JFtC brings you a collection of Blue Jays news and notes. This time, hits on Tim Mayza, Toronto’s payroll and more!
* The Toronto Blue Jays suffered a bit of a loss yesterday, in more ways than one. Not only did they drop the game to the Twins, they watched their only lefty bullpen option dislocate his non pitching shoulder during a bunt play at the plate. Mayza tried to scoop toss the ball with his glove and the runner slid right into his arm, sending him to the IL and the Blue Jays scrambling to find a replacement option.
Some might argue the club didn’t do enough at the Trade Deadline to cover for the loss of their only lefty reliever. There’s not much to be done about that now, of course. Now, some creativity may be in order since their natural lefty option, Tayler Saucedo is also on the IL.
Perhaps, this is where the ripple effects come into play. Toronto has Ross Stripling on the IL, hopefully returning soon and newly acquired Mitch White (both righties) who could share some innings in the rotation and/or a swing man type roll, so some bullpen innings can be covered. However, if Toronto really believes in the lefty/righty matchup, they may need to consider getting even more creative. Stripling is seeing lefties hit .212 against him while righties are hitting .261 and White has a bit less success with lefties hitting .237 and righties hitting .248.
One idea floated by Mark Polishuk of MLBTR has an interesting idea: “…the Jays could look to shift Kikuchi to relief pitching. A move to the pen could both help the lack of left-handed pitchers, and also help Kikuchi get on track during what has been a difficult first season in Toronto.” On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Yusei Kikuchi has performed disappointingly to date and maybe a shift to shorter outings will help him. For what it’s worth, lefties are hitting .170 against Kikuchi. Aside from the matchups, Stripling and White seem to be better options for multiple innings, where Kikuchi could bounce back in shorter outings.
* Over the last couple of years, we have heard about the Blue Jays having the ability to use their financial power to make trades. With relatively low commitments over the last couple years, they were able to take on risks like Tanner Roark since it only cost them money. We’ve also seen Toronto spend money on key free agents in an attempt to build a championship team. All that has resulted in an escalating payroll.
According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, Toronto has gone from a 2020 Opening Day payroll of $51.5M to a 2022 amount a tick above $171M with a CB tax for the 40 man roster amount of $190M. This came up in a tweet by JFtC podcast guest, Mat Germain:
While, it appears Mat was off on the Blue Jays’ total, and his formula doesn’t really amount to much as far as extrapolating meaning. However, it is interesting to see how much each club is paying per win. I recalculated Toronto’s per win total and it is $2.899M per win. That doesn’t sound like much, and it would be interesting to see how much revenue per win the club brings in since this would lead to the conversation about how the offseason will go. While Toronto has been spending over the last couple of years, it is not clear if they will continue to do so or they will have to get financially creative. Also, the Red Sox…lol.
* An interesting tidbit coming from looking at Cot’s Baseball Contracts is that of the agents some players have chosen to represent them. For what seems like ever, we have been hearing that Toronto doesn’t like to deal with clients of the Uber-Agent, Scott Boras. You may even recall hearing Boras say Toronto was suffering from ‘blue flu’. Always quick with a sound bite, Boras has criticized Toronto for their lack of spending.
Of course, the only thing to change that is spending. Currently, Toronto has 3 Boras clients: Hyun Jin Ryu, Yusei Kikuchi and Matt Chapman all of whom have been given some pretty decent money. Perhaps the most interesting of the three is the extension Chapman signed months ago. It will pay him $12.5M this year and next. Chapman is having a nice offensive season, a rebound of sorts. He will hit free agency at the end of his age 30 season, and if he continues his current pace, he will be set up rather nicely for what could be the final contract of his career. You can picture Boras drooling at this idea.
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