6 keys to success

[mawbsta]

"...it might not be time to worry just yet. After 23 games in 2015, the Blue Jays were in the basement of the division with a record of 11-12."

I read this today and thought it was worth discussion. Baseball is a game of trends, but I dont think any fan of the Jays would be content with another .500 period lasting 6 months, only to turn it around in the final 50 games. The offense was built to score runs, but is managing only top 15 standing in most offensive categories, while sitting at the top in Strike Outs and Runners Left On Base, while the relief pitching has been abysmal. Acquiring Tulo and Price cannot be understated, and that simply isn't going to happen again this summer, so this team doesn't really have any excuses to be starting similar to 2015...

I suggest the issue is really only 5 (key) guys struggling - Cecil, Storen, Martin, Tulo, Dickey and one superstar-to-be on the mend in Devon Travis.

With exception of Martin and Dickey, who do not have a great track record, Cecil, Storen and Tulo should turn this around, and the return of Devon Travis will add a much-needed spark plug to the team psyche.

Cecil and Storen are historically better than their combined 0-5 7.80era and if they had been as billed, shutting the 7th and 8th inning door, the Jays would conceivably have 6 more wins to their credit, sitting 16-7 atop the East, where we'd be gushing about a world series birth... like most i'm not overly concerned about this long-term, but I am certainly disenchanted with the early season struggle.

Tulo has been offensively discombobulated since he arrived, and The "double toe tap" is a sure sign he's not comfortable up there as he's late on fastballs right down the middle and while the power is there, he's not getting many base hits... the fact he wanted to change his swing shows that his confidence is at an all-time low - that probably has to do with the fact the bar has been raised so high playing next to all-world behometh bombers JD, Bats and EE. If he hits 25-70 and bats .225 with elite defense, that's more than most teams ever get from their SS.

Rusell Martin - let's get this straight - is NOT a superstar, even if he is paid like one. He's a career .256 hitter with some pop, a noted leader behind the plate, now on the wrong side of 30. Why Martin is a "problem" is that he's not even putting the ball in play - he's struck out 30 times in 60 plate appearances and only 4 base on balls. When he struggles the team has no options and when he is injured, there doesn't exist a quality option to replace him..

RA Dickey is a major problem for this team. My argument is three-fold. First, his acquisition was a knee-jerk reaction by Anthopolous to try and trade assets for a credible starting pitcher that cost the Jays top prospects Noah Syndergaard, and top catching prospect Travis D'Arnaud, which created the Dickey paradox. The problem at the time was Dickey was an outlier - never was a star before that 2013 season, and at his age and track record, coupled with historical precedent (every knuckleballer in the history of baseball is no more than a .500 pitchers) it should have been clear Dickey was NEVER going to be a star after that Cy Young. In fact, if you take away the 20-6 record, he's career 81-90 with an era approaching 5.00 which is pretty much what he has accomplished while with the Jays. Secondly, the Jays are forced to carry Josh Thole, who at 29, has inexplicably NEVER? learned how to swing a bat. Finally, the presence of Dickey, and accompanying 15mil salary is a roadblock for Drew Hutchinson, who at 25 and boasting an impressive 11-2 2.91 era home record in 2015, really should be part of the Jays youth infusion.

Lastly, Devon Travis whose impending return again brings hope that the Blue Jays have a franchise second baseman worthy of the vacancy left by Roberto Alomar 21 years ago... How special is DT? He hit a home run in his first ever major-league game and had 7 by the end of April. (Incumbent Ryan Goins has 8 home runs in his 4 year career to date) Travis hit .325 in April with an absurd 1.018 OPS, and won American League rookie of the month. defensively he was rock solid, with all metrics pointing to advanced range and above average hands. Most importantly, Travis was a sparkplug at the top of the lineup. His energy was infectous and the dugout was raving about his intensity and excitement, similar to Marcus Stroman. By supplanting the light-hitting, overly subdued Goins for the fiery, vastly-superior offensive Travis, the Jays add yet another key component to kickstarting the offense.

