Nick Ashbourne May 30, 2024, 10:13 am
TORONTO – One of the most reliable consistent characteristics of the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays so far is their tendency to float from crisis to crisis.
At the start of the season, Kevin Gausman wasn’t himself, Chris Bassitt was floundering, and the team didn’t seem to have a fifth starter to rely on. The rotation problems finally subsided, and the injury that Alek Manoah suffered on Wednesday brought uncertainty back.
However, for most of the year, the biggest obstacle between the team and a winning record has been the inability to score runs. While a pair of spectacular performances against American League Central foes doesn’t make anyone believe Toronto’s lineup is a juggernaut, after scoring nearly six per game in its last eight, the Blue Jays’ offensive woes are becoming apparent. feel less acute than for most of the season. .
That opened the door to a new calamity, specifically a bullpen that has underperformed by a considerable margin.
Last season, Toronto relievers were eighth in the majors in ERA (3.68), ninth in fWAR (5.1) and third in strikeout rate (26.0 percent). In 2024, they will rank 28th (4.77), 29th (-1.1), and 27th (19.6 percent) by the same measures.
Although many teams experience a lot of turnover in the bullpen, only 10 of the 186.2 innings that Blue Jays relievers have recorded this year have come from guys who were not part of the organization last year, and two of those were provided by the player of painting Isiah Kiner-Falefa. . Toronto has received 94.6 percent of its relief innings from a collection of weapons that have combined to produce elite results in 2023.
When it comes to relievers, year-over-year volatility is a fair expectation, but the Blue Jays have seen a radical decline. To get to the bottom of whether this trend is likely to continue, we’re going to put the microscope on each underperforming reliever and try to determine what level of concern their early-season struggles should warrant.
To qualify for that test, pitchers had to perform worse than significantly worse than in 2023 (ruling out Yimi Garcia, Trevor Richards, Zach Pop, Chad Green, Nate Pearson and the duo of Brendon Little and Paolo Espino, who (they combined for just 4.2 innings in the majors last year). They must also remain in the organization (cutting Mitch White and Wes Parsons, but not the recently demoted Erik Swanson, who is still on the 40-man roster).
With those relievers removed from the mix, what’s left is a quartet of underachievers dragging down the Blue Jays’ results. After giving Toronto 202.2 innings with a 2.52 ERA in 2023, Jordan Romano, Génesis Cabrera, Tim Mayza and Swanson have produced a 6.30 mark this year, giving up almost as many runs in two months (52) as they did during their entire 2023 campaign. (62).
Roman Jordan
2024 statistics: 8.56 K/9, 2.53 BB/9, 2.63 HR/9 in 13.2 innings with a 6.59 ERA and 7.23 xERA
What seems to be the problem?: Romano’s early season problems come from two sources. The first is that her strikeout rate has dropped significantly. Between 2021 and 2023, her strikeout rate (30.3) ranked 34th among 203 qualified relievers.
This season, he’s 20.7 percent below average, fueled by the fact that he’s only gotten a 6.5 percent whiff rate on his fastball, a pitch he throws nearly half the time ( 47.9 percent) that their opponents sniffed a lot last year (32.3 percent). percent).
He has also had trouble keeping the ball in the park. Three home runs in a relatively small sample size may not seem like a big deal, but he gave up just six last season and four in 2021. While concerns about the fastball are at the root of the strikeout struggles, the slider has been vulnerable to big cuts (.621 SLG against).
How high is the level of concern?: Average height.
Romano’s velocity is in line with career norms and his control is solid, but there are some strange things happening with the movement of his pitches.
The vertical movement in the right-hand material is consistent with what we’ve seen before, but the horizontal cut differs significantly from last season.
Romano has gone from a pitcher whose four-seam fastball doesn’t run with a slider that has excellent movement on the glove side, to a guy whose slider doesn’t do much horizontally with a fastball that shows average movement in that direction. .
That doesn’t seem like a particularly good trade, considering how important it is to get away from hitters (or get close to their feet) for a slider.
Here’s an example of how Romano’s breaking ball moved last year, reaching the corner of the plate:
This season, vertical movement is still prominent, but sliders aren’t doing much to get away from right-handed hitters. This meatball from Romano’s tough outing on Sunday is a good example.
Meanwhile, the career Romano has won with his four-seam fastball doesn’t appear to have much use for the vertical pitch.
If anything, Romano could have benefited sooner from the unusual lack of horizontal movement on his fastball. Sometimes breaking away from the norm can be valuable, even if it means less movement. For example, in Marco Estrada’s 2015 career year, his changeup dropped 5.6 inches less than the MLB average and hitters often swung underneath him in anticipation of more movement.
Until things start moving for Romano more like they have in the past, it will be difficult to project the same level of success for him that he has enjoyed in recent years.
