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

Brinbe · Post #21 » by **Brinbe** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:53 pm

Trout in town, stro on the mound. Attendance is booming!

Post #22 » by **Schad** » Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:08 pm

BigLeagueChew wrote: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.

I'd also expect that we'll be going after less bargain-basement fill-ins...we'll still be buying mid-market, and aiming for players who can be flipped, but we'll have little money on the books. If we assuming that Stroman, Smoak, Giles and Galvis are moved before 2020, it could be $55m or less in committed salary, including Tulo.

Don't get me wrong: we're still going to suck. But it should be a more enjoyable suck.

Black Watch · Post #23 » by **Black Watch** » Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:42 pm

I_Like_Dirt wrote:
Mehar wrote: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.

How bad are the Orioles this year? The current record for most home runs allowed in a season is 258. The 2019 Orioles are on pace to allow 326.

BigLeagueChew · Post #24 » by **BigLeagueChew** » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:42 pm

Trout's good.

Post #25 » by **Schad** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:32 am

...and Sanchez isn't. Tough to be a good starter when you can't miss bats and struggle to throw strikes.

So_Fresh · Post #26 » by **So_Fresh** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:35 am

Trade Sanchez for a bag of baseballs and a bat! Garbage.

Lateral Quicks · Post #27 » by **Lateral Quicks** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:37 am

Time to put Sanchez into the bullpen, and insert Maile into the rotation.

GameChannel · Post #28 » by **GameChannel** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:06 am

Thoughts on Tellez?

Post #29 » by **Schad** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:33 am

GameChannel wrote:Thoughts on Tellez?

Needs to find the middle ground between AAA Tellez (where he drew walks at a good rate, didn't strike out a tonne, but lacked power) and MLB Tellez (where he doesn't walk much, strikes out far too much, but crushes dingers). His plate discipline is among the very worst in the league, and his numbers against breaking/offspeed stuff are utterly atrocious.

If he can lay off those pitches (golfing them into the stands, as he did tonight, is great but really difficult to do), he has an outside shot to be a major league regular. If he can't, it's hard to see him producing enough to offset the disadvantages that come with being 1B-only.

One ray of sunshine there: he has been surprisingly effective LvL. Some of that is probably just noise, but he's making enough hard contact there to suggest that it won't be what makes or breaks him.

GameChannel · Post #30 » by **GameChannel** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:12 am

Schad wrote:
GameChannel wrote:Thoughts on Tellez?

Needs to find the middle ground between AAA Tellez (where he drew walks at a good rate, didn't strike out a tonne, but lacked power) and MLB Tellez (where he doesn't walk much, strikes out far too much, but crushes dingers). His plate discipline is among the very worst in the league, and his numbers against breaking/offspeed stuff are utterly atrocious.

If he can lay off those pitches (golfing them into the stands, as he did tonight, is great but really difficult to do), he has an outside shot to be a major league regular. If he can't, it's hard to see him producing enough to offset the disadvantages that come with being 1B-only.

One ray of sunshine there: he has been surprisingly effective LvL. Some of that is probably just noise, but he's making enough hard contact there to suggest that it won't be what makes or breaks him.

I'm looking at the OBP numbers across the bluejays lineup. No one (barring Sogard to an extent) have anywhere close to good OBP numbers. I know Tellez is striking out a ton. Could it be because of the batting coach and the strategy by Montoya? I don't see a whole lot of patient hitting approach across that lineup. Or is it just bad roster construction?

Post #31 » by **Schad** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:37 am

GameChannel wrote:I'm looking at the OBP numbers across the bluejays lineup. No one (barring Sogard to an extent) have anywhere close to good OBP numbers. I know Tellez is striking out a ton. Could it be because of the batting coach and the strategy by Montoya? I don't see a whole lot of patient hitting approach across that lineup. Or is it just bad roster construction?

Mostly it's just that we don't have a lot of players who are good at baseball, which is dragging our average down, and with it our OBP. Our walk rate is actually one of our (grading on a serious curve) strong suits:

BB%: 21st
K%: 25th
ISO: 22nd
wRC+: 27th

The good news is that most of our long-termers are actually fairly patient. Biggio's elite in that department. Vlad's been average to date, but was elite in the minors. I've been critical of Gurriel in the past, but his walk rate has ticked up a bit (though his K rate has, as well). Jansen's walk rate is good, even if there's still a massive gap between his expected overall production (below average) and actual production (mediocre hitting pitcher). Given the players who have/will bubbled up, I'd expect that we'll carry a pretty reasonable OBP in the not too distant future, the likes of Grichuk (and perhaps Tellez) notwithstanding.

