Five (more) things we learned before Blue Jays spring training was cancelled

DUNEDIN, Fla. — It has been a surreal week. To say the least.

A week ago, I arrived back in Dunedin, set to cover the final two weeks of Blue Jays spring training.

Now, I’m back at home in Toronto, in self-isolation for the next two weeks, after flying home from Tampa late Friday night following the announcement from Major League Baseball that the remainder of Grapefruit and Cactus League games were cancelled and the regular season was delayed by at least two weeks due to the rapid and unpredictable spread of COVID-19.

At this point, that timeline appears to be highly optimistic, especially given the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest recommendation to shutter all events with more than 50 people for eight weeks.

It will be weeks, if not months, before baseball returns.

Before the situation escalated and all talk at camp was focussed on the coronavirus, there were some noteworthy items about the 2020 Blue Jays. When we will see those Blue Jays players take the field again in an official capacity, we don’t yet know. (It goes without saying, but at the moment, the priority is public health and safety and getting this virus under control.)

Here, anyway, are five things we learned about the Blue Jays before spring training was cancelled.

1. Hyun-Jin Ryu does not envy flamethrowers

Hyun-Jin Ryu’s fastball averages 90 miles per hour. He’s not blowing away any batters. But what has made him a successful starter — and why the Blue Jays paid him $80 million this winter — is the versatility of his repertoire (five primary pitches) and the fact he can throw any of them anywhere in any count. In other words, he’s a pitcher who relies on his command to fool batters, not his velocity. Meanwhile, his changeup, which he uses more than a quarter of the time, is considered one of the best offspeed weapons in the game.

But if you’re wondering if Ryu ever looks longingly at the radar gun when some of his counterparts touch 98 or 99 mph, the answer is he does not.

“Not at all, because the game of baseball, thankfully, is more about pitching than throwing,” he said via his translator, Bryan Lee. “It’s nice if they can throw up to 99 and have that velo under their belt, but there’s so much more that goes into pitching. I don’t necessarily envy them. I just see them as intriguing.”

2. The story behind the Blue Jays’ crazy double tag at home plate

Just your standard 2 guys being thrown out at the plate baseball play. pic.twitter.com/QqL8xcAHuM

— Cut4 (@Cut4) March 9, 2020

It feels like this happened a year ago. But it was actually only last Monday.

To recap: With the Pittsburgh Pirates down by two runs and the bases loaded, prospect Oneil Cruz hit a ball, against the wind, to dead centre field. Blue Jays outfielder Chavez Young expertly fielded the ball off the wall and made a laser throw to shortstop Kevin Smith. Meanwhile, Jason Martin and Kevin Kramer were on the basepaths, both trying to score. But Kramer stumbled around third, slowing him down and setting up Blue Jays catcher Patrick Cantwell for the double tag at home plate.

Here’s how Cantwell and Smith saw the play unfold:

“Oneil put a pretty good swing on that pitch, obviously, and Chavy played it perfectly off the wall,” Cantwell said. “The way he played it off the wall caused the confusion at third ’cause I don’t think anybody really had thought he had a shot at it. Or even a throw. For him to field it that quickly and get it in, I think it froze the first runner, and once the second guy saw that, he kind of fell, and then it was just chaos from there. Kev made a good throw home, and that was it. I had the easy part: Tag and tag.”

“It was crazy how bang-bang it was at the plate,” Smith said. “Pat was running a little quicker than I’ve seen him run, so I let him know that that’s the fastest I’ve ever seen him run.”

A similar play happened in 1985 when two New York Yankees were thrown out at home against the Chicago White Sox. It’s among the worst baserunning blunders in MLB history. One of those runners was Bobby Meacham, who managed the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons last season.

Cantwell was on that Bisons team and had seen the exact play before because Meacham had shown it to his squad to make a point about how everyone in the game struggles sometimes.

“We were struggling a little bit in Buffalo, and he called a team meeting and he’s like, ‘Listen, this game’s not easy; everybody’s going to make mistakes.’ He brought that up as one of the things that happened to him in his career that he wishes hadn’t happened but he used as a learning experience.”

Knowing he was on the right side of the same rare play had Cantwell chuckling and eager to talk to his former manager the next time their paths crossed.

“That’s one of those things, as soon as he sees me, he’ll smile and I’ll smile and we’ll laugh about it,” he said.

3. Joe Panik put himself in position to make the 26-man roster

Through 10 spring games, Joe Panik hit .381/.462/.762 with two home runs.

Ahead of spring, Panik signed a minor-league deal with the Blue Jays and was a non-roster invitee in camp. But after only a short tryout so far, Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo was left impressed with the 29-year-old infielder.

“I love Joe Panik as a person and as a player,” Montoyo said. “He can do the little things. He’s been in San Francisco. He knows how to win. He’s talking to our guys, teaching them what it takes to be a championship team. He reminds me of Eric Sogard.”

Sogard is a good reference point for Panik, too, since he was also a versatile infielder, coming off a down season, whom the Blue Jays took a chance on. Though a year ago Sogard did not make the team out of camp, he was called up by mid-April and quickly became a linchpin in the clubhouse and the team’s most productive hitter through the first half before he was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays at the deadline.

