R.A. Dickey threw seven brilliant innings (plus one batter), Brett Cecil and Casey Janssen were both perfect in relief, and Jose Bautista’s 31st home run of the year came with a couple of runners on to provide more than enough offence for the Blue Jays to salvage the final game of a series in Boston that they could very easily have swept.
They didn’t, so it’s a 4-2 road trip and the Jays return home for a week against the Cubs and Rays, looking at the same five-game wild-card deficit that they faced when they left, although now they’re chasing Seattle and not Detroit.
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With yet another strong performance – the 17th start in his last 25 in which Dickey has given up fewer than three earned runs – the knuckleball maestro lowered his ERA to 3.84 on the season. Only once in his Blue Jays’ tenure has Dickey had a lower ERA after any start.
With the emergence of Marcus Stroman, the tantalizing ability of Aaron Sanchez and the glimpses of brilliance from Drew Hutchison in combination with Dickey and Mark Buehrle being under contract for a combined $31 million in 2015, some are suggesting that the Blue Jays should trade one of their veteran starting pitchers in the off-season to free up some money to do other things.
Remember, J.A. Happ has a very affordable option at $6.7 million that seems to be worth picking up, too, giving them six starters.
A caller on Sunday afternoon’s edition of BlueJaysTalk suggested that Dickey should be the one to move because his presence means that the Jays need to also carry Josh Thole as the back-up catcher, although Thole’s presence is the reason the Jays are in heavy-chase mode going into the final fortnight and a half of the season. That’s silly, but another caller suggested that Dickey should be kept because of the effect that he has on the next day’s starting pitcher, should they be facing the same team.
The theory that a knuckleballer messes up the team he faces for the next day or two is one that has had a lot of legs in the game of baseball, so I decided to see if there was, in fact, a “Dickey effect” at work with the Blue Jays this year.
After days of research, I have come to the conclusion that this year’s data is inconclusive. Fun!
See, here’s the thing: On June 28th, Marcus Stroman made his sixth major-league start. It was his first following Dickey in the rotation in the same series, therefore facing the same team back-to-back. Stroman has since made 11 starts, 9 of them facing the same team and two of them starting a different series, so it’s really impossible to tell whether there’s been a “Dickey effect” on his numbers because the sample size of him not facing the same opponent is so small.
It is interesting, though, that since he began to follow Dickey in the rotation, Stroman has had four starts in which he’s allowed more than two earned runs, and two of those four were in those starts in which he faced a different opponent than the knuckleballer.
In all, when Stroman follows Dickey and they face the same opponent back-to-back (10 starts), the rookie has posted an ERA of 3.00 and 1.167 WHIP, with 52 strikeouts in 54 innings. In his other seven starts this season, Stroman has a 3.57 ERA, a 1.147 WHIP and 33 strikeouts in 45 1/3 innings.
So the one thing we can conclusively say about Stroman, though the sample size is small, is that his strikeout rate is significantly higher when he follows Dickey in the same series. Is the difference statistically significant? I don’t know, you have to ask a math major. My degree is in psychology, and I put it to good use on a nightly basis.
But that’s Dickey’s effect on Stroman, who has only been his running mate in the rotation since late June. What about before that?
Prior to June 28th, there were 11 starts made by a Blue Jay back-to-back with Dickey in the same series — five by J.A. Happ, four by Dustin McGowan and two by Drew Hutchison.
It’s such a tiny sample with Hutchison, just two of his 28 starts this year, that it’s hardly worth mentioning. One of the starts was very good – 5 1/3 shutout innings against the Rays – and the other was awful – allowing six runs to the Yankees and not making it out of the fourth inning.
For McGowan, he only made a total of eight starts, half of which fell under the auspices of the supposed “Dickey Effect.” In those four starts, McGowan posted a 6.63 ERA and 1.737 WHIP, striking out 16 in 19 innings. In his other four starts, McGowan threw 20 innings, striking out just nine, but his ERA of 3.60 was much better, as was his 1.500 WHIP.
In Happ’s case, the sample is similarly limited to Hutchison’s – just five of his 22 starts on the season. Following Dickey against the same opponent, the lefty put up a 3.66 ERA and 1.375 WHIP, with 24 strikeouts in 32 innings, or 6.8 K/9. In the rest of his starts, Happ has posted a 4.47 ERA and 1.355 WHIP with 7.7 K/9. So Happ is the only one who actually has struck out more hitters when he hasn’t followed Dickey in the same series than when he has.
See? I told you the data was inconclusive.
There doesn’t seem to have been a Dickey Effect at all with Hutchison and McGowan this year, and while Happ has an ERA that’s over 4/5 of a run better when he has followed Dickey, both his WHIP and his K rate are worse. As for Stroman? The ERA is half a run better when he follows Dickey and the K rate is much higher, but his WHIP is slightly worse.
I don’t know if there’s a Dickey Effect or not – there really doesn’t seem to have been one this year – but either way, his presence certainly hasn’t been a panacea for the pitcher who follows him the next day facing the same opponent.
Does that mean the knuckleballer should be moved in the off-season?
Heck, no.
200-inning starting pitchers with ERAs under 4 who are immune to Tommy John surgery don’t exactly grow on trees. Whether he helps out the next guy in the rotation or not, Dickey is doing a pretty good job for the Blue Jays every time he takes the ball – which happens to be every fifth day. He and Buehrle are the only Blue Jays’ pitchers who haven’t missed a start over the past two seasons.