I’m willing to disregard the majority of the Spring Training statistics.
I promise you that Paolo Espino won’t have the team’s greatest strikeout rate this year, and that Brian Severn leading the Blue Jays in spring RBI means absolutely nothing.
However, some numbers may genuinely matter through the meaningless muck and analytics. The following three Blue Jays springtime figures are noteworthy:
Links to Ernie Clement
Ernie Clement makes contact like nobody other. You read it right: Clement has struck out just ONE times in 14 games (40 at-bats) this spring. There are more triples than strikeouts on this man.
To be honest, though, that is nothing new. Clement has always had the ability to strike the ball; the difficulty has been getting it into the air or on a line. In order to elevate the ball and smash it harder last year, Clement worked with Triple-A hitting coach Matt Hague, as Sportsnet’s Arden Zwelling noted in a report earlier this week. The infielder’s line-drive rate increased (although his ground-ball rate decreased) in 2023, and it has improved even more in the spring of this year.
Mitch White’s Speed
Mitch White appears to be a lock to make this Opening Day squad. That’s unsettling to fans who saw him pitch to a 7.11 ERA in the major leagues the previous season. Nevertheless, have no fear—this is the new Mitch—a rebranding I’ve been working on for years.
White’s fastball last year clocked in at a meek 93.9 mph. He increased the main pitch’s velocity by more than two miles per hour in spring. The new velocity, which comes from White’s successful time spent in Triple-A at the close of the previous season, has the potential to be a game-changer. Last year, opposing batters in the major leagues hit.444 against the four-seamer and hardly ever swung through the pitch.
Leave a Reply