In many ways, so much of John Schneider’s learning came in and around the spring training bullpen. Such is the life of someone who spent seven years as a minor-league catcher – never a prospect – before moving into minor-league managing.
So, when he joined us on Blair & Barker on Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays manager seemed a natural to discuss the process of pitchers taking a “new” or “refined” pitch from spring training into the regular season. Publicly, we know of four Blue Jays pitchers who spent spring training working on pitches – Jose Berrios (cutter), Nate Pearson and Bowden Francis (split-fingered fastballs) and Yusei Kikuchi (circle change-up). Evolve or die, I guess, because look around the game: big names like Spencer Strider and others are running out new pitches, as are relative unknowns like … like that Blanco guy with the Houston Astros.
“In the bullpen in spring training, you’re working on the actual shape of the pitch – what it does and how it will move,” said Schneider. “In the season, you’re pairing it up with your other stuff. The guys we have (starters) are pretty well-travelled in their careers. You’re looking for how it will help you navigate an at-bat or a lineup or help put a guy away.
“But,” he added, “you don’t want to fall in love with it.”
Monday, of course, the Blue Jays were put to sleep in Ronel Blanco’s no-hitter in part by a ‘pitchfork’ changeup that he started throwing in 2023, with an eye toward positioning himself for a potential move into the starting rotation. The Astros have really smart pitching people, and there are echoes in some ways of the successful plan of attack that was used in transitioning Cristian Javier from multi-inning reliever to starter. It’s not quite like the Tampa Bay Rays transitioning relievers to starters mid-season – like they did in 2023 with Zack Littell and have done with others – but it’s still found money for the Astros. As an organization that has gone to the last seven American League Championship Series and won four World Series, they’ve lived off bargain-basement international free-agent signings and re-purposing.
Blanco threw the change nine per cent of the time last season, 86 of them overall. He threw 36 changes in no-hitting the Blue Jays. Francis, his opposite, threw three of his new split-fingered pitches. Berrios threw three cut fastballs, a weapon that might allow him to face more lefty hitters in his next playoff game. Astros lefty Yordan Alvarez singled on one of them.
Ryan Dempster’s been there, too: it was in a bullpen session in the spring of 2005 – after 217 games in the major leagues – that the then-Chicago Cubs pitcher was shown a split-fingered pitch by fellow Canadian and former Cub Fergie Jenkins.
“It was a game-changer for me,” said Dempster, who appeared in 579 games over 16 seasons. “It became a wipe-out pitch, and Larry Rothschild (the Cubs pitching coach) said: ‘Every time you get two strikes on a lefty hitter, throw that pitch. They’re not going to hit it.’
“First of all, you need success from a visual standpoint,” Dempster said. “You need to ask yourself: ‘Do I like it?’ Then translate it into games.”
Dempster decries what he sees as a growing tendency to read into spring training statistics. Baseball is like that: everybody says spring stats don’t matter – especially if they stink – but if they’re good they become a harbinger of optimisms. Everybody cautions against making a big deal about velocity – but they chase velocity. Don’t over-react after the first week? Good luck with that, right?
But Dempster also thinks there’s a tendency to sell short what pitchers can actually do in spring games. Process, not results.
“Bullpens are great, but it’s hard to duplicate all the things going on in the game: hitter in the box, competition,” he said. “You can do that in spring training games, when you’ve got 10,000-12,000 people in the stands.
“Take those opportunities. I have thousands of baseball cards in my office, and I can’t find one spring training stat on the back. So why not, if I’m working on a new pitch, go out there and be like: ‘I’m throwing 95 per cent cutters today. Ninety per-cent breaking balls.’ Because if I’m trying to evolve a pitch, I don’t have time to do it in the regular season. I don’t have time to work on a pitch in April.
“See it, and if it translates into the game, then stick with it. Believe it. If you’re seeing results with your eyes and how it moves and then hitters are showing you? Don’t stop throwing it.”
As Sportsnet’s Buck Martinez noted Wednesday, there is a shift in how pitchers are attacking hitters, favoring off-speed pitches and pitches lower in the zone. The Boston Red Sox and new pitching coach Andrew Bailey have dramatically decreased four-seam fastball usage in favor of movement and off-speed pitches, which is what he did when he was the San Francisco Giants’ pitching coach. Evolve or die, indeed.
Dumbing down the discourse.
I don’t get why anybody wouldn’t get why the Blue Jays’ slumbering start to the season has so many people in this market frustrated. You can’t spend all spring talking about one thing and then doing the other when the regular season starts.
