Thinking Blue: Weekly Recap - April 23rd

Courtesy of Daylife via Reuters Pictures

After a couple of weeks of a few lucky wins, it looks like the Blue Jays are getting back in the swing of things. Edwin is hitting, KJ is hitting, Colby is hitting, and even the so called slumping Bautista is recovering from early season troubles. Furthermore after yesterday's win against the Royals the Jays sit now atop the AL East tied with the Yankees for first place.

These next couple of weeks look to be pretty crucial in establishing the standings in the early goings. Both the OriLoLes, who haven't been so LoL worthy thus far, and the Rays are only a half game back of the Jays and Yankees. Of course the Red Sox and all of their beer and chicken issues are sitting firm in last place, and despite their atrocious relief pitching and the pessimistic beliefs of Red Sox fans everywhere they are still a force to be reckoned with in the AL East.

Hutch's First Big League Start
As I'm sure most of you saw, Drew Hutchison (Yes, that's H-u-t-c-h-i-s-o-n with one N) made a start for the Blue Jays on Saturday. Yes, the Blue Jays Top 10 prospect (and Top 100 MLB Prospect if you ask Keith Law) took to the mound in a duel against Luis Mendoza. Unfortunately I wasn't able to catch his entire outing as I missed the beginning, but from what I saw he looked like he held his own.

His line on the night didn't end up being exactly what you'd like to see. He gave up 5 runs over 5 1/3 innings and two home runs. To go along with that Hutchison walked 3 batters and hit one more. On the surface that doesn't look so great for a pitcher's debut, but Hutch is only 21 and most pitchers don't produce Kyle Drabek like debuts. Besides Hutchison did end up striking out 4 over the 5 1/3 innings and got the win, if thats the sort of thing you care about (I don't).

The outing wasn't the most impressive thing in the world, but I also wasn't disappointed. Again, he's still only 21 and will be for another 4 months, he was just called up from AA and its his first start in the majors. Not to excuse the performance, but occasionally that kind of pressure can be pretty daunting. Before we make any rash decisions or evaluations on Hutch lets at least see another start of his, an opportunity I hope the Jays give him.

P.S. If you want a more In-Depth Analysis of Hutch's first start, the kind of thing I have been known to do from time to time, you can check out MjwW's FanPost over at Bluebird Banter where he excellently broke down the start using Pitch F/X numbers.

Santos to the DL
One week after coming back from the birth of his first child, Sergio Santos is on the 15 day DL for Shoulder Inflammation as reported by @SNBarryDavis. This isn't exactly the news you want to hear from your favourite team, but it doesn't project to be a huge pressing issue. If you assume Santos is as good as he was last year over the course of this season, you lose only a little more than 0.1 WAR off the season total, which in the grand scheme of things is a relatively small number.

In the meantime the Jays have thrust "Capital C Closer" Francisco Cordero into the closer role. Cordero isn't as good as Santos, but having him as your closer isn't the worst thing in the world. He has a declining skill set, which I have outlined before, but he should be fine in the role for 15 days. However, one thing I fear with Cordero is if he actually performs "well" in his little stint in the 9th inning role, there may be pressure to keep him there.

Santos hasn't been great so far this season, but it has been an extremely small sample. Nonetheless if Cordero performs well, I could easily see the fans and the media for that matter building the narrative that Cordero needs to be in that closer role citing Santos' two blown saves in this short season. Of course I don't care about blown saves, but the Toronto media, well they sure seem to.


Colby Haters Be Gone
Colby Rasmus is always going to be easy pickin's as an entity that everyone can throw their anger at. He is the inevitable scapegoat, he is athletic and graceful both on the field and at the plate and that has gotten him the J.D. Drew treatment.

Nonetheless Colby has done his very best to silence his naysayers, which seemed to be more than half of the fan base after last year's debacle. After a terrible showing last season following his transition from NL to AL, St. Louis to Toronto, and La Russa to Freedom, Rasmus definitely wasn't helping himself in the fan appreciation department.

People called him lazy, people called the trade stupid, but people say a lot of things. Well at least they did.

Nowadays with Colby having hit 3 home runs thus far with an OBP of .321 all good for a 120 wRC+, people aren't saying a lot. These "people" have seemed to have been silenced by Colby's admittedly fantastic performance both at the plate and in center field.

He is not hitting to the level that he did in 2010, his wRC+ is 9 points lower, but his defense is being rated better by the always confusing UZR. This has put him on pace for a 5.4 fWAR season. That pace likely won't continue, but there is a chance that it very well could. Rasmus has the potential for that type of season, it will be interesting to see if he has that in him.

