With the all-star festivities complete and everyone filled to the gills with Cincinnati chili, the unofficial second half of the season awaits. And so, let’s take a moment to ponder where we’ve been, how it made us feel as fans, and what we can hope for in the final stretch.
Players who have brought unexpected joy to our hearts (or at least to mine)
Josh Donaldson: I saw a fair bit of Donaldson on Sportsnet’s late MLB games last year, and he struck me at the time as a player worth envying. When the Toronto Blue Jays acquired him, it seemed like a very real possibility that he could immediately be the best player on the roster.
Even with expectations as high as those, I’m not sure if I’ve ever fallen head-over-heels for a player in the way that I have for Donaldson this season. There’s so much to admire and adore about his approach at the plate, his consistent and powerful swing, his lively, steadfast defence, and his flair for the dramatic.
Donaldson’s 4.7 WAR (per Fangraphs) in 89 games with the Jays already ranks him as 10th best third baseman in the history of the franchise. He currently sits just fractions of a win behind Ed Sprague (4.8), though in one-tenth of the games played (888 for Sprague).
Not that one wants to ratchet up expectations too high on one player, but there’s great pleasure to be had when you ask for the moon and the stars and someone delivers galaxies.
Devon Travis: For a player who received tepid notices from prospect gurus, Travis’ game has been a welcome addition to the Blue Jays, especially after the amount of churn at second base in recent seasons.
Travis looks like an everyday big leaguer, with much better defence than we were led to believe and a tight, repeatable technique at the plate.
Travis’ contributions were so valuable in the early going that his presence was clearly missed during his extended spell on the DL, and even though he hasn’t posted the exceptional power numbers since coming back, he continues to pound out hits, especially in big spots. He’s posted a .379/.393/.466 slash line since his return, scoring 10 and driving in six.
Kevin Pillar: Jays fans have an exceedingly hard time warming up to their new every day centre fielder, which might have something to do with the fact that his awful May is not so distant in our memories.
Still, for a player who was thought to be a fourth outfielder at best, Pillar leads the team in games played, and looks much better in the field than I had remembered. Aside from the dramatic leaping or diving catches, Pillar takes fast and efficient routes to fly balls and makes good throwing decisions.
You could live with that sort of defence, but add to it a .903 OPS since June 2 with five homers and six steals, and you’re happy to have a guy on your roster who ranks ahead of Jason Heyward, Starling Marte, Curtis Granderson, Kole Calhoun and Justin Upton on Fangraphs’ table of outfield WAR leaders.
Players who give us a case of the Mondays all week long
Drew Hutchison: There’s a bit of Brandon Morrow in this year’s opening day starter. His predictive advanced stats keep telling us that he’s not as bad as his results seem to suggest, and yet, even those numbers don’t suggest that his results should be much better than a No. 3 starter.
For a pitcher who carried fans’ expectations of taking a significant step forward and leading the rotation in the absence of Marcus Stroman, Hutchison has ranked amongst the worst pitchers to continue to get a starting turn this year.
Certainly, his .358 BABIP has contributed to his struggles, though that mark will tend to be high for a pitcher who allows as much solid contact as Hutchison.
Daniel Norris: It’s not just that Daniel Norris isn’t contributing to the big league team’s fortunes at this point, or that his results in triple-A Buffalo are maddeningly enigmatic.
The real problem with Norris’ tepid output this year is that it has created a situation in which the Jays need to acquire starting pitching while diminishing his prospect value to a point where he is unlikely to help net such a player in return.
There’s still plenty of upside for Norris, and if his wild delivery can be tamed and made repeatable, he can be a part of the Jays’ future success. But if revered prospect Jeff Hoffman needs to be moved in order to return a starting pitcher of any notable competence, some of the onus will rest on the man in the van.
Happy thoughts and wishes for the second half
The 2015 Blue Jays are maddening this year, mostly because they look as though they are so much better than their record indicates. They’ve scored more runs and have the highest OPS of any team in baseball, and the Pythagorean record estimates of teams’ records figures that they should be the third best team in baseball.
This is all cold comfort for a team sitting a game under .500, but if the Jays can maintain something close to this pace on offence and manage something marginally less terrible from their pitchers, they could just go on a run and make the last 71 games of the season the most exciting baseball we’ve seen in decades.