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With the All-Star Game (always a delight, but rarely more so than throughout Alek Manoah's mic'd up inning) now behind us, let us reflect broadly, for a bit, if we could, on the Blue Jays season that has thus far been, if you will so indulge me. I think we can all agree that the 2022 Blue Jays' fifty wins and forty-three losses through "the first half" (I know that ninety-three isn't half of one-hundred-sixty-two; I'm not a fool) has them winning at a rate of .538, which, all things being equal (which I know that they are not), would give us to an eighty-seven win season in the fullness of time, and quite possibly one of the three American League Wild Card spots, maybe even the one they currently hold (arguably the best one [see on that subject: all of my other posts]). An eighty-seven-win season would probably feel like a disappointment after last year's ninety-one-win "campaign" (a word I like in this context because it likens a baseball season to a series of tabletop roleplaying adventures [tell me one way that it's different]), even if it would have the Blue Jays well within the margin of error of their eighty-eight-win ZiPS projection (ZiPS is, of course, inherently conservative). Nobody would care, surely, if the Blue Jays only won, say, eighty-five games, but, after squeaking into the playoffs (not that I have any confidence that eighty-five wins would do it, but nevertheless . . .) went on a bit of a run, maybe to the ALCS -- would that be enough? Would people not be so sour and down about it all then? Because man, I have found people sour and down about it all over these last few weeks, and particularly throughout the "rough patch" the culminated in the surprising (to me) and sad (to me) dismissal of Charlie Montoyo. Fundamentally this is a "shame on me" situation for reading what sour people who are down about it all have to say about the Blue Jays when all anyone could ever need is right here on baseballfeelings.blogspot.com but I do like to go to the reddit, sometimes; I am weak in this regard. And such is the (fairly minor) price of the Blue Jays being good, I suppose: the full sporting attention of the country turns in their direction, especially after the Leafs get bounced (the first few weeks of The Blue Jays Internet after the Leafs are out [how do you know it's spring haha] are just brutal every year, to be fair; not just this year). I've got to say, I'm fairly optimistic, even if the AL "playoff picture" has been complicated by the Mariners winning fourteen in a row (my old pal Nick, a loyal M's fan, is concerned that the team has peaked too soon, an absurd thing to worry about unless they were your team in which case it is the only thing you would be able to think about) and the AL East itself has been complicated by the Orioles' twelve-game streak that got them up to the .500 mark. In another sense, the AL East of course remains enormously simple, in that it is clear that that Yankees will win no fewer than a hundred games, and quite possibly a whole bunch more than that, and so three fairly worthy teams (Boston, Tampa Bay, Us Guys) who, at the start of the season, seemed themselves reasonable contenders for the AL East title, will be left scrambling to avoid being getting musical-chaired right out of it (if it wasn't for the Mariners this would be so easy! [I hear that they may have peaked too soon, though]). In short, I guess you could say, the addition of one more Wild Card spot is totally having the desired effect (and indeed affect), in that it is keeping every team at-or-near the .500 mark very much in the thick of things, or at least feeling that way, which is honestly pretty fun! It has leant an awful lot more excitement to the huge Mariners and Orioles winning streaks than there might otherwise have been, and I assume whatever is going on in the National League is . . . very good also (I honestly haven't checked). Something that could conceivably separate the Blue Jays from the second-half pack, a little, would be to trade for Juan Soto whilst not even really giving up that much, which is a path I would be pleased to see them pursue; but at the same time, I find I am possibly as concerned about maintaining "the vibe" as much I am about winning ninety-plus games? Is that reasonable? Not really? And yet.
If you will indulge me further (and it is totally fine if you would rather not), I thought it might be neat to check in with the Blue Jays first-half fWAR leaders, and note what their performance thus far would scale to over a whole season, and see how closely this all lines up with our impression of how things have gone. Often it can be a little different! Brad Pitt (and arguably Billy Beane) famously did not want to watch the games, as they can themselves be misleading (how curious that is!). A reminder that 0 fWAR (the "f" is simply for FanGraphs; I have no quarrel with bWAR, in which the "b" is for "Baseball Reference"; and in a sense these are all footnotes to VORP, I suppose) indicates the value of a "replacement level" player, a shifting theoretical construct of a guy, a freely-available minor leaguer or bench player of a sort that any team can pretty much just grab at minimal cost; a league-average player contributes about two wins above replacement; four wins is more or less an All-Star (hey, topical); and six wins or above would be varying levels of MVP (Babe Ruth had fifteen once; maximum-enhancement Barry Bonds was at or above twelve a few times). So that's the scale, really: 0 is replacement level; 2 is average (there is a lot of value in "average"! if everybody on your roster was a two-win player you'd win like ninety-five games! [a "replacement-level team" would win like 43, that is more or less the baseline from which most of these models operate]); 4 is really good; and 6 or higher is legit MVP stuff (Vladdy last year was 6.3; Ohtani was 5.1 batting/fielding but another 3.0 from pitching [no big deal]). So let's have a look at that leaderboard! (Please note I am just multiplying by 1.74 to scale each player's fWAR-to-date to a full season amount, cuz of how much of the season is left, and then putting that in parentheses after; it is pretty sophisticated.)
1. Kevin Gausman: 3.7 fWAR (6.4 scaled to a full season)
That's more than I'd have thought! Gausman started the year nearly unhittable, walking no one and allowing no home runs for what felt like ages, and the FanGraphs version of WAR measures the fielding-independent "three true outcomes" of homeruns, strikeouts (and pop ups on the infield, which are converted to outs at a nearly identical rate as strikeouts [think about it]), and walks above all other matters (whereas the Baseball Reference version is more like, here are the runs that were scored, now let's work backwards and figure out who is to blame [I respect this also]). Gausman was particularly amazing by those three measures, and then he seemed to be tipping his pitches for a bit and got utterly shelled, and now he seems to have settled in? On the whole, a remarkable first half, but with remarkable variance, too.
2. Alejandro Kirk: 2.9 fWAR (5.0 scaled to a full season)
Though "All-Star-starting-catcher Alejandro Kirk" now seems entirely obvious and I dare I say almost natural, you will perhaps recall that it was not even a sure thing that he would stay up with the team in the early going, as the Blue Jays are catcher-rich and Kirk didn't have the hottest camp, or start. But at this point I honestly would not be surprised if he outperforms his first half in the second, as he's been hitting everything the last little bit, and the Blue Jays will not face the same calibre of pitching in the second half (way less velocity, for one thing, not that Kirk has show any real problem with velocity [even now before I have finished this sentence he has singled once more to right field {not really}]).
3. Alek Manoah: 2.3 fWAR (4.0 scaled to a full season)
It is striking how much more fWAR likes Gausman than Manoah, but there is no doubt, I don't think, as to who is (I think rightly) understood to be the Blue Jays ace (as opposed to their "Ace" [Ace]) these days. If the Blue Jays are comfortable enough in their playoff position in the final week of the season (if I/they/we are spared), and are able to truly "set" their rotation for their first-round series, it would be a surprise at this point if the first game fell to anybody but Manoah, right? Hard to imagine!
4. George Springer: 2.2 fWAR (3.8 scaled to a full season)
It is strange to say about your leadoff-hitting All-Star CF who is getting paid $25 million a year (or thereabouts) and had his own jersey-giveaway on Canada Day, but I feel like George Springer is nevertheless a little under-the-radar? Does that make sense even slightly? I find him a lovely guy, also.
5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 2.0 fWAR (3.5 scaled to a full season)
Not a repeat of last year's MVP-were-it-not-for-the-inescapable-fact-of-Shohei-Ohtani season, but if "big year" Vladdy is 2021, and "down year" Vladdy is batting cleanup at the All-Star Game, this is going to be a lot of fun for as long as it lasts (some are saying "forever").
