Blue Jays Discussion: Manoah gets the Halladay treatment (optioned to rookie-ball to try and fix him)

[The Nemesis]

What has happened to Espinal?

he was never as good as his all-star 1st half last year so that's skewed perceptions a little bit. But also this season he's getting BABIP'd like crazy (currently sitting at .200) which is partially because he is pounding balls into the dirt more than he ever used to. If you look at his batted ball #s his soft contact % is way down from his norms, so it's not like he's failing to make good contact and hitting dribbly easily fielded balls. He's making solid contact and spreading it around the field, he's just seemingly getting on top of everything.

Hopefully he can fix what's going on and that will in turn let his bad balls-in-play luck even out a bit and he'll be back to being a workable bat.

 

[Suntouchable13]

he was never as good as his all-star 1st half last year so that's skewed perceptions a little bit. But also this season he's getting BABIP'd like crazy (currently sitting at .200) which is partially because he is pounding balls into the dirt more than he ever used to. If you look at his batted ball #s his soft contact % is way down from his norms, so it's not like he's failing to make good contact and hitting dribbly easily fielded balls. He's making solid contact and spreading it around the field, he's just seemingly getting on top of everything.

Hopefully he can fix what's going on and that will in turn let his bad balls-in-play luck even out a bit and he'll be back to being a workable bat.

Maybe he and Springer should think about hitting the ball where they ain’t, instead of right at fielders?

 

[The Nemesis]

Maybe he and Springer should think about hitting the ball where they ain’t, instead of right at fielders?

I'd say he should ask Brandon Belt (of the gaudy .429 BABIP) what to do, but that would be pointless since Belt is literally a flaming pile of trash in human form.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Discoverer]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? We've had a road-heavy schedule, so is your insinuation that our OF design will naturally have devastating effects to the defensive value of our LF? Why and how? And do Varsho's defensive metrics in left vary substantially in home games vs road?

By the way, as I pointed out in the offseason, while I wanted us to sign KK, having both him and Varsho in the OF is not optimal as that is almost too much range. KK's range when Teo and Gurriel were here would have been invaluable, but with 2 rangy corners, it's not quite as impactful.

In short, KK's taking outs away from Varsho, which is probably part of the reason Varsho is showing up as a negative value defender. (just my hypothesis, I haven't the numbers to back this up).

I argued at the time that they can simply align the OF better to take advantage. Varsho can cover the line more knowing Kiermaier has so much of the gap covered, or Kiermaier can take a few steps towards right to cover for Springer a bit. The idea that there are diminishing returns on OF defense assumes you're just going to plug them in the same spots you would if you had Gurriel or someone in LF.

 

[Emerica]

Rays lost btb games against the Mets, 9-7 so far in the month of May.

 

[canucksfan]

 

[Kurtz]

I argued at the time that they can simply align the OF better to take advantage. Varsho can cover the line more knowing Kiermaier has so much of the gap covered, or Kiermaier can take a few steps towards right to cover for Springer a bit. The idea that there are diminishing returns on OF defense assumes you're just going to plug them in the same spots you would if you had Gurriel or someone in LF.

I had the same thought at the time, but it would have made a lot more sense with a right fielder who lacked range (ie Teo) than it does with a converted CF like Springer.

 

[MS]

Yeah, they've really only had 3 bats going (well, I guess 4 if you count the BABIPing of Belt) and losing Kiermaier and Guerrero for the last couple games has been a killer.

Chapman's May has been as bad as his April was good.

 

[HockeyThoughts]

Yeah, they've really only had 3 bats going (well, I guess 4 if you count the BABIPing of Belt) and losing Kiermaier and Guerrero for the last couple games has been a killer.

Chapman's May has been as bad as his April was good.

1 RBI thus far for Chapman in the month of May.

 

[Discoverer]

Chad Dallas is off to a nice start as an under-the-radar prospect... 2.03 ERA in 5 starts at A+ with 12.49 K/9. A few too many walks, but nothing crazy at 4.05.

He made his AA debut last night with 7 shutout innings, 2 hits, 2 BB, 9 K.

 

[Kurtz]

 

[dredeye]

One player to potentially keep an eye on is Juan Nunez. He's in AA and I read somewhere where he is touching 100mph.

Man Yan Gomes really made a great career for himself

Hard to win with that.

 

[LaP]

Yeah, they've really only had 3 bats going (well, I guess 4 if you count the BABIPing of Belt) and losing Kiermaier and Guerrero for the last couple games has been a killer.

Chapman's May has been as bad as his April was good.

Belt is kind of tricky yes he's been hitting well ... when there's nobody in scoring position.

 

[Blitzkrug]

The whole team hasn't been hitting with RISP. Straight up power outage but it doesn't look...as bad as you think?

Springer: Was horrendous to start the year. Has rebounded a fair bit given his OPS has gone up 50 points in the last couple weeks but still needs to keep it going. Doubly bad because he's the lead off man


Bitchette: Has been one of the best hitters in baseball. Absolutely no issue here. Ideally they don't make him and only him do all the scoring though.

Vladdy: Has hit a bit of a slump but has generally been great. People saying he's not hitting the ball hard anymore need to take a look at his savant page. He's absolutely hammering it with 97th-98th percentile rankings in xBA, HardHit%, Exit velo, etc. Chase rate is a bit low as it was last year but outside of that, nothing to worry about.

