Blue Jays Mid-Season Grades:Part 3

The third part of the series for you!

Rajai Davis: B-

Rajai Davis is back! After being horrendous last season, Rajai has returned to form, since taking over the staring left field job at least. Since taking over on May 29th, not including tonight’s game, Rajai is batting .303 with a .345 OBP. He has stolen 12 bases in that span, while only being caught 4 times. His defense has been average, but much better than what Eric Thames would have provided. If he keeps this up, he probably will be traded, because his value just keeps on rising, and Travis Snider will almost certainly be called up to replace him.  If he is kept, I can’t see him keeping this up, so a C at the end of the year seems realistic.

Davis and Mathis have both been
played well for the Jays this year

Kelly Johnson: C+

Kelly Johnson started off the season so well.  But then he stopped getting on base, and instead of getting on base, he would strike out. Since May 9^th, KJ has struck out 59 in only 48 games. His OBP since then is .297, and he only has a .318 slugging percentage. His numbers are clearly taking a hit because of the K’s as shown by his BABIP since May 9^th. His BABIP is .320, a product of getting so many of his outs without putting the ball in play. His defense has not been so good, but I can live with that. I don’t see him coming back next season for a few reasons. One is Adeiny Hechavarria, and the second is Jon Berti. Hech should be ready to take over short next year with Yunel Escobar moving to second, if Adeiny figures out how to hit. Berti is tearing up the minors right now, and I can see him starting in Las Vegas next season, putting him into consideration for a mid-2013 call up.  To end, if KJ wants to stay with the team next season, and increase his grade, he needs to cut down on his strikeouts, by a lot!

Jeff Mathis:C+

Mathis has a WAR of 0.6 this season. JP Arencibia has a WAR of 0.0. Mathis has played in 26 games; Arencibia has played in 67 games. Personally, I would be starting Jeff Mathis and his .288 OBP (Arencibia’s is .260). Both catchers are very bad offensively clearly, although JPA does have that power aspect to his game. Mathis’ defense has been amazing again this season, and that is why he is the best catcher on this team. His defense is so much better than JPA’s, and he deserves to start. Mathis has been a very good backup catcher this season, but if he wants to increase his grade, I believe he needs to get on base more, like he was during his hot start to the season.

Henderson Alvarez: C

Before I go on a rant about how bad Henderson Alvarez is, I’ll say that he is 22, and he has time to improve. But right now, he is not good. This is a in part due to the fact that he was brought up to the majors without getting enough time in the minors to develop an out pitch.  It is impossible to succeed in this league if you don’t miss bats, and Henderson does not. Nobody has been successful with a K/9 of 2.8. A 4.00 ERA is what Henderson will stay around if he doesn’t add that “Out Pitch”.  It is a shame that there is no way he could get sent down because of all the injuries, but the AL East is not a place to try to learn an out pitch. He has been quite lucky that he has had a fairly good defense behind him up to this point, but he needs to start missing bats. C is probably what he will be at the end of the season unless magically he learns to strike batters out.

Brett Cecil: C

Cecil has done what has
 been expected from him so far.

Cecil is one of the replacement pitchers for the 3 injured ones, so all you can really ask for from him is to go 6 innings of less than 5 runs allowed. He has done much better than that, well except for one start. He hasn’t been giving inning, as he has pitched 22.1 of them in 4 starts, but minus that game against the Angels in which he allowed 8 runs, he has only given up 6 runs in 3 starts. He is going to need to start keeping the ball in the ballpark, which he has not done at all to this point if he wants to improve, but overall he has been average.  When Morrow and Hutch come back, he will probably be moved to the bullpen along with Carlos Villanueva, depending on how Aaron Laffey continues to pitch.

What do you think of the 3rd part? Comment with your grades below and we could discuss what we did differently! 

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Is the Blue Jays Pitching One of the Best in the League?

The main stream media has been writing articles about how good the Blue Jays starters have been this season, even though they haven't actually been that good. They have actually been quite bad. In this article, I'm going to take a look at some advanced metrics that prove that the Blue Jays defense has been responsible for the pitching success, not the actual pitchers.

As most of you know from John Lott's article in the National Post today, the Blue Jays have the best defense in the MLB. The Jays have saved 29 runs from there defense according to DRS (Defensive Runs saved). This is due to the amount of shifts that have worked for the Jays, and their range that has greatly improved with the addition of Brett Lawrie and others.

The Blue Jays starters ERA's is 3.55, good for 3rd best in the AL. That number is way below where it would be if the Jays defense wasn't so good. So, to determine how good the Blue Jays starters really are, we will look at FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), and BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play). These are the ERA's, FIP's, and Opponents BABIP of the Blue Jays Starters this year. (No #5 starter)

Ricky Romero-3.64,4.03,.214
Brandon Morrow-2.38,4.32,.202
Henderson Alvarez-2.83,5.21,.200
Kyle Drabek-3.34,5.30,.263

As you can see, their ERA's are very low, but once you get rid of the contribution of the fielders (FIP), those numbers are very high. Morrow,Alvarez, and Drabek all have significantly below average FIP's, and Romero's is only a tad below average. If Ricky is going to be your #1 pitcher, then he needs to be your best pitcher, and his numbers so far are pretty disappointing. All of those pitchers have insanely low BABIP's, which means the batters are very unlucky, or the Blue Jays fielding has been phenomenal. Obviously, its the second option.

So, instead of giving credit to the Blue Jays Pitchers for their low numbers, give the credit to their defenders of the likes like Mr.Lawrie,Mr.Escobar, and Mr. Johnson. Hopefully, later this season, the two sides (Pitching and Defense) can both be leading the league, and the Jays will be in the post-season for the first time since 1993.

Feel free to leave your comments below.

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