Earlier the Drunks told us it was likely that the Jays would announce tomorrow that they would play an exhibition game in Montreal and now Shi Davidi tells us:

#BlueJays are expected to announce tomorrow plans for two spring games versus #Mets at Montreal's Olympic Stadium next year.

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) September 9, 2013

Having just been in Montreal and at the Big O, I can tell you that they have their work cut out for them to get that place ready for major league baseball. It is a very depressing place, Olympic Stadium that is, not Montreal. Montreal was great, if you haven't been, you really should. And the train ride from Montreal to Ottawa was very nice. We should all make the trip to see those games.

Personally. I don't see why they don't just tear down that place, it is an ugly, costly, concrete mausoleum. But I think it is a good thing that the Jays play in Montreal and there isn't really anywhere else they could play. I'd love to go down there for the games. Don't expect the roof to be open though, it doesn't anymore, but with the number of tears in the roof, it might seem like it is open.

As a former Expos fan, I do have a bit of a hate for the Mets, since the Expos, in one of their dumber moves, traded Gary Carter to the them for the baseball equivalent of a bag of shinny beads. But then, Montrealers might storm the field if the opponent was the Nationals.

Anyway, great news for baseball in Montreal. It would be nice of the Jays would play a couple of spring games a year in different cities across Canada. I'm sure they would fill Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver. I'd love an exhibition game here in Calgary, though spring weather is too unpredictable here in March.

Great move Blue Jays. It will be the first major league ball in Montreal since the Expos last season, back in 2004. Time flies.

The Toronto Blue Jays will play a pair of spring training games in Montreal next season, reports Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.

Toronto will host the New York Mets at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. An official announcement is expected on Tuesday, according to Davidi.

The games will be held at the end of the pre-season; the Blue Jays closed out their 2013 spring training with two games in Philadelphia against the Phillies. It will mark the first time MLB has been back to Olympic Stadium since the Expos moved to Washington, changing their names to the Nationals after the 2004 season.

The Blue Jays, the only MLB team currently in Canada, have attempted to start building a country-wide fanbase. The team held an amateur baseball clinic during the off-season at the Rogers Centre, reaching out to 375 coaches from nine of the 10 provinces. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star complimented the clinic, writing:

The plan of creating a larger fan base by increasing youth and coaching participation has yet to yield results, but the Jays seem to finally understand the big picture when it comes to building a Canadian foundation for a sustainable future.

Playing a pair of games in Montreal is likely born of the same big-picture plan, attempting to get different fans a chance to watch a Blue Jays game in person.

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Shi Davidi of Sportsnet Canada is reporting that the Mets and Blue Jays will meet up in Montreal at the end of the 2014 spring training schedule. New York and Toronto will face off in two exhibition games at resplendent Olympic Stadium, marking the first time Major League Baseball of any kind will be played in Montreal since the Expos relocated to DC after the 2004 season.

As you may recall, Bud Selig couldn't wait for MLB to abandon Montreal, so much so that he allowed Jeff Loria to run the Expos into the ground and awarded him the Marlins for his service. So why are these games happening? Basically, it's because the Blue Jays want to expand their reach and lay claim to the title of Canada's Team. Getting a foothold in Montreal—the second-largest city in the country and still home to a baseball fan or two—would surely help accomplish that goal. The Blue Jays have had their sights on the city for a while; Davidi reminds us that Toronto team president Paul Beeston publicly expressed interest in seeing the Blue Jays play in Montreal two years ago.

The Mets made many a trip to Montreal over the years, as they played in the NL East for the entirety of the Expos' existence. Shea Stadium was the site of both the first game the Expos ever played (an opening day 11-10 victory for Montreal on April 8. 1969) and the last (an 8-1 loss to the Mets on October 3, 2004).

It is Joey Hamilton's 43rd birthday today (it is also my middle son's birthday. It is nice of the Jays to have the day off so we can go out for supper and not miss the game. Happy Birthday Tommy).

Joey came to the Jays in one of the worst trades of the Gord Ash era. The Jays traded Woody Williams, Carlos Almanzar and Peter Tucci to get Joey from San Diego. Apparently Dave Stewart gave him a strong recommendation after coming to the Jays to be assistant GM having been the Padres pitching coach the season before. Stewart had played with Joey and saw something in his eyes or some stupid thing like that, and figured he would be a star. It does explain why Stewart wasn't promoted to GM.

In their defense, in his 4 full seasons with the Padres, Joey had averaged over 200 innings a season putting up a 55-44 record and a 3.83 ERA with them.

On the other hand, the season before the trade, Joey led the NL in walks, and he never did strikeout many. Ash should have been able to see that a pitcher that had a 1.39 strikeout to walk ratio didn't profile as someone that would do well in the AL East.

His first year as a Jay he went 7-8 with a 6.52 ERA in 18 starts. The next season, 2000, he was on the DL most of the year making only 6 starts for the team. In 2001 Joey was 5-8 with a 5.89 ERA when the team released him on August 3rd. It is tough to release a guy you are paying $7.25 million to, but JP had no trouble admitting Gord Ash's mistakes.

All in all the Jays paid $17 million for 14 wins. Not exactly what you would want from someone you figured would replace Roger Clemens.

"I think he's just coming into his own," Stewart said. "What I like about Joey is that he is a real, real strong competitor. And, I still think there's room for growth."
"We have in Joey Hamilton a pitcher who can go in the front end of our rotation," Toronto general manager Gord Ash said.

Woody Williams went on to win 104 more games in his career. Almanzar had a couple of decent seasons in an up and down career and Tucci never made the big leagues. And Gord Ash was fired.

