Blue Jay Way II: A Real Gamble

I don't want to be mistaken for an old baseball fuddy-duddy. Last year I complained about analytics, but I did so as a fellow traveler. I was an early devotee of Bill James and still feel many of the points he made represented an advance in baseball thinking. I've continued to read him on and off over the years and believe there is an important role for analytics in baseball. If I can reframe my concern, the problem is not that it has "gone too far." The problem is that it is being misapplied. Analytics refers to the use of advanced statistical analysis to make decisions in baseball. Baseball managers have been using stats for a long time (think Earl Weaver and his recipe cards), as have players. The problem occurs when statistical evidence is misapplied. I'll give you an example. 

Generally, most managers today carry large bullpens (a minimum of 7, sometimes 8) relievers. The idea is to bring in a reliever at the start of an inning so that the bases are "clean" and to have the reliever pitch no more than one inning. And, this is true. If you limit any given pitcher's exposure while creating as favourable as possible situation in which they pitch ... that pitcher will do better. It does not, however, mean (1) that they are a better pitcher than they were. It just means that stats are disguising their ability because they've been pitching in favourable conditions, and (2) it doesn't necessarily save runs because someone had to pitch in an unfavourable situation and that is usually the previous pitcher. Imagine this situation, a starter labours into the fifth where there are runnings on second and third with one out. What should you do? If you bring in a reliever, you are asking the reliever to pitch in an unfavourable situation. If you leave in the starter, they are pitching in an unfavourable situation, And, you are running the risk of leaving that pitcher in one batter too long. Anecdotally, this seemed to be one of the Jays problems. In order to create a favourable situation for the bullpen, they seemed to be leaving the starter in -- particularly near the end of the season when they needed wins -- one batter too long. And, because they burned through so many pitchers, they often turned to the wrong pitcher in the pen to get them out of trouble.  Sometimes, those pitchers just were not up to the job. 

You see the situation: analytics is not solving the problem. It is redistributing the problem. Said differently, I am not certain -- as I posted last year -- that analytics is doing much to help the Jays win.  So, what should the Jays do this year? In my last post, I intimated that the Jays front office gambled last year. They downgraded the offense to bring in potentially short-term solutions to their defensive problems. The problem with that gamble was that: (1) it did not work, and (2) it created the need for more personal gambles down the road (aka, this off-season). 

The Jays do need to address the holes in their lineup, but how they do it depends on the nature of the gamble that they want to take. For instance, for me, I'd like to find out if Schneider really can play second base. That's a gamble because one is gambling on player development. A safer solution would be the cast of the thousands we saw last year which is actually a way of avoiding a decision while hoping someone catches fire (last year, it turned out to be Schneider but too late in the day to substantively affect the kind of team the Jays were). 

A different kind of gamble might be to make use of their team in a different kind of way. I don't know if that is possible. For instance, I'd love to see starters go deeper into games, lessening the need to carry so many arms in the bullpen and making more space on the bench for platoon players, defensive subs, pinch runners, and the like. In other words, rather than trying to make analytics work like everyone else in the league -- something I don't think we have any reason to believe the Jays can do -- I'd like to see a real gamble that involves doing something different. Tampa Bay, a team that makes heavy use of analytics, has also been a team that innovated. Analytics was, in fact, an innovation at one point in time, as was an opener, as was the one-inning bullpen pitcher, as was the supersub. TB has stayed in the hunt because they have confidence in their own ability to judge talent (they don't need to turn to free agency to find good players), because they have tended to have really good player development, and because they have not been afraid to take chances. This may be the result of Tampa being Tampa. They might have to take chances because their small market does not allow them to do anything else.  

The Jays have been oddly the opposite. They have turned to free agency because they have not developed the talent they need. They have been indecisive and cost players (like Biggio) the kind of playing time they needed to develop. And, they have not taken chances but rather followed other's lead (their organization of the pitching staff mirrored Tampa's, for instance).  Will the Jays break from their established routes? I don't think they will this year, but another subpar season and they may have no choice. And, for my buck, that would not be a horrible thing. 

Blue Jay Way ... Ramblings on a weird off season

Most of the time, I can figure out what the Jays front office is doing. I might agree with it; I might not, but I can usually see what they're attempting to do. Last season, for instance, was a gamble. It is the logical thread that runs through problematic roster decisions. The Jays front office knew a number of things going into last season. They knew, for instance, that the starting staff they had put together was going to be good. They (and I) might have gotten the reasons why it was good wrong (just for the record, changing park effects might also have played a role), but they had reason to believe it was good. Likewise their bullpen and defense. These were supposedly the missing pieces to the puzzle that would put them over the top. The gamble that they took was that their offense was "good enough." They were removing key offensive pieces to bolster the D and bullpen, while guessing that Vladdy, Bo, Kirk, Springer (who, shifted to a less demanding defensive position, might be able to play a full year) and others would contribute enough offense to push the team into the playoffs, particularly in the light of expected off seasons in Boston and NY. If it had worked, everyone would have been happy and this off-season would look differently.  In fairness, they may not have been wrong. They just weren't right enough. 

