With two left-handers going for the Sox on the weekend, Colabello should get some work.  Tonight, it's the usual lineup facing a RHP. 

It sure would be nice if Justin Smoak could learn to sometimes slap a ball on the ground the other way.  You have to keep a pitcher like Porcello honest.

It sure would be nice if Justin Smoak could learn to sometimes slap a ball on the ground the other way.

He has tried bunting against the shift a couple of times, but can't keep it fair. Butter'll have the defense way swung over tonight. Smoak will try again!

There's a typo. Beurhle is 14-7. Hopefully by Sunday night he'll reach 15 for the first time since 2008.

I do worry about the Sox, but the Yanks still have to play them 4 times, as well as a tough Mets team this weekend.

Should be a fascinating finish to the season over the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully they clinch before that last trip in Tampa.

Stroman was good for 78 pitches last time, so maybe 90 tonight?
I'm banking on 5 innings. Anything more would be extra.

There's a typo. Beurhle is 14-7.

Noted and corrected but I will also point out you spelled Buehrle wrong! ;D Seriously though, thanks for pointing out the error.

Meantime, there is a Blue Jays/Taylor Swift parody making its way on the interwebs.

I believe his pitch count was 90 but because of the rain delay he was finished after 5 (and coincidently after 78 pitches). He had already thrown 79 pitches in Buffalo previously.

New York verses New York. One team dominates their Division while the other is fading fast. Now if those teams play like they should we might make progress in our Division race.

Boston on the other hand doesn't know what they want, respectability or great draft position. But that's what Boston is this year, a bottom-feeder with delusion of grandeur.

Marcus Stroman is pitching better each time and he's starting to look like last year's Starter. Depending on which Boston shows up, Stroman might get his 90 pitches in 5-8 innings.

Noted and corrected but I will also point out you spelled Buehrle wrong!

That's too funny!

I'm surprised Porcello is still there getting shelled passed 110 pitches.

Stroman looks like he hasn't missed a game. What a treat having him back :)

that last out of the 7th was the first fly ball the red sox have hit all game.

The thought that the Yankees have to face Matz, then Syndergaard, and then Harvey is... comforting, somehow.

The thought that the Yankees have to face Matz

Matz disappointed. He allowed a run but drove none in, and has now given up 6 this year and driven in only 5.

Tigers take the lead in the bottom of the 8th.

OK, Syndergaard. This is why you were traded!

They pinch run for Alex Rios these days?

I feel old.

Royals tied it in the 9th.

Brad Ausmus found a guy in his bullpen who's not as good as Justin Verlander. Wasn't too hard, actually.

So awesome with Stroman that he's such an extreme ground ball pitcher. Great mix with our awesome infield defense. Just keep pounding the low zone and letting them whack ground balls to our gloves.

Plus Royals lost, so we're only one game behind in the loss column now.

fyi, I heard tonight that the Jays are on ESPN next Tuesday and Wednesday nights (and confirmed the information on the ESPN MLB Scoreboard).

It appears to me that the Wednesday night ESPN broadcast will be on TSN2.  It's listed on my Rogers Digital Cable guide here in Ottawa.

I thought ESPN Wednesday games were blacked out in local markets, but reportedly that changed starting in 2014 with their new 8-year deal, and now the local and ESPN broadcasts can both be available.  Ref: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2012/08/28/Media/MLB-ESPN.aspx

I can't find any listing of the Tuesday night ESPN broadcast on my system, however.

The Royals have moved Duffy to the pen and returned Guthrie to the rotation.

Ned Yost wants to know how Duffy performs out of the pen since he's going with a playoff rotation of Cueto, Volquez, Ventura and Medlen.

Given the above, the Jays have a good shot a finishing first in the AL.

In a year of great stories for the Jays (Osuna, Pillar, Goins, JD etc), Stroman's may be the best. A still inexperienced, "height-challenged" guy, recovering in remarkable time, having only two minor league rehab games in 12 months, and then tying up the Yankees and Red Sox....this is absolutely stunning.

This is fun. 4 up on the Yankees, 1 1/2 back of the Royals. Not going to catch the Cardinals for best record in baseball as they are 7 1/2 up.

By B-R's SRS (Simple Rating System - to measure how good a team is) the Jays are #1 by a mile. 1.6, #2 is NYY & Houston at 0.8 with St Louis at 0.5 KC is at 0.7.

Should be a fun playoff season. Right now it looks like Jays vs Texas and KC vs wild card. All depends who wins that wild card game.

You've missed a Jays win somewhere. They are 4.5 up on New York and only 1 game behind Kansas City.

We're only 1 back of the Royals

I wonder if the Royals are going to shut down Holland soon. The guy is clearly hurting, barely breaking 90 on his fastball now. Well at least it means they're not so scary when they get to the sixth with a lead.

houston is the only AL team that scares me.

The Jays have won 26 in a row when scoring 5 or more runs.

Apropos of nothing in particular, there were a couple of articles recently that contained interesting comments or information. They may have already been discussed.

The first is an article by Jeff Blair from August about the appointment of Mark Shapiro. Buried in the article is reference to the commencement of discussion within the next decade about construction of a new downtown stadium. It would obviously be great to see a park like Miller Park built in Toronto, but the first thought i had was that this could also be the segue out of discussing natural grass for the RC. I don't see grass in the RC as particularly feasible or likely, and the chances of anyone spending billions, or at least hundreds of millions to retro-engineer the RC with grass and then shortly thereafter building a new park are nil. What may be more likely is an announcement in 2017 that a study will begin to report on a new park to be built around 2025. Here's the Blair article.

