Toronto Blue, Sucks vs. Boston Red Sox June 21-23

[Schad]

42 of our remaining 87 games are against the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox. But then there's 13 against the Orioles and 7 against the Royals, so we can't quite pencil ourselves in for 30 or fewer wins on the season just yet.

[BigLeagueChew]

Sogard is a wizard.

[So_Fresh]

Tough stretch of games coming up against Boston, Tampa and the Yankees. Going to get ugly folks!

Aside from our young players developing, if we do finish last in our division i'd say this season has been a failure. When you finish last in your division and you have a chance to break a team record for losses that's pretty bad. Just puts that much more pressure on Shatkins and Montoyo for next season. Once Stroman, Sanchez, Smoak and Giles are traded I just dont see how this team will be better next season.

[So_Fresh]

Sogard's on FIRE!!!!

[So_Fresh]

Grichuk with 14hrs so far this season. nice! just wish his batting avg was 50 points higher.

[Schad]

Worth noting: Thornton has basically been FB/SL/CT tonight...his CB/CH haven't been present. Statistically, the FB/SL have been good on the year, while the CH has been average, and the CB/CT have been poor. One of the little subtexts has been whether they'd shorten his arsenal at some point, or let him keep playing around with five pitches and see what combinations might stick.

No idea whether it's team-driven or just what he's feeling but the three-pitch combination has been working, even if the cutter on paper has been his worst pitch this season.

[Schad]

Sogard is the dumped-oppo-single king.

[So_Fresh]

what's wrong with D. Jansen? Man does he suck. can't buy a hit.

[BigLeagueChew]

Sogard is the dumped-oppo-single king.

.303/.371 /.503 slashline with an .873 OPS and his OPS was .406 as a utility guy last year.

[jaymeister15]

I know this game means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but why would you call a pitch out in a tie game with the go ahead run on base? I’ve never gone through the numbers, but feel like a pitch out is almost never the optimal play.

[Schad]

Sogard is the dumped-oppo-single king.

.303/.371 /.503 slashline with an .873 OPS and his OPS was .406 as a utility guy last year.

Eric Sogard 2010 - 2018: 471st out of 509 in wRC+ among hitters with 1000 PAs, 484th out of 509 in HRs.

Eric Sogard 2019, as a damned 33 year old: just the very definition of a competent leadoff hitter, plus 20-a-year pop for kicks. On par with Joc Peterson and Javier Baez as an offensive force.

Baseball is weird and inexplicable.

[So_Fresh]

Brutal...

Sent from my LM-Q710.FGN using RealGM mobile app

[Natural11]

I wonder if they can talk Jansen into Lasik. Either he's not seeing the ball or he just doesn't have the hand-eye coordination to hit in the big leagues. He's swinging at fastballs and not coming close to putting the barrel on them. Let's swap Jansen and Mcquire for a while and see if some change can get either guy going.

[Lateral Quicks]

Somehow Hernandez scored 3 runs without getting a hit. He may never do that again, even if he plays another 10 years.

Jansen definitely needs a change a scenery.

Is Eric Sogard going to be our lone representative at the all-star game? He's got 200 PAs now and just keeps on going.

[Wo1verine]

Does participating in the HR derby really mess up your swing or is that a myth?

[manjusaka]

I wonder if they can talk Jansen into Lasik. Either he's not seeing the ball or he just doesn't have the hand-eye coordination to hit in the big leagues. He's swinging at fastballs and not coming close to putting the barrel on them. Let's swap Jansen and Mcquire for a while and see if some change can get either guy going.

For the highlights that I saw when he was in the minor, it was the breaking balls he smashed.

[Schad]

Does participating in the HR derby really mess up your swing or is that a myth?

For the hell of it, the before/after lines of the players who competed in the 2018 derby:

Aguilar pre: .995 OPS
Aguilar post: .760 OPS
OPS diff: -.235

Hoskins pre: .819 OPS
Hoskins post: .888 OPS
OPS diff: +.069 (nice)

Bregman pre: .928 OPS
Bregman post: .922 OPS
OPS diff: -.006

Schwarber pre: .873 OPS
Schwarber post: .740 OPS
OPS diff: -.133

Muncy pre: 1.013 OPS
Muncy post: .919 OPS
OPS diff: -.094

Baez pre: .892 OPS
Baez post: .866 OPS
OPS diff: -.026

Harper pre: .833 OPS
Harper post: .972 OPS
OPS diff: +.139

Freeman pre: .938 OPS
Freeman post: .827 OPS
OPS diff: -.111

So, four of the eight declined significantly post-ASB, two were more or less the same, and two improved significantly. Which would seem to support the hypothesis, but I suspect that what is really at play is the tendency for players posting breakout power campaigns to get selected, who then revert to their norm a bit. Aguilar's the biggest dropper, but his first half last season was completely out of line with his career to date...he has always had power, but nothing even approaching his 24 HRs in 316 PAs pre-ASB. Same with Muncy, a really good hitter but probably not that good, and Schwarber's been a highly variable player to date whose overall numbers are somewhere in the middle of his pre/post ASB production.

[Schad]

Couple days after commenting on the lack of BABIP luck and in particular infield singles, we have 3 IFHs and 8 singles overall.

[dagger]

Sean Reid Foley is up, Jordan Romano is down, probably because they let the latter throw 40 pitches on Friday and now have to rest him an extra couple of days. It can't be because SRF is ready for the bigs and Romano isn't

[BigLeagueChew]

Gurriel has been very good since being called up. You always have to throw at max effort from the outfield, at 2nd it must have felt weird for him.