Pillar is still lead off. I'm okay with that.

The bottom is

Tulo
Cola
Saunders
Martin
Goins

I would have probably gone with Smoak here. At the very least I would have moved Saunders ahead of Cola.
Let see if Sanders gets more than 2 PA against the right handed starter.

McCann, Castro and some kid named Torreyes are hot.
Arod, Ellsbury and Headley are cold.

The Yankees are coming from Detroit were they managed to play 2 games in the snow.
They couldn't wait to come to the warmth of the Dome. Or so I heard.

I'm calling it now: I think Sanchez is going to have better stats this year than Stroman (on a prorated basis - Sanchez will likely have fewer innings).

Torreyes has all of 5 ABs, so I don't know about hot ... he was a Jay for about a month last year and managed 7 hits in 50 ABs in AA, but he actually might be a solid MLB backup type. 

Great article on Cola and BABIP on Fangraphs.  He certainly sounds like the type of hitter who might defy conventional BABIP wisdom. 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/riding-the-waves-of-babip-variance-with-chris-colabello/

I'm not expecting him to sustain that, so I consider him hot.
That's 4 hits in 5 at bats. Cola has only 1 in 4 games and way too many strikeouts.

man this is an interesting test for sanchez. especially since he doesn't seem to have his crucial changeup today. if he can keep it together i'll be duly impressed.

this is about as small a zone as i've ever seen.

i guess it's been consistent at least.

I certainly agree about the small zone, ugly. A more standard zone and neither run Sanchez allowed would have scored. McCann easily could have been rung up on the 2-2 pitch immediately prior to the home run, but the high strike has been a ball all night. Battle of the bullpens now, though I'd have let Sanchez start the 7th.

Ugh, Cecil.

cecil needs to change his spring routine or something because he's terrible in April.

chavez. ach.

well, not like gibbons has many confidence inducing choices here.

Can't fault the manager here. Cecil has been awful this season, but he was the right guy to go to. He clearly does not have command of anything at this point, which is similar to the issues he was having early on in 2015, and he got a bit unlucky with that bloop RBI. The SP has been good, but the offense and bullpen have been disappointing. Tulo in particular looks awful at the plate. It's a shame the Jays seem destined for a slow start when they have so many divisional games in April. If there was ever a season to have a hot April, this would have been it.

I know Cecil is going to be fine, but Im not sure we can was until he figures it out. At the very least the Jays I think would be better off with Leon out and another lefty in the pen.

enough of this. time for a bat flip.

O's are doing their best '14 impression, their offense looks monstrous. Taking it to the Sox again.

I don't think they're going to go away.

i'd like to see more Floyd.

bats have to wake up sometime. we had a bit of success against betances and miller last year.

pompey 4 for 6 with a bb and sb in the doubleheader today.

Aside from Bautista and Donaldson, practically every hitter on the team is doing poorly. In the case of Tulo, Martin, and Colabello (not surprisingly), a better term would be really, really poorly.

Offensive has really been hard to watch thus far. They haven't strung hits together & RISP is abysmal. 8 more K's so far tonight with Miller in to close...awful.

Strike zone has been really inconsistent down & in to Lefty's....Sanchez didn't appear to get many called strikes in this location & Betances got two called strikes vs Jose.

Good start by Sanchez tonight,

0-3 in one run games.

Jays are now 0-5 when I watch, so this can be tagged on me, guys.

Guess it's just boxscores from now on. Hope you all enjoy watching the rest of the season.

I thought a key PA in the game was Tulo's K in the first inning with two on, Tanaka on the ropes, and Masahiro's pitch count very high. A base hit or a walk would have been a real blow to the Yankees, especially in game one of the series (helping get the SP out early). Troy knew it, too. His ineffective PAs in the five-hole so far have been hurting the team this season.

Only Donaldson, Bautista and Pillar got hits, but only McCann and Castro (the hot hitters) got hits for the Yankees.

It's a close game and Toronto does win many of those.

They should do better against the next two starters.

It's tough to have your best reliever protecting 3 run leads in the 9th when you need him against the heart of the lineup in the 7th or 8th. The good thing is that hitters might be pressing when they know they won't score in the 9th, but I don't think Osuna gives us that. Not until he get to July with an ERA around 1.0.

but only McCann and Castro (the hot hitters) got hits for the Yankees

Huh?

I thought a key PA in the game was Tulo's K in the first inning with two on, Tanaka on the ropes, and Masahiro's pitch count very high. A base hit or a walk would have been a real blow to the Yankees, especially in game one of the series (helping get the SP out early). Troy knew it, too. His ineffective PAs in the five-hole so far have been hurting the team this season.
Even more was Colabello's AB. The Jays had just scored 2 to take the lead, had two on and one out and Tanaka was definitely on the ropes then. A first pitch GIDP ended that and they really didn't hit at all after.

