April 19-22: Blue birds @ Bronx boo birds

[Schad]

I was just following in mlb at bat for a minute, and I saw that Axford threw a 51 mph curveball. Is this true?

Nope, I was just about to post that. Gameday got a little weird, claiming that Axford threw a 51mph curveball about fifteen feet above the plate, and the result was a called strike:

[BigLeagueChew]

nice throw.

[BigLeagueChew]

careers vs chapman

Travis 1 for 1
Pearce 1 for 3 with a double
Hernandez 0-0
Smoak 1 for 3
Solarte 1 for 1 with a double

[vaff87]

What a bogus strike 1 call.

[spykelee]

Thanks for nothing Grichuk. This L's for you.

[Kinger95]

Gibby needs to do something with grishuk because not only is he batting .090 or something he can’t even make contact with the ball at this point

[Randle McMurphy]

NYY bringing us back to earth a bit. It's not as fun when you have to face real major league pitching.

[Mehar]

Gibby needs to do something with grishuk because not only is he batting .090 or something he can’t even make contact with the ball at this point

Grichuk should not be starting everyday. I know he was the guy Shapiro/Atkins praised a lot during the Spring, as the guy who would break out, but enough is enough. You got to do what is best for the team. He should be the 4th outfielder for the next few games.

[rotty]

i missed the game due to the leafs game. What happened with Grichuk? did he strike out on a clutch situation or something?

[Schad]

i missed the game due to the leafs game. What happened with Grichuk? did he strike out on a clutch situation or something?

0 for 4, 3 Ks and stranded six, including striking out with the bases loaded.

[manjusaka]

Gibby needs to do something with grishuk because not only is he batting .090 or something he can’t even make contact with the ball at this point

Grichuk should not be starting everyday. I know he was the guy Shapiro/Atkins praised a lot during the Spring, as the guy who would break out, but enough is enough. You got to do what is best for the team. He should be the 4th outfielder for the next few games.

A plus fielder who can cover all three outfield spots and provide occasional long ball damage and speed as a 4th outfielder actually sounds good.

Grichuk is under team control until 2020, with his performance so far he is unlike to receive a huge pay raise in the arbitration. I guess quality 4th outfielder is the bottom line for him.

[Skin Blues]

Arbitration uses full season production, not just the first 3 weeks of the season. He'll do just fine.

Went and looked through the individual plays this morning sorted by xwOBA, and it's what I expected. Yes he's gotten way under some fly balls and even when he hits those 105MPH+ the xwOBA is almost zero, so his xwOBA does not stem from hard-hit pop ups or easy outs. It's the 105MPH balls hit at 21 degree launch angles that aren't falling in. He's hit 5 balls 100MPH+ between 20 and 40 degree launch angles that have been caught. The expected batting average on those 5 was .650 and to give it a more recognizable value rather than an abstract xwOBA, it's the equivalent of missing out on 1 HR, 3 doubles, and 1 flyout. You get the idea. Those are just the 5 most unlucky balls he's hit, there are alot more where he's gotten really bad luck, including a few grounders and a line drive. And it's not like he's getting good luck to balance this out, which you'd expect to happen over the course of a season.

And yes he K'd 3 times yesterday but his K% is exactly in line with what he's always done (as I pointed out yesterday) and his walk rate is a career high. It's pure confirmation bias to complain about the whiffs and flyballs and zone contact rate when the real problem is a guy is getting BABIP'd to death. This is Justin Smoak all over again. Nobody seemed to care that Smoak walked more, struck out less, and hit the ball harder than Colabello (which I pointed out at the time). They were just enamoured with Colabello's combination of BABIP luck and unsustainable LD%.

[So_Fresh]

Blue Jays expected to call up Gurriel Jr., option Mayza and Ngoepe

[So_Fresh]

Morales should be back today. Grichuk needs to sit and never start a game again, unless one of your OF starts to struggle. Poor performance again by him last night.

He had an oppotunity with the bases loaded and 1 out and did nothing.

This team needs a healthy Donaldson in the lineup to have any chance this season.

[Tanner]

I think most people would rather see Grichuk in the OF than MOrales at DH, but baed on the current roster and how each player is performing, you need to keep Teoscar in the lineup. It's going to come down to Morales versus Grichuk, and I think we know which direction Gibby will go, and I don't blame him. He's trying to win games. Grichuk has been awful, and by the time the hot streak comes, it might be too late. The Jays need to win these games against NYY and BOS (and MIN right after that since they are a WC rival).

[Schad]

Went and looked through the individual plays this morning sorted by xwOBA, and it's what I expected. Yes he's gotten way under some fly balls and even when he hits those 105MPH+ the xwOBA is almost zero, so his xwOBA does not stem from hard-hit pop ups or easy outs. It's the 105MPH balls hit at 21 degree launch angles that aren't falling in. He's hit 5 balls 100MPH+ between 20 and 40 degree launch angles that have been caught. The expected batting average on those 5 was .650 and to give it a more recognizable value rather than an abstract xwOBA, it's the equivalent of missing out on 1 HR, 3 doubles, and 1 flyout. You get the idea. Those are just the 5 most unlucky balls he's hit, there are alot more where he's gotten really bad luck, including a few grounders and a line drive. And it's not like he's getting good luck to balance this out, which you'd expect to happen over the course of a season.

