2021 Blue Jays Season Thread

[mrkajz44]

Blue Jays bullpen is 18th in the league according to Fangraphs WAR (1.2), and 16th for xFIP (4.25). At the beginning of the year, Fangraphs projected then to be 14th best in the league, and that was before all the injuries. They are basically middle of the road in the league as expected - it really isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

[Kasi]

Yeah and that is mostly because Jays aren’t good in the projection stats fangraphs like. When you just do the more counting stats Jays rate a bit better than that.

Anyway could be worse, look at what Chapman and the Yankees bullpen has done lately. He’s given up runs in four of last five appearances six of last nine. Tons of teams are going through bullpen issues now. It might feel like the Jays are the just the absolute worst but it’s likely you’re just not following the rest of the league.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Blue Jays bullpen is 18th in the league according to Fangraphs WAR (1.2), and 16th for xFIP (4.25). At the beginning of the year, Fangraphs projected then to be 14th best in the league, and that was before all the injuries. They are basically middle of the road in the league as expected - it really isn't as bad as everyone is making it out to be.

The Jays bullpen has lost 19 games, that's 3rd worst in the AL.

They should really have at least 48 wins now, and it's the bullpen that's hurt them the most.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

The Jays bullpen has lost 19 games, that's 3rd worst in the AL.

They should really have at least 48 wins now, and it's the bullpen that's hurt them the most.

They also have 17 wins, good for 7th best in the AL. The bullpen has 2 net losses.

All I'm saying is the raw numbers are not as bad as everything thinks. I still consider Ws and Ls for the bullpen to have a large luck component to it - so much matters when the starter exits and how well batting is late in the game. Blue Jays have a 0.615 OPS in "close & late" situations. Is there no blame to be laid on the hitters for not getting it done later in games too?

Giving them 5 more wins with a better bullpen is extreme - they probably should have 2-3 more wins based on luck alone and that's fine in my eyes.

[Roof-Daddy]

Based on run differential alone MLB says the Jays should have 5 more wins than they do.

As far as the bullpen goes, I can almost think of 5 or 6 games off the top of my head that the bullpen blew just by walking too many guys. The most recent one was a 5-1 lead in the 8th inning against the worst team in the AL.

Chatwood came in and started walking guys and then Thornton went ahead and gave them the lead in extras without even making them get a hit.

[cross16]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

They also have 17 wins, good for 7th best in the AL. The bullpen has 2 net losses.

All I'm saying is the raw numbers are not as bad as everything thinks. I still consider Ws and Ls for the bullpen to have a large luck component to it - so much matters when the starter exits and how well batting is late in the game. Blue Jays have a 0.615 OPS in "close & late" situations. Is there no blame to be laid on the hitters for not getting it done later in games too?

Giving them 5 more wins with a better bullpen is extreme - they probably should have 2-3 more wins based on luck alone and that's fine in my eyes.

I would agree. The recent focus on the bullpen ignores that they were really good to start the season when the starters weren't. I think they've bottomed out hard, mostly due to injuries, but some of this is regression to the mean as well given their good start. 5 wins feels excessive to me too given even the best bullpens will lose games, so I think 2-3 games is more appropriate.

I agree luck is a big component but I feel like the Jays also just can't get it all going in the same direction at the same time. Their bullpen was good early, but their starters and hitters weren't. Hitters came around and starters did but then bullpen regressed, now Ryu and Matz are struggling. Don't think it's fair to put it all one 1 unit as all have blame.

It's also the nature of the club. I think for the most part it's a well built and balanced lineup (minus a LH bat) but their pitching was a patchwork job and it takes time to build it right. Still think they are in the building process with it so this shouldn't be a surprise.

[Enoch Root]

The pen is middle of the pack, statwise, because they were lights out in April.

For the month and a half or so, they have been horrific. Not mediocre. Not kind of bad. Flat out horrific.

That is at least partially due to injuries. But injuries happen. To every team.

[Kasi]

Nah not really. People just overreact because they see their teams games and don’t see others. If I go back to reliever stats from May 15 onward I see some stats from the bullpen:

FIP: 4.29 (18th)
XFIP: 4.23 (16th)
Era: 4.75 (23rd)
LoB: 67.5% (25th) (the real culprit here)

Mrkaz is right with his stats and tbh the relief pitching and the hitting both have similar issues and both are costing Toronto games. Their overall stats are better than their situational stats. Jays bullpen does well for a few innings and then they have a bad one and lose. Or game is out of reach and bullpen comes in and throws some zeros. It’s easy to blame the bullpen when you see them give up the lead or have a bad inning.

It’s harder to say that for the offense but that .610 close and late is telling. The Jays just don’t score many runs when the opposing starter is out of the game. I can count as many losses where one more run would have won as the bullpen blowing it. The Jays record sucks in one run games and sucks in extra inning games. I looked a few days ago at other situational hitting stats and the Jays are below average in all of them. Now none of this is terribly predictive but I don’t think having a young team helps.

Also doesn’t help that Boston is the opposite and is insane late and close and this have the most comeback wins and despite having a lower run differential than the Jays are like 22 games over .500. Even if Toronto goes on a run it might not help if Boston keeps playing .750 ball. Probably means wild card, this isn’t like 2015 where we had a good differential but the AL east was down. Yankees this year are probably about as good as their 2015 variant, but that was the second best team in the division but fourth now.

[Kasi]

Kaitlyn McGrath’s latest article had the stats that mrkajz stated.