Seriously, as one caller on Blue Jays Talk said it’s like it’s still 2023 around here; like we’re about to play Game 170 of last season. And as someone who saw the logic behind the Lourdes Gurriel, Jr./Gabriel Moreno trade at the time – Moreno was still third in the catching pecking order – and realized the team had no interest in re-signing Teoscar Hernandez with an eye toward improving their defence, well, I’m beginning to think this front office over-reacted to that playoff loss to the Seattle Mariners and under-reacted to last season’s loss to the Minnesota Twins. I’m willing to be proven wrong …
Old Timers Day
I guess we’ll have to get used to Justin Turner leaving his mark in the Blue Jays record book under “Oldest Player To ….”
Turner is already the oldest player in franchise history with four times on base and four RBIs in a single game, accomplishing the feat on Sunday at the age of 39 years, 129 days. Frank Thomas did it twice in 2007 – April 7, 41 days before his 39th birthday, and June 23, 27 days after his 39th birthday. Paul Molitor did it within a 45-day span in 1994, including 39 days shy of his 38th birthday. I love watching Turner hit.
There’s an ease that takes me back to an interview with him where he said the key is swinging at 80 per-cent strength and not trying to always muscle the ball.
In the beginning
Regardless of the era, the one thing you can pretty much count on is that you are going to see the opposing team’s finest starting pitcher on Opening Day.
So, watching Maple Ridge, B.C.’s Tyler O’Neill collect his fifth consecutive Opening Day home run – off reliever Cody Bolton of the Seattle Mariners – and set a Major League record made me wonder about the identities of the pitchers who gave up the four Opening Day homers hit by Gary Carter, who along with Yogi Berra and Todd Hundley were tied with O’Neill before this season’s Opening Day.
Two of Carter’s Opening Day shots came off Hall of Famer Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies (1977 and 1980) while he also went deep off another Hall of Famer, Bert Blyleven of the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, and Jerry Koosman of the New York Mets (1978). All of them were starters and eras come and go but one thing is usually consistent: you get the opponent’s finest starting pitcher on Opening Day.
The difference? They’re not in the game as long: Carlton (1980) and Koosman (1978) both went nine innings in those openers … Carter, in fact, homered off Carlton in the ninth in 1980. In addition to Bolton, O’Neill has homered off the Blue Jays’ Alek Manoah in 2023, J.T. Brubaker (2022), Cam Bedrosian (2021) and Joe Musgrove in 2020. The homer off Musgrove was struck on July 24, the Opening Day of the COVID-shortened season.
Maddon’s insight on Ohtani/translator relationship invaluable.
Back when I cared about such stuff, I used to get a lot of grief from baseball people for being particularly hard on baseball executives and coaches and managers – as well as the commissioner’s office – when it came to baseball’s steroid scandal.
Why, I kept getting asked, was I letting player agents skate? Did I really believe they didn’t know what was going on? Mea freaking culpa, I guess.
So I found it intriguing this week when Joe Maddon, Shohei Ohtani’s former manager with the Los Angeles Angels, wondered why Ohtani’s agent – Nez Balelo – and his agency weren’t being scrutinized more for the $4.5 million in bank transfers to an illegal bookmaking operation that were allegedly made on behalf of his translator, Ippei Mizuhara. Maddon made his comments on The Athletic’s Starkville podcast with Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville.
Mizuhara was fired and while Ohtani is not a subject of the federal investigation focused on bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, and his agency – CAA – says Ohtani’s financial affairs aren’t handled by Balelo, Maddon suggested an agent should know about that much money moving around. The podcast and article are important in understanding how this mess could have transpired. Maddon made clear that as a manager all his communications with Ohtani were through Mizuhara … and the agent.
Speaking of 2023 redux …
This isn’t your beer league hockey or soft pitch: athletes play professional sports to get paid. So I understand why Kevin Kiermaier would have looked at the non-market for his services this winter and decided he needed to change something at the plate; become a different sort of offensive player.
But here’s the thing: Kiermaier’s age and history of injuries means he’s not getting any big pay days going forward. It’s all year to year from this point on: he’s entering ‘good teammate/defensive replacement territory.’ And that’s OK. But until then, the Blue Jays need the 2023 version of KK at the plate. That’s a repeat of 2023 I wouldn’t mind seeing …
Jeff Blair hosts Blair & Barker from 2-4 p.m. ET on Sportsnet 590/The Fan and Sportsnet. He also hosts Blue Jays Talk with Kevin Barker following Blue Jays games.