#sober second thought

[crushing83]

I wish I could go back and focus and red pen the shit out of it.

[arcjays-blog]

Rethinking Jo-Jo's Bizarre Adventure

So, I've been doing some thinking.

In an attempt to work out why Jo-Jo Reyes seems to look better on the mound when he keeps his fly ball total under or around his ground ball total, I went stat hunting. What I found, for reference sake, looked like this:

Nothing that really busts or confirms my thoughts in the group. Since posting it last night, I've been left with a kind of an itch that I haven't been able to scratch. This is in-part due to the wise words of super-cool-bro 1 Blue Jays Way, who reminded me how stats are best used: to backup a theory. Not as the support.

So, where does that leave my notion about Jo-Jo and his fly balls?

One factor that I didn't take into effect is the fact that he's working in in Toronto about half of the time. SkyRogers CentreDome seems to be a hitters park and fly balls do tend to carry deeper than in a more neutral park. So, in that sense, Jo-Jo would be playing with fire if he continues to let opponents take him to the sky most of the time. Eventually, all those outfield hits are going to catch up with him and, like we saw last night with the inside-the-park-homer, the mistakes that are made in the outfield can have far more impact on the game than a bad throw from third by senior DFA Pool lifeguard Edwin Encarnacion.

I like Jo-Jo Reyes. He's shown us glimpses of being a reliable arm in the back of rotation that could move up a bit if he keeps improving. But the ball has to stay on the ground, especially in hitters parks like Rogers Centre and the Great American Ball Park, or he's going to joining said Encarnacion in also said DFA pool.