What IS it about Ubaldo that seems to get to these Jay hitters?  3 up, 3 down on strikes in the first.

Walking Delmon Young should be grounds for an automatic hook. Walking him with 2-outs should result in a DFA.

And the fourth.  Here's hoping that's the last time I have to update this comment.

Pompey was hitting .143 going into today's game. He's now at .242 after going 4-5 tonight.

What IS it about Ubaldo that seems to get to these Jay hitters?

Actually, Ubaldo has only given up 7 Runs over 5 games this year and 4 were to the Jays in the April 22 game.

Are the Blue Jays a good baseball team? Hard to say at this point. They certainly have sone very good players. It's quite possible to see them shaping up nicely in a couple of months, with a more refined Norris and Pompey on the big-league roster. The pitching has been better but it's still rather iffy. And the roster seems somewhat injury-prone.

Happy to hear that Donaldson thinks the turf is better this year (in terms of its impact on his body).

Don't know if you're getting the same thing on the Blue Jays telecast, but on the Orioles broadcast, a lot of the calls the Blue Jays hitters are complaining about (outside pitches to RHBs) show up as strikes on the pitch-tracker, but when they show the overhead camera, the pitches are clearly balls, missing the outside edge of the plate. That's the first I've noticed such a thing -- shows those pitch-trackers aren't always accurate.

Pillar with the right idea.  A bunt to draw in Machado and then a Baltimore chop over his head.  When in Rome...

Live long and prosper, Mr. Franco.

"Are the Blue Jays a good baseball team?"

not unless this starting pitching disaster is just a temporary blip.

but it's already been a pretty long blip. closer to bleep.

while that davis shot was a monster, i'm still not sure how machado's homer got out so easily from what looked like a defensive swing on a pitch up and away.

The team's Pythogorean pace is 88 wins. Further, it feels as if they have played against a disproportionate number of games against high caliber opponents thus far (though I concede the numbers might say otherwise). So superficially, this sounds like a strong team facing strong opponents, suffering bad luck.

Now, they have scored 7+ runs 5 times and yielded 7+ runs 3 times. If I employ some arbitrary logic and ignore runs beyond 7 for the purposes of calculating a Pythagorean record, they are now an 84-win team. If I ignore runs beyond 6, they are an 83-win team.

Now, whether a fair employment of Pythagoras has them at 83, 84 or 88 wins, I am with uglyone when it comes to the starting pitching. Only one starter is averaging 6 innings per outing. Even a huge bullpen will suffer wear and tear unless the starters go deeper (presumably because they are more effective). And this is not a bullpen with a number of arms that Gibbons trusts, so the heavy lifting will be focused unless he invites new relievers to the table. I had previously suggested Liam Hendriks might be a candidate to segue into a more demanding role, but Gibbons appears to have him pegged for long relief.

Fangraphs has added to its summary of pitching performance, and in the case of Hendriks, it confirms what our subjective impressions of the change between him in the rotation and out of the pen.  K rate is way up, GB rate is way up, pull rate is way down, hard contact rate is way down, and pop-up rate is way up. 

There is no reason for him to be in middle relief. 

to be fair, all of cecil loup and osuna are also earning their high leverage roles too.

A fangraphs study has us in 6th for bullpen workload in MLB, 3rd in multi-inning appearances but 26th in appearances on 0 days rest, which is a good sign for Gibby's pen usage if you believe that zero days of rest will take a toll on pitcher effectiveness.

On a related note, the KC pen is ridiculous. Even old friend Jason Frasor is contributing and scrap-heap reclamation project Ryan Madson has been lights out. The rich get richer.

I am pleased that Gibbons has allowed the relievers to go longer.  It's a tweak to get Hendriks in higher-leverage situations than he has been using him.

On a related note, the KC pen is ridiculous.

And as per a previous post of mine, I say look at Wade Davis the starter compared to Wade Davis the reliever. And then look at Liam Hendriks and ask if such a transition might by in his cards? (I am not greedy. Wade Davis Lite -- never mind a full-on Wade Davis transition -- would be an effective addition to the core of the pen.)

what would you guys say if i told you the jays' pen has been just as good as the royals' pen in both xfip and siera?

and we don't have to look as far as Davis for a hendriks comp - cecil and janssen work just as well.