6. Santiago Espinal: 1.7 fWAR (3.0 scaled to a full season)
I think everybody who watched the Blue Jays closely last year felt that Santiago Espinal was a likeable fellow (Dan Shulman says he is as well-liked as anyone in the Blue Jays clubhouse [imagine it]) and probably a useful piece off the bench on even the best version of the 2022 Blue Jays you could imagine, but I don't think even the staunchest Espinal partisan (my grown-up friend David's wife Brenda) would have envisioned an All-Star appearance (he made a few nice plays in the ASG itself, too!) and a three-win-or-so season. A tenth-round pick, if I'm remembering right? Awesome. We love it. Go Santi. Go Espi.
7. Bo Bichette: 1.6 fWAR (2.7 scaled to a full season)
A five-win season when you're twenty-three-years old is maybe the gift and the curse? Bo seems to be largely fine now (that low and away stuff though, man . . .) but struggled so badly early on that he sits at exactly a league-average hitter by wRC+ right now (literally 100). I am both hopeful that he'll be better but not all that worried about how it has gone, honestly. Much like Bo Bichette, I have enormous confidence in Bo Bichette going forward. It's interesting to note that his baserunning, which was amazing last year both to the eye and by the other measures afforded us, has fallen off hard this year. No idea what that means! I am, for real, shocked and appalled to see people throwing Bo's name around in their speculations about a Juan Soto deal. They have not considered the effects this would have on the nation's daughters.
8. Matt Chapman: 1.6 fWAR (2.7 scaled to a full season)
Like Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman is a league-average hitter so far this year pretty much exactly (102 wRC+). Curiously, by the numbers, his defense is nowhere near what it has been over the years in Oakland, and I am not calling those measure into question when I say that what it has felt like is that Matt Chapman has been awesome over there, and a treat to watch, and I am feel like third base is just a totally solved problem for us these next few seasons.
9. Ross Stripling: 1.6 fWAR (2.7 scaled to a full season)
Ross Stripling! Hoss Stripling! There are times when it feels like Stripling is exactly what is missing from the Blue Jays bullpen, but he has been so good as Hyun-Jin Ryu's replacement in the starting rotation that one can scarcely mind (do get on the horn for more guys though, Ross Atkins [Hoss Atkins?].
10. Teoscar Hernandez: 1.5 fWAR (2.6 scaled to a full season)
Teoscar Hernandez, whose smile is the sun, has started to worry me, not because I am concerned about what he brings to the team (I think he is so neat, and brings so much), but because he is entering the part of his career where he has earned fair compensation at precisely the same time it is being revealed, probably, that he is not (in an ongoing sense) the four-win player he was last year. Even barring a Juan Soto-level event, I wonder if right field is where the big left-handed bat everybody thinks the Blue Jays need will end up? Sometimes, I worry; sometimes: I worry.
11. Lourdes Gurriel Jr.: 1.1 fWAR (1.9 scaled to a full season)
Famously streaky, Lourdes is streaking famously this last little bit, and things are looking just fine. It's easy, as a fan, to assume that the bad performance you've seen is the aberration, and the hot streak is the real thing, which is why I have chosen to do precisely that in this instance. Gurriel will probably set career highs in batting average and OBP, though the lack of power (just five home runs so far) has been pretty weird. His haircut has gotten even cooler this year, and I'm not sure that has received the attention it deserves.
12. Cavan Biggio: 1.0 fWAR (1.7 scaled to a full season)
Cavan Biggio, who has scarcely played due to injury, has nevertheless posted a .350 OBP whilst playing five positions (four, if you consider DH less a position and more a designation [aren't they all though?]). Together, I am convinced, we can -- and indeed must -- defeat Keith Law.
13. Danny Jansen: 0.8 fWAR (1.4 scaled to a full season)
A broken teensy little hand-bone is the latest thing that has kept Danny Jansen out of the lineup, but in his twenty-three games this season he has hit seven home runs and has a 139 wRC+; it has been bananas. Jansen and Kirk could easily combine for six wins out of the catcher position, and even if they don't, it's still my favourite season of Blue Jays catching ever, surpassing even the Greg Myers-heavy 2003.
14. Adam Cimber: 0.6 fWAR (1.0 scaled to a full season)
At this point it is probably worth noting that Wins Above Replacement does not handle relief pitching particularly well at first glace, in that a totally useful and helpful season out of the bullpen can often end up right around the seemingly marginal figure of "one win," which does not seem all that useful or helpful. But it is! Hall-of-Fame closer Mariano Rivera, for example, with whom no one's problem could ever truly be, averaged 2.1 fWAR per season over the course of his unassailable career. So when we see that Adam Cimber, with his improbable 8W-3L record out of the pen ("twenty-game-winner Adam Cimber" will be a hotly-pursued Baseball Mogul goal of mine going forward), is headed for about one win this season, we might do well to contextualize that by saying that he is about to put up about half of the value of an average Mariano Rivera season. And that's awesome, man, great job.
15. Yimi Garcia: 0.6 fWAR (1.0 scaled to a full season)
To its great credit, the "Literally Us, the Toronto Blue Jays" reddit recently featured a post correctly titled "Yimi Garcia's Baseball Savant page is high key insane." I have been doggedly ride-or-die on the subject of Yimi Garcia since the day he arrived and am not so much glad that others have seen the truth of him as I am relieved for them.
16. David Phelps: 0.6 fWAR (1.0 scaled to a full season)
A steady veteran presence putting together one of his strongest seasons at age thirty-five? I am all for it! Was weird to see him without much of a beard the last few times out though (I look forward to him turning that around in the second half).
17. Jordan Romano: 0.5 fWAR (0.9 scaled to a full season)
Absolutely nothing but love for our lanky closer from Markham, and twenty-three saves (against three blown [it feels like more, but they are always unduly heavy]) is an awful lot for the first half, but man oh man has be been making me nervous lately! I felt very pleased to see him named to the All-Star team on the final Sunday before the break, though I did not mind at all that he did not pitch the ninth, as I found myself actually pretty invested in the AL win, and had a dark vibe.
18. José Berríos: 0.4 fWAR (0.7 scaled to a full season)
Never would have expected this one. Although he's at seven wins and four losses, for those of you still into the ancient measures (a dwindling cohort), there's no way to look at this as anything other than the worst season of José Berríos' career, which is a total drag, as he is a perfectly classy guy, an earnest cap-tipper of another time. A couple of strong starts just before the break were promising, and it would be unshocking to see him put it together and salvage something out the second half, as he has proven eminently coachable, but this has on the whole been tough to watch. Pete Walker please help if you are able.
19. Gabriel Moreno: 0.2 fWAR (0.3 scaled to a full season)
Not even twenty games in (MLB) The Show (22) for Moreno so far but he looked good enough in them that one would almost expect him to be the centrepiece prospect of any truly big deal the Blue Jays are able to pull off before the deadline (not like bullpen help, but like big-left-handed-everyday-bat, or last-year's-Berríos-deal type stuff). Kirk and Jansen are so good and young enough that you might as well stick with those young-yet-proven players and get the most out of Moreno's trade value now -- it's probably not going to get any higher, right?
20. Tim Mayza: 0.2 fWAR (0.3 scaled to a full season)
Our best lefty out of the pen, and one whose recent struggles honestly came totally out of the blue for me. It is as though the Charlie Brown energy he has so long projected has become real on the level of performance? Has he manifested it?
21. Julian Merryweather: 0.2 fWAR (0.3 scaled to a full season)
He's on the sixty-day injured list now, so it is not like it is even going to come up again anytime soon, but I find myself incapable of any kind of emotional or even physical comfort when Julian Merryweather is pitching; it is a vibes nightmare for me. I can't explain it; it is not rational. Obviously, people who are infinitely wiser than I am in such matters have every expectation that he will put it all together and really be something special, and when that happens I hope that my vibes are able to catch up with that new reality, but they've got a long way to go (the vibes do).
22. Zack Collins: 0.1 fWAR (0.2 scaled to a full season)
Zack Collins has been a pleasant number-three catcher when he's been up (sometimes) who bats from the left side (always) and posts "W" on Twitter after every Blue Jays wins (reliably). Absolutely no complaints.
23. Gosuke Katoh: 0.1 fWAR (0.2 scaled to a full season)
DFA'd but not forgotten! A super likable guy, and everyone was very pleased he was able to make the team and have his moment. He's in Syracuse (it will always be a Blue Jays affiliate in my heart!) for the Mets these days.
24. Hyun-Jin Ryu: 0.1 fWAR (0.2 scaled to a full season)
As I have mentioned more than once, I have enjoyed watching Hyun-Jin Ryu pitch more than I have enjoyed watching any Blue Jays pitcher ever, and I truly hope he is able to return to form after his season-ending elbow surgery and put together at least a few good months next summer, leading into a worthy final act of his career, whether that's in Toronto the rest of the way, or somewhere else after 2023. He'll be thirty-six by the time his contract ends, so who knows, but it has been so much fun to have him here, and his signing ahead of the 2020 season was such a great signal that those rough couple years were over, and that it was time to think about winning again. When his season ended, they had a graphic on the broadcast that showed that in Ryu's forty-nine career starts as a Blue Jay, the team had won thirty-two of them, which is even better than I would have guessed.
25. Max(imo) Castillo: 0.0 fWAR
A 3.38 ERA in his seven games with the big squad? And he's twenty-three? Let's see what he can do! I'm excited.
26. Matt Gage: 0.0 fWAR
He's back down in Buffalo despite just the two runs in thirteen innings pitched, I think maybe just because he has a bunch of options left? But I feel like we could use him. We are a little lean on lefties out of the pen!
27. Vinny Capra: 0.0 fWAR
Also down in Buffalo now. I think he was up after Téo pulled a muscle on that swing in Yankee Stadium? That'll probably be the only time he's up this year, barring calamity (oh no).
28. Bowden Francis: 0.0 fWAR
I am forced to admit that I do not recall Bowden Francis or the two outs he recorded this season but I am sorry to see that he has been struggling in Triple A since heading back down.
29. Anthony Kay: 0.0 fWAR
Anthony Kay's FanGraphs page is giving me nothing but Runtime Errors and if I were Anthony Kay I think I would get my agent on the horn about that immediately.
30. Shaun Anderson: 0.0 fWAR
Shaun Anderson, too. We gotta get that straightened out, fellas.
31. Otto Lopez: 0.0 fWAR
Otto was up for a week and made one appearance in the outfield. Didn't even get an at-bat!
32. Jeremy Beasley: 0.0 fWAR
Beasley still has some options but is nevertheless still up with the club despite his ten fairly rocky innings so far. I am often perplexed by which guys more or less at the margins of the bullpen stay up, and which get sent down. This is a longstanding perplexion on my part, one spanning decades, actually, now that I reflect on it.
33. Andrew Vasquez: -0.1 fWAR (-0.2 fWAR scaled to a full season)
With journeyman Andrew Vasquez (currently ankle-injured), we enter the grim portion of the roster whose contributions come in below replacement level, which makes us sad. It cannot help but remind us, however, of the eighteen-year, nearly two-thousand-game career of Blue Jays legend Alfredo Griffin (whose Baseball Reference page we used to sponsor, when they would still let you do that; we address it here), who was paid $6,582,742 to produce precisely one win below replacement over those many seasons. Which makes us happy.
34. Trent Thornton: -0.2 fWAR (-0.3 fWAR scaled to a full season)
I am honestly surprised to see Trent Thornton, who has seemingly been on the mound all season, in negative territory, but I was also surprised to see him option to Buffalo two weeks ago, so there is no reason to trust any of my perceptions as regards Trent Thornton.