Joey was picked up by the Reds and pitched there for the rest of the 2001 season, 2002 and made 3 appearances for them in 2003 before being let go. As a Red he went 5-12 with a 5.90 ERA in 46 games, 21 starts.

For his career he was 74-73 with a 4.44 ERA in 242 games, 209 starts, all in all a pretty good career, just that the good times happened before the Jays got him.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Joey. Hope it is a good one.

The Vancouver Canadians (short-season A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays) are seeking to win back-to-back-to-back Northwest League Championships tonight in the deciding game against the Boise Hawks (Cubs' affiliate).

Tonight's Game Three is SOLD OUT! #BeatBoise

— Vancouver Canadians (@vancanadians) September 9, 2013

Audio Stream

Thanks MjwW

Vancouver: Team 1410 with Rob Fai

Boise: Mike Safford

It was a winner-take-all game down in Vancouver, game three of the three-game Northwest League Championship Series, and take all was what the Canadians did. They blanked the Boise Hawks 5-0 to win their third-straight championship ring. Incidentally, they started winning championships the year they affiliated with the Blue Jays. It was a tight, well-pitched game throughout and was one of the most exciting games I've listened or watched all season, in any level of baseball. It was definitely worth staying up for.

Vancouver took an early lead with some help from the Boise Hawks defense. Chaz Frank, the second batter of the third, hit a sharp grounder to Hawks shortstop Danny Lockhart who had trouble handling it. The official scorer called it a single out of compassion, as young Lockhart had already committed two-out throwing errors in the first and second innings. A fielder's choice exchanged Frank and Andy Fermin (son of Felix) on the base paths. With two outs, Mitch Nay singled to right.

Then 2013 14th-round pick L.B. Dantzler, who hit a walk-off single for the South Carolina Gamecocks last year, drove in Fermin and Nay to make it a 2-0 game. Fermin's run, it turned out, was the only one the Canadians needed. Dantzler's hit was helped out by Hawks centre fielder Kevin Encarnacion, who judged the ball terribly, running in only to watch the fly ball go over his head. A fun story about L.B. Dantzler: his birth name was Bradley Richard Dantzler, but according to GatorJay everyone kept on calling him L'il Brad (his father was also named Bradley) so it stuck.

Boise's defense cost them dearly, recording five official errors, plus the aforementioned miscues from Lockhart and Encarnacion. Boise starter Mike Wagner and reliever Matt Iannazzo pitched quite well.

Canadians starter Tom Robson, who hails from Lander, BC, was given the task to pitch the big game in front of a hometown crowd and did not disappoint. The 20-year old right-hander was the Blue Jays' fourth-round pick in the 2011 draft. After giving up some hard-hit balls to start the game, Robson settled down and retired 12 Hawks in a row after giving up a leadoff single in the third and a leadoff double in the seventh inning. Robson hit 94-95 mph with his fastball in the game, still reaching 92 in the seventh, rare numbers in the Northwest League.

Robson was lucky, Encarnacion's fly out in the sixth went to the warning track and Rony Rodriguez's double in the seventh came within inches from going over the wall. He also got some help from his shortstop Dawel Lugo, who showed off the power of this right arm on a Shawon Dunston grounder.

Robson left the game with Rodriguez at third having gotten one out in the seventh to a standing ovation at Nat Bailey Stadum. Watching the game live, expos&nordiques4ever reported that Robson kept his game face on as he walked off, not even cracking a smile. Robson's final line: 6.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 K, 0 BB. MjwW counted 84 pitches from Robson, right around the 80-85 pitch limit he was prescribed before the game.

Left-handed reliever Alonzo Gonzalez stranded Robson's runner on third with two strikeouts to end the inning. In the next inning, Gonzalez walked Jordan Hankins but Lance Rymel hit into a 4-6-3 double play right before a Dunston base hit. That double play was key to prevent a Hawks comeback.

Michael Reeves drove in the Canadians' third run in the bottom of the eighth inning when he doubled in Dawel Lugo, who had a double himself.  Ian Parmley provided some offense from the bottom of the order, driving in two on a single to make it 5-0.

With the game well in hand, the Canadians just had to get three more outs, and manager Clayton McCullough called on closer Chuck Ghysels. He came out and struck out Lockhart and Rodriguez to enormous cheers. With Canadians--and Blue Jays--fans breathing hard everywhere, Ghysels threw the final pitch of the game, and the season, to Jacob Rogers, who hits it to shortstop Lugo, who then threw it to first baseman Dantzler for the final out. The final out of the game can be seen here.

The 5000-strong crowd at Nat Bailey sounded like they had a great time. They were chanting players' names, clapping, and got loud when they needed to. Vancouver is far and it costs quite a bit to get to, but one day soon I have to make my way out there to watch a game. I expect another great write-up from expos&nordiques4ever to complement this one!

Celebration Pictures

@vancanadians#4peatin14 Clayton celebrates with Lugo pic.twitter.com/zZ985bnKf7

— Charlie Caskey (@CharlieCaskey) September 10, 2013

@vancanadians#4peatin14 Chuck and LB celebrate after dousing McCullough with gatorade pic.twitter.com/UqKSFXBqdO

— Charlie Caskey (@CharlieCaskey) September 10, 2013

@vancanadians#4peatin14 Clayton shows off his new tye died pants pic.twitter.com/CML0oI65Ga

— Charlie Caskey (@CharlieCaskey) September 10, 2013

@vancanadians#4peatin14 3-peat, 'nuff said pic.twitter.com/haSisUSgyy

— Charlie Caskey (@CharlieCaskey) September 10, 2013

@vancanadians#4peatin14 And lastly, the #legendpic.twitter.com/OmIcUuJe1E

— Charlie Caskey (@CharlieCaskey) September 10, 2013

Tom Tango wants your help.

