Team
Report: Toronto Blue Jays
It’s
been quite some time since I looked at a single team and gave my thoughts about
them so today I’ll be looking at the team I thought had the best chance at
winning the AL East, The Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays are just one of those teams that we all bought into and
ranked them well above were they really should have. The team has been a disappointment so far this season mainly
because of a weak pitching staff.
I decided to take a look at this team mainly because they aren’t this
bad and I think it’s a good idea to show what’s been the teams major weakness.
The
team may have some weak pitching but the hitting has average at worst and
slightly above average at least.
They currently site 15th in team BA with a .255 and a run of
the mill OBP of .321 which nets them 11th overall. But the team does do 1 thing
particularly well and that’s hit for power being 6th overall in R’s
scored and 5th in SLG.
Lets take a deeper
look into the team though shall we; a team SLG of is quite impressive, but
subtracting the BA of the team from the SLG gives us the team Isolated Power
(ISO) of .164 a not so impressive mark in fact if you add up all the multi base
hits the team has it doesn’t even reach half as many singles. This is why SLG can be misleading;
again this is still not a terrible thing .160 is just between average and above
average but its just middle of the pack unlike the SLG would suggest.
The team has an
OBP of .321; which is again just middle of the road but there are underlining
signs that are a little worrying.
The Jays have an estimated OBP of .067; which says the team’s OBP is
more based on hits and less on walks.
This doesn’t mean the team can’t take a BB, they actually have a good
BB% of 11.7% and that tells me they can stay consistent in OBP as long as they
keep the hitting up. With the team
batting .262 in the last 3 months I don’t think that will be a major issue, as
long as they keep getting on base and scoring runs the offense will be fine. The team does seem to have a little
weakness in scoring runs but not by much; the teams RAA or Runs Above Average
is at -5 so they are 5 runs less then average so that can always improve.
Hitting has been a
slight issue for the team but it hasn’t been the major factor has it, for that
we need to look at the real downfall of this team the pitching. Doing a basic look at the staff we can
see one problem right off the bat a very high WHIP. With a BB/9 at 3.2 the team is giving up way to many BB;
that’s not the only issue since the teams H/9 is at 9.1. They average 9 hits allowed a game;
which is to high to when combined with such a high BB%. This isn’t damning the team but it is a
reason the pitching is struggling.
The ERA is obviously high, 4.38, driven by the high BB% and H/9. To give you an idea what this means the
ERA+ puts the team at 3% worse than league average ERA. Is there any good news? Well actually yes since the team seems
to be actually dealing with some bad luck. The pitching BABIP is at .303 and the FIP is .443, which is
a little high and could come down.
The team still has a good K% and K/9 and the team isn’t giving up too
many homeruns but at 1.2 per 9 innings it can improve.
Looking through
the stats I did notice something interesting, something that I knew but caught
my eye on just how bad this player was.
Josh Johnson is almost single handedly destroying this pitching staffs
numbers, that’s not a joke, 1 player has that much effect. Remember when I talked about RAA for
hitters? Well that stat works for
pitchers too to see how many runs they save or are worth when pitching. The highest pitcher not Josh Johnson on
the Jays is Brandon Morrow who has been injured since early in the season at
-9. Josh Johnson is worth -22 RAA;
that is just amazing to see. He averages
about 7.08 R’s a game; that is just astonishing and makes me question what the
manager and front office are thinking!
Taking the other 4 starters ER’s and IP we get an ERA of 4.48; while not
great let’s see what happens when we add Josh Johnson’s numbers back to the
mix. Adding in Johnson’s ER and IP
we get an ERA of 4.80; Johnson accounts for nearly 30 points of their ERA for
starters. That really is amazing.
So what do I think
of the Blue Jays going forward?
Well I can see them competing next year, yes I know it sounds like I was
kinda down on the Jays this entire time but don’t get me wrong the team can
compete. I think what it needs is
another Joes Reyes type or for the fact Jose Reyes himself! Reyes was injured most of the year and
just got back and has been a lifeline to the team so far. If they could get some one like
Shin-Soo Choo or Jacboy Ellsbury they could find themselves in a much better
spot next year hitting wise. As
for pitching they most defiantly need help and should be the first place they
look to build up. I wouldn’t be
surprised to see them go hot and heavy over AJ Burnett, Ervin Santana and/or Matt
Garza this off-season. Relief
could be a nice addition and there are pieces in the Free Agency pool. Time will tell if they can capitalize
on the massive trades they’ve made to make them at least talked about and still
a dangerous team to face.
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