Not to pile on Cola, but he missed a pop-up down the first base line, too. It wasn't an easy play but it was catchable for a good fielder. I think Greg Zaun nailed it after the game -- the hitters are pressing too much, trying to do it all themselves and not waiting for their pitches. Instead of trying to hit the ball a mile, go with the pitch and hit up the middle, keep the line moving and cut down on the strikeouts. There, I've used all my cliches for the day.

Not to pile on Cola, but he missed a pop-up down the first base line, too. It wasn't an easy play but it was catchable for a good fielder.

I'll pile on - that pop-up was makeable by no less than two other Jays that Cosmo called off right before he missed the catch. I don't know how this guy gets so much rope when he's such a sinkhole defensively, is having terrible at-bats, and worst of all, is taking reps away from an actual first baseman that the Jays spent actual money on. When will Gibbons learn?

Castro wasn't even a hit but he got the ball in play for the RBI.

My point is the Yankees weren't hitting against Sanchez.
There are many teams looking for the offense to wake up.
Some manage to win. April is often very flukey, but the wins and losses count.

This looks an awful lot like last year when Loup was terrible early on.
Cecil has had several spells like that in his career.

Last year they were 4-4 after 8 and they finished April 11-12, 2.5 games out of first place.

Encarnacion 70wrc+
pillar 60
goins 59
tulo 18
cola -56
martin -75

can't win games hitting like that.

but i don't think we have to actually worry that 2/3 of our lineup will hit like AA players for very long.

Knowing the Jays, they'll win 8-0 today and have a positive runs differential.

ugly, you forgot Tulo 18.

Oh wait, my eyes forgot to work. Forget that!

"... I don't know how this guy gets so much rope when he's such a sinkhole defensively, is having terrible at-bats, and worst of all, is taking reps away from an actual first baseman that the Jays spent actual money on. When will Gibbons learn?...."

Gibbons certainly made the right call with Colabello last year, and he responded with an OPS of .886, which was much better than Smoak.  Why would you assume that his 16 plate appearances in 2016 are more significant than his 360 plate appearances last year?    You're not judging Russell Martin on the basis of his 24 plate appearances this season, are you?

Additional points:  Smoak's salary should be irrelevant to this discussion (you don't distribute playing time according to salary).  I disagree with you on the quality of Cola's at-bats this year:  I've seen some very good at-bats that didn't lead to an official hit.  And I disagree that he is a "sinkhole" at 1B.  He has made lots of great plays at 1B, saving several runs.  He did the same in the playoffs last season. 

In any event, let's wait for more than 16 plate appearances before we trash all of the data from last season.

The biggest data from last season re Colabello is .411

sounds like Venditte is coming up.

I imagine it's leon going down. but that's just a guess.

Can't imagine it's anyone else.  Probably should have been done before the game last night, considering the lefty-heavy Yankees.

"....The biggest data from last season re Colabello is .411....."

There are many fans who use those same kinds of numbers to claim that Marco Estrada's success was pure fluke.

Fangraphs has a pretty good analysis of Colabello's BABIP here:  http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/riding-the-waves-of-babip-variance-with-chris-colabello/

Key takeaway:

What’s encouraging is that Colabello’s xBABIP was still a robust .334, not high enough for him to hit .300 again without trimming the strikeout rate, but strong enough for him to approach .270. A regression from one of the highest BABIPs ever isn’t a prediction (or inevitability) that stands to make Colabello a bad player, maybe just one who isn’t 42% better than league average at the dish.

(My footnote:  an average of .270 combined with the power that he normally shows would still be better numbers than Smoak last year.)

Leon DFA'd.

Gibbons certainly made the right call with Colabello last year, and he responded with an OPS of .886, which was much better than Smoak. Why would you assume that his 16 plate appearances in 2016 are more significant than his 360 plate appearances last year? You're not judging Russell Martin on the basis of his 24 plate appearances this season, are you?

Russell Martin isn't a career Independent Leaguer. Colabello's BABIP was .411 last year.

"....Russell Martin isn't a career Independent Leaguer...."

Reading comprehension fail.   I wasn't comparing Colabello and Martin as hitters.  I was addressing the issue of tiny sample sizes.

As for BABIP, see my above post.

Small sample size is too easy an answer, everyone knows it is April, but we also all have prior expectations on each hitter's performance. I don't know how anyone (especially Gibbons) can dismiss Colabello's history (esp. at the major league level) of failure and the historically lucky BABIP season in 2015. He shouldn't be given a long leash. Smoak should take over the regular job if this continues as April draws to a close. Gibbons seems to like to run Colabello out there and I fear he will stick with him despite having a better option.

I do think Cola is a high-babip kinda guy, given his approach+power, but obviously not as high as last year.

His career line looks about right to me: 777pa, .343babip, 106wrc+

Maybe a tick lower in babip dropping the wrc down to right around league average. Pretty much what I expect.

