BRADENTON, Fla. – Spring training results don’t matter. It’s about process over performance – the line in the boxscore matters much less than how that line in the boxscore came to be.
Very often, especially in spring, unusual factors affect results. Things like rock hard minor-league infields, kids facing a bunch of big leaguers or vice-versa, overmatched defenders who are still years away from being ready for prime time, crazy weather conditions, etc. Put those in combination with the seeing-eye hits, line drives smoked right at people, plays not made and other various and sundry things that can skew results, and the fact that numbers of at-bats and innings pitched in the spring are so small that one or two especially good or bad days can have a major effect on the totals and it’s easy to see why no one should ever put any stock in any Spring Training statistics.
So even though one wants to desperately look away when seeing the numbers that J.A. Happ has put up this spring, they don’t exactly tell the whole story.
Happ, who the Blue Jays say they expected to be their fourth starter this season, has been beyond awful in Grapefruit League games. Tuesday’s hammering at the hands of the Pittsburgh Pirates left him at a grand total of just seven innings pitched in four spring starts. Over those seven frames, Happ has allowed 16 earned runs on 21 hits, walking nine and striking out eight. He did allow just one home run, but that one home run was hit by Wandy Rodriguez. Wandy Rodriguez happens to be a pitcher who, in 501 career major-league plate appearances, has never hit a home run.
If you’re scoring at home, that’s an ERA of 20.57 with a ghastly 4.286 WHIP. Abominable.
They don’t tell the whole story, though. Each individual outing does.
Over his four starts, Happ has not had a single one in which he’s pitched well. It took him 37 pitches to get three outs in his first start, and another 30 to record just one out in his next – a game in which he walked four out of five batters at one point. A back injury sidelined him for a week or so, and in his next Grapefruit League start he managed to get eight outs – on 71 pitches – while walking twice as many (4) as he struck out (2). Then Tuesday against Pittsburgh Happ faced 20 batters and got only eight of them out (one more was caught stealing), throwing 74 pitches.
So J.A. Happ has thrown about 210 pitches this spring, barely more strikes than balls, and has recorded all of 21 outs. That tells a story.
He hasn’t had a single good outing off of which to build. That tells a story, too.
There has been no sustained reminder of the guy who was the Blue Jays’ best starting pitcher over the first six weeks of last season. He hasn’t just had a rough spring, he’s been atrocious.
All that adds up to one thing: It appears, very simply, that right now Happ simply can’t be counted on to get major league hitters out.
With less than a week before Opening Day, the Blue Jays can’t afford to give Happ any more big-league time to get things right.
Their choices are three:
1. Send Happ to Buffalo, where he was supposed to begin last season, and let him work out whatever he needs to work out in order to get back to being the pitcher he was, a solid big-league starter who can really help his team.
B. Put him on the disabled list, the idea being that there’s something physically wrong with Happ (whether he admits it or not) that’s preventing him from being as effective as he usually is.
III. Release him and eat the $5.2 million remaining on his contract.
There are problems with all three of those options. First, he can’t be sent to the minor leagues without his consent because he has more than five years’ service time in the major leagues. If the Blue Jays want to option Happ to Buffalo and Happ doesn’t give them permission, he stays with the big club.
Second, if he’s not actually hurt, he can’t be put on the disabled list. If the Blue Jays try to DL him when he feels he’s healthy enough to be pitching, he could file a grievance with the players’ union that would force the club to keep him on the active roster.
Third, well, you never want to pay a guy $5 million to not play for you, especially when you’re already paying someone (Ricky Romero) even more money to not play for you.
Will Happ consent to an assignment to the minor leagues? That depends. He could take a step back, realistically assess how he’s pitching and come to the same conclusion that the rest of the people watching him have: He has work to do in order to get back to being effective again. On the other hand, he could force the Blue Jays’ hand by refusing the assignment. If he does that, he might leave them with no choice but to release him, and with starting pitchers going down like flies this spring, there may well be a team that offers him a spot in their rotation out of sheer desperation. Looking out for his own bottom line, as he should, the second option is probably the best for Happ.
There is another option, though. It’s possible that the Blue Jays keep Happ and, against all indications to the contrary, give him the ball to start next Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, their fourth game of the season. It certainly appears now that out of all possibilities, that would be by far the least desirable and the one most strongly advised against.
Dustin McGowan threw 62 pitches over four strong shutout innings in a minor-league game while Happ was struggling through his three innings (plus two batters) in Bradenton. Should McGowan show no ill effects, he’ll attempt to throw 75 pitches in another minor-league game on Sunday, while the Blue Jays are prepping for Opening Day 24 hours hence. If McGowan gets through that game with colours still flying, he – or some combination of he and Todd Redmond – must be given that final spot in the Jays’ rotation.
The way he’s pitched this spring, the Blue Jays cannot have J.A. Happ on their active roster to start the season.