Look it’s a bird! And another bird. Playing against each other?
Baseball has transitioned from the National League only playing the National League to a few weeks worth of interleague games to seeing an interleague game at some point on the schedule in any given day and more recently, playing every single team in baseball instead focusing on one division in the other league. I’ll say this: as a very NL-centric fan, my knowledge of the American Leagues in the past was very limited.
Now that we play every single team in the American League, I feel like I’m a bit more in the know. I’m not completely clueless when we face an AL team. Despite all that though, prior to me writing this series preview, I absolutely could not tell you how many wins the Blue Jays had or where they stood in the AL East. I absolutely would not have been able to tell you they are 35-30, tied for 2nd in the East and 4.5 games back of the Yankees.
Purely based on how they’ve played from a runs scored and runs allowed perspective, they are a very mediocre team. They should not have a 35-30 record. They have a -1 run differential and an expected record of 32-33, although honestly, it’s a coin flip away from being 33-32. Point being, record may be painting an optimistic portrait of how good they really are.
The Jays are actually pretty similar to the Cardinals. They have a good to great offense, a great defense, and an okay starting staff with a good bullpen. The difference between the two teams is that the Blue Jays’ starters give up homers and the Cardinals starters kind of don’t. Despite a similar xFIP, the Blue Jays’ starting pitchers rank 21st in baseball in fWAR. Because 13.6% of flyballs have left the yard for them, just 8.4% for the Cardinals starters.
The other difference is that the Jays defense is primarily driven by catching. They actually lead all of baseball in team defense according to Fangraphs. They do not lead in OAA though. They are actually 4th in OAA and are very close to being 9th. For whatever reason, the framing numbers have LOVED the Blue Jays. Kirk has always been a good framer and that’s no exception here. Briefly a Cardinal, they are getting absurd performance out of Tyler Heineman, who has a 206 wRC+ and +3.5 defense in just 21 games played. Seems sutainable.
They are also getting an absolutely absurd defensive performance out of Ernie Clement, who has somehow been worth +4 OAA at 3B and +5 OAA at 2B. He’s also been +2 OAA in 27 innings at SS (and +1 OAA in 27 innings at 1B). Seems sustainable. They’ve received great centerfield play from either Daulton Varsho or Myles Straw (combined +7 OAA). Andres Gimenez, fantastic defender at 2B, has also been good.
The defense is dragged down by Bo Bichette, who should probably be playing 2B while either Clement or Gimenez play SS. He’s not really a good defender at SS. I feel like this would be a constant source of annoyance were this the Cardinals’ situation. George Springer has been unbelievably bad defensively, with -6 OAA so far. Kind of out of nowhere.
Offensively, Springer is bringing it though. He has the highest wRC+ on the team for players not named Heineman (who doesn’t qualify obviously). 25-year-old Addison Barger, who was not good last year, has a 132 wRC+ and great defense. He was a bad hitter and defender last season. Vlad Guerrero has a 131 wRC+, but a .409 xwOBA. Nathan Lukes is a very late arriving player, having debuted at 28 and only playing in 41 career games prior to this year, when he’s now 30. Well he’s a starter for the first time, has a 119 wRC+, batted ball data that says it’s legit and rest of season projections that say it’s for real. Good for him.
Lukes is starting because they are not getting much else from the rest of their outfielders. With Varsho injured, the CF duties are split between Straw and Jonathan Clase. Clase is 23 and Straw has no future with the Jays, but nonetheless Straw has elite defense and a 91 wRC+ and Clase has a 58 wRC+ and has been a neutral defender thus far. Also getting chances is Allen Roden, who was a top 100 prospect by Fangraphs entering the season, but he is already 25 and isn’t playing everyday because he’s hasn’t been good. He has a 47 wRC+ through 33 games.
The Jays bullpen is good. Jeff Hoffman is the closer and he’s a weird mix of bad ERA, fantastic advanced stats. He has a 5.38 ERA and three blown saves, but his xFIP is 2.38. He has however been allowing homers as if he’s Andre Pallante. Well, correction, a lot more than Pallante because Hoffman doesn’t get groundballs. One out of every four flyballs against him is a homer and if you wonder what that looks like from a guy who doesn’t get groundballs but does get a lot of strikeouts (35.9 K%), it’s 7 homers in 28.2 IP.
Yesterday, they lost 6-3 in a game where their starter went just 3.2 IP, and it forced them to send down a guy with frankly great results in Paxton Schulz (24 Ks to 4 BBs in 17.2 IP). In his place, they called up Spencer Turnbull, who wasn’t good at all in his rehab appearances. The other high leverage relievers appear to be Yariel Rodriguez who has a 2.61 ERA, but not as impressive by advanced stats. Brendon Little has a 34.5 K% and a 60.3 GB%, so good luck against him. Chad Green is another pitcher who has allowed a crazy amount of homers with 7 in 27 innings.
Their stats end up good overall, but kind of weird how few relievers in their bullpen I wouldn’t want to face. I don’t want to really face Hoffman or Little. Everyone else seems hittable enough. Hoffman was used Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, so he is probably available tonight, but I imagine they’d prefer he not pitch. It would probably knock him out of the next two games.
Monday – 6:45 PM
Jose Berrios (3.67 ERA/4.41 FIP/4.07 xFIP) vs. Andre Pallante (4.91 ERA/4.95 FIP/3.72 xFIP)
I don’t really think the Berrios contract has worked out like the Jays had hoped. When he was traded to the Jays from the Twins, he had sandwiched the COVID season with two 4 fWAR seasons. He had a great rest of the year with the Jays in 2021, but since then, he’s been not particularly good in all but one year. And yet, last year and so far this year, his ERA has been something the Jays are probably happy with. Who knows if it can last longer, but his career numbers suggest not.
Meanwhile, Pallante probably reached the low point of his season and I think is saved by the Cardinals wanting a 6-man rotation. He’ll be pitching to stay in the major leagues in this writer’s opinion, and it’s pretty important that he pitches a good game tonight.
Tuesday – 6:45 PM
Chris Bassitt (3.56 ERA/3.44 FIP/3.33 xFIP) vs. Miles Mikolas (3.96 ERA/3.67 FIP/4.94 xFIP)
I’ll give Bassitt this. The Cardinals had been rumored to trade for him when he was in Oakland and I never thought he was a particularly desirable pitcher. And when he was a free agent, I didn’t want the Cardinals to sign him either. And yet, here is at 36, pitching some of the best baseball of his career.
In a series where the Cardinals’ starting pitchers got rocked, and it looked like that would continue when Mikolas gave up a 1st inning homer, Mikolas actually had the only decent start of that series. He’s now allowed four homers in his last five starts, which is actually a near identical pace to last year’s homers allowed. So that magic part appears to have faded.
Wednesday – 1:15 PM
Bullpen game vs. Matthew Liberatore (3.82 ERA/3.04 FIP/3.48 xFIP)
Last start was concerning, less for getting blown up, which will happen, and more because of his diminished velocity later in the game. Hopefully, he ironed out that problem and this won’t be a recurrent issue. I will say that people are lumping in his last start with the start before that, but he actually pitched badly in his most recent start. He had 5 strikeouts to one walk against the Rangers with a 3.40 xFIP. It’s just that most everyone who got on base ended up scoring. Them’s the breaks sometimes.
While the Cardinals and Jays similar in a lot of ways, the Cardinals are working with a 6-man rotation and the Jays a 4-man one. As far as who is likely to get the bulk of the innings, I’d say the leading contender is Eric Lauer, who has previous starting experience and threw 44 pitches on Friday. Spencer Turnbull is also a former starter, although I’d find it strange if they didn’t use him in the next two games since they called him up for bullpen relief. After Lauer though, I imagine whoever else pitches is highly dependent on how the next two games go.