I'd also expect around league average from Smoak too. Though with both of them it could easily end up way higher or way lower.

I'll stick with expecting a league average line from the combination of the two.

Of course, I'd expect around a league average line from Pompey too, but with much more defensive value.

"....Colabello's history (esp. at the major league level) of failure...."

Since reaching the majors in 2013, Colabello has a career OPS of .750.

Justin Smoak, meanwhile, has a career OPS of .699.

If we were judging which one of them has a "history of failure" in the majors, it is Smoak who looks like the major-league failure.

But of course you can "prove" anything if you assume that all contradictory data is merely "luck."

"....Gibbons seems to like to run Colabello out there and I fear he will stick with him despite having a better option..."

In fact, Gibbons has a history of adjusting the playing time of Cola and Smoak according to logical factors:  performance, opposition pitcher, defensive situation, etc.   Colabello hits better against RHP, while Smoak hits better against LHP, so that's one of the factors that does logically influence the decisions that Gibbons makes.  Colabello was hitting better overall than Smoak in the late stages of last season and the playoffs, so Gibbons went with the hot hand in those games.  If Smoak begins to hit consistently better than Colabello this year (and better than the very mediocre OPS of .542 that he currently has), I'm sure Gibbons will play Smoak more often than Cola.   It's very easy for him to adjust the balance between those two 1B options, and I'm sure he will do it.

Arnold Leon DFA'd, Pat Vendette recalled.

big game for Happ tonight. against the lefty yankees we really, really need him to shine.

smoak in at 1B tonight.

everyone else the same.

Pat Vendette

Vendetta would be a helluva name for a pitcher, especially one who throws from both sides.  His name is Venditte, but I do appreciate the effort to get him closer to the Sopranos wing of the Hall of Names.

As for Eephus' record of 0-5 watching the Jays in 2015, I'd suggest that it is a test. Bear down, young eeph.  Keep on watching but vary your routine.  No more beer and pretzels, it's soda water with a dash of lime and a thai appetizer plate until they start winning.  A cocktail or some Prosecco after that first victory would be entirely appropriate.  With your steadfast support, success is certain!

Just a couple points.

1. Smoak played in a pitcher's park.
2. Smoaks defence is much better than Colabello's so he can 'afford' to be an inferior hitter.

What I meant to say is that Smoak played in a pitcher's park in Seattle.

Obviously last year he didnt.

Because of Smoak's superior defence, he probably provided about the same value to the Jays as Colabello last season.  To be precise:  Smoak had a 0.6 fWAR last season, while Colabello was slightly better at 0.8 fWAR.  That data of course includes both offense and defense.

I agree that Smoak played in a pitcher's park before 2015.  But if we are bringing in explanatory factors, let's not forget that Colabello played for almost the entire 2014 season with a thumb injury that affected his hitting -- after an amazing April in which he broke the Twins record with 27 RBIs for the month. Here's the background on that injury and how he mistakenly tried to play through it (because he was afraid of losing his job):
 http://www.thescore.com/news/611550

When healthy, Colabello has generally been a good hitter for most of his post-rookie career.  And I'm not trying to argue that Smoak (by comparison) is a poor hitter -- Smoak actually hit pretty well in 2015 and I'm optimistic for his future.  I'm only trying to rebut the odd claim that Colabello has a "history of failure."  His career, before his excellent season in 2015, consisted mostly of several months where he was injured, plus his rookie season in which he played in only 55 games.  He never even had 300 plate appearances until last season.  Meanwhile at the AA and AAA levels for the Twins and Jays he was destroying the ball.  To describe this as "a history of failure" is extremely odd.

Again, to keep this in perspective, I'm not saying that Colabello in 2016 will be as good as he was last year.  But so far I'm not seeing the evidence for the assumption that Smoak will be a better hitter than Cola in the future.  Smoak looked very bad for long stretches last year, just as Colabello has looked bad for several games this year.  Maybe that merely shows that both are rather streaky hitters.

let's wait for more than 16 plate appearances

Word. Come on, gang. I'm supposed to be the only one around here who believes in small samples. Get it together!

I can't believe Shapiro is publicly criticizing Stephen Brooks because he interacted with fans on Twitter.  (See a recent tweet by John Lott for details of Shapiro's criticism of Brooks.)   Brooks was one of the very few people who humanized the Rogers front office, making the company seem like a friendly and approachable place.  Now Shapiro wants all communications to be centralized in a few authorized spokesmen.  Brooks was really the only person that I ever saw who was communicating about the Jays in a way that made the company seem accessible, reasonable, open and progressive.  For Shapiro to criticize this is quite strange, and again I wonder why the organization is so tone-deaf on a lot of symbolic issues.  They really do alienate the fans in unnecessary ways.

Liam Hendrik's career with the A's is not going so well, thus far.