The strikeouts are a big problem, as is the fact that we're posting the worst BABIP that the major leagues has seen in 28 years (coincidentally, the only other team to post a BABIP below .270 in the past 20 seasons? The 2010 Jays). Maybe there's an empirical reason we're so bad on balls in play, but I'm struggling to see it...we pop out a lot, and don't generate many infield hits, two things that work against BABIP, but we're middle of the pack in line drives, which are the biggest drivers of base hits, and we make solid/hard contact at a reasonable rate. So it seems like that it's something that will normalize a bit, pulling both our batting average and OBP up as the season progresses.

manjusaka · Post #32 » by **manjusaka** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 1:01 pm

I believe we’re trying to hit the ball in the air like Teoscar and Grichuk, so there will not be many infield hit because of that. Ichiro was a master for infields hit by slapping the ball to the ground and run to the first base as fast as he could.

BigLeagueChew · Post #33 » by **BigLeagueChew** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:20 pm

manjusaka · Post #34 » by **manjusaka** » Thu Jun 20, 2019 11:41 pm

As for BABIP, I think it has a chance which it won't normalize. BABIP may be like launch angle, is a trait of a hitter.

For example, EE had .262 BABIP from 12-16, and Bautista had .259 BABIP from 10-16,
both player were in prime with us during the timespan.

Whereas, guys like Votto, Miguel Cabrera and Trout, they all have a career BABIP around .350.

Those are large enough sample size.

So, if our current hitters are built with low BABIP profile, the numbers may very well stay the same for the year.

BigLeagueChew · Post #35 » by **BigLeagueChew** » Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:02 am

kawhi at the game

polo007 · Post #36 » by **polo007** » Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:34 am

BigLeagueChew wrote:kawhi at the game

Read on Twitter

vaff87 · Post #37 » by **vaff87** » Fri Jun 21, 2019 4:05 am

manjusaka wrote:As for BABIP, I think it has a chance which it won't normalize. BABIP may be like launch angle, is a trait of a hitter.

For example, EE had .262 BABIP from 12-16, and Bautista had .259 BABIP from 10-16,
both player were in prime with us during the timespan.

Whereas, guys like Votto, Miguel Cabrera and Trout, they all have a career BABIP around .350.

Those are large enough sample size.

So, if our current hitters are built with low BABIP profile, the numbers may very well stay the same for the year.

It’s pretty obvious what the difference between those hitters is. EE and Bautista are dead pull hitters, so teams used the shift. Votto, Trout, and Cabrera hit the ball to all fields, so the defense is more spread out.

Post #38 » by **Schad** » Fri Jun 21, 2019 4:55 am

Biggest difference there is line drive rate, I suspect. From 2012-2019, Votto had a LD% of 26.7%; Cabrera at 24.3%; Trout at 22.2% (though paired with excellent speed; his infield hit rate is one of the highest in baseball in that span). Bautista was 442nd out of 445 players in line drive rate, Edwin was 335th. Given that players are hitting about .676 on line drives in play, versus .119 for flyballs and .230 on grounders, that's probably the primary driver.

However, as stated, our line drive rate is a bit below average, but not much. Our pull rate might play into it somewhat, as our BABIP on grounders is well below average. I doubt that's all of it, however; the Giants are the only team with a worse BABIP on grounders, and they're the second-least pull-happy team in baseball. We're also well below average on line drives and flyballs, too. Maybe we should be making sacrifices again.

JN · Post #39 » by JN » Fri Jun 21, 2019 5:04 am

I remember as an Expos fans in the late 80's when we brought cheap old veteran starters with issues that seemed done and many turned it around -- Dennis Martinez, Pascual Perez, and Oil Can Boyd.

The lessen is that Instead of Clayton Richard and Edwin Jackson, the Jays should be looking for former drug addicts.

Post #40 » by **Schad** » Fri Jun 21, 2019 10:03 am

JN wrote:I remember as an Expos fans in the late 80's when we brought cheap old veteran starters with issues that seemed done and many turned it around -- Dennis Martinez, Pascual Perez, and Oil Can Boyd.

The lessen is that Instead of Clayton Richard and Edwin Jackson, the Jays should be looking for former drug addicts.

Or give peyote to Clayton Richard. I see no flaws with this plan.