

But if we are going to decry the save statistic (which, if you don’t, you might want to remove your breathing orifices from your rectal cavity), then don’t we have to decry the blown save stat too?

The obvious answer is yes, but there is something to be said about a team blowing 17 leads late in games when it’s only late July.  But keep in mind, a pitcher can record a blown save if he comes in with one out in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and a one-run lead, and then surrenders an infield-single before striking out the next two batters; there are certainly gaping flaws.

Blown saves inevitably occur in both good bullpens and bad ones.  Just as it is flawed logic to look at how many saves a certain bullpen has to determine how good they are, it is almost equally as absurd to look at blown saves to judge how bad one is.

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We knew this was coming

Posted on June 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

About two weeks ago, the Blue Jays were leading the American League in runs scored.  To anyone who has actually watched this team play in 2011, this seemed like a surprise.  Yes, Jose Bautista is a golden god, and Corey Patterson seemed to be fooling us with night after night of solid plate appearances, but we all knew this was coming.  After being swept by the Atlanta Braves this week, Toronto has scored a woeful three, THREE runs in their last forty innings.

When Toronto was scoring runs, they weren’t getting pitching; now they are getting pitching and the hitting has come unceremoniously crashing down to earth.

Many have offered up reasons for this sudden offensive collapse, but let’s face facts, a lineup that runs out Corey Patterson, Juan Rivera, Edwin Encarnacion, Jayson Nix, John McDonald, and Rajai Davis on any kind of consistent basis, is going to have trouble scoring runs.

There are essentially three hitters on this team that have a future with this ballclub: Bautista, Adam Lind, and Yunel Escobar.  Everyone else is essentially a stop-gap player until something better comes along.  We knew heading into this year that this was not a contending team and that the offense would struggle, so let’s all just relax; better things are on the horizon.

Now, what is actually wrong with the Jays’ offense right now?  Why technically are they scuffling?

Well, that’s pretty simple; allow me to illustrate using a Brooks Baseball Pitch F/X graph…slightly modified.

The graph above (click to enlarge) shows only pitches thrown today by Braves’ starter Brandon Beachy in which the Blue Jays swung on and missed.  As you can plainly see, the plate discipline of our lovable losers bluebirds leaves something to be desired.  There has been an overriding lack of discipline and pitch recognition during this slump and Beachy’s 11 strikeouts in six innings today was the ultimate manifestation.  They made a pitcher throwing in only his 11th big-league start look like Pedro Martinez.  Using my expert counting skills, 10 of the 19 times that Beachy got the Jays to swing and miss, the ball was out of the strike zone; in some cases it was so far down and away from the right-handed hitters that there’s no physical way contact could have been made.

The sad part is that there might be a lot more games like this going forward considering the hitters in this lineup.

Stay patient, better days are coming.

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Posted in Graphical representations

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Power Rankings, May 9th — The Phils stay on top, while the Red Sox fall out of the top five.

Posted on May 9, 2011 | 4 Comments

Evan Longoria's return to the lineup this past week will further the Rays' surge back toward the top of the rankings after a slow start.

Welcome to the fortnightly instalment of Baseball Canadiana’s Power Rankings.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of power rankings, you must know that it has very little to do with the standings.  Even though the Indians currently hold baseball’s best record, it’s difficult to say that they are better than Philadelphia, the Yankees, or even Boston.  Power rankings are meant to look past the standings and are therefore not reactionary to hot and cold streaks, as they take into account the unreliability of small sample sizes. 

I made a decision with the Power Rankings here at Baseball Canadiana; I’m making them bi-monthly.  Why you ask?  Because at this time of year, teams start to show who they really are and very little changes from week-to-week.  I feel like there is more to talk about when it’s done every two weeks.  This instalment is no different; here are the rankings:

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Is Snider’s demotion really about mechanics?

Posted on April 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

After a slow start to the season resulting in a .184/.276/.264 slash line, the Toronto Blue Jays have done the near unthinkable and sent their prized young outfielder Travis Snider back down to AAA Las Vegas.  The 23-year-old leftfielder had exhibited terrible mechanics at the plate this season and General Manager Alex Anthopoulos says that the best course of action is to let Snider work out those issues at AAA.

This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the Jays had any hope of contending this season, but the fact is, they do not.  This is a team with a very bright future, but presently, they aren’t any more than a .500 ballclub; if that.  It makes very little sense to send Snider back to a level where he has nothing to prove.

