Young Blue Jays have much to gain from October baseball

Steve Phillips

TSN Baseball Insider

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There are still plenty of games to be played, but it is looking more and more likely that there will be Blue Jays baseball in October.

The Jays are currently in second place in the AL East, four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays, two games ahead of the Yankees, and three and a half games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles for a wild-card spot. 

The anticipation of making the playoffs is bringing back memories of 2015 and 2016. Those were good times in Toronto. The city was abuzz with hope and excitement. Everyone had visions of the team winning its first World Series since 1993.

But 2020 is an entirely different situation. This young team is making the playoffs because MLB expanded the postseason to generate more revenues for owners to meet payroll demands with no fans in the stands.

This Jays team wouldn’t be heading to the postseason in a normal season, but they don’t have to apologize to anyone for making the most of a unique situation.

That being said, the playoffs are unpredictable. It is not always the best team that wins – it’s the team that plays the best in the tournament that is the playoffs. Who is to say that this Blue Jays team can’t win it all?

But to be clear, this Jays team is nowhere near the level of the 1992-93 or 2015-16 clubs. There is no Robbie Alomar, Dave Winfield or Joe Carter. They don’t have a Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista or Edwin Encarnacion – at least not yet.

These kids need big-game experience. These sons of All-Stars and Hall of Famers are already proving to be quick learners, and October baseball can help them take the next step.

Blue Jays fans will eventually think about these current young studs like they do the stars of yesteryear. They may not earn that memory in 2020, but it is coming.

Mental mistakes under Montoyo

The fact that this young team needs to keep learning can be seen every other day.

There have been mental errors, baserunning errors, missed cutoff men, etc. And yet, the Blue Jays are still winning. They have pitched and hit well enough to create a margin for error that has allowed them to overcome their mistakes. Once the playoffs roll around, those mistakes will cost you games and series. So there’s no question that the Jays need to tighten things up a bit.

Fans and the media seem to want to hold manager Charlie Montoyo responsible for the sloppy play of the team. But he can’t catch or throw the ball for them. He doesn’t have a remote control to direct their running of the bases.

Players are not finished products when they get to the major leagues; there is still development that has to happen. Making sure that he chisels out time in their preparation to work on fundamentals is Montoyo’s responsibility. Every indication is that he’s doing that to the satisfaction of the front office.

The other thing to remember about in-game managerial decisions is that they are no longer based exclusively on whether a left-handed or right-handed pitcher or hitter is involved. Some personnel decisions are based upon handedness, but more and more matchups are based upon whether a pitcher is a high-ball or low-ball pitcher, or a fastball or off-speed pitcher. 

You will see a manager pinch-hit a right-handed batter against a right-handed pitcher – even with a lefty bat on the bench – because the pitcher throws the ball up in the zone and the righty hitter is better at hitting those pitches.

We have to be careful to not apply our logic to every decision a manager makes. When he does something we don’t understand, there is likely something he knows and we don’t. The other thing to understand is many of the matchup decisions are discussed before the game with the analytics department. Sometimes the numbers indicate something unconventional.

Giles nearing return

In support of Montoyo, I like the decision he has made regarding the return of closer Ken Giles from the injured list. Giles has missed a few weeks due to elbow inflammation and the young arms in the bullpen have developed well in his absence.

Montoyo has made it clear that Giles will not immediately get the ball in the ninth inning with a lead, but will instead start in some low-leverage situations and work his way back. Guys like Thomas Hatch, Ryan Borucki and A.J. Cole have really earned the opportunity to throw in high-leverage situations. Veterans Anthony Bass and Rafael Dolis have navigated the eighth and ninth innings quite well.

The bullpen is a living, breathing organism and its head is the closer. If the closer is in a good place, the rest of the bullpen usually is, too. If the closer isn’t locked in, the rest of the bullpen often is in shambles.

Immediately inserting Giles in the closer role before he is ready puts more than just the ninth inning at risk. The Jays have a good thing going without Giles. He needs to be blended into what is working, not just forced back in at the end of games.

I’m sure that is not an easy conversation with an emotional and competitive guy like Giles, but it’s the right thing to do. Right now, every decision has to be in the best interest of the team, not any one individual player.

The fading Yankees

The Jays have pushed ahead of the New York Yankees, who have been decimated by injuries again this season, into second place.

The Yankees had 30 different players make 39 trips to the injured list last season. Despite that, they still won 103 games. It was a remarkable achievement, but it created an unrealistic expectation that they should be able to do it again this year.

Everyone in New York is in an uproar because the Yankees are fading in the standings. But if you were to take the No. 3 hitter (Aaron Judge), No. 4 hitter (Giancarlo Stanton), No. 2 starter (Luis Severino), No. 3 starter (James Paxton) and seventh-inning reliever (Tommy Kahnle) off of any team for a month or more, they would probably underperform. 

Additionally, the Yankees have lost their closer (Aroldis Chapman), shortstop (Gleyber Torres), second baseman (DJ LeMahieu) and setup man (Zack Britton) to injuries at different points this season.

General manager Brian Cashman was so concerned about his team that he travelled to Buffalo this week and gave his club a pep talk before the game on Monday. This is somewhat uncommon in baseball. I never chose to address my club about their performance during the season. I always looked at that as the responsibility of the manager. 

In some circumstances, such a move could be perceived as an indictment of the manager. But in this case it’s clear that Yankee manager Aaron Boone is highly regarded by Cashman and ownership. The Yankees GM did the unconventional because we are experiencing the unconventional. He did it to support his manager and club. Cashman is held in high esteem by the players and is likely a future Hall of Famer, so there isn’t anyone in the clubhouse who will react negatively to the move.

I did have a problem with Cashman’s timing, though. Managers and GMs know that if you are going to give a speech to the players you do it with your ace on the mound and the other club’s fifth starter toeing the rubber. You don’t need an analytics department to tell you that. Cashman addressed his club with Jordan Montgomery, his fifth starter, scheduled to pitch against Toronto ace Hyun Jin-Ryu.