Lies, Damned Lies, and Baseball Statistics

We love baseball statistics because they're totally malleable. Case in point: our very own Toronto Blue Jays. Heading into the weekend, the Blue Jays are 66-61; they’re mired in fourth place in the American League East, yet they’re technically on the fringes of a playoff race. And depending on how you examine their performance this year, they're either really good or really bad.

Last night, as we watched the Blue Jays pummel the New York Yankees 14-3, we were struck by how wretched Toronto's offensive numbers actually are. The team's wallowing in the bottom third of numerous salient categories including runs scored (22nd), runs batted in (also 22nd), and slugging percentage (23rd). Even more egregiously, they're third-last in home runs; this helps explain why Toronto is 19-24 in one-run games, which in turn explains why they likely won't make the playoffs this year. Their individual stats are even worse. Alex Rios is the team's current RBI leader with…fifty-eight. That ties him for 84th place on baseball's RBI list. 84th! The team's home run leader is Jose Bautista, with twelve…and none of them were hit for the Toronto Blue Jays (Bautista was acquired yesterday from the Pittsburgh Pirates). Next best is Matt Stairs and his eleven (!) home runs. That’d put him seventh on the Boston Red Sox...who aren't even leading the division.

It's a shame, because the team's anemic offense is wasting a truly exceptional year from Toronto's pitchers. The staff's earned run average is best in the bigs. Moreover, their starting pitchers have ten complete games under their belts—and Roy Halladay (who'll never get an easier win than he did last night) has eight of them. Both Halladay and A.J. Burnett are on pace for twenty-win seasons, something that's never happened in team history. (It'd be ironic if it happened this year, since Burnett seems certain to opt out of his contract at the end of the season and chase the big money elsewhere.) Yet the team's been chronically incapable of taking advantage. Case in point: Halladay started the year 2-4 despite pitching eight-plus innings in five of those six games.

We had more fun last night than we've had at Rogers Centre in a while. Beating any team (but especially the New York Yankees) by eleven runs is sweet; even the wave felt slightly less-than-perfunctory. It was also nice watching Toronto's hitters break out for once. We've still got to consider this year to be a failure—partly because the standings don't lie, but mostly because the team's offensive "stars" are grossly underperforming (we're looking at you, Alex Rios and Vernon Wells). Yet focusing on a different set of numbers puts a happier spin on things and suggests that maybe, just maybe, there's reason for optimism heading forward.

Photo by doitintheroad from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.