Jays close to acquiring Grilli

[North_of_Border]

AA went after this guy a couple of seasons ago when he was a FA.

Hopefully he can do something good in the late innings because I would hate to see Sanchez forced back into the bullpen again like our GM just hinted on the radio.

[Fairview4Life]

AA went after this guy a couple of seasons ago when he was a FA.

Hopefully he can do something good in the late innings because I would hate to see Sanchez forced back into the bullpen again like our GM just hinted on the radio.

Isn't Sanchez on an innings limit? Wasn't he going back to the pen in ~September at the latest, regardless of results anyway?

[Wo1verine]

AA went after this guy a couple of seasons ago when he was a FA.

Hopefully he can do something good in the late innings because I would hate to see Sanchez forced back into the bullpen again like our GM just hinted on the radio.

Isn't Sanchez on an innings limit? Wasn't he going back to the pen in ~September at the latest, regardless of results anyway?

I could be wrong but i thought Atkins said no innings limit recently?

[Santoki]

AA went after this guy a couple of seasons ago when he was a FA.

Hopefully he can do something good in the late innings because I would hate to see Sanchez forced back into the bullpen again like our GM just hinted on the radio.

Isn't Sanchez on an innings limit? Wasn't he going back to the pen in ~September at the latest, regardless of results anyway?

I could be wrong but i thought Atkins said no innings limit recently?

Gibby has said he will definitely be in the pen by year end.

[Ong_dynasty]

^i mean what if he is playing well..surely they can just try and miss starts and shorten the innings per start if need be right?

[The_Hater]

^i mean what if he is playing well..surely they can just try and miss starts and shorten the innings per start if need be right?

I would hope it will depend on other factors such as the health and status is the other starters, who else is available to start and how the bullpen looks on Septemebr 1st. If Sanchez is out best SP on Sept 1st I find it hard to believe that they'll just automatically stick him back in the pen.

[Skin Blues]

Maybe they have a plan to swap him and Osuna. That'd be interesting. A poor decision, IMO (they should both be starting), but still interesting. I think being a reliever is tougher on your arm than being a starter, given the imbalanced workload (3 days on, 4 days off, 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, and sometimes 20 or so bullpen pitches on off-days, etc) and it's all at 100% effort. Not sure the science is out on sending a guy to the bullpen being beneficial for his health compared to getting 4 days of rest between throwing 100 pitches at 90% effort.

[Santoki]

Maybe they have a plan to swap him and Osuna. That'd be interesting. A poor decision, IMO (they should both be starting), but still interesting. I think being a reliever is tougher on your arm than being a starter, given the imbalanced workload (3 days on, 4 days off, 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on, and sometimes 20 or so bullpen pitches on off-days, etc) and it's all at 100% effort. Not sure the science is out on sending a guy to the bullpen being beneficial for his health compared to getting 4 days of rest between throwing 100 pitches at 90% effort.

I'm assuming the tentative plan is to find pitching at the deadline that can allow Sanchez to ease into the pen. They may still give a spot start to Hutch here or there during the season. They did it only once and you thought it would happen fairly often but they've been quiet on that front. Anyways it's not really anything to worry about at least for another 6 weeks.

[The_Hater]

I'm sure when Shapiro and company stacked up all this pitching depth they weren't expecting 5 solid starters zero health issues through 2 months. The Red Sox have already demoted one SP to the minors and another to the pen and they were supposed to have a better rotation than us.

Lots can change in the coming months though. Hutch and/or Floyd will almost certainly be needed in the rotation at some point.

[I_Like_Dirt]

I would hope it will depend on other factors such as the health and status is the other starters, who else is available to start and how the bullpen looks on Septemebr 1st. If Sanchez is out best SP on Sept 1st I find it hard to believe that they'll just automatically stick him back in the pen.

If Sanchez can maintain his level of play, he'd better not head back to the pen.

That said, the starters have largely been fantastic (Dickey's start to the season aside) and the pen needs help in the worst way, even if it's just the existing guys helping themselves. Osuan and Biagini is not enough. Grilli got the out last night, but damn did he make me nervous and that throw into center field had me worried he was a mole or something. The list is so damn long of guys who are just pitching really badly right now, eventually one or two of them have to start pitching better, right?