He's hitting that triple, double, single, that smooth home run, he is fire burning in the outfield and quickly sliding his way right back into Toronto fan's hearts...for the time being. #Colby2012

 


Side Note: Does anyone else see the resemblance?

Courtesy of Daylife via AP Photo and Getty Images

Sources: Fangraphs, Baseball Reference

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The Problem with MLB Managers

Photo by Keith Allison licensed under Creative Commons

Why is it that 90% of MLB Managers feel that they need to bat rookies so low in the lineup. Do they feel like there is too much pressure, like the rookies won't be able to handle more "responsibility" or are they just plain old-fashioned.

So then what is it about rookies that just "makes" managers bat them in the 7th, 8th, or 9th spot, it doesn't make any sense. Just because he hasn't seen MLB pitching that doesn't mean that he isn't any good, many of the top prospects being called up can make immediate impacts as sometimes one of the better hitters on a team. Take Dustin Ackley for example, when Ackley was called up in his first game Eric Wedge batted him 7th. Just think about this scenario for a second, you are in a pennant race, you are half a game back out of first place in the AL West and you bat your best hitter 7th; say what. Yes, you've got it 7th, not 6th, not 5th, not 4th, and not 3rd, you bat your best hitter 7th. Thats not even the worst part, the player they batted 5th Chris Pegauro at that point in the season he had a .214 average and a horrid .713 OPS, nuff said.

Now looking to a more Jays relevant example Brett Lawrie. He's a player who has absolutely killed PCL pitching, the Jays hyped him up so much and then you go and bat him 9th, why? It makes absolutely no sense, he is probably the most hyped prospect in Blue Jays history and you stuff him in the bottom of the lineup where he doesn't belong. Ok the Jays do have a good lineup and it is his first game so maybe John Farrell can get a gimme for that one. How bout the second game, let's see where is Brett batting oh wait of course it is 9th. And this time its even worse he batted 9th when our backup catcher Jose Molina batted ahead of him. Sure you can point to his .300+ average, but that is in very limited plate appearances, there is absolutely no way that Brett is a worse hitter than Jose Molina, even in his second MLB game.

Ok fine you can point to the fact that you don't want to embarass the veteran (stupid unwritten rules), but even then how do you bat Brett Lawrie behind Eric frickin Thames. In the last 7 days Eric Thames has registered 1 hit in 21 at bats and that warrants batting him in the number two spot. So if that is all you have to achieve to bat in the number 2 spot then how is it that Brett and his .459 wOBA (in AAA) warrants the ninth spot. It makes absolutely no sense. If anything you should be batting Colby Rasmus second (not Eric Thames) and put Lawrie in the 6th spot right behind Lind and EE. There he is absolutely without a doubt more valuable player to the team. He is lucky that in his first couple games there has been runners on base for him, but if he continues to bat behind Aaron Hill, Jose Molina etc. that won't be the case.

The problem is this Brett Lawrie nonsense isn't even the end of it. Since the beggining of the season JP Arencibia has had to put through with hitting in the bottom half of the lineup. Where he has hit 18 homers tied for the league lead by catchers. But guess how many of those were solo bombs not 5, not 10, 13. Thats 72% of his home runs that were hit when no one was on base. Do you know why no one was on base because the two guys who have most often hit in front of him are Juan Rivera and Aaron Hill. Two guys whose combined OBP's average out to .293 and whose combined home run totals is 11. Granted JP's OBP is actually worse than that .293 mark, but at least there would be runners on base when he hits his homers, it isn't like Aaron Hill is taking advantage of that spot in the lineup so why not change it up.

The consensus conclusion should be that for whatever reason despite being SABR savvy and whatever else it seems as if the managers of baseball still stick to their old ways when we are obviously moving to a new generation and if they don't move with us then soon enough they will get left behind. Maybe there is some underlying thing that no one outside of baseball knows about, but from the sidelines it seems pretty obvious that these decisions that are being made are bad ones. I don't care if someone is a veteran or not, if he is good he gets a high spot in the lineup if he isn't, well then bump him down . The only manager who I can honestly say that I look at on a regular basis and say "hey he's doing a good job" is Joe Maddon manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. He is consistently using statistics to help his team and he is always playing the percentages (and walking Damon to face Longoria is not playing the percentages John). So kudos to you Joe because you are one in a million and you definitely stand out from the rest, I hope that we as a baseball society can progress from the current mediocrity of MLB managing.

Any Opinions, Arguments, Criticisms? Let me know in the comments below.

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