It didn't work and the Jays front office has been in pursuit of even bigger gambles. Press reports seem to suggest that they are in the game, but they're not winning. They have been unable to land the big names --  Ohtani and Soto -- who would have helped them. In the meantime, their team aged dramatically, Chapman apparently wants a large multi-year contract to return, and it is not clear who is going to play second base, third base, and either centre or right field, depending on where Varsho ends up. The Jays could try re-signing Chapman but I'm not certain I'd want to pay 100 mil $ over multiple years to find out whether the decline in his offensive ability is real or not. 

So ... what happens this year? The problem with gambling is that it leads to more gambles. Look at what has happened to San Diego over the last several seasons as an object lesson. When a gamble goes wrong it can really go wrong. And, what is worse, it limits your options for the future. San Diego, for instance, found themselves in a place where their front office decided that their gambles had failed. Their high-priced players were not capable of winning and so they had one choice left: blow up the team.  The Jays are not in this situation ... but they are close and that is, I think, the reason for the oddities of this off-season and an inability to figure out what their front office is doing. 

The front office gamble last season had several effects. First, it made the Jays older. They shipped out a young and very promising catcher, kept Merrifield to play 2B and sometimes in the outfield, signed a veteran starter, and brought in veteran outfield help. The Jays still have young talent (Vladdy and Kirk are 24, which is about the age most players make it to the majors, Bo is 25 and Varsho is 26). Biggio, Espinal, and Jansen are all 28 (established in prime players), Springer is 33, Berrios is the youngest starter at 29. The others are all 32+ except Manoah, about whom we don't know much (except a lot of trade bait rumours). What is more, the decision to not play Biggio has likely cost him development time. Biggio has not necessarily made it difficult to keep him out of the lineup but one has to wonder. He was benched, first, for Espinal based on a good half season; then relegated to playing out of position in a backup/platoon role. Said differently, he's 28 but with an unknown future. His defence was never great to begin with and with all the missed time ... it hasn't improved. My guess is that he is at best a break-even defender at second and less than average at third. 

Where does all this leave us? With the same bunch of questions we had at the end of the season and a ticking clock. In the not-too-distant future, the Jays will start to lose their talent to free agency, particularly, I think, if this team does not do more to win. With Spring training just around the corner -- which is amazing to think about -- this kind of indeterminacy can't be good. What is more, because the Jays are not a young team, their window is closing. And, I might be missing it but there doesn't seem to be a tonne of talent in the minor league system and little that seems major-league ready.  With a small core of young talent moving toward free agency, an older starting staff, and holes in the lineup, the Jays will enter Spring training and, I suspect, the upcoming season on edge. Certainly, the ongoing media speculation on just about every possible free agent or trade indicates that the media, at least, will be looking for answers.

Are there any? I have little desire to engage in idle speculation since there are so many rumours so I'll content myself with just one: Cody Bellinger. I like him and he had a good season last year, but his value is likely higher than it ever will be again. He is going to want to be paid and the market for outfielders has been pushed sky high in recent years. If you were getting a guarantee, that is OK, but Bellinger is not a guarantee. His year, last year, was good, but it was not great.  He has some flexibility because he can play first base or the outfield but he is an average defender.  Over the span of his career, his dWar (a common measure of defensive ability) is OK to average.  At 27, he is younger than Biggio or Jansen, but he is also injury prone and has been remarkably inconsistent. Like Chapman, I am not sure I'd want to pay what I'm going to have to pay to find out what is coming next. 

Yet, these are the decisions the Jays have to consider and that is really my point. The Jays may elect to gamble again because, like San Diego, they feel they have to. A veteran team, looming free agency costs to secure the young core, an unspectacular farm system, and line-up holes all point in that direction. 

Will the Jays gamble again? ... it remains to be seen. They are also in dog fight of a division. The Yankees will be better next year as will Boston (who seems to have a core of good younger players), Baltimore should continue to improve and Tampa Bay is ... well ... Tampa Bay. Sooner or later they have to fall to earth or have an off season but they are likely the best managed team in the AL and that works in their favour. 

Will the Jays gamble? I don't know but the logic I've tried to lay out suggests that they will. There is a different kind of gamble they could take, one that does not involve blowing up their team to start again or venturing too deeply into the market for the remaining free agents. It involves rethinking their analytics-based approach to baseball. This is a gamble I'd really like to see them take but here, at least, I wouldn't recommend holding your breath. 

