The pre-streak set of games, ok so what we see from here is that the Jays were pretty much winning 1 game for every 3 games played for the majority of this section of the first half with the exception of a couple 3 game winning streaks and a couple 4 game losing streaks. Now a large amount of this can be attributed to the Jays lack of clutch hitting, but at the same time they had quite a few hiccups in pitching primarily starting pitching but no problems from the bullpen, which was the inverse of what everyone thought was going to happen. So let's break it down by each starting player's performance over this stretch, starting off with pitching (hitters will be in a separate post)
Starting Pitchers:
- R.A. Dickey: Ok so one thing I quickly noticed about Dickey was that in most cases he was either great or horrible, if you take a look at his stats for the first half on Baseball Reference you'll see that 11 of this first half starts only had him allow 3 or less runs, which by any logic is a good pitching performance. In addition to this he has 7 other starts with 6 or more runs allowed, with 1 other outing with 4 runs allowed so despite these bad performances you can see that he more than 50% of the time will pitch a great outing. Now the sad thing about this is that he's only getting an average of 3.9 runs per game of support meaning that even if he puts up an outing where he only gives up 3 runs he's still not 100% to win the game. Now Dickey's 'Field Independent Pitching' is about inline with his current ERA, which indicates he's playing he hasn't been getting lucky or unlucky so far. However his walks per 9 innings is quite a bit higher than his career average and even higher then what he accomplished the last couple years, in addition his home runs per 9 innings this year is fairly higher than the previous 4 years and his career average. Now there obviously has to be a reason for these numbers being so far above his career average and the past few years, now I'm sure a portion of this increase is a result of moving from the NL East to the AL East since the AL is a harder hitting league than the NL (though don't discount the NL East as they are definitely the hardest hitting division in the NL). Now what I expect from Dickey is an improvement in the categories as he is likely adjusting to the hitters of the AL (the man has spent most of his time in the majors pitching for an NL team) and because he's been trying to pitch through injury the whole time, now however minor that injury is it undoubtedly has an effect. And in addition to this if we delve a little deeper into the stats we can see that his home run/fly ball ratio is about 3% higher than higher than the his career average and 4% above the league, which leads me to believe he's in for a a decrease in runs allowed by home runs just form that alone. Now theres plenty more stats to talk about so I'll just say take a look at his baseball reference page as well as fan graphs definitions of the various stats to get a better understanding
- Mark Buerhle: Now if theres one thing I hear SO often from either people who claim to be Blue Jays fans or commenters on Jays oriented posts/articles it's that Mark Buerhle is terrible and should be traded or sent down, so let's take a look. Now I'll first take it the same as I did with Dickey, Buerhle has pitched 10 games where he gave up 3 or less runs which again is pretty good now then on the flip side he has pitched only 3 games allowing 6 or more runs and finally 6 games pitched with 4-5 runs allowed, which may not qualify as a quality outing it is very considering where Mark Buerhle is in his career. When this trade went through fans I'm pretty sure recognized Buerhle as either the #4 starter of our rotation since Johnson was just being placed there due to his injury history and to be honest this is what Buerhle has been for years. Now just like Dickey he gets just enough run support that he will more often then not lose the games he pitches well in (4.35 runs per game), overall what we're seeing so far is a trend of our pitchers not getting the run support needed to win games, which is very disappointing considering how much power we have in our lineup. Anyhow let's look at more of the stats for Buerhle, now unlike Dickey, Buerhle has a FIP and xFIP below that of his current, which indicates that he's in for a bit of a reduction on the number of runs that opponents score on him per game and that can be further seen in the fact that, like Dickey he has a home run/flyball % that is 2% above his average and the league average so again theres another indicator that some correction is in order. Overall Buerhle and Happ have been the most consistent of the Blue Jays pitchers so to those fans that want to throw Mark under the bus you should just shut up and read some stats before making those ignorant comments.
- Josh Johnson: Now this has been a fair disappointment and theres not really any other way to look at it, Johnson was fantastic in the games he pitched during spring training but he has seldom been able to show that kind of skill in the regular season. Johnson has shown 7 starts that qualify as quality starts (gave up 3 or fewer runs), then there were 2 outings where he allowed 6 or more runs and finally 3 outings of 4-5 runs allowed. Now again like I said before this is not terrible because when you look at the talent we have in the batting rotation we should easily be able to put up 4+ runs for our pitchers without any problem, and if we did we'd have a MUCH better record than the team currently does. Then as expected, like the other starters, Johnson only gets an average of 3.92 runs per game, so again theres the offence coughing up all over his well pitched outings, which I'll reiterate, occur much more often than bad ones. Now unlike Dickey and Buerhle, Johnson when we look at the deeper stats has a much lower FIP and xFIP than his current ERA (more than a point and a half lower) so that alone should tell you that he is MUCH better than his current stat line portrays him. In addition to this all of his standard stats (ERA, WHIP, HR/9) all are much higher than his career stats and most of the last few years where he under performed. Finally we know from watching the games Johnson has had problems with the long ball and so this statistical 'piece de resistance' will leave you a thinking better of Johnson, and that is that his current homer run/fly ball ratio is 2 times more than his career value, now I'm sure people who are slightly more versed in baseball stats will say 'Well Hey! Marlin's Park is a pitchers park, of course he didn't allow home runs there'. And that is where they would be 100% WRONG and that is because Marlin's park didn't get put up until the start of the 2012 season, before that they played in Sun Life Park, which according to ESPN's Park Factors, Sun Life Park sat at about the same area (within 1-2 positions) of Rogers Field in terms of runs allowed per game. So again those out there should be expecting a turn around from Johnson in the second half, especially if the offence can get their shit together.
