General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2022)

[Olerud363]

The 2014 Royals had a bad offense. Why would anyone care whether swinging is correlated to wins? Need to know how it's correlated to scoring runs.

 

In 1988, the lowest homerun environment I remember, the Sox, and the As had the best offense. Both walked a lot. Not sure how much they swung.

 

In 2014 the best offenses were Detroit, Toronto, Twins, As, Angels. Did those teams swing a lot?

 

The As had a bunch of moneyball crap. Still walked a lot. Even in 2014. I guess the As didn't know what they were doing.

 

As scored, walked, probably didn't swing much... had a 99 win expected win loss in 2014.

 

And they got eliminated by the swinging Royals, 84 win expected won/loss in a wild card game.

[Dagagad]

I think I finally figured out the WHY TAPIA question with inspiration from the Athletic article today from Eno Sarris about the value of swinging.

 

Basically:

 

- Swinging has negative value in most run environments. The teams that swing less, win more.

- Players demonstrate this with their actions but the best example is Alex Bregman saying "I only swing at pitches I think I can homer on"

- The only exception is in very low home run environments where teams that swing more start to win more. 2014 Royals an example, and apparently in 2014 the general trend of "swing less = win more" was reversed. Remember in 2014 MLB had the lowest HR numbers in like, 20 years, and that prompted them to probably juice the baseballs. When it is very hard to hit home runs, singles become relatively more valuable so swinging more starts to have value and teams start to value high contact swingers as opposed to patient sluggers.

 

I think perhaps Toronto knew about the ball and humidor changes in 2022 and thought they needed to diversify and bring in some higher contact swingers with speed, etc. Like 2014 Royals type of s***.

 

Note that the Yankees did the same s***, arguably, in bringing in Kiner-Kalefa.

 

I think this is the major premise under which ROCKET RAIMEL TAPIA was brought in. The team thought he would be a good hedge against a massive scoring environment change.

 

RESULTS TO BE DETERMINED IT IS STILL EARLY.

 

But yeah the HR rate is the lowest since 2014!

 

We might be in a decent spot if this trend continues… seems like the org puts a priority on hit tool in international signings… or at least in the bulk of them.

 

Could make someone like Otto Lopez more valuable for example.

 

Add that on to restricting the shift… if it happens.. it could have interesting effects. More true shortstops? More emphasis on defense with more balls in play?

[Terminator]

Rocket Raimel Tilapia's xBA is .280 and his xSLG is .439. His BABIP just sucks.

[Stangstag]

I think I finally figured out the WHY TAPIA question with inspiration from the Athletic article today from Eno Sarris about the value of swinging.

 

Basically:

 

- Swinging has negative value in most run environments. The teams that swing less, win more.

- Players demonstrate this with their actions but the best example is Alex Bregman saying "I only swing at pitches I think I can homer on"

- The only exception is in very low home run environments where teams that swing more start to win more. 2014 Royals an example, and apparently in 2014 the general trend of "swing less = win more" was reversed. Remember in 2014 MLB had the lowest HR numbers in like, 20 years, and that prompted them to probably juice the baseballs. When it is very hard to hit home runs, singles become relatively more valuable so swinging more starts to have value and teams start to value high contact swingers as opposed to patient sluggers.

 

I think perhaps Toronto knew about the ball and humidor changes in 2022 and thought they needed to diversify and bring in some higher contact swingers with speed, etc. Like 2014 Royals type of s***.

 

Note that the Yankees did the same s***, arguably, in bringing in Kiner-Kalefa.

 

I think this is the major premise under which ROCKET RAIMEL TAPIA was brought in. The team thought he would be a good hedge against a massive scoring environment change.

 

RESULTS TO BE DETERMINED IT IS STILL EARLY.

 

But yeah the HR rate is the lowest since 2014!

 

Awesome analysis

[Laika]

The 2014 Royals had a bad offense. Why would anyone care whether swinging is correlated to wins? Need to know how it's correlated to scoring runs.

 

You SHOULD be smart enough to answer this but do you think something would be correlated with winning, at the team level, across an entire season, if it was NOT correlated with runs?

[max silver]

We're down this idiotic narrative that shatkins decides the lineup?

 

I specifically recall an interview with Atkins where he stated emphatically that Charlie has full lineup autonomy. Some stuff is taken out of his hands in terms of overall availability when a player is being load managed, but he is in charge of who plays out of the available players and where they are placed in the batting order. Maybe Atkins is lying here to save face but it's incredibly hard to see how the front office would be directing Charlie to hit one of their weakest hitters in spots like the top of the lineup, cleanup, fifth etc.