Liam Hendrik's career with the A's is not going so well

Cola's BABIP god apparently stowed away in Hendriks' gym bag. Liam's FIP is 1.93 but his ERA is 10.50 courtesy of a .520 BABIP and a 46% LOB% (MLB rates are .296, 73%).

Is playing ball in the independent league until 27, hitting well in at AA/AAA when bein 3 years too old for his level, OPSing in the .600s for the Twins (most players play hurt or tired at some point), and getting released supposed to be described as something other than a history of failure?

Just count me as not a fan and a complete skeptic who thinks that playing Smoak over Colabello is the wrong choice and was the wrong coice. It took a miraculous feat of Wagnerian triumph for Colabello to be marginally better than Smoak last year. We're more likely to see a soap opera this year than anything Wagnerian from Colabello.

We'll see, sure it might be an odd opinion to hate on a 2015 hero, but as fans we're all entitled to our irrational likes and dislikes of players, even those on our home nine.

All with a HR rate of 0%. 13 hits in 6 innings with none of the 13 leaving the park has to be tough to do.

buck and pat waxing poetic about happ's great late career improvement as i'm having heart attacks watching the yanks spray bullets all over the field. all good as they're hitting our guys for now, though. keep it going j.a.

Is Sanchez sipping on a Tim Hortons coffee?

"Shapiro on Brooks' resignation: "It was the result of probably a mutual agreement that there was some disconnect on alignment." #BlueJays"

shapiro the corporate wordsmith, as always.

They've played five minutes in Brooklyn, and the Raptors have scored less than the Jays...

Hendriks has not given up a 2B, 3B, HR, or BB this season. All singles (13 H in 6 IP). That's some pretty bad luck.

The Jays offense is really ugly to watch right now.

gotta give happ props there - i thought there was no way he was getting out of letting on the 8 and 9 hitters to start the inning without giving them the lead. but he kept it together.

bottom of the order doing their job today, at least.

there's the break that big innings are made of.

come on meat let's get back to being the jays again.

ugh.

shoulda been more.

still, is it too much to ask for happ to give us one more clean inning, and then have Storen Cecil Osuna not give up the lead?

gotta get the #9 hitter here.

thattaboy happ. old happ woulda melted down in the 6th there for sure.

now get it done, storencecilosuna.

Gibbons made the right move by bringing back Cecil.  He wasn't at his sharpest tonight, but much better than previously.  Part of it was pitch selection- he works best when he throws a healthy proportion of fastballs early in the count. 

I thought last night that Cecil looked as if he hadn't quite found his delivery yet. He looked off balance much of the time. A little better tonight.

yeah good call on cecil. also good call to leave happ in to get himself out of trouble.

and storen. damn.

despite that shortest possible homerun there, imo that's the best storen's stuff has looked yet.

Very smart baserunning by Bautista. Fine fake back to second base to fool a veteran third baseman.

I remember this feeling.

I hope that inning was the start of the offense righting itself. Man it's been a brutal first week of the season for them, but they are too good to be this bad. Win the series tomorrow and head to Boston with some momentum.

first comfy win of the year. feels good.

next stro gets us back to .500, then we use fenway as a launching pad for a season of domination.

the script writes tself.

Thoroughly enjoyable game.  It's a lot easier to do that against Ivan Nova than against Dellin Betances, mind you. 

i'd be impressed if gibby bites the bullet soon and sticks Saunders in the leadoff spot. it's the right move, now that we know saunders is saunders again.

especially given pillar hasn't drawn one walk yet.

Anyone who has played in the MLB has been a very successful baseball player

i'd be impressed if gibby bites the bullet soon and sticks Saunders in the leadoff spot. it's the right move, now that we know saunders is saunders again.

I'd be happy with Goins in that slot.

The thing that pisses me off about Pillar is his defiance - he's not even interested in trying to get on base and just has this notion that "he's a hitter" and that batting first will just help him get more balls to hit.

I see Gibbons brought some Cito tonight. With Venditte called up, he brought him into a game as soon as he arrived. Much better than bringing in Osuna to 'lock down' the 5 run lead.

Has anyone seen this terrific doc about the Jay's long-time team doc, Ron Taylor?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BCACEh496M

This looked like an inning for Biagini, but it came late and I'm guessing other pitchers were already warmed up.
Osuna probably? Does Venditte take longer to warm up? I can't see him picking up a save here.

I'd be happy with Saunders hitting higher in the lineup, between EE and Tulo.
That first AB is just there to let Donaldson and Bats look at some pitches.

Of course - your point being? Is it that you later like to ignore context?

I hope that inning was the start of the offense righting itself.

Sometimes you hit the scrubs in the bullpen. Girardi wasn't interested in protecting a 1 run loss and Nova has been terrible in the spring.

Let's see what they do against Eovaldi--lots of hits, lots of HRs,  but lots of Ks and no BBs so fare.