Baseball's fans are very perceptive. Take a large group of them, and they can pick out the final standings with the best of them. They can forecast the performance of players as well as those guys with rather sophisticated forecasting engines. Bill James, in one of his later Abstracts, had the fans vote in for the ranking of the best to worst players by position. And they did a darn good job.

He is crowd sourcing scouting reports. He folks see all the games, you have opinions, so go give him a hand and give your opinion on the Blue Jays.

It's a cool idea. I'm sure you all have your ideas on who has the strongest arm on the team. Who has the best baseball instincts.

There is the question for the day, of the guys currently on the roster, who has the best baseball instincts?

Anyway, go over and rate the Jays for Tango.

The MLB has released the 2014 schedule.

Our Blue Jays start the season on March 31 at Tampa Bay, the start of a 4 game series there. Hopefully our luck there will be better than in the past. That makes the games in Montreal a lot tougher, the Jays will be flying from Dunedin and then have to fly back to Tampa Bay right after the 2 games in Montreal. I'm sure some of the regulars will skip that trip. The games in Montreal are March 28-29, a Friday Saturday.

Our first home game is April 4, against the Yankees. It is an 8 game home stand, the second three games is against the Astros. Then it's on the road for 9 games, heading to Baltimore, Minneapolis and Cleveland. Our first chance to boo John Farrell comes April 25.

Other highlights:

• Our first inter league games start May 2 in Pittsburgh for 3 games, then we play 2 in Philadelphia and then host the Phillies for 2.
• Canada Day (July 1) sees the Brewers in town for the first of 2 games. After the second game the Jays fly to Oakland for 4 games against the A's, giving them the chance to see July 4th fireworks.
• They don't play on the August 4th Civic holiday, but we start a home stand, against the Orioles and the Tigers, the next day. I would think they would like to play on the holiday, but then they are flying back from Houston that day.
• The Jays also have Labour Day off and Victoria Day.
• We finish the season with a 7 game home stand, 4 games against the Mariners and our final 3 against the Orioles.
• The AL Wild Card game is on October 2. The ALCS on the 4th.
• Our NL opponents are the Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Reds, Pirates and Phillies.
• The Jays game at Seattle aren't' on a weekend, cutting the number of Canadians that can make the trip. If you are marking your calendar,
• The Bisons home opener is April 3 vs. Rochester.
• The Jays have all 4 Mondays off in April.
• Don't plan a trip to Toronto in early July, Jays don't play there from July 3 to the 17th, with a road trip and the All-Star break.

Take a look and tell us what you think of next year's schedule.

The Angels come into town tonight to battle with the Blue Jays in a battle of teams that were apparently overhyped before the season began. Jerome Williams will face off against Mark Buehrle in the opener at 7:00. Williams has a 4.60 ERA this season and has been a serviceable back end rotation/bullpen guy.

Williams throws either a four-seam, sinker, or cut fastball 75% of the time. With changeups, sliders, and curveballs making up the rest. His hard stuff sits mid to low 90's, while his slider and curveball both sit around the 80 mph mark. The 31-year-old right hander gets a fair amount of whiffs with his changeup and slider, but he mainly pitches to contact with his fastballs.

Williams pounds the outside half with his tricky little cutter as you can see:

via www.fangraphs.com

This also exists, which is nice:

via mlb.mlb.com

For the "Find the Link" today:

Find the link between Jerome Williams and Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Enjoy the game.

Blue Jays infielder Ryan Goins wasn't on anyone's top-prospects list heading into the season, probably because, despite his hitting a soft .314 in 52 major-league plate appearances, it's not at all clear that he has a major league-quality bat -- when you hit .257/.311/.369 as a 25-year-old at Triple-A, it doesn't leave a lot to dream on. Goins was a little better at Double-A last year (.289/.342/.403), but it looks like he's going to be a confirmed No. 9 hitter in the majors. He might play anyway, because the minor-league shortstop has been a revelation at second base.

Small-sample caveats abound in the following discussion, but then Goins' brief track record is what makes him so intriguing. Though he's played just 15 big-league games heading into Tuesday's action, he's already in the American League top 25 of BIS's defensive runs saved metric with eight. He trails Dustin Pedroia, Elliot Johnson, Brian Dozier, and Ian Kinsler, but only because they've had more playing time -- prorated to 1,200 innings, Goins clocks in at a ridiculous 80 runs saved. Total Zone's fielding runs are a bit less generous, but still see his prorated total as a strong 27 runs, which would make him the best defensive infielder in the AL.

There is no telling if Goins will be able to keep up this kind of defensive production over a full season, or if what we're seeing is something of a statistical, observational, or even distributional fluke -- which is to say that an unlikely number of balls have been hit towards second base in Goins' short time in the bigs. That happens sometimes; Bill James has written about how 1980s Braves infielder Glenn Hubbard was viewed as a superman in some early attempts at defensive rankings because no adjustment was made for the fact that he played behind a team of low-strikeout ground-ball pitchers. It wasn't so much that he had spectacular range (though he was a good fielder) as he was just having a high volume of balls hit in his general direction.

