Did The Blue Jays FAIL Yusei Kikuchi? The Truth Revealed... (Toronto Blue Jays News)

Intro [Music] hello everybody and welcome back to Blue Jays today we're your boys we always got something to say about the Toronto Blue Jays I'm your host Adam ped and I'm your host Nicholas blog and today everybody we're going to be talking about former Toronto Blue J us Kikuchi he's had two starts right now in Houston both of them very quality he is doing a good job and he's changed a bunch of stuff massive shout out to Jay's Journal because they released article just going through all of the adjustments that he's made in only two starts in Houston and then relating it to the Toronto Blue Jays pitching coaches the whole developmental staff everyone and just talking about how we might be failing our pitchers we might be failing our players right now with the guys who are currently in charge of creating the strategies making these decisions and helping get the best out of their guy so we're going to talk about that related to the current Toronto Blue Jays like Kevin Gosman and Chris Basset and XY Z but first things first let's break into this article Yusei Kikuchi everybody you say Kikuchi two starts in 11 Innings pitched he is doing great and changing a bunch of stuff and the first thing that we want to talk about here is changing up the change up yeah yeah like you say Kikuchi when he was with Toronto he didn't throw the change up too much he threw it about 10 to 11% of the time however when you look at the first few starts with you say Kikuchi you could see here that in his first start it was up to 12 so maybe a little bit higher but then his second start against the Rays it really started to come into play 16% of the time a little bit more than you're used to right not not a whole commanding like powerful thing but enough to make hitters think about it and now going over to Jay's article they mentioned this and we're bringing it up right now you know Houston looked at uh they looked at you kuchi they went okay how do we fix you because when we traded him over there he wasn't doing so well so how can we bring your best stuff to the table well feels like they just went to baseball Savant guys because they looked and they saw us kuchi Savant page and they saw that the change up guys it had a batting average against of 188 and they said hey why aren't we throwing this a lot more it's your lowest pitch out of all of them that you threw in Toronto let's throw it more and apparently it's been very successful yeah it's been paying off right and Kikuchi after that first start just came out and told people he was like yeah they just encouraged me to use the change up a lot more in that start so it was clear like you know when we were looking at that trade we thought oh my God like what is Houston doing right like they are they are absolutely Strategy throwing right now in terms of a just a trade proposal and everything like that but they had a strategy they saw the numbers and they were going okay you know what we think that we can fix you we think that we know how to make you better and the first thing was dealing with that change up the second thing that they did immediately so this is all stuff that like he wasn't even in the building they already had the strategy planned out they knew what was going to happen the second thing that they did was they upped the hell out of the slider everybody in Toronto he wasn't throwing the slider that all too much in both starts right now in Houston it is well over 30% and again going over to baseball Savant right now when you look at the pitches that are us kikuchi's best pitches what are they it's the it's the slider and it's the change up they went over here and they said okay you know what he's got a 228 batting average against with the slider and a 188 batting average against with the change up well G maybe we ought to get him to throw that a lot more and so far it is paying off and you look at the pitches that were not successful with him like the four seamer granted you have to throw a four SE fast ball it will be your most beat up Pitch but they reduced it by about 10% of the time and then the curveball is virtually gone remember how last year we were thinking the Curve ball you know it was amazing and for a lot of the time it was for a lot of different situations different starts however people started catching on oh he's got a looping curveball sit on it and hit it because this year he had a 288 batting average against and he threw it 21% of the time in his first two starts 6% of the time and then 8% of the time it's virtually gone everybody so that is Led for you say kuchi to have some pretty good starts where he's only given up two earned runs into the six Innings so just looking at that it seems so simple that you know a team look like the Houston Astros could just change him a little bit like that and have success for huchi exactly right and I think that we we need to clarify all this by saying this is a very small sample size you know so it's like you could argue well you Kikuchi is uh he's just getting lucky or you know the numbers are coming around or whatever but I would also argue that the fact that it's such a small sample size actually like leads into this point that much more he hasn't had time to go and adjust his pitches Midseason adjustments get so many more RPMs on a it is legitimately just as simple as a throw this one more throw this one less when you're up against a a lefty do this because that we didn't bring that up against Lefty hitters now instead of going up and in with the fast ball he's going down and away with the fast ball that is working out very well which makes more sense because if you start the fast ball down in the away that will work off the slider a lot more when you're starting it at the edge down in the way and breaking away missing the barrel exactly right so all of these things things are those midseason adjustments that the Houston Astros have been so good at for so long it's why they consistently are always competing for a World Series and other organizations like the Dodgers and the Yankees you know these guys can make these mid-season adjustments and it just kind of begs the question again why are we not doing that as the Toronto Blue Jays organization who was in charge of this and why are we not doing that with our current players yeah because I mean looking again I want to make one more point about Yus kikuchi's whole thing where yes you make an adjustment as the other team you have a Scouting Report coming into it and you're thinking oh wow okay I'm not being attacked up in with a fast ball instead of being tacked away if I'm a lefty right oh he's throwing the no more curveballs okay you know oh I'm sitting on the fast ball but all of a sudden I'm getting a bunch of