Blue Jays Mailbag: Trading Donaldson, Travis' Struggles, and How to Get Through a Losing Season

Andrew Stoeten answers your questions in our Blue Jays Mailbag, which runs weekly at VICE Sports. You can send him questions at stoeten@gmail.com, and follow him on Twitter.

The Blue Jays have made it through what might ultimately prove to be a disastrous April, and have begun at least treading water.

Will they be able to do so long enough that, once they get back to full health, they can go on a run that puts them back into playoff contention? Who the hell knows! But whether they do or not, I'll still be here answering all of your soul-crushing questions in this weekly Blue Jays mailbag.

So let's do it to it!

And if you have a Blue Jays question you'd like me to tackle for next week, be sure to send it to stoeten@gmail.com. As always, I have not read any of Griff's answers…

Hey Andrew,

I would love to see the Jays put together a great May and June, setting themselves up for a potential playoff run… If they don't put themselves in a place where the postseason seems likely, don't they NEED to either re-sign Donaldson or see what they could obtain in a trade for him by the July trade deadline? I would have to think his value would be higher to the team trying to obtain him if they would have him for two postseason runs. Don't get me wrong, I would way rather they re-sign him and try to reload this offseason and try to win with him, but they can't afford to lose him for nothing after next season…

Thoughts?
Thanks,
Ron

They don't NEED to either re-sign Donaldson or trade him this year. You're absolutely right that losing him for nothing would be an awful outcome for this franchise, but they have options beyond the two you suggest.

They could re-sign him after this season. They could trade him after this season. They could go into 2018 with Donaldson in his walk year, knowing that, if they're out of the playoff race, they could still get a haul for him at next year's trade deadline. Or they could attempt to bring him back after letting him test free agency—something they did with Jose Bautista, and almost did with Edwin Encarnacion.

But I think you made the key distinction in saying that this year that they at least need to see what they could obtain in a trade. J.P. Ricciardi did this with Roy Halladay in the summer of 2009, gauging what the market for his star pitcher was, giving the club a leg up on their plans to deal him away the following winter.

Halladay ultimately moving on, however, seemed a fait accompli. Or at least it does in retrospect. Donaldson I'm less sure about. But he's as important to this club now as Halladay was then, and what to do here is just about as tricky.

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are you happy that hooked on a feeling is no longer played?

@momjeansmami

Thrilled! Oh my Lord, so thrilled.

But rather than descend into a self-parodying diatribe about it, I'll just point you toward the self-parodying diatribe I already wrote about it last summer, which concluded with: "Fuck it into dust, sweep that dust into the trash, then light that shit on fire. For the love of all things decent."

So… yeah. Good riddance to Blue Swede's ancient quaalude schlock and the Blue Jays' painful attempt to foist this insipid trash onto fans as "our" anthem!

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What do you make of the Travis struggles at the plate, pitchers adjusting, the knee still an issue?

Paul (@pbroos1)

Honestly, any answer I give you would be me just guessing. But I'll say this: if you look at his plate discipline numbers—his swing percentage both in and out of the zone, his contact rate, his whiff rate—nothing about 2017 jumps out as different from his previous seasons. Same goes for his quality of contact numbers and his other batted ball data—he seems to be hitting the ball just as hard, and isn't any more prone to infield flies or grounders. He's been pulling the ball a little more than before, but that's really the only peripheral that seems different.

That is, unless you're talking about his BABIP, which is significantly down from where it's been in his career. Right now it's at .150, whereas in 2015 and 2016 it was at .347 and .358 respectively. I'm hesitant to read too much into his very low BABIP, because the implication there is that he's been unlucky. I'm sure that's been part of the problem—and the fact that he was maybe on the fortunate side of things in his first two seasons makes the gulf between now and then seem even bigger—but saying that's all of the problem would be an oversimplification. After all, this is a guy coming off a knee injury that took quite a long time to heal, and who managed to make just 13 plate appearances in spring training.

All of it, I'd guess, is adding up to the woeful start to the season we've seen from Travis. I'd also guess that, given time, he'll get a little less unlucky and a little more into the rhythm of the season, and that the number will start to change.

But really, I have no idea.

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Will any minor league prospects get calls up to see what they have? Lourdes Gourriel have an ETA?

Like Salty, do you think anyone else might be DFA'd / replaced? Pearce?

Jason (@Maxvista13)

These were two separate questions asked by Jason, who apparently is itching for some kind of major roster moves.

Uh… don't hold your breath, guy.

The likelihood of the decent players on the Jays' big league roster playing closer to their career norms is a whole lot greater than the likelihood of them throwing some of their prospects into the fire and having them succeed, frankly.

