Another nice game for the Blue Jays "improved bullpen".

Farrell didn't impress me with his in-game management skills last year.  Still doesn't.  I don't know what others see in him.

I know some of Farrell's moves can be questioned but I'm more inclined to ask what the hitting coach is doing...

The Offense is ugly so far, this seaon, with only timely hitting moderating the effects (Bautista .183 .341 .324; Arencibia .190 .238,.293; Lind .215 .301 .338; Escobar .225 .271 .281 to name a few).   The Starters, thus far, are really good, better than expected but with a few bumps (18,19 April).   The Bullpen tries to be perfect, sometimes that makes it worsen (7, 9, 10, 11,13, 14, 18, 19, 26, 27).

The Team missed a sweep of Cleveland (8 April) because IMO, the offense was insufficient to the task.   The Team missed a sweep of a struggling Boston (10 April), not because Santos blew the save as much as not enough offense.   The Team was swept by "not that good a team Baltimore" (24-26 April), because they couldn't hit.

The Offense is responsible for 5 missed opportunities.   The Starters are responsible for 2 missed opportunities.   The Bullpen is solely responsible for 5 missed opprtunities.   And we only lost 10 games.   If this Team could have capitalized on just 1/3 of the missed opportunities, they would be in 1st place by one full game.

We are still close enough to matter, but until Bautista hits, all bets are off.

With the season 1/8 done, the team has both scored and allowed 90 runs, where an average team has scored/allowed 88. The offense has been average. The defense has been average. The 10-10 record seems entirely approriate under these circumstances.

What will the next 20 games look like? The offense should improve. The starting pitching should regress. The relief pitching should improve. Not sure what that looks like in the aggregate.

Honestly, I don't think its that. Pat and Tabby do this about almost everyone. Just randomly in the last couple of weeks, Brett Lawrie was the best defensive third baseman in the majors, Chris Davis was turning things around by hitting more line drives, Ichiro could hit 25-30 home runs if he wanted to; I think today they were gushing about Kevin Millwood, etc. Basically I think they want to compliment a guy, so instead of "this guy is a pretty good X" it becomes "this guy is one of the best X's there is," or if someone's improved and they want to explain it, they pick a random thing to praise, even if it doesn't make sense. It's sort of almost like a tic (or habit, I guess) that I think is born out of lack of preparation or interest, or something along those lines. I think it's more lazy broadcasting than homerism, really.

That doesn't make it any less annoying though.

Six innings, 106 pitches, no runs, no walks and 9 strikeouts is a great outing. 

Absolutely.

Disappointingly, Wilner, on his post-game show, admitted to preferring the "more efficient Morrow who throws groundballs and goes deeper into games". Not sure if he was referring to the one who in his 4 previous starts struck out just 12, gave up 7 homeruns, posted a FIP of 6.34 and an xFIP of 4.68, yet averaged 6.2 IP per start. I'd sooner Morrow bring the heat, pitch to his strength, and let one of the 7 relief pitchers chew up those 2 extra outs that Morrow had been previously reaching.

As an aside, I do admit to generally agreeing with Wilner more than I don't, but I find myself disagreeing with more of what he says than I'd really like. His grasp on numbers isn't as great as he'd like to believe.

I did like Morrow's higher groundball rates and much better efficiency that he was showing his first few starts, even if he hadn't figured out how to balance that with his Ks quite yet.

His entirely unsustainable .190 BABIP in those 4 starts certainly contributed to his "efficiency".

Tampa Bay might have more depth for injury, especially in pitching.   Boston has problems everywhere, mainly due to lack of depth.   New York has problems, but might survive them.   Of course, for Boston and New York money solves most problems.   As for Toronto, we'll have to find out how good A.A. was about depth issue possibilities.   Of course having the ability to acquire another teams starters at any position as your bench, can make a difference to Boston and New York.   Balitmore will fade as they always do.

On a separate note, is Morrow's pitches still as straight as an arrow?

As an aside, I do admit to generally agreeing with Wilner more than I don't, but I find myself disagreeing with more of what he says than I'd really like. His grasp on numbers isn't as great as he'd like to believe.

