Blue Jays Mailbag: Lousy Defence, and Justin Smoak's Future in Toronto

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 All-Star break is upon us and the Blue Jays are… mercifully not playing again until Friday!

It's not been a very fun first half for the Jays, but that doesn't mean that there isn't still a whole lot to talk about it—mostly, at least in this edition of our weekly mailbag—centering around All-Star Justin Smoak! Words that are still so very, very strange to type in that order.

So let's have a look at what's on the minds of the masses!

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.

What do you do with Smoak? I know we've got him for 2018, but is he a candidate for the type of extension Bautista got in 2011? And if we're selling at the deadline, does he go? What sort of return could we reasonably expect?
@terminal_avenue

Regardless of record do you trade Smoak if offered a quality under control outfielder? I know I know tons of variables but do you sell high?
Steven

I've lumped these two questions together, because they're both essentially about the same thing: what to do with Smoak. Thing is, to understand what to do with him, we need to have a pretty good gauge of what his value really is, and… well… it's a really tough question, and I'm not sure either one of these quite hits on it.

Like, I appreciate the newfound Smoak love in these parts, and obviously he's having a great year, but… uh… there's still a lot of failure in that track record of his. Maybe I'm still scarred by Michael Saunders' All-Star campaign last year (and his subsequent turning into a pumpkin), but it's hard for me to get past how abysmal Smoak has been at the plate leading up to this point. He's been a different player this year, yes, telling Shi Davidi of Sportsnet of mechanical changes he's made. When he coiled to swing at the ball, Smoak said, "you'd see the whole number on the back of my jersey… because I'm trying to hit the ball 500 feet," but having eased up and accepted that 400 foot home runs count just the same, "it's enabled me to keep my swing in plane longer, it's enabled me to hit more pitches—the curveball, the slider—it's enabled me to lay off pitches." As much as I want to believe that the slight change to his hitting mechanics has unlocked contact skills that were previously dormant I think I'd have to see quite a bit more before I considered giving him a whole lot of money or, if I was another team, offering up the kind of player the Jays would insist on to part with him.

And would that player be an outfielder? With Dalton Pompey, Anthony Alford, Dwight Smith Jr., and maybe Harold Ramirez (if he turns his season in Double-A around) candidates to fill an outfield vacancy for the club next season, I'm not sure that's where I'd be looking to add—even though the club's outfield has obviously been a problem here in 2017.

When it comes to these kinds of hypotheticals, I always like to ask fans what sort of player from their own system would they be comfortable giving up to acquire Justin Smoak. Inevitably the answer isn't someone nearly as talented as what they're hoping to get back.

I might give up a Richard Urena to get a guy like Smoak, but I sure as hell wouldn't give up Smoak for a Richard Urena! At least, not unless the Blue Jays are intending to be very bad in 2018, which, despite all sorts of fans who've forgotten what terrible baseball looks like pining for it and saying that would be great, I don't think they intend to be.

If Rowdy Tellez wasn't having such a rough year in Buffalo—in more ways than one—maybe the answer would be different, but unless they can sell rather high on Smoak, I figure they'll be quite happy to bet on his production next year for just the $4.125 million that he's owed. He has a 2019 option on his contract as well, which means that if he keeps it up, and the Jays end up in sell mode again next July, they could certainly revisit the idea of moving him. They'd certainly get more if he did.

That contract option, of course, makes his case quite a bit different than that of Bautista in his breakout 2010 season. It's… uh… one of many things that make their cases quite different. Jose was in his age-29 season when he broke out in 2010, and was set to hit free agency for 2012, when he'd have been 31. Smoak is now 30 and if his 2019 option is picked up, his first season under a new contract will be at age 33. And while Smoak has a reputation as a good defensive first baseman—the metrics generally say otherwise, but don't include players' ability to handle throws from other infielders, which is Smoak's calling card—he offers little defensive value compared to Bautista at the same age, who at that point could passably man right field, third base, or first base, and also had spent at least a little time at both second base and in centre.