There is also an article by Arden Zwelling about Michael Saunders. It seems that Saunders has been disabled by a bone bruise, which was at first asymptomatic but began to hurt once he was playing. The bruise apparently comes from the friction of bones now that the meniscus is gone. While the article has an optimistic tone, that seems to me like a potentially permanent problem. Here's the link.

Finally, Marcus Stroman says he's fallen in love with the two seamer. He threw it half the time last night, and accepts that there will be fewer strikeouts.

the beauty of stro is that he can ignore 3 pitches completely and still have a deep arsenal on any given day. and with martin and navarro back there it makes it easier for him to stick with what's working

even with his velo and command not quite there yet he's got plenty to get hitters out with.

i would like to see more clean swings and misses, but at this point a new pitch can be really effective because they really have no time to adjust their book on him the rest of this year.

CBDC, I didn't get the same feeling in the Saunders article.

After he accepted that fact, Saunders travelled to the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Colorado to visit with a knee specialist and get another opinion on his progress. “I sought help. I sought answers,” Saunders said. “There are thousands of athletes that have had the same surgery as me. Not all of them have developed bone bruises like I did. But some of them have and they’ve all come back great. The specialist I talked to confirmed that there’s not one guy that he’s seen that hasn’t come back fully healed from this. That was really encouraging for me. It gave me peace of mind.”

“I’m confident that the MRI in November will show that everything’s fully gone,” Saunders said. “All signs point to me being 100 per cent for spring training and ready to contribute in 2016.”

Relentless.

The drive to the Postseason is fun. R.A. is the next Starter to try to extend the winning streak. I'd like to see a sweep and a streak continue, but just winning as much as possible will work. The later start today seem strange.

Tough start for Syndergaard today. 3-0 Yankees with none out in the first.

Syndergaard's previous 6 starts, before today: 5.7ip/gs, 4.67era, 4.50fip

wonder if the book is out on him. his secondary offerings have always been questionable.

From 28 July to 13 August the Jays won 14 of 16 games and went from 8 GBL to +0.5 ahead.
From 14 August to 09 September the Jays won 15 of 23 games and gained just 1.0 game.
From 10 to 17 September the Jays won 6 of 8 games and gained 3.0 games.

I find it very hard to believe the Jays won't win the A.L.East. I think that as a given fact. I believe it's possible to be the #1 Team in the A.L. Whether or not they can become the #1 Team in all Baseball will be something to watch.

Probably just hitting a wall in first year. He's like thirty innings past his previous high. He could certainly use a change up, but his curve and sinker are very good. He'll be fine. (Which by that I'll mean we'll moan for years about what could have been)

love noah but he'll need that 3rd pitch to justify the hype he's received this year i think.

but then again Price went for years without much of a 3rd pitch.

I've never been the highest fan of pitchers whose best off speed pitch is a curve. I'd rather have it be a change or at least a slider or cutter. Although the last two put more wear and tear on arms. But he's young and has a 100mph fastball with decent ground ball rates. Pretty sure he'll be ok. D'Arnaud also looks scary good right now provide he stays healthy. Becerra also is looking good, but still got a ways to go. I think this will be the next Michael Young trade we'lol lament for years.but if Dickey can help us get a title that would be nice.

not really worried about tda. his poor defense, injuries, and the fact that he's almost 27 already make me doubt that he can stay behind the plate for long. and the bat is probably not as good as it's looked recently.

i always loved noah though. always seemed like a stud to me. but i am a bit surprised by how hyped he got coming into this year. this kid is not a can't miss ace imo.

and of course they both get to pad stats against a truly horrific division.

Thanks Richard. That works out to an incredible winning %.I too fully expect that the Jays will continue to be as good the rest of this year.

If so, I am going into next year with high hopes.

The science of Ryan Goins.

Calling BS on Buck. Holt, a switch-hitter, told Buck he enjoys the axe-handled bat batting from both sides.

Except Holt isn't a switch-hitter.

EE makes me giggle.

Great job by Lowe in the 7th. Now let's get some runs and win this thing.

So pinch-hitting for Goins against a LHP is a non-starter now? A nice high OBP guy like Hague here would go nicely and then bring Barney in for the 9th.

Okay, I guess not.

I was thinking the same thing, Chuck.   There were plenty of options.  Gibbons could have brought in Smoak to hit for Goins, since Smoak is going to be at 1B in the 9th inning anyway.  Or he could have brought in Navarro or Carrera, both of whom would have a better chance of hitting a sacrifice fly or a grounder in the right direction. 

I suppose Gibbons may have been saving the pinch-hitter as the replacement for Pennington, assuming that Goins wouldn't hit into a double play, but then that became moot.  In any event, the time for a pinch-hitter is when you need a sacrifice fly.  Goins might be getting on base more often than before, but he's not the guy for hitting a deep fly ball.

Gibby mostly do pinch running rather than pinch hitting. I suppose it keeps all the starters happy.

Keeping Goins in when you have the lead is not a bad move.

I really don't think Holt touched that ball.

Tough break.

osuna hasn't been striking anyone out lately.

That missed opportunity for a sacrifice fly in the 8th inning is looming large now.

Pennington looking bad today. Two botched throws to first, and the rbi double to tie it was catchable. Hopefully just an off day for him...and Osuna.

And yeah the ump missed the strikeout preceding the last double. Ugh

...so actuallu oSuna struck out two in the inning. But his control seemed to be lacking throughout

Probably not a good idea to try to use Osuna for more than one inning.

Worst inning in months. Think i'll just eat dinner

blech.

sanchez has not been good at all lately.

3 k's in the last 6 innings isn't great, but it's quite a SSS.

In the 3 innings before his last 6, he had 8 k's.

Feels like the Jays haven't had an inning like this in forever. Everything going wrong.

Blech. Really hope that Osuna/Sanchez are not out of gas.

What's the point of having so many good bats (and gloves) on the bench if you're going to allow Goins and Pennington to hit for themselves?

What's the point of having so many good bats (and gloves) on the bench if you're going to allow Goins and Pennington to hit for themselves?

I think it makes sense to leave Goins in up 4-2 heading to ninth.  At that point his glove seems more important and his bat has been pretty good lately.

Agree re Goins but having Pennington hit when they are down by 3 in the ninth was non-sensical.

Hope this was just an off night for the back end of the pen. The pressure on them will continue to ratchet up in the coming weeks, and the biggest risk for this team right now is the inexperience of Osuna and Sanchez. There is going to be a lot of pressure for young guys with few innings. Hopefully they can handle it.

I think it makes sense to leave Goins in up 4-2 heading to ninth.

Sure, two out and nobody on base, fine. Let Goins bat. The odds of scoring in that situation would be minimal. But bases loaded, one out and a LHP in? Man, you've got to take advantage even if it means a slight defensive downgrade to Pennington/Barney for a single inning. The potential upside far outweighs the downside.

Not sure I understand lifting Cecil when he's been so good lately with only a man on first. Doubt it helped Osuna to be sitting for so long.

They Jays have many good relievers, but coming out in a rush with runners on base is not easy.

Osuna's ground ball ratio is about 35%, so on average you have the improved defense for 1 out in the inning. Maybe, it's a tough double play ball, but I'm pretty sure you're better off with the extra insurance run.

Not sure I understand lifting Cecil when he's been so good lately with only a man on first. Doubt it helped Osuna to be sitting for so long.

Agree completely with this. He's been pitching fantastic and his splits against both sides are great.

Sanchez continues to justify my anxiety whenever he enters the game. He can have all the great sinking action and movement on his pitches he wants, he's still not very good at locating anything in his arsenal. He's young, maybe he figures it out, but I don't like him in high leverage situations.

But bases loaded, one out and a LHP in? Man, you've got to take advantage even if it means a slight defensive downgrade to Pennington/Barney for a single inning. The potential upside far outweighs the downside.

I'm not someone who has a really nuanced sense of the odds here -- but my basic instincts in a game where I am up 4-2 coming into the ninth is going to be towards not allowing the other team to score more runs, not scoring more myself, so I'm really not inclined to take out my star defensive player at SS with a groundball pitcher due up and replace him with someone average with the hopes of improving the chance of padding my already substantial lead.   

Someone he'll listen to will have to sit down with Roberto Osuna and talk pitch selection. For a Reliever he uses a lot of different pitches and throws a lot/too many of those pitches in an inning. He needs two quality pitches, one pitch to get strikes, and one pitch to get outs. Someone else will have to sit down with Aaron Sanchez and discuss his pitches, his effort and his control. Worst case scenario, without that, these guys might be useless for the Postseason, and we might not reach the Postseason.

This is a shot in the dark, but does anyone know of a site that tracks wRC+ splits by count (as in - after 0-1, 1-0, ..., 3-2)? Baseball Reference has OPS+, which is better than nothing, but not ideal...

Electric carrot, is Barney just "average"? We have been told different, but if he is merely "average" then it would have made sense to keep Goins in the game. But he was acquired because he's supposed to be very good. A middle infield of Pennington (SS) and Barney (2B) shouldn't be a big dropoff from Goins-Pennington, unless Barney is not as advertised. Also, a two-run lead is not really "substantial."

I'm not someone who has a really nuanced sense of the odds here

Say Goins/Pennington was worth about 4 more wins per year defensively than Pennington/Barney. I'm sure that's not the case, but for argument's sake let's go with it. That's about a 40 run difference. So G/P would save about 1/4 run per game over P/B. That's 1/36 run per inning.

With the bases loaded, one out and Goins facing a LHP -- Goins is very weak vs LHP, Layne is extremely weak against RHB; the average RHB has hit like Josh Donaldson off of Layne -- not pinch-hitting is either a gross miscalculation or an act of hubris.

The run expectation with the bases loaded and 1 out is about 1.5 runs. With Layne facing a RHB, it would have been higher. Yes, it was not a given that Goins would not knock in a run or, worse yet, hit into a DP. But he was not a strong candidate to add an additional run in an AB against a highly effective LOOGY. All to save 1/36 run, or less.

Yesterday was an easy game to second guess Gibbons in, from the super-quick hook for Cecil, to using Osuna in the 8th rather than the one inning rule that he was following for a long time.

So far Osuna has been used in the 8th 19 times (I thinK), with runners on and a lead and left in for the 9th twice plus yesterday. The other two times went smoothly but clearly it is a rare event. I'm wondering if Gibbons is started the Gaston treatment - figure out what guys can do and cannot do before the playoffs hit.

Chuck is right, but you probably have to look at win expectancy charts to satisfy yourself. Not all runs are equal in that game situation.

I'm hoping that we have seen the last of the Dickey-Martin battery. Catching the knuckler seems to wreck Martin's timing at the plate and doesn't do wonders for the power in his legs either.

I also hope that we see a return to one inning outings for Sanchez and Osuna.

Goins was 1 for 3 against Layne prior to yesterday, a had two-run double back in June against him. I suspect this was in Gibby's mind... whenever he eschews a lefty/righty advantage, it's usually because that hitter has a history of success against that pitcher, despite what his overall splits might indicate.

1/3 against a pitcher isn't much of a history, though.

I was somewhat surprised Gibbons left Dickey in to start the 7th with a 2-1 lead. Dickey has pitched well for some time now, but he has a history of fading after 6 IP, he had given up a HR the previous inning, The bullpen was rested, and the game was an important one. I assumed Gibbons would go with Cecil (or Lowe)/Sanchez/Osuna for an inning each for innings 7/8/9. As it turned out, Dickey gave up what would prove to be the tying run in the form of a leadoff double to the pernicious Holt.

Well Chuck you're convincing me a little bit but I also cannot help but notice how your argument exaggerates the strength of your position. 

Goins is very weak vs LHP

There's not a tonne of evidence that he's much worse against lefties.  There's just as much evidence this year, for example that he hits much better with runners in scoring position (but for the record I'm not going there.) His stats for 2012-14 stats show a about 50 OPS difference lefty/righty.

All to save 1/36 run, or less.

I notice that you give the likelihood of Goins' outcomes in WAR but not the likely outcomes of your batting switch in WAR which if you did would also turn into a small percent. In any case, I don't think WAR is the good stat here. I think the operative stats here should be % chance of winning the game.  And I won't claim any strong sense for the probabilities here.  But my guess is that up two runs in the ninth the Jays chances of winning are close to 95%. I'm guessing that adding another run or two probably puts it at the 98% range. The % chance that pinch hitting for Goins increases that probability I expect is pretty generous at 10%. These are all guesses, but by this figuring by pinch hitting for Goins what you're doing adding a 10% chance that you increase your chance of winning the game by 3% or so. However, if the Red Sox put men on base in the ninth I think their percentage chance of winning goes up much more substantially than 3%. I think Goins is a real difference maker on defense especially with a groundball pitcher and so preventing Red Sox getting on base becomes the priority.

That's the logic anyway. Maybe not the right call -- but more defensible than the way you make the argument sound.  




 

From Dave Laurila at Fangraphs

"Alex Anthopoulos is a big believer in blending scouting and analytics. Many general managers are. The extent to which they balance the two, relative to each other, is a matter of conjecture. Ditto what they value most within each discipline.

The Toronto GM has an idea where his contemporaries lean, but only to a degree.

“You can see certain themes, but I don’t know that we know all that much,” said Anthopoulos. “There are certain GMs who have strong relationships with each other and might talk about more, but we’re all competing with each other. I don’t know that people really divulge much philosophically, other that what’s obvious in their transactions.”

Anthopoulos predictably wouldn’t go into detail, but he did divulge some tasty tidbits regarding personnel decisions the Jays have made. With Marco Estrada, “the scouting reports didn’t fit with where we’d go from an analytics standpoint.” Justin Smoak was “maybe more on the analytics side than the scouting report.” Dioner Navarro was “probably more scouting than analytics.” Edwin Encarnacion “might have been” (more scouting than analytics). Signing Jose Bautista to an extension “was both scouting and analytics.”

Anthopoulos went on to say while there exceptions for everything, you shouldn’t make a decision without both. As for how other organizations go about the balancing act, he only knows that everyone is out to win.

“I think everybody studies everybody else,” opined Anthopoulos. “Everybody is always trying to get an edge, but at the same time, certain people have strong beliefs, opinions, and so on. I won’t say we have all the answers.”

Gibbons had been managing fairly predictably for awhile now. And I don't say that disparagingly. His button pushing has been effective, regardless of any protestations from these parts (which, frankly, have not been overly numerous).

Dickey has given us 6 good innings in a close game? Out he comes. I line up my relievers thusly, and this is the order in which they pitch, and only for an inning if at all possible. With a healthy Tulowitzki, I platoon at 2B recognizing that Goins cannot hit LHP. I sort of platoon at 1B but give Colabello some starts against RHP so that he and Smoak split playing time 50/50.

And this past week we have seen him make not just decisions that are worthy of debate, but decisions that run contrary to the way he himself had previously opted to act. I don't want to say that he seems a little rattled in this pennant race (who ever knows what goes on in another person's mind?), but he is not acting like himself.

Or maybe it just seems that way to me. That's entirely possible.

His stats for 2012-14 stats show a about 50 OPS difference lefty/righty.

Goins' career split is 513/633 (+120). His 2015 split is 535/703 (+168).

Layne's career split is 452/883. His 2015 split is 408/964.

Whichever permutation of numbers you want to use (career, 2015), this was not a favourable matchup for Goins, but would have been for any of Navarro, Smoak or Hague.

According to FanGraphs' win probability model, the probability of winning the game BEFORE the Goins AB was 96.4%. After the AB, it was 92.7%. Even if the Jays had gone on to score another run or two, you are correct that there's not a lot of room to go above 96.4%, maybe another 2-3%.

Goins is a real difference maker on defense

I certainly agree. But the effects of that defense, from a probability perspective, are not likely to be huge in one single inning, certainly not 2-3%. That would be 18-27% for a whole game. For one player. The math just doesn't add up. And bear in mind that it was Osuna (a 35% GB pitcher) who was in the game. And that Plan B behind Goins/Pennington was Pennington/Barney. On a one-inning basis, that difference is barely measurable.

Alex Obal - fangraphs' players page splits has it.

To be fair we haven't really seen that much of Gibby's September management.
The strategies will change again in October when the bench goes back to 25.
Right now, every game I hope the starter leaves with a big lead, and that happens fairly often.

I'm still waiting to see Hutchison pitch out of the pen.
Will he get a chance to earn a spot on the playoff roster, or will Gibby prefer to go with guys like Loup and Schultz?

Pillar gets an A+ on his slide into home to make it 3-0.

No idea why anyone would have Buehrle over Estrada in the playoff rotation.

Yeah he's sadly done I think. Not like this is a good matchup, but he's not a good pitcher with how his shoulder is now. I think he'll be okay for a start or two more down the stretch against weaker teams like Baltimore and TB.

what are you guys talking about?

i think the red sox managed to hit one ball hard all day. (castillo 2B).

babip and errors did their best to kill buehrle today but they couldn't.

and the silly babip continues into the bullpen.

come on navarro. defense today has been horrific.

Wish they PH'd there for Pillar.

Tough series, hopefully the Mets can help us out and we'll still be 3.5 up against the Yanks going into the showdown.

9-10 against the last place Red Sox, and no losses more annoying than those two.

That was down right ugly. Two extremely winnable games and they spit the bit for a second straight game. Thirteen games left to play and the Jays are going to stretch it out to the very last day. Where they are by Thursday should give us a very good idea of how this finishes?

Although only Kasi agreed with me a few days ago, and one vehemently and repeatedly disagreed, Boston is a pretty good team now.

Yeah Buehrle didn't give up much hard contact, but he wasn't fooling the Sox either. 8 hits, 2 walks 1 SO.

Only 3 of Buehrle's 91 pitches were swings and misses.

6.0IP 8H 3ER 2BB 1SO

Eh, that's a QS!

It's the second year that  Buehrle runs out of gas in the second half.

Indeed they are a pretty solid team with a lot of good young hitting. All at premier positions too like C, SS, CF and the wild card in Betts who is looking like the next Zobrist. Plus while their bullpen is pretty bad, they do have a pretty good stable of starters. Not much in the way of stars but fairly dependable.

Buerhle, like Hutch is not going to be able to do much without a strike out pitch. If all you can do is get hit and hope the babip gods treat you well then you're going to have lots of games like this. Anyway yeah we choked this series away pretty hard.

Also I'm very puzzled by Gibbons change recently in bullpen strategies. For a while we seemed to have a pretty good (but fairly predictable) strategy going of one pitcher, one inning, yet now he's running pitchers out there for a second inning all the time, and getting burned for it constantly. Doesn't help that our 2-4 hitters have gone a bit cold as well. Just hope the Mets win tonight so we're at least 3.5 up entering that series.

"Although only Kasi agreed with me a few days ago, and one vehemently and repeatedly disagreed, Boston is a pretty good team now."

Actually I also said the Sox worried me as they have played well since the break, and were originally favoured by many analysts to win the division.

Still, I didn't expect the Jays to beat themselves two games in a row. Anyway, their three hotest pitchers are facing the Yankees, so hopefully they can bury them once and for all.

if boston is a good team, then how can you think that's a bad performance by buehrle?

or was it the dominance of one Richard Hill that spoke more to Boston's team quality?

The Jays are now 13-27 in one-run games. This may not say anything bad about Gibbons's managerial acumen, but I doubt it says anything positive, either. Sheesh.

Although to be fair, greenfrog, there haven't been too many one-run games since the late-July reinforcements came in... well, until the last two games, that is.

In more promising news for the home team, Tanaka will miss his next start against the Jays on Wednesday:

http://www.rotoworld.com/headlines/mlb/483533/tanaka-%28hamstring%29-will-miss-his-next-start

So for the final Yankees series, the opposing starters of Warren-TBD-TBD isn't exactly intimidating. After this weekend, though, ya never know.

Donaldson seems hurt since that Yankees series. Wish we had an offensively capable third baseman to spell him.

Tough luck these past two days. Especially the throw from Pillar. It looked to me that it hit the seam of the dirt/turf and didn't bounce up like it should. And inch closer or further from Navarro and Sandoval is probably out. Sums up the Sat/Sun games.

"if boston is a good team, then how can you think that's a bad performance by buehrle?"

Never said that was a bad performance. It was mediocre, too many baserunners, but Buehrle is a smart old dude and managed to escape with fairly minimal damage.

I am saying Estrada is pitching better than Buehrle, although to be honest, I wouldn't want to see either pitch in Yankee Stadium if that's a playoff match-up.