The BABIP against Wade Davis this year is .147.  He's given up 16 ground balls, 10 fly balls and 8 line drives so far this season.  Only 5 hits have resulted.  Luck.  As the song goes, everybody wants to get some. 

Steve Tolleson gets the start for Devon Travis who has been cold.  Travis had days off on May 1 and 7.  I was hoping that Gibbons would wait until Reyes returned for something like that.

The BABIP against Wade Davis this year is .147... Only 5 hits have resulted. Luck.

True dat. But even with his career BABIP, he'd only be up to 10 hits allowed in 14 innings. His FIP this year is 1.72. Last year it was 1.19. The man don't need luck to be good. He just needs luck to sport a shiny 0.00 ERA. Incidentally, Miller/Betances are a collective 0.00 after 35 IP.

Steve Tolleson gets the start for Devon Travis

Tolleson/Goins at 2B/SS. Carrera/Colabello in LF/RF. Pencil in Chip Cannon at 1B and I'd swear it was springtime in Florida.

Just scrolled over to the Det-Min game…Gose has been playing well again of late. With tonight's 1/2 start, he's back up to 329/368/463 (130 wRC+ entering tonight's game) with 6:2 SB:CS.

Yes, his numbers have been fuelled by a BABIP of almost .500, but he has been a useful piece for Detroit (19-13).

Speaking of useful pieces, this Encarnacion kid that has shown up in May is proving to be just that.

Can somebody explain why you would bring in Osuna having had Hendriks warm up when the score was tied? Osuna pitched last night and it's a 6-2 game.  Does Gibbons trust Hendriks in a tie game but not with a 4 run lead?

Not defending Gibbons, but I wonder if he doesn't have a KC-style 7-8-9 in mind: Osuna, Loup, Cecil.

Can somebody explain why you would bring in Osuna having had Hendriks warm up when the score was tied? Osuna pitched last night and it's a 6-2 game. Does Gibbons trust Hendriks in a tie game but not with a 4 run lead?

I was wondering why he relieved Buehrle at all. Buehrle had only thrown 78 pitches, and other than Machado's leadoff double in the 6th, which he stranded, Buehrle hadn't allowed a hit since the third. I agree Osuna was a poor choice. He was used last night in a game they trailed 5-2 in the ninth, after being used in the ninth Saturday with a 7-1 lead. He leads the team in appearances and at this rate could be on the DL by August. .

Good points, gentlemen.  I would have been fine with Buehrle staying in.  It did occur to me that Gibbons was thinking by inning, but is it really that rigid that you have to go with a pitcher who threw the night before just because you have a lead (even if it's 4 runs). 

there was an article today talking about how gibbons switched to a more defined role bullpen usage exactly 2 weeks ago.

pen has dominated since so expect more of it.

Buehrle's been relieved early twice in a row now - i'm starting to believe the rumors about him hurting are legit. great outing for him today, though.

I think Buehrle is hurting a bit and that's why he's had relatively quick hooks the last two times out. If he can keep pitching well though things will be fine.

A couple thoughts....

Wilner also speculated that Gibby has shifted to a six inning strategy with the starters.

I'd be thrilled with a .500 record by June, considering the disarray on the roster so far.

Speaking of June, it's shaping up nicely. 15 out 25 games are at home. Reyes, Saunders, and Bautista will likely be back in the lineup. Norris should be back up after a tune up, pushing Estrada to the new and improved 'pen. Colabello and Goins would be fine in reserve, and pinch hit/defensive replacement roles respectively.

Yankees 21-13
Rays 18-16
Jays 17-17
Red Sox 15-18
Orioles 14-17

Looks like pitching wins over hitting again.

yanks have the 2nd best offense in baseball.

They're 4th in the AL.

I was surprised when EE homered to right.

I was shocked when he did it a second time. He never did it last year and rarely in his career. If he adds it to his game it will change how pitchers pitch to him and give him more chances to get pitches to pull.

On his second home run, he looked disappointed when the ball left the bat and then surprised when it left the yard. 

