Boiled Frogs

Embed from Getty Images

There was always a chance it would end this way. There is no small amount of risk surrounding a 36-year old dead red pull hitter, no matter how well they performed in recent years or how willing you are to wave away injuries and odometer miles piling up.

The free market had its suspicions. The Blue Jays brain trust had their suspicions. Sometimes you spring a leak, sometimes the dam breaks.

As was too often the case too many times in his career, Jose Bautista is slightly out of phase. Ahead of his time but slightly behind the curve.

Well-dressed but

Embed from Getty Images

The binary notions of failure and success don’t feel appropriate for the 2016 Blue Jays. Not with all the baggage and narrative threads that weave their way through this season and into the future.

This season was a success because a distinctive, excellent team was three wins away from the World Series. The season was a failure because the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays weren’t designed, or expected, to finish short of anything.


Well-dressed, but walking
In the wrong direction

And yet, at no point in the year did they feel like the team to beat. But there was a sense of urgency among the fans, knowing that 2015’s offensive juggernaut was right there, straining to break free.

Instead of fireworks, strikeouts fueled fan frustration as the “take and rake” offense did a lot more taking than raking. Suffocating run prevention pushed the team into the postseason, holding up much more than its end of the bargain.

If 2015 was the night out in your twenties, when anything seems possible and every minute feels like a musical montage in some beer ad, 2016 felt a little more like the night out when everyone is in their thirties.

The sparks don’t fly as easily, and there’s a lot of waiting around, expecting the same magic to just...happen. Still fun, still memorable, but the spectre of what came before looms large.

The unforgettable end to the Blue Jays’ 2015 season filled in the blanks before 2016 could make its own statement, making for a summer-long odyssey that was an odd mix of swan song and audition - with a title pursuit trying not to become an afterthought.

Well-dressed
Well, some of us are, that is
The ones who know how, that is

Baseball fans in 2016 don’t need (or want) to think about seasons in discrete chunks, as the season never needs to end. Teams move more in eras and epochs, and this all but marks the end of a Blue Jays era. From dark to light, from listless to insistent, everything changed overnight - and it won’t switch back.

I don’t want to get used to playoff games. I don’t want to look down my nose at a series win or a afternoon playoff games that completely derail work days. I don’t want to scroll through an Instagram feed full (full!) of ballpark shots as the stadium fills and feel blasé because it’s only the division series.

I don’t want to get used to it and I don’t want it to stop.

Well-dressed, but walking
I don't wanna go back

Hopefully I won’t have to. Josh Donaldson will be standing at third base in April, 2017, which is almost enough on its own. Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman and Roberto Osuna and Marco Estrada and JA Happ and Troy Tulowitzki will stand on the third base line while a planetary Canadian flag is unfurled in centre field.

One day, the team standing on that third base line will look up, towards the left field seats, and see the names of Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista staring down at them.

The last two years - 15 months, really - are worth pausing over. Worth considering for what they were, what they weren’t, and what they ultimately delivered. These are signature moments that even World Series winners aren’t lucky enough to claim.

There are more indelible moments to come, I’m sure. But before rumour and innuendo rush to replace live-and-die playoff urgency in my baseball brain, I’ll think a lot about those moments and their authors. I’ll think of champagne showers untaken and parades unrouted but, mostly, I’ll be thankful for moments that will outlive us all. Not a bad trade, in the end.

Every beast has its poison

View image | gettyimages.com

There was no good way for the 2015 Blue Jays season to end. There was only one acceptable outcome, given the improbable run up and come back and full weight of expectation. 29 teams fail to win the World Series every year, which doesn’t meant that they’re all failures.

In some ways it is reassuring that the Blue Jays went down as they did, flipping the script with stolen bases and leadoff singles from hitters otherwise left for dead. The inability to push across the tying run against baseball’s best reliever won’t sit well, not now and certainly not during the long, dark winter.

The Toronto Blue Jays 2015 season ended ten days too early. It easily could’ve ended ten days ago, or, absent a whirlwind trade deadline, ten days before that. But it ended on a warm October evening in Missouri, after a rain delay and an unforgettable baseball game.

The Blue Jays season is over for among the most basebally of baseball reasons. They were beaten by a team that won more regular season games but probably represented less on-field talent. The Royals, the team that beat the Blue Jays, made a boatload of their own luck while also identifying and highlighting skills that made for a tough, maddening opponent to watch.

There are few hoary cliches less insightful than “baseball is a game of inches.” Among corny baseball truisms, it is might be the corniest. But it is the kernel of truth in this axiom that sent the Blue Jays home and propelled the Royals to a date with the Mets. In Game Six of the ALCS, the inches grew and grew.

