Ray or Semien

[JTT]

$20m AAV for four years is more than I'd do for Ray. For what it's worth, his career per-180 IP fWAR is equivalent to a $21.5m AAV give or take, but it's been lower in the past four seasons, and his walk rate this year is so anomalous compared to his career numbers that I really question how much stock we can put in it.

He's been a great bargain this year, and it's certainly possible that he has ironed out the flaws in his delivery that made him so wild in the past, but boy howdy you wouldn't want to get stuck with four years if his loses his release point again.

I agree. I believe in regression toward the mean. I can't see how he can maintain this type of performace going forward. I'd be okay with $20m AAV for 4 years. I'd say we have an advantage in signing him, since Ray has talked about how he credits Pete Walker for the repair job he has done to his pitching.

[JTT]

Sigh…I’m a ball boy for a reason.

I think going into his age 30 season, he’ll be looking for five years. The Zac Wheeler comp 5/110 has flaws but I think it might be close

[Schad]

Sigh…I’m a ball boy for a reason.

I think going into his age 30 season, he’ll be looking for five years. The Zac Wheeler comp 5/110 has flaws but I think it might be close

I just realized that your account is almost as old as mine. Definitely appreciate wanting to get a feel for the place before commenting, but waiting a full 15 years might've be excessive.

[JTT]

I might have commitment issues

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

Blue Jays using different approaches to re-signing Semien and Ray - Sportsnet.ca

2:00 | September 5, 2021

Hazel Mae and Jeff Blair discuss Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien's futures with the Toronto Blue Jays, and updates on Julian Merryweather and Ryan Borucki.

[The_Hater]

I’m glad to see the Jays are trying to sign both players. Hopefully that means there’s a nice payroll bump coming next season.

But how unfortunate that the 2nd and 3rd best players on the team are both only signed to 1 year contracts.

[bluerap23]

Ray seems to have figured it out. He has been one of the most dominant pitchers in MLB and will easily command upwards of 4/80. I will be extremely disappointed if we are outbid and cheap out on a #5 type starter. It is great that we were able to get him at such a low cost and turn him into this pitcher, but retaining him is essential if we want to compete next year.

[The_Hater]

Ray seems to have figured it out. He has been one of the most dominant pitchers in MLB and will easily command upwards of 4/80. I will be extremely disappointed if we are outbid and cheap out on a #5 type starter. It is great that we were able to get him at such a low cost and turn him into this pitcher, but retaining him is essential if we want to compete next year.

The Jays have money to spend and they want to compete for titles the next 3 years so I can’t imagine they’re not going to cheap out now. They kept the payroll low the past 2-3 years planning for this. The fact they tried to extend Semien this past week tells me that they’re going after both.

[JTT]

I wonder if Semien will be harder than Ray. That pull of being a shortstop… and they get paid more than second basemen. Ray on the other hand figured it out while working with the current staff. Hopefully, there’s some degree of kinship there.

[Schad]

Ray seems to have figured it out. He has been one of the most dominant pitchers in MLB and will easily command upwards of 4/80. I will be extremely disappointed if we are outbid and cheap out on a #5 type starter. It is great that we were able to get him at such a low cost and turn him into this pitcher, but retaining him is essential if we want to compete next year.

'Seems' is doing a fair bit of work there, though. Ray's been, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, a pretty consistent starter: a #3/#4 guy who racks up Ks and walks and is overall a shade above average. And then in 2020 he was egregious, and 2021 he is (save for some HR woes) close to elite.

At 29, has he figured things out in a way that can be maintained over 4+ years? Definitely possible. Also possible is that he's 2021's Patrick Corbin, who went from being a #3/#4 guy to two excellent seasons at ages 28 and 29, before being iffy last year and disastrous this year, with 3 years/$82m remaining.

There's a price point at which you keep him, and there's a price point at which you don't, and the price point at which you don't is one where you're expected to pay for his 2021 performance while ignoring how much of an outlier his walk rate is relative to the 800+ major league IP he threw prior to this ear.

[radeonboy]

Quality starting pitching is a must when you can't rely on your bullpen. Semien has been great but pitching IMO is more important.

