Words to Cheer by

They either "will" or they "won't".  It's more fun to cheer and hope for the "will" than to fixate on the "won't".

Jeff Lewis
April 30, 2013

The Blue Jays are getting BABIPed to Death (Especially the Hitters?)

This is a dangerous subject matter for me to tackle on my lunch hour, as I have nowhere close to the understanding that the experts have.  However this appears to be so obvious that even I can do it!

The Blue Jays are getting BABIPed to death.  What is BABIP some of you ask?

 

In baseball statistics, Batting average on balls in play (abbreviated BABIP) measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits, or how many balls in play against a pitcher go for hits, excluding home runs.  BABIP is commonly used as a red flag in sabermetric analysis, as a consistently high or low BABIP is hard to maintain - much more so for pitchers than hitters. Therefore, BABIP can be used to spot fluky seasons by pitchers, as with other statistical measures; those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely high can often be expected to improve in the following season, and those pitchers whose BABIPs are extremely low can often be expected to regress in the following season.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average_on_balls_in_play

Over the course of season, most pitchers BABIP will regress to the norm.  Putting it waaaaay too simply, if you have a very high BABIP as a pitcher, you can expect to see better results going forward.  Of course other factors come into play such as GB/FB rates and the defensive team behind you.  And we haven't talked about K% or BB%, but generally if you have a low BABIP your success may be a bit of smoke & mirrors….which hold on a second – THAT IS THE GREATEST NAME FOR A BAND EVER!!!!!!!! (is it taken?....quick internet search….damn!)

http://www.smokeandmirrorsband.com/meet_the_band.html

In any event, Dickey, Morrow, Buerhle and Johnson all have a higher BABIP than past history and league norms would suggest is well….normal.  Happ is the only starter who has a lower BABIP for the month of April than “expectations” would otherwise suggest.  What does this mean?  It means barring injury (What’s that? JJ was scratched for tonight you say…… shiiiiiiiiiiitttt) Dickey, Morrow, Buerhle and Johnson can all expect somewhat improved results going forward and Happ may see a bit of a drop-off.  I will gladly take the trade-off!  However, it isn't the SP BABIP's that intrigued me.

What about the hitting you ask?  Now here is where it gets dangerous to draw conclusions, but it is currently so extreme that it has to suggest something.  Hitter’s BABIP’s range much, much more and outliers are more sustainable. This makes sense as “power” would suggest more balls in play are going to go as hits. Also speed will get you more hits off of ground balls as you can leg out infield singles.  So your BABIP should decrease with age as power and speed decrease.  As well, different types of hitters can sustain very different BABIP's over their career.  However the numbers are just way too obvious to ignore.  11 out of 14 Jays hitters currently have a BABIP below their career average.  11 out of 14!  The only three above their career norms are Arencibia, Rasmus and the injured Reyes. 

Guys like Izturis, Bonifacio, Encarnacion, Lawrie and Bautista are way off their career norms. Like absurdly off. Are they getting slower….maybe Izturis just a bit, but the other guys still have their legs.  Are they old?  Nope.  So what is happening?  Well they just aren’t “getting lucky”.  I know no one wants to hear that, but it is true.  They are hitting the ball at people. None of them are getting the benefit of an occasional seeing-eye single.  Izturis has a career BABIP of .293, this year it is freaking .148!!!! That is insane and unsustainable in a good way.  Bautista is 122 points below his career norm!  Bonifacio is 100 points below.

I know it is hard to chalk things up to bad luck or “misplaced” hits but it will change.  Years of statistical analysis will back this up.  Line drives will start finding the gaps and ground balls will start sneaking through.

The Jays will start winning.  I guarantee it*

http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/shows/the-simpsons/episodes/lady-bouviers-lover/page-2.html

10 Game Report #2 - For Crying Out Loud!!! REMAIN CALM

Last 10 games: 4 - 6
Overall: 8 - 12
Projected Finish: 65 - 97

After the first month of the season, the Blue Jays had a record of 10 wins and 20 losses and were 6.5 games behind the Baltimore Orioles in the standings.   It got worse, as after the Jays were swept by the Minnesota Twins in a three game series, including a 13-1 loss in the final game of the series, the Jays had only 12 wins against 24 losses. Toronto had also lost 15 of their last 19 games before firing the Manager.............On September 30th, they clinched the American League East division title.

1989 was a great year.  That 12 and 24 start was a disaster, but in the end it still didn’t deter a very talented team from rising to the top of the division. 

This 8 and 12 start to the season pales in comparison, but you wouldn’t know it from the talk on the message boards, call-in shows and the yammering of local yahoos.  You would think it was mid-August and the Jays were 18 games out.  But it’s not, and they are not, so you need to simmer down.

