Wednesday Bantering: Roster size, pitcher usage

Whenever I have a morning like this, when I have nothing I want to write about, it is good to be reminded life could easily be worse:

Last night, former Jays prospect Jeff Hoffman, took a hard hit ground ball right off his knee. I saw the reaction on Twitter and then went on MLB.tv to see it. It was scary. It reminded me of Roy Halladay having his leg broken by a line drive, in July of 2005, and being out for the season.

I hope Hoffman’s injury isn’t as bad as it looked and that he can come back strong in spring training.

Speaking of injuries, Kris Bryant slipped on the first base bag and sprained his ankle, and Scott Boras isn’t happy.

I’ll admit, I’m on Boras’ side on this. We’ve seen players slip on the first base bag and hurt themselves several times. I’m convinced that Troy Tulowitzki’s time with the Blue Jays would have been much different if he hadn’t wrecked his ankle on first base. I don’t think he ever totally recovered.

Baseball has done several things to cut down on injuries, making the takeout slide at second illegal and making it illegal to run over the catcher at the plate. Maybe it is time they could look at what they could do with the bases.

Speaking of players out for the season:

The Blue Jays used 10 pitchers on Monday and 8 pitchers Tuesday (I wonder what is the MLB record for pitchers used in consecutive days) and next year MLB is changing the rules for September roster sizes. There won’t be room to carry 17 pitchers on the active roster (and I’m wondering if the team is thinking of adding Yennsy Diaz, Hector Perez and/or Patrick Murphy to the roster today).

Managers, Charlie in particular, are going to have to change the way they manager. In the 15 inning game Justin Shafer, Thomas Pannone and Sam Gaviglio pitched the 5th, 6th and 7th inning respectively. Charlie, knowing he had a dozen pitchers in the bullpen, decided to limit them to one inning each, which would have been fine if baseball always ended after 9 innings.

Charlie is going to have to learn that games can go extra innings. Maybe consider that in your planning. If the reliever is going good let him pitch a second inning. I mean, maybe you don’t want Ken Giles going two innings, but Thomas Pannone? He could have gone two or three innings. Sam Gaviglio has gone more than an inning several times, if he has a good, short inning, let him have another. If he had used less pitchers Monday, he would have had more fresh arms for Tuesday. Yeah he couldn’t have known that Anthony Kay wouldn’t have been able to go Tuesday, but if you are going to manage, you have to consider the possibility that something unforeseen might happen.

I have complaints with how Charlie manages, but this is my biggest one, sometimes he forgets that there is a game tomorrow (or at least there will be until Sunday). A manager has to consider tomorrow’s game, while managing today’s game.

I don’t know what will happen tonight if Jacob Waguespack has to come out early. Jake, if you have 7-8 inning in you, tonight would be the night to show us.

Shi Davidi wrote about the Jays need to improve their defense over the next couple of years. He was mostly talking about the outfield defense.

I agree that they need to improve in the outfield, mostly I believe they need a really good defensive center fielder. Personally, of course, my choice would be Anthony Alford. I think he would make the outfield defense that much better, and, I think, given 400-500 at bats, he would become a reasonable offensive player too.

I get that Jonathan Davis is good defensively too, but I don’t think he will hit enough to carry his glove. I could be wrong (he’s been very good at getting in the way of pitches, 3 hit by pitch the last two games, but I don’t think that is sustainable).

If they don’t think Alford is the answer, then they are going to have to look outside of the organization. And since they are going to have to look outside the organization for some pitching help......well they have work to do.

In the Athletic, Mark Simon has picked the best defensive player from each MLB team. No surprise, his Jays choice is Danny Jansen:

You know about Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio, but the Blue Jays have a good young (defensive) talent in Jansen, who ranks tied for fourth among catchers with 12 defensive runs saved. He had above-average numbers in both pitch framing and base-stealing deterrence. He seems like someone who can be a part of the solution in Toronto.

The real question is who is our second best defensive player. With out looking at stats (because sometimes it is best to make statements with no stats backing you up) I’d pick Bo Bichette as our second best defensive player. That might be damning the team with faint praise. Bichette has looked better than I expected at short. I don’t think he’s going to be Andrelton Simmons but he’s working hard at his defense.