Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. Toronto Blue Jays of Untreated Sewage Lagoon, June 17-20

[Schad]

!

[vaff87]

Rough start.

[Schad]

Think Biggio's going to be fairly good. He'll probably need to swing more, in general...his leave rate on pitches in the zone is a bit much, which is driving his K rate, but a well above-average walk rate and consistent hard contact should keep him in the league.

[Schad]

8 of our last 10 games will be blowouts after tonight (one way or the other), and we're on a pretty spectacular 11-32 run dating back to when we were inexplicably .500 entering the first Angels series.

[Lateral Quicks]

E-Jacked.

Turns out Edwin Jackson is terrible with or without an opener. Who knew? The front office really has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for pitching help. I'm surprised they didn't bring over a AAA re-tread or just plain AAAA type over Jackson, whose career likely should have ended 3 years ago.

[Myth11111]

Jackson had a good ERA last year.

[Yosemite Dan]

Damn it’s bad enough to watch a team spiralling into last place in the AL but after the Raptor run, it’s even more excruciating. Definitely the dog days of sports watching.September can’t come soon enough.

[Schad]

Edwin Jackson gave up his 1000th career earned run today; he's close on the heels of Felix Hernandez for sixth among active players. He's 13th in IP. It's honestly pretty impressive that he's as close to 2000 career IP as he is given that he's at 1.7 fWAR/180 IP career.

In fact, given that this is the Edwin Jackson Educational Hour now, Edwin Jackson's career fWAR rates in the bottom 5% of all pitchers in history with his innings count, behind such luminaries as Brickyard Kennedy, Firpo Marberry and Candy Cummings.

[dagger]

Damn it’s bad enough to watch a team spiralling into last place in the AL but after the Raptor run, it’s even more excruciating. Definitely the dog days of sports watching.September can’t come soon enough.

I remember watching some pretty bleak Raptor seasons. Springtime will come again

[BigLeagueChew]

Biggio

[Schad]

Biggio has seen 23 pitches in four PAs, and has swung at just 5 of them...two of which went out of the park.

[BigLeagueChew]

Biggio has seen 23 pitches in four PAs, and has swung at just 5 of them...two of which went out of the park.

#1 in lowest o-swing percentage and 5th lowest swing percentage in MLB with min 70 PAs.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=70&type=5&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=3,a

[Schad]

Also leads the majors in average distance on balls hit and his exit velo is among the better marks in the baseball.

Tiny sample of course, and I'm guessing that there's a significant adjustment coming: he's absolutely crushing fastballs, and has demonstrated the ability to leave pitches out of the zone, but he's facing a really low rate of breaking stuff thus far. 65% of the pitches faced entering today were fastballs/cutters, versus 56% for Vlad.

Easier said than done, but my guess is that he's very shortly going to face a steady diet of breaking pitches in the zone...per Statcast, the mix tonight was 54.5% fastballs, 36.4% change-ups, and 9.1% sliders (it was only 22 pitches, not 23). Vlad faced 22.2% fastballs, 44.4% sliders, and 33.3% curveballs.

[Tanner]

The Jays are probably going to save Bichette and Pearson's call ups for next year due to service time (and innings in Pearson's case), and Alford has fallen off big time as a prospect, so there really isn't anything exciting to look forward to this year. Maybe whoever we get back in trades this summer.

Thankfully the Raptors held our attention for the first 3 months of the season. This season would make Sam Hinkie blush with the amount of F's (zero) given to wins and losses, so even the next 3 months will feel like a lifetime.

[Mehar]

Top 3 pick in 2020 looks like a good bet. Let's aim for Number 1 by the end of the year.

[manjusaka]

The Jays are probably going to save Bichette and Pearson's call ups for next year due to service time (and innings in Pearson's case), and Alford has fallen off big time as a prospect, so there really isn't anything exciting to look forward to this year. Maybe whoever we get back in trades this summer.

Thankfully the Raptors held our attention for the first 3 months of the season. This season would make Sam Hinkie blush with the amount of F's (zero) given to wins and losses, so even the next 3 months will feel like a lifetime.

Guys like Biggio, Jansen, Guerrero, Tellez passed AAA exam. Bichette and Pearce haven’t. I like to see that they can handle AAA before joining the Blue Jays.

[dagger]

They won't bring up Pearson because he's pitching a 5-2 inning rotation and clearly you wouldn't bring him up until their build him up to 6-7 innings per start. So that much is clear. Bichette is just one hot streak away from being called up, providing they make space for him to play every day. One of Galvis or Sogart - both of whom have some modest trade value as cheap backup rentals - have to be moved first. Biggio can play multiple positions, but Bichette is being groomed to be am middle infield starter, so there has to be a clear pathway for him

[I_Like_Dirt]

Top 3 pick in 2020 looks like a good bet. Let's aim for Number 1 by the end of the year.

The Jays have been bad, but the Orioles are worse. The Jays took advantage of their early season bunch of batters struggling to hit .100 to drop a few to the Orioles, but with 7 games remaining against them still, the Jays still have their share of wins ahead of them.

The big perk about the Orioles being so terrible is that they're relatively inclined to give away their international bonus pool money rather than actually scouting players to spend it on, so the Jays may yet be able to pull off another DSJ trade.

[BigLeagueChew]

Coming through the minor leagues, Biggio prioritized control of the strike zone, because he felt that he was getting himself out more than being bested by opposing pitchers. He got sick of playing into their hands by chasing.

"If I'm chasing that pitch a hair off I'm grounding out to second,” he says. “Or I could take that pitch, be a little more patient and finally find a pitch I can actually drive."

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/cavan-biggios-approach-is-almost-perfect-151655420.html

[BigLeagueChew]

Biggio's slashline today is .233/378/.517/.895. Even his numbers against lefties are encouraging .294/.368/.294/.663 in very small sample of 19 PAs, has good takes against them. This team may be a little more watchable next year after we add a couple more hitters from the minors.