Dickey-Syndergaard and Revisionist History

   I did something I almost always regret last night.
  No, I didn't eat at McDonald's, but I did get into it with someone on Twitter.
  These things usually don't go well, because I'm not one to need to have to have the last word, and as a married man I've learned over the years to bite my tongue.  Twitter fights usually don't go well for me, and I vow not to get sucked in again next time.
  But sometimes, when I see something on Twitter that I don't think is anything close to right, I sometimes lose the inner battle not to respond.
   Someone last night posted this, and I just couldn't help but respond:

Imagine having a pitching staff that has Syndergaard, Sanchez and Stroman in it. God damnit Anthopolous

— Blue Jays Updates (@BlueJaysLive) October 6, 2016

  I was a huge Noah Syndergaard fan, thanks to the Lansing Three articles the media inundated us with in 2012 (those articles prompted me to turn my lifelong interest in the minors into this very blog), and was somewhat shocked to learn that he had been dealt. But that was balanced by the news that he was bringing a Cy Young winner in return. And as Andrew Stoeten pointed out in the National Post, former GM Alex Anthopoulos had sold us all on the need to stockpile minor league talent.  But not to use it as a way to build a winner in the distant future, rather as currency to upgrade the major league team without sacrificing much, if any, of the 40-man roster.
  The Blue Jays did pay a huge price to land R.A. Dickey, but context plays a huge role in the evaluation of this deal.  Yes, there is this about Noah Syndergaard:

Noah Syndergaard threw 42 pitches 98+ mph tonight. That's more than the Phillies (41) and Indians (35) threw all year. #Thor

— Inside Edge (@InsideEdgeScout) October 6, 2016

  But when the deal was made, the Blue Jays were in a much different position.  After several years of declining television ratings and attendance (bottoming out at 1.5 million in 2010, their lowest total in almost 30 years), the team had identified a window of competitive opportunity after the 2012 season.  And Anthopoulos, always one to roll the dice, completed a huge deal with Florida to bring Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson, and Jose Reyes to the team.  Having gone all in, Anthopoulos had one more piece of the puzzle to add, and that was a frontline stater.  Joel Sherman of the New York Post observed:

As with Price this year, Toronto felt its rotation was crying out for a bulldog ace (remember Dickey had just won the Cy Young a few months earlier). As with Price, the Blue Jays had not been to the playoffs since winning the World Series in 1993. They saw that rare instance when the AL East opened up because the Yankees and Red Sox were simultaneously vulnerable. Then, like now, they did not want to waste prime years of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion when both were on team-friendly contracts, and generally believed they had a window with a win-now core.

  Full houses and record tv ratings were not the norm in 2012, and the Blue Jays brain trust knew that something had to happen to jump start a moribund organization.  On his return to Toronto as a member of the Dodgers organization this year, Anthopoulos acknowledged:

"We felt we were at a bit of a crossroads there in terms of do you scale it back and strip down and maybe (Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion) get moved," said Anthopoulos. "Do you trade Edwin? Do you trade Jose? It's hard to be in the middle. I don't think in any sports team it's probably not the appropriate place to be. You have to make a decision on where you want to be. Ultimately it didn't work out for 2013. In 2014 we felt we had a team that could have made the playoffs. The unfortunate part is we just weren't able to get anything done at the trade deadline. The following year, able to learn from some past experiences, at the trade deadline (we were) able to make moves, and things like that.

"The thought was we were going to be able to (contend) three years in a row and beyond to be able to get to the playoffs and get to the World Series. The thought was it could be what it is today in terms of attendance, TV ratings, fan interest. The belief was there. It was almost like a wick and you needed to light it. If you could, it would open up all kinds of things. That’s what I think I'm most proud of, and sure there are other people here who were involved with it because there were so many people involved, but seeing where the sport is in Canada right now, seeing how the organization is viewed and the fan interest, all those type of things."