You might be tempted to guess that is what is happening with Goins and the Jays -- Jays' pitchers, led by Mark Buehrle, are a bit on the high side for grounders -- except that Goins' glove passes the eye test. Given just a couple of weeks to work with, MLB.com has already amassed a small collection of Goins' highlights. For example, here he is robbing Oswaldo Arcia of a hit:

Here he is ranging into short right field to deny Alex Gordon:

Here he is saving J.P. Arencibia from a possible throwing error and finishing a strike-'em-out/throw-'em-out double play through sheer athletic ability:

Following are three double plays started by other infielders, but Goins is the pivot man on each, and he is fast. First, Jose Reyes starts one on a slowly-hit grounder:

Then note him dig out Brett Lawrie's low throw after the third baseman makes a great diving stop:

Finally, here he is making a game-ending double play out of yet another grounder that wasn't necessarily hit hard enough for it to be automatic:

Given all of that and more like it, Goins' defensive strengths don't seem like a fluke. He could be the rare second baseman-artist out there -- the Picasso of the Keystone. He has to be -- his bat might not be enough to keep him out there if he slips to sub-Picasso status and becomes, say, the Norman Rockwell of the Keystone. That's something that will wait for next year. In the meantime, Goins has given the Jays a nice little asterisk at the end of what has been a long and disappointing season -- *something to get excited about.

More from SB Nation MLB:

• Dodgers close to signing another Cuban star

• Pirates clinch first winning season since 1992

• Jorge De La Rosa and Cy Young consideration

• Bryce Harper's MRI shows no damage

• Koji Uehara's hidden perfect game

Final Score: Angels 12 Blue Jays 6

In Toronto Tuesday night, Mark Trumbo became the first Angel to ever have five hits and score five runs in a game, Josh Hamilton drove in four runs, the Angels had 18 hits and ...OH CANADA!!!

Erick Aybar started the scoring in the top of the first inning with a solo home run, his sixth of the season. Hamilton hit his twentieth of the year and it only seems like he has hit about six homers, right? Chris Iannetta hit his ninth home run and every Angels starter had at least one hit except an 0-6 Colin Cowgill.

Jerome Williams had a four run cushion to work from before he ever threw a pitch but far be it from him to accept a gift. It was 4-4 after two complete with Jerome looking his recent sweaty bad self on the mound. But the bats just kept coming, putting up a run in the third to take the lead for good and three runs in the fifth and six innings. Jays starter Mark Buerhle bore the brunt of all that, allowing eight earned runs.

These were the bats we thought we'd see all season. Kinda bittersweet but we dine on bluebird tonight. Light That Baby Up!

Angels 12 Blue Jays 6

Only reporting the positive will  be quick tonight:

• Anthony Gose hit a grand slam home run and also had a nice bunt single, as much as I'm not a fan of 2 out bunt singles. Who thought he could hit a grand slam. His other MLB home runs was a 3 run shot.
• Ricky Romero pitched a very good inning and then a not so good inning. In the latter one, he gave up 2 singles and a walk, which added up to a run, in part because Rajai Davis missed picking up a gently bouncing ball. Someone has to tell Rajai to keep his head in the game. I'd have pulled him out after that play, even though we didn't have another outfielder, because of Kevin Pillar DHing. I think it would make the point to Davis even better if they put Kawasaki in his spot. Ricky's first inning was quick, a ground ball hit back to him, a strikeout and a ground out to short. In another nice moment, he got Mike Trout to fly out after a long at bat in his second inning.
• Brett Lawrie, Moise Sierra and Gose each went 2 for 4. Rajai hit a solo homer.

That was about it for positives.

Mark Buehrle was hit hard and often. 4 innings, 12 hits, 8 earned, 1 walk, 2 k and 3 homers. He's been so good lately that we can allow him the one poor start, I guess. But, 8 extra base hits is a little excessive. He gave up 4 runs in the first inning, then Gose tied things with his grand slam in the 2nd. Mark gave up the lead right by giving up a double and a single to start the next inning. Then back-to-back homers followed by back-to-back doubles in the 5th put us down by 4.

Chad Jenkins came in and gave up 3 more runs in his two innings of work. Luis Perez pitched a scoreless 9th, whoops I guess that could have been in the positives.

Also on the bad side: we committed two errors. Anthony Gose, trying to throw out a runner at the plate, threw way over J.P. Arencibia's head. Why can't we have an outfield that can hit a target? And we already talked about Rajai's blunder. Gibby better have him on the bench tomorrow.

Though not an official error, Brett Lawrie fielded a ground ball, but looked twice to make sure Kole Calhoun at second wasn't moving up, and didn't throw to first in time to get Grant Green at first base.

Also on the negative side, Reyes was (0 for 5), Goins (0 for 4) and Pillar (0 for 4 with an RBI).

And more negatives:

Gibbons pre-game thinks Arencibia throws better as a catcher from his knees and has no problem with it #bluejays

— Richard Griffin (@RGriffinStar) September 11, 2013

You have got to be kidding me Gibby.

Jays of the Day Gose (.242). Suckage Buehrle (-.565).

In the GameThread, 30 of us put up 437 comments. I led the way, because of some need to share the pain of watching that game.

One of the great things about baseball is its continued unpredictability in the face of so many advanced statistical forecasting efforts. In a particular game J.P. Arencibia might play the role of offensive hero while Edwin Encarnacion might wear a golden sombrero and look utterly lost at the plate. Adam Lind has been known to hit home runs off left handed pitching and Ryan Goins can come up and be a top notch player for a stretch, despite struggling to hit at the AAA level. In short, anything is possible. Of course, the larger the sample size becomes the less inexplicable the events become and over time Edwin will prove himself to be a far better hitter than J.P., Lind will uselessly flail away at lefties most of the time, and in all likelihood Ryan Goins is a Triple A player or utility man. Even so, there are plenty of times when the most advanced projection systems are way off as players or teams rise from the shadows or fall vastly below expectations. At the moment Chris Davis and Josh Donaldson are 4th and 5th in the major leagues in WAR, there's not a projection system that had that one in their preseason predictions, or should have for that matter.