In miles or kilometres

View image | gettyimages.com

For the better part of the last five years, one of the great concerns among some corners of Blue Jays fandom was squandering Jose Bautista’s peak. Improbable as it seemed when the team excised Alex Rios from the roster and gave Bautista his big break, surrounding him with a good supporting cast was job one for management as of about May 1st, 2011.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying in past years but, finally, the Blue Jays have a more than capable lineup surrounding Jose Bautista. He still sits in the middle of this potent offense, hitting third and playing right field every day despite a wonky shoulder (injured, of course, under inauspicious yet delightful circumstances.) And his team is now very good, in first place with mere weeks remaining on the schedule. They wouldn’t be there without him and they won’t stay there without his contributions.

He’s still a very good player but on this very good team, he doesn’t need to be The Man. Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki and David Price aren’t Bautista’s supporting cast, they are equally integral to the Blue Jays rise to contention and drive to stay there. And that’s okay.

Hooks

View image | gettyimages.com

There is nothing like a tidy seven game winning streak to brush off two months without even a “win one, lose one” baseline of performance. All of May’s despairing moans are gone, replaced with “told ya so’s” directed towards a venerable institution in the radio booth and longing looks up the standings.

And yet, you’d have to twist yourself into a knots to convince yourself that the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays are a great baseball team. By watching them, you see the highest scoring team in baseball (by a not insignificant margin) with a pitching staff that either pitches better than it looks or looks worse than it pitches. The defense is a comforting non-factor, the highest praise one could ever heap upon the nine (or so) men pushing more than five runs per game across the plate.

They aren’t a bad baseball team by any stretch of the imagination. But there is something about them that doesn’t feel good enough.

The Other Teams Are Better

#455178132 / gettyimages.com

No point in burying the lede. The Blue Jays aren't in the playoffs (though they're still mathematically alive) because they other teams are better. Or they're not good enough. One of those two things.

It isn't for a lack of trying and it isn't by a lot, but wins 84-90 are a lot tougher to come by than wins 74 to 83. There was one great month and few months that were decidedly less than great, months that undid the goodness of that magical May.

That pretty much sums up the club on a more granular level, too. For all Jose Bautista's GBOATery, there were far too many sinkholes undercutting his production. Rather than tower over the lesser mortals, he was a fully-grown actor walking in a moat so Sylvester Stallone doesn't look like oompa loompa while laying waste to an Oregon village.

Cameron on Bautista

From Dave Cameron's top 50 trade value series, in which the Head Nerd in Charge ranks Jose Bautista the second-most valuable trade commodity in baseball, behind only Evan "Paid in Foodstamps and a Lifetime Supply of Orange Juice" Longoria. (emphasis mine):

At just $14 million per year for each of the next four years, he’s producing at a best-player-in-baseball level while getting paid a little less than Jason Bay or Adam Dunn. The Blue Jays saved themselves at least $100 million with the extension they gave Bautista last winter, which now looks like one of the best decisions any GM has ever made.

Ummm, wow. It is crazy to see it there in black and whitegreen. Jose Bautista is ours and you can't have him, even if you're offering Troy Tulowitzki.

Some awesome stuff from Fangraphs commenters, who kept their #6org jokes at bay long enough to make a little bit of sense. Take this hot shot of comment gold from SC2GG:

Considering the number of high value deals this particular GM has made, someone in the business is due for a prettttty good raise, I’d think. Imagine the employee review meeting that AA is going to get:

“What have you accomplished this year?”

“Well, aside from giving the entire country a sense of excitement about baseball that hasn’t existed for 15 yrs, rebuilding the farm system from nearly last to in the top 5, across the board I also saved the team and the company more than $200 million which is more than you paid for the whole team only a few years ago."

Wow, it really makes you think that things in Blue Jays Land might just be okay, doesn't it?

I made a concerted effort to stay neutral and/or non-committal on the Jose Bautista contract. As much fun to have him prove me definitely wrong in every way, I don't think betting against Jose Bautista is a very good idea at all. He proved people much smarter than me wrong last year before proving the laws of physics nearly irrelevant. It is officially time to just enjoy the ride. As if we aren't already.

Reuters image courtesy of Daylife. Make sure you read the entire top 50 series, it is great stuff.

Jays Jumbo Gumbo #2

I was going to write a game story from my couch but then I watched the game and well, would you even want to read about it? JAYS JUMBO GUMBO IT IS!

In the youtube era the fan made mixtape is a rite of passage for every 6th man in the NBA. Mixtapes of ballplayers are a little harder to come by, but Jose Bautista's got one. The pitcher reactions made me smirk an evil smirk.

This hot mess was a Sunshine Girl in 1991. Neat.