[glory]

No chance anyone other than Charlie is behind Tapia's spot in the batting order. There is no analytic team, in baseball or otherwise, that would think Rocket should be leading off. Or batting anywhere between 2-8 for that matter. Even 9th is pushing it. Basically he doesn't belong anywhere in the lineup other than pinch running, but let's see how long it takes for the batted ball profile to show up in the results. I'm not holding my breath.

[connorp]

Is Kirk 8th a bad thing? Especially in these offensive starved games, so you really want him clogging up the base paths, or do you move him up to hit guys in. Tough choice. Up until last night 8th seemed best

[Laika]

In 1988, the lowest homerun environment I remember, the Sox, and the As had the best offense. Both walked a lot. Not sure how much they swung.

 

In 2014 the best offenses were Detroit, Toronto, Twins, As, Angels. Did those teams swing a lot?

 

The As had a bunch of moneyball crap. Still walked a lot. Even in 2014. I guess the As didn't know what they were doing.

 

As scored, walked, probably didn't swing much... had a 99 win expected win loss in 2014.

 

And they got eliminated by the swinging Royals, 84 win expected won/loss in a wild card game.

 

So from what I understand, baseball wants there to be more than one way to assemble a winning team.

 

In 2014 swinging wasn't a bad idea but there were other ways to win. You could still slug to win.

 

After 2015 the only really valid way to build a good offense was the stack patient hitters who didn't swing a lot.

 

I just pulled the data. From 2015-2021 (ignoring 2020) the negative relationship between swinging and team runs is clear. R2 is about .1...... that's pretty high for one variable, in theory 10% of the difference in run production comes from team swing rate with swinging less being better.

 

In 2014 the relationship is slightly positive. But essentially flat. So swinging more was better, or at least not worse.

 

If you look at 2010 to 2014 the relationship is negative (like 2015 to 2021) but with less magnitude. The R2 is .034

[Stangstag]

Is Kirk 8th a bad thing? Especially in these offensive starved games, so you really want him clogging up the base paths, or do you move him up to hit guys in. Tough choice. Up until last night 8th seemed best

 

What

[Deadpool]

Is Kirk 8th a bad thing? Especially in these offensive starved games, so you really want him clogging up the base paths, or do you move him up to hit guys in. Tough choice. Up until last night 8th seemed best

 

Oh, "clogging up the basepaths" That's retro bro! Brings me back to the Frank Thomas days (you know, the last time anyone seriously tried to claim that as a bad thing...)

[Omar]

I think I finally figured out the WHY TAPIA question with inspiration from the Athletic article today from Eno Sarris about the value of swinging.

Basically:

- Swinging has negative value in most run environments. The teams that swing less, win more.

- Players demonstrate this with their actions but the best example is Alex Bregman saying "I only swing at pitches I think I can homer on"

- The only exception is in very low home run environments where teams that swing more start to win more. 2014 Royals an example, and apparently in 2014 the general trend of "swing less = win more" was reversed. Remember in 2014 MLB had the lowest HR numbers in like, 20 years, and that prompted them to probably juice the baseballs. When it is very hard to hit home runs, singles become relatively more valuable so swinging more starts to have value and teams start to value high contact swingers as opposed to patient sluggers.

I think perhaps Toronto knew about the ball and humidor changes in 2022 and thought they needed to diversify and bring in some higher contact swingers with speed, etc. Like 2014 Royals type of s***.

Note that the Yankees did the same s***, arguably, in bringing in Kiner-Kalefa.

I think this is the major premise under which ROCKET RAIMEL TAPIA was brought in. The team thought he would be a good hedge against a massive scoring environment change.

RESULTS TO BE DETERMINED IT IS STILL EARLY.

But yeah the HR rate is the lowest since 2014!

 

This data would also dovetail into pitchers having less command and great stuff. The tracking of Stuff+ (movement,spin velo) show that it is trending whereas Location+ (where the pitch crosses the plate) is a less sought after skill. Don't swing unless it is in the zone (preferably up) because your chances of barrelling it up rise dramatically coupled with pitchers not being able to locate is a prudent formula for success. Not sure they thought of this with Tapia when they acquired him though. Time will tell.

[connorp]

Oh, "clogging up the basepaths" That's retro bro! Brings me back to the Frank Thomas days (you know, the last time anyone seriously tried to claim that as a bad thing...)

 

You can’t remember a few times this year when anyone else would’ve scored besides Kirk. I mean if he’s hitting .600 OPS like everyone else, why not move him down. Hopefully he’s heating up

[Spanky99]

Grichuk >> Tapia

[connorp]

Grichuk >> Tapia

 

I won’t call you out bc I know we always had the same opinion of him, which was he was an acceptable 4th OF who just had a bad contract.. that still wasn’t prohibiting anything really

[Spanky99]

I won’t call you out bc I know we always had the same opinion of him, which was he was an acceptable 4th OF who just had a bad contract.. that still wasn’t prohibiting anything really

 

Huh?

