Keith Law and Ross Atkins on Aaron Sanchez, the trade deadline, and more

This whole argument is based on a bad premise. Tom Verducci wrote a piece five or six years ago that claimed that pitchers who saw a big year-over-year increase in innings pitched got hurt. It turns out that it’s not true. Multiple people have studied this in depth. They’ve done a better job of dealing with data — the actual data — than Verducci did, because he was just looking at anecdotal evidence. And they’ve said, “No, there is no such effect.” So, if that’s the argument here — and that does seem to be it; people keep saying to me, “well, he’s going to throw 80 more innings this year than he did last year” — know what? That effect isn’t true. So that’s a terrible reason to either, one, shut him down, or two, put him in the bullpen.

Secondly, I also agree with what you said: pitching in the bullpen is not actually a rest.

Relievers seem to get hurt as frequently as starters do, if not more often. So, unless you’re going to put Sanchez in the bullpen and tell him, “Well, you’re only pitching every three days — we’re not going to use you on back-to-back days like we do most relievers,” I don’t see how that’s any kind of solution.

What I think the Jays need to do is just watch him. If he’s showing signs of fatigue, then you take action. But if you watched his last start, the guy looks fine.

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This idea of the innings jump year over year is still a fairly new one. Look, I’m all very much in favour of anything that keeps pitchers healthy. The problem is, we’ve looked at this and not found the evidence to support it. So, if it’s not going to keep pitchers healthy, let them keep pitching until their bodies or their mouths tell you, “I’m tired.” If Sanchez comes in and says, “Guys, it doesn’t feel right,” great, then at that point he’s done the right thing, then you take action. But simply deciding on some arbitrary innings limit, and saying, “Well, we’re just going to shut you down because ‘numbers,’” I’m not in favour of that.

Both [moving him to the bullpen or having him in the rotation] are options. You can’t imagine the amount of creative solutions people are coming up with — and some of them are external; we’re saying, “wow, we didn’t even think of that angle.” Other teams that are calling us, and just talk shows — there are so many scenarios and ideas that are getting tossed around. It’s a great situation, really. Bodes really well for his future either way.

That’s a good question. Sliding scale — depends on the number. Like I’ve said before, we don’t have a good number. I think those odds are slim, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish. We have a great window right now, with a very good team, and he is a very good part of it. So how we can keep him a part of us if we’re pitching in Game Seven of the World Series is our goal.

I think if you manage it appropriately — which Gibby absolutely can and will and is very good at — and the fact that we are, at this point in the season, where we’re nearing September, where you can bolster your roster with a little more flexibility, you can do that. You can do it in a way where it’s not quite as erratic or demanding as it would be in May. But at the same time, there’s a lot of upside and a lot of benefit to keeping him on a five-day rotation, starting him and managing him — and maybe it’s not a five day rotation, but managing him as a starter in a more conservative way.

I think everything’s a possibility. We want to get to the deadline and see how we make our team better — how does that play into it? But at the same time we have to stay open-minded and be flexible. It’s very similar to the situation we were in in spring training — we stayed flexible and we benefited from that big time. More thanks to Aaron Sanchez than anybody else, but the fact that we were open to starting him coming off of a year when he was an elite reliever, adding Drew Storen gave us the confidence to do that, and now we’re in the situation that we’re in, and we’ll take it.

I can’t imagine being more active. It didn’t stop last night until 1 in the morning, and at 7 in the morning you’re already talking or either texting with other GMs. So, I can’t imagine being more active. So, whether that turns into a significant pitching piece for our team is going to be determined on really what the asking prices are and what we’re willing to give up. But I think that’s where we’re focussed now — is the best arm or two that we can get that complements our team.

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The teams that are either clearly buying or clearly selling are more aggressive, on phone calls and on the text messages, and teams that are in the middle are either fielding or waiting to see how their team is going to play out. It’s been crystal clear for us, so we have been very aggressive, and extremely creative. We’ve incorporated at least 50 people in the organization to fill out surveys, questionnaires, come up with creative ideas, and then reach out to their contacts. And then we’ve kept that in a systematic way, where it doesn’t stop — so we’re foster as much creativity and as much communication as possible. So there may be teams calling more than us, but I think it would be hard.

I think the most important thing that we can possibly do — certainly acquisitions and trades are significant and have a huge impact, but maybe what gets lost right now a little bit in the shuffle is focusing on improvement, and focusing on players getting better, and not so much on just assets. So we will spend an enormous amount of time, and pour an enormous amount of resources into development. And that’s at the Major League level, that’s all the way through the minor leagues, that’s for our staff, that’s for everyone. We’ve got to improve the pieces we have, is the best thing we can do.