When Edwin is hitting well, the bulls-eye ought to be in dead center-field.  He has the ability to put a well-rounded batting line; maybe last night's performance is the start of that. 

I'm pretty certain that on the whole, Gibby's pen usage has been one of his strongest assets as a manager, and as a manager, the main thing you can actually manage in-game is bullpen and pinch-hitting.  He's doing fine.

I hope Edwin doesn't doesn't do anything radical in changing his approach. He's carved out quite a nice career sitting on badly located fastballs and killing them. He's not walking as much, which actually doesn't worry me as much as the possibity that his bat speed might not be where it has been (although I have no data to back this up). He's been pitched tough, but he's missed a bunch too.

Edwin's slow start might also have something to do with playing a bunch of AL East teams. I can't imagine another hitter in the division who would be more meticulously scouted. I'd also be very interested in knowing whether teams share information on a particular player.

I'm equally certain that his bullpen management is a weakness.  The long-term record of his bullpens (and pitching staffs as a whole), given the talent he has had, has been below-average (in my opinion).  He's not the worst at it, just below average. In the AL East, I'd rather have Showalter, Cash/Hickey or Girardi/Rothschild running my bullpen.  Some of it may be the pitching coach.  I have high regard for Hickey and Rothschild. 

For several years now Edwin has been terrible the first few weeks of the season, then starting sometime in May becomes great. Seems like it's happening again.

i think this year will be the real test of gibby's pen management skills.

for the first time he has complete flexibility and all sorts of interesting options to choose from. he is not forced to keep playing any struggling pitcher this year. i am not going to blame gibbons for being forced to give santos mcgowan lincoln rogers oliver innings because they couldn't be sent down.

this is exactly the kind of pen that a good manager can make work. like maddon did in tbay, or like buck did in baltimore..... though its interesting looking at buck and baltimore this year, because this year he no longer has flexibility. all his guys are out of options so he's been forced to keep some poor performers and his pen isn't looking so hot as a result.

One thing in Gibbons' favour when discussing bullpen management is that his relievers aren't getting hurt. They've sometimes stopped throwing strikes, or have started getting lit up, but they haven't gone on the DL.

Bullpen management is a lot easier when you have starters that go deep into games and a top-shelf closer. The Jays have neither of these things, so Gibbons has to improvise.

I suspect that a lot of his decisions are based on how much rest each of his bullpen pitchers has had lately.

On an unrelated topic: was I the only person who wondered, after the Jays went up 10-2, whether Showalter would order one of his pitchers to throw at someone?

Mike, can you clarify more about how you think the bullpen performance has been weak given the talent available? I'm not sure where you're getting this, because when I look at the bullpen arms Gibbons has managed since he got here (again) in 2013 I see a bunch of young guys and has-beens that he's actually managed to coax good innings out of. (To make it simple, I'm sticking to just his second tenure as manager. I can't remember too much of his first go around, and I'm not sure that data is particularly valid at this point anyways.)

In terms of guys who are actually notable or experienced enough to get paid, there is only one this year who makes much over the minimum: Cecil at just over 2 million dollars a year. He's been good ever since Gibbons took over. Before that, there was Oliver (pitched about as well as expected), Francisco (actually had his last good season here, helping us net a draft pick if I remember correctly), and Cordero (sucked, rather predictably). Am I missing anyone? It's not like we've brought it any expensive arms, and the ones we did bring in weren't necessarily even that good.

Otherwise, I actually see a lot of success. Loup, Cecil, Janssen, McGowan, Juan and Luis Perez, Jenkins, Redmond, Wagner, Delabar, Sanchez, Hendricks, and now Osuna have all performed well under Gibbons. Several of those guys are pretty much nobodies, several are / were rookies or otherwise pretty green. There have been guys who have sucked too, but I think the successes have largely outweighed the failures.

cordero was under farrell. gibber only came back in 2013.