     The truth is that the Blue Jays did have a wealth of minor league talent to deal from, and when the Mets likely said that either Syndergaard or Aaron Sanchez had to be part of the return for Dickey, the Blue Jays opted to keep the latter.  It's worth noting what Baseball America had to say about the two in their ranking of the Blue Jays Top 10 prospects after 2012:

Syndergaard and fellow 2010 sandwich pick Aaron Sanchez have risen through the minors together and will team again in 2013 at high Class A Dunedin. Both have the ceiling of a frontline starter, with Syndergaard not quite matching Sanchez in stuff but outshining him in terms of polish.

    The Blue Jays knew that there was a definite gamble that Syndergaard and d'Arnaud would turn into frontline players (although  d'Arnaud's injury history has followed him to New York), but the thinking among the front office staff was that by the time that happened, the Blue Jays' window on the Yankees and Red Sox would be closing, and Encarnacion and Bautista would be beyond their primes.

   The chance to add an innings-eating Cy Young winner was just too good to pass up, and even though Dickey did not repeat his performance in the AL East, he gave the team 800 mostly decent innings at a time when the rotation underwent significant change.  And even though Anthopoulos was the face of the team's administration, the whole front office - which included some pretty astute baseball minds - signed off on the deal.  Syndergaard, while projected as a number 2 starter at best at the time of the trade.  Few people outside of the scouting world could have predicted that he would become the fireballing top of the rotation arm he has developed into - certainly many making the claim that he would had never seen him pitch prior to his MLB debut with the Mets.  The truth is that Low A prospects are still a long way away.  Certainly, some blue chip, obvious talents can have their future predicted for them at level, but there was no guarantee that he would reach his ceiling.

   Those who claim that the Jays should not have made that deal are engaging in revisionist history.  Stoeten summed this whole situation up neatly:

You’ll still find fans who dispute this — who believe that the Jays should have stayed the course and waited for the prospects to develop. Realistically, by the 2012 off-season, doing nothing was no longer an option for a front office that not only wanted to keep the wolves at bay, but saw huge opportunity in building around the emergence of the elite slugging duo of Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion — both of whom were signed to significantly below-market contracts. It likely was no longer an option for an ownership group that ought to have been concerned about the decay of the Jays’ brand and the value of the club’s broadcast rights, which are a pillar of programming on their Sportsnet networks.   

Chad Jenkins: End of the QEW Shuffle?

Toronto Star photo

   The Blue Jays signed Gavin Floyd to a major league contract on Saturday, designating Swingman Chad Jenkins for assignment.


   Jenkins was the Jays 1st round pick (20th overall) in 2009, the last first round pick of the J.P Ricciardi era.  Say what you will about the club's approach to drafting during the Ricciardi era, this last go produced a fair amount of talent for Toronto (and other clubs), including:

-1st round compensation pick (for the loss of Marco Scutaro) James Paxton, who the Blue Jays were unable to sign.  With the compensation pick they received the following year, they selected Noah Syndergaard, who went to the Mets in the R.A. Dickey deal.
-3rd round comp pick (for the loss of free agent A.J. Burnett), they chose Jake Marisnick, who was part of the package sent to Florida in the Jose Reyes-Mark Buehrle deal.
-4th round pick Ryan Goins filled in admirably for both Devon Travis and Troy Tulowitzki last year
-5th round pick Ryan Schimpf has topped 20 Home Runs each of the past four minor league seasons, and has been a good MiLB depth piece.
-9th round pick Aaron Loup has provided solid long relief out of the bullpen since 2012
-10th rounder Yan Gomes, who was dealt to the Indians for no apparent reason, has provided Cleveland with decent value
-15th round pick Drew Hutchison
-19th rounder Ryan Tepara has a shot at a spot in long relief after making his MLB debut last year.
   Not an outstanding group (outside, potentially, of Syndergaard), but only the Braves and White Sox 2010 draft classes have produced more WAR as a group.

