RealGM

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/will-regret-moving-sanchez-bullpen-gregg-zaun-ts/

I would have to agree with Zaun on this one. Sanchez has shown no indication of arm fatigue and slowing down. He's the best pitcher in the AL and you plan on replacing him with Liriano??

They haven't even moved him to the bullpen as of yet. Also... Nobody cares what Zaun says.

I just don't know how they feel like Sanchez is so much more likely to avoid injury in a high leverage relief role. Max effort pitching + having to warm up to get into a game is still fairly taxing. You MAY be able to manage his outings better but it still isn't some sort of guarantee that he is going to be safer there.

Sanchez hasn't shown fatigue based on velocity or pitch movement. He is still executing his stuff as well as he has all year. Perhaps skipping him here and there is a better option.

And I know the decision on him *should* be independent of the team's success or lack thereof. Here is a crazy concept, should it? Seeing teams dangle top prospects for rentals makes me really think... what is the difference gambling on Sanchez being fine unless he shows some sign of needing to be given a blow or shut down. Crazy, I know.

vaff87 wrote:They haven't even moved him to the bullpen as of yet. Also... Nobody cares what Zaun says.

Zaun... meh. Atkins hinted at it earlier.

Zaun actually went as far as saying we won't make the playoffs because of this whole thing.

If he does go to the bullpen then we will never find out what would happen if he stayed in the rotation. If Liriano goes 0-10 in his spot with 6.0 ERA and we miss the playoffs then it will be easy to blame it on this decision.

BigLeagueChew wrote:Zaun actually went as far as saying we won't make the playoffs because of this whole thing.

It's not that ridiculous a thing to say..3/5 of our rotation would now be Liriano/Stroman/Dickey, not exactly playoff calibre.

vaff87 wrote:They haven't even moved him to the bullpen as of yet. Also... Nobody cares what Zaun says.

Love hi or hate him, Zaun is the only one on the air with enough guts to state his opinion instead of toeing the company line and agreeing with every decision management and the coaching staff makes.

As for this particular opinion, I don't see that it's the wrong one. He is heading to the bullpen at some point and a lot of people don't agree with it.

And they could just as easily regret not putting him in the bullpen. I don't envy their decision, but there's no way to know right now.

What I do know, though, is that this team had their best season in 22 years in 2015 with a rotation worse than the one they have right now and Sanchez in the bullpen.

Raptor_Guy wrote:

BigLeagueChew wrote:Zaun actually went as far as saying we won't make the playoffs because of this whole thing.

It's not that ridiculous a thing to say..3/5 of our rotation would now be Liriano/Stroman/Dickey, not exactly playoff calibre.

I don't think you could say the Orioles or Red Sox staff is better than ours just from removing Sanchez and adding Liriano. Offensively the Red Sox have been better than us to this point and we have been better than the O's.

You also have to wonder how many more runs we might save from a reliable bullpen for once, if some of them are better than whoever was being thrown out there.

In another segment Zaun also says how he thinks the Blue Jays are now a better team. Kinda contradictory.

it is possible I guess...

F Zaun and F chasing a playoff run at the risk of ruining a young arm.

If bullpen or reduced number of starts is the right move you make it.

Why not just give Liriano a spot start here and there?

But if they do move Aaron to the pen I don't think they'll regret it. Pretty sure Sanchez will be lights out from the pen.

Randle McMurphy wrote:And they could just as easily regret not putting him in the bullpen. I don't envy their decision, but there's no way to know right now.

What I do know, though, is that this team had their best season in 22 years in 2015 with a rotation worse than the one they have right now and Sanchez in the bullpen.

Over the remainder of the season, assuming no change in their respective numbers, the difference between Liriano and Sanchez is about 10 earned runs. That's not insignificant, but only in a finite number of circumstances will it actually affect whether we make the playoffs or win the division. Similarly, the degree to which this actually protects his arm might be negligible or nonexistent; we'll never really know.

Both options seem fairly rational to me; I can't really begrudge either direction.

S.W.A.N wrote:F Zaun and F chasing a playoff run at the risk of ruining a young arm.

If bullpen or reduced number of starts is the right move you make it.

His arm could get blown out in high leverage situations out of the pen. If they just shut him down completely then maybe it makes a little sense but this strategy makes no sense to me especially in a year where we could win.