“Henke got up on stage and said this is for Llyod Moseby and Jesse Barfield and George Bell and all the guys who fought the war and weren't able to get their rewards.”

- Lloyd Moseby, reflecting on not being apart of the '92 or '93 World Series winning Blue Jays.

This interview with John Farrell's youngest son Luke smelt a lot like an SNL skit to me but apparently it's not. The interviewer does go from happily lobbing Luke softball questions about pitching in double headers and playing in the Cape Cod league to softly dropping "and you had a tumour in the base of your skull..." so you can see my confusion. Seems like a really nice kid.

"Jose, I see something in you. This is your chance."

- Cito Gaston in the long awaited Posnanski feature on Bautista.

Skydome and the Toronto skyline from a plane. Pretty.

I promise next time I'll come back with something of substance.

Defensive Alignment

Nestled north of the border and shrouded in relative obscurity there has always been something fun about cheering for one of the teams on the short list for "Most Forgotten About In Baseball". Passionate but polite and gleefully reinforcing the Canadian stereotype of being laid back and easy-going, the Jays fanbase isn't generally known for being quick to anger unless you speak ill of one of a small handful of players.

It's not a long list but here's a quick primer about how to get a Jays fan to get on the defensive and quick.

Player #1 - John McDonald

How to start the riot: Mention any offensive statistic in existence 

Responses you can expect: "There's more to baseball than hitting! He's the best defensive infielder in the world! He's got a huge heart! Stop being a dick!" 

Explanation: We all love John McDonald. We really really do. He's got so much scrappy hustle and heart™ that we ran David Eckstein out of town for stealing JMcD's gimmick. If you're going to take someone to task for wearing a "McDonald 6" jersey get ready for a lecture about the finer points of glovework and a story or two about what a great guy he is. As my friend Sarah has been quoted saying: "If you don't love John McDonald, Fuck You."

Player #2 - Kyle Drabek

How to start the riot: Bring up the fact his WHIP is nearly 1.70 or that he's on pace to set a record for his inability to throw strikes at an MLB level. Or hey maybe mention that he was a part of the Roy Halladay trade. We can never hear about that enough.

Responses you can expect: "He's 24! He's got killer 'stuff'! He'll work it out! It'll be fine! Shut up! Stop talking about Roy Halladay or I'm going to punch you." 

Explanation: Please stop talking about Roy Halladay. We know Drabek was involved in that trade, Drabek knows he was involved in that trade, EVERYONE knows he was involved in that trade. We're doing our best to be reasonable about the expectations on this kid but damn, sometimes seeing him pitch is intoxicating. Intoxicating in that it starts off loud and fun but then the next thing you know you're throwing up and swearing to never drink again. Whether the opinion is to keep him with the big club and let him work through the motions, or to send him down to continue eating AA alive, the important thing to remember is to not let the Jays fan you're pestering know that you don't believe in his "stuff". His stuff is great. His stuff is unhittiable. His stuff cannot be contained or defined. His stuff is very rarely thrown for strikes.  

Player #3 - Travis Snider  

How To Start The Riot: Show video of him swinging at 2-strike off-speed pitches in the dirt. Say the name Mike Stanton. Mention that you think his progress might have been haltered by being brought up through the system way too quickly and that he benefited from playing in the hitter friendly PCL. Say that he's not ready for the MLB level. Prove that meats clash.  

Responses You Can Expect: "One handed home runs! Opposite field bombs! Mike Stanton is a gigantic freak aberration! Improved fielding! He was smashing AAA pitching when they brought him up! Baseball players slump! Meats Don't Clash!" 

Explanation: One day we all woke up on the internet and caring about baseball prospects became the most important thing you can do as a 'real' fan of your team. With this precedent set Jays fans turned to the only player in the whole system that we'd been told to care about by Keith Law. I hate to get all factual with you here, but as a card-carrying Sniderville native I have to tell you that it is a complete 100% inevitability that Travis Snider will one day hit 35 home runs per year and lead the Jays to several AL East titles. Snider is the inspiration for this entire post, as I was watching last week's live Getting Streamed On vlogcast from the guys at Getting Blanked and the level of snark that emanated from someone doubting Travis' ability was hilariously palpable. It should be noted that this is the camp I find myself in as well. I won't stand for you doubting Travis Snider in my presence. Travis Snider is going to be fine. We're going to be fine. Everything is fine. Stop worrying. 

Player #4 - Jose Bautista 

How To Start The Riot: PED's. Brady Anderson. Unsustainable performance. Due for a reality check. He's not Barry Bonds.  

Responses To Expect: "He changed his swing and stance! He didn't find the singular magic PED that turns you into Babe Ruth! He's finally gotten a chance to get regular playing time!"  