The Blue Jays have both benefited enormously and been hurt immensely by the unpredictable nature of baseball in recent years. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion both became stars in their late twenties when there was no reason to believe that would be the case. Bautista projected to be a useful-ish utility man while Encarnacion was an interesting, but not inspiring bat, with serious defensive limitations. The core of this team's offense is based on breakouts that the front office couldn't possibly have predicted. On the flip side, the Blue Jays had a young, solid, cost effective starter in Ricky Romero who fell off the side of the earth. This year they added a pitcher who had ranged from amazing to above average his entire career, Josh Johnson, who then produced a career best 9.18 K/9 and a 3.59 xFIP but paired that with a 6.20 ERA and a 2-8 record (for those who care about that sort of thing). This has been a season where not a single major projection system saw Toronto as a below .500 team and many thought they were a playoff team. In the midst of all the chaotic unpredictability that has been the Toronto Blue Jays of late, especially in 2013, there has been a single beacon of stability and certainty: Mark Buehrle.

Although Mark Buehrle was not the most heralded addition to the Blue Jays from "The Trade" he was one that, despite a hefty price tag, Blue Jays fans felt fairly comfortable about. While there were some injured concerns about Josh Johnson and Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle was Mr. Dependable. Buehrle pitched 200+ innings every year between 2001 and 2012. He has a career ERA of 3.82 and in his 12 seasons as a starter before this year he has been with 0.50 of that ERA in 10 of them. He has a career FIP of 4.13 and has similarly been within 0.50 of that mark in 10 of the 12 seasons between 2001 and 2012. This year, well on the way to extending his streak of 200 inning seasons, Mark Buehrle has been vintage Mark Buehrle (Disclaimer: all stats to follow are going into last night's nightmare start):

Those numbers are pretty staggeringly similar. In fact, you might say that this is a victory for predictability and logic over all the chaos in baseball. It would be an overstatement, but you might say it. I don't know; I don't know you very well.

The problem is that in the midst of this order is one rather surprising anomaly. Sticking out like a sore thumb in the line above is the fact that Mark Buehrle's strikeout rate is well above his career average. If he were to maintain his 6.17 K/9 it would be a career high for his years as a starter. That would be a pretty rare feat for someone this far along in their career. The chart below shows a trend in Buerhle's strikeouts over the last four years.

Getting older and losing ticks on your fastball is very rarely a recipe for more strikeouts, making this case fairly peculiar. However, there are a couple of factors in play here that mitigate these results. The first is the low starting point. Buehrle's 4.24 K/9 mark in 2010 is quite a bit below his career average so we can expect some regression to the mean right off the top. He did have only 4.43 K/9 in 2009 so at the time there was probably reason to expect his K's were coming down, but let's assume the 2010 was just an off year for Buehrle striking out batters.

If we make that assumption then 2011 was a bump back up to a more reasonable number. That brings us to 2012, which we can also sort of explain away. In 2012 Buehrle moved to the National League and perhaps that accounts for his leap forward in strikeouts. At this point a narrative is starting to come together to explain this course of events. It is based on two assumptions, which is inherently dangerous, but the assumptions are both fairly reasonable.

Even if we can explain what happened between 2010 and 2012 with some level of confidence, I would say a fairly low level of confidence, 2013 doesn't make any sense. In 2013 Buehrle returned to the American league to pitch in a division with three teams in the bottom half of the league in strikeout rate and three of the top four in wOBA. This is not an easier situation to pitch in; this is not an easier situation to accumulate strikeouts in and Buehrle is getting older and losing velocity. Yet he is still striking out more batters. We have a full blown mystery on our hands. I will grant that the mystery of why a 34 year old pitcher who has always been below average at striking out batters is becoming slightly less below average is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's my cup of tea so away we go.

The Mystery of Mark Buehrle's Rising Strikeout Rate

One of the easiest ways that one could attempt to address this mystery is by seeing if the culprit is context rather than any change in Buehrle. It is no secret that strikeout rates league wide are on the rise, so it's possible that this phenomenon is just a mirage caused by a changing context. However, a quick perusal of the raw data shows that this is not the case:

For those who prefer a most visual representation here's the same data on a graph:

via FanGraphs

The MLB average in strikeouts is making a steady climb, but Buehrle is moving upwards at a much quicker rate. The league average for strikeouts by starting pitchers hasn't really moved since 2012 and Buerhle's strikeouts have increased despite entering a more difficult situation. The cause of this change is not the league wide pitching climate.

When trying to determine the source of new strikeouts my first inclination is to look at swinging strike rate. If a pitcher can miss bats it's more likely that they can strike batters out. The vast majority of strikeouts are swinging strikeouts so it seemed as good a place as any to start. Unfortunately, the results do not explain very much:

While it's true that Buehrle's swinging strike rate has been on the rise over the last four years it has never risen seriously above his career rate. His current swinging strike percentage is actually below his career average even though his K/9 is 0.99 higher.

If batters aren't swinging and missing more perhaps Buehrle is getting more called strikeouts. Called strikeouts aren't always considered a skill, although some pitchers like Vance Worley and Clay Bucholtz have demonstrated a consistent ability to get them. Whether one considers a spike in called strikeouts to be luck or skill based, it could account for Buehrle's rising strikeout rate. The only problem is that it doesn't:

If anything Buehrle has been relying less and less on the called strikeout over the last couple of seasons. So we have a pitcher with his strikeouts going up without an increase in swinging strike percentage or called strikeouts. The whole thing is quite the quandary. If hitters aren't whiffing more against Buehrle and they aren't getting called out more then what is it?