Well ... this was predictable: More on Analytics, Boredom, and Baseball

I had set out to write post on the way analytics had made baseball boring.  And, I wanted to do that without sounding like an old timer railing against change for not other reason that he railed against change. Instead, it is boring because each team follows nearly exactly the same strategies. MLB is fighting against those strategies (expanding the bases, introducing pitch clocks and rules about pitcher disengagement). This is not because analytics failed. It is because it succeeded. Analytics worked, or at least seemed to. One could use massive amounts of data to position defenders, organize the pitching staff, and change the "launch angle" on swings to gain an edge on other teams. Tampa Bay might be the new poster child for this approach to baseball and it is hard to argue with success. The Rays are almost always in contention and almost always with a team that is among the least expensive (in terms of overall salary) in the majors. They have worked ideas such as the now outlawed shift, the starter+bulk pitcher, multiple substitutions, and pitch limits harder than just about any other team. 

The very problem is their success. Every team now has an analytics department and every team is using the same data. The result is that there is precious little variation in baseball strategy between teams. For instance, no one lets starters pitch deep into games any more. In fact, deep into games has been virtually redefined as getting through the fifth inning, the minimum number of innings a pitcher can pitch to record a win. The Jays have four starters who have been basically uninjured this year (I know Gausman has missed a couple of starts) and it is not clear any of them will get to 200 IP.  The point is not that the Jays are doing anything different or unusual. They are doing exactly what everyone else is doing. The only starter in the AL who looks like he will make it to 200 IP is Cole (as always data from Baseball Reference).  In the NL, three or four might make it. 

The addition of the universal DH has also created a a higher degree of homogeneity in baseball strategy across MLB. The absence of a DH forced NL teams in the past to adopt different strategies than AL teams (greater pinch hitting and using more small-ball, one base strategies).  I know we need to guard against nostalgia, but there were appreciable divisions of strategy between the baseball teams of my youth. Some were based on speed (KC, Oakland, the Expos, St. L). Some were based on power (Milwaukee). Some where based on platooning (the Jays, Orioles, and Tigers under Sparky). Some managers were quick hooks (Alou). Others expected their starters to work for their living (Vernon).  Said differently, when different teams played each other it was often a conflict of strategies as it was a conflict of players and teams. 

This is no longer the case. I was watching a Jays/Reds game a week or so ago and each team managed its pitching staff in exactly the same way. The only difference was that the Jays starter (Berrios) pitched 5.2 innings. The Reds (Kennedy), 5. There then followed a stream of pitchers pitching one inning (or, in the case of the Jays, the final out of the 6th).  The next game was as close to a repeat as you could get. The Jays needed to yank Richards faster than they wanted to because he was a bit off his mark, but that was it.  What minor differences there are, are a product of talent (Cleveland has to run because it lacks home run power) or taking advantage of particular situations (the Rockies were running on us because our catching is weak at throwing out runnings). Other coaches take advantage of situation but the overall strategies aren't varying. The result is that baseball fans basically know what is going to happen before it does and that does not make for a particularly exciting game, at least from a strategy perspective. 

Analytics have created two effects on the way baseball teams are organized. First, there has been an expansion of the bullpen. Most teams carry eight bullpen pitchers and five starters, taking up 13 roster spots, or half the team. Because there is almost no such thing as a complete game anymore (Lyles looks like he will lead the AL with 3; the Jays have a total of one complete game -- Bassitt -- this year), and because no one uses a reliever for more than an inning, more pitchers are needed. This leads to point two: because roster sports are needed for pitchers,  no one carries a dedicated DH any more (there are no Edgar Martinez, of Big Papi's, or Hal McRae's ... with the notable exceptions of the Dodgers but is anyone surprised Roberts is doing things differently? And, Phil as they try to get Harper into games). And, players are prized by the degree to which they can play more than one defensive position. 

For the Jays, the effect is periodically shaky outfield defence because we play infielders in the outfield (our backup or platoon outfielders are Biggio and Merrifeld, both infielders).  Throughout much of the year, our backup third basement and shortstop was Santiago Espinal, a player who was so not reliable as a short stop that the Jays traded (we really traded nothing so I am not all that concerned) for Paul DeJong.  I actually think Merrifield has done the job the Jays asked him to do this year and it has not an easy job. He makes the odd really good catch as an outfielder if he is moving forward but he has problems with balls over his head and tends -- as we would expect of an infielder -- to misjudge them. There were plays I've watched where Biggio, likewise, seemed completely miscast for the role he was asked to play. 

Is this a management issue? I'm argue that the heavy use of analytics creates this problem. Because the Jays are using up so many roster sports on pitchers, they can't carry a real back up outfielder. 