Gurriel needs to get healthy before we can even bother talking about him—he lasted two plate appearances in his delayed debut a couple weeks ago before aggravating the leg injury that had kept him out until that point. And Rowdy Tellez needs to hit. Much was made of his two home run debut for Buffalo, but on the season so far he's at just .194/.298/.333.

I think Tellez will hit and Gurriel will get healthy, and they might eventually be able to contribute something to this club, but I also think that of Steve Pearce and Devon Travis and whoever else on the big league roster is hurting or struggling. And I believe a whole lot more in those big leaguers turning it around and contributing than I do guys who've barely tasted Double- and Triple-A (or, in Gurriel's case, Single-A).

The Salty thing was an anomaly. The Jays had been looking to upgrade on him almost as soon as they got him into camp, as they saw that his throwing arm was going to be problematic, in addition to the other poor elements of his defensive game. He needed to hit, and he didn't. And while the sample was small, he wasn't showing anything different than his awful second half last season. There just wasn't much hope, and even if he did start to pick it up with the bat, the defence was still going to be a problem. It's just not nearly the same as Pearce struggling.

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Do you think Stroman will pitch well enough this year to be in the conversation for AL Cy Young? (Top 5 finish maybe?)

Jonathan (@JsXtm)

I think it's absolutely possible. I mean, nobody but a doctor is going to take that award from Chris Sale, and I'm not sure how well a guy like Stroman, who is so dependent on ground balls and a little light on strikeouts, can do. But if he keeps pitching the way he's been pitching so far, there's no reason to think he can't.

That said, while the AL doesn't have the top quality starters of the National League, and guys like Price and Verlander and Felix are maybe fading, there are still a whole lot of great AL starters we haven't yet seen the best of this season, so it's no slam dunk. But damn right he can get there.

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Hey Andrew,

When everyone comes back from the DL, do you expect the batting order to change significantly? I can't see why Bautista has been batting third for so long without any results this season to deserve that spot unless Tulowitzki wanted to stay fifth. Even if Tulowitzki had reservations from moving around in the batting order, the hitting has been so bad this season that player objections would be down on the list of things I would consider when filling in the lineup card. This would be my everyday lineup against RHP if things project out the same from now until everyone gets healthy.

1. Pillar
2. Carrera
3. Donaldson
4. Morales
5. Tulowitzki
6. Bautista
7. Smoak
8. Martin
9. Travis

If Travis continues to be a non-factor, Goins at 2B and batting ninth could be a possibility.

Jimmy

To be fair to Jimmy here, this question was submitted a week ago, right after my last mailbag went up. So I understand why he's maybe still so low on Russell Martin here. What I don't understand, however, is caring this much about the lineup order. And what I definitely don't understand is caring this much about the lineup order and still having Kevin Pillar and Ezequiel Carrera at the top!

You say "player objections would be down on the list of things I would consider when filling in the lineup card"?

I'd say that how the lineup card is being filled in would be down the list of things I would consider when worrying about this team.

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As someone that has seen many crappy Blue Jays seasons, what advice would you give to new fans of the team that are now experiencing one for the first time?

Thanks,

Space Ghost

For starters, read Stacey May Fowles. There's nobody better at guiding us, win or lose, through what an incredible, life-affirming experience simply being a baseball fan can be.

You could say that about any sport, I'm sure, but baseball is unique. For one, there is so much losing for even the best teams that we can more easily view a season as a sprawling vista unfolding before us. We know that even the best seasons are going to include a whole lot of losses, so we don't have to get hung up and angry over every one. Each game is just a small detail in a big picture, and within each game are incredible details in their own right.

John McDonald saved a season in the mid-2000s for me because, as bad as the Blue Jays were, it felt like every day I'd go to the ballpark and he'd give us a little slice of magic. Watching Bautista chase 50 home runs and turn himself into one of the game's great sluggers was incredibly fun and satisfying as a fan, even if that season otherwise wasn't.

Baseball is rich in appreciable details and played at a languid pace that's perfect for finding them and talking about them and basking in them in the summer sun.

Jesus. OK, so that's maybe a bit maudlin. I guess what I mean to say is that the experience of baseball is bigger than just the action on the field and that the action on the field doesn't demand your constant attention in the way that other sports do, so you can maybe appreciate the experience more as an experience, rather than as merely a means to a rush of endorphins whenever your team wins.

It's a little bit of theatre, which you can talk and drink and dance and scream and shout through, and though the good guys don't always win in the end, it's not really about that.

Or, at least, if you can get into the right head space, it doesn't have to be.