One of the great old hippie sayings of the late sixties that ended up on the walls of many first apartments in one form of artistic presentation or another was “Life is What Happens when You’re Doing Other Things”.
Well, sometimes baseball happens when you’re doing other things. Like today, for example. This is a busY time of year for my wife and me because it’s end-of-year performance time for our grand-daughter, and we do almost all of the shepherding and accompanying duties related to her dance class.
Plus my wife’s god-daughter, whose cute new one-bedroom condo we hadn’t seen, just “adopted” a Bengal kitten, who judging by her photos might be a sweetheart, but might also be quite the wild little thing. She’s been named Hazel, and yes, Hurricane Hazel comes readily to mind.
So, today our grand-daughter was delivered to us at 12:30 and had to be dropped at the studio for rehearsal from one to three. I was able to listen to Jerry Howarth and company after we dropped her off, but only while we were driving to visit god-daughter and new kitten, not too far away. The radio signal faded, of course, as soon as we entered the parking garage, and I wasn’t able to check in again on Jerry until after our visit and we were pulling out of the parking garage.
This is what I like about Jerry Howarth and radio baseball broadcasters in general: when we picked up the signal again, he was reading out all of the scores from Saturday’s games and was asking if anyone recognized what stood out about the totality of the Saturday scores. It turned out to be that for the first time in baseball history, dating back to the 1860s, on a day when at least 16 games were played, no team scored more than six runs. Then he added another fun fact: in all of the sixteen games played on Saturday the twenty-seventh, not one (successful) sacrifice bunt was laid down. Hmph.
Aside: Hurricane Hazel’s pretty cute, but could still turn out kind of wild and woolly. The jury’s out at the moment.
We had to stop by the house for a minute before going back to the dance studio, just long enough for me to see Josh Donaldson being charged with an error on a backhand short hop that kicked off his glove off the bat of Mike Napoli. Buck and Tabbie were all “oh that’s a tough error to give on a ball like that”, but it was a quick-pick reflex play that a healthy Donaldson makes maybe eight times out of ten.
So we picked up the grand-daughter and, fortified with an ice-cream treat, headed toward the far reaches of Scarborough to take her home. Gammie drove while I continued the reading of A Connecticut Yankee. I had the radio on low so that if something big happened, I’d hear Jerry shouting. Alas, as the game wound to an end, there was no shouting, and the sound died to a sad drone as Tulo grounded into a forceout to end the game and the Jays’ win streak.
There was more shouting to be had in the reading of the Twain, anyway. Man, that’s good stuff.
I did watch a “Blue Jays in 30” broadcast, and what I saw was that Joe Biagini’s stuff was electric. What I also saw was that Andrew Cashner also put in fine effort, and he was full measure in suppressing a Jays’ offense that has been becoming more and more explosive in recent days.
What I learn from the box score is that Cashner’s seven innings, 1 run, five hits, two walks, two strikeouts on 97 pitches speaks for itself. What I also see is that Biagini’s start today was also a solid quality start by a rotation regular, as he went six innings, gave up two runs on seven hits, walked one and struck out seven on 95 pitches. Worthy of a win, but Cashner was better on this day.
I read an interview comment from Devon Travis from after the game. He said that every time an opposing hitter crossed his path he’d ask, “Who the hell is that guy?” ‘Nuff said.
What am I thinking about these Toronto Blue Jays on this quiet Sunday evening when we’re finally back home from all of our driving around and cat-visiting and Twain-reading?
First, that it will be hard to put Joe Biagini back in the bullpen. This could be a moot point, since they’re taking a long-term approach to Aaron Sanchez, which simply keeps the door open for Biagini. But if one of Francisco Liriano and Jay Happ doesn’t come back full bore, there’s another possibility for him, and then, god forbid, the team could lose one of the healthy ones that are still going. So I think Biagini will be starting for some time, which is a good thing, just in terms of his own arm, so that his new regimen as a starter won’t have to be altered again to become a bullpen piece.
Second, that if Devon Travis continues anywhere near his present tear, I will concede that his offensive upside clearly outweighs the occasional defensive or baserunning lapse. In addition, baserunning lapses can be trained away, and we don’t know if in fact the defensive lapses haven’t been related to offensive worries; will he play better in the field if he’s feeling good about his offensive contribution?
Third, that Toronto is a much stronger team defensively with Ryan Goins on the field, and he is at his very best at shortstop. Yes, this means that Goins should be in the lineup regularly at shortstop, and yes, this means that there is a huge problem for the Jays surrounding Troy Tulowitzki. Obviously, the raising of this point requires strong argument and solid reasons for it to be expressed.
Let’s look at Goins first. Understand that at no time will I make reference to analytical data. I don’t believe that you need analytics to support what is in plain sight if you’re watching closely. You could compare the game Goins played in the field yesterday with any game in which Tulowitzki had a significant number of chances since he arrived in Toronto, and Goins’ superior reflexes, instincts, and, yes, arm strength, would be clear. A comparison of Goins’ game Saturday and Tulo’s Friday night would be unfair, obviously, because it was Tulo’s first game back, but even in that regard, the performance of Tulo in the field on Friday, not to mention that of Josh Donaldson, raises serious questions about the Jays’ decision to activate them for the beginning of the home stand, when they may not have been ready to play up to capacity in the field.
When you consider the Tulo side of the equation, of course, the issue is the difference in offensive production. This comparison is without doubt skewed by factors on both sides. In the case of Goins, he has never had the opportunity to be in the lineup on a daily basis for more than a month or so at a time. So we can’t know what he would do if installed as a regular and allowed to develop. One might point for comparison to the way that Kevin Pillar forced his way into the centre field position on the defensive imperative and then, on the evidence of the first two months of this season, has matured as a more patient and effective hitter with regular at-bats.
What we have seen from Goins is a certain flare for the dramatic at the plate. For his average his RBI total is disporportionately high (.213, 20 RBIs), and he has had a number of clutch hits with runners in scoring position including one walk-off. Just to dip into the data a little, apparently two of his homers have ranked among the longest hit in the league this season.
Tulo, of course, has a proven track record, and there is no question that he offers more of an offensive upside than Goins at this stage in the latter’s career. However, let’s consider first that Tulo has lost a lot of time to injury since his arrival in Toronto. In 2015 he missed 34 regular season games with Toronto and had only 163 at bats. He had 463 at bats in 2016, but still missed 31 games. And of course he’s only appeared in 19 of the Jays’ 51 games this year. Unfair to comment on his injury record? Maybe, but didn’t we value Cal Ripkin’s durability? Don’t we marvel at the bumps and bruises Kevin Pillar accumulates over the course of a season without missing time? It’s often said that at 36 Jose Bautista has a young body; is it possible that at 32 Tulo has an old body?
Then there’s the production itself. Again, the comparison is tough, because Tulo spent more than nine seasons hitting at Skunky Beer Field in Denver, with its bandbox proportions and thin air, a venue that may have cost Canadian superstar Larry Walker his shot at the Hall of Fame, because it been considered that too much of his career was spent there. But what other division in baseball has as many hitter-friendly parks as the AL East, where the Jays play 76 games, and which is the most hitter-friendly of all? Shouldn’t hitting in the American League East have compensated for leaving Denver?
Actually, when you look at the numbers, the real comparison for Tulo is between a cluster of early years in Colorado, and his record since, rather than the comparison between Colorado and Toronto. Leaving 2008 and 2012 aside, two years hampered by injuries, in which he only appeared in 101 games in 2008 and 47 in 2012, he had seasons of 24 homers/99 ribbies, 32/92, 27/95, 30/105, and 25/82. His next three seasons, including the split 2015 between Colorado and Toronto, show 21/52, a very strange split in 2014, 17 and 70 in 2015, and last year 24/79, his highest home run total since 2013, but again, curiously, a relatively low RBI total. Similarly, in five of the six years before the trade to Toronto his batting average was over .300, but in 2015 after he came to Toronto it was only .239, and in his first full season in the hitter-friendly AL East it was only .254, his lowest non-injury-season batting average by 26 points under the combined .280 he hit in his trade year of 2015.
So to me we have the picture of a hitter in decline, who perhaps misses being almost the sole centre of attention on what was for years a mediocre team. If Ryan Goins can even remotely approximate Tulo’s recent (emphasis on “recent”, because Tulo himself shows no evidence of returning to his former levels) hitting numbers, then his defensive upside should be a decisive factor.
Some might raise the question of leadership. Fair enough. Sure, Tulo functions as the “captain” of the infield, but the shortstop usually does. Otherwise, team-mates attest to his work ethic and quiet leadership, which I’m sure are invaluable but can’t be assessed by an outsider. And which Ryan Goins would not even think of trying to emulate at this stage in his career. But he would have no need to step in fully to Tulo’s role right away, or ever. This team has plenty of leaders, from Bautista to Donaldson to Martin to Stroman to Grilli. And regardless of the rocky spots he’s gotten into a couple of times, if leading by example is what you’re looking for, then I would say that Kevin Pillar has taken some very strong steps in that direction.
But what to do with Troy Tulowitzki? That should be the easy part: Mark Schapiro and Ross Atkins did not bring him to Toronto, and should not feel responsible for whether he continues to be the best fit. I would play him fairly regularly for a couple of weeks to give him a chance to round into form and show that he’s healthy, and then I’d start looking for a trade.
If the Blue Jays are serious about making the post-season this year despite their bad start, a Troy Tulowitzki on the bargaining table would go a long way toward resolving whichever of Toronto’s injury issues seems more pressing by, say, the end of June, a possible hole in the starting rotation, or the inability of a Zeke Carrera/recovering Steve Pearce to provide consistent numbers from left field, which as a position has underperformed for the last three years, excluding Michael Saunders out-of-body-experience during the first half of last year. *
After that, Go-go takes over short, and watch the team go-go with him!
*I was curious because I hadn’t heard how Saunders is doing with the Phillies so I looked him up. Captain Canada’s doing okay, but wouldn’t have been any improvement over our left-field contingent this year. He’s hitting only .220, with six homers and 19 RBIs. By comparison, Pearce and Carrera have seven homers and 22 RBIs and are hitting a combined .253. Better news is seen in that he’s appeared in 49 games, so he’s stayed healthy, and surprisingly, playing exclusively right field, he’s had four outfield assists and only one error. Play on, Captain C, we still love ya!
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