The difference between Sogard and Panik, however, is that there is a strong indication Panik was in line to make the 26-man roster when the season begins. Whenever baseball resumes, that should still be the case.

If he is on the team, the Blue Jays expect Panik to be more of a super-utility player than he’s been in the past. Already, the team had him manning shortstop, a position he last played in 2014 while in the minor leagues. There were also plans to play him at third and first base as well, along with his preferred second base.

“We feel that he can be a more versatile player than he has traditionally been,” general manager Ross Atkins said last week. “Because he’s played only second base with the Giants organization, for the most part. He’s going to bounce around and play multiple positions … we feel he can play shortstop. His offensive profile’s exciting to us — how he gets on base and how he produces offensively is very consistent and something that we feel will be reliable and dependable. So, a very, very good complement to this young core and group. We’re excited he’s here as an option.”

Per Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, Panik had an opt-out in his contract and he was added to the 40-man roster over the weekend, thus signalling he’ll most likely be on the team whenever the season gets underway. Yennsy Diaz was placed on the 60-day injured list to make room.

MLB rosters haven't been frozen, even as all this transpires

For example, Joe Panik officially made the Yennsy Diaz on the 60-day injured list ( h/t @michaelcocci)

— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) March 16, 2020

4. Chase Anderson focuses on strengths but still wants to improve

Chase Anderson first started to look at advanced analytics during his first year with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016 when Derek Johnson was his pitching coach. The following year, Anderson was fully invested in taking a more analytical approach to evolve and improve as a pitcher.

How the data especially helps Anderson is that it illustrates what his strengths are so he can really focus on them. For instance, Anderson knows his four-seam fastball plays up in the zone to righties and lefties, so he uses it more than, say, throwing a sinker to right-handed hitters, who were routinely punishing a missed down-and-away pitch.

“I want to be great at what I’m good at — that’s four-seam, changeup, cutter — and really make those weaknesses not as weak,” he said. “But really hammer my strengths, ’cause what makes me good is what’s going to make me successful.”

To that end, the curveball has been a pitch Anderson has struggled to master since he was about 10 years old, he said. But this year, the 32-year-old starter is hoping to make that pitch his “3B instead of a fourth pitch.”

In 2017, when he had his best season in the majors with a 2.74 ERA over 25 starts for the Brewers, Anderson said he had his curveball working for him. He generated a 34.4 percent whiff rate on the pitch while using it 18.3 percent of the time. But two seasons later, he threw the curveball only 10.2 percent of the time, while generating a 15.5 percent whiff rate.

Late last season, Anderson switched his curveball to a spike grip, which he said allows him to get a better break on the pitch and the top-to-bottom spin he desires.

“The grip is feeling really comfortable, just trying to work on my arm swing with that pitch to make it more consistent in the strike zone, where I can bear it down,” he said after his last start of spring on March 11. “I got a couple groundballs today, some strikes, some swing and misses, so it’s definitely progressing and the way I want it to. I’m very happy with that pitch — where it’s coming, where it’s going to be when the season starts.”

Until that final start against the Baltimore Orioles, Anderson had so far endured a fairly rough spring training, giving up 10 earned runs over his 3 2/3 innings. While it was certainly early in the process, his performance had him looking as though he could be the odd man out when No. 1 prospect Nate Pearson is ready to make the jump to the majors. But he fared a little better last Wednesday, with just one earned run on three hits over 3 2/3 innings with four strikeouts and one walk. Afterward, Anderson said he felt as though he was just beginning to round into his regular-season form.

“The biggest thing is I was able to execute pitches today, and for the most part everything felt pretty good,” he said.

5. Danny Jansen looking like the two-way threat the club hoped for

Through three weeks of spring games, Danny Jansen was the Blue Jays’ hottest hitter. Of course, the sample size is minuscule, but through 17 at-bats, he was hitting .529/.600/1.353 with four home runs, including a grand slam, which might have been the first one he’s hit since Little League. (His memory was hazy.)

Jansen making offensive gains this spring was surely a welcome sight for the club after the 24-year-old catcher struggled at the plate in his rookie season, slashing .207/.279/.360 in 107 games in 2019. His performance at the plate was masked somewhat by his fine play behind the plate, as he emerged as one of the top defensive catchers in the American League. However, if Jansen could figure out how to improve his offence, with his new defensive aptitude, he could be the type of highly coveted catcher who is a threat on both sides of the plate.

Jansen credited his uptick in production this spring on an improved offensive routine that he said gives him a consistent base to work from. And it was only because of his struggles last year that he realized he needed to establish such a routine. Meanwhile, he also spent the offseason working with Ray Borucki, Ryan’s father, who works as a private hitting coach in Chicago. Ray tweeted last week: “It’s no surprise to me at all the (sic) Danny is off to such a good start in spring training. I wish everyone could have had a front-row seat like I did to see how hard he worked to rebuild his swing this offseason. So proud of him.”

“I’m going to stick to it every day,” Jansen said of the routine. “It’s what I can control.”

While it remains to be seen if Jansen’s results will carry over into the season, for now, his manager was pleased with his progress.

“He’s making me smile,” Montoyo said. “Of course, behind the plate, he’s outstanding. But now at the plate, he’s looking really good.”

(Photo of Hyun-Jin Ryu: Mark Brown / Getty Images)