RP with 15+ip since then:

The Good

Cecil 139gms, 124.0ip, 2.83era, 1.9war
Janssen 106gms, 98.1ip, 3.20era, 1.3war
Loup 149gms, 151.2ip, 2.91era, 1.0war
Delabar 88gms, 88.0ip, 3.68era, 0.8war
Osuna 14gms, 18.1ip, 0.98era, 0.5war
Sanchez 24gms, 33.0ip, 1.09era, 0.5war

The Meh

Santos 55gms, 46.2ip, 4.82era, 0.3war
J.Perez 19gms, 31.2ip, 3.69era, 0.2war
Jenkins 29gms, 52.0ip, 2.42era, 0.2war
Redmond 47gms, 87.0ip, 3.93era, 0.2war
Wagner 46gms, 48.0ip, 4.69era, 0.1war
Oliver 50gms, 49.0ip, 3.86era, 0.1war

The Ugly

McGowan 70gms, 68.2ip, 3.01era, -0.3war
Lincoln 22gms, 31.2ip, 3.98era, -0.4war
Rogers 40gms, 51.2ip, 5.40era, -0.5war

The Good guys were all relative no names who found success under gibbons. that's pretty good.

of the Mehs i think getting useful innings out of jenkins and redmond is a real feather in gibbons' cap. and i won't hold santos and oliver against him given that they were simply toast.

the Uglys were all guys forced on him because they were out of options. he still managed to keep their overall eras acceptable with good usage. Rogers is the only one that's gone on to be even an acceptable replacement level RP since.

this year he seems to be having some success with no names like hendriks and tepera, and maybe even francis.

"I'm not sure where you're getting this, because when I look at the bullpen arms Gibbons has managed since he got here (again) in 2013"

And there's no reason to limit this to Gibby's 2nd tenure, considering he proved himself to be quite adept at handling a pitching staff the first time, which is why he was hired.

You can look at bullpen WPA for each of his tenures, and in both cases, it's a little below average, and mostly it is due to overuse.

Take last year's pen.  Over the All-Star break, Janssen comes down with a nasty infection that obviously has sapped him seriously.  Instead of recognizing that this made him unsuited for the closer's role (which often requires work back-to-back, or even 3 days in a row), Gibbons leaves him there.  He does have an option open to him.  Cecil is pitching well, and they have Loup for lefty work.  Sanchez arrives in late July and would have made a decent enough RH team with Redmond.  The best option would have to let Janssen have a DL stint and then bring him back gently.  A lesser but still defensible option would have been to given him a much more gentle workload without the closer role until he recovered.   Instead he's sent into back-to-back and back-to-back-to-back outings because Gibbons didn't trust Cecil enough.  Obviously, ownership/management could have helped out by picking up a reliever at the deadline but Gibbons did not make the most of the cards he was dealt. 

I noted this article on Fangraphs (and cited by Stoeten) yesterday Mike and it's a pretty crude measure of bullpen overuse, but the Jays currently rank 26th this year in frequency of using pitchers on zero days rest.

quite adept at handling a pitching staff the first time, which is why he was hired.

Is that why he was hired? I always thought it was because Anthopoulos was comfortable with him personally. Anyway, "quite adept" isn't exactly the phrase I would use to describe anything he does. His pitching staffs did indeed do well during his first tour, in unhappy contrast to what's transpired during the second time. I think there are two words that explain both aspects of that particular phenomenon and those words are "Roy Halladay." That said, with respect to running the staff in general and the bullpen in particular, I think Gibbons is always competent at the very least. He doesn't hurt the ball club. Which may not sound like much, but there's a lot of ways and opportunities to screw things up.

I don't think bullpen management has been a serious problem with this team for a long, long time. The only manager I can remember for whom bullpen management was a genuine weakness was Bobby Cox. And Cox did so many other things so very well that you were more than happy to have him around anyway.

That was probably way too kind (by omission!) to John Farrell, wasn't it?

oh god farrell was the worst. i have never seen a man lose the matchup battle every single time.

More than 0 days rest...need to watch out for too many days rest too.  Ideally a manager balances out the workload for pitchers so no one is worked too hard (ala Duane Ward in the early 90's, leading to his arm blowing out) or too lightly..  As not getting enough work will mean the pitcher won't be effective when he is called upon.

