Mr. Biagini, Mr. Joe Biagini: The 2017 Toronto Blue Jays

yes, i don't think he would be expected to play, barring injuries

17-10 over the last month

seems close to 'true talent'

so that was some game today.

Stroman went into the game tonight 4th in the league in run support:

http://stats.nesn.com/mlb/getleaders.asp?rank=085

Reds starting pitching, good for what ails you.

Meaningful if you know the Skydome: Donaldson hit one into the 500s tonight.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/233384126/josh-donaldson-homers-into-fifth-deck-vs-reds/

holy shit! he must have been charging up the last several weeks

one win off .500

the jays low-A squad has the teenage sons of dante bichette and vlad guerrero, both of whom are absolutely tearing it up

yeah vlad jr is the top prospect for the jays apparently

i read a scouting report of his and he has like the exact same tools as his dad, lol. great bad-ball hitter, lots of power, huge arm

bo bichette's line in 64 pro games/283 plate appearances: .396/.456/.656

and he's two years younger than average in the leagues he's been in

and he's a shortstop, though he might be borderline there ultimately

insane

If Justin Smoak improbably keeps this going, he'll pull off one of those great Rich Aurilia/Jim Hickman-type outlier seasons:

Going into 2017 (per 162 games): .223/.308/.392, 21 HR, 65 RBI, 95 OPS+
2017 (projected): .288/.350/.559, 38 HR, 109 RBI, ~135 OPS+

I guess he always had decent power pro-rated.

judge just hit a 116.2 mph screamer that basically went right through pillar's glove

Guess Grilli didn't have it today.

Bo Bichette went 7/8 in Lansing's doubleheader today and is now hitting .400 and slugging .645. He only turned 19 in March. #BlueJays

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) June 16, 2017

him and Vlad Jr have me fucking pumped.

God, I wish this team would get to .500.

they can do it tonight – and pass Baltimore & possibly tie the Rays.
in theory.

Yes--definitely in theory.

blue jays fans: "hey, this disaster may be ending!"
blue jays: "hold my beer."

i'm going to the game sunday and hoping to grab one of those grilli aprons

This is ridiculous. It's like it's 1982 or '83, and there's this magical place called the Kingdom of .500 that we've never been to before, and we're just pushing our rock up the hill and getting nowhere.

Up 4-1, bottom of the ninth, two out, man on second, Royals come back to win 5-4. The Kingdom of .500 recedes.

Osuna picked a ripe time to have an existential crisis.

He's been doing so well. I'm really surprised by this.

I don't mean to make light of the situation, but could there be a worse match in sports than an anxiety-ridden closer? You've got to have ice water in your veins to do that job.

He said he feels fine on the field though. I think he's struggling with everything else in his life.

Well, he did good today.

Grilli DFA'd

vlad jr and bichette both invited to the futures game

after playing for brazil in the wbc, bichette will be on the us team in miami

Not that this year's Jays deserve such stature, but:

1978's famous "Boston Massacre," as the Yankees swept and caught the Red Sox in early September: 15-3, 13-2, 7-0, and 7-4, for a cumulative score of 42-9.

2017 version, still two innings to go: 7-4, 7-1, 15-1 = 29-6.

Smoak is the asg starting 1B!

nice

Osuna got off to a terrible start this year--he gave up runs in four of his first six appearances--but in 30 games since his ERA's under 1.00, and for the season his K/BB ratio is up in Jansen/Kimbrel territory, 47-3.

ya, he's moved into 4th on the blue jays save streak record (with 21 or 22)

clem yr man is up and doing okay but needs to throw strikes

http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?player_id=647332#/career/R/pitching/2017/ALL

Thanks. I had stopped checking on him at some point, so I'm glad he's healthy again.

Had another interesting guy on the same team: Romar Subban, P.K.'s cousin.

http://www.mississauga.com/sports-story/5249418-subban-making-a-name-in-basketball/

He was a great athlete, not a great baseball player, but he was an okay hitter and made a key catch in the final inning of the championship game. These guys are all finished high school now, so I'll post the team picture.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/huttonville.JPG

Darren's right in the center of the back row; Romar's two down from me on the left. The guy between Darren and Romar was pretty much as good as Darren back then and was actually the MVP of the tournament

"Shred" - what a great baseball name.

Darren "Kick-Ass Guitar Solo" Shred

also: i was at the game today. but on the bright side, i did land a bobblehead.

Baseball Reference has Stroman tied for the league-lead among pitchers in WAR, which at best seems overly generous, even in view of his mediocre team, and at worst ridiculous--both he and Vargas are ahead of Sale. He's 12th on Fangraphs.

honestly didn't even realize how well his season was going until a few days ago. it doesn't *feel* like he's pitched as well as his WAR would suggest.

Just doesn't compute. They've got Stroman ahead of Sale, Kershaw, Kluber, everyone except Scherzer.

Stroman - 112.1 IP, 139 ERA+, 3.21 K/BB, 1.264 WHIP, 3.88 FIP
Sale - 127.2 IP, 168 ERA+, 8.09 K/BB, 0.901 WHIP, 2.09 FIP
Kershaw - 132.1 IP, 189 ERA+, 7.23 K/BB, 0.877 WHIP, 3.01 FIP
Kluber - 93.1 IP, 170 ERA+, 5.13 K/BB, 0.986 WHIP, 2.43 FIP

Baffling. Except for Kluber's injury-related low IP, there's not a single category where Stroman doesn't finish last. What is the basis for this? What else is there that I'm missing?

it does seem like a bizarre result!

if i had to guess, maybe it comes down a combo of 1) bad TOR defense and 2) Stroman facing above-average opponents and/or in disadvantageous parks? the reason i say that is looking at the list of differences between the B-R and fangraphs WAR models, one of the key differences is that B-R takes the pitcher's team's defense while fangraphs does not. Toronto ranks near the bottom of team defense this year, while Sale's Red Sox are at the top with Kershaw's Dodgers not that far behind.

One of the other differences is that while both B-R and fangraphs use Park Factors in calculating WAR, B-R takes into account the "actual" parks that the pitcher performs in. so maybe Stroman has pitched in more difficult parks this year so far and B-R is adjusting for that?

i agree though, seeing stroman at the top of the league does seem weird and wrong. this is anecdotal and subjective, but seems like the fangraphs model will occasionally present a really strange outlier, but the B-R version does so with regularity.

kinda seems inevitable that the WAR models will dramatically change in the near future, though, so that they can be based upon real batted-ball data (ie from STATCAST)

two of his WAR came just from this pitch

ICYMI: Marcus Stroman's Slider might be the Pitching GIF of the year pic.twitter.com/z7JWYbflkg

— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) July 10, 2017

I knew there'd be a park-adjustment (though not a parks adjustment...); should've thought of defense but didn't. Still, I would think that both would be tinkering around the edges--the categories above aren't even close, and together they take in pretty much everything else.

On the plus side, there's always Stroman's temperament.

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/07/09/stroman-takes-swing-at-umps-all-star-voting

A couple of other things I try to pay attention to:

High-quality starts (7+ IP/2- runs): Stroman (6/18), Sale (8/18), Kershaw (14/19), Kluber (6/14)

Average game score: Stroman (55), Sale (67), Kershaw (67), Kluber (64)