The only remaining thing I could think of was that while overall whiffs remained similar to career norms, Buehrle might be getting more whiffs specifically in two strike counts.This explanation could make his increase in strikeouts to make sense. Thanks to Brooks Baseball it's possible to find out if that was the case:

It seems that over the last four years Buehrle has done a better and better job getting those whiffs exactly when they are needed most, with two strikes. Even though the difference between 2012 and 2013 isn't enormous we see that it amounts to five more strikeouts for Buehrle in fewer opportunities.

That in and of itself isn't an entirely satisfactory conclusion. We know that Buehrle is getting more two strike whiffs than ever, but we don't know how this is happening. To dig a little deeper I looked at pitch type data to see if there is any particular pitch that Buehrle is doing the damage with when he's gotten batters to two strikes. I've divided the pitches into the three categories used by Brooks Baseball: Hard, Breaking and Off-Speed. In Buehrle's case "Hard" (the quotation marks are especially appropriate in his case) pitches are fastballs and cutters, "Breaking" pitches are sliders and curveballs and "Off-Speed" pitches are changeups:

One interesting outlier here is Buehrle's success on breaking pitches in 2012, but given that it comes from the smallest sample size here and it's been fluctuating without any sort of pattern it's hard to make anything of it. Beyond the breaking balls what is truly of interest is Buehrle's increasing success getting batters to whiff on two strike changeups. This year Buerhle has made hitters strike out swinging against the pitch over twice as many times than in 2010 with 12 fewer pitches thrown. It's hard to be absolutely certain of these things, but it appears that Buehrle's ability to put hitters away with his changeup is the driving force behind his boost in strikeouts in 2013 despite his declining velocity and the fact he is pitching in the most difficult division he's ever pitched in.

Although I feel like the mystery is solved in a sense, I couldn't begin to tell you why Buehrle's changeup has been more effective this year with two strikes. Here are some of the properties of the pitch over the last four years that one would think might affect the success of the pitch:

That just looks like a big noisy mess. From there the trail pretty much runs cold. As far as I'm concerned that's OK.

Consider the premise of this post. On the surface, the most predictable and consistent player on the Blue Jays appears to be having the same season he has every single year. However, there is one exception. He is striking out more batters than ever, still fewer than average mind you, at an age and in a situation where that seems exceptionally unlikely. After a fairly in depth investigation of how this might be the case I come to the conclusion that this is due to more success than ever throwing his changeup with two strikes. However, there's nothing about his changeup that seems particularly different. The movement and velocity is basically the same. I didn't address this above (I figured by this point no one wants to see a bunch of pictures of the same thing) but he's still throwing it low and away to right handed batters, same as always. To summarize: Even the most predictable player can do an unpredictable thing and even if you can find out how it is coming about that's no guarantee you can figure out how he's doing it.

That kind of uncertainty can really get under your skin, and as someone who likes to explore the quantitative aspect of baseball sometimes it can be unrewarding to be unable to find the answers I seek. However, it's not realistic be able to find all the answers, nor should one want to. Baseball's foray into advanced statistical analysis is in many ways a war on uncertainty and a quest for knowledge, but without that same uncertainty the quest itself would be over. Once the map gets filled in there's not much work for explorers anymore. I enjoy that quest; both as a participant and as a consumer, and I wouldn't want it to end. For some, there could be nothing less interesting than why an old pitcher who has never been good at striking out batters is now slightly better at doing so. I absolutely understand that. For me, it's a blank spot on the map.

Left-hander C.J. Wilson takes on R.A. Dickey tonight in a battle of pitchers with initials as their first name. Wilson was the Angels' new toy last year after he agreed to a 5-year $77.5 million deal departing from division rivals Texas with Josh Hamilton in tow a year later. Wilson has been okay in Anaheim, posting a 3.42 ERA this year and a 3.57 FIP with a low HR/9 of 0.68. His contract is heavily backloaded and in his age 35 season in 2016, he'll earn a cool $20 million so Angels fans will be hoping he continues to be at least a middle of the rotation starter for many years.

Wilson throws a fastball, sinker, cutter, curveball, slider, and changeup sitting mid 90's with his hard stuff. His slider is his best off-speed pitch and he throws it a lot with two strikes getting a high amount of whiffs with it. His movement really is all over the place and he has numerous different ways to attack people:

He's also changed his release point from last year to this year and the results have been slightly better:

C.J. Wilson's last few starts have been pretty good and he'll look to keep the momentum going, although he'll likely try to avoid doing this again:

via d13csqd2kn0ewr.cloudfront.net

For the "Find the Link" today:

Find the link between C.J. Wilson and the starting left fielder for the Marlins during the season when the Blue Jays won their last World Series.

TankFest 2013

Blue Jays are sitting with the 14th pick, while the Angels have the 15th pick.

We knew this step was coming, in the slow progression to the Blue Jays admitting that Edwin Encarnacion needs to have his arm amputated, but for the sake of documenting each of the steps along the way to Edwin's eventual surgery:

Encarnacion (sore wrist) done for season? Gibbons: "We don't think so but there's not a whole lotta season left either"

— John Lott (@LottOnBaseball) September 11, 2013

If his season is over he'll finish the season as our leader in WAR. Our top three in fWAR:

1. Encarnacion: 4.2
2. Bautista: 4.1
3. Rasmus: 4.0

If we could have only had a healthy Bautista and Rasmus at the same time as the great infield defense we've seen lately, we'd finally have a pretty decent team.

Edwin's 4.2 WAR, at Fangraphs, beats out his 4.1 from last year, making it the best of his career. His .276/.375/.542 batting line is pretty close to last year's .280/.384/.557. He's down half a dozen home runs (36 down from 42).

On the other hand, Colby Rasmus might be coming back this weekend:

Blue Jays hoping Rasmus can return this weekend against the Orioles. He swung bat again today, will let them know when he's ready

— Chris Toman (@Chris_Toman) September 11, 2013

We really could use someone in the line up that can hit. I wouldn't mind seeing him get into the last 10 games of the season.