"In the end, it's Gibbons who winds up with the job. He fits into what Anthopoulos was looking for in a manager and has garnered a lot of praise in the past for his ability to manage a bullpen."

http://m.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article/40371532/

"As Anthopoulos said repeatedly during Tuesday's press conference, Gibbons is also excellent at managing a bullpen. During his first term in Toronto, he coaxed career seasons out of relievers B.J. Ryan, Jeremy Accardo, Scott Downs and Justin Speier. He also implemented successful platoons with several of his position players. The duo of Frank Catalanotto and Reed Johnson, for example, formed one of the most productive left-field combinations in baseball. Gregg Zaun and Bengie Molina also excelled sharing duties behind the plate."

http://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/baseball/opinion/2012/11/john-gibbons-is-gutsy-hire-for-blue-jays-gm.html

""I don’t know that there was anybody better in terms of managing a bullpen, connecting with the players, connecting with the front office, holding players accountable," Anthopoulos told a news conference. "Really everything you want in a manager. From my standpoint, I don’t have any stronger belief that this is the right guy to lead this team.""

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-hire-john-gibbons/

"What does not get talked about is how well Gibbons handled the pitching staff. A baseball manager really has only one baseball job — handling the staff. The rest is noise."

http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/2012/11/20/blue_jays_hire_john_gibbons_this_move_is_the_one_that_gives_me_the_most_hope_kelly.html

Here is what I believe.  By his in-game moves, a manager has a marginal impact on a team's performance over a season- a really bad manger can probably do more harm than a good manager can do good.  Let's say the scale is -4 (Jimy Williams) to +2 (Earl Weaver).  I think that Gibbons is about -1 based on the team's deficit vs. its Pythagorean record over his tenure and my own impressions of his moves.  Somebody else might think that he is a 0.  But if you think he's a +2, you're taking his clippings  too seriously. 

What started all this was the decision yesterday to warm up Hendriks in the 6th in a 2-2 game and then bring on Osuna in the 7th with the score 6-2 apparently because the 7th was his inning.  Do people really believe this is a good idea?

I honestly attribute AA's comments (above) as more of a 'this guy isn't absolutely clueless' (Farrell) than 'this guy is a genius'.

I like Gibby, but his teams do seem to under perform their pythagorean theorem. Do they not?

Seeing as how in the real standings you can only lose a game once, the pythagorean results and the ones that I read about in the paper should be more closely aligned after tonight, if the first two innings are any indication.

The Sanchez of late that could not be squared up is not at the park tonight. The Orioles are full value for their hits so far.

Sanchez's stuff is really quite impressive. But geez, he has no clue where the ball is going a lot of the time...

The Orioles just seem to have his number for whatever reason. Coming into this game, Sanchez has allowed five home runs, the Orioles have hit four of them in 13.1 innings. Take away Baltimore, he's only allowed 10 earned runs in 52 big league innings.

Five home runs in his entire major league career so far, of course.

The Book of Ezequiel may not include the story of tonight's game.

Someone knows why Valencia pinch-hit against a RHP. Please tell me.

Back during his first tour, I was very impressed by how Gibbons ran his various bullpens (I may have said I liked his work much better than Joe Maddon's, among other things.) I'd agree that Gibbons generally gets as much as is to be gotten from the various crews that have populated his pens. What the intervening regimes of Gaston and Farrell have reminded me is that it's much, much more important to get something out of your starting pitchers. Which is generally when I start missing Cito, of course.

That Melky Cabrera's no fool. After landing his big contract with the CWS, no way the Melkster's gonna be giving any of his bonanza up for a PED suspension. Instead, he's showing those White Sox fans what a .244/.298/.286 slash line looks like, along with a tidy 67 OPS+. Gotta like a guy with a business head on his shoulders. And to think we could have had that for a bargain 5/75.

One familiar sign that the Jays are having a disappointing season is the appearance of musings about bringing Cito back.

Getting out of the East for awhile will be a wonderful thing.

I think it was Mike Green who commented awhile back on how well the Yankees seemed to advance scout the Jays. I'd like to extend that to the entire division. 

There appears to be only thing that teams don't appear to be catching onto, (which is baffling).  Russell Martin is very, very good at throwing out runners. 28 attempts against him, and he's good for 46% of those caught stealing. Yadier Molina has only had 12 attempts, all season.
Granted, the opposition is running based on the delivery of the pitcher. You'd think they'd run less on Martin, though.
 