More importantly, what made Bautista an extension candidate wasn't his impressive numbers at the break—his 143 wRC+ ranked 21st and he produced 2.4 WAR, similar to Smoak's 144 and 2.2 marks—but what he did in the second half: a 192 wRC+ and 4.1 wins, both tops in all of baseball.

Smoak's still got a long way to go. And even if he does do something similar to what Bautista did in the second half, he'll probably also have a bunch of Jays fans who think they're smarter than everybody else insisting that the club would be best to trade him rather than extend him… not that I can recall anybody who might have done that with Jose *COUGH*.

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When should the Jays start considering converting Osuna to a starter?
Charlie

That's a great question. As I discussed in last week's mailbag, I think this is the right path for the Jays to take with Osuna—especially given the fact that they're due to have a pair of holes in their starting rotation next season (Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano are free agents, though it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Marco return on a reasonable contract, given his struggles here in his walk year). Maybe that ship has already sailed, but I think that they could certainly still give it a go, especially if they begin the process this season, and start the conversations about it immediately.

Osuna's high water mark for innings pitched in a season is just 74, which he accomplished last year. While those innings are higher stress than innings he'd pitch as a starter, I think the Jays would want to be careful with pushing him too far past that number, but—and I'm just spitballing here—maybe they could get him up over 100, with the thought of moving him to the rotation for the start of 2018, then reining him by moving him to the bullpen later on, and end up getting him to 130 or something, which would get them close to being able to set him loose the next year, and certainly the year after that—which would be his last year under contract, barring any kind of extension. I'd imagine that the club wouldn't jump into this too lightly, especially given the way Aaron Sanchez's innings needed to be managed last season, and what a quagmire that proved to be.

On the other hand, Osuna almost certainly could be a very good starter. He's got the repertoire (aka "repe-twah") and has ended up in the bullpen not because he failed in the rotation, as most relievers do, but out of necessity—and he's stayed there because he's been so ridiculously good. And a valuable starter is simply a better commodity than a valuable reliever. Plus, it maybe also doesn't hurt that switching him to the rotation would cut down on what the Jays will have to pay him in arbitration, which still pays out big for saves, meaning that Osuna has a legitimate chance to be a record-breaker for a reliever if the Jays ultimately choose to go year-to-year with him through that process.

If that's the path they chose—if only to try it out, with a spot in the bullpen always waiting for him if he doesn't succeed—they could get him six starts in September if they're running a five-man rotation. Because he missed some time early on, and hasn't been needed to close out as many games as he did the previous two years, he's behind last year's innings pace. Moving him to the rotation in September would almost certainly leave him shy of 100 for the season, but he'd get close. And maybe Liriano or Estrada are movable in mid-August trades—which seems a little more likely at this point than depending on how well the club plays between now and the July 31 deadline—that would let you, theoretically, get this experiment started a bit early.

By then the club should have a better read on their playoff chances, too. If they remain in the hunt, I think all of this goes entirely out the window. (Not that it's even in the window to begin with! I don't know what the Jays are actually thinking about Osuna's future, but if I had to guess, it's probably not this. Unfortunately.)

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If you had to bet for the rest of the season; are the Jays good, medium or bad?
David, mayor's office, Vancouver, BC

Well, I cashed out the pre-season bet I made on the Jays winning the World Series a long time ago, if that's the kind of thing you mean. But just because I'm not stupid doesn't mean that I don't recognize that there's a much greater chance of the Blue Jays playing well and making things really interesting down the stretch than a whole lot of pissy burn-it-all-down types want to admit. And I'm certainly not going to validate anybody who wants desperately to hear that they're bad, it's bad, and it's going to be bad. You won't have much trouble finding someone to do that for you—especially since I know all too well that you're on Twitter.

Hey, but just because I won't give you one thing that you want doesn't mean I'm a complete curmudgeon. Here's an article that I think will be right up your alley—really says a lot of the same kinds of things I feel coming from your tweets. Enjoy!