 

I ask you these questions:

1.       Are you a baseball fall fan?  If YES proceed to question 2.  If NO your life must be empty.

2.       Do you think you can reasonably judge baseball talent at least to a level where you can pick good teams from bad teams? If YES proceed to question 3.  If NO you may think Pat Tabler is a good analyst.

3.       Before the season started, did you think the Jays had enough talent to challenge for the playoffs? If YES proceed to question 4.  If NO, you must have just been trying to be a smarmy contrarian.

4.       Besides the Reyes injury, is this team any less talented than the one that was fielded on Opening Day? If NO proceed to question 5. If YES you gave the wrong answer, try again.

5.       Would you ever confidently make a decision in life based on having only 10% the fuckin available data? If YES, you are a moron.  If NO, then congratulations!!  You can still be an educated Jays fan and this team still has more than a hope of the playoffs, believe it or not, it will likely still make a run at the playoffs.  I know it's hard to believe, but the season is a whopping 162 games long.

Yeah, maybe the starting staff hasn't looked great overall, the hitting has been underwhelming and the defence has sucked.... there are still some positives to get excited about:

• The bullpen looks stellar.  Every member has an ERA under 3.50, Jansenn is perfect, Cecil is reborn.
• Arencibia is blasting them out at a terrific pace (shhhh....don't mention the K's)
• Dickey looked phenomenal last Thursday against the White Sox. 
• Lawrie is back and is slowly rounding into form
• Kawasaki is was holding his own at short (although it is nearing midnight I fear)

Even with all the poor performances, this team is slowly improving and starting to look dangerous.  I remind you there are still 142 games to go!

Everyone needs to calm down!

So simmer everyone OK?  Put your hand on your tummy and just simmer.

The Manager, a Simple Man?

Today seems as good as any to share a few thoughts about John Michael Gibbons a.k.a Gibby.

The first go around for Gibby here in Toronto was a bit of a mixed bag.  After he worked his way up from bullpen catcher all the way to Manager (seriously who the hell does that) one could make the argument that he was a bit in over his head.  Except he wasn’t.  Strategically he is likely the 2^nd best Manager the Jays have ever employed, maybe just behind Bobby Cox.....who left town when I was 9, so who the hell knows.

Gibby’s downfall was that (i) he had a poorly constructed roster thanks to the flawed thinking of JP & meddling of ownership and (ii) his apparent “temper”.  On the first point, I think he did pretty much the best he could with the cards he was dealt.  It was a cast of misfits and other team’s castoffs.  Entertaining misfits, but misfits nonetheless. 

I mean good guys but you can’t win with these players as key contributors.

As for his temper, well that was a bit overblown.  Shea Hillebrand was freaking a moron and the incident with Ted Lily was a necessary reaction.  When he was fired it was probably a bit unwarranted, but for the best given the disarray of the organization at the time.

But I believe bringing him back this year was a stroke of genius.  No one manages a bullpen better than Gibby and he runs a team the way it should be run.  He tries to get out of the way of his team for the most part, doesn’t believe in the bunt and seems to have the backing of the players.  Really that is all you can ask for.  Sportsnet did special on him earlier this year where they keep playing this over and over:

It got engrained into my head, and although I get the point of argument, Gibby is not a country bumpkin. He is simply (see what I did there) the right guy at the right time for this team. Sure, he might make a few moves that blow up in his face, but that is bound to happen.  If at the end of the year our biggest pet peeve with him is that he pitch hit for Colby in the 7^th inning of a tie game to go with RHB against a LHP, then I think it he will have been a successful return as the Jays manager.

10 Game Report #1 - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Last 10 games : 4 - 6
Projected Finish: 65 - 97

This will be the first of what will hopefully be regular 10 game updates. It is a long season and 10 game chunks seem like an appropriate way to view the season. Assuming a target of 90 wins (this is a number that should have the Jays on the cusp of the playoffs) the Jays need to average 5.5 wins every 10 games.....I have no idea how you win half a game, but damnit, it is worth a shot.

I hate it when writers take the easy way out and use this particular vehicle for a summary. It tends to focus on the negative as opposed to the positive.  However considering the Jays first 10 games, this is a perfect fit.  And this way I get it out of the way for the year.

 

THE GOOD

1. The bullpen has been pretty much lights out.  Cecil, Loup, Delabar, Santos and Janssen have been awesome....which has been necessary considering the starting staff;
2. Bautista's wrist has been fine.  He turned his ankle, but he is OK and his power is back;
3. Arencibia appears to have taken another step.  He has had a lot of strong AB's thus far;
4. Offensively the new guys have settled in.  Melky and especially Reyes have been the bright spots in the lineup; and
5. When healthy, this lineup looks scary deep, filled with power, speed and switch hitters.

