Blue Jays Mailbag: The Bats, the Trop, and a Lousy Start to the Season

Andrew Stoeten answers your questions in our Blue Jays Mailbag, which runs weekly at VICE Sports. You can send him questions at stoeten@gmail.com, and follow him on Twitter.

The Blue Jays season is underway! And… uh… wow. Things have been pretty ugly so far for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Which is great news for me, because it means people are ready to lose their minds about it, and I've got this handy little mailbag—an homage to Richard Griffin's old mailbags for the Toronto Star—to help talk them through their meltdowns.

That is, if they're not just baiting me. Which they probably are! Read on to find out!

And if you have a Blue Jays question you'd like me to tackle for next week, be sure to send it to stoeten@gmail.com. Now on with the show! As always, I have not read any of Griff's answers…

The Leafs are going to be competitive for several years to come, as will the Raptors and TFC. The question needs to be asked: How difficult will it be for a rebuilding Jays team to get any attention from Toronto fans and from the Toronto sports media over the next few years? Can the franchise survive if they fall to 4th among the big Toronto sports teams?

Henry Frere

Nice try "Henry." Next time don't send your question from an email address that has your real name in it! Congratulations to the Leafs for finally achieving a top 16 finish in a league of 30 teams, though.

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Hello,

All of the signs from this Jays offseason and early start to the season seem to point towards a slow descent into mediocrity. Is there any reason this may not happen? And can the front office be blamed, or is this just part of the natural cycle of an MLB team.

Sam, Vancouver

Signs??? To believe that what we're seeing in the Blue Jays' 1-5 record to start the season constitutes "signs" of anything is totally absurd. It's like looking at the first six letters in a Tweet and extrapolating from that what you think the rest of the message is going to be. Complete and utter fucking nonsense.

I'm not sure what about the offseason we're supposed to believe was a sign of this, either. They had a very nice offseason and have what will ultimately be a very competitive ballclub. Let me guess: was it the Edwin thing? Because to me offering $80 million to an aging slugger to help keep your competitive window open is the complete opposite of letting the club slowly descend into mediocrity, as is understanding what a bad spot they might have ended up in if they'd sat idle until his market played itself all the way out and making the hard choice to move on and follow their contingency plan instead.

You're not wrong that the Jays are fighting an uphill battle against the aging curve and the contracts that are on their books, so it's not going to be easy for them to stay among baseball's elite—which, despite an unfortunate run to start the season, is where they unquestionably still remain. The deals for Martin and Tulowitzki have reached the phases where those guys are getting paid more than they're probably worth (especially if we ignore the impossible to quantify intangibles they bring), and Josh Donaldson is cruising toward free agency at the end of the 2018 season, which has all the makings of a watershed moment for this iteration of the franchise.

But right now they're still very, very good. For me, if you want to talk about signs from the season's first week, it's felt like they've pitched really well a whole lot of the time, they've played good defence, and they've taken a whole lot more good at-bats than bad ones. Keep doing that and the results will come. Deep breaths.

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This week aside, the Jays offense was pretty bad the last month of 2016 and in the ALCS…Do you think they'll remain an upper tier offensive team this season or will they fall down to average or below average?

Pramit

Honestly, the Jays' offence was pretty middling for much of the second half of 2016, not just September. That was the month when their problems became especially glaring, as a banged-up Russell Martin scuffled awfully, a banged-up Josh Donaldson was far from his best (a 116 wRC+ and .389 SLG for the month, compared to 170 and .598 in the first half), while Melvin Upton, Justin Smoak, Michael Saunders, Ryan Goins, Dioner Navarro, and Darwin Barney combined for over 200 wasted plate appearances.

And yes, the ALCS was bad, but also Cleveland's pitching was, for the most part, ridiculously good.

With respect to Martin—who will likely never hit the heights of his 2014 in Pittsburgh again, but can certainly be an above average hitter—and all the other guys around him, the truth is, this offence is probably going to be elite when Donaldson is locked-in, healthy, and hitting like a superstar. When he's not, it's probably not.

Hey, so good news, Jays fans! They're probably going to be fine, because Donaldson is goddamned awesome.

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Hi Andrew,

Three questions for you:

(1) Would you say it's time for Blue Jays fans to crack each others' heads open and feast on the good inside?

(2) How many times have you been asked that first question this week?

(3) How likely is it that "The Trop" was built on a hot pile of garbage, explaining (a) the Jays' generally poor performance year after year in Tampa Bay and (b) the fact that the Rays themselves are hot garbage personified?

Thanks for the great Jays coverage and content.

Cheers,

Kyle

Edmonton, AB

1. Yes I would, Kent.

2. You're the first!

3. I kinda like the Rays, generally, but you're right that the Blue Jays' struggles at the Trop are strange indeed. I don't really go for superstitious bullshit, so the idea that a fucking building holds magical sway over a disparate cast of players who happen to be wearing one particular uniform doesn't do much for me. But in this case I do get why fans get to that point, because it's Just. So. Frustrating.

My best guess, however, would be that it's some kind of combination of luck, coincidence, the natural tendency for home teams to win, the Rays being good the last several years, that their pitching and defence is especially good, and their pitchers maybe not being a great matchup for the kinds of hitters the Blue Jays tend to employ (i.e. more focus on selling out for power to take advantage of Rogers Centre's tendencies, or who otherwise don't handle changeups well, as the Rays are consistently one of the most changeup-heavy staffs in the league).

But I won't lie: a comment that either Pat Tabler or Buck Martinez made during the TV broadcast of Friday's game definitely did raise my eyebrows, as they noted that, because the Jays' Spring Training facilities are in nearby Dunedin, a whole bunch of the players live in the area, and they "get to sleep in their own beds" during each series with the Rays.

Could it be as simple as that? I highly doubt it. If such things had a real effect the Diamondbacks would have a crazy record against every team that holds its spring training in Arizona. But if I were the Jays, would I at least think about having the players stay in a hotel like it's a regular road game? Sure. Couldn't hurt. Though I don't think that'd be a remotely easy sell in the clubhouse.

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Gregor Chisholm wrote recently that Gibbons' plan for LF/1B isn't going to depend on the hitting splits, but who's on the mound for the Jays - Pearce 1B/Zeke LF with Estrada on the mound and Smoak 1B/Pearce LF with Sanchez and Stroman starting.

Is this real news? If so, I think it kind of makes sense given Ezekiel's reverse splits, and the starters' respective ground ball percentages, but more importantly what do you think? I'll hang up and listen now.

Thanks,

Adam

This makes a hell of a lot of sense, I think. Which isn't to say that I want to see all that much of Justin Smoak, or that I'm that down on Steve Pearce's defence at first base, but I absolutely understand why the Jays think they have an edge in playing their best defensive infield with their heavy groundball pitchers on the mound. And Smoak, who is listed at 6'4", provides that much better a target than the 5'11" Pearce.

And with Estrada and his flyball tendencies, I think Zeke is a better fit in the outfield.

People have been saying all spring that the Jays' rotation is their biggest strength, so why not play to it? Especially when it means maximizing the amount of playing time you're giving to Pearce, and alternating a switch hitter and a lefty who, if he can hit at all, can at least seem to hit lefties. It's not like anybody should expect much offensive production from Carrera and Smoak anyway, so using Pearce's versatility to turn the other two into a weird sort of defence-first platoon seems to make a lot of sense.

All of this is a long way of simply saying: if only one of Zeke or Smoak is in the lineup, that's a good thing; if Zeke is in the outfield with a flyball pitcher on the mound, that's a good thing; and if Smoak is there to add to your infield defence with the groundball machines on the hill, that's a good thing, too.