Well, that sucked. The good news is the Jays still have a 9 game lead on the teams outside of the wild card race (Angels/Twins tied) with 13 games to go and a 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 game lead on the Yankees (Mets lead 1-0 as I type) for the AL east crown going into a 3 game series with those Yankees. Unless the Jays get swept there is no need for panic right now.

Harvey dominated the Yankees, but he was on a five-inning limit and the emboldened Yanks are now up 5-1 in the sixth and still batting. The underachieving Jays (per Pythagoras - should have 94 or so wins instead of 85 at this point) are going to have to bring it in the next series.

Pitching match ups could hardly be better. We skip Tanaka and Pineda. Provided we can get to Severino again both Warren and Nova are guys we can get to. Plus we have three of our top four going. We have to take 2/3 here.

One run games continue to be this team's kryptonite. It's the only reason there's a division race at all.

Don't look now, but Trout is only trailing by .2 for the AL Lead in WAR. Donaldson is leading the Majors in RBI, ahead of Trout with a .301 BA, and is on a team positioned for the play-offs. If Trout bests him in WAR and HR, that could make things interesting. (They are tied with 39 HRs.)

with these pitching matchups in a home series, if the jays don't win at least two games, they probably don't deserve to win the division...

I am worried about JD...he does seem off in the last while -hopefully just a mini-slump rather than an injury- as he has been taking good cuts but his timing looks off and he is chasing ...a lot.

A propos of our Estrada discussion (the influence of luck vs. skill in pitcher BABIP), yesterday's game had me reflecting again on the topic with Liam Hendriks as the subject.  He's been very good in 2015 across the board, except in high leverage situations.  Yesterday, he was inserted into a high leverage situation for the first time in a long while.  He strikes out the first batter, gives up an infield hit on a soft grounder, and he is gone.  It was a perfect microcosm of his experience this season in the situation. Batters are hitting .444/.444/.614 in the situation (18PAs).  In those 18 PAs, he's struck out 5, walked nobody, given up 2 fly balls (one of which left the yard), 6 ground balls and 5 line drives.  There has been only 1 hard-hit ball.  The BABIP, in case you're not counting, is .581.  With ordinary luck, his performance in high-leverage situations would be comparable to what he has achieved in other situations (though I am not suggesting that his xFIP of 1.05 in high leverage situations is reflective of what he has done either). 

Can there be Public pressure to dissuade all Federal politicians from attending Jays games as only bad luck seems to result (Finance Minister latest to turn the trick)- with the playoffs approaching and the election campaign still ongoing, there's going to be a rush to hoard in on the publicity ( not that I'm superstitious!).

Another fun thought experiment is comparing the offensive performance of Colabello and Smoak through the lens of BABIP.  They have exactly the same K rate.  Smoak has a higher IsoP and a higher walk rate.  Colabello has put up a much better slash line by virtue of a .411 BABIP vs. Smoak's .251.  Colabello does have a higher line drive rate (although Smoak's is good at 22.5%).  They have almost exactly the same distributions of hard hit vs. softly hit balls, and similar rates of pop-up.  Colabello does do a better job of hitting the other way, and in the age of the shift, this probably matters quite a bit.  They are both very slow, but Smoak is slower.  You would expect Colabello to have a higher BABIP, but 160 points does not seem to be a likely number. 

I ran a Play Index to see how many players have a BABIP of .350 between age 25 and 30, with at least 1200 PAs.  There are 34 such players.  Most of the players had good speed.  The two signal exceptions who managed a BABIP of .370 in modern times took advantage of the Green Monster to do so- Wade Boggs and Reggie Jefferson(!).  Joey Votto had a BABIP of .361 during this time. 

My one cousin has gone to many Jay games both at home and on the road and has yet to see them win. Sadly she has a playoff ticket. We're encouraging her to cut down her visits to games now.

I give you props Mike for predicting Hendriks would be so good out of the bullpen.

This chart is pretty insane btw.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPOvArNUAAA-hqA.png:large

JB21, thanks for the compliment and the chart.  Hendriks' velocity gains from 2012 to 2015 of 4.5 mph on the fastball are probably not due solely to the change in role.  That's a little high.  Some of it, and you can see from the gains between 2012 and 2013, come just from ordinary improvement with age.  He is only 26 years old.  It wouldn't surprise me if he was able to throw 92-92.5 as a starter these days. 

Whatever Hendriks did this past winter the Jays should have every pitcher do. Was he on that weighted ball program?

Just for laughs I went to the BR summary of WAR by position by team.

Jays are
#1 at 3B & DH
#2 at 2B (hands up those who would've bet on that with Goins 17 PA short of Travis)
#3 at CA
#4 in RF
#5 at SS, 1B, CF
#7 for overall OF
#10 for LF (didn't expect that but losing Saunders, Colabello/Valencia being stone gloves, Revere still under 200 PA there)
Starting pitching: #10
Relief pitching :#6

Overall team #1 with 14.3 WAR, only Houston is over 8 (9.7) in the AL. St Louis is over 18 Dodgers & Giants both over 10 in the NL.

Part of the Hendriks to the bullpen argument was that even in previous years he had jumped from a 90mph SP to a 92mph RP...which with his command and assortment of offspeed pitches definitely looked like a good bet to be an effective RP. Of course, even that rosy forecast couldn't see him adding 3 more mph to his fastball to become a 95mph guy, reggularly hit 97mph, and turn into a genuine late inning option. This has been great..even though he'd have earned a suspicious eye for this a few years ago.

but there is no doubt that he melted down pretty bad midseason when moved up in leverage, and by fangraphs has by far the worst shutdown/meltdown ratio in the bullpen:

Lowe: 16:4 (4.0)
Osuna: 26:10 (2.6)
Sanchez: 10:4 (2.5)
Cecil: 12:6 (2.0)
Hawkins: 8:5 (1.6)
Hendriks: 7:7 (1.0)

* Delabar 5:2 (2.5)
* Schultz 8:5 (1.6)
* Loup 10:12 (0.8)
* Tepera 3:4 (0.8)

and especially considering that most of the other r3gulars have pitched tougher innings than him this year, it's hard to argue that even his overall numbers demand high leverage usage:

Avg ra9 and fip WAR per 65ip:

Lowe 2.02
Osuna 1.72
Hendriks 1.39
Cecil 1.35
Sanchez 1.33

given the leverage difference, i don't think he's pitched as well as those guys this year.

of course, if Sanchez and Osuna start faltering that's a different story.

as for pulling Hendriks last outing....i'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with the squib hit, and everything to do with bringing in cecil to face the string of LHH in the middle of their lineup, starting with Ortiz.

Gibbons has had no faith in Hendriks all season. His outing yesterday (K, single, taken out) is a perfect example of that. He has a 1.5 WAR, 2.52 ERA, 1.99 FIP, 9.79 K/9, 1.48 BB/9, and 0.30 HR/9. He's given up exactly 13 extra base hits all season in 60 innings. The fact that he's not a prominent fixture in the team's late inning depth chart is highly questionable.

One minor tweak, giving all the high leverage bullpen innings to Cecil, Lowe, Hendriks, and Osuna, while dropping Sanchez to Hendriks' current role, would make a positive difference, IMO.

Is it truly damning that Hendriks only faced two batters yesterday? Am I the only one who thinks he was only ever going to face 2 hitters, no matter how many he retired? Boston's lineup, with Ortiz and Shaw back-to-back (seriously, why isn't Castillo batting after Ortiz?) is just designed for a LHRP.

The way Hendriks was used yesterday is how he's always used in high leverage spots this season, at least it feels that way. Gets an out, gives up a single, and then is yanked. It might have made sense to take him out yesterday, but I was speaking more of the way he's been used in general, not yesterday specifically.

He should be trusted more, even if he gives up a single or two. He's good.

I mean hendriks was a nobody this season, and gibbons moved him to the pen and has used him more than anyone else, and hendriks now looks like he has a career again. the only guys he's used more in high leverage are osuna and the w vets cecil and loup. The idea that Gibbons has misused him or doesn't like him seems bizarre to me. Hendriks is thanking gibbons for saving his career at this point.

cecil was always coming into face the lefties in the middle of the lineup - Ort, Shaw, Panda - as he should have. He struck the first two and then panda reached on a swinging bunt.

In game 1 on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, Gibbons brought Hendriks in to a 9-5 game in the 11th inning, and he promptly surrendered two line drives before being yanked for Tepera. That wasn't the first time Hendriks failed when asked to pitch in a higher leverage situation. I feel like Gibbons has been using his bullpen superbly, and that if you see a guy with the best stats of his career and want him to be used more, you should also be giving the manager some credit for managing the player and getting those results from him.

"I mean hendriks was a nobody this season, and gibbons moved him to the pen and has used him more than anyone else, and hendriks now looks like he has a career again"

Exactly right. I had no confidence in him at all in April and was surprised he made the team. He's been one of the pleasant surprises this year and provides a lot of value where he is, so why mess with success?

This may be unfair, but i feel like Cecil is being used as a loogy...would rather see him flipped into sanchez' role given how he has been pitching since June.

Anyway, though I'm not the biggest Gibbons fan, I think we're quibbling a bit on usage. The whole pen had been good since the deadline, other than the last week or so....

and just to be more specific as to low leverage innings being easier:

Hendriks: 46.0ip, 1.17era/2.06fip
Lowe: 28.0ip, 1.29era/1.90fip
Cecil: 28.0ip, 1.29era/2.36fip
Osuna: 26.2ip, 1.75era/2.83fip
Loup: 23.2ip, 2.28era/3.06fip
Hawkins: 20.1ip, 2.66era/3.49fip

all their numbers would look much better if they were as heavily skewed towards lower leverage innings as hendriks.

I mean look at poor loup - if he was mostly lower lev we'd all still be in love with him.

and remember statistically speaking this is all small sample noise right now anyways for hendriks. Statistically speaking, gibbons shouldn't be making decisions on hendriks based on stats at all. and you can bet he observes hendriks' demeanor and temp in different situations, and talks to his very experienced catchers to find out if hendriks is spinning up more meatballs when he gets amped up.

I think the last few games Gibbons (and us fans) are overthinking things. The 1 inning per reliever worked well and should be used again. Don't worry about getting 4 outs from a guy. We've got 9th inning (Osuna), 8th (Sanchez), 7th (Cecil), 6th (Hendriks) and a mess of guys for the rest. Use better guys left over for situations where one of the final 4 cannot do the job or aren't available (Lowe, Hawkins). Francis & Jenkins are long/extra inning guys so don't worry about saving anyone else for those situations. Hutchison needs to get his feet wet soon so use him when you can-ideally low leverage or extra innings first.

Schultz, Tepera, Delabar, Loup if used in a high pressure situation should be one or two batters only to finish an inning off.

This isn't rocket science. Its baseball and all players want to know their roles and they should as with this deep a pen right now there is no reason for messes like on the weekend with Osuna coming in the 8th inning or panic use of Sanchez.

Checking BR I see in the past 8 days...
unused: Delabar, Francis, Jenkins, Schultz
1 game: Loup, Hawkins (under 10 pitches each)
2 games: Osuna (over 3 days)
3 games: Tepera, Hendriks, Cecil (2 in a row), Lowe (2 in a row, both over 15 pitches), Sanchez (2 in a row again).

Someone explain why Gibbons would do that and expect success? Cecil, Lowe, Sanchez all used 2 days in a row when you have a stack of guys sitting there falling asleep.

I wasn't trying to suggest that Gibbons' current preference for Cecil and Lowe over Hendriks is unreasonable.  What I am suggesting is that Gibbons has enough good arms in the pen to revert to the 1 inning relief pattern that he had established since Lowe and Hawkins arrived.  I believed then that Anthopoulos had built a club that was tailor-made for Gibbons.  I still believe that to be the case.

All relievers have bad outings, in high leverage outings or otherwise.  The point about Hendriks is that his .581 BABIP in high leverage situations is a reflection of horrible luck.  That's a BABIP that you might see if a pitcher surrendered nothing but line-drives (the league BABIP for line drives is .616).  For comparison sake, Osuna has struck out fewer, walked more, given up the same rate of home runs and a lot more hard contact than Hendriks in high leverage situations and fewer line drives but has a .275 BABIP to end up with a serviceable line.  I'm not suggesting that Hendriks be put in the closer role, just that there isn't really that much difference between the two pitchers in effectiveness this year and the difference in high-leverage situations is largely illusory.  Osuna has been more effective than Hendriks against LHB (particularly early in the season) and it is easier to spot Hendriks where he sees more right-handed batters in a medium leverage role. 

Coke to John Northey.

the funny thing is gibbons received tons of criticism for a apparently strict one inning per RP usage.

right now gibbons feels like he's got a good closer/fireman duo in osuna and sanchez, and a good lefty/righty situational duo in cecil/lowe, which he is using for all high lev innings.

and it's a good plan......IF the two kids are the real deal. if they stumble, things change.

Per FG, Hendriks has thrown 46 'low leverage innings', 11.1 'medium leverage innings', and 3.1 'high leverage innings' this season. He has a .583 BABIP in those 3 innings so not exactly a true reflection of how he's done in those spots. Even if you want to add more innings to those 3.1, it hasn't been enough for someone who has pitched as well as he has.

His usage will probably increase next year with Lowe and Hawkins leaving, and one of Sanchez/Osuna probably going to the rotation, but this year he hasn't been used enough when the games mattered, IMO. It's more justified now with the improved pen, but prior to July 31, he should have been used the way Sanchez is now. I don't think he "folds under pressure" or anything like that.

i was reading an articlr on fangraphs about postseason SP usage strategy and was struck that it's kind of funny how much we've been arguing about our #4 playoff SP, since we might not even need one if we finish in 1st.

ALDS

OCT 8: Price
OCT 9: Stroman
OCT 10: off
OCT 11: Dickey
OCT 12: Price (3 days rest)
OCT 13: off
OCT 14: Stroman

ALCS

OCT 15: off
OCT 16: Dickey
OCT 17: Price
OCT 18: off
OCT 19: Stroman
OCT 20: Dickey (3 days rest)
OCT 21: Price (3 days rest)
OCT 22: off
OCT 23: Stroman (3 days rest)
OCT 24: Dickey (3 days rest)

WS

OCT 25: off
OCT 26: off
OCT 27: Price (5 days rest)
OCT 28: Stroman
OCT 29: off
OCT 30: Dickey
OCT 31: Price (3 days rest)
NOV 01: Stroman (3 days rest)
NOV 02: off
NOV 03: Dickey (3 days rest)
NOV 04: Price (3 days rest)

that's a bit aggressive maybe.....but it still looks like eve in the case where every series goes the limit, a 4th SP would only be needed once. twice at most.

that's a bit aggressive maybe

Can David Price pitch effectively on three days rest? Nobody knows. He's never done it. So... do you want to use the post-season to find out whether he can or not?

I think it depends on the situation if the Jays are ahead then use a 4th, if behind then you gotta use every bullet you got.

That's a bullet you might find out you never had.

Price Career:

6 days: 23gs, 3.25era, .687oops
5 days: 76gs, 3.16era, .658oops
4 days: 111gs, 3.04era, .632oops
3 days: 1gs, 1.69era, .492oops

Conclusion: the less rest the better.

qed.

qed

Man, where were you when mankind was wrestling with Fermat's Last Theorem?

;)

Just a coda to a most elegant proof.  Price's one start "with 3 days rest" occurred in 2008, his first season.  He threw 5.1 innings in relief in the first outing of his major league career on September 14, and then faced 3 batters in relief on September 18.  He then started on September 22 and went 5.1 successful innings.   As you say, uglyone, this is highly probative- damn, I don't know why they don't have him throwing with 2 days rest all season long with that track record.