They, in all their they-y wisdom, say that great pitching always beats great hitting. It’s a notion that at least sounds logical, so it must be true.
We can say one thing, though: With Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion leading the charge, the Toronto Blue Jays‘ offense is pretty well-equipped to disprove that notion this October.
In case you’ve just returned to earth following an extended stay on Mars (welcome back, Mark Watney!), you should know that the AL East champions’ offense really is scary. Like, scary enough to lead all of Major League Baseball in runs, home runs and OPS. As Tom Verducci put it in Sports Illustrated, Toronto’s offense is “a throwback offense to the days when there was no PED testing in baseball.”
Yeah, that scary. And though the Blue Jays enjoyed significant contributions from up and down their lineup, the fearsome threesome of Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion did the heavy lifting. Behold:
Even without context, these are numbers that are liable to make you say “Yowza” out loud. But a bit of context is liable to make you put it in all caps and shout it.
For example, Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion all finished in the top 10 in MLB in OPS+, which adjusts OPS to league average. They’re also the first trio of teammates to finish with OPS+’s of at least 149 since Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen on the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals.
But meh. Why paint Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion as the best offensive trio in recent memory when they can be painted as maybe the best offensive trio ever?
That’s what Joe Posnanski did at NBC Sports, noting that the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion trio is the first in baseball history to each top 35 homers and 100 RBI with an OBP of at least .370 and an OPS+ of at least 140.
As Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada told the Associated Pres (via FoxSports.com): “I’m extremely happy that I don’t have to face them because I get to watch them hit every day and it’s a scary lineup.”
Such is the challenge facing the Blue Jays’ list of opponents this postseason, which begins with the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series on Thursday. All they have to do is go up against the league’s most explosive offense, led by an all-time great offensive trio, and find a way to put up zeroes.
One wants to say, “No pressure, man.” But one can’t. All of the pressure, man.
But can it be done?
Honestly, the best anyone can say is maybe.
When one is dealing with a threat as enormous as the heart of the Blue Jays offense, it behooves one to search for a specific weakness. The Death Star had its two-meter exhaust port. Surely the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion has one of its own.
It’s not immediately apparent, though.
One thing Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion all have in common is that they swing from the right side of the plate, but they’re not vulnerable to the platoon advantage. All three posted OPS’s of over .900 against right-handed pitching in 2015, making them three of the top 10 right-on-right hitters in MLB.
So, scratch that. And no, they didn’t have reverse splits either. Donaldson crushed left-handers the most with a 1.024 OPS, but neither Bautista nor Encarnacion did worse than .830. Scratch that, too.
Moving on, one thing that tends to be plentiful in October is power pitching. But before one can even ponder the notion that perhaps Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion can simply be blown away, one notices that all three finished 2015 with strikeout percentages under the MLB average of 20.4.
On that note, Baseball-Reference.com says all three handled “power” pitchers better than the average major leaguer (.656 OPS). Same goes for “finesse” pitchers, as all three annihilated the average OPS (.760) against them.
Ah, but with them being power-oriented hitters and everything, perhaps they can be easily silenced by pitchers who specialize in ground balls!
…Nope. Not that either. The average MLB hitter had a .714 OPS against ground-ball pitchers. Neither Donaldson nor Bautista nor Encarnacion did worse than a .950 OPS against said pitchers.
These are easy go-to areas for potential weaknesses, and Toronto’s trio has them all covered. It’s almost as if they’re really good hitters! Whaddya know.
However…
Yeah, you knew it was coming. Nobody’s perfect. Least of all hitters, as even the best of them are vanquished in the majority of their plate appearances. Lo and behold, not even Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion are perfect.
They’re definitely dangerous, and what makes them dangerous is their power. Especially, as one can tell from looking at their zone profiles at Brooks Baseball, against pitches on the inner two-thirds of the strike zone.
That’s where Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion preferred to swing their bats in 2015, and Baseball Savant can crunch the numbers and tell us they did considerable damage in those regions:
- Donaldson: .375 AVG, .755 SLUG
- Bautista: .300 AVG, .771 SLUG
- Encarnacion: .317 AVG, .714 SLUG
Simply from looking at this, we can make a Sherlockian deduction that it’s a good idea for opposing pitchers to not tempt fate in the inner two-thirds of the zone against Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion.
But if you go back and look at where they’ve hit for power, you’ll notice there’s one region where they’re actually quite vulnerable: low and away.
Which makes sense. These are three guys who aren’t exactly going up to the plate looking to knock singles to right field. They’re looking to get all Hulk-like and do some smashing. It’s no wonder they were largely held in check on pitches on and off the outside corner in 2015:
- Donaldson: .149 AVG, .223 SLUG
- Bautista: .201 AVG, .254 SLUG
- Encarnacion: .232 AVG, .366 SLUG
Admittedly, this is the very definition of a cherry-picked weakness. But as far as Toronto’s postseason competition should be concerned, that it’s not totally random and also potentially exploitable makes it better than nothing.
Which leads us to just one question: Which playoff team is best equipped to pound Toronto’s vaunted trio low and away?
If we use Baseball Savant to find which playoff teams threw the highest percentage of low-and-away pitches against right-handed batters, we get this:
According to this data, the Rangers may not present much of a challenge. Though Colby Lewis and Yovani Gallardo did fine at 19.7 and 21.0 percent, respectively, Texas ace Cole Hamels threw only 15.9 percent of his pitches low and away to right-handed batters. Then there’s Derek Holland, who did so with fewer than 10 percent of his pitches.
The Kansas City Royals look like even less of a threat, and that’s no mirage. Of their top three starting pitchers—Yordano Ventura, Johnny Cueto, Edinson Volquez—none even so much as topped 16 percent low-and-away pitches to right-handed batters.
On the other hand, there are the Houston Astros. It’s not surprising to see them atop the list, as Grantland’s Ben Lindbergh noted back in May that pounding hitters low and away is a house specialty in Houston. Dallas Keuchel led the way by throwing a whopping 32.1 percent of his pitches low and away to righties, and Scott Kazmir (20.6) and Collin McHugh (19.4) did well in their own right.
Should the Blue Jays meet the Astros in the ALCS, an upset could be in the works. If not, the Blue Jays wouldn’t necessarily be out of the woods if they happened to be matched up against the Chicago Cubs/Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. That’s where they would run into low-and-away masters Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks and Jason Hammel.
Mind you, one assumes Donaldson, Bautista and Encarnacion aren’t quaking in their boots at the thought of all this. Baseball players don’t even wear boots, for one. For two, there is the reality that well-laid plans don’t always become well-executed plans. Even if teams decide they’re going to do nothing but pound Toronto’s trio low and away, it’ll be a plan with a relatively small margin for error.
Put another way, the notion that the Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion trio does indeed have its own two-meter exhaust port doesn’t make the three of them any less dangerous. That weakness was there all season, after all, and yet they still put up numbers and helped put the Blue Jays on what looks like a direct and smooth path back to the World Series.
Yes, the Blue Jays’ vaunted trio can be stopped. But do not assume even for one second that they will be stopped.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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