Re: Bringing back Cito one more time. It would be Brick, and Big Daddy from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. "Wouldn't it'd be funny, if it were true?"

Here's another way to look at it.  During Gibbons' tenure, the club is 137-106 in blowouts (5 runs + difference), including tonight and 112-140 in one-run games.  One can say that it's random bad luck and nothing to do with failure to optimize talent.  I would venture guess that there is no other manager who has had at least 200 blowouts with a winning percentage of .550 or higher and 200 one-run games with a a winning percentage of .450 or lower. 

The Book of Ezequiel may not include the story of tonight's game.

Does it prophesy the prophet return to Buffalo and Chris Dickerson return to the MLB ?

Once again, this team seems to be heading inexorably towards another mediocre, meaningless season - no pennant race, no playoffs - then we'll hear the excuses - but for the injuries (ignoring that most teams have to deal with the same problems) - This is really sapping the fandom out of me - John Gibbons epitomizes my frustration - how the FO can put their trust in a man who in 8 seasons as a manager has never had a team that exceeded preseason expectations is beyond me - When I have to listen to this guy, my head hurts and I want to punch something - His "it is what it is" attitude just rubs me the wrong way.

The subject of managers got me thinking, What have the Brewers learned about Adam Lind? Many in these parts would have counselled them to sit Lind against lefties. But they (both manager #1 and manager #2) seem adamant to find out for themselves whether someone who can hit RHP so well can do the same against LHP. You know, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary accumulated over many years.

Well, the career 588/865 Lind is sporting a 610/1011 split for the Brewers. He has started all but 2 games for the Brewers (good on him for the health record!), having sat against Lester and Kershaw. But 18% of his plate appearances continue to come against LHP.

Frankly, the same small sample argument that I used to dismiss Lind's earlier season success against LHP still applies (24 PA) now that he's no longer doing well. So he could turn it around. Brewer management may need more data to draw a firm conclusion. The 900+ career PA vs LHP may not be enough yet.

Once again, this team seems to be heading inexorably towards another mediocre, meaningless season - no pennant race, no playoffs - then we'll hear the excuses - but for the injuries (ignoring that most teams have to deal with the same problems) - This is really sapping the fandom out of me

Malaise forever.

Those stats in one-run vs. blowouts for Gibbons are very interesting. Is success in one-run games the true test of a manager's prowess? It sounds like a thing but I have nothing to back that up.

I agree with the general sense of malaise with the Gibbons regime. As much as we all like Gibbons and want to see him succeed (I genuinely do), at some point the rubber hits the road. Start finding ways to win. There are managers who have done a lot more with a lot less.

Is success in one-run games the true test of a manager's prowess?

Successful managers are always less successful in one-run games. Always. This is a law, so there are simply no exceptions. (It's because of the large part that luck plays in one-run games. They pull everyone in the direction of .500, dragging the good teams down and lifting the bad teams up.)

Over his managerial career, Gibbons' teams have underperformed - that is, they haven't won as many games as you would expect from the number of runs they scored and allowed. That's just a fact, but Gibbons' awful luck in one-run games (and this is something that I believe is mostly, if not entirely, a matter of luck) has a lot to do with it. Gibbons has managed fewer than 1000 MLB games, and his 2005 and 2008 teams were just dreadful in one-run games. It's enough to skew his record. His 2005 team went a historically awful 16-31 in one-run games - they were 64-51 the rest of the time. And while he was in the dugout in 2008, the Jays went 8-18 in one-run games for Gibbons (they were 27-21 the rest of the time under Gibbons, and 16-14 in one-run games under Gaston.)

But some of his teams have done just fine in one-run games. His 2006 team went 20-10, which is like finding a $20 dollar bill on the road.

Spot on. 

