RealGM

ldnk wrote:

Fairview4Life wrote:

The_Hater wrote:What was with the ump giving Calhoun 1st base in the 3rd inning yesterday? Making up new baseball rules?

Please, there is a rule for everything.

In this case, they called Stroman for deliberately quick pitching. This was a terrible call, but in this instance it means the pitch is a ball, which was ball 4.

As terrible as this call was, one that goes unnoticed is the at bat in the 8th inning where he granted time in the middle of Stroman's delivery. That's dangerous for a pitchers arm.

This, that one had me steamed, I've never seen that Stroman was practically about to release the ball when he called time...

Apparently Chavez is starting tonight for the Angels.

For anyone who wants to play the "how close are we to playoff pace" game and doesn't want to graph it, there's a (relatively?) simple way to calculate it.

For every win, add .444 games. For every loss, subtract .555 games. The goal is to be at or above 0, which represents a 90-win pace. Right now, we're at -5...a team on a 90-win pace would currently have 5 more wins (ie., a 10-8 record) than we do. It also makes it fairly easy to calculate what sort of winning streak we'd need to catch up to playoff pace: 5 / .444 = 11 games and change. So, if we extend our current one-game winning streak to twelve, we'll be pretty close.

I don't think I've ever called a season over before the end of the first month, but I'm definitely not going to argue too strongly with people that are saying it is

That being said, as daunting as the math is, looking back at last year when they were 19-23 on May 18th lends some hope. If they can go 4-5 games over .500 over the next 3 to 4 weeks (a lot easier said than done with the injuries), they will be in the exact same spot as last season. I mean it still wouldn't be a great spot, but have to start somewhere lol.

With the second wilcard in place, you can't really say we're out of it right now. 5-13 is not a pretty spot to be in, but if Happ comes back soon and we have the rest of the staff healthy, I can see this team having a shot to go on a decent run. The key should be to get back to .500 by the ASB. You do that and you give yourself a chance to play meaningful baseball in August and hopefully September.

Schad wrote:For anyone who wants to play the "how close are we to playoff pace" game and doesn't want to graph it, there's a (relatively?) simple way to calculate it.

For every win, add .444 games. For every loss, subtract .555 games. The goal is to be at or above 0, which represents a 90-win pace. Right now, we're at -5...a team on a 90-win pace would currently have 5 more wins (ie., a 10-8 record) than we do. It also makes it fairly easy to calculate what sort of winning streak we'd need to catch up to playoff pace: 5 / .444 = 11 games and change. So, if we extend our current one-game winning streak to twelve, we'll be pretty close.

That's the thing about baseball. As bad as the 2-12 start was they could be in the middle of s 12-2 run right now. And 85 wins could land the wildcard. It's not going to be easy but I certainly don't think the season is already a write off. Gotta at least give it 2 months.

The Angels are basically gifting us the game if they're really throwing Chavez out there. Hopefully we can chase him early and not let him settle in. What am I saying, he's probably throwing 8 innings of two-hit ball against us lol.

Schad wrote:

Natural11 wrote:

johanliebert wrote:Lot of people i know involved in baseball around the florida region all tell me the jays have one of the best hitting staffs in the majors. than i come on real gm and i read about all you arm chair coaches.

Their approach at the plate doesn't reflect this claim.

Their approach at the plate mostly reflects their talent.

Here's the thing: if someone can tell me which of the following elements of our approach is the problem, let's fire the coaches:


We have seen the 5th-highest number of pitches seen per plate appearance in the majors.

Similarly, we have the 8th-lowest swing rate, and we're bang average in swing rate on pitches outside the strikezone.

When we swing at pitches in the zone, we make contact at a solid clip: 7th best in the majors. We're 9th-best overall in contact on swings.

Our swinging strike rate is 20th, so we don't generate an atypically high number of whiffs, even though it really seems that way.

Our biggest problem? We take an typically high number of pitches for called strikes. I can guarantee that no hitting coach is advising them to let strike three sail by.


So what we have is a team that works counts, before taking strike three. And that makes contact, but the ball doesn't go bloody anywhere when they do. What exactly is the approach we should be taking?

Could it be that they are guessing on 2 strike counts because they are taking full hacks rather than shortening their swing and just try to make contact. They have that mindset that they are gonna take a full hack on 2 strike counts, guess on what that pitch will be for that HR swing and then they get fooled on the pitch and are caught flat footed. I don't know anyone on this team who actually shortens their swing especially with RISP and that's why are so terrible at it and have a terrible record in 1 run games the last 3 years. It's just not dumb luck, they are pathetic situational hitters and the batting coach doesn't seem to want to tell them the change their approach otherwise. And this argument that you can't turn power hitters into singles hitter is riduculous. You adjust your approach for the situation and over a season you have plenty of chances to take your hacks.