off speed pitches so there is going to be a sample size of you know oh teams need to readjust to his adjustment but again to that point is that's the entire game of baseball yeah when you simplify the game of baseball it's I make an adjustment then you make an adjustment then make an adjustment then you make an adjustment the Toronto Blue Jays coaching staff pitchers whatever it feels like we get stuck in this rhythm of we are comfortable we made one change and we sit with that until dire needs until we're absolutely struggling until we are below the Mendoza Line as a batter or we have a a four plus ER or five plus ER and we're almost out of the league it feels like we have the incapability of adjusting before things get dire that's the thing like we're clearly not a strat in or adjusting well enough and we're not doing it quickly enough at all I know that we wanted to talk a little bit about Kevin Gosman and just relate this to him right because well if this is going on with h Kikuchi it's obviously going on with Kevin Gosman and that is 100% the case again this is statistics that is like readily available to you and the public right we can just look this [ __ ] up and we can tell you right now the fouram fastball is not doing very good and alternatively uh you were saying the uh the splitter is in fact got a very low batting average against and yet he's throwing the forcing fast ball a lot more now than it ever has been right I will say a little little um nugget of information on this is the fact is the splitter isn't as splitty right but the point is okay who cares if it's splitty if it's not as splitty as before meaning does doesn't have a lot of vertical uh break to it it still got an opponent batting average of 185 yes so why is it that from 2023 to 2024 are we throwing it a lot less probably because he can't command it but point being is well you better learn to command it more the more you throw it the better you should be able at commanding it and we're now instead upping the four seam fastball which of course is getting destroyed at a 286 so same thing why aren't we making that mid-season adjustment yeah exactly right and of course there are other underlying variables here that we are not privy to but the pitching coaches and the strategist and everything like that they should be and clearly with some of these players like a Kevin Gosman and a Chris Basset I mean [ __ ] the list goes on and on and on on right Coaching staff there are certain things that they've been doing time and time and time again that are not working and we need to make those adjustments Houston did and it automatically again we don't know if he's going to be Sai Young or anything like that but it is looking very good I wanted to pull up the uh the coaching staff for the Toronto Blue Jays right here and just call out a couple names um obviously we all know Pete Walker right Pete Walker pitching coach kind of the league guy right there and you know we kind of Slam him quite a bit whenever anyone's not doing very well but David Howell have you if if I asked any one of you who David Howell is and what he does here you'd probably have no idea youd have to check the website just like we did he is the assistant pitching coach with his main thing being strategy like that to me is everything that we just talked about right there right it's like strategizing with us say Kikuchi about how are you're going to attack this hitter and what you're going to throw more and what's working for you clearly the one over in Houston knows what the [ __ ] doing I don't know if David how does you know what's funny I think there's a whole conversation about you know pler strengths and for whatever reason it feels like we're not playing to our strengths and instead we're playing to the batter's weaknesses which could be a strategy but in the end of the day like again if I'm looking at someone like Kevin Gosman like clearly this pitch works this pitch doesn't let's switch up let's switch up how much we're throwing it and showing these other batters so I I agree whose fault is it we don't know we're not in that Insider information we don't really know what the conversation are around the Blue Jays but every it it's consistent with the pitchers it's consistent with the Batters how no one is able to make that change well and it's kind of embarrassing actually right when you trade away a guy like a kuchi and you know we're thinking oh we we got him we fleed the hell out of them still jurries out on that exactly still happy with the return that we got but still right you know oh we we we fleeced them and then immediately it's like boom now we fixed them we know exactly what the problem is we know how to to address them moving forward and you kind of just you're sitting here as a t blue J fan and going are you serious like we had that guy the whole time we had that guy the whole time and if we would have made that adjustment you know three months ago or or realized you know or done something with him maybe he would have been pitching a lot better maybe we pick up a couple more wins maybe we're not in this spot and I think that this is a big generalization but we know that there is Talent on this roster there is Talent on this team there is Talent throughout the lineup there's talent in the pitching rotation and you're sitting here as a blue going what the [ __ ] how how did we get to this point of being so bad when we have all of these talented players I think that part of it comes down to how we're addressing them how we're developing them how we are coaching them and how we're strategizing with them and the lack of adjustments that we're making midseason with these guys so it's pretty clear to me I feel like I don't I don't even need to ask you this question um we got to be making some changes in this off season whoa time for your daily betway breather a quick reminder that the best place to bet is on betway must be 19 years of age or older to play in collaboration with igaming Ontario please bet responsibly now back to the content if we're looking to compete in 2025 you've been running out mostly the same staff I think Matt heg is the one guy that's different on this staff you're running out the same guys out here on the coaching staff things got to change especially on the pitching side of things which last year wasn't a problem this year is the big problem it is a big problem this year right and you can bring in all of these different players right you can sign another usay Kikuchi but if you don't have the guy in your system in your coaching staff to get the best out of that player then what the [ __ ] is the point you're a coach I mean we I think we sometimes or maybe they sometimes forget like your job is to coach I mean I've heard word around the Blue Jays um you know team and the coