NUMB3RS: Bullpen Struggles Against Rays, With Added Perspective

So the first half of a home and home series with the Rays (three games removed) is in the books, with the Jays winning the opener and then dropping the next two. To argue that this proves the Jays cannot compete with the elite of the AL East is nonsense, as they were able to take leads into the 9th inning on all three occasions. What it does illustrate however is a startlingly ineffective bullpen, at least against the Rays.

In three consecutive games, Blue Jays hitters got their starters in front early. In three consecutive games, they took a lead into the 9th. In three consecutive games, the Jays relievers conceded runs. In fact, the bullpen has coughed up runs in each of the team's 6 games against the Rays thus far. The good news is that this team has shown it is clearly capable of competing and driving baseball's best to the very brink. The bad news is that, so far this year, the Jays have been completely incapable of earning their coffee against Tampa.

So just how bad has the bullpen been against the original purveyors of Tank Nation? Here's the complete team-by-team splits of the relief corps:


YIKES. Despite accounting for only 7 percent of the bullpen's workload in 2010 so far, games against Tampa Bay have accounted for almost 30 percent of the runs allowed. A 17.47 ERA against the Rays is more than twice as high as against any other team, and in fact higher than the next three highest ERAs put together. The ratio stats are just as ugly, with the pen averaging more than 10 walks per nine. And having given up 24 hits already in just 11.1 IP, they've put up an absolutely miserable WHIP of 3.265. I wish I could offer a strong explanation for why they've struggled so mightily, but I'm not sure there is one. At least not a substantive one. Sometimes they've walked themselves into trouble, sometimes the Rays have found some timely hitting and power. But I'm going to go for the infuriating, intangible-disregarding answer: bad luck.

Don't get me wrong, 10.32 BB/9 is a truly ugly stat. Giving away on average more than a batter per inning on balls is a recipe for disaster. And I'm not saying at all that this bullpen's numbers against Tampa should be good, just not nearly as bad as they've been. But consider that this team has also averaged 9.53 SO/9. Consider that until Scott Downs served up a grand slam to Carl Crawford after his team had already taken the lead, the bullpen had held Tampa without a home run. The walks account for a lot of the problem, but for the most part the pen has been putting the ball in play. The fielding independent pitching statistic (FIP) suggests that they're more deserving of an ERA less than a third as high. But that depends on balls finding gloves at the rate they've historically found them. And so far that hasn't happened.

Consider this: against all other opponents, Jays relievers have posted an ERA of 3.25, which would be good enough for 6th in baseball. Include the Rays and the ERA jumps more than a full point to 4.27 and the Jays fall to 18th in bullpen ERA. In 2009 they posted a disappointing but manageable 5.33 ERA against the Rays in 52.1 IP. The year before they were dominant with a 2.11 ERA in 47 IP. Defense independent metrics, history and common sense suggest something is going to give. Let's just hope it happens real soon, because the next tilt with these Jay relief killers comes on Tuesday.

NUMB3RS: Simmer Down on Overbay and Wallace

Lyle Overbay (2009, MLB) - .265/.372/.466, 16 HR, 64 RBIs
Brett Wallace (2009, AA/AAA) .293/.367/.455, 20 HR, 63 RBIs

As one of the most unflinching Lyle Overbay supporters out there, I can't find it in me to say the haters are wrong so far in 2010. I mean, I suppose I could point to the fact that his line drive percentage (.122) and batting average on balls in play (.171) are close enough to suggest he may be getting unlucky (traditionally BABIP tends to be about .120 higher than LD%, in this case just .049). I could also point to his usage against left handed pitching this year, against whom he has yet to reach base in 16 plate appearances while grounding out 7 times and racking up 4 strike outs. But no matter how far I may reach, the truth is that Lyle Overbay has been pretty damn bad at the plate in 2010.

Meanwhile one of the players who came to Toronto as an indirect result of the Doc Deal, Brett Wallace, is tearing it up in Las Vegas. Through the first 15 games of the PCL season, Wallace has hit 6 home runs, compiling a batting line of .269/.367/.635. If the move to a new ball club or position is bothering him, you couldn't tell from his statistics.

Unsurprisingly, the calls for Overbay to be replaced with Wallace have started to pop up. Far be it from me to even acknowledge an article that suggests Alex Gonzalez and his career .294 on base percentage (only slightly better at .319 in 2010 thus far) should be hitting lead-off, but it is an acknowledgment of a growing feeling in Toronto. And hey, there is no doubt whatsoever that this is the long-term plan, maybe even not so long-term. But for a number of reasons, an April switcheroo is both reckless and potentially harmful.

For one, it would involve essentially abandoning any attempt to return any sort of value for Lyle Overbay. Lyle, in his 5th and presumably final season with the club, has always had value as a well disciplined, defensively sound first baseman who could be counted on to reach base at a pretty much clockwork on-base-percentage of .360-.370. He entered the season with a .275/.356/.449 line over his time with the club. His varied skills, as both a righty masher (.282/.379/.463 against them in his career) and an above average defensive corner man could make him useful trade-bait come the July trade deadline, when most of the 7 million due him has been doled out.

So let's say they play the hot hand (albeit one that's been hot over 15 games, hardly a large sample size) and bring up Wallace to start at first. The glut of players who can literally only play first necessitates that either Ruiz or Overbay come off the 25 man roster. I'm not sure what's the worst outcome here: a 7 million dollar bench player in the big leagues or a 7 million dollar starter in Las Vegas. Of course you could also release him and eat the remaining 6.3 million or so due to him this year. But with these options, you negate any return on a 33 year old who has been a been a well above average major leaguer for the majority of his career and as recently as last year, all because of a slow start over 16 games (the most recent 3 of which he put up a line of .333/.500/.556).

As BJ Ryan/Frank Thomasian as the Overbay scenario sounds, the risk is even greater for Brett Wallace. Yes Wallace's numbers look great. They also look very different from the player he's been projected as. Originally thought of as an excellent contact hitter with plus discipline and home run power in the low to mid 20s, he's put up a lower than career normal batting average of .269, getting on base at about the same clip as last year but with much higher power numbers. Kevin Youkilis doesn't become Adam Dunn overnight. As much as I like Brett Wallace and expect him to be an excellent hitter for years to come, I'm also not chomping at the bit to start the clock on his major league service time based on a 15 game sample size that may be a total outlier.

And what of the service time question? Were they to hold off until May 1st to make the move, Wallace would accumulate 156 days of service time were he to remain with the club through the season, 16 days short of the 172 that constitute an entire year of MLB service. That being said, while he would not have 3 years of service time at the end of the 2012 season he would have 2.156, which would make him a likely candidate for Super 2 arbitration eligibility. Super 2 takes all the players with 2 years of service time and at least 86 days the year prior, the top 17 percent of which in terms of playing time become eligible for arbitration a year early. Were Wallace to come up to replace Overbay as the starting first baseman and stick, he'd be a virtual lock as a Super 2. If Wallace hits like we all hope he's going to hit, that's a swing in the millions of dollars. All for a season where this team has been forecast to finish no higher than 4th. In a division where we need to be almost perfect financially to compete with the two-headed monster of the Red Sox and Yankees.

Don't get me wrong, we're going to see Brett Wallace this year. If he weren't up by August 1st I'd be shocked. I'm as excited as anyone to see the future that involves guys like Kyle Drabek, Travis D'Arnaud, Brett Wallace and Adeiny Hechavarria get here. But bringing up Wallace early won't get it here early, and not at least giving Overbay the chance to return to the asset he was merely a month ago is the kind of short sighted thinking that this team's GM is trying to avoid.

NUMB3RS: Small Sample Sizes

As shown in previous installments of this feature, sometimes statistics are a great way to learn about what separates the good baseball players from the bad, why certain pitchers should make the team over others, and so forth.

My personal favourite statistics, though, are those which are just plain silly.



There's Vernon Wells. He's doing pretty well this year, you know. Five hits in seven at bats, three of which went out of the park. Pretty impressive.

Okay, so even the densest stathead knows that this is an aberration--Vernon won't keep up his .714 average for even a week, much less the entire season. Nor will he hit anywhere near the 243 homers he's currently on pace for. But can we get anything out of this?

Only twice before have Jays players hit three homers over the first two games of the year. Let's look at them.

In 1988, George Bell hit three bombs on Opening Day. The baseball press had reason to think this was a harbinger of good things to come--Bell was the reigning AL MVP, having just hit 47 home runs in one of the best offensive seasons in Toronto history. Three jacks in the first game? Just picking up where he left off.

As it turned out, that might have been the peak of Bell's career. Despite playing almost every game, he only hit 21 more homers in all of 1988, and finished the year with a rather pedestrian .269 batting average and .304 OBP. Certainly not what April fans had in mind.

In 2000, Shannon Stewart--a leadoff hitter known more for above-average speed and defence than any sort of power--accomplished the same feat. Two homers on opening day, one more the next. He would turn out to have one of his better years: .319 with 21 homers and 69 RBI.

The good thing about Vernon Mach 2010 is that the expectations on him are very, very low--if he ends up with Bell's 1988 numbers, nobody will really be surprised. If he ends up with Stewart's 2000 numbers, we'll be a little surprised at the high average. Pretty much any solid contribution will be a welcome surprise.

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On the other end of the spectrum, three Jays are currently on pace to not get a single hit all season oh my god what bums: Jose Bautista, Lyle Overbay, Edwin Encarnacion.

Again, I decided it was worth delving into whether this is an aberration, and what it could mean for the seasons these three will have.

Since the World Series years, there have been eleven instances of Jays going hitless in the first two games (minimum 6 AB). Their year-end stats (first three are batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage):

David Eckstein (2008): .265/.343/.349, 2 HR, 27 RBI
Corey Koskie (2005): .249/.337/.398, 11 HR, 36 RBI
Carlos Delgado (2004): .269/.372/.535, 32 HR, 99 RBI
Chris Woodward (2003): .261/.316/.395, 7 HR, 45 RBI
Vernon Wells (2002): .275/.305/.457, 23 HR, 100 RBI
Homer Bush (2000): .215/.271/.253, 1 HR, 18 RBI
Carlos Delgado (2000): .344/.470/.664, 41 HR, 137 RBI
Shawn Green (1998): .278/.334/.510, 35 HR, 100 RBI
Darrin Fletcher (1998): .283/.328/.410, 9 HR, 52 RBI
Carlos Garcia (1997): .220/.253/.309, 3 HR, 23 RBI
Alex Gonzalez (1994): .151/.224/.245, 0 HR, 1 RBI

Can we learn anything from this? Probably not. There's a range from one of the best offensive seasons the Jays have had in this era--Delgado's 2000--to two of the worst regular starters they've ever trotted out in Bush and Garcia. Gonzalez shouldn't really count, as he only appeared in 15 games and spent the bulk of the year in the minors.

Overall, though, we do see a trend toward slightly below-average numbers. It makes sense when you think about it--if a player hits amazingly badly over two games, he's probably a poor hitter who won't do that great over the course of the season as a whole.

If true, this is a problem. These three (perhaps excepting Overbay) were guys Cito was counting on to fill positions for a year or two, until young guys were ready. Below-average is not what was expected.

Then again, do we really know anything? After all, it's just two games!

NUMB3RS: The Case for a Lead-Off Platoon

.285/.392/.516

It's the Jays secret weapon and most of us don't know it. Equally deadly against either side and, with a .392 OBP, really tough to keep off base. 21 home runs in 559 plate appearances so not necessarily a clean-up type, but with Lind so perfect for the number 3 spot why not lead off with him? Well we could, except he's not one person. He's the combined numbers put up by Lyle Overbay against righties and Jose Bautista against lefties.

I know that neither Overbay nor Bautista strike anyone as an obvious lead-off type. They aren't going to steal you 30 bags. Overbay's become the secondary punching bag to Toronto fans who've grown tired of heckling Vernon Wells. But realistically, who else is there? Vernon, who is allergic to walks? Mike McCoy, who has had all of 5 major league at bats? Against right handed pitching, Lyle Overbay was the hardest player on the Blue Jays to get out.

And against lefties, Jose Bautista had a .382 on base percentage with .537 SLG. Only Marco Scutaro gave southpaws more trouble. Yes Scutaro stole 14 bases, but given that the Bautista/Overbay lefty/righty split put up 15 more extra base hits in 121 less plate appearances, they shouldn't have much trouble getting into scoring position just as often.

So what's to stop it from happening? Well, traditional baseball logic that says you need a speedster at the top of the order. Or a manager that confuses ignorance with loyalty. But at the end of the day, it makes sense. Neither deserves to even sniff the top half of the order against same-side pitching. Both have proven themselves more than capable table setters against the opposite side. And hell, in a lineup with this many holes, you need to load the deck as much as possible for Hill and Lind. Look, if Cito wants to play the loyalty game for his last season as a big league manager, fine. I think it's a waste to see a guy like Randy Ruiz sitting on the bench against lefties until the 8th while Lyle OPS's a cool .534. But whatever, it's a rebuilding year and you can't really argue Ruiz is a big part of this team's future. But if you're going to run them out there every day, at least put them in a position where they're going to do the least amount of damage to your chances of winning. And hey, along the while maybe take advantage of a good split to make sure we at least don't completely suck at the top of the order.

NUMB3RS: Jays Add Sabermetrician To Front Office

Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos has overseen a major overhaul of the scouting and player development side of the organization in his less than 6 months on the job. Doubling the size of the amateur scouting staff to 36, he has been able to more adequately cover the regions where prospects are most consistently produced. On the pro scouting side, he's brought the team's staff up to 21, giving them the ability to focus more scouts on fewer teams to hopefully get better looks at players at all levels of pro-ball. He's also added experience to that staff by bringing in former GM's Jim Beattie and Ed Lynch. And now he's given his player development side another shot in the arm, hiring statistician Tom Tango as a consultant.

According to an article in the Toronto Star, Tango is a self-taught authority on sabermetric (the attempt to quantify baseball performance in as accurate and objective a way as possible) stats from Montreal who has previously worked with the Seattle Mariners. Some of the quotes about him are encouraging, to say the least:

"There's nobody better than (Tango) in the world," said Wayne Winston, a professor of decision sciences at Indiana University and author of Mathletics.

"He's a genius. He knows everything about baseball. I think he'll help (the Jays) a lot to make better decisions."

Theo Epstein may be the boy-wonder who pieced together the two Red Sox teams that won championships in the last decade, but he also counted amongst his front office advisors Bill James. James coined the term "sabermetrics" and is one of the foremost thinkers in the pursuit of objective baseball knowledge. Among James' innovations are Pythagorean Win/Loss (which analyzes a team's run for and runs against and produces what a team's record should be), Range Factor (which calculates how involved a player is defensively in a game) and Runs Created (duh). His ability to crunch the numbers and constantly create new formulas for evaluating performance have given the Red Sox a competitive edge over the past 7 years. Obviously the Jays will hope Tom Tango will bring with him similar innovations.

It's easy to gauge and evaluate players based on sabermetric stats, but its tactical application goes beyond just a player's strengths and weaknesses. Hard data on major league baseball games go back decades, giving stats analysts a gigantic sample size for studying and projecting ratios that predict with startling accuracy the way various in-game situations often turn out. Want to really know how to pitch Alex Rodriguez? Scouts can help, but so can detailed information on his performance and results in 9,611 career plate appearances. Want to know whether to attempt a steal in a late inning situation? Piece together scouting reports on the speed of the runner, arm strength and accuracy of the catcher and pace of the pitcher's delivery with 60 years of data on the average steal success rate in major league baseball and you can predict with near certainty the outcome.