[JTT]

Ray seems to have figured it out. He has been one of the most dominant pitchers in MLB and will easily command upwards of 4/80. I will be extremely disappointed if we are outbid and cheap out on a #5 type starter. It is great that we were able to get him at such a low cost and turn him into this pitcher, but retaining him is essential if we want to compete next year.

'Seems' is doing a fair bit of work there, though. Ray's been, with the exception of 2020 and 2021, a pretty consistent starter: a #3/#4 guy who racks up Ks and walks and is overall a shade above average. And then in 2020 he was egregious, and 2021 he is (save for some HR woes) close to elite.

At 29, has he figured things out in a way that can be maintained over 4+ years? Definitely possible. Also possible is that he's 2021's Patrick Corbin, who went from being a #3/#4 guy to two excellent seasons at ages 28 and 29, before being iffy last year and disastrous this year, with 3 years/$82m remaining.

There's a price point at which you keep him, and there's a price point at which you don't, and the price point at which you don't is one where you're expected to pay for his 2021 performance while ignoring how much of an outlier his walk rate is relative to the 800+ major league IP he threw prior to this ear.

If Ray is just close to elite, I’m awfully glad that I don’t have to live up to your high standards

[Schad]

If Ray is just close to elite, I’m awfully glad that I don’t have to live up to your high standards

Depends on one's preferred metric. He's 9th in fWAR among starting pitchers, 1st in bWAR, 12th in FIP, and 16th in xwOBA/xERA. There's no question that he has been very good, but whether he's belongs in that top tier of guys who deserve Cy Young votes depends on whether or not you think he's gotten a bit lucky. He's really unusual among the top 30 or so starters in that he gives up a lot of hard contact, but offsets it with one of the best K-BB ratios in baseball.

And it's a question of whether he can sustain that, given that he walked more people from 2015-2020 than anyone in baseball (he was 34th in innings pitched in that span, so it's not like they just accumulated because he was such a workhorse, either).

[JTT]

If Ray is just close to elite, I’m awfully glad that I don’t have to live up to your high standards

Depends on one's preferred metric. He's 9th in fWAR among starting pitchers, 1st in bWAR, 12th in FIP, and 16th in xwOBA/xERA. There's no question that he has been very good, but whether he's belongs in that top tier of guys who deserve Cy Young votes depends on whether or not you think he's gotten a bit lucky. He's really unusual among the top 30 or so starters in that he gives up a lot of hard contact, but offsets it with one of the best K-BB ratios in baseball.

And it's a question of whether he can sustain that, given that he walked more people from 2015-2020 than anyone in baseball (he was 34th in innings pitched in that span, so it's not like they just accumulated because he was such a workhorse, either).

Thanks for this. I was perusing baseball savant last night to make sure I understood all of those acronyms and came across hard hit percentage where he ranks 60th (barrels/pa%). Interesting stuff. It made me curious to see if he has always given up hard contact but didn’t find year over year data.

Does anybody happen to know (for an advanced stat neophyte) if there’s a positive correlation between fly balls and barrels hit? That is, do ground ball pitchers give up less hard contact?

[dagger]

Let's look at the competition for Semien. He's having an exceptional career but he's also 31. The middle infield FA class is deep, very deep. For example, how would you compare the contract range for Semien with Javier Baez of the Mets, who is three years younger. He, too, has a nice track record. His 31 homers this season haven't even reached his career high (34).

https://www.mlb.com/player/javier-baez-595879

[Parataxis]

If Ray is just close to elite, I’m awfully glad that I don’t have to live up to your high standards

Depends on one's preferred metric. He's 9th in fWAR among starting pitchers, 1st in bWAR, 12th in FIP, and 16th in xwOBA/xERA. There's no question that he has been very good, but whether he's belongs in that top tier of guys who deserve Cy Young votes depends on whether or not you think he's gotten a bit lucky. He's really unusual among the top 30 or so starters in that he gives up a lot of hard contact, but offsets it with one of the best K-BB ratios in baseball.

And it's a question of whether he can sustain that, given that he walked more people from 2015-2020 than anyone in baseball (he was 34th in innings pitched in that span, so it's not like they just accumulated because he was such a workhorse, either).

