Opening weekend takeaways

After the Blue Jays split in Tampa Bay, playing an uneven brand of baseball over the week, and the Bisons went 1-2 in their first three games, Zach breaks down some early storylines.

By: Zach Worden

At long last, meaningful baseball is back. After sitting through a slog of an off-season and the fading lustre of spring training games, the Toronto Blue Jays were back on our TV screens, splitting a series against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

In taking two of four from the Rays, the Blue Jays showed flashes of the team they hope to be, and flashes of the team that mustered an underwhelming offensive output less than a year ago.

And while there certainly aren’t any sweeping conclusions to be drawn from the four games in St. Petersburg, there are some early trends that are worth monitoring over the coming months.

The Blue Jays weren’t the only team in the organization to kick off their regular season this weekend, as the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons went 1-2 at Sahlen Field against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.

Here are some takeaways from the weekend that was in Blue Jays land.

Vladdy needs to sustain this approach

There was no doubt that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was not giving in to Rays pitchers at all throughout the series. He went 4-for-13 with five walks and — somehow, only — the seventh-longest home run of his career over the first four games of the year. And when he did make an out, he was doing it on his pitches.

However, it’s not like this isn’t something we’ve seen from Guerrero in the past.

Of course, we’re dealing with the smallest sample size of all sample sizes, but last year, he began the season 4-for-14 with four walks and appeared poised for a big season.

We can even compare his swing chart from the first two series of 2023 and this year’s opener against the Rays and see how he was similarly disciplined to begin each campaign.

2023 on the left, 2024 on the right (Courtesy Baseball Savant)

Now, the challenge for Guerrero is to carry this approach over an entire summer. He’s obviously the type of player who desperately wants to do damage and be the guy for the Blue Jays. But if chasing impact forces him out of his excellent approach, then he moves closer to the hitter we saw for the bulk of 2023.

I’m not suggesting that he needs to walk more than 20 per cent of the time—as he’s doing right now—or anything crazy, but if he shows pitchers for a sustained period of time that he’s willing and able to take his walks when they offer them up, eventually, he’ll get challenged in the zone more often.

Even if he gives up some pitches outside of his nitro zone for strikes, I believe that should buy him some more hittable pitches as the season wears on.

George Springer is on Twitter

Obviously, saying you’re going to do something and following through are two different things. But George Springer’s early commitment to pulling the ball couldn’t have been anymore clear against Tampa Bay.

Springer went 3-for-16 in the series with two home runs, two walks, five runs scored and three strikeouts. Not great for the career batting average or OBP, but still good enough to be 30 per cent better than league average.

As Springer ages, it is going to be more important than ever for the 34-year-old to get the most out of his contact — and pulling the ball is going to be the best way to do that. For his career, he’s pulled the ball at a 41.6 per cent rate, and he only did so 39.5 per cent of the time in 2023 — his worst career offensive season.

So, coming out of the gates with a 53.8 per cent pull rate, which will surely drop over the course of 2024, and two of his five balls hit over 100 m.p.h. leaving the yard, might be a sign of Springer forcing the issue early in the season.

One thing I noticed from his pitch chart was that he was actually pulling quite a few pitches away from him in the zone, so it will be interesting to see if he eventually either tightens up his pitch selection or decides to take those pitches the other way.

If you frequent Blue Jays Twitter, you would have likely seen a post or two calling for Springer to return to his pull-happy ways, and based on his early spray chat, you might think he’s been listening.

While the results outside the homers weren’t great, Springer’s xBA and xwOBA suggest that if he continues to hit the ball the way he did at the Trop, he should be in for a monster season.

Defensive alignment questions

Losing Bo Bichette to neck spasms on Sunday was less than ideal. However, it gave Ernie Clement a chance to continue leaving a solid impression defensively.

Clement was solid on Saturday and Sunday on both sides of the field, but as our Jori-Negin Shecter pointed out during Monday’s series recap pod, his comfort at short was visibly noticeable throughout the afternoon.

This all came on a day with Davis Schneider lining up in left field, Cavan Biggio in right, Justin Turner at third base and Isiah Kiner-Falefa at second, making for one of the most infieldiest starting nines I can remember seeing take the field.

All this bears the question: How often will the Blue Jays run out this defence, or one very similar?

It seems to me, that it would make sense to have Kinef-Falefa slated for third and Turner for second on days that you want to have Springer in the DH spot. In 2023, Turner has -3 defensive runs saved (DRS) in 57 innings at third base and 0 DRS in 49 innings at second.

He’s already at a -1 mark in 2024 after making a pair of errors between Saturday and Sunday. Kiner-Falefa is surely the better defender, and third is slightly above second on the defensive spectrum, so it would seem to make sense to have them switched.

This is picking nits, especially in a game that Turner homered and drove in four, but you figure with Kevin Kiermaier and Springer not in the field, Toronto would try to steal every defensive advantage that it can.

Side note: Kiner-Falefa is the first Blue Jay to 2 DRS — 1 at third and 1 at second. Could he grab the utility Gold Glove this season?

Bisons thoughts

Playing baseball in March in Buffalo seems to be… less than enjoyable, but that didn’t stop the Bisons and RailRiders from sticking it out for 27 innings.

Despite taking a pair of losses, I thought the Herd showed well to open their season.

• All eyes will be on Ricky Tiedemann until he finally gets the call. Obviously, pitching in the cold isn’t going to help a pitcher looking to build up their innings. I thought Tiedemann did a solid job of pitching in the zone and attacking RailRider hitters, but command within the zone is likely the next step. His stuff plays on any field and at any time; as I’ve said in the past, he’s probably already a top-five starter in the organization — it’s just about fine-tuning and building up to the point that he can be effective for more than a couple innings at a time.

• Will Robertson’s Triple-A debut was extremely encouraging to me. He went 2-for-6 with a home run and a double, walking once and striking out twice. After a strong finish to 2023 and a “Fall-Star” worthy trip to the AFL, Robertson has proven his power potential. Now, he needs to maintain that power and prove that he can cut down on the strikeouts. At 26, he’s probably not more than a big-side platoon outfielder at this point, but he could force his way into a big-league opportunity if he continues to swing it well for the Bisons.

• Addison Barger looked more than comfortable at third base this weekend, making some solid plays and showing off his cannon of an arm. He played fairly platoon-neutral in 2023, but his 108.9 m.p.h double on Friday off lefty Oddanier Mosqueda, combined with the defensive potential at third or in right, shows why he could make his MLB debut this season.

• Finally, after acquitting himself well at MLB spring training — 12 strikeouts in 7.1 innings — Mason Fluharty struck out the side in order in his first Triple-A appearance. While Brendon Little is on the 40-man, if either Tim Mayza or Genesis Cabrera is forced to go on the injured list this season, I wonder if the Blue Jays would consider Fluharty to take their spot.

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