Tell me again that Torreyes isn't en fuego. He's  got more hits than Cola, Smoak, Martin and Thole together.

BP's Michael Baumann with a fascinating piece on the need for philosophy in baseball and the tension between the old school fan / player / exec and the newer breed. 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28916

Does Venditte take longer to warm up?

I don't know, but you would certainly expect so. He's got two arms to warm up, after all. That said, different pitchers need different amounts of time to get ready. Some guys know how to get hot throwing 15 pitches in the pen, some need 30 or 40.

One thing about Venditte, though. It's not exactly like having two pitchers down there, so you could use him twice as often as a regular reliever (assuming his performance actually merited that kind of workload.) You pitch with your body, with your back and your legs, as well as your arm.

No doubt, Magpie.  If you are going to use Venditte in a higher leverage situation (say in the 6th inning with a margin of 2 runs or less either way), it would be better if there were no switch-hitters and there was at least one pure left-handed hitter (and ideally two).  This will occur often enough in non-Happ starts.

I liked what I saw from Venditte.  If used judiciously, he is going to be very effective.  Gibbons' next task is to find the right role for Gavin Floyd.  It's been tricky so far because the starters have been quite effective and there have been two days off already.  Personally, I'd make him the late inning, high leverage rover- so if Storen, Cecil or Osuna is unavailable on a particular night, Floyd slips in and everyone else remains in role.  I'd make sure that he also got a 2 or 3 inning stint here and there so that he was ready for longer work in extra-inning games, as well. 

I'd make sure that he also got a 2 or 3 inning stint here and there

Indeed. Because sooner or later, you're also going to need him to start some games. Someone will go down. Someone always does.

Definitely.  The club is in good shape in this department with Floyd, Chavez (who similarly should be given 2 or 3 inning stints here and there) and Hutchison.

I like Floyd as our 8th inning shutdown reliever.

I know, Storen has that role right now.

Maybe we can extend Cecil-Storen-Osuna to Floyd-Cecil-Storen-Osuna.

Or use Floyd when one of the other three need a rest.

As for leadoff spot, I think it should be Goins. I loved his second half last season (.361 OBP!) and has started well this season.

i wouldn't be surprised if gibby is leaning on chavez over floyd as the higher lev middle reliever mostly due to velocity. floyd is a tick softer than the other righties. (though storen so far is off his usual velo and not much harder than floyd).

right now pitch f/x has the righty's 4seamers averaging:

Osuna 95.6
Biagini 93.8
Chavez 93.0
Storen 91.9
Floyd 91.4

http://www.battersbox.ca/comment.php?mode=view&cid=320966

How about trying out JoeyBats at LF and Saunders in RF ?

http://www.battersbox.ca/comment.php?mode=view&cid=320969

Is Goins batting 9th usually considered a "second lead-off" hitter ?

I remember in 1985 the Jays talking about Tony Fernandez as a second leadoff hitter in the 9 hole while Damaso 'You can't Walk off the Island' Garcia leading off. In 1986 in one of the few smart moves Jimy Williams did he put Lloyd Moseby (highest OBP on team) to the top of the order but by early May gave in to letting Garcia lead off (after he burned his uniform iirc).

According to reports by Jeff Blair today, Kevin Pillar has confirmed that he played with a broken right hand during much of September and October last season.  He still managed to post a slash line of .333/.368/.505 during that period.

I suppose his critics will be unimpressed.  "More proof of his stubborn personality and his refusal to walk," they will say.

He still managed to post a slash line of .333/.368/.505 during that period.

That .368 OBP would look good at the top of the order. Maybe Pillar could get someone to re-break that hand for him every couple months.

According to reports by Jeff Blair today, Kevin Pillar has confirmed that he played with a broken right hand during much of September and October last season. He still managed to post a slash line of .333/.368/.505 during that period. I suppose his critics will be unimpressed. "More proof of his stubborn personality and his refusal to walk," they will say.

No, they won't say.

Just because I think it's stupid for him to lead-off and believe his now well-documented distaste for walking is a problem (crazy I know!), doesn't mean I dislike him or criticize other parts of his game.

He's fun to watch and his defensive WAR alone makes him valuable in CF. It'd just be great if he were somewhere near the bottom of the line-up, hacking away to his hearts content while making highlight-reel plays with his glove.

I don't think anyone will be unimpressed if Pillar can hit .333/.368/.505 this year.

If anything I'd guess it would be the opposite.

"...That .368 OBP would look good at the top of the order...."

Yes, it would.  But can you imagine the outrage and fury on this site if Gibbons had put Pillar in the leadoff slot on Sept. 1 of last year?  So many people are quite confident of their crystal balls.

in general, i try to ignore hot and cold months.

