Aaron Sanchez named the 5th Starter

[torontoaces04]

Politely, suck it, Randle.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-name-sanchez-fifth-starter-option-hutchison-triple/

Gavin Floyd and Jesse Chavez will pitch out of the bullpen, while Drew Hutchison has been optioned to triple-A Buffalo.

“I thought his off-speed stuff was really good this spring. That’s really what I was focusing on. But he’s earned it. Now we’ll let him run with it and see what happens.”

“We’ll keep an eye on that and there’s a good chance he’ll be in that rotation the whole year,” said Gibbons. “We won’t lay out what the actual plan is, but we’ve got to be smart. You increase it too much, it’s probably harmful, and in the end if we need to put him down there in the bullpen, we’re that much stronger down there, too.”

“It’s not one of those things where he’s not going to pitch all year, you’re going to stop him, like happened in another place a few years ago,” Gibbons said of Sanchez. “He’ll be here all year.”

Woot woot!!! Our 2nd best pitcher has made the rotation!

[Lateral Quicks]

Thank goodness.

[Chevy Chase]

I would have preferred Gavin Floyd to have been named started. There's no doubt that Sanchez is a future starter, but he's likely to be on a pitch/innings limit and I would have liked him to be available in the post season. I wouldn't be surprised to see him skip the odd start when there are days off to keep his innings down and to keep the rest of the guys on scheduled.

[dagger]

I would have preferred Gavin Floyd to have been named started. There's no doubt that Sanchez is a future starter, but he's likely to be on a pitch/innings limit and I would have liked him to be available in the post season. I wouldn't be surprised to see him skip the odd start when there are days off to keep his innings down and to keep the rest of the guys on scheduled.

The argument seems simple enough from the development standpoint: If you put Sanchez in the pen again to start the season, you aren't developing him as a starter and may never. Now, he may not be up to starting and may end up in the pen, but he pitched extremely well this spring and with a 23 year old with large if heretofore unrealized potential, this is certainly the time to give it a try and see if he can command his fastball, get outs with secondary pitches, and get out a reasonable percentage of left-hand batters. The pitch count thing is an issue, but this organization has bent rules and can do that here, too. Floyd will likely get some starts as sixth starter, and that allows the team to preserve a bit of Sanchez for later in the season. They also can be ultra-conservative with his in-game innings, and use Floyd/Chavez as long relief for innings 6-8.

My concern with Sanchez as a reliever is that there is no compelling role for him with Osuna, Storen and Cecil handling a lot of 8th, 9th inning situations. Sanchez wouldn't even be the eighth inning guy in the pen.

[Raptor_Guy]

Apparently he will start the 3rd game against Tampa and the Jays might use the off day to skip Estrada's first start.

[RapsFanInVA]

I'm completely out of the loop with the Jays. What's our rotation looking like? Stroman-Dickey-Sanchez-Estrada-Happ?

[torontoaces04]

I'm completely out of the loop with the Jays. What's our rotation looking like? Stroman-Dickey-Sanchez-Estrada-Happ?

Not sure of the order yet, or if Estrada will miss a start or two, but those are the 5.

[kingcns187]

Thank God, all this bullpen talk was so ridiculous and anyone in the media who was saying he should be in the bullpen can suck it

[ScottyTO]

If his secondary pitches are working and he can control the number of walks issued, Sanchez could very well end up the No. 2 starter

[Wo1verine]

Who knows if he'll last in the rotation, but the organization couldn't deny him a spot after the spring he had.

[The_Hater]

Our Starting pitching looks very deep to start the season, not many teams have the luxury of Hutch being 8th in line. And most teams need at least 8 starting pitchers over the course of 6 months.

[Randle McMurphy]

Politely, suck it, Randle.

Looks like it is time for the entire league to stack lefties against Sanchez and watch him fail miserably (or otherwise known as exactly the same thing that happened last year).

This decision to start him cost them quite a few games in 2015. Hope it doesn't cost quite so many in 2016.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

I haven't watched any spring training games, but don't expect him show this kind of command or control the whole season, and if Floyd is healthy expect them to change roles at some point. Hope I'm wrong but look forward to seeing some of his real starts.

It's the right decision - if his offspeed stuff looks as good as being advertised, it's best to run him out there and see what we've got.

[Raider917]

if he does manage to last the entire season in the rotation, what are the chances of him getting into a matt harvey type of situation and running out of innings when the pennant race heats up?

[ldnk]

Politely, suck it, Randle.

Looks like it is time for the entire league to stack lefties against Sanchez and watch him fail miserably (or otherwise known as exactly the same thing that happened last year).

This decision to start him cost them quite a few games in 2015. Hope it doesn't cost quite so many in 2016.

His 4 losses as a starter the team scored 1, 2, 1 and 2 runs. His two no-decisions he gave up 3ER over 5.2IP and 2ER over 6.0IP.

How is that costing the team quite a few games. That seems like a load of nonsense. He has been historically bad against lefties but his poor splits weren't turning into runs.

[Randle McMurphy]

Politely, suck it, Randle.

Looks like it is time for the entire league to stack lefties against Sanchez and watch him fail miserably (or otherwise known as exactly the same thing that happened last year).

This decision to start him cost them quite a few games in 2015. Hope it doesn't cost quite so many in 2016.

His 4 losses as a starter the team scored 1, 2, 1 and 2 runs.

The Jays lost six of his eleven starts and he was lucky it wasn't more with as poorly as he pitched.

Aaron Sanchez as a starter in 2015 (66 innings): 5.73 K/9, 5.05 BB/9, 1.09 HR/9, 5.21 FIP, 4.64 xFIP.

[ldnk]

if he does manage to last the entire season in the rotation, what are the chances of him getting into a matt harvey type of situation and running out of innings when the pennant race heats up?

Quite likely. To me the easiest thing would be to run with a hybrid 6/7 man rotation where Chavez and Floyd throw spot starts every once and a while to spread Sanchez's outings out over the year. I also wouldn't be opposed to them finding a way to skip a handful of Dickey's starts as he seems to be a slow starter until the weather heats up and his knuckle ball starts dancing.

[zilby]

The one thing that doesn't make sense now is why we dumped Liam for Chavez if we are no longer having Chavez as a 5th starter. Swapping out a good mop-up reliever for a guy who is probably not as good at the same thing is now a backwards step as a result, Chavez's numbers are worse as a reliever than a starter.

[Ong_dynasty]

My thinking was always..why not have 6 starters..it's not like we have a dominant no.1..but let's see how it goes..

[Randle McMurphy]

The one thing that doesn't make sense now is why we dumped Liam for Chavez if we are no longer having Chavez as a 5th starter. Swapping out a good mop-up reliever for a guy who is probably not as good at the same thing is now a backwards step as a result, Chavez's numbers are worse as a reliever than a starter.

He was acquired to be starting pitcher depth (which this organization had none of at the time) and he will pitch as a starter eventually. You need more than 5 or 6 SPs to get through a season.