“The Blue Jays hitters are only slashing .218/.277/.347 in late and close games, which Baseball Reference defines as plate appearances in the seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck. The only two teams that are worse in those situations, per OPS, are the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates and relative to their overall performance, the Blue Jays are the worst hitting team in the late-and-close spot.”

As bad as the Jays bullpen has been their hitters in those situations are even worse. Yet all you ever hear about in this thread is oh no the bullpen sucks. Maybe if the Jays could get some hits late in games they would win more games. Yeah I’m excited about our offence but it would be nice if they saved some for close games.

[calculoso]

The Toronto Blue Jays are trading first baseman Rowdy Tellez to the Milwaukee Brewers, sources told The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal.

Right-hander Trevor Richards is believed to be heading to Toronto in the deal.

The Blue Jays are also acquiring minor-league right-hander Bowden Francis from the Brewers, a source told Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2180586

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Kaitlyn McGrath’s latest article had the stats that mrkajz stated.

“The Blue Jays hitters are only slashing .218/.277/.347 in late and close games, which Baseball Reference defines as plate appearances in the seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck. The only two teams that are worse in those situations, per OPS, are the Detroit Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates and relative to their overall performance, the Blue Jays are the worst hitting team in the late-and-close spot.”

As bad as the Jays bullpen has been their hitters in those situations are even worse. Yet all you ever hear about in this thread is oh no the bullpen sucks. Maybe if the Jays could get some hits late in games they would win more games. Yeah I’m excited about our offence but it would be nice if they saved some for close games.

Totally right. Statistics as they say, can be misleading. I think in this case what this shows is when the young team is running away with the game they’re really confident. When they’re put in a clutch situation they’re not performing as well. How to they work through it? Coaching? Psychologists? Because it looks totally like a mental block to me.

[bluejays]

As for Rowdy, good riddance. This year he was a guarantee pop out, if not strike out.

[Kasi]

Seems fine to me. Tellez just I think stopped fitting when Vlad took 1b. Toronto prefers to use DH for keeping their position players fresh. Once Tellez struggled with the bat his days were numbered. Richards has been ok this year and good fairly recently. Kind of a bit similar to Barnes in ways but it’s nice to have more options to see if any stand out.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Another arm for the bullpen, awesome work. Hopefully Rowdy can find a permanent spot in the Brewers line up. Seems like a great kid, with a ton of power in his bat, and a decent glove at first. Like the multiple arms coming out of the bullpen. Would love another bat in the line up.

[KelVarnsen]

Seems like a good trade for both teams. Rowdy (likely) gets MLB playing time. Jays get another bullpen arm.

[Kasi]

Originally Posted by fleury

Totally right. Statistics as they say, can be misleading. I think in this case what this shows is when the young team is running away with the game they’re really confident. When they’re put in a clutch situation they’re not performing as well. How to they work through it? Coaching? Psychologists? Because it looks totally like a mental block to me.

I wish I knew. It could just be bad luck. Stats like this are generally not predictive. Like one year you can suck and the next be awesome. Few players have shown this to be a skill in any way. I think there could be several parts to it and I’ll list some I’ve discussed on other message boards and scrubbing through stat sites lately. In no particular order here:

A. Bad luck, likely the biggest thing here. Hitting into double plays, hitting screamers directly at gloves, etc.
B.Manager not making right calls in situations. Like say bunting when you shouldn’t. However Montoyo has actually bunted less than most managers but I agree with most he’s not the most technical in game manager so there could be improvement here. Also maybe he’s just not motivating them to do their best? I have read from Boston that Cora is awesome and has total team buy in and that I believe can make a difference.
C. Team is just young in general and is not good at this stuff. However some of the better clutch players are young (Vlad and Bo) and some of our worst are vets (Semien and Grichuk)
D. Lineup composition. Not enough LH bats, not enough discipline throughout the lineup. It is true that the bottom of the lineup has been awful in these situations. Basically Bo, Vlad and Teoscar have been good and the rest have mostly sucked.
E. This one I didn’t find, but someone did some digging and found that Jays do quite badly against sliders. Most relievers these days have good sliders, might just be the lineup doesn’t match up well against power bullpen arms. We all read that guys like Biggio also struggle badly against 95+ heat, so that could factor in too.

There could be more for sure and I hope they turn it around. You can tell Atkins and Shapiro are thinking on this since both have talked about their approach as a reason the team has struggled to close out games. I believe that applies to both hitting and pitching. I don’t think they how they’ve done so far is terribly prescriptive of how they do in the future, but if they want to catch up with Boston they better start hitting late in games.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Rowdy was a 30th round pick, turned into a legitimate bullpen arm and another minor leaguer both with years of control. Tidy little piece of business.

[ForeverFlameFan]

I am glad we got a return like that for Rowdy. Best of luck!

[flamingred89]

Originally Posted by fleury

Totally right. Statistics as they say, can be misleading. I think in this case what this shows is when the young team is running away with the game they’re really confident. When they’re put in a clutch situation they’re not performing as well. How to they work through it? Coaching? Psychologists? Because it looks totally like a mental block to me.

Something lost in this is how demoralizing it is to see a lead evaporate in the matter of an inning or two. Like has been the case in more games than I can count this season. It's one thing to lament the bats going cold in a 2-1 game. But when it's 6-1 and the pen gives up the game it's hard to just flip it back on and score runs at will. Maybe that comes down to psychology. Maybe that comes down to a lack of killer instinct. Who knows.

[flamingred89]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Nah not really. People just overreact because they see their teams games and don’t see others.

Oh is this the case?

I dunno, I watch a ton of baseball. I stand by the Jays pen being horse####.