Kirk: Hasn't been good. Went from being one of the better contact hitters in the game to straight up not hitting it. Savant page shows significant drops everywhere except K/BB%. Silver lining; he's still walking a shitload given his .352 OBP so honestly not all is lost is here. I imagine he bounces back at some point since he isn't a guy that relies on raw power and in theory should get a boost from the shift being gone.

Chapman: I was hoping his April wasn't a mirage given Chapman never really put the ball in play at the rate he was. Alas, he's gone back to more of the Chapman you expected. High K%, good walk rate and will crank the occasional dinger. Pretty much the norm for his entire career outside of the ugly 2021 season he was recovering from hip surgery.

Belt: Has gone back to being the Brandon Belt of old and seemingly improves with every AB. unfortunately he's absolutely irredeemably garbage though. Unfortunate.

Jansen: Jano is Jano.

Espinal: I like the guy but to this day i'm not sure how exactly he got picked to be an all-star. Was never really all that good of a hitter to begin with.

Varsho: As much as people have absolutely railed on this for being a bad trade...Varsho's savant page looks eerily similar to last year. Didn't walk much, struck out a ton, hit the ball hard but was worth his weight in gold defensively.

Kiermaier: Has been unsustainably hot for a while now. On pace to completely shatter pretty much all of his career highs. This will not last. (and i say that as someone who loved KK going back to his Tampa days)

What makes me laugh is people pining for Gurriel again. My dudes, he was absolutely god awful in the outfield and is hitting way, way above his head. He always had one month where he'd ascend to godhood and then crash back to earth as hard. Currently on pace to beat pretty much all of his career highs (on pace for 28 homers) to the point there is zero chance he keeps that up all season.

It hasn't been a good stretch by any means but let's pump the brakes a little.

 

[Dr.Funk]

 

[Dr.Funk]

 

[Suntouchable13]

Abolishing the divisions is probably the next step. Top 6 teams make it in each league, period. Rest is same. Top 2 records get a bye to the division series and 3,4,5,6 play in wildcard.

 

[Blitzkrug]

4.01 runs in scoring position stranded per game. Dead last in the majors by a mile.

I don't get it. People say RISP is a luck based stat but it's like these guys are actively trying to prove that no, you can actually just outright suck at it.

1-10 in your last 11 against divisional opponents and that one win was a bloody gift handed to you. That ain't cutting it.

Also; no more f***ing Biggio. Enough.

 

[shaner8989]

4.01 runs in scoring position stranded per game. Dead last in the majors by a mile.

I don't get it. People say RISP is a luck based stat but it's like these guys are actively trying to prove that no, you can actually just outright suck at it.

1-10 in your last 11 against divisional opponents and that one win was a bloody gift handed to you. That ain't cutting it.

Also; no more f***ing Biggio. Enough.

All you have been doing lately it whining and bitching. Glad you’re finally awake how pathetic this team is. Only been telling you for weeks now

 

[MK78]

So here's something that's been buggin me... The team is struggling, bullpen guys are struggling, the trade market is not live yet to try to make a deal.

We literally have nobody in the minor leagues for depth thats hitting well or pitching well.

When does the management get held responsible for the poor scouting and inability to find talent?

How do the Rays continually find these players and they turn out to be gems? They always have some people stepping up. Nobody's stepping up for this team.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Because Tampa's system is essentially moneyball on steroids. They have a system in place that allows them to identify the exact traits they're looking for all the way down to their development pipeline. Only team that comes close to that type of efficiency is the Dodgers, and that's because they have the guy who essentially built that system.

I don't think it's exactly fair to say "well how come we can't do that?" when 28 other teams also can't scout/develop that well.

 

[MK78]

Yeah i was being a bit extreme with Tampa as an example, but it doesnt change the fact that we got zero major league ready depth this season. how does a major league club that presents itself as a WS contender get to this point?

They honestly are luckier than hell that there have been very little injuries so far this season and none to key players for any lenght of time.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Yeah i was being a bit extreme with Tampa as an example, but it doesnt change the fact that we got zero major league ready depth this season. how does a major league club that presents itself as a WS contender get to this point?

They honestly are luckier than hell that there have been very little injuries so far this season and none to key players for any lenght of time.

Really it comes down to hitting on your picks. the MLB draft is probably the biggest crapshoot of the big 4. If you're not picking near the absolute top (say top 10-15) your odds of landing something worthwhile goes down pretty substantially compared to other leagues.

And then the other half is they have traded out a fair amount of minor league depth in the past couple years too. Woods-Richardson, Groshans, Smith, Moreno, Martin all traded in the last couple seasons. Kirk and Manoah graduated to the bigs.

They still have Tiedemann, Barger and Horowitz in the system. All three of which could become contributors in the next little while.

This is also why Tampa and the Dodgers are so far above everyone else in that regard. They just churn out prospects.

 

[Eyedea]

4.01 runs in scoring position stranded per game. Dead last in the majors by a mile.

I don't get it. People say RISP is a luck based stat but it's like these guys are actively trying to prove that no, you can actually just outright suck at it.

1-10 in your last 11 against divisional opponents and that one win was a bloody gift handed to you. That ain't cutting it.

Also; no more f***ing Biggio. Enough.

To be fair, the best teams in the league strand the most runners. The only expectation now is that they regress to the mean and actually start cashing them in. The worst teams offensively would likely be at the bottom of this statistic because they have fewer runners reaching scoring position… I’ll also say that despite getting a gift wrapped win, they’ve also recently blown games and basically beat up themselves (with all the LOB runners).

This was one of the worst home stands of recent memory. It doesn’t look like there’s any let up in the schedule for the next month either. Players gotta figure out in a hurry how to score runs.