Tim Mayza
2024 statistics: 6.62 K/9, 4.58 BB/9, 1.02 HR/9 in 17.2 innings with a 5.60 ERA and 6.80 xERA
What seems to be the problem?: A quick look at his Baseball Savant page would suggest almost anything.
Not only are the final results ugly, but Mayza has lost his signature ability to generate ground balls in 2024. Between 2021 and 2023, he produced metronomic groudball rates between 57.9 and 58.8 percent, but currently sits at 37, 3.
The lefty’s strikeout rate is higher and he’s also walking batters more, but typically the way he keeps the ball on the ground can help mitigate issues in those areas. Not so much this season.
How high is the level of concern?: High.
Unlike the other pitchers on this list, Mayza has lost some real juice, with his fastball velocity dropping 1.5 mph from his 2023 average.
He’s not a pitcher that intuitively seems to rely on velocity, but it’s clear that his sinker isn’t playing as well around 92 mph as it did in the 93-94 mph range. The movement on the field is consistent with what we saw last year, but hitters have been able to lift it much better than before.
Mayza allows an 11 launch angle on the deal in 2024 after never exceeding five in previous seasons. The left-hander is also struggling to get hitters to take his sinker outside the zone with a chase rate of 19.4 percent, down significantly from 31.1 percent last year. The loss of velocity may be giving hitters a better chance to recognize whether Mayza’s signature offering will land outside the zone.
Although the veteran’s slider has not experienced a notable regression, the sinker is his bread and butter. Right now, it is not working.
Genesis Cabrera
2024 statistics: 5.23 K/9, 5.23 BB/9, 1.74 HR/9 in 20.2 innings with a 4.79 ERA and 4.93 xERA
What seems to be the problem?: Cabrera’s ERA could be worse, but he has walked as many batters as he has struck out and allowed twice as many home runs as he did during his time with the Blue Jays last season.
The 27-year-old has been relatively competent against left-handed hitters with a reasonable .683 OPS, which isn’t a huge drop from last year’s number (.630).
However, Cabrera has been an anti-rights disaster. When he doesn’t have the pack advantage, opponents hit .432/.500/.636 against him. Those numbers are practically concerning from the left, considering that 54.5 percent of the hitters he’s seen have been right-handed.
How high is the level of concern?: Half.
Cabrera’s results are so bad that they cannot be ruled out. It’s also worth remembering that from early 2022 until his Blue Jays debut, he created more negative fWAR (-1.0) than any MLB reliever.
The reasonable baseline with him is probably lower than Blue Jays fans more familiar with his work in 2023 might assume, and his below-average run suppression results aren’t surprising.
At the same time, Cabrera’s underlying numbers are dismal compared to even the most pessimistic projection and he’s a tough pitcher to figure out.
He hasn’t lost a noticeable amount of speed or movement, and the biggest alteration to his pitch mix is using his cutter more than ever. That pitch has been extraordinary (plus-6 run value), so that’s not the root of his problems.
Both his fastball and sinker have been absolutely defeated in 2024 and it’s hard to say why, other than somewhere spotty. Both pitches have been solid in the past, even though Cabrera is hardly known for painting the corners.
It appears Cabrera will likely make some turn, but his job in Toronto in 2023 will always be a difficult hurdle to overcome.
Eric Swanson
2024 statistics: 6.59 K/9, 2.63 BB/9, 3.29 HR/9 in 13.2 innings with a 9.22 ERA and 8.81 xERA
What seems to be the problem?: Swanson’s ability to suppress hard contact has fluctuated throughout his career, but in 2024 he was defeated. If a hitter produced the expected slugging percentage that Swanson has allowed (.655), he would rank fourth in the majors, between Shohei Ohtani and Bobby Witt Jr.
The veteran has also seen his strikeout rate absolutely drop, going from excellent last season (28.6 percent) to well below average (15.8 percent).
While Swanson has been hit and hasn’t been able to rack up Ks, his walk rate has remained in line with his career norms, meaning he hasn’t completely missed the zone.
Their biggest problem has been a division that simply hasn’t fooled its opponents. Last season, opponents slugged .266 against him and missed 34.3 percent of the time. In 2024, those figures stand at 1,071 and 25.9.
How high is the level of concern?: High enough that the Blue Jays sent their 2023 head setup man to the minor leagues on Tuesday.
Despite the poor performance that move necessitated, there is every reason to believe that Swanson will be effective again for Toronto in the near future.
It’s worth remembering that the right-hander dealt with forearm inflammation and a heartbreaking family experience during the spring and pitched just 1.2 innings in the Grapefruit League.
There isn’t a single statistic that paints a pretty picture of his 2024, but his speed and movement numbers are in line with what he showed in 2023. Fundamentally, Swanson is wielding the same stuff that has proven effective for him in the past. meaning location is the main issue, and whether he’s tipping pitches needs to be investigated.
While we are witnessing a bad situation for the law, there is every reason to believe that it will fix itself. When that might happen is up in the air.
Keynote USA
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