Blue Jays Notebook: What’s good for Chapman is good for everyone

NEW YORK — Here’s an incomplete listing of the classes wherein Matt Chapman leads the American League:

Batting common: .397
On-base proportion: .461
Slugging proportion: .750
wOBA: .512
Doubles: 9
Total bases: 51

As these numbers replicate, he’s taking part in at an elite degree. Better nonetheless for the Toronto Blue Jays, his efficiency is pushed by ability: line drives and deep fly balls moderately than seeing-eye singles and bloopers. Looking past the back-of-the-baseball-card stats to the underlying numbers, Chapman leads the AL in these classes, too:

xwOBA: .514
Barrel charge: 23.7 per cent
Average exit velocity: 97 m.p.h.

And that’s earlier than we even get to Chapman’s defence. Some regression is coming, after all. No one sustains this for greater than a month or so. But in the middle of this sizzling streak, Chapman has accomplished some issues in a different way, decreasing his strikeout charge, connecting on 4 opposite-field dwelling runs (in comparison with zero in 2022) and hitting a ball tougher than he did at any level final yr.

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If you’re Scott Boras, the highly effective MLB agent who represents Chapman, these are welcome developments. But if anybody’s happier than Boras, it ought to be Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins. Because whereas it might be tough to lose Chapman as a free agent after the season, there’s nothing mistaken with seeing gamers excel in Toronto throughout their contract years. In reality, it’s the best-case state of affairs.

In latest years, brokers together with Boras have described the Blue Jays as an more and more interesting touchdown spot. Some of that’s tied to the Blue Jays’ willingness to spend, however gamers and their representatives additionally level to the successes of Robbie Ray, Steven Matz and Marcus Semien, all of whom landed beneficiant multiyear presents elsewhere after elevating their manufacturing alongside Toronto’s coaches and trainers.

It’s far too early to say the place Chapman finally ends up after all, however the longer he sustains this manufacturing the higher for everybody concerned.

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With that, let’s flip our consideration to some much less apparent Blue Jays storylines and proceed with this week’s pocket book:

PEARSON PUSHING

To this level within the season, the Blue Jays haven’t made a single roster transfer with their bullpen. The stability is enviable — a product of fine well being and largely good outcomes. But each time they do want reduction reinforcements, Nate Pearson figures to earn critical consideration.

After Pearson was one of many final cuts in spring coaching, supervisor John Schneider urged him to construct on his momentum as a substitute of falling right into a lull, mentally or bodily. So far, the right-hander’s accomplished simply that, placing out 15 of the 30 batters he’s confronted at triple-A on his method to a 2.45 ERA by way of seven appearances. In the newest of these appearances on Wednesday evening, Pearson topped out at 99.5 m.p.h. along with his fastball whereas averaging 97.5 m.p.h. with the pitch.

Needless to say, that type of velocity performs when it’s persistently across the strike zone. Along with Pearson, Jay Jackson and Bowden Francis are different triple-A relievers making a case for taking part in time on the MLB degree.

“You want these guys to continue to push the envelope,” supervisor John Schneider mentioned earlier than the Blue Jays left for his or her present street journey. “It’s a good spot to be in.”

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FIT TO PLAY

Every group battles accidents in the middle of a six-month season, and the 2023 Blue Jays gained’t be an exception to that rule. But because the aforementioned stability within the bullpen signifies, this group has largely stayed wholesome to this point.

Their foremost division rivals can’t say the identical. The Tampa Bay Rays might have baseball’s greatest document, however their pitching workers has been hit laborious and the New York Yankees group the Blue Jays are about to face has Frankie Montas, Carlos Rodon, Luis Severino, Josh Donaldson, Harrison Bader and Giancarlo Stanton all on the injured listing.

Eventually, these items have a manner of night out, however within the meantime, this weekend within the Bronx presents the Blue Jays an opportunity to realize floor on a rival group that’s not fairly at its strongest.

At the Letters

Ben Nicholson-Smith is Sportsnet’s baseball editor. Arden Zwelling is a senior author. Together, they bring about you probably the most in-depth Blue Jays podcast within the league, overlaying off all the newest news with opinion and evaluation, in addition to interviews with different insiders and group members.

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CLICK IN CONTEXT

Back in 1995, the primary season of Gord Ash’s tenure as Blue Jays GM, the group’s entrance workplace was sufficiently small to suit inside a big SUV. At the time, simply seven baseball operations staff had been primarily based in Toronto.

A technology later, entrance workplaces have expanded past recognition. The Blue Jays’ baseball ops division now has dozens upon dozens of staff together with a baseball methods cloud engineer, a number of biomechanists and a 28-person participant improvement division.

It’s inside that context that the rent of James Click is greatest understood. With so many individuals contributing to the group’s choice making, organizing incoming data properly is crucial. And Click, a former prime govt with the Rays and Houston Astros, is working to make sure that data helps the Blue Jays make higher choices.

“We’ve realized that it takes quite a bit of manpower to do this thing right,” Click mentioned once I spoke to him for this function final weekend. “In a lot of ways, the demands of running an entire baseball operations department can be too much for one person. I think it’s incredibly difficult to do it effectively as a single person. And so, one of the things that I think that successful organizations have done is to broaden the responsibilities of key people throughout the organization.”

Part of the explanation the Blue Jays make use of so many entrance workplace officers: they need to win now whereas additionally sustaining success.

“The real trick is how do we invest in both simultaneously so that we don’t short one to long the other,” Click mentioned. “This organization, I think, is in a unique situation to be able to do that. Invest in both the present and the future. And that’s what you have to do to stay perpetually competitive.”

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