Likewise, the Jays have to suffer with Vladdy at first. I'll grant him Vladdy due. He did not come up playing first base, defence is not his primary value, and he does make some good plays. But, overall, his defence is hurting the team (it even hurt the team last year in his Gold Glove winning year, its just that all other first basement were worse).  The Jay would improve if they had even a break-even defensive first baseman and moved Vladdy F/T to DH. But, they can't because no one -- exceptions noted above -- carries an F/T DH anymore. Instead, it is used as place holder to give a player a rest. Because benches are so thin, there are just not a lot of backup players to fill in and so the DH spot is used to spell a player from fielding for a game. Or, for the same reason, to keep a player with a minor injury in the game. 

Not only does this homogenize strategies but, with regard to the Jays, it has made them a worse team. I am not saying Vladdy could be the Jays Big Papi, but I actually don't see any reason why he could't be. 

And, I have not even mentioned what "max effort" is doing to pitchers arms. 

In short, it is hard to complain about the Jays. I have and will. But, we also need to see that the problems with which the Jays grapple are inherent to this era of baseball (for instance, I know Hernandez had horrible defence. I said it. But, the response to that does not need to be to trade him, even while I think the trade worked out. Another alternative, would have been to teach him how to be an outfielder but, for whatever reason, that die not happen). 

I find myself drifting from baseball and have been trying to figure out why. This post, I guess, is in that spirit. 

Analytics, Boredom, and Mis-assessing MLB Player Value

The analytics revolution in baseball was about uncovering player values. It was about moving away from relying *just* on traditional stats (RBIs, runs, wins, etc.) to try to find ways to assess players independent of their context, say a manager who misplayed them or a pitcher who won a lot of games because their team scored a lot of runs.  Since Bill James and others first starting making the case for a better approach to baseball math over a generation a go, we now have a raft of new statistical categories that sub in for traditional numbers. This includes OPS, OPS+, wins above replacement (WAR), etc.  There are mathematical variations in some of formulae used to calculate these stats (not every determines WAR in exactly the same way), but by and large I think these new stats are remarkably useful for determining player value. But, they also have their problems particularly when combined with an MLB penchant to measure just about everything that can be measured, at least this seems to be Sportsnet's approach with the Jays, where we are treated to a daily discussion of "exit velocity," distance home runs are travel, etc. I find this fascination less useful and I also want to explain why. 

What is now called analytics was about finding more effective ways to evaluate players. The original analytics writings did not dismiss older stats, but argued that they needed to be understood better and in context. For instance, imagine a player who drives in a lot of runs and hence has a lot of RBIs. Was that a product of their ability to hit in the clutch (when, say, their team had a runner scoring position) or was it a product of the fact that the players who batted before him were on base a lot. If that were the case, a player would have more RBIs and not necessarily be any better at driving in runs than a player who have fewer. 

I'm going to come back to this but the two most important offensive skills in baseball are the ability to get on base (hard to score without people on base) and the ability to advance runners (that is move them from one base to the next). Some players are really good at that.  The batter in front them gets a double and is on second with none out. The next batter, hits the ball behind the runner, allowing him to advance to third. It doesn't show up on standard score sheets but that is a productive out, moving a teammate to third with one out where he can now score with a sac fly. Analytics attempted to find ways to enumerate these skills so that a player could be assessed on their merits. 

I agreed with analytics. I think its advances were understood long before baseball had analytic departments or anyone had seen Moneyball. It makes sense that the ability to get on base is important and that it does not matter exactly how one gets on base. Thus, on base percentage is a more important statistical measure than batting average. I get it.

I don't think "we have gone too far" with analytics but I worry that analytic stats are disguising other stats. I'll say it again, Bill James never rejected traditional stats. Instead, he worked with them and interpreted them. The substitution of one stats for another taken out of its context -- I'll say it again, taken out of its context -- disguises a player's value and that, it seems to me, is one of the problems that haunts major league baseball today. The Jays are a case in point and I'll give you an example: Brandon Belt. 

The Jays brought Belt in to provide veteran leadership and good defence at first. He was never going to play everyday but rather was a role player, doing time at DH and backing up Vladdy at first. He could defensive sub in tight games. It is a valuable role on the team. Belt got off to a bad start, as happens but the Jays kept him in and he's played more and more over time. Right now, he's batting third and seems -- barring something unforeseen -- ensconced their for the rest of the year. 

When you watch Jays games, the announcers make a lot of the fact that some -- often nameless -- people were down on Belt because of his slow start. I might say that anyone who knows much about baseball was not down him and recognizes that not everyone gets out of the gates at the same pace. It is annoying (and likely more so to the coaching staff) but nothing to write home about. It is a regular part of the game. After this, however, the announcers go on to make a comment the goes something like "Belt has the second highest OPS, OPS+, etc., since date X."