He strikes me as a guy who doesn't understand the things people tell him, but regurgitates it often.  So it's hit and miss - sometimes he uses the stuff properly, sometimes he doesn't.  The Cecil velocity stuff is a good example.  Everybody in the Org is telling him that it's more pitch location than velocity, but it takes him three weeks to understand that the two are related.  I don't listen to Jays Talk, and will generally sympathize with any AM radio call-in show host, but he comes off as a complete oaf on Twitter.

I don't think the club should go and get Tango to do the colour commentary or anything, and I am accepting that former players are going to do it, but I guess I just wish there was more actual insight. Pretty much anyone can spout bland platitudes, I just want more moments like a recent one where Tabby explained why he thought the next pitch was going to be inside (or something like that), or why they were pitching guy X low and away - these are genuinely helpful in understanding and appreciating baseball, as opposed to just saying things that may or may not be true to fill dead air. They did a broadcaster survey on Fangraphs in the offseason, and while it's clear that people usually think the grass is greener on the other side, Toronto's team also was about 5th from the bottom. With reason, I think.

Richard:

I can say that robert never played major league baseball but he was one of the founders of this site and is very knowledgable.  Robert's point was that conventional wisdom is wrong in HIS opinion.  Your comment reiterates that you believe the members of the Blue Jays broadcast crew think Mathis is a good catcher.  In other words you believe the conventional wisdom and robert does not.  That is fine.

I haven't seen enough of Mathis to have an opinion but you do yourself a disservice by dismissing Robert's opinion too quickly.

Yesterday, I heard Pat Tabler talking about BABIP. You could have knocked me over with a John Farrell-selected bunt.

I was equally as shocked to hear that as well. That said, he was talking about this "new metric" as it pertains to hitters, not pitchers, where I think it is much more informative.

Agreed and Mr. Miller is not advocating the merits of CERA in the article so much as he is simply exploring one part of Scioscia's thought process. Miller even speaks to how Scioscia's own playing history has likely lead to a certain confirmation bias although it is hardly definitive that the bias is in fact incorrect.

As I stated, I am also not advocating that Mathis is a great defensive catcher but there is certainly evidence to suggest that this may actually be closer to reality than some think. Dewan's DRS for example, which includes blocking ability among other things, has rated Mathis as an above-average to great defensive catcher in 3 of the last four years despite slightly below SB prevention rates. Mike Fast's research into pitch framing has shown Mathis to be roughly 7 runs/120 G above average over the last 2 seasons as well.

If you have not already read these, you can find more information on Mike Fast's research into pitch framing here while Bojan Koprivica published his excellent research into pitch blocking here.

For what it is worth Fangraphs shows the blocking ability (RPP) component in it's DRS break down and it sounds like they will be incorporating pitch framing in the near future.

Most umps do not like to call a third strike, especially if the count is not 3-2. I have seen many many strikes "missed" by umpires on 0-2 pitches. Why? I think it is because (1) they simply dislike calling a batter out on strikes and (2) they are "expecting" a pitcher to "waste" a pitch attempting to get the hitter to chase. Conversely, when the count is 2-0, they "expect" the pitcher to come into the zone, so they are anticipating calling the borderline pitch a strike.

In sum, the explanation is, I think, entirely psychological.

I agree with this (though perhaps entirely should read mainly). I think umpires are aware of the subjectivity of many of their calls and will therefore make "corrections" by erring on the side of caution, favouring pitchers on 2-0 and 3-0 pitches and batters on 0-2 and 1-2 pitches.

And if an umpire blows an obvious call... watch out. He'll be in a hurry to make up for that mistake, even if he'd never admit that out loud.

You're saying that from April 1st to November 3rd (or whatever it is), a period of approximately 220 days (I guess you could throw in an extra month for spring training), you spend about 118 days watching baseball? I guess you could have 7 tv's or watch shortened versions of games...

Fair enough!

I thought NESN was famous for being one of the first/only broadcasts to do this, at least for home games. I think there are technical reasons having to do with camera positions as to why it's not possible in every ballpark, but I agree, it is preferable; I'd rather see whether balls hit the corners than whether they are high/low.