Another little bit of news from Shi Davidi:

The agent for Josh Johnson says the pending free agent has "unfinished business" with the Toronto Blue Jays, would likely accept a qualifying offer if the club tendered one, and can probably earn a contract of similar value with incentives on the open market.

Yeah, I think we all knew that Josh would accept a qualifying offer, if the Jays were dumb enough to offer one. The agent also said this:

I think Josh Johnson for sure gets a base of $10 million or above, just based on the fact there are no pitchers out there.

Oh I doubt it. I could see a contract with incentives that could potentially net him $10 million, but I'd think he'll be getting something with a guaranteed amount that's a long way short of that.

Next year can't be as bad as this one was, right?  He was getting strikeouts for us (9.18/9), but when batters were making contract it was often hard contact. His .356 BABIP might have been partly because of the lousy defense we had behind him. But then, the 15 home runs he allowed were the most he's allowed in any season in his career, pretty impressive, since he only threw 81 innings.

It will be interesting to see what the Jays decide to do.

Final Score in Toronto: Angels 5 Blue Jays 4

Mark Trumbo hit his 33rd home run of 2013 and Angels batters hit three run-scoring sacrifice flies to squeak by the Blue Jays 5-4 in Toronto.

Josh Hamilton had a three hit game and Kole Calhoun hit two deep fly ball outs with men on 3B, one of htem breaking a 4-4 tie in the eighth inning.

C.J. Wilson nibbled away, walking four in seven innings while allowing four hits and four earned runs, but the well-compensated lefty struck out six Jays. Dane De La Rosa and Ernest Frieri had 1-2-3 innings for 8 & 9 and that was the ballgame.

Mike Trout was hitless but walked twice and scored two runs and has now scored 100 runs in the past two seasons. He joins Troy Glaus and Don Baylor as the only two Angels to score 100 or more in back to back seasons. He became only the seventh player in major league history to score 100 runs in his age 20 and 21 seasons. Check your milk carton for signs of Bryce Harper and light that baby up.

Angels 5 Blue Jays 4

Generally, you would expect that if you score 3 runs in the first, you really should win. Well, not tonight.

The first inning was good. A one-out walk for Rajai Davis and a two-out walk for Adam Lind. Moises Sierra doubled driving in one. Then Mark DeRosa beat out a ground ball to shortstop Erick Aybar, who threw high to first. The error put the Angels down by 3.

But, R.A. Dickey wasn't great tonight, even with the roof closed. He gave up a 2-run homer to Mark Trumbo, to cut the lead to 1 in the second inning. A Mike Trout lead off walk came around to score in the 4th inning and it was tied.

It didn't stay tied for long, Moises Sierra lead off the 4th with a  triple and scored  when the Angels made their second error of the game. Nice to see other teams can screw up. Unfortunately, that's where our offense ended.

Dickey didn't seem to like pitching with a lead, he gave up a lead off double to Grant Green, a single to J.B. Shuck and a sac fly to Erick Aybar to bring the game back to even in the 5th.

Dickey went 5.1, gave up 7 hits, 4 earned, 2 walks, 1 home runs and struck out 2.

Aaron Loup came in to the 6th with runners on the corners and picked Kole Calhoun off first, then struck out Chris Iannetta. Dustin McGowan pitched a quick, perfect 7th. He only threw 8 pitches, so I thought he would get a chance to go another inning but then we have a lot of guys in the pen, no use pushing anyone.

Steve Delabar came out for the 8th. After Erick Aybar struck out, Mike Trout walked and Josh Hamilton doubled. The Jays decided to intentional walk Mark Trumbo to load the bases. I'm not a fan of the intentional walk, I think it's a bad move to take the pitchers attention off the strike zone and, with it loading the bases, a walk would score the go ahead run. Add in that Delabar walked the RHB Trumbo to face the lefty Calhoun, I wasn't thrilled. Calhoun hit a sac fly to bring in Trout.

For some reason Hamilton took off for third, and got caught in a rundown. When Mark Trumbo moved up to second, the rundown was over.  Stupid move by Hamliton, stupid move by Trumbo. We don't hold the monopoly on bad base running.

Darren Oliver pitched a quick 9th, but we couldn't score so it didn't matter.

Jays of the Day are Sierra (.293 WPA and no stupid base running or fielding mistakes, yay) and Loup (.175).

Suckage goes to Dickey (-.240), Delabar (-.186), Goins (-.155, though he had an amazing play in the field), Gose (-.141) and Lind (-.113).

We are kind of just playing out the string. The infield defense has looked better than it has all year, but there isn't a lot of offense. We only had 4 hits tonight and Moises had 3 of them,  2 doubles and a triple. The only other hit was DeRosa's infield single. In 5 of 9 innings we went 3 up and 3 down.

We had another nice GameThread again tonight, 23 of us put up 401 comments.

Thing 1: Grand Slams

On Tuesday, Anthony Gose hit a game-tying grand slam in the second inning off the Angels' Jerome Williams. The grand slam was Gose's first of his career and the club's third of the year (Edwin Encarnacion was responsible for the first two).

That grand slam was 126th in franchise history, and only the fifth game-tying homer (4%). The other ones were hit by Rick Bosetti (1978), George Bell (1986), Lloyd Moseby (1986), and Shawn Green (1997). So including Gose, that's three centre fielders, one left fielder, and one right fielder who have done it.

Below is the distribution of all home runs hit in franchise history and how often each type of homer is of a game-tying or a go-ahead variety.

So the Blue Jays are 10 home runs away from 6000 in franchise history. Who do you think will hit the milestone shot?