In further comment to your note above re: SP (and wanting Cito to help them): I have a hard time finding the SP as Gibbons fault this year.  He was asked to make it work with 2 veteran innings-eaters, 2 rookies, and 1 hopeful breakout candidate.  Really, all 5 have ended up with their "most likely outcome" to date.  Everyone has had some decent games, and some less than decent games.  This team was constructed to outhit their opponent, and hope the pitching holds up enough.  Despite the injuries on the bat side of the ledger, that's basically exactly what has happened, except bad luck has resulted in the pitching holding up at poor times (game situation wise), which has resulted in a 185-166 RD yet a losing record.  With average (ie, not good nor bad) luck, this team should be 3ish games over .500, and with "good" luck could easily be 6-7 games over. 

a team that exceeded preseason expectations

The only Blue Jays team of the current millennium that you can definitely say that about is the 2010 squad, Gaston's last team. He's never coming back, but I don't see how you can look at that team - the first year after trading Halladay for prospects - and not be impressed. (I mean, his closer was Kevin Gregg.) But the key to the whole thing was Gaston's touch with young starting pitchers. This was always by far his greatest strength as a manager, and it was always the trait least noticed by the world. The 2010 Opening Day starter was a 28 year old guy coming off Tommy John surgery. That was the the closest thing to a proven veteran in the house. The rest of the rotation was a bunch of kids 25 and younger, only one of whom (Romero) had spent as much as one season in a MLB rotation. The three kids in the rotation went 39-23 for him. The team won 85 games without Roy Halladay, and all we heard about at the time was Arencibia and Snider not getting enough at bats.

The team passed the baton to John Farrell. First Brett Cecil fell apart, and Ricky Romero started down the same path. The team passed the baton to Gibbons and Romero went completely to bits, and Brandon Morrow joined him (Gibbons did resurrect Cecil as a reliever). Fans will always talk and talk and talk about what the manager does with the pen. But your starters pitch twice as many innings.

The mathematics isn't entirely definitive, I'll grant.  If you see one-run games as a complete coin flip, the odds of so many tails (losses) over 250 tosses are between 6 and 7%.  But, if you see one-run games being typically a function of performance in other games heavily regressed to the mean (i.e. that the chance of a tail on any toss would be 48% or 49%), the chances of this many tails would be 1% or less.  The evidence is, I think, pretty clear that teams that have winning records in games other than one-run games tend to win more than 1/2 of them but less than they do in those other games.

The one-season comment is not relevant. It is not true that going 20-10 in one-run games over a season is like finding a $20 dollar bill.  It happens to one team or another often enough.  If you find it happening to the same team in successive seasons, you have your "finding a $20" case, and if you find it happening in three consecutive seasons, let me know.

"With average (ie, not good nor bad) luck, this team should be 3ish games over .500, and with "good" luck could easily be 6-7 games over."

Quite frankly, that's the attitude that allows the organization to get away with mediocrity every year - fans of virtually every team could make this type of argument - they remember games the team could have won with a timely hit or out, but forget the games that they should have lost by the same argument - I believe, as Bill Parcells famously said, " You are what your record says you are".

Yup - a .600 team tends to play .550 ball in one-run games; a .550 team tends to play .525 ball. It drags them towards .500, not right to it. And these teams are by definition better than .600 or .550 in the rest of their games.

One of the notions floating through my mind is that Gibbons' managerial career actually represents - wait for it - small sample size. Which is weird, but the lifesapan of a manager is perhaps something to be measured in eons, like the the planet. You will recall that Buck Showalter, in a longer career, had a pretty unimpressive record in one-run games until his 2012 Orioles team, all by themselves, got his career record level.

"That Melky Cabrera's no fool. After landing his big contract with the CWS, no way the Melkster's gonna be giving any of his bonanza up for a PED suspension. Instead, he's showing those White Sox fans what a .244/.298/.286 slash line looks like, along with a tidy 67 OPS+. Gotta like a guy with a business head on his shoulders. And to think we could have had that for a bargain 5/75."

The implication here is that Melky was on PEDs while he was a Blue Jay in order to boost his stats for a contract, but that he has now stopped because he's scared of a suspension and losing the money. Care to explain why he wasn't scared of losing any of his 8m per year while he was a Blue Jay, or do you just prefer to throw out baseless accusations because you're upset that a guy you claimed would be released when the Blue Jays signed him for 2/16 went on to produce and earn himself another contract?