This is less useful. It is good to know but what are more traditional stats telling us about Belt: that he's not driving in runs at the pace one needs from a top of the order guy. Right now Belt has 350 plate appearances (the lowest of a non-catcher starter or a player who has not missed time for injury, but not a bad number). The problem is that he has only 37 RBIs and 15 of those RBIs come from homers. IOW, aside from himself, Belt has driven in only 22 other runs this year. That is a bad number no matter how you cut it. My point, of course, is not that Belt is secretly a bad player. I don't think he is. My point is that the focus on new analytic stats -- where he looks really good -- disguises the fact that the Jays have put a guy at the top of their lineup who is not doing what a guy at the top of the lineup is supposed to do. 

There are a lot of qualifications, to be sure, and it would not be fair to lay the blame for the Jays inconsistency at the feet of the Belt. But, it might also be fair to say that he's not well cast to the role in which the Jays have him. 

Likewise, the fascination with exit velocity -- the speed of the ball coming off the bat -- and distance for HRs create other problems.  It does not matter how hard a ball is hit if that speed is not producing actual hits. Vladdy hits the ball harder than just about anyone. But, that velocity is not translating itself into either hits or RBIs. Again, don't get me wrong. Vladdy is an exceptionally good younger player who I'd want on my team. He's also the opposite of Belt. He got off to a blazing start.  Hitting .309 by at the end of April (I get my data from Baseball Reference) with an .885 OPS. We don't need to worry too much about precisely what that stats means but it all-star level. He's been up and down with a lot of down since.  Right now, he is not on pace to drive in 100 runs, something you need from your best player. In this case it is not an analytic stat that is disguising a problem but the fascination new measurable stats. 

Let me make this point clear: if a ball is a HR, what difference does it matter how far it traveled? It might be interesting for fans, but not relevant to the score. If you need to hit the ball 400 ft to get a home run, what difference does it make if the ball is hit 401 feet or 456 feet? If you hit a home run, what difference does it matter that its exit velocity was 106 mph or 90 mph. If you said "none," you were right. 

I didn't get to boredom and baseball so I'll carry that into another post, but finally, let me say a word about "best in the league since date X" syndrome. Baseball loves this kind of language and the Jays media is riven with it. But, it is also a problem. Again: I get it. Media commentators are trying to show a trend -- a player heating up or someone who has made an effective adjustment. But, it also misses a point and that point is this: it does not matter when you lose games if you lose them. For instance, imagine that a team needs to win, say, 90 games to make the playoffs. That means that they will lose 72 over the pan of the season. Does it matter when they lost those games? Again, the answer is no.  The fact that a player gets off to a bad start is not a reason to throw them away and. there will be ups and downs over a season. But the fact that a player is playing well at a certain moment and not at another moment could be a problem for a team that is looking for consistency, as the Jays are. Said differently, this start -- or this approach to reporting stats -- disguises something important. Playing poorly and losing games at the start of the season can keep. team out of the playoffs as surely as playing poorly and losing games late in the season. 

Not the Team We Thought

Since I usually post my complaints about the Jays, I thought I'd post some positive comments because I am positive. That might sound odd after the loss last night (amid more not good fielding), but I don't think this is a bad team at all. In fact, I never did. What is more, this is not the team I thought it was, nor I suspect most Jays fans and what has me upbeat is precisely that. The Jays are a really good pitching team. The have a problems with defence but their defence, particularly in the outfield, is good. I don't like the phrase "ready to go on a run" and I am not certain they are. One of their remaining problems is inconsistent play. But, I see no reason they can't get into the playoffs and I see no reason that can't win a round, maybe more. So, what is good about the Jays? 

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's keep acknowledging that team has problems. For whatever reason, it is not scoring runs. You know the data as well as I do. They are near the bottom of the league in hitting with runners in scoring position and with runners on base. Moreover, a number of their key players have taken a backwards step either year over year or in comparison to how well they played earlier this year. Some of this is explainable. The issue with regard to Springer, for instance, is not that he had a bad run and will come around (as the announcers keep saying -- and he might). The issue is that he is a banged up 33 year old outfielder. He will lose bat speed, for instance, and that will limit his offensive abilities. But, and here is what I think is important to note. The Jays brain trust -- whom I faulted for some pretty poor pitching decisions very recently -- has also made the right decision to get him out of the lead off spot and try to find a place where his skill base is useful to the team. The first good thing to note about the Jays right now, then, is that for the first time in a while, the team decision makers (whomever these are) seem to be responding to the talent that is in front of them and making decisions on that basis.  (As opposed to, in the past, trying to create a plug and play team, Gibby-proof team.) 