35. Raimel Tapia: -0.2 fWAR (-0.3 fWAR scaled to a full season)
Here we see where the utility of Wins Above Replacement falls flat, in that it fails to capture how rad and arguably essential Raimel Tapia is, flying around out there, taking monster cuts, launching the few home runs he does hit improbably far, having awesome braids . . . the people demand him! He is our favourite fourth-outfielder ever! I see that he is actually only at 1.1 fWAR for his entire seven-year career thus far, so things could well be trending towards an Alfredo Griffin-level triumph of the spirit here.
36. Bradley Zimmer: -0.2 fWAR (-0.3 fWAR scaled to a full season)
Zimmer's 32 wRC+ is about as poor as it gets, but a singular skill (he is absurdly fast) has made him a very useful player off the bench.
37. Thomas Hatch: -0.3 fWAR (-0.5 fWAR scaled to a full season)
I don't even remember Thomas Hatch pitching this season, so imagine my surprise to learn that it was earlier this very month! It is a fairly wild to accumulate (or I suppose decumulate) -0.3 fWAR in a single appearance, but looking at his line from that day it seems he allowed ten runs on twelve hits (three home runs!) in less than five innings of work against Tampa oh wait I remember this one: it was game two of the Vlad-and-Dad Bobblehead Day double header, an utterly grim spectacle. Poor Thomas Hatch. Everybody was hurt. That was brutal.
38. Trevor Richards: -0.3 fWAR (-0.5 fWAR scaled to a full season)
Before he got hurt (though I hear he is now better!) Trevor Richards was like a b-team workhorse out of the bullpen, like, things aren't going well; we'll get 'em tomorrow; here comes Trevor Richards. That's a valid rôle. You need a guy like that.
39. Casey Lawrence: -0.4 fWAR (-0.7 fWAR scaled to a full season)
Ah, the other half of that brutal Vlad-and-Dad doubleheader: much was asked of Casey Lawrence when he relieved Kevin Gausman after that liner to the shin in the early going, and things went pretty well before they went badly? Lawrence has been used as an innings eater when there have been no other options, and that could happen in the second half as well I suppose, but his ERA of 8.04 is gonna make that tough.
40. Taylor Saucedo: -0.4 fWAR (-0.7 fWAR scaled to a full season)
Shelled in four appearances (13.50 ERA) and then onto the sixty-day injured list with a bad hip is a rough first half for "The Sauce Boss" (trying to make that one happen).
41. Yusei Kikuchi: -0.6 fWAR (-1.0 fWAR scaled to a full season)
"Yusei Kikuchi breaks your heart," anti-union Yale president who refused to divest from apartheid South Africa/short-lived (R.I.P.) Major League Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote. "He is designed to break your heart. He begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and he blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, he stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on Yusei Kikuchi, rely on him to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, Yusei Kikuchi stops." Yusei Kikuchi is at once a man, and an almost unspeakable sadness. I hope he finds his slider.
The second half of that list was sobering, but I think maybe important? Those players represent half of all Blue Jays to have worn the uniform this year, and it is worthwhile, I think, to remember that for every Bo Bichette or Vladdy that you do not have to worry about in any way (I do not mean as players right now so much as as people), there are all kinds of guys spending their twenties bouncing around between leagues and not necessarily setting themselves up for an easy time in their thirties? I don't want to dwell on that but I do want to consider it, if only for a moment.
But a second half that I hope is not at all sobering, though, is the second half of this 2022 Blue Jays baseball season! And there is a chance that it might not be! Were I a gambling man (which I am not, despite the many entreaties of Cabbie from TV) I am honestly not sure I would place much of a wager on the Blue Jays season ending in the way I am hoping it ends (ninety plus wins and a nice little playoff run!), but I would "bet the house" on my enjoying at least a very good portion of it, and I hope this is true of you also. Okay off to Boston! Unless those games are in Toronto! No I just checked! They're in Boston! Let's go!
KS
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