Being a power hitter doesn't mean you take giant hacks at everything no matter what the situation. 30 years ago, the only guy who did that was Dave Kingman who was always flirting with the the Mendoza line in batting average. the Jays alone have 3 or 4 Dave Kingmans on this team with the Neanderthal batting approach. If you make good solid contact, the HRs will come. The first thing they teach you is shorten your swing on 2 strikes especially with RISP. Jays hitters may look at pitches but take hacks at any one they like no matter what the count. This mentality is common with many of today's hitters and the Jays have more of these type of hitters than most teams. If someone like Jose took this basic approach of hitting, I fully believe that besides hitting 50 points higher, he would have more HRs as a byproduct.

If the batting coach and manager does tell them to adjust their swing to the situation and they're not listening then sit them or keep telling them ad nauseum until they do listen.

Yosemite Dan wrote:

Schad wrote:

Natural11 wrote:
Their approach at the plate doesn't reflect this claim.

Their approach at the plate mostly reflects their talent.

Here's the thing: if someone can tell me which of the following elements of our approach is the problem, let's fire the coaches:


We have seen the 5th-highest number of pitches seen per plate appearance in the majors.

Similarly, we have the 8th-lowest swing rate, and we're bang average in swing rate on pitches outside the strikezone.

When we swing at pitches in the zone, we make contact at a solid clip: 7th best in the majors. We're 9th-best overall in contact on swings.

Our swinging strike rate is 20th, so we don't generate an atypically high number of whiffs, even though it really seems that way.

Our biggest problem? We take an typically high number of pitches for called strikes. I can guarantee that no hitting coach is advising them to let strike three sail by.


So what we have is a team that works counts, before taking strike three. And that makes contact, but the ball doesn't go bloody anywhere when they do. What exactly is the approach we should be taking?

Could it be that they are guessing on 2 strike counts because they are taking full hacks rather than shortening their swing and just try to make contact. They have that mindset that they are gonna take a full hack on 2 strike counts, guess on what that pitch will be for that HR swing and then they get fooled on the pitch and are caught flat footed. I don't know anyone on this team who actually shortens their swing especially with RISP and that's why are so terrible at it and have a terrible record in 1 run games the last 3 years. It's just not dumb luck, they are pathetic situational hitters and the batting coach doesn't seem to want to tell them the change their approach otherwise. And this argument that you can't turn power hitters into singles hitter is riduculous. You adjust your approach for the situation and over a season you have plenty of chances to take your hacks.

Being a power hitter doesn't mean you take giant hacks at everything no matter what the situation. 30 years ago, the only guy who did that was Dave Kingman who was always flirting with the the Mendoza line in batting average. the Jays alone have 3 or 4 Dave Kingmans on this team with the Neanderthal batting approach. If you make good solid contact, the HRs will come. The first thing they teach you is shorten your swing on 2 strikes especially with RISP. Jays hitters may look at pitches but take hacks at any one they like no matter what the count. This mentality is common with many of today's hitters and the Jays have more of these type of hitters than most teams. If someone like Jose took this basic approach of hitting, I fully believe that besides hitting 50 points higher, he would have more HRs as a byproduct.

you should be coaching a youth baseball team they can use your services. as far as the jays the hitting staff has proven over the past 7 years they are of the best in the business.

johanliebert wrote:

Yosemite Dan wrote:

Schad wrote:
Their approach at the plate mostly reflects their talent.

Here's the thing: if someone can tell me which of the following elements of our approach is the problem, let's fire the coaches:


We have seen the 5th-highest number of pitches seen per plate appearance in the majors.

Similarly, we have the 8th-lowest swing rate, and we're bang average in swing rate on pitches outside the strikezone.

When we swing at pitches in the zone, we make contact at a solid clip: 7th best in the majors. We're 9th-best overall in contact on swings.

Our swinging strike rate is 20th, so we don't generate an atypically high number of whiffs, even though it really seems that way.

Our biggest problem? We take an typically high number of pitches for called strikes. I can guarantee that no hitting coach is advising them to let strike three sail by.


So what we have is a team that works counts, before taking strike three. And that makes contact, but the ball doesn't go bloody anywhere when they do. What exactly is the approach we should be taking?

Could it be that they are guessing on 2 strike counts because they are taking full hacks rather than shortening their swing and just try to make contact. They have that mindset that they are gonna take a full hack on 2 strike counts, guess on what that pitch will be for that HR swing and then they get fooled on the pitch and are caught flat footed. I don't know anyone on this team who actually shortens their swing especially with RISP and that's why are so terrible at it and have a terrible record in 1 run games the last 3 years. It's just not dumb luck, they are pathetic situational hitters and the batting coach doesn't seem to want to tell them the change their approach otherwise. And this argument that you can't turn power hitters into singles hitter is riduculous. You adjust your approach for the situation and over a season you have plenty of chances to take your hacks.

Being a power hitter doesn't mean you take giant hacks at everything no matter what the situation. 30 years ago, the only guy who did that was Dave Kingman who was always flirting with the the Mendoza line in batting average. the Jays alone have 3 or 4 Dave Kingmans on this team with the Neanderthal batting approach. If you make good solid contact, the HRs will come. The first thing they teach you is shorten your swing on 2 strikes especially with RISP. Jays hitters may look at pitches but take hacks at any one they like no matter what the count. This mentality is common with many of today's hitters and the Jays have more of these type of hitters than most teams. If someone like Jose took this basic approach of hitting, I fully believe that besides hitting 50 points higher, he would have more HRs as a byproduct.

you should be coaching a youth baseball team they can use your services. as far as the jays the hitting staff has proven over the past 7 years they are of the best in the business.