- J.A. Happ: Alright, now up until his injury Happ was honestly the most consistent pitcher in our starting rotation and you could see how much of a blow to the team it was when he went down with that ball to the head. So he pitched 3 quality starts during that run and 3 that had him give up 4-5 runs and even still he only got an average of 3.57 runs per game of support. Not much to say otherwise, his stats indicate that there should be a slight decline in the number of walks he gives up and a slight increase in the number of strikeouts he gets but overall if he gets plugged into the rotation immediately upon his return we should expect just what he has delivered up until this point and that is a #5 starter who consistently gives you a game within 5 runs.
- Brandon Morrow: Now while he's been injured about as long as Happ has there he has not been nearly as consistent as J.A has. Now Morrow has turned in 5 quality starts and 4 starts of 5 or more runs, now this doesn't look good on his record and reflects to some extent in his ERA and WHIP, though like Johnson, he has struggled with the long ball and his last 2 years and career average HR/9 suggests that there should be a decrease of at least 1 in his HR/9 over the season. In addition his FIP and xFIP are slightly lower than his current ERA. Now while the FIP/xFIP argument isn't a huge one it does show that his struggles are real and not just a product of lack of run support, especially since he gets the most of it amongst our starting pitchers at an average of 5.60 runs per game. Now with Morrow almost all of his stats suggest that he will get better than he has been but unlike the other starters this is a case of lacklustre pitching and it sounds like Morrow needs to figure out whats up with his ability in order to get back on track.
- Esmil Rogers: Now this was a welcome surprise, mainly because I going into the season I always saw him as our long relief guy replacement for, the more effective Luis Perez, but boy did he prove me wrong when he got the call to start. So the way Rogers worked into this mix was as follows, he was originally a 1-2 inning reliever but then our starters started going down with injuries so the team started stretching him out over 2-4 innings to see how he would handle it and eventually moved him to the rotation on June 13th. From then he has pitched 4 quality starts (3 or less runs) 2 outings with 4 runs and one with 7 runs, overall thats pretty good considering almost the entirety of his career had been as a reliever with Colorado and Cleveland. Now unfortunately, just like the other starters Esmil only gets an average of 4.22 runs per game of support. Now I will say I can't go and make too many assumptions based on Roger's past stats since almost none of them represent him playing as a starter but I expect he may have issues as he approached a higher inning count as he has never pitched more than 83 innings at the major league level and he's already at 77 by the all star break. So I expect he may be one of the first moved to the bullpen when some of our starters start coming off the DL.
- Ramon Ortiz: Another nice surprise, though again theres not much I can say about him as he came in part way into the season to handle a spot left by one of our injured guys and ended up getting tossed on the DL himself. He pitched half decently through the stretch not allowing more than 5 runs in every outing he had, though just like Rogers I expect that once all of the guys are back he'll be back in the bullpen.
- Chad Jenkins: Pretty much the same as Ortiz only he stumbled and the Jays replaced him.
- Todd Redmond: The newest addition to the Jays rotation, Redmond seems more like a place holder since some of the starters are soon to come off the DL but the team needs to make up for the next 1 or 2 starts they would miss. However Redmond has pitched well and it has been a rather ideal situation as he can go strong for 5 innings and then the bullpen crushes it from there.
Well thats my eval of the first half of the starting rotation, now overall I don't think there is too much wrong with these guys, some of them need adjustments to get them back into spring training form (Morrow and to a lesser extent Johnson) but in addition to that Dickey having the All Star break to rest and hopefully recuperate from his nagging injury that he's been pitching through is great. So my final thoughts are that there are tiny adjustments that need to be made to most starters and large adjustments to some (Morrow and Romero, if he hopes to come back up this year) but all in all it's more the fault of the lack of run support from the offence that has caused most of the downfall of the team rather than the starting pitching. (Expect to see one of these every day this week for the Orioles, Blue Jays and Cardinals)
-Eric
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