Like most fans, I am disappointed with the start, frustrated with the relief core, mystified by the lack of clutch hitting, but optimistic that this team has only scratched the surface, confident the starting pitching will be rectified soon, and steadfast that the sleeping dragon offense will soon rise to the top of the major leagues.

[first post]

[The_Hater]

You make a lot of good points but I do disagree with some of them.

I think that using BA to downgrade Martin's past accomplishments misses the point completely. Martin has been one of the top hitting Catchers in MLB over the past 8-10 years. His strengths are in getting on base (350 OBP), his decent power and he adds gold glove level defense. He's been a star for those reasons despite not having a high average. Saying he has no track record is simply wrong on every level. Compare his bat to other catchers, not other players in general and you can easily see why he's a 4 time all-star.

The other part of your argument on Martin, that we don't have a credible back-up, is the real problem. If Martin can't get out of his funk or gets injured they will have to make a move for another Catcher. I suspect that he will eventually hit, I'm far more worried about his health.

Saying Dickey doesn't have a track record is also false. Even ignoring his Cy Young season, he's been an above average starter for the past 3 seasons and finished 8-1 with a 2.80 ERA in the 2nd half of 2015. What we're seeing now is not normal for Dickey although he is a slow starter every season.

That doesn't mean that we don't have a problem with Dickey going forward. He's on the wrong side of 40 and its always possible that he's done. That's why having Chavez, Floyd and Hutch around is good. We've got far more SP depth than we did last season. I would hope that Dickey only gets about 2-3 more starts to fix himself before they make a move here.

The 2 guys I'm most worried about, both based on track record and how they look right now are Storan and Goins. Goins is less of a concern because Travis will return and Barney is a solid enough replacement as well. But he has only hit decent for exactly half a season and even the solid batting eye he started to show last season has disappeared. He might be back in AAA sooner rather than later.

Storan on the other hand was terrible the 2nd half of last season. Management banked that he'd return to his 2014 self and he clearly hasn't. Plus his track record is full of highs and lows so we might simply have the bad version around. I'm hopeful that he'll right the ship but I think it's far from a certainty.

[LLJ]

With Dickey I do think his age factors into it. He seems to start off worse and worse every season. He eventually gets into form, but he seems to take longer to do it with each passing season.

[Skin Blues]

Storen I'd start to worry about, his velocity is dipping pretty bad. I believe usually he's 2 MPH above where he's at at this point, and we're not even playing in cold weather (6 of 9 appearances indoors). Even still, nobody should be allowing that kind of hard contact. He may have to adjust from pounding the zone so much if he can't get the velocity back up. Even still, the 14.3 K-BB% that's he's at is pretty much his standard his whole career so it's not a huge problem.

Now, Russell Martin, I am really worried about. No, he's not a superstar, but he's striking out 46% of the time (his career rate is 16.6%) which leads me to believe he's either forgetting to keep his eyes open while he's standing in the box, or something is seriously wrong physically/mechanically. This is a big big problem and is not some kind of random bad luck. He's making really weak swings and still missing terribly. We will need a replacement if this keeps up through May and probably have to cut Thole and leave Martin as a backup.

Tulo's problem isn't nearly on the level Martin's is. He's taking more pitches and making contact less often in the zone which is inflating both his K% and BB%. It's a fixable problem, just a minor tweak in approach (maybe back to his old ways). He won't go back to being the 5 WAR player he was in Colorado, but we can deal with 2-3 WAR which he was last year, playing premium defense at SS that has so far not declined at all.

Cecil I wouldn't worry about at all, Dickey I'm not worried about, and the bullpen looks very good to me, early season struggles and all. Basically, Martin needs a new pair of glasses or something, and the rest looks like normal ups and downs. Not overly concerned.