TORONTO – Home Runs are awesome, and you should love them.
There seems to be a strange distaste for the long ball creeping into certain perceptions and analyses of the Toronto Blue Jays and their chances of success this season, with many suggesting that the team is "too reliant on the home run" as a way to predict future failure. Some have even suggested the Blue Jays have an "all-or-nothing" offence, which is to say that if they don’t hit home runs, they’re not going to score runs.
And even though the Blue Jays scored all the runs in their Wednesday night win over the Orioles with the long ball, neither of those assertions could be farther from the truth.
Home runs are wonderful, and players who hit a lot of them tend to be pretty wonderful players. The Blue Jays have three of the best in Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Josh Donaldson, and not only do all three of them hit a lot of home runs, not a single one of them is an "all-or-nothing type."
All of Bautista, Encarnacion and Donaldson — each of whom should be expected to hit at least 30 home runs this season, and could very well each hit 40 or more — are disciplined, well-rounded hitters who get on base a whole lot. The home run is only part of their game.
Since becoming a Blue Jay, Bautista has been a prolific home-run hitter, to be sure, but he’s also been one of the best all-around hitters in the game, sporting an on-base percentage of .384 with an OPS of .920. Encarnacion, like Bautista, is off to a slow start this season. The first baseman came into his own in the 2012 season with a breakout campaign, and since the start of that season has posted a .367 on-base percentage with an OPS of .910. Donaldson is only in his third full season in the majors, and over that span has a .364 on-base percentage with an .847 OPS.
Not to mention Devon Travis, the rookie sensation that currently shares the club lead with Encarnacion at four homers. No one is expecting him to be a big-power bat by any means, but he’s co-leading the charge at the moment while also hitting .388 with a .434 on-base.
All three of the Blue Jays’ big sluggers, the ones who will drive the high-octane, big-homer offence, are quality hitters who get out much less often than the average major leaguer (who sported an on-base percentage of just .314 last season and only .310 so far this year). They are far from "home run or bust."
There are such players, of course, and Colby Rasmus was a glaring example of one last season. The ex-Jay, currently with the Houston Astros, hit 18 home runs for the Blue Jays last year — the third-highest total on the club behind Bautista and Encarnacion — but did it while hitting just .225 with a .287 on-base percentage and striking out 124 times in 376 plate appearances. There’s an "all-or-nothing" guy.
But the Blue Jays don’t have any of those players this season — at least none who are regulars in the lineup. Justin Smoak could wind up being that guy — he’s a power bat who came into this season with a career on-base percentage of just .309, striking out in just over a quarter of his at-bats. But Smoak, who hit his first home run of the season (and also struck out) in Wednesday’s win, has only been a part-time player on this team so far. And so far, he’s reaching base at a .367 clip.
The Blue Jays currently lead the major leagues in runs scored and are tied for the lead in home runs, but most of their big rallies have been put together without the aid of the long ball, putting the lie to the idea that this is a home run-centric offence.
The Blue Jays have had several "big innings" already this season — an inning in which they’ve scored at least four runs. Over the first 15 games of the season, it has happened six times. In those six "big innings," over which the Jays have scored 28 total runs, they’ve hit exactly TWO home runs (Both by Edwin Encarnacion, strangely enough). Those two home runs have accounted for a total of three runs. This team has done plenty of scoring without hitting the ball out of the park.
In fact, as quick-strike a weapon as the home run is, the Blue Jays haven’t used it to its best effect this season. They’ve yet to hit a home run all year with more than one man on base.
The Blue Jays are going to hit a lot of home runs this season — they might even hit more than any other team in the majors (just as the Orioles did on their way to 96 wins last season) — and that’s a good thing.