No they're not, it's either feast or famine. They had the best starters in the AL last year and barely squeaked into the playoffs because they couldn't win 1 run games and were soundly beaten by the Indians last year and the Royals the year before that because everything has to be a 3 run homer and their opponents know how to situationally hit. That may work for half a season like in 2015 but it's not sustainable.

The_Hater wrote:That's the thing about baseball. As bad as the 2-12 start was they could be in the middle of s 12-2 run right now. And 85 wins could land the wildcard. It's not going to be easy but I certainly don't think the season is already a write off. Gotta at least give it 2 months.

Well, kinda. 85 wins almost definitely isn't landing the Wild Card...that hasn't been good enough to finish in the top five in the AL in any season since 2001, and that was a thoroughly weird year (namely, it's the season where Seattle won 116 games and outscored opponents by 300 runs). 88+ is generally necessary, and 90+ is the target more often than not.

It's not a complete writeoff, but it's already a longshot. Of the three most popular projections, (Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs and 538), Fangraphs (at 16.4%) are the most bullish. And we're about to embark on a fifteen game stretch against three prospective playoff teams in the Cards, Yankees and Cleveland, plus six games against our nemeses in Tampa; having gotten this far behind, that could be ballgame if it doesn't go well.

Yosemite Dan wrote:
Could it be that they are guessing on 2 strike counts because they are taking full hacks rather than shortening their swing and just try to make contact. They have that mindset that they are gonna take a full hack on 2 strike counts, guess on what that pitch will be for that HR swing and then they get fooled on the pitch and are caught flat footed. I don't know anyone on this team who actually shortens their swing especially with RISP and that's why are so terrible at it and have a terrible record in 1 run games the last 3 years. It's just not dumb luck, they are pathetic situational hitters and the batting coach doesn't seem to want to tell them the change their approach otherwise. And this argument that you can't turn power hitters into singles hitter is riduculous. You adjust your approach for the situation and over a season you have plenty of chances to take your hacks.

Our situational hitting has been as good or better than our hitting overall. In late and close situations, we're actually hitting better than the league average. Our 'clutchness' is almost bang average. Our problem is that we're a garbage hitting team right now.

Being a power hitter doesn't mean you take giant hacks at everything no matter what the situation. 30 years ago, the only guy who did that was Dave Kingman who was always flirting with the the Mendoza line in batting average. the Jays alone have 3 or 4 Dave Kingmans on this team with the Neanderthal batting approach. If you make good solid contact, the HRs will come. The first thing they teach you is shorten your swing on 2 strikes especially with RISP. Jays hitters may look at pitches but take hacks at any one they like no matter what the count. This mentality is common with many of today's hitters and the Jays have more of these type of hitters than most teams. If someone like Jose took this basic approach of hitting, I fully believe that besides hitting 50 points higher, he would have more HRs as a byproduct.

No, he wouldn't hit 50 points higher and have more home runs. This is silly. By referencing the approaches of players 30 years ago, you're missing a whole host of developments in the interim, including the fact that despite the strikeouts hitters today are way more productive than they were in Kingman's era, when taking into account the introduction of shifts (which have lowered league-wide batting averages) and the vast changes in the average velocity and spin rate of pitchers from the 80s to modern day.

To see our playoff odds, go here. I believe it even takes into account our actual opponents/strength of schedule. It can change quickly, in both directions, pretty fast. We'll need quite a streak at some point in the next couple months to salvage the season, which could easily happen.

Also... how often does a guy start a game against a team when he's already lost a game in the same series?? Lets hope we beat up on Chavez the same way we did Friday.

Skin Blues wrote:Also... how often does a guy start a game against a team when he's already lost a game in the same series?? Lets hope we beat up on Chavez the same way we did Friday.

Going to guess that Tim Wakefield has done it, if anyone has. Otherwise, I can't imagine it has happened for many a year.

A 3-12 stretch would still be bad if it happened in the middle of the season and we had a 30-20 record as a buffer. I don't think we've had this bad a stretch once in the previous 2 years. That said, Getting back to .500 should be the goal for now. And then go from there.

So, after a bit of research, Wakefield did similar things, but does not appear to have ever lost in relief first before starting.

He did start a game, picked up the loss, then came in as a reliever the next night:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199708300.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199708310.shtml

He also started a game, picked up the win, then came in two days later as a reliever:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199805220.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199805240.shtml

Ah, the classic 5-6-4 forceout.

Close call. Thought maybe Martin tagged him on the leg/foot before he got his hand in.

It kinda looked like Martin tagged him first, but given Martin's non-reaction I'm not 100% sure he thought that he tagged him at all until very late in his slide.

Coghlin's habit of taking fungoes while the track & field kids were practicing their javelin throws finally comes in handy.