Gibbons had a good point about Pillar today:  "You'd have to be crazy to walk him ahead of Donaldson and Bautista anyway"

Does this mean that any leadoff hitter in the Jays lineup will probably have a low BB rate?  I wondered about that, so I checked the 2015 leadoff hitters (who included Revere, Tulo, Reyes, Travis and others).  The overall BB% rate for the leadoff hitters in 2015 was just 6.2%.   According to Fangraphs, that ranks somewhere between "below average" and "poor."  (Pillar's BB rate was even lower, of course.)

Personally I think Gibbons is right.  No matter who the leadoff hitter, he's not going to get a lot of walks when he's batting ahead of Donaldson and Bautista.

Keep in mind that the guy who is second in career walks is arguably the last person in baseball history who you'd want to give a free pass to first.

If Pillar isn't walking then it's mostly his fault.

"....If Pillar isn't walking then it's mostly his fault...."

So then in 2015 it was mostly the fault of all the other players in the lead-off position?

".....It'd just be great if he were somewhere near the bottom of the line-up, hacking away to his hearts content..."

It's a small sample, but Pillar has shown more plate discipline this season.  In the current Jays lineup, he has the 3rd-best rate of refraining from swinging at pitches outside the zone.  The data is here:

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=5&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=14&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=2,d



 

Pillar isn't gibby's first choice, but i'm sure what he's getting at tbere is that pillar is a good contact hitter who might benefit from pitchers throwing him more strikes there.

thing is, pitchers would also be "crazy" to throw strikes to pillar if he's gonna hit his way on base anyways, and they'd be very sane to keep throwing him balls and let him get himself out.

Well, there is also this: only 3 active players are on the top-100 all-time walks leaders list: ARod, Big Papi and Pujols - and none of them are leadoff hitters. Perhaps the walk isn't as common as it used to be? Hitting is down, I would assume OBP is as well? Perhaps 0.315 OBP IS the new 0.350 OBP?

well, the walks thing is kind of a red herring. the fact is he's one of our worst hitters, and how he gets there doesn't really matter.

Since 2012 (5yrs including this year):

RF Bautista (35): 2304pa, 26sb, 148wrc+
DH En'cion (33): 2469pa, 25sb, 148wrc+
3B Donaldson (30): 2407pa, 24sb, 138wrc+
2B Travis (25): 238pa, 3sb, 135wrc+
SS Tulowitzki (31): 1661pa, 5sb, 128wrc+
C Martin (33): 1986pa, 23sb, 110wrc+
LF Saunders (29): 1348pa, 38sb, 108wrc+
1B Colabello (32): 777pa, 2sb, 106wrc+
CF Pompey (23): 146pa, 6sb, 88wrc+

UT Smoak (29): 1672pa, 2sb, 97wrc+
OF Pillar (27): 900pa, 27sb, 86wrc+
IF Barney (30): 1448pa, 13sb, 69wrc+
C Sanchez (28): 155pa, 0sb, 93wrc+

UT Brown (28): 1468pa, 18sb, 95wrc+
OF Carrera (28): 451pa, 17sb, 85wrc+
IF Goins (28): 771pa, 2sb, 68wrc+
C Thole (29): 698pa, 0sb, 58wrc+

not that some of these guys necessarily haveny haven't changed their talent level now compared to these numbers.....but I'm not sure we've seen enough from literally any of them to expect significantly different than the above performance.

Well maybe one guy there I'd bet on not matching that performance - Domonic Brown, who I think is significantly worse than a 95wrc+ hitter at this point.

The rest, though.....I think as of now that's about where I'd expect all of them to end up this year.

all that being said, I can't get too worked up about the batting order, especially when we're not at full strength.

I'm going to keep a running tab of my complaints about gibby so far this year:

1. Pulling Dickey in the 5th inning of his first start.
2. Pulling Stroman in the 5th inning of his second start.
3. Pulling Floyd for Leon*.

(* = though with the benefit of hindsight I think I get that the only reason Leon made the team was because there was a chance he could be a groundball specialist in those key double play scenarios, so I'm not as upset as I was at the time. The complaint here would be Leon making the team in the first place, but I'm not sure that was all Gibby's call and I'm not sure there were necessarily better options there.)



ON LIVE: Jonah Keri is explaining BABIP to Jamie on the pregame show and I am a very, very happy man.

When does Jonah meet with Buck & Tabby? That could be a long meeting.

I suppose his critics will be unimpressed. "More proof of his stubborn personality and his refusal to walk," they will say.

This made me laugh out loud. Literally nobody would say that after finding out his hand was broken.

Heh,heh. Pillar puts a bouncer off second base. Who needs those stinkin' walks ?

I was looking at the fangraphs data earlier too.

The problem with Pillar is a low BABIP of .219 whereas Goins has a high score of .450.