   A then-August 15th deadline signing, Jenkins moved slowly but steadily through the Toronto system after making his pro debut in 2010.  Baseball America's draft report about Jenkins said:

A mid-80s guy in high school, Jenkins had a soft body but his arm worked well, and he has improved significantly in college. He had a strong sophomore season, first with Kennesaw State (5-5, 3.96), then in the Great Lakes League. Jenkins has firmed up his still soft body, and his velocity has caught up with his ability to throw strikes. He now has two or three plus pitches at times with good command, giving him serious helium. Jenkins has a great feel for pitching and now sits at 90-93 mph with his hard sinker and reaches back for 96 mph with a four-seamer at times. His sinker has boring action in on righthanded hitters when it's going well. His slider gives him a second plus pitch. His changeup is average. Jenkins repeats his delivery, and scouts see his big 6-foot-4, 225-pound body as a durable asset, particularly if he keeps getting in better shape. He resembles Phillies righthander Joe Blanton, with better command, and should go in the first 20 picks.

   By 2012, he had advanced to AA, and after a near-epidemic of injuries to the pitching staff, made his MLB debut in August, pitching decently in a relief role, before being given three starts at the end of the season. Injuries cost him a chunk of 2013, but he pitched well in 10 appearances (3 starts) with the team.  2014 again saw him spend a fair amount of time on the QEW, with 3 separate stints with the Jays, all in relief, but he put up decent numbers, only to have his season end when he was fractured his hand during batting practice in early September.
2015 saw him make all of two appearances with Toronto, seeming to be the beginning of the end of his time with the Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays now have 10 days to trade Jenkins, place him on waivers, release him, or outright him to the minors.  What went wrong for Jenkins?  How did he wind up getting to know some of the Peace Bridge customs officials on both sides of the border on a first name basis?
2009 was the year, of course, the Blue Jays passed on a New Jersey High Schooler named Mike Trout, but then again, 23 other teams did too.  The Nationals took San Diego St RHP Stephen Strasburg with the 1st overall pick, and newly acquired Blue Jay Drew Storen with the 10th, the Braves took P Shelby Miller with the pick before Jenkins, and the Twins took P Kyle Gibson.  Garrett Richards was taken by the Angels with the 42nd pick.  What I'm trying to suggest is that by the time the Blue Jays' turn to pick came around at 20, there wasn't a lot left in terms of upper-level talent, and Jenkins was as good a pick as any.

   As a starter, Jenkins throws a four-pitch mix, but his four-seamer doesn't get a lot of movement, and generated no swings and misses when he threw it to major leaguers in 2014.  His sinker, which came in at 91-92, tended not to have a lot of depth to it either, meaning that he gave up some contact.  As a reliever, that's not what the club was necessarily looking for.  As a guy with options remaining in 2013 and 2014, he was often the first one sent down - he was recalled from Buffalo a total of 10 times in his career.  In 2015, after starting in his first four appearances (and pitching well, other than his first), Jenkins was shuttled to the bullpen as insurance for May, June, and July, waiting for a call that never came.  If there's one thing apparent from his time with the Blue Jays, is that while he filled the strike zone reasonably well, he didn't miss enough bats to stick:

    Jenkins didn't experience a significant uptick in velocity when he moved to the bullpen, and he was sometimes a victim of a numbers game.  With Liam Hendriks experiencing success in a long relief role with Toronto this year, Jenkins was the odd man out, which is unfortunate, because he may have benefitted from the improved infield defence the club fielded in the second half of the season.  Jenkins profiles more as a tweener, someone who could start and relieve, but wasn't effective enough at either to have a more secure and defined role on a Major League roster. Even with the holes in Buffalo's rotation after last season, Jenkins was not considered to be a piece of that puzzle due to his option status.  In the end, he was good, but not good enough.
    This morning, it was announced that Jenkins had indeed cleared waiviers, and was outrighted to Buffalo, meaning not much has changed, other than he no longer has a spot on the 40-man roster. His AAAA status is all but secure.