Explanation: Y'all jealous as hell. 

--------------

There you have it. A quick and painless plan to make any Jays fan get their back up against the wall. Feel free to let me know if I missed anyone that gets you totally defensive or, if you'd like, prove my point on any number of these by getting really defensive in the comments about how you don't get defensive at all about any of them.

{Follow Archi on twitter here}
{Photo courtesy Bojuka Self Defense Canada}

In Case You Forgot

Do your duty. Vote for Jose. There are no guarantees in this world. Red Sox fans may decide they don't hate Carl Crawford. Ichiro! may renounce his Japanese heritage and declare himself a Chinese National just for the additional voting sway.

So get out, vote Jose. Do it often. It is your duty.

Photo of my lawnish area between the sidewalk and the street courtesy of me and, possibly, the cover of Bad Religion's Suffer.

One Man Gang

It started innocently enough. The Tao, in his infinite wisdom, referred to Jose Bautista as the One Man Gang in a recent post. As it is awesome, I grabbed it with two hands and shook it violently over my head for all to see. It is almost too perfect, though some dissenters expressed reservations over the 80's wrestler association.

Just because one guy on the internet doesn't jib with dead wrestler references (literally one. Al Gore created the internet with oblique shoutouts to Koko B. Ware in mind, I believe.) doesn't mean the nickname isn't nails. But then another guy took exception to the One Man Gang moniker, claiming it was inaccurate due to the Jays high volume of runs scored.

While not qualified to address this poor guy's fun allergy, I can speak to the One Man Gangishness of Jose Bautista's assault on reason. With charts!

When attempting to measure production in these terms, I went with wRAA - weighted runs above average. It's basically wOBA converted into a counting stat based on playing time. For example, Adam Lind rates highly in terms of wOBA but hasn't played enough to produce too much.

The first image you see below is the top 10 offenses in baseball (not including last night's results) by wRAA compared with their highest volume producer. The results, well, they speak for themselves. One Man Gang!



Let's summarize: Jose Bautista has actually created more offense than the Jays as a whole. His teammates actually bring the team's overall production down. Of the top ten offenses in baseball, only the Brewers get such intense production from one player, the awesome Ryan Braun.

But wait, doesn't Prince Fielder also play in Milwaukee? Is he terrible this year and I just haven't heard? Nope, Prince is in a walk year and currently rocking a .395 wOBA so that ain't right. What the Hell?

With that in mind, I went ahead and looked at each team in baseball's top two producers. What is the greatest differential between the best guy and the next best guy for every team in baseball? SPOILER ALERT: ONE! MAN! GANG!



Again I say it: ONE MAN GANG! Only Matt Joyce is even in the same neighbourhood of one man gangery. Jose Bautista is so, so much better than his teammates it makes my head shake.

Which isn't to say the contributions of Yunel Escobar aren't greatly appreciated as they certainly are. Yunel himself outpaces many team's leading producer in both wRAA and SWAG. But those teams aren't gangs. They're more like your ultimate frisbee team - just a bunch of tossers standing around in a park.

When a single player drags his team — a team that turns to Juan Rivera to hit cleanup and Rajai Davis to lead off — into the top 5 in baseball, he certainly gets to wear the One Man Gang tag. With pride, one would think.

Reuters image courtesy of Daylife, wRAA data from Fangraphs.

Don't Make Me Do This

Great team win today!!Long flight to Beantown now

— Jose Bautista(@JoeyBats19) April 14, 2011

Remember that time you hated Kevin Youkilis? Yeah, me too. EVERYBODY hates Kevin Youkilis, what with his douchey batting stance, constant dialog with umpires, and multi-positional annual excellence.

Hating Youkilis is hardly unique. See, even his teammates used to hate Yook. They hated the way he'd slam his bat and bark like a dog on barbiturates whenever things didn't go his way, no matter the score. It got to the point that his Red Sox teammates spoke to him about it.

Then it continued. So Manny popped him in the chin in the dugout. Because Manny's awesome. And Youkilis is a detestable douchebag.

Because the one thing that seems unanimous - from post-game quotes to quick deference to the contributions of teammates - is big leaguers are out to win. That's what they want to do: win.

When asked about the game or his own ability to clout home runs, Jose Bautista reflexively brings the conversation back to the team and the team's performance. He's a Leader, that's what they do. What leaders do not do, however, is slam their bat and curse about their at bat when they're winning by 7 runs.

Was John Danks obviously irritated with his own performance, thus lashing out at the One Man Gang? Of course. But that doesn't really "make it okay." If it were any other guy on the team, I have a strong inkling Jose himself would pull the offending player aside for a quick conversation about respecting the opposition.