Second, I'll also give the Jays front office and field level management credit for not panicking when Manoah went off the rails. To state my point above again: they responded by assessing the talent they had and what they could do with it -- a very Tampa Bay like decision making strategy -- rather than trying to copy another team or using players in ways that moved them out of their comfort zone. They used off days to their advantage and made use of what they had (a potentially good opener in Richards and a potentially good bulk guy in Francis) to get them through a potential problem. For the record, I also think they handled the other Manoah problem tactfully so I'll mention it here. Manoah, you may know, is at AAA and the demotion was needed. It was needed because there was no place for him on the roster (there was nothing that he could do that another pitcher could not do better) and because he shot his mouth off in a press conference about watching to pitch to Ohtani and saying that the decision to walk him was Schneider's. His comment drew a laugh but what was missed were two things: (1) the issue is not what Manoah wanted to do because he was a "competitor" but what gave the team the best chance to win, and (2) the answer he gave sucked. His job is not disagree with his manager but to say precisely point 1 above. It is not about how a player feels. It is about how a team wins. And, players that won't put winning ahead of themselves ... well ... they end up in AAA. 

Third, despite some recent trips to the IL but a number of key players, the Jays have been relatively healthy. I saw that data recently but I forget where (an in game graphic, I think), but the Jays have lost fewer games to injury than most other teams. And, most of those games lost were known (Ryu and Green) at the start of the season. In fact, the Jays have really only had one rough stretch with regard to injuries (and that is right now) over the season. They've gotten more out of Kiermaier, Springer, and Belt than I thought they would. In other words, whatever was not working in the past -- because the Jays were loaded with injuries -- has been corrected (better planned days off?) and the team is enjoying the effect of that. 

Finally, I see nothing wrong with tight pitched games. Whether by design or luck, the Jays have built an impressive bullpen. I still don't like the one pitcher, one inning approach, but the bullpen is deep and it is good. I feel a bit bad for players like Francis and Jackson who will be out of a job in the near future because they have made a contribution.  But, we no longer have to live with the possibility that the brain trust will elect to turn a key game over to a pitcher who they did not think was good enough to make the team (see a pervious post on this) in the first place.  

I expect a spate of transactions before the weekend series. Green and Richards will likely be coming off rehab, which means Francis and Jackson are headed to AAA. Bichette will come off rehab as well and so one infielder is likely hitting the road. If I had to guess, it would Schneider Jr., but we'll see. Keeping DeJung makes sense to me because he provides a defensive sub for Bichette late inning in close games where we have the lead. But, we'll see. 

In short, I am looking forward to the back end of the season. 

The Oddities of the Jays Approach to Pitching

Despite what it might look like, pitching decisions in baseball are not made willy-nilly.  And, while the manager is responsible for them (and has the ultimate on-field call), they are no longer made simply by managers or managers alone.  Instead, pitching decisions are charted out. While everyone would like a starter to go as long as they can, baseball coaching staffs chart out numerous possibilities. If our team is ahead in the seventh by X+ runs, and the starter is tired or losing the zone or has hit their pitch limit, they are replaced by A. If we need a platoon advantage, they are replaced by B, if we are behind ... and we needed to replace the starter .... you get the point. The manager makes the decision -- the call on the field -- but he's had the benefit of advise from pitching coaches, his bench coach, there is a guy down in the bullpen, and the team analytics department. The individual decision that we, as fans, see is actually a collective decision made by a baseball team's brain trust. 

With that in mind, the Jays brain trust makes decisions that I often find difficult to figure out. Put differently, that defy figuring out. I'll give you an example. On Tuesday night the Jays got battered by the Orioles 13-3. It was likely a game that they had no chance of winning regardless of individual decisions because the Os were on and the Jays were not. But, the game marked the return of Hyun-Jin Ryu to the staff after over a hear off recovering from surgery for a major injury. Ryu looked good and pitched well. He got off to a bit of a bumpy start, but was efficient. He was throwing strikes, not going deep into counts. He gave up two in the first and another in the second but blanked the Os for the next three innings.  At this point, he had thrown -- I forget the exact number but -- high 70s in terms of pitches, which is not a tonne for a starter.  Why not pull him? He'd look good, the Jays were in the game, and as a team the Jays had accomplished what they set out to accomplish. They got a good game from a starter who they want to re-integrate into their starting rotation. 

For reasons I don't understand, the Jays sent him back out for the 6th, he was promptly touched up for a home run and was then pulled. My question is this: what was the difference between the 5th and the 6th. Why was that one batter important? And, why was in more important than keeping the score as low as possible and getting a pitcher back into the swing of major league games? There may be a logic here but I can't see it: what difference did the handful of pitches Ryu threw in the 6th make other than to put the Jays behind. Because the Jays scored no more runs, they would never have caught up even if the Orioles hadn't battered our bullpen, It is an odd decision.

Odder still: last night. The Jays were short staffed. With both Romano and Richards on the IL, they were clearly hoping for a long start from Gausman and that was a reasonable expectation. He's pitched very well this year. It was not to be. Gausman ran into trouble in the 2nd and while he recovered his pitch count soared. One out into the 5th, he'd thrown 103 pitches and so he needed to come out.  Gausman had given up another run in the 5th as well. The Jays turned to Bowden Francis who had just been recalled and he did the job. Francis has actually pitched rather well for the Jays but in limited action. He's spent most of the year in the minors. After Francis came the newly acquired Cabrera. Fair enough, this is what the Jays acquired him for.  But, at this point odd decisions started. 