Giving him an extra days rest here and there and limiting him to 80-90 pitches per start wouldn't be any more dangerous than moving him to the pen.

Doing this with Sanchez just seems so random and arbitrary. Why are they not doing it with Stroman?

I absolutely hate this move. In my mind it's the equivalent to me not working from October to January because I might get in an accident but I'll still drive to the grocery store and to the movies.

How does sending him to the BP make any sense. If you take him out of the rotation then you shut him down if you are so worried about an injury. That was the point of it to begin with. Taking him out of the rotation is like saying "we're worried about wearing out your arm but not really since we are putting you in the bullpen where you may be pitching 3 or 4 days a week and constantly warming up in the BP while dramatically hurting our chances of getting into the playoffs because we moved our ace out of the rotation"

Whether shutting him down or not is not the dumb decision. It's actually putting him in the BP afterwards. How does that make any sense? If the Jays can get into the playoffs then Sanchez will be taxing the arm even more so. Don't be half assed about it. Keep him as a starter or shut him down. There's no in between in this type of situation.

Yosemite Dan wrote:How does sending him to the BP make any sense. If you take him out of the rotation then you shut him down if you are so worried about an injury.

Fatigue. The concern is that a fatiguing pitcher's mechanics can start to break down, which in turn places increased stress on their arm. While the bullpen is more of a max-effort delivery, the belief is that it's easier to remain mechanically sound over one inning than throwing 90-100 pitches.

Schad wrote:

Yosemite Dan wrote:How does sending him to the BP make any sense. If you take him out of the rotation then you shut him down if you are so worried about an injury.

Fatigue. The concern is that a fatiguing pitcher's mechanics can start to break down, which in turn places increased stress on their arm. While the bullpen is more of a max-effort delivery, the belief is that it's easier to remain mechanically sound over one inning than throwing 90-100 pitches.

True if the pitcher is showing signs of fatigue which he is showing no sign of. They're doing this just for the sake of doing it because apparently this "Sanchez is fragile" has taken on a life of it's own because the media perpetuated it. Even last year it wasn't an arm issue, it was overall body soreness. Sanchez bulked up this year and it's paying off in spades. He has an easy delivery and has never had arm issues.

Meanwhile there apparently is zero concern about Stroman whose delivery looks alot more taxing on his arm and pitched only about 50 innings last year and never close to 200 innings in his career. There is a much longer list of young pitchers who went from less than 100 innings to 200 innings the very next season who exhibited zero problems doing it versus pitchers who blew out thier arm because of it. Hentgen, Key and Wells being prime Blue Jay examples.If a pitcher is genetically pre-disposed to having arm issues early in thier career then no amount of paranoid babying is gonna stop that. Hutchinson is the poster boy for that.

If Sanchez is destined to have Tommy John surgery then sending him to the BP for 2 months is not gonna prevent that.

S.W.A.N wrote:F Zaun and F chasing a playoff run at the risk of ruining a young arm.

If bullpen or reduced number of starts is the right move you make it.

Why is everyone convinced that leaving him in as a starter is going to ruin his arm? Other than teams have becoming overly cautious in many instances and are feeding the propaganda machine to appease the fans, please show me the evidence?

The_Hater wrote:

S.W.A.N wrote:F Zaun and F chasing a playoff run at the risk of ruining a young arm.

If bullpen or reduced number of starts is the right move you make it.

Why is everyone convinced that leaving him in as a starter is going to ruin his arm? Other than teams have becoming overly cautious in many instances and are feeding the propaganda machine to appease the fans, please show me the evidence?

There is no evidence with a big enough sample size to mean anything. For some unknown reason Jay's management has singled out Sanchez as a guy who can throw 140 innings as a starter and maybe another 30-35 or so out of the bullpen but can't throw 200-210 as a starter?

There is no argument anyone could make that would change my opinion on this move at this point with how Sanchez has pitched. Had his fastball lost a couple miles, he was missing the strike zone at an inordinate rate or getting hit around I could understand erring on the side of caution but none of that is true which makes this move more infuriating.

Sanchez is 24, not 18. Is the risk of his arm blowing out really that high? He hasn't shown any signs of fatigue.

I'd be more worried about what moving him back and forth between the rotation and bullpen will do to his mechanics.