I'm all for swagger and showing emotion on the field, I'm just so strongly in the "don't do what Youkilis does" camp that I can't abide this isolated incident.

It did, however, give rise to this. At least some good came from this ugly episode.

This is Your Brain on Bautista

From Saturday's two home run performance against the Astros, I LOVE the look of pure exasperation from Astros catcher Humberto Quintero towards the dugout.

"SERIOUSLY, WE TRIED EVERYTHING!!!!!"

This Bautista character is pretty good.

Bait and Switch

Are you kidding me?

One can only speculate what this means, platoon-wise. Does Corey Patterson play right field against left handed pitching, with EE moving to first and Adam Lind moving somewhere far, far from the batters box? Mike McCoy? JOHN MACDONALD? What hath you wrought, Jose?

Just when I thought the team bought your silence about preferring the outfield, there you go, starting in right field. Not only have you ruined my infield AND outfield previews, you're going to kill poor Adam Lind. There is blood on your hands Jose. BLOOD. ON YOUR HANDS.

On the other hand...he just might.

Don't Lose Sight

Didja hear? Jose Bautista is now richer than three astronauts. 5 years rich! The money isn't crazy and, while I'm not in love with the term, it is a risk the Jays can afford to take.

Either way, Jose got Fuck You money for real, son. It is also a pretty clear sign of faith from the Jays brain trust, who believe completely in the abilities and characteristics of Jose Bautista.

Let there be no doubt: Jose Bautista has abilities. He has lots of pop¹ and, most importantly, a terrific batting eye. To me that is his greatest and most important skill. Speed doesn't slump but neither does patience. Drawing walks is always in style. Stealing first when "they're not falling in" is one thing Bautista can do that a guy like Vernon Wells cannot.

Bautista will slump eventually. He will miss pitches in his wheelhouse and scrape the wrong side of the fence a few times. His home run per fly ball rate won't always sit above 20% but his ability to draws walks can (and must) stay around his career average (11.85% a.k.a. very good.)

The temptation to Try And Do Too Much when you're getting paid the big bucks makes even the best grip the bat a little tighter. That's what we're told, anyway. People talk about pressure to perform and meet heightened expectations as though the pressure to keep a job and survive the margins of big league life is a carefree stroll in the park. If anyone knows about the pressure of walking the line between washout and enviable riches it is Jose Bautista.

Staying patient and continuing to draw walks is something Jose cannot abandon. As the team's presumptive cleanup hitter his approach cannot adjust to the presence of his face on the side of the stadium.

If it was as easy as that then we would all be GMs and there would be no such thing as outlier seasons. Just as Parkes points out at Getting Blanked, a terrific comparison for Jose Bautista is Carlos Pena. Both came on late and went nuts. Pena quickly devolved into the prototype Three True Outcome guy, completely eschewing singles for huge haymaker cuts. He still draws walks to salvage him from the depths of Mendoza Line Hell.

Jose Bautista doesn't need to hit 54 home runs again to justify his contract. If Jose Bautista hits 30 home runs in a single season again it will rank as a serious victory for Alex Anthopoulos. Which is all well and good but this move also signifies a shift towards building towards competing, not just acquiring assets like a coked-up broker.

Is Jose Bautista a key piece of a winning team? Obviously 2010 Jose Bautista makes any team better. My hope is the player doesn't change who he is to conform to a preconceived notion of what a Leader and Run Producer is supposed to be. No matter how much praise he receives for his intangibles it's still about being an effective baseball player. Here's hoping the odds stay defied for a few more seasons.

¹ - Insight!

AP photo courtesy of Daylife.

The First Step in the De-Citofication Process

Despite the slightly incendiary title, I come today not to bury Cito. Nor do I plan to excrete anything on or around his grave. I hope to pose a simple question¹: should Vernon Wells continue as the Blue Jays cleanup hitter?

The easy answer is no. Despite putting up strong numbers in 2010 Wells is ill-suited to the role. The Book suggests your best hitters in the 1,2, and 4 spot. Wells hits fourth because he's The Team Leader and other such stuff. Jose Bautista hit third much of the year, starting in late June. Vernon batted cleanup every game, all year long.

It is difficult to argue the results as both men put up huge numbers. What is open to debate is the role their spot in the batting order plays in that success. From a "winning games" perspective, hitting Bautista third and Wells fourth is less than ideal.

Consider a great post on a great blog The Process Report. The finest Rays writers come together to provide excellent, high-end analysis. This week, they examined if the Rays best hitter — Evan Longoria — was better suited to hitting third or fourth.

How does that relate to the Jays? Applying the same thinking the Process Report guys used for Longoria², I thought I'd take a look at the opportunities afforded Bautista and Wells. Nothing too fancy or esoteric, simply what was the situation when they came to the plate.

The first assumption we must make to assuming Jose Bautista is a "better" hitter than Vernon Wells. In 2010, he certainly was. In addition to his prodigious power, Jose Bautista made far fewer outs than Vernon Wells. Even if the home runs dry up, this trend stands to continue thanks to Joe Bau's discerning eye and Vernon Wells' nervous twitches.

Like the Process Report dudes, I'll focus on first inning plate appearances. Check out the chart(s) below!




To summarize, cleanup hitter Vernon Wells came to the plate 99 times in the first inning, compared to only 64 appearances in the second (where he would leadoff, nobody on & nobody out.) Of those 99 first inning plate appearances, Wells batted with a running in scoring position more than 40% of the time. Compare that to number three hitter Jose Bautista, who saw runners in scoring position a mere 17% of his first inning plate appearances.

I recognize this isn't an "apples to apples" comparison when we consider how much Wells benefits from hitting behind an OBP machine like Jose. Bautista's plate appearances in the cleanup role won't mirror Vernon's but the differences will be relatively slight. Numerical vagaries aside, having an out-making fool like Wells hit with two out and nobody on isn't the end of the world.

Should Wells reach, Bautista's ability to extend the inning only increases the chance of scoring. Should Wells do his Vernon Wells-thing, making the third out of the inning, there is ersatz leadoff man Jose Bautista doing his patient slugger-thing at the top of the second inning. Win-win!

On a team without:

1. a prototype leadoff guy(?) and
   
2. in no real rush to get on base in the first place

The standard line of "RBI guy in the 3 spot!!11!" kind of goes out the window. Wells has the power to put up instant offense from that spot without killing nascent rallies started by the (last year, at least) more proficient Bautista.

Provided everyone is warm and fuzzy about it, this team would be far better positioned to score more runs with Wells/Bautista 3/4. And yes, I realize this very debate was bandied about last year at this time regarding Hill and Lind shifting from 2/3 to 3/4. Things change; it is baseball we're talking about.

Moving elder statesman Vernon Wells too far from the middle of the order isn't a wise move for a new manager on his way into town. Hopefully Farrell can use his fresh eyes and new perspective to convince the players that a more optimized lineup helps them all in the end.

¹ - Completely unrelated to contract arbitration, as that shit is for the birds.

² - I basically stole their chart format, too. No honour on the internet indeed.

Credit to AP Photo (courtesy of Daylife) for the photo, Fangraphs for the play by play info and The Process Report for the original idea.

Add Context for Flavor

There is no real debate as to the most valuable Blue Jay in 2010. Jose Bautista put up a season of epic historical significance. That he he amassed 50 home runs with 100 walks — one of a very select group of players in the game's history — is yet to set in to my slow-on-the-uptake brain.

There remains a sub-sect of baseball fans who rail against players who only put up numbers when the game "is out of reach." Players like Ryan Howard are announced as clutch while Jayson Werth (or Chase Utley) are chumps who strike out when the game is on the line. Their MVP is the guy with the most RBI, or something equally misguided. Last year I looked at an interesting wrinkle in the WAR equation, first suggested by Sky Kalkman (formerly) of Beyond the Box Score.

Rather than calculate Wins Above Replacement using regular or batting runs, we scaled and substituted win probability added. WPA doesn't care about the type of contribution to the cause, only the timing. Walkoff hits count for much more than the solo home runs in the midst of a blowout, much to the chagrin of the angry drunk guy by himself in the bar.

Below are the WPA-tinged numbers for your Toronto Blue Jays. The clutch figure is the difference between their standard batting runs and the new, clutchified numbers. WAR* is the new result, contrast it with the standard WAR numbers right alongside. All numbers courtesy of Fangraphs.

