A lot to like in first week of stats
Baseball isn’t a game about which conclusions can be drawn based on small samples, but a week into spring training games, small samples are all we’ve got. So, what have we learned so far?
The Blue Jays have played six games, winning three, losing two and tying another. No hitter has had more than 10 at-bats, and only two pitchers have thrown more than two innings. It’s impossible to look at numbers that tiny and figure anything out, so instead of looking at results, at stat lines, we have to look a little deeper.
Robbie Ray has only made one appearance, but it was eye-opening. The lefty, who came over from Arizona in a deadline deal last year and was re-signed as a free agent this winter, started the second game of spring and threw two innings of one-run ball. The stunner is that of the 26 pitches he threw, only two missed the strike zone: an 0-1 changeup to Anthony Alford and a first-pitch fastball to Michael Perez, both in the second inning.
When the Jays acquired Ray last August, not only was he leading the major leagues in walks but he had issued 31 free passes in 31 innings of work with the Diamondbacks. He cleaned up those numbers somewhat with the Jays, but still walked 15 in 232⁄3 innings (including playoffs) for an ugly ratio of 5.7 walks per nine innings.
The key to unlocking Ray’s potential is getting him back in the strike zone. The last time he walked fewer than four batters per nine innings, which is a pretty low bar, was 2017, and he was an all-star. So far, all expectations have been well exceeded.
Cavan Biggio has had a notable early spring, too. He’s learning a new position, third base, and by all accounts has passed every test so far. More noteworthy, though, is that he seems to be trying out something different at the plate.
Biggio has an incredible eye, already among the best in the game. That strike-zone discipline has allowed him to see a lot of pitches, make opposing pitchers work deep in counts, and take a ton of walks early in his career. But it’s also earned him a reputation, and pitchers can try to take advantage by sneaking in a first-pitch strike, believing he’ll take it more often than not. In 265 plate appearances last season, Biggio swung at the first pitch only 17.7 per cent of the time.
Biggio was the Jays’ leadoff man in their first Grapefruit League game, at the Yankees, and he swung at the first pitch of the spring season, flying out to left. He’s since come to the plate nine more times, and taken a hack at the first offering in three of those plate appearances. That might not seem like much, but swinging at the first pitch 40 per cent of the time is a real departure for Biggio, and it sends the message that if you throw him a get-me-over cookie to start an at-bat thinking it’s an automatic take, he’s ready to punish it.
Rowdy Tellez has made a big early impression this spring, returning to the doubles-machine ways of his September call-up back in 2018, when he smacked nine two-baggers in just 70 at-bats. The lefty slugger, fighting for playing time, had four doubles in nine atbats in the first week of spring, but more important than the results is how he’s getting there.
Tellez, as he is wont to do, is hitting the ball awfully hard. In every game in which he’s put a ball in play this spring (he struck out twice in two at-bats against the Yankees on Wednesday), he’s had at least one of the three hardest-hit balls of any Jay. His two doubles against the Yankees in the spring opener were the secondand third-hardest hit balls of the game. His double against the Pirates the next day, also more than 100 miles per hour off the bat, was the hardest-hit ball by a Jay.
In Friday’s win over the Orioles, Tellez’s first-inning double wasn’t hit especially hard, but it came on an 0-2 back-foot slider below the strike zone. That’s a pitch that, more often than not over the course of his brief career, Tellez has chased and struck himself out on.
Finally, even if real conclusions can’t yet be drawn, the most eye-popping performances of the spring came in that Wednesday win over the Yankees from two young pitchers who are looked upon as major pieces of the Blue Jays’ future rotation. Simeon Woods Richardson, the key return in the Marcus Stroman trade, and Alek Manoah, the Jays’ firstround pick in 2019, each threw two shutout innings under the lights at Steinbrenner Field, combining to allow only one hit.
The big deal is that these two kids, who have never pitched above A-ball (though both were at the Blue Jays’ alternate training site last season), were facing the Yankees’ regular starters. They stared down reigning batting champ D.J. LeMahieu, former MVP Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge et al. Gleyber Torres, a two-time all-star, was the only Yankee in the lineup who hasn’t been in the big leagues at least five seasons.
There aren’t many true tests in spring training, but that was definitely one for both Manoah and Woods Richardson. They both passed with flying colours and, if they weren’t sure before, they know now that they can get big-time big-leaguers out.
Spring training numbers are fool’s gold most of the time, but that’s as real as it gets.