The Jays really needed to win this game. It was not critical but losing it dropped the Jays 7.5 games back of the Orioles with 52 games left in the season, an almost insurmountable lead. Losing the game meant that the Jays were, in effect, conceding the division championship. The bullpen, as I said, was thin but the Oriels only had a 3-1 lead. The game was still in range. And, with this important game on the line, the Jays brain trust elected to turn the Jays fate over to Thomas Hatch, a player who they had just recalled from the minors and, previous to last night, had thrown a total of 4 innings in the bigs this season. 

Let's think about the logic of this. Here we have a very important game that the Jays need to keep the division championship in their sights. If they win, they're 5.5 games back instead of 7.5. Still a tall order but close enough that a mini-losing streak for the Os is all the Jays would need to get within a game or two, and we play them again. So, is this the situation in which you would turn to a guy who 24 hours before you did not think was good enough to be in the majors? Quite literally, this is a guy who, barring injuries, would not even have been on the team. The options the Jays had were limited and I'll get to that in a minute. But, there were options. Mayza is the obvious one.  Hicks would have been a stretch but apparently he had said (at least according to Dan and Buck) that he could go, and Swanson was the other option. I suspect Swanson was being saved to be the closer but since Hatch surrendered 3 runs in the next 2+ innings, both Mayza and Swanson ended the game on the bench. 

Making matters even more odd, the Jays designated Hatch today. In baseball terms that means, in effect, they fired him. Any other team can take him for his salary and need to provide the Jays with no compensation. If no one else claims him, I suspect the Jays will keep him in the minors but let's process this. The Jays trusted a critical situation in a critical game to a guy who they themselves did not feel was good enough to be on staff and who, the next day, they didn't feel was good enough to keep on the roster. Does this make sense? 

How did we get here? The Jays will claim that the thin staff -- injuries and another player on leave -- forced them to. That is likely exactly what they think, but it just does not make a lot of sense. There is another reason they are short staffed and that relates to the construction of their pitching staff. 

There is nothing unusual about the way in which the Jays have built their pitching staff. They have it set up  like this: the starter gets through 6 innings (or, at least 5) and the Jays then had it over to the bullpen. A series of pitchers in succession pitch 1 inning (or, less if there is a needed platoon advantage). Just about everyone does the same thing. One of the interesting effects analytics has had on baseball is to flatten out strategy differences. Everyone looks at the same data, everyone has analytics departments that crunch numbers, and, on an aggregate level, the data shows something so everyone does exactly the same thing. 

I won't get into the details of why this is done. I'm not trying to say that there is no a reason for it. It just has not served the Jays well. The Jays carry a tonne of pitchers (which also limits in-game decisions, an issue I'll address another time but also something else that is very common), usually 8 relievers and 5 starters but right now 7 relievers and 6 starters because Ryu and Manoah are both back and the Jays intend to go with a six-pitcher rotation because they have a spate of games without a day off. I don't inherently disagree with this decision but it further cramps the bullpen and what happens if ... if, say, your starter has a bad inning and reaches his pitch count early? What happens is that you turn a critical game over to a guy who was not on the team a day or two before and is not now.  

It is a bit like crying over spilt milk, but can I ask about the logic of one-inning relievers? The only guy on the Jays staff who regularly pitches more than an inning in relief is Richards and even he would not meet the definition of "long man" of my youth. The Jays bullpen lacks depth not in the sense that they don't have arms. They do. I think its a good bullpen if each game unfolds according to the 6-1-1-1 formula. But the absence of longer relief was high-lighted last night. Since just about everyone builds their bullpens in the same way, I wondered as I was thinking about last night's game, has anyone looked back on what managers like Felipe Alou did in the past? Alou worked his pens hard but tended to use a much more limited number of pitchers and kept relievers in longer than people do today. 

The Jays handling of the pitching staff, then, was odd in two ways. They made a really odd in game decision that they did not have to make and they have constructed their bullpen in a way that seems to force odd decisions, or at least make a greater chance for them.  I'll be honest. I'm disappointed in how the Jays have played this year and I am looking for reasons that they've under performed. They are a good team and have not played poorly. But, they've not played to the level I thought they would and part of that, I think, relates to the oddities of their approach to the pitching staff. 