Thanks for this. I was perusing baseball savant last night to make sure I understood all of those acronyms and came across hard hit percentage where he ranks 60th (barrels/pa%). Interesting stuff. It made me curious to see if he has always given up hard contact but didn’t find year over year data.

Does anybody happen to know (for an advanced stat neophyte) if there’s a positive correlation between fly balls and barrels hit? That is, do ground ball pitchers give up less hard contact?

AFAIK, the Barrel stat takes launch angle into account (it's a factor of both exit velocity and launch angle) so largely barrels are not going to be ground balls, almost by definition.

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/barrel

[JTT]

Depends on one's preferred metric. He's 9th in fWAR among starting pitchers, 1st in bWAR, 12th in FIP, and 16th in xwOBA/xERA. There's no question that he has been very good, but whether he's belongs in that top tier of guys who deserve Cy Young votes depends on whether or not you think he's gotten a bit lucky. He's really unusual among the top 30 or so starters in that he gives up a lot of hard contact, but offsets it with one of the best K-BB ratios in baseball.

And it's a question of whether he can sustain that, given that he walked more people from 2015-2020 than anyone in baseball (he was 34th in innings pitched in that span, so it's not like they just accumulated because he was such a workhorse, either).

Thanks for this. I was perusing baseball savant last night to make sure I understood all of those acronyms and came across hard hit percentage where he ranks 60th (barrels/pa%). Interesting stuff. It made me curious to see if he has always given up hard contact but didn’t find year over year data.

Does anybody happen to know (for an advanced stat neophyte) if there’s a positive correlation between fly balls and barrels hit? That is, do ground ball pitchers give up less hard contact?

AFAIK, the Barrel stat takes launch angle into account (it's a factor of both exit velocity and launch angle) so largely barrels are not going to be ground balls, almost by definition.

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/statcast/barrel

Fantastic. Thanks for this.

[COY0607]

The market may be somewhat different for both. Semien is virtually guaranteed $100M+, maybe $120M+ aka Springer type deal.

Ray, I think, may be lot less expensive. He's had 1 good (great) season, age is 30+ (type of pitcher who likely will not age well), limited variety of pitches, and in a year with good pitching FA available. He could potentially cost a lot less

If Ray can be had at a 3 year type deal, I would take that and run. Maybe trade Ryu to make up the $$??

Semien is close to being priced out, and this offence is strong enough to be dominant without him. I just can't see the FO signing another $20M++ /year guy when you have Vladdy, Bo, Teoscar coming up for contracts soon, and Springer already signed.

[JTT]

The only thing that would ever get in his way at this point is health because physically, mechanically, pitch arsenal, what he’s doing on the mound, what he brings to the table every day, is not going away.”

An interesting quote from Pete Walker on Robbie Ray and whether his success is repeatable. Reading elsewhere in the piece, it definitely feels like the Jays think he has his delivery figured out. If they believe this, will they back up the truck?

https://theathletic.com/2835591/2021/09/20/how-blue-jays-robbie-ray-went-from-a-walk-machine-to-a-cy-young-candidate-hes-willed-himself-to-this-point/

[The_Hater]

The only thing that would ever get in his way at this point is health because physically, mechanically, pitch arsenal, what he’s doing on the mound, what he brings to the table every day, is not going away.”

An interesting quote from Pete Walker on Robbie Ray and whether his success is repeatable. Reading elsewhere in the piece, it definitely feels like the Jays think he has his delivery figured out. If they believe this, will they back up the truck?

https://theathletic.com/2835591/2021/09/20/how-blue-jays-robbie-ray-went-from-a-walk-machine-to-a-cy-young-candidate-hes-willed-himself-to-this-point/

They won’t be afraid to pay him, but I also think he won’t cost as much as many seem to think. He had a bunch of mediocre seasons before this year including a >6 ERA just last year. He hasn’t put a track record in place that comes close to matching Ryu when we signed him although he will also be 3 years younger as a UFA. A similar $80/4 contract is more likely than $120+ Predictions that I’ve seen thrown around. Plus it’s a very strong free agency class this winter.