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Is this Jays season a Radiohead album or a Coldplay album?
@GrubersMullet

Did Hans Gruber have a mullet? I seem to recall there maybe being a little bit of party in the back, but not a whole lot. Still, gotta say I love what I can only assume is a reference to the last thing seen by Harry Ellis—"HANS, BUBBY!"—played by Toronto's own Hart Bochner!

*COUGH*

Anyway, my take on this—which almost nobody will agree with, I'm sure—is that the Blue Jays, in general, are more Radiohead than Coldplay… in that they've had the same number of decent albums since the mid 90s (1.5) as the Jays have decent seasons. (The albums are Kid A and Amnesiac—don't @ me). Whereas Coldplay have presumably never had any good albums, though to be sure on that I'd have to actually have ever listened to one, which… pass.

But if I had to bet for the rest of the season if the Jays are Radiohead or Coldplay, I guess I'd have to say Coldplay.

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Just wondering how much of the Blue Jays' starting pitching struggles you think have been related to terrible defense? Obviously the injuries have played a role as well, but even Shapiro has acknowledged how bad the defense is.
David

I also thought Shapiro mentioning the club's awful defence last week—both to Shi David for a piece at Sportsnet and on Scott MacArthur's radio show—probably deserved a little more attention than it got.

"What is absolutely maybe surprising, somewhat shocking, is that our defence has been as bad as it has," Shapiro told MacArthur. "We went from two years ago having among the best defence in all of Major League Baseball, to definitively having the worst defence this year."

I'm not sure what in the hell metric Shapiro is using to say that the Jays are "definitively" the worst, because none of the publicly available ones quite say that. But it's ugly.

They are 27th in UZR at -16.3 and 28th by DRS at -28. Worst in right field by DRS (-13), 21st by UZR (-4.7); 27th at shortstop by both DRS (-8) and UZR (-5.6); dead last in left field by DRS (-15), 29th by UZR (-10.8).

Even usual bright spots are not quite as bright. Kevin Pillar is in the top 10 in centre, but not a clear cut No.1 one or two. Mostly because of injuries to Josh Donaldson, the club ranks in the middle of the pack at third base. And their pitchers have been below average—a certain change from the days of good defenders like Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey.

How much has this contributed to the poor numbers being put up by the Jays' pitchers? Well, obviously it has. The Jays' BABIP against was the lowest in baseball in 2015 at .278, and second lowest to the Cubs last year at .282—this year it's at .306, the sixth-worst mark in the league, and nine points above league average in the AL.

We'd be kidding ourselves, I think, if we were to say that Estrada or Liriano have been undone solely by shoddy defence behind them. It clearly hasn't helped, but there are pitchers for this team who've been outstanding, and ones who have out-pitched their FIP, too. It hasn't ruined everybody, and isn't an excuse for anybody's poor performance, necessarily.

But it's a problem. And a serious one for the club. Especially the numbers at shortstop, where Troy Tulowitzki is signed for big money and multiple years (AVERT YOUR EYES: three more after this one for $58 million total, including the $4 million buyout of his 2021 option). The situations in right and left field stand to be quite different next year (or maybe even next month!), with Bautista a free agent and Steve Pearce being untenable out there (I said all along that, more than anything, he was brought in so he could compete for first base at-bats with Smoak, and hoo boy, has he looked like a first baseman out there in left!). But Tulo? He's not going anywhere. At least… not yet.

The good news is that he's been better than his backup. Tulo's posted a -3 DRS and -1.7 UZR in 457 innings, compared to Goins' disappointing and uncharacteristic -5 and -4.0 in 313. We could try to claim here that Tulo also has the excuse that he's dealt with a hamstring injury that landed him on the DL, and so maybe he stands to get back closer to his standard of play—which even last year was well above average (+10 DRS and +4.9 UZR)—but surely there's been some kind of cumulative effect of all the lower-body injuries he's suffered, and it's probably only a matter of time before the next one hits (unfortunately), so…

I don't know if that really answers your question, but yeah… the defence has been bad, the effect has certainly been felt, but how much or by who is harder to say, and maybe not the point—it could get anybody at any time!

There seems to be a path back to respectability, at least. Uh… in some spots.