Name	WPA Runs	Batting	(Clutch)	Fielding	Replacement	RAR*	WAR*	WAR
Yunel Escobar	-9.5	-1.4	-8.1	-1.3	8.9	0.8	0.1	0.9
Vernon Wells	20.5	21.3	-0.8	-6.4	21.5	37.4	3.7	4
Travis Snider	-6.4	2.7	-9.1	4.2	10.6	4.9	0.5	1.5
Randy Ruiz	-7.5	-4.3	-3.2	0.6	1.3	-6.7	-0.7	-0.4
Nick Green	-0.8	-1.6	0.8	-0.9	0.5	-1.2	-0.1	-0.2
Mike McCoy	-6.4	-5.8	-0.6	5.8	3	2.4	0.2	0.3
Lyle Overbay	7.2	5.5	1.7	0.1	20.3	16.3	1.6	1.5
Jose Molina	-9	-2.5	-6.5	3	6.1	3.8	0.4	1.1
Jose Bautista	39.3	55.9	-16.6	-7	22.8	50.4	5	6.9
John McDonald	-8.5	-1.6	-6.9	1.6	5.4	-0.5	-0.1	0.7
John Buck	8.7	8.5	0.2	-3	14.6	27.9	2.8	2.9
Fred Lewis	1.6	4	-2.4	-6.1	16	6.6	0.7	0.9
Edwin Encarnacion	4	5.5	-1.5	-1.5	12.2	16	1.6	1.8
DeWayne Wise	5.4	-1.8	7.2	1	3.9	9.1	0.9	0.2
Alex Gonzalez	-2.7	5.7	-8.4	4.9	11.6	17.6	1.8	2.7
Adam Lind	1.5	-5.9	7.4	-2.7	20.4	4.7	0.5	-0.3
Aaron Hill	-24.1	-13.9	-10.2	3.7	19.3	0.8	0.1	1.1

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for poor Aaron Hill! Not a lot of leaps among the Jays batters. DeWayne Wise, as Mark Buehrle will proudly attest, is as clutch as it gets. Who knew?

Poor Jose Bautista. While he did perform significantly worse in the clutch in 2010, I have a hard time believing he performed 2 Wins worse. Shocking. Adam Lind and Lyle Overbay post better numbers when the heat is on. Nice to see, I seem to remember at least one walkoff for each lily white lefty.

Yu mad? Nope, Yu performed really badly in the clutch.

All in all, not really surprising considering the Jays, as a team, performed worse in high leverage situations for the year. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to be a repeatable skill, per se. The clutch-est team in baseball last year? The piss-poor Houston Astros.

One final note on Jose Bautista and his final most valuable player chances - if we used this same formula on the other MVP frontrunners, Miguel Cabrera would slide in front of Josh Hamilton and take the title. Joey Votto only solidifies his case as MVP shoe-in in the NL, as he is both clutch and dreamy. Not to mention dreamy and clutch.

Great Moments in Awesomeness

Holy shit, yesterday was a ridiculous day to be awesome (unless your name is Felix, but I'm sure he's used to that by now.)

Big congratulations to Ichiro for ongoing greatness, Rocco for persevering awesomeness, and Jose Bautista for unlikely awesomeness. You made a believer out of the most cynical of critics.

50 home runs is an awesome feat. 50 home runs and (assuredly) 100 walks is great, great feat. 50 home runs with 100 walks when only 2 of them are intentional? Very, very interesting.

Daylife like a thief in the night.

Bautista Appreciation

In spite of the spotty results, this weekend past was a pretty exciting one for Jays fans. Bautista bombs, massive (for naught) comebacks, walkoffs, and Shaun Marcum staying slightly ahead of the Danks Theory.

But the number one thing that caught my eye and kept my (non-Rocco) attention this weekend is what you see above: a 15 pitch battle between Jose Bautista and James Shields.

That Shields — the new Jeremy Guthrie rather than the poor man's Shaum Marcum¹ — didn't give up more home runs to Jose Bautista is a small miracle. That this epic 15-pitch battle royale ended in a fly-out is mildly shocking, though it doesn't detract from the excellence of the performance by either man.

The Gameday image tells a story, but we need a little more detail. Below is my cleaned-up version, allowing us a better vantage point for each pitch. Please note I chopped the bottom 6 inches off the diagram. The low pitches weren't scraping the ground, in other words.



The first two things I notice are: James Shields nibbled like a champ and Jose Bautista has an incredible eye. The two pitches down below the zone are two-seam fastballs that net Shields all his ground balls. Sinking pitches which, if taken, pretty much set up the hitter for the four-seamer on the outside corner.

Shields threw the kitchen sink at Bautista, but the man kept fouling "pitcher's pitches" (the stuff in on his hands) until he just missed a pitch that caught more plate. 15 pitch at bats are rare, especially for a guy who Gets Cheated as rarely as Bautista.

15 is an interesting and telling number on its own as, in addition to the number of pitches in this particular battle, Jose Bautista's walk rate for the season is a sparkling 15%. That ranks second in baseball, ahead of Three True Outcome Tsar Carlos Pena and Mr. Universe Joey Votto. Rarefied company and portends of excellence, or at least stability, to come.

At some point last year I boastfully claimed that Jose Bautista's ability to draw a walk and not much else was of little value. A .352 ISO quickly put that to bed, but what does it mean for the future? Even if his ISO (ie. Power) takes a 100 point hit, he's still an excellent player. 6/7 Win player? I don't think so, but what we previous thought was his ceiling (25 home runs, .375 on base) can now, fairly, be considered a fair projection for his back to Earth season.