The last time Snider was at AAA was in 2009 when he tore the cover off the ball going .337/.431./663 with 14 homeruns in 204 plate appearances.  He simply has nothing left to prove at the minor-league level.

There is no doubt that Snider has struggled so far in 2011, but for the team to send him down after less than 100 plate appearances is downright con-fucking-fusing.  When looking at Snider’s batted ball and plate discipline statistics, most everything is similar to his career numbers.  The only thing that stands out as different is his infield flyball rate which has jumped from 10.5% in 2010 to 20.0% this season.  Like Anthopoulos said this morning in his press conference announcing the demotion, this suggests that his swing mechanics are on a serious fritz, but it still makes no sense to me to send him down.

Even though Anthopoulos has stated many times before that he will not hold a player in the minors to manipulate service time, this (and for that matter the Cecil demotion) stinks of a team trying to prevent players from reaching Super-Two arbitration status.*

As Dustin Parkes explains on Getting Blanked

“Snider entered this season with one year and 126 days of service time. A full year in a Blue Jays uniform would’ve meant two years and 126 days of service. Last season, the Super Two cut off was two years and 122 days, but experts say that 2011 will have a much later cut off, somewhere around two years and 144 days.”

For what it’s worth the difference between Snider’s and Cecil’s service time is two days.  I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist, but this seems fishy for a team with no thoughts of contending.  This is exactly the year that players like Cecil and Snider should be allowed to fail and work out their problems at the Major-League level.  In fact, in Snider’s case, Anthopoulos has stated many times that this is the year Snider will finally get 600 plate appearances at the major-league level; not anymore!

It’s probably exactly as it appears to be; that Snider’s mechanics at the plate are so messed up that the organization feels it’s best to send him down to fix his problems.  I still wouldn’t be totally surprised if this is a creative way for the team to save money by pushing Snider’s arbitration clock back a year.  Him struggling (and again, Cecil as well) just gave the organization the excuse to do it.

*- If you are unaware of baseball rather complicated arbitration process, check out this page for all you need to know.  You shall see the light unfold before you.

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Is Jose Bautista the most watchable Blue Jay of all-time?

Posted on April 26, 2011 | 2 Comments

I, like many who follow baseball feverishly, had my concerns about Blue Jays star rightfielder Jose Bautista heading into the 2011 season.  After a breakout season that no one in the league’s history has ever experienced, the Jays inked Bautista to a five-year, $65-million extension that when coupled with the Juan Rivera contract and the signings of Octavio Dotel and Jon Rauch basically cancelled out the financial savings of the Vernon Wells trade.

I was concerned.  What if Bautista dive-bombed back into obscurity and the Jays were left with a utility player worth roughly $13-million a season?  I was under no grand illusions that he was going to repeat his 54 homerun performance from 2010, and trust me, he doesn’t need to to make this contract worthwhile, but I was still concerned that Bautista was a jewel-encrusted chariot, ready to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight.

Then the season started.

Bautista destroyed a pitch in his very first game into the leftfield bleachers at Skydome Rogers Centre and despite missing three games since due to the birth of his daughter is leading the league in every important batting category: batting average (.364), on-base percentage (.517!!!), slugging percentage (.788), obviously OPS (1.305), walk-rate (24.1%) and isolated power* (.424!!!).

I’m slowly being converted to a believer in Bautista’s long-term ability, but I’m not willing to call it a sure thing yet.  I still believe the extension’s timing, especially considering its length, was questionable.  It’s all about process and signing Bautista to a five-year deal at that point flew in the face of that.

For now, at least, it appears as though he’s worth every cent and then some.

I was thinking about this earlier.  Is there any hitter in Jays history that has been more fun to watch than Bautista?  I honestly can’t think of any; not even Delgado in the late 90s/early 00s.  Right now, there’s no one in the game I enjoy watching more.  His attitude, swagger and confidence coupled with an ability to get on base at stupefying rates and smash pitches into the far reaches of the universe make him the most interesting player in baseball.  Throw in the fact that he came out of obscurity at the age of 29 to do it and he might be the most interesting player I’ve ever bared witness to.

*Isolated Power, for those who don’t know, is simply slugging percentage minus batting average.  It’s purpose it to measure a player’s pure power rating.  A decent power hitter will have a .200 ISO, while the league leaders are usually up just under .300.  Last year, Bautista’s ISO was a major-league-best .357.

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Posted in Complete and Total AWESOMNESS

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