It wasn't a shot at Grichuk, it was a comment on the fact that he's operating in the deep end of the variance pool. Those high-angle, hard-hit flyballs are monstrously variable for two reasons: one, they're pretty close to all-or-nothing, because unless they hit the wall they're likely to either be caught or leave the park, and there's a huge amount of variability in expected outcome between launch angles. A ball hit with a 100mph EV at 30 degrees has about a 50% chance of being a home run, per previous results; at 37 degrees, that drops by half, and at around 40 degrees it's halved again. Grichuk has a lot of those high-angle, hard-hit balls, so he's absolutely getting unlucky that most have stayed in the yard, but that's part and parcel of operating in the swingiest bit of the expected results pool, and magnified by a smaller sample than most hitters would have at this point given that 40% of his PAs have ended without the ball in play.

[Skin Blues]

Went and looked through the individual plays this morning sorted by xwOBA, and it's what I expected. Yes he's gotten way under some fly balls and even when he hits those 105MPH+ the xwOBA is almost zero, so his xwOBA does not stem from hard-hit pop ups or easy outs. It's the 105MPH balls hit at 21 degree launch angles that aren't falling in. He's hit 5 balls 100MPH+ between 20 and 40 degree launch angles that have been caught. The expected batting average on those 5 was .650 and to give it a more recognizable value rather than an abstract xwOBA, it's the equivalent of missing out on 1 HR, 3 doubles, and 1 flyout. You get the idea. Those are just the 5 most unlucky balls he's hit, there are alot more where he's gotten really bad luck, including a few grounders and a line drive. And it's not like he's getting good luck to balance this out, which you'd expect to happen over the course of a season.

It wasn't a shot at Grichuk, it was a comment on the fact that he's operating in the deep end of the variance pool. Those high-angle, hard-hit flyballs are monstrously variable for two reasons: one, they're pretty close to all-or-nothing, because unless they hit the wall they're likely to either be caught or leave the park, and there's a huge amount of variability in expected outcome between launch angles. A ball hit with a 100mph EV at 30 degrees has about a 50% chance of being a home run, per previous results; at 37 degrees, that drops by half, and at around 40 degrees it's halved again. Grichuk has a lot of those high-angle, hard-hit balls, so he's absolutely getting unlucky that most have stayed in the yard, but that's part and parcel of operating in the swingiest bit of the expected results pool, and magnified by a smaller sample than most hitters would have at this point given that 40% of his PAs have ended without the ball in play.

Definitely, there's a big swing in value between a HR (2+ wOBA points) and a fly out (0 wOBA points). But over large samples the good luck and bad luck even out; that's why it's luck. High variance isn't a bad thing. There are certain situations you don't want an all-or-nothing guy to be hitting, but the same can be said for many types of hitters. He's not perfect, so yeah he's hitting too many popups, and he's whiffing in the zone a little bit more than usual (though not as much as Bryce Harper...). These are minor issues that on their own are not a concern. Not saying you believe Grichuk is a bust, but it's obviously the overall sentiment here and I'm just trying to make it clear that he's actually been hitting pretty well.

[Schad]

Definitely, there's a big swing in value between a HR (2+ wOBA points) and a fly out (0 wOBA points). But over large samples the good luck and bad luck even out; that's why it's luck. High variance isn't a bad thing. There are certain situations you don't want an all-or-nothing guy to be hitting, but the same can be said for many types of hitters. He's not perfect, so yeah he's hitting too many popups, and he's whiffing in the zone a little bit more than usual. But these are minor issues that on their own are not a concern. Not saying you believe Grichuk is a bust, but it's obviously the overall sentiment here and I'm just trying to make it clear that he's actually been hitting pretty well.

Yeah, on the flyouts it wasn't a criticism, more an explanation for why his expected/actual results differed so wildly. There's still enough conflicting information that I'd be really hesitant to declare him anything, at this point...at the end of the year I'd expect that he'll fall at a wRC+ somewhere between 90 and 115, but the data to date has enough "cause for concern" items and enough "reason for optimism" bits that we just kinda have to see how it shakes out.

[Kinger95]

Good lord. How is anyone defending grishuk!!!! Have u watched a friggin game!

He’s batting under .100

And you quote how unlucky he’s been on like 4/5 hits . WHO CARES!! even if he had maile luck on those hard hit balls he’s still batting like .150 , it’s the 300 strike outs he’s gonna have and the fact he looks like a space cadet at the plate half the time that make him hard to roll out as the starting RF every night especially when we have capable replacements available that would give us much better chances at winning. If granderson takes his 4 ab’s from last nights game we win most likely. I’m not saying place him on waivers or whatever but dude needs to sit for awhile

[Skin Blues]

Take a deep breath! haha