Canadian Women's Soccer and the Politics of Commitment

The Canadian women's national soccer team made an early exit from the World Cup. That's a drag because they are a good team that went into the tournament with heightened expectations. Another reason this is a drag is the gender politics that have followed this team for a good long time. There is simply no reason that the women's team should be funded at a rate so shockingly different from the men's team and Canada Soccer should be completely embarrassed that it could not even conclude a temporary, interim deal with the team until the World Cup was underway.  One can only speculate on how this level of uncertainty has affected the team. This is not an issue of motivation but, as the team made clear in its press release related to the funding agreement (you can find that here), related to directly to training. To be compensated equally with the men's team, the women's team will have to allow Canada Soccer to transfer resources from training. In other words, Canada Soccer has said "we will pay you the same but not resource you the same. You'll get the same money but not the same support." It is horrible, as the PR notes, that the women's team was forced to make this choice and, if you are a soccer fan, it raises deep and fundamental questions about Canada Soccer's commitment to winning.  What is even worse ... its a short term deal that seems to expire at the end of the year. Canada Soccer's commitment to gender equality (even such as it is), in other words, is temporary and then defaults back to its pay women less stance. For its part, Canada Soccer does not even mention the deal on its website (or, did not when I checked).

None of this is as it needs to be. While I am shocked by the blatant character of Canada Soccer's gender discrimination, I am not surprised by it. In fact, I'd be surprised if the opposite had happened, if Canada Soccer had pro-actively (without being urged to and without the women's team needing to go public) took it upon itself to create the conditions for equality in a substantive way. Imagine the different headlines that we could have been reading: Canada Soccer realizing commitment to gender equality: women and men now compensated and resourced the same. I get that that sounds pie in the sky but why should it? Why is Canada Soccer, in 2023, trying to get away with inequality? 

For its part Canada Soccer seems to be in something of a financial mess. Earlier this July, it found itself backtracking on agreements with the national teams because, it said, the deal had been worked out without the approval of its Board of CFO (you can find that story here). But, that's not an excuse. All that had to happen was that the Board and CFO approve the deal. The exact financial machinations are difficult to track down but Canada Soccer is funded through a different body: Canada Soccer Business. Its website bills it as follows: "Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) is an independent commercial agency that offers a suite of representation services, delivering corporate partnerships, sponsorships and media rights for entities that make up the backbone of soccer in the country" (citation: here). Its web site has the standard feel good stories on it, but it seems that what has happened is this: Canada has outsourced funding for its national soccer teams to a private agency that withholds a portion of the revenue it receives (say, prize money from the World Cup) in order to fund both its own operations and the Canadian Premier League (see here for information), which -- according to its website -- seems to be its main client. This is potentially lucrative as CSB also retains media rights to the national teams. If you want to find out more about the CPL by clicking on the line on CSB's web page, you'll be directed to another web page v-- or, at least I was -- asking you to donate (in a cycling banner at the top of the page). The nature of the deal Canada Soccer has with CSB seems to be pushing Canada Soccer to bankruptcy and has -- according to the men's team -- delayed its payments from the men's World Cup. Canada Soccer, it seems, has attempted to balance its books through the time tested method of paying women less. 

One of the things I find particularly offensive about this is the way in which Canada Soccer tried to assure us that it is committed to the national team. Being committed to something, one should note, involves something more than stating a commitment. Canada Soccer has said it is committed to getting a fair and equal deal for the women's team but the last agreement expired in 2021. Not only is that a long time but the path to a fair and equal deal is easily available to them. It involves ... well ... resourcing and compensating the women's team equally.  Another example, from its web site, is Canada Soccer's vision, the first part reads "Leading Canada to victory [...]." If we were to ask the national teams about that commitment, what do you think they would say? How do you "lead" a team to victory when you make the players fight for equality. I think a team that's been without an agreement for two years and was forced to choose between compensation and training, might have something to say about the how real that commitment feels to them.  The point is simply this: it is easy to say one is committed to something but we should not mistake that for an actual commitment. 

The same type of commitment was evident politically from the new federal Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, Carla Qualtrough. Now, I am going to state clearly that I don't think being Minister of Sport in Canada is an easy job. The embedded and systemic inequalities and abuse that have come to light over the last several years are serious and require serious efforts. You can find some information here. On the other hand, at least part of the problem seems to be systemic and when we have people in powerful positions, one might expect something more than a statement of a reiterated commitment, as we received from Qualtrough. Their statement was reported on CBC as follows: "My background is as a human rights lawyer, so you're never going to hear me say anything but pay equity, equal pay for work of equal value. Our women deserve equal opportunities as our men and we're going to make sure they have it." To me, this amounts to little more than virtue signalling. As a minister, one should not simply say they support equality. I'll be honest: I would have thought that was a precondition of the job. Instead, what we have is a person who is uniquely placed to use the authority of the state to accomplish this ... say to help develop a new funding mechanism and to cut out the private business intermediary that seems to be draining money away form the national teams. And, yet, the best we can get out of them is the Coles Notes version of their CV and a commitment to promote the very equality that their government has so far ignored. 

I don't think this will bode well.