Thing 2: 200-innings

Last night, R.A. Dickey surpassed the 200 innings pitched mark, a goal that teams generally want their starting pitchers to hit. The only pitchers to have thrown more innings than Dickey as of the time of writing are Clayton Kershaw, Adam Wainwright, and James Shields.

With a 162-game season and a five-man rotation, one expects each starter to have around 32 starts if they pitch a full season, and surpassing 200 innings means that they average around six innings per appearance, which seems like it isn't an outrageous standard to ask of a major league pitcher. However, there have only been 60 pitcher-seasons in Blue Jays history where the 200-inning mark was surpassed.

Barring any surprises, the 2013 Blue Jays should have two 200-inning pitchers in Dickey and Mark Buehrle, who is sitting at 189 innings right now. The last time the Blue Jays had two was in 2008 with the Roy Halladay (246 IP) / A.J. Burnett (221 IP) combo. The last time they had three was 1989 (Dave Stieb, Jimmy Key, John Cerutti), and one has to look back to 1984 for when they had four starters go 200 innings (Dave Stieb, Jim Clancy, Doyle Alexander, Luis Leal). In 1984, the club went primarily with a four-man rotation (although Jim Gott got 12 starts).

The pitcher in major league history to throw 200+ innings exclusively from the bullpen is Mike Marshall of the 1974 Dodgers. He threw 208 innings in 106 appearances and kept an ERA- of 70. He was an All-Star and was awarded a Cy Young for his efforts. Marshall also had 27 decisions that season from the bullpen (finished 15-12 for what it's worth).

Thing 3: Bullpen Decisions

Last night I was chatting with Retro Jays Cards guy Matt Ross while we stood above the greatest baseball player human being on Earth Mike Trout when he noticed that Aaron Loup has a 4-6 record. It's not often that one sees a middle reliever having made 10 decisions. Yes, we all know that reliever wins and losses are rather useless statistics, but the total number of decisions made might be somewhat related to starting pitcher quality.

Loup is tied for 10th place in the major leagues for reliever decisions, with teammate Steve Delabar tied for 30th place with eight.

The Blue Jays as a club are leading the majors with 55 of their 145 decisions made by a reliever, including Steve Delabar's loss last night. The 2013 bullpen is just two decisions away from the franchise mark of 57, set by the 2001 Jays, the year Paul Quantrill went 11-2 in 80 outings. The major league record is 66, set by the 1993 Cleveland Indians.

The teams above 50 are the Marlins, Royals, White Sox, Giants, Mets, Astros, and Diamondbacks, with the Royals being the best out of the lot. But 50 is an arbitrary end-point--the Dodgers and the Nationals have 49 and 48 bullpen decisions, respectively. It shouldn't be surprising that the teams with the fewest are the Cardinals, Tigers, Braves, A's, and Yankees. The Angels are right there with the sixth fewest in the league.

After the season I might want to go and see what the exact correlation is between the number of reliever decisions and team record.

Thing 4: Sandwiches and Beer

Bonus thing! Tallboys Craft Beer House in Toronto is hosting their second Diamond Club Event that is co-presented by Left Field Brewery and Bluebird Banter this coming Monday, September 16 at 7 pm.

This time we will feature a Toronto adaptation of Pittsburgh's Primanti Brothers sandwiches. Three varieties are available: pastrami & cheese, "ragin' Cajun" chicken breast & cheese, and a deluxe double egg & cheese. All sandwiches have tomatoes, lettuce, and french fries--like right in the sandwich:

All sandwich orders will come with a sample of Left Field Brewery beer. Mark Murphy, their brew guy, will be in attendance and he'll bring the "Resin Bag" one-off IPA, the "Eephus" oatmeal brown ale, and the "Maris*" American pale ale.

In terms of activities, we'll have a game on the big screen, we'll do a baseball memorabilia swap (bring in what you don't want, trade for what you want), and yours truly will host a baseball trivia session. So study up for the trivia and bring your old bobbleheads, stadium giveaways, helmets, card sets, pennants, and autographs and see if you’re can trade for something special! I will have one Ricky Romero bobblehead available.

Over this 2 week period the Jays went 7-4. Just think how thrilled we would be if we were still in contention. Sigh.

Ricky Romero and Kyle Drabek each pitched once. Ricky did alright, 2 innings, allowed the 1 run, but looked good. Kyle had some troubles, allowed 3 hits and a walk without getting an out. I hope we see more of both of them before the end of the season.

Almost forgot Chad Jenkins. He pitched twice, one game went good (3 scoreless innings), one went bad (4 hits, 3 earned in 2 innings). In 20 at bats, batters hit .300/.300/.600 against him.

Final Score in Toronto:Angels 4, Blue Jays

Garrett Richards had a rough beginning but settled down for some clean innings and ended up delivering a Quality Start. He allowed three earned runs - all before the end of the third inning - on nine hits and a walk, striking out four and pitching into the seventh inning with the lead.

Grant Green got the scoring started for the Angels in the top of the second with a run scoring single that tied the game. Down 3-2 in the fourth, Kole Calhoun hit his seventh home run of the season to tie the game and a Mike Trout ground rule double in the fifth put the Angels ahead. Calhoun and Erick Aybar each had two hits on a night the Angels managed four runs on only eight hits - in fact the glaring weaknesses in tonight's Halo offensive chain stick out more than the bright spots. Andrew Romine stranded five runners on base and Josh Hamilton left three out there and Colin Cowgil had his second 0-5 night in a row from the leadoff spot.

Ernesto Frieri threw 1,641 pitches in the ninth inning for his 33rd Save, stranding two Jays on base with a dramatic K to end the game. It was actually kind of miserable to watch.