THE BAD

1. The record.  It's early, but 4 wins out of 10 is not an ideal start.  But people need to relax about the record.  Don't go looking for this yet:
   
2. EE has not looked good.  I think he will figure it out, but we need him to get going;
3. Lind has also looked pretty bad.....he will not get it going and the sooner the Jays limit his AB's the better; and
4. The infield defence has been pretty bad.  Both Bonafacio and Izturis have struggled.  I think Izturis will be fine once he gets back to 2B after Lawrie's return but wait....

THE UGLY

 

1. Reyes destroyed his ankle last night.  He cried, I cried, half the city cried.  He has been better than advertised and he is likely gone 3 months or longer.  We have no backup except Izturis and that is a huge downgrade.  Maybe Lawrie's return will be sparkplug, but the sooner Reyes is back, the better.  From the looks of things the Jays future will be without Reyes.  Hopefully Bonafacio can play a competent 2B and his bat really takes off.  This is quite possible and could really mitigate the loss of Reyes; and
2. The starting pitching has sucked.  Dickey, Johnson and Buerhle have been pretty much shitting the bed.  I suspect that their third turns through the rotation will see some dramatic improvements.

SUMMARY

 

The record doesn't matter, the bad pitching even doesn't concern me too much.  But losing a man and his donkey is going to hurt. It is going to hurt real bad.

 



He may be a Masshole, but Jays fans acted like Assholes

Well this past weekend it was the return of the man who shouldn't be named.  And boy oh boy, did the Toronto crowd give it to him.

I'm not going to dive into the history, because I have nothing to add to what has already been written ad nauseum.  My position is clear.  He deserved the boos and he deserves the bad press.  I gave the former manager a lot of rope last season and I was fully supportive of his initial hiring.  However, it has become apparent that he orchestrated his exit while under contract to the Jays and that is just unforgivable.

That all being said...it was Jays fans that ended up looking like a bunch of dumb dumbs.  Booing the pitching coach?  Can you not tell the difference?

Booing John Lackey?  He is a major jerk, but you don't boo a guy when he gets injured, especially after missing a whole year and putting in the work to get back on the mound.

Paper Air Planes???????? I mean c'mon.

Booing Dickey after two starts???????

Grow up people! Or stay at home.  The long time suffering Jays fans don't need new bandwagon fans making us look stupid (we can do that ourselves, thank you very much).

The worst part about all this is that this DJF picture has now lost some of its lustre:

Anyhoo, not going to dwell on this.  It is done.  Hopefully Jays fans smarten up.  More importantly, hopefully we turn around this 2-5 ship.  It's really early......but it won't be early forever.

3 Down, 159 to go.....and hopefully more

Well that wasn't the ideal start we had been hoping for, but patience folks, patience please.

 

The Opener was a hell of a good time though, even if most of it is a wee bit hazy.  That's what happens when the boys decide to gather at a bar at 3 pm.  Nevertheless it was great to be back at the ballpark.  Only took 1 of 3 from the Racists....but the team looks good even if the early results aren't there yet.

 

This weekend it is the return of the man who shall not be named.  You will likely see a few more curse words in the next post......but we're all adults.....and if not......earmuffs kids....um I mean eye patches?

 



Opening Day, Opening Day and Opening Day?

Well this year's Opening Day was actually in 3D. 

 

We had the Rangers and Astros last night starting things off on Sunday Night Baseball, today almost all the other teams started and tomorrow when the Jays finally get things going against the Cleveland Racists.

For me, Opening Day has always been Cincinatti.  That seems to have gone the way of the Dodo bird in recent years, but no matter how you view it, baseball is back!

Caught a few innings of the Yankees and Red Sox today.....and the Yankees look horrible....yee-haw.  Listened to Bryce Harper jack two bombs this afternoon on the radio....holy shit he is a phenom.

But tomorrow is the super big day. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpnWHb-7iXeUGUqxwfOikejW1kQJoOoi1ZHNJLmSx0UXWSzUAz-inpl7VZCS-QF8IRY4Qdty5GqrHP96_kU4I4d22r5mDDU-hjv3XycBFXAw8iuXJ31-QSnXAE_O_bM6J1DnWtZbkrRqc/s1600/021.JPG

SS - Reyes
LF - Cabrera
RF - Bautista
1B - Encarnacion
DH - Lind
C - Arencibia
CF - Rasmus
3B - Izturis
2B - Bonafacio
P - Dickey

Oh man it's Christmas Eve!  

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/01/65/20/480257/3/628x471.jpg

High hopes indeed.  Would be nice to have Lawrie and Romero in the fold, but they will be back....and hopefully soon.  The rest of the team looks raring to go.

Heading to the game with Frenchy who got us tix....so grateful.....as long as the Jays win.  Need to get a good nights sleep....gonna be a lot of yelling and drinkin....yup baseball is back.....the quest begins!