The Slide Rule

Just a week into the season and we have seen two games decided by “The Utley Rule” (one obviously was the Jays, the other the Astros) and reaction hasn’t been great.  Out of anger towards the outcomes of games, of games, the new rule has received a lot of negativity from players and managers alike.  The sad thing is, this was a rule put into place to protect those players.  I am in total agreement that protection of the players should be of the utmost importance, but from where I sit, I find it incredibly unfortunate that a rule with the best of intentions was bastardized so poorly.  To break it down, the new “Slide Rule” states that a runner has to comply with all 4 of the following:

1. Begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching base.
2. Is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot.
3. Is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide.
4. Slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.   
    
   

For the first two points, I find them to be well implemented, and within the spirit of the new rule to keep second basemen safe.  Basically the rule is saying, when making a slide into second, you have to at least try to be safe.  Don’t bust out a Liu Kang flying kick over top of the bag, and be close enough that you are at least within the act of trying to remain safe.

The next two?  This is where I have a problem.  For rule 3, it states “Is able to remain on the base”. There are legitimate challenges that occur because players making routine slides sometimes “aren’t able” to stay on the base after a slide.  How many times have you seen a foot or hand come loose on a hook slide?  Every time a guy slides into second if I’m a manger I’m checking to see if he stayed on the base, because if not you just saved yourself an out.  Remove “is able” and I have full buy in.   It then just helps to reinforce that you have to be at least trying to be safe, even if you’re coming in hot, which is completely fair.  Having said that, this isn’t the egregious part of the rule in my opinion, so no need to belabour it further.

Rule 4 is where is gets simply ridiculous.  “Slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.”  What in the name of Jesus Alou is this?  If you are enforcing the other 3 rules you are going to successfully protect the players while keeping in an integral part of the game in breaking up double plays.  This segment is such a load of crap.  If you are not flying through the bag and still making an attempt to remain safe, why can you not slide to one side of the bag or the other to try to disrupt the natural rhythm of a throw?  What happened to transitioning and making a throw over a sprawling body like a pro.  Disgusting.

So bringing this full circle back to the Jays, was the right call made on Jose? Yup.  Sure was.  To the letter of the law Jose broke 3 (slid past the base) and 4 (moved his arm which is changing the path).  It felt initially like the Jays had just been screwed by a bad call.  Unfortunately they were just suffering the new reality of a poorly constructed rule.  A poorly constructed rule to which players are going to have to adjust to just like they did the Posey rule.  Fortunately for Jays fans it has already started to happen.  Sunday's game in Boston presented another potential slide rule appearance with the bases loaded.  Set in the first inning, it wouldn’t have had the immediate impact of determining the outcome of the game, but could have cost the Jays a couple of valuable runs.  With Joey Bats again standing at first, EE put the ball in play towards short, with the tough possibility for the Sox to turn a double play.  This time however, Bautista slid directly into the bag (no arm swipe altering his path) and also made a visible effort to remain on the bag throughout the slide.  A rushed Pedroia overthrew first allowing Edwin to reach safely and both Pillar and Donaldson to score on the overthrow.  After a quick dugout check, Boston decided not to review the play seeing a legal slide on the replays.   

It is a positive sign that the Jays are adapting to this early on, however I still hold out hope that  they revisit the rule like they did to a couple last year, and allow a little bit more leniency on double play slides.  Protect the players, but don’t completely remove one of the more exciting plays in baseball. 

- Dustin

Gibbons Faces A Tough Decision On The Jays New Closer

Tell Me This Isn’t Happ-ening!

It’s December.  Free Agency had started but nothing major had happened.  As far as the Jays are concerned, they had made a (I feel very well) calculated move in locking up Estrada, and traded a reliever in Liam Hendriks for another fringe starter in Jesse Chavez.  Both moves, while not major, look good.  Competition at the back end of the rotation is never a bad thing, and I feel Estrada is the real deal.  Bring in one top end guy and this rotation is solid I think.  Then it happens.  The alert pops up on my phone.  Welcome back J.A. Happ.

Like many others out there, my initial response was not a great one. My kids may have received  the benefit of learning a few new curse words at his expense (no no guys, those are Mommy and Daddy words…).  What are they doing!? Your ex is your ex for a reason!  A bunch of monkeys!  Fire Shapiro!

The thing is, emotion was the driver on this reaction.  Based on memory in the moment, he had never performed exceedingly well for the Jays in the first place, and the refusal to accept a bullpen assignment was fresh in my mind.  

The thing about emotional decisions, is that they are very often incorrect, so I wanted to investigate this signing further to try to gain some perspective on what exactly the brass was thinking.  I pulled together a collection of free agent pitchers to compare last years numbers, and see just what exactly we were getting in our “ex”.  There was Happ, and then 5 other pitchers who were labelled as the top free agents, but also reasonable acquisitions for the Jays (basically just excluded Price and Grienke).

Player A: IP 172 k/9 7.9 bb/9 2.35 hr/9 0.84 Era 3.61 xFiP 3.69 war 3.3

Player B: IP 201 k/9 7.33 bb/9 1.74 hr/9 1.07 Era 3.66 xFiP 3.82 war 3.0

Player C: IP 129.2 k/9 7.7 bb/9 1.46 hr/9 1.25 Era 3.54 xFiP 3.27 war 1.8

Player D: IP 214 k/9 6.86 bb/9 2.06 hr/9 1.22 Era 4.96 xFiP 4.31 war 2.7

Player E: IP 212 k/9 7.47 bb/9 1.95 hr/9 0.89 Era 3.44 xFiP 3.78 war 4.1

Player F: IP 183 k/9 7.62 bb/9 2.90 hr/9 0.98 Era 3.10 xFiP 4.14 war 2.4

Without knowing names, these numbers are a lot closer than expected.  I mean really, Happ should stick out like a sore thumb…  So which was he.  Emotional “I hate J.A. Happ” is looking for negatives.  There’s one player that sticks out as the worst pitcher by a relatively large margin.  Player D, come on down to the Jays rotation.  Wrong.  Congratulations on the 18 million Mr. Samardzija.  

Well how about Player F?  That xFIP shows some serious luck.  He had to have been lucky to be on par with some of the top free agent starters, right?  Wrong.  Scott Kazmir doesn’t have a contract yet, but that’s him.  

How about player B?  The lowest K/9 of the bunch.  JA never did seem to have that knock out pitch.  Nope.  Zimmermann is likely more than happy with his 22 million though.

Lowest war?  That’s Iwakuma.  A more reasonable 15 million.

The two players left are A and E.  Player E is Johnny Cueto, who just pulled in almost 22 million with concerns of a bad elbow, leaving you with J.A. Happ.  Excluding Kazmir who hasn’t signed, he is also making the least of all of them at 12 million per.

By providing these numbers, I’m not trying to convince myself, or anyone for that matter, that JA Happ was a better signing than all of these other pitchers. There is so much more to assessing a player's value than cherry picking one season.  Track record, scouting, raw talent, potential, and many other stats that aren’t listed here are all other factors that could skew you away from J.A. pretty fast.  What it does show though, is that maybe, J.A. is better than the emotional WTF reaction called for.  If he truly did sort things out in Pittsburgh, the Jays just landed a colossal  bargain.  To top it all off too, he’s a lefty, which is a rarity among Jays potential starters.

So as I get past my vitriol from the smack in the face the web alert provided, step back, take a few breaths, and put this into perspective, this definitely is Happ-ening.  And well, call me crazy, but I like it.

Dustin