Reliable and detailed scouting information is an invaluable evaluation tool, but it can only give you anecdotal evidence. Likewise statistical analysis can give you probabilities and provide great information for tracking a player's development, but it can't provide you with information on a player's physical and mechanical strengths and weaknesses. You need both to succeed in modern baseball, and it's good to see the front office realising this. Now they just need to find a manager with enough of an open mind to actually take advantage of all this information.

NUMB3RS

Baseball is dull only to dull minds.
-Red Barber-

The above quotation is not fair, and probably not entirely true. Yet to be a fan of the sport is to encounter a considerable amount of blanket statements equally ignorant from the other side. Baseball is boring. It’s too slow. There’s not enough scoring. Elijah Dukes got me pregnant then threw a Gatorade bottle at me. Okay, that last one might be true.

But to an average sports fan with delusions of grandeur and an armchair quarterback complex, baseball is a self-congratulatory buffet. You can make almost any argument as long as you have enough patience to find the statistics that help you and in some cases wilfully ignore the others. If you’re a traditionalist who thinks that Joe Carter is the greatest player to put on a Jays uniform, you can point to his 5 All-Star Game appearances, 2 Silver Slugger awards, 7 consecutive years with 20-plus home runs or you can get sentimental and point out that he hit the single most important home run in Blue Jays history. If you’re a seamhead, you’re probably more likely to appreciate Roberto Alomar’s sublime defensive play, his ability to steal successfully 81% of the time or his .382 on base percentage in 5 seasons with the team. And if you’re one of those rational in between types, you’ll point out that you can’t replace a guy who carried his team to a .596 winning percentage in games he started over 12 years and that you don’t see any blogs named “Blue Jays After Alomar”.

I guess what I’m saying is that baseball is an easy sport to become obsessed with. If you can gain a better understanding of the various statistical measurements, you can much more easily follow the game. Wonder why the manager has gone to two relievers in two at bats? Look at the pitcher’s situational splits and realise that no, Shawn Camp should most definitely not stay in to face a lefty slugger. Why does a team’s best power hitter bat in the middle of the line-up? Because the guys hitting immediately in front of him are particularly good at getting on base, giving the sluggers a better chance to score multiple runners with a single swing of the bat. Why did Kevin Millar spend so many games in the clean-up role last year? Well, that’s because Cito Gaston doesn’t give a shit about your “stats”; you can kiss his ass. And you can print it too.

It’s a game quantified by stats, but its fun to watch too. I’ve always been a fan of the pitcher’s duel; nothing like a good low scoring game in the late innings where you get two out situations with a go-ahead runner in scoring position. Pick your pitches carefully, but don’t miss over the plate because if you do all he needs to do is push it (or fist it, if you’re Skip Caray) in to left to cash the runner. And hey, don’t miss off the plate because their slugger is up next and he can turn a tie game into a 3-run game deficit fast. But no pressure, it’s just some boring game.

As a Jays fan, I live for the rare moments. Moments like when Marco Scutaro took second on a walk in Philadelphia. Or when Aaron Hill booted a Nick Markakis grounder in the 10th leading to an unearned run against the 0’s, only to step up to the plate that inning and tattoo the first pitch he saw into the crowd in left to even the score, and later cash the winning run in the 11th with a single. Or the highlight of the past few seasons, when AJ Burnett made his walk of shame last May as Doc and the Jays KO’d him to the tune of 5 runs over 7 and a two thirds innings. I gleefully remind Red Sox fans that Jacoby Ellsbury was statistically the worst defensive centre fielder in baseball last year, while deluding myself into thinking the fans are to blame for turning Vernon Wells from a good hitter on the road (.300/.335/.444) into a complete lost cause in front of the home crowd (.214/.285/.348). I’m coming to grips with my favourite team being ace-less in the AD era, but I believe wholly in the Anthopoulos plan. I promise you stats geekery and sentimentality mixed with unbridled optimism and a twinge of realism. Because even without Harry Leroy Halladay, there is still hope in the Jayosphere.

At least until August. Then we’ll all want to kill ourselves.