I'd prefer to have a team that has a +20 RD with a 17-18 record through 35 games, than a 0 RD team with a 19-16 record through the same 35, in terms of "which team I expect to be better over the rest of the season", everything else equal.

I'd prefer to have a team that has a +20 RD with a 17-18 record through 35 games, than a 0 RD team with a 19-16 record through the same 35, in terms of "which team I expect to be better over the rest of the season", everything else equal.

Yes. Although the Jays real record being less than their Pythagorean is nothing new; they've done it for most of the last ten years.

It's true, Magpie, that Showalter had an uninspired record in one run games.  When he passed the 200 mark, he was at 108-118.  That could be bad luck (maybe that happens to teams that are somewhat above-average 5-10% of the time).  To get to where Gibbons is now, you'd have to go 4-22 in your next 26 games.  That is awfully bad luck. 

My own view is that sub-optimal game managing has an impact of perhaps about 2-3%.  So, a team that could be expect to win 51% of its one-run games, wins 48-49% of them instead.  If you take it that way, most of Gibbons' one-record is probably due to bad luck but a significant part of it is more likely due to sub-optimal game managing. 

Pitching and hitting.
The pitcher has control of the ball. Either it is a good pitch or a bad pitch. Some good pitches get hammered and you get away with some bad pitches.

You score runs when you are hitting ie at bat. I think Cito's strategy was to look for a certain pitch and swing hard, ie put a good swing when you get the pitch you were looking for. This, especially with runners in scoring position. So going for the walk was sort of secondary. I realize that I have not said this well enough.

the "luck" argument misses the point here, imo.

you cannot be a winning baseball team with starting pitching this horrendous. period.

in fact, i challenge anyone to find a) any stretch of 7 times thru the rotation with this kind of uniformly, irredeemably awful starting pitching and b) a strtch this terrible that has resulted in only one change to the rotation.

AA has to make significant rotation upgrade(s) yesterday.

Dickey and Buehrle are probably not going anywhere.  The result here is possibly just luck.
Sanchez will likely move to the bullpen when he has enough innings. Is that July? August?
Hutchison should be given a long leash. Still only 2 good performance out of 7.
Estrada? I think he gets at least another 3 starts before you replace him with... Randy Wolf? Chad Jenkins?
Yeah, maybe more than 3, (Wolf has an era of 1.00 after 6 starts in Buffalo).

How could it possibly be Jenkins?  The Jays have shown over the past few years that his value to the org lies in his optionable status.  He's great as an 8th/9th option out of the pen, and that's about it.

Norris is definitely plan A.  Beyond that???  I'm guessing we go out of the organization.  If Sanchez can't cut it in the rotation and we need 2 starters, we are crossing our fingers with a Doubront or Santana,  or plugging our noses for a Wolf / Estrada. 

I agree that every team has injuries but, man, losing Stroman before the season ever started was a real punch to the gut. He was primed to be our top pitcher, and removing him from the rotation caused a domino effect that landed Sanchez starting instead of relieving.( I guess ) If Stroman had pitched the games that Sanchez started, it might have resulted in 3 or 4 more wins. If Sanchez had been closing instead of Castro who started out great but faded, maybe another win or two. Of course, ifs win you nothing, but I would wager that with Stroman in the lineup, the Jays would be solidly in second place.
PS: Edwin is in the ZONE !

Hutchison is quickly becomIng the most frustrating pitcher to watch on this team for me.

That is all in between his ears. He just lost it completely for a couple of batters.

Island Boy, I agree - there's just no way you can make up for losing your best pitcher for the season in spring training. You not only miss him, but it dominoes through the whole pitching staff.

Given the respective depth on each side of the baseball on our team, losing Stroman was more damaging than losing Bautista would have been.

I suspect the Jays hope Norris can come back up soon, then Estrada and maybe Wolf cover starting slots if needed until mid-season when they hope Boyd or some other kid is ready.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Start Osuna.

Just saw your comment Ugly - I agree that come August, if his innings are reasonable, that starting Osuna might be the best card to play. Kid looks like a vet out there, I'm starting to think he could pull it off.