At least, we can hope so.

¹ - Though I'm loathe to admit it, Jame Shields is much better than both those guys.

Image via Gameday, Pitch F/X goodies from Brooks Baseball

On Changing the Approach

I'm not about to link to the bait post written by a certain high-profile columnist on a certain major league home run leader. I won't name him either, lest his hourly self-Googling register another notch on his trollbelt. A classic case of a column turned in drenched with smirking self-satisfaction. Goading bloggers and commenters to take the bait as he proudly turns heel, much to the delight of his editors. A true tourist who likely needs a map to find the Rogers Centre, I don't think his words carry a lot of weight in the Blue Jays clubhouse.

The frustrating part, for me, is that he's a quarter right when he says it's baseball's fault. Baseball's fault for doing nothing to alter the pre-determined narrative that steroids help home runs hitters hit more home runs, ignoring the burden of proof and jumping past the obvious benefactors (pitchers) to cast a pall on a generation of highly-tuned athletes.

We're to ignore a generation that, instead of playing baseball in between harvests at Pa's wheat farm, grew up with specialized trainers and hitting coaches from the age of 13. Ignore the shrinking ballparks and tightly-wound balls and complete irresponsibility of teams when it came to protecting their young arms. Ignore advances in video technology that made everyone a better hitter. At the same time, ignore the ban on amphetamines when anointing this The Year of the Pitcher.

None of that stuff matters because a significant chunk of the writer's association feels — at the behest of their readership, it should be said — that steroids are cheating and cheating is bad. It cheats the game and the fans, and anything that could be described as random must be fishy.

The stupid thing is baseball is the only sport burdened by the "guilty 'til proven innocent, and then still assumed guilty" attitude. Chris Johnson added 50 yards to his yard/game from one year to the next - is he on drugs? Are there whispers? No.

Which brings me to the idea of "changing one's approach." I came into this season doubting Jose Bautista's ability to put up the kind of numbers over time. We're currently approaching one full calender year and some 700-odd of sustained, eye-popping success. At some point a hot streak becomes a little bit more.

I like to think my cynicism had more to do with true talent level not matching performance, so I sought more information. I looked for holes in his game and stayed guarded about his power surge, though the thought of "he must be juicing" never once entered my head. Mostly because I don't care, but I figured muscles aren't the be all and end all. If they were, wouldn't Gabe Kapler win the Triple Crown every year?

When you're a big-time columnist spread thin, you don't have time to look things up or fashion crude MS Paint diagrams. You shoot from the hip and wait for the red light to come on so you can re-iterate the same points. You spent enough time spitting up half-baked thoughts on TV, you can't expect accountability for them all.

Back to Jose Bautista - there is a great deal to be said for his change in approach. As a young player battling for playing time, a guy like Bautista isn't exactly empowered to go for broke in every at bat. Teams smartly discourage their young bats from giving away at bats - put a guy with a quick bat in the midst of enablers who don't mind the odd whiff and strange things happen.

Putting a similar spin on other sports, imagine if a grinder like Steve Begin or Max Talbot suddenly starting playing like Phil Kessel; lingering around the blue line waiting for breakouts, shooting from all angles and at all times. Now imagine a coach sees talent in said glue guy and plays him on the powerplay and pairs him with a setup man of some regard. Suddenly, his numbers skyrocket! HE MUST BE ON DRUGS! Of course not, not when considered within the context provided.

To spit in the ocean a little further, imagine Jose Calderon fancied himself a Spanish version of Allen Iverson circa-2001. He broke down the defense at every opportunity, took 45% of his teams' shots and turned the ball over with reckless abandon. But he averages 28 a night! DRUGS!

Nope, nobody would ever say that about two guys who would certainly benefit a lot more from additional strength and power than somebody trying to decide which pitch thrown at 90 mph from 60 feet away is suitable to hit.

But if you're a "questionable" baseball slugger, you don't get context. You don't get the benefit of thought, let alone doubt. Sudden boost or power? DRUGS. More home runs for the Jays? DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS EVERYBODY! Don't waste your time with details like fly ball rates (increased!), contact rates (increased!), or mechanical adjustments. If a guy like Bautista can hit this many home runs, he'd have been doing it all along! It's that simple, and it's that lazy.

Jose Bautista may never have a season like this again, and we all saw this backlash coming, but that doesn't make what this goof did any less cheap or lazy. Congrats to the editors who reveal in such cynical fan-baiting and encouragement of such insincere bullshit. You must be so proud of your author's willingness to brush aside calls for proof or evidence as "too funny." Considering the source, I'll do well in the future to always assume the worst.

Image courtesy of Reuters via Daylife.