Pillar has good discipline. He swings at less than 30% of the pitches outside the zone.
He doesn't strike out. He's not actually seeing that many pitches inside the zone.
He just has the highest contact rate all Blue Jays except Thole who hasn't played much.
It's interesting to note that Smoak and Bats saw the smaller percentage of pitches inside the zone--they both walked a lot. Number 3 is Cabrera and that's probably because he swings at more than 60% of the pitches outside the zone.

So far everything looks good for Pillar.
Also, by keeping him there, Gibby creates a distraction from his poor bullpen management.
I don't see him going anywhere.

"....Literally nobody would say that after finding out his hand was broken...."

My comment was intended as sarcasm.  It was a joke.  But judging from a couple of posts above, some people didn't realize that.  We need a sarcasm indicator, I guess.

".....I'm going to keep a running tab of my complaints about gibby so far this year...."

Minor quibble about these complaints:  Stroman and Dickey were both removed from those games in the 6th inning, not the 5th.   (Stroman pitched 5.1 innings and Dickey pitched 5 complete innings.)

Also, Stroman had thrown 92 pitches when he was pulled in the 6th game.  In his previous game, a much more successful one, he threw 98 pitches.  Given his injury background and his lack of innings last year (unless you assume that he was pitching a full workload at Duke), I assume the Jays are being a little cautious about his pitch count in the early games of the season.  Not ultra-cautious, but tending to avoid the 100 or 110 pitch games, at least until he is built up a little more.

"...Stroman had thrown 92 pitches when he was pulled in the 6th game...."

Should have read: "....when was pulled in the 6th inning of his 2nd game"  (not his 6th game, of course).

yes, 6th inning. my bad. before completing 6 innings is how I should have put it.

and 92 pitches is not a reason to pull either of them.

It's not a reason to remove Dickey from a game. His arm doesn't get tired and doesn't get injured.  It might have been a factor or an influence in the Stroman decision.

hearty congrats to all the jays fans there for not stopping gardner from falling, or helping him up.

that has to be called an error on goins.

Gibby really needs to move Tulo down in the order (creating a real murderers row with Colabello and Martin, while he's at it). 

Tulo, man.

demolished.

just demolished.

Heh,heh. Pillar doubles off third base. Who needs those stinkin' walks ? Also, it's early, but Josh looks like he wants to keep his M.V.P. award !

Donaldson, man

and that's how an ace deals with the inning after your boys get you the lead.

Nice win. A 5-5 record doesn't look that good, but considering how bad the offense and back-end of the bullpen (save for Osuna) has been, that's not a terrible first 10 games. Once the offense starts clicking, and Cecil/Storen start pitching like they have the past 3 years (hopefully), then things will start to turn around. This lineup is too good to be this bad, even if a regression from last season was inevitable.

Keep the momentum going into Boston now.

That was a loud 4 runs over the last 4 innings.  In Eovaldi's career, batters have gone .323/.384/.446 in the 3rd PA of the game. He'd probably make a fine tandem starter....   

5-5 is not bad. The big issue is bullpen management.

Last year there were missing 1 or 2 starters for half the seasons and 2 of the ones they had started slowly.
This year, even if Dickey starts slowly there is depth.

Ideally, Floyd would be used as a tandem starter pitching at least 3 innings, but Gibby is not going to let him get a save and will replace him in the 8th if Cecil or Storen is available. So, it looks like he only pitches if the team is losing or the other guys are tired.

Who comes in if the starter is in the ropes in the 6th? I think most of the time might as well let them pitch until they give up a run or two. I don't really trust Chavez to come into an inning with runners in scoring position. Storen isn't comfortable or even effective in that role. Can Venditte handle it?

They finally take their first series of 2016.

I'm not worried about Pillar. The peripherals don't look so good for Martin and Cola. Bad contact rates, too many strikeouts, not enough walks. It's April and iIt's probably just a question of timing. If Tulo can keep this up and hit 25 homeruns, that would probably be enough even if he only hits .225.

5-5 is just one win off what wins the division

Jays' starters not named Dickey have a combined ERA of 2.36 counting tonight's game. Early, but very encouraging, given that some people thought the rotation was a weakness. Dickey has a strong history of April being his worst month, and has a career ERA under 4.00 for each of June, July, August, September.

i was worried osuna would have a sophomore slump this year.

nope.

yeah the SP have kinda been good, eh?

10gms
6.3ip/gs (1st AL)
88era- (6th)
88fip- (5th)
97xfip- (6th)

not bad at all.


Bullpen

24.2ip (13th)
104era- (12th)
91fip- (8th)
75xfip- (2nd)

actually looks more unlucky than bad.

I think the timing issues start from Spring Training. Gibby didn't want to push his players too hard because their entire Season is now a month longer with Playoffs. He's not at the point of thinking about more time off during the year, just trying to keep them fresher.