[Omar]

[connorp]

Huh?

 

I meant his $10m contract wasn’t good..but wasn’t stopping team from making moves

[Olerud363]

You SHOULD be smart enough to answer this but do you think something would be correlated with winning, at the team level, across an entire season, if it was NOT correlated with runs?

 

If you correlate swinging with wins, you are also correlating it with defense, because maybe guys who swing a lot are also fast and good defenders. You also have more noise in the win total than the run total.

[Spanky99]

I meant his $10m contract wasn’t good..but wasn’t stopping team from making moves

 

So type it out, meat. Nobody knows what's going on in that shiny dome of yours.

[Laika]

This data would also dovetail into pitchers having less command and great stuff. The tracking of Stuff+ (movement,spin velo) show that it is trending whereas Location+ (where the pitch crosses the plate) is a less sought after skill. Don't swing unless it is in the zone (preferably up) because your chances of barrelling it up rise dramatically coupled with pitchers not being able to locate is a prudent formula for success. Not sure they thought of this with Tapia when they acquired him though. Time will tell.

 

Yeah the change in approaches by hitters definitely also had a lot to do with the rapid increases in stuff and changes in pitching practices. Definitely.

 

You can see this with guys like Kevin Pillar who are bad hitters with good hit tools - they make too much contact and the stuff is too good now that more often than not that means terrible/weak contact. Imagine if Kevin Pillar had the discipline to swing way less. He probably would have been Alex Bregman. He has as much or more raw power than Bregman, that's not a joke, look at max EV for both of them.

 

So if Kevin Pillar simply swinging less would = him being a way better hitter, that helps illustrate the idea that in general swinging less = better results for hitters if we are in a league where pitchers have great stuff and when you happen to square up a ball it tends to go over the wall.

[BigCecil]

Fun Fact I heard today:

 

Jays match up hitting "platoon advantage" is 32% due to RHH. Lowest level since 1974 data was collected.

 

When we do have the "advantage" vs RHP its Tapia/Zimmer et al.

 

FO obviously knows we need an impact LHH. Wonder who its going to be, and when.

 

Josh Bell as a DH is a name floated. SH - Career wRC+ 117. Good not great and no D versatility. Curious what people think of that name?

Edited May 6, 2022 by BigCecil

[Stangstag]

 

Cleveland and double headers, name a more iconic duo

[Slade]

At least Teo is back.

 

[JuniorFelix54]

 

6 games rained out tonight around the league, ridiculous. If only the rest of these teams had enough brains to put retractable roofs on these stadiums like the Jays did

[jaysblue]

Fun Fact I heard today:

 

Jays match up hitting "platoon advantage" is 32% due to RHH. Lowest level since 1974 data was collected.

 

When we do have the "advantage" vs RFP its Tapia/Zimmer et al.

 

FO obviously knows we need an impact LHH. Wonder who its going to be, and when.

 

Josh Bell as a DH is a name floated. SH - Career wRC+ 117. Good not great and no D versatility. Curious what people think of that name?

 

I miss the platoon of Frank Catalanotto and Reed Johnson. They both together were utilized so well, especially in 2006.

[Deadpool]

You can’t remember a few times this year when anyone else would’ve scored besides Kirk. I mean if he’s hitting .600 OPS like everyone else, why not move him down. Hopefully he’s heating up

 

Any time you can get someone on base it is a good thing. Speed once you are on base is a luxury, not a necessity.

[Grant77]

I miss the platoon of Frank Catalanotto and Reed Johnson. They both together were utilized so well, especially in 2006.

 

Freed Catalajohnson

[43211234]

I think the mound needs to be moved back. Like 6-12 inches or something.

 

 

The pitchers are simply too good now. Throwing too hard and their arsenals are only getting more optimized.

[Olerud363]

So from what I understand, baseball wants there to be more than one way to assemble a winning team.

 

In 2014 swinging wasn't a bad idea but there were other ways to win. You could still slug to win.

 

After 2015 the only really valid way to build a good offense was the stack patient hitters who didn't swing a lot.

 

I just pulled the data. From 2015-2021 (ignoring 2020) the negative relationship between swinging and team runs is clear. R2 is about .1...... that's pretty high for one variable, in theory 10% of the difference in run production comes from team swing rate with swinging less being better.

 

In 2014 the relationship is slightly positive. But essentially flat. So swinging more was better, or at least not worse.

 

If you look at 2010 to 2014 the relationship is negative (like 2015 to 2021) but with less magnitude. The R2 is .034

 

Are the r values from 2014 really significant with only 30 teams. What are the p values?