The Toronto Blue Jays stated that an “arm” was a priority for them this trade deadline, and that turned out to be the truth. The Jays acquired three pitchers before the close of the trade deadline, each with a role to play in the team’s push for the post season.

For many Jays fans, the most recognizable addition is Francisco Liriano, former battery mate of Jays backstop, Russell Martin when both players were with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Here’s hoping the pair’s reunion brings back some of the old magic, because the 2016 version of Liriano leaves a lot to be desired!

Let’s just get this out of the way up front: Liriano isn’t the major upgrade we were all hoping for. Liriano has been one of the least effective starters in the National League this season, going 6-11 in 21 starts while sporting a 5.46 earned run average. He’s on pace for his highest single-season walk total and his homers per nine innings have been steadily inflating.

Basically, the Jays took a young, very hittable right-handed incumbent starter in Drew Hutchison and replaced him with an older, very hittable left-handed outsider in Liriano.

Liriano’s Fielding Independent Pitching is a disgusting 5.27, and that’s in large part because of both walks and homers. I’ll be blunt—walking a lot of guys and then giving up homeruns IS NOT a recipe for success in the AL East.  Based on just that premise alone, this trade could be a fiery train wreck.

Alas, the Jays needed a lefty. But that need was in the pen, not in the rotation.

In the rotation they needed someone who can get outs like Sanchez. So why did they go after Liriano? My hunch is because they don’t expect Liriano to be in the rotation for long, nor Sanchez in the pen. When the two inevitably switch is when you’ll see the big upside of this deal.

Francisco Liriano has an amazing slider. Seriously, the depth and run on his sinker, slider combo makes him incredibly tough on lefties, and hard to face in small bursts, like out of the bullpen.

He’d be a very dangerous weapon from the pen, even more so if used as a LOOGY. His strikeouts per nine are solid at 9.2 and right in line with his career average, and his experience as a starter means he’s not short suited against righties either.

I don’t expect Liriano to give the Jays much more than Drew Hutchison would have from the starting rotation this year, or the next, but, when you consider that Sanchez will be back for the post season, alongside Happ, Estrada, and Stroman, while Dickey sits the bench, Liriano makes tremendous sense.

Liriano is the one guy that gets better in the pen. So, the net value here is, this trade gives the Jays a left-handed starter that can cover the spread left by Sanchez’s move to the pen, and provides a left-handed weapon that can get K’s from the pen.

But Liriano isn’t the only new addition to the Blue Jays that can pitch from the pen or rotation. Scott Feldman, who comes to the Jays by way of the Houston Astros, can also swing.

Feldman is having a nice year, and is the most dependable of the Jays’ deadline pickups.  This season, Feldman is 5-3 with a 2.90. Those numbers are really irrelevant here since they tell us results as impacted by his team—one of the more volatile in all of baseball this season. But the numbers I look at are these: 13 walks, 42 K’s, and a homers per nine innings of 1.2. Feldman’s FIP is also 4.23.

Basically what the Jays get in Feldman is a guy who will be in the zone a lot, throwing strikes, regardless of whether he started the game or is coming into the game in relief. He’s a Swiss Army pitcher who, because he’s neither overpowering nor underwhelming, will give up his fair share of long balls as penance for throwing so many strikes with average big league stuff.

If you were a hitter standing in to face Feldman, you’d see something you don’t often see in baseball these days, and that’s the slow curve. Yes, you know the regular curve. You even know the power curve ala Aaron Sanchez. But every once in a while Feldman will breakout the slow, loopy deuce that catches hitters so far out on the front foot that look silly swinging at the pitch.

That just goes to show you the kind of pitcher Feldman is: a crafty veteran that relies on throwing strikes and changing hitter’s timing. He’s not a shut-down arm, but he will bridge gaps with his versatility. Guys like Feldman can very often be the difference between burning through a bundle of high leverage arms in an extra innings game or a blowout.

The last pitcher, Mike Bolsinger, is a real wildcard that I think the Jays could get some serious mileage out of. Bolsinger had a solid 2015 campaign, posting a 3.62 ERA in 109.1 innings, with a .500 record. Not too shabby. Even his FIP was strong at 3.91, despite a 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio.  In fact, this year he was striking out more and walking fewer hitters than he did in 2015.

So what gives? I mean, if he’s good, why wasn’t he a workhorse for the Dodgers this season?

Simple Answer: Home runs. 

Of all the new pitchers the Jays acquired, Bolsinger’s homers per innings is a whopping 2.3, or seven in 27.2 innings pitched. That’s bad. But it’s also unlucky. On a team with a lot of options, like the Dodgers, unlucky can be enough to send you back to the minors.

Oh, and then there is this little peculiarity: Bolsinger is, for all intents and purposes, a one-pitch pitcher—the cutter. He throws 60-70% cutters! The remainder of his pitches are curves.
Honestly, all cutters is a tad mindboggling when you think about arsenals of modern starters. For example, Marcus Stroman alone throws more varieties of pitches than everyone in the Jays bullpen combined! 

Bolsinger’s two-pitch approach has worked well enough to get him to the Big Leagues and garner him success. However, the cutter is notoriously prone to being taken deep (and Bolsinger has been a lot this season). That’s because the cutter is a “flat” pitch, and it stays on the plane of the hitter’s bat longer. The upside of that risk is you can break the bat if you throw the cutter correctly, like Bolsinger did in 2015.

Which version will the Jays get? Time will tell.

In summation, the Jays primary acquisition during the 2016 trading season was flexibility.

Liriano gives the Jays a seasoned starter, albeit not particularly effective at the moment. Feldman brings versatility and a variety of pitches that make him universally effective, if not overwhelmingly so. And Bolsinger has a strong upside considering that the simple addition of just one more pitch—I recommend a sinker—could get him back into his old fighting form.

Considering the lofty demands teams wanted for the few impact arms that were on the market, and considering the few chips the Jays had to bargain with, I’d say these trades made the Jays better when it mattered, if only by a few degrees.

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