[The_Hater]

I would hope it will depend on other factors such as the health and status is the other starters, who else is available to start and how the bullpen looks on Septemebr 1st. If Sanchez is out best SP on Sept 1st I find it hard to believe that they'll just automatically stick him back in the pen.

If Sanchez can maintain his level of play, he'd better not head back to the pen.

That said, the starters have largely been fantastic (Dickey's start to the season aside) and the pen needs help in the worst way, even if it's just the existing guys helping themselves. Osuan and Biagini is not enough. Grilli got the out last night, but damn did he make me nervous and that throw into center field had me worried he was a mole or something. The list is so damn long of guys who are just pitching really badly right now, eventually one or two of them have to start pitching better, right?

Even Dickey had a really strong month of May. Unfortunately there weren't many wins as he seemed to get continually get matched up with every teams's ace.

I heard last night that the Jays starters lead MLB in quality starts this season and they led the AL in SP ERA during May. That first stat is hard to believe with the amount of inherited runners the bullpen has allowed to score this season.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Yeah, looking at the record and the bats on the team (albeit underperforming bats), it's pretty amazing how good the SPs have been. Every single one of them goes out there and gives the Jays a great shot to win the game. The pen has blown things really badly, though. Hopefully the bats start to get turned around a bit - it wouldn't take much - and it takes some pressure off the pen, but ugh. Going into the season with Cecil, Storen and Osuna, I thought the pen would be pretty reliable. Boy was I wrong. Hopefully Cecil comes back healthy and back to his better self and Storen gets things worked out sooner than later.

[The_Hater]

Yeah, looking at the record and the bats on the team (albeit underperforming bats), it's pretty amazing how good the SPs have been. Every single one of them goes out there and gives the Jays a great shot to win the game. The pen has blown things really badly, though. Hopefully the bats start to get turned around a bit - it wouldn't take much - and it takes some pressure off the pen, but ugh. Going into the season with Cecil, Storen and Osuna, I thought the pen would be pretty reliable. Boy was I wrong. Hopefully Cecil comes back healthy and back to his better self and Storen gets things worked out sooner than later.

The pen has been bad but we also rank near the bottom of MLB in runs scored after the 6th inning. It's a lot easier for the pen to blow a game if the offense isn't helping out.

Cecil was apparently pitching hurt so hopefully he returns this month back at 100%.

[I_Like_Dirt]

True on both counts. I'm particularly optimistic with Cecil, because if he can come back and be the 8th inning guy, a lot of the issues go away. As for the Jays' offense struggling late, they have been and the offense in general has been underperforming and it's been particularly a problem late in games, but the team still does score runs. In a lot of these blown saves, if the BP could just come in and get through 2 or 3 innings and only give up 2 runs or less, the Jays win. The offense will come around with time, because they've struggled but have still been alright and will normalize.

The pen has just been awful and while I'd usually expect things to normalize, other than Storen and an injured Cecil who I expect will help once he recovers, a lot of these guys don't have much track of very much success, so even normalizing things there is an issue. And that's where, for this season at least, Sanchez to the pen does make sense, even if he's amazing this year, because the starters are all really good and Sanchez would sew up that pen nicely with Osuna closing. And having Sanchez come out of the pen after starting for like 80%+ of the season doesn't hurt him as a starter long term but it might help with a playoff push that I can definitely see coming if the starters keep up their pace and the bats start warming up.

[Boogie!]

If Sanchez continues To be one of our best starters why should be arbitrarily move him to the pen when we could use him in the Playoffs? I don't get the logic behind it.

[Randle McMurphy]

If Sanchez continues To be one of our best starters why should be arbitrarily move him to the pen when we could use him in the Playoffs? I don't get the logic behind it.

Protecting his arm for the years to come. If he's actually a good starter (and it very much looks like he might be), it becomes even more important to do so.

[Boogie!]

Yeah but if we wanna make a run in the playoffs, we're just gonna throw out some dude that hasn't pitched much as a starter this Season?

[The_Hater]

Yeah but if we wanna make a run in the playoffs, we're just gonna throw out some dude that hasn't pitched much as a starter this Season?

That doesn't mean that some dude wouldn't pitch well as a starter. They could also pick up another arm at the deadline. You also have to wonder if Sanchez wouldn't turn into a pumpkin down the stretch if he's asked to pitch far more innings than he has his entire career.