Laika

Yeah Canada is not horrible but so weak in pitching - this is why Brash should be deployed against two of Mexico/Colombia/USA if possible and why using him against GB was silly. He's one of the team's only MLB quality arms! Should have let Adam Loewen or Scott Mathieson or one of the other 40 years olds who has not pitched professionally in years finish that game. It was a shame to even use Curtis Taylor against GB but Ernie kind of had to roll out a legit arm to take control of the circus game.

hmmmmm A. Use best pitcher to pitch against good teams like USA and Mexico B. Use best pitcher to mercy the Brits Canada is probably going nowhere so maybe mercying the Brits is the best we can hope for anyway

plays around the diamond and steals the 2B job outright in the second half

Jays have a top 5 pen Belt + Kiermaier combine for 6 WAR Bo Bichette MVP Barger top 3 in ROY voting

Can we talk about how stupid it was to use Brash while up 10 runs? Good lord, Ernie.

yup

what a pathetic comment errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr uhhhhhhhhhhh i just don't want to do business with the guy because I don't like his politics

So you should be buying Kelenic in all your leagues then. Are you making offers?

Hasn't he always been good in spring training? And always good in the minors? All you even care about is whether MLB quality pitchers are still able to exploit him. What are his K and BB numbers this spring? If the rate is 4:1 or worse, then it's whatever. Probably the same s***** hitter who was able to homer a couple of times off AA quality pitchers.

There is no bump in Kelenic's value right now Not even a tiny bump Nobody f***ing cares about his spring numbers

Do we know for a fact that he is tipping? After thinking about it for many months and watching him stink yesterday, at this point I kind of just think his stuff crossed a tipping point of effectiveness. Like, you know how a guy with a fringe fastball can sometimes be good at 91 but gets hammered at 89 and his career is over? The Hyun-Jin Ryu line in the sand. There might be something similar, but less extreme, happening with Berrios. His 4 seamer has not really lost any velocity or spin since 2016 but is HAS lost effectiveness. Here is the whiff% on his 4S and Sinker since 2017: 4S: 26.2%, 23.7%, 23.9%, 23.5%, 21.5%, 18.9% Sinker: 13.3%, 15.3%, 12.6%, 18.2%, 14.6%, 11.7% When you look at a model like Stuff+ it says the 4S is now a below average stuff pitch. It's not that it has gotten worse, it's probably that the league has gotten better, and hitters are therefore better at hitting fastballs like this. He has okay command of the fastball (103 and 104 location+ on the 4S and sinker) but maybe it's not good enough to overcome what is now a below average four seamer. So maybe it's like... his 55 FA is now a 45, effectively? His curveball still grades out well by Stuff+. In fact, it's basically tied for the best single pitch on the 2022 staff, along with Stripling's CH and Guasman's Split. But Berrios has a close to average 102 Location+ on his curveball while Gausman and Stripling married 109 and 111 Location+ figures to their carrying pitches. So the picture is: 1. Below average 4S with average-ish command 2. Average sinker with average-ish command 3. Bad changeup? 4. Good (or really good) curveball with average-ish command. I think it can be hard to live on a good curveball alone, depending on the pitch. It's a bit different from trying to live on a good tight slider. Sometimes even with good command it's hard to land it for strikes, for instance. Okay, let's look at guys with good curveballs and bad fastballs and try to parse out how they avoid sucking. 115 stuff+ curves with fastballs under 95 stuff+. Wainwright: 135, 75 He is 32% curveballs, 25% cutters, 28% sinkers. He has mostly abandoned the four seamer. The cutter gets decent grades still (106 stuff+) but the curveball is simply in a different class. Kyle Wright: 127, 82 (96 sinker) He is 34% curveballs, 20% four seamers, 24% sinkers. His changeup gets a 100 stuff+ and he throws it 15% of the time, which is a difference from Berrios. His curveball grades out even better than Berrios' but this might be a guy for Berrios to look at. Morton: 127, 85 Another elite curveball, like Waino and Wright. He is 33% 4S and 38% curves. Kelly: 122, 85 A bigger arsenal guy. He is 4S, cutter, sinker, change, curve and he throws them all between 13.5% and 29.9% of the time. Also has better command; a 105 overall Location+ is almost two standard deviations above average. Kluber: 120, 83 He is cutter, sinker, curve (sometimes called slider). Musgrove: 120, 82 Has fastball, cutter, slider, curve, and seldom used sinker and change. JOSE BERRIOS NEEDS A CUTTER. Kluber is 30%+ cutters. Musgrove is 20% cutters. Kluber and Musgrove might be the best comparisons for Berrios if you just look at basic fastball quality and curveball ("slurve") grades. Both of these dudes have developed GOOD cutters. They also have some other tricks, like better changeups, but they don't throw them that much. Option B would be for Berrios to turn his "slurve" into two distinct breaking pitches. A slider/sweeper and curve. He might also consider toning down the % of four seamers. He should be a Sinker/Cutter/Curve/Slider guy.

Bratt is a decent prospect. The Jays' equivalent would be, I dunno, Dahian Santos.

It's like the game just passed Berrios by. His repertoire seems so dated now. He is in major need of a pitch design makeover

17 total runs seems low actually 14 - 8 final

Maybe they'll win 10-7 or something ahah Canada always f***ing sucks

The worst pitching performance I have ever seen by anybody, ever, in any sport.

Omfg Canada

They would have paid basically that for any catchers over the next eight years. If they commit it to Ruiz at least they've locked in a guy with upside and bought two free agent years or three

Actually a bad deal for Ruiz? 1.7 war last year and a 2 war projection...

Thornton is a weird one If I had to diagnose his issues by looking at these new models I would guess that his fastball command is just not quite good enough. Which is weird because he has not had gross walk rates in his career. But with good location numbers on his slider and good stuff on his fastball and slider, the poor location on the fastball is the only shortcoming. But it makes sense. Fringe command of your fastball is a tough foundation. Miss your spot too often and you will get hammered in general. Another component might be that the models are trained on what has been successful historically, but the game is evolving. So Thornton's high spin 4 seamer up in the zone may have been amazing for him for a few years ago but by now it's kind of old hat and more and more hitters are trained at how to hit those pitches. Maybe he should become one of those guys who is 25% fastballs, 75% offspeed.

does pitchingBot use a 20-80 scale rather than centering on 100?

Stuff+ / Location+ / Pitching+ are now on Fangraphs! Pitching Leaderboards --> Pitch Modeling You can even see it per pitch amazing

I'm not sure they used him in exactly a modern/scientific way in 2022 How many 19 year old pitchers, drafted the prior year out of high school, are routinely throwing 6+ innings and 90+ pitches? Towards the end of 2022 Painter was routinely going 80+ pitches, with 90+ a couple of times. The Phillies picked Mick Abel 15th in 2020. In 2021 he threw less than 50 innings, all at one level. Never threw 6 innings, never threw 80 pitches. The Phils basically skipped an entire year with Painter. They had him and Abel, a year older, doing the same basic workload. For comparison the Jays capped Tiedemann at 5 innings and in August they kind of shut him down, partially, and he finished the year with a few 3 inning outings.

seems like a stupid plan ooof surgery today and he might be good to go in May 2024 try to nurse it for a couple of months though and the end result might be 2023 and 2024 completely lost

the games don't matter right now