I'm disagree with that. Get everyone at 100% or better to start the Season, then go full throttle, balls to the wall, until April's done. In May, start giving everyone extra days off. By this time they might need it. When you consider that the Bullpen is responsible for four of their five losses because the Offense couldn't salvage any mistakes, timing might be the issue.

The Jays won the first two games, won the last two games and dropped four of five in between. It's hard to tell what they are, but really, what are they? Are their last two games an indication they are back, or must we wait longer?

Things are coming around, this is a big series in Boston. I like that Gibbons seems to like Venditte, I really think he can be really effective when he doesn't face switch batters.

I think a tertiary goal of this season would be to see what some of the bullpen guys with control beyond this year look like.

actually looks more unlucky than bad.

So far the bullpen management leaves something to be desired.

Gibby's way was fine when the Jays had an established closer--like BJ Ryan--and a couple of experienced guys to setup and clean the tables in high leverage jams.

I would have thought that with Osuna being a kid and with almost everybody else having question marks next to their names, he'd focus on winning games instead of branding roles into his relief pitchers. Most of them should settle down. Might take a few weeks, but the talent seems to be there.

The bullpen management, aside from the Leon game, has generally been acceptable. I don't think Gibbons is as good with the pen as a lot of people seem(ed) to think when he was brought back, but he's lost 3 games this season with Cecil or Storen on the mound, and you have to live with that. Those two have a track record. The game where Chavez gave up the grand slam was when Morales hurt himself so he couldn't come into the game. Personally, I think Gibbons will manage better if he has assigned roles. He gets too cute with match-ups so the more trust he puts into certain guys, the less tendency he'll have to mess up.

The issue is that Chavez and Floyd are both rotation depth, and Biagini is a Rule 5 pick that Gibby has no faith in yet, so that limits a lot of the options in close games. At some point, Gibbons will have to commit to someone being that 6th inning bridge to the top 3 in the pen (Floyd, Chavez, or Biagini). In that sense, you can see why Sanchez in the pen was something they considered, but in the long run, it was the right move to have him start somewhere.

I think Venditte will make the pen a lot more solid.

Osuna: closer
Cecil/Storen: setup (7/8th)
Venditte: early setup (6th, large leads later)
Chavez/Floyd: used when behind late
Biagini: used when a big spread in score

April is to figure out roles when games count as it is hard to tell when everyone is at their best during games that don't count. I'm hopeful Biagini can turn into a good late inning option as a surprise candidate.

"So far the bullpen management leaves something to be desired."

the leon incident was questionable, and he may have shown overconfidence in the pen by pulling starters early on a couple of occasions, but overall not much to complain about imo.

it's not the managers fault imo that the bullpen has kept giving up homers every game. and key ones at that. but it may not even be the pitchers faults either - may just have been a bit of a HR fluke flurry to start the year, as their underlying numbers are all excellent otherwise.

and it seems gibbons has already adjusted - leon's been cut, and the last couple games he's let his starters pitch through trouble on their own.

On bullpen management, fans love to second-guess the decisions, but it's usually not as simple as we think.  This interesting article on Gibbons and Cecil adds some nuance about why a manager's decision can be influenced by many legitimate factors that we don't know about:

 http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/14/why-odd-blue-jays-managerial-decisions-sometimes-make-sense/?utm_content=buffer7017e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Thanks for sharing that, China fan. The Brett Cecil quote sure brings some perspective, copied from Richard Griffin's piece at The Star:

“It’s always nice to have a comfort level, know when you’re going to pitch, where you’re slotted to pitch,” said Cecil, the longest-serving Jays pitcher. “It definitely makes guys more comfortable, especially late in the game, knowing when to start getting ready. If you start getting ready too early, you kind of tire yourself out a little bit. When you don’t know when you’re going to go in, getting caught off-guard when you haven’t even stretched or anything yet. So it definitely gives a lot of comfort knowing where they’re going to be slotted at to pitch.”

As much as we may instinctively like the concept of a manager using his best arms in the most important situations, the players may not buy into that approach. It will be interesting to see how Gibbons chooses to employ Cecil and Storen moving forward. Will he lean towards one in the 7th and one in the 8th, or will he try to keep Storen vs. RHB and sometimes pitch him in the 7th?

"....It will be interesting to see how Gibbons chooses to employ Cecil and Storen moving forward..."

He also has a dilemma with Floyd and Chavez.  Both could be good in high-leverage situations, and I don't think Gibbons is afraid to use them in high-leverage situations.  But they're also logical choices in the middle innings.  Their roles will be difficult to define, which means that they won't know when they are likely to enter a ballgame. I suppose they can generally rule out the 8th and 9th innings, since those will probably still go to some combination of Osuna, Storen and Cecil.  But why shouldn't Floyd pitch the 8th inning occasionally, if he continues to pitch well?  He might not pitch well in the 7th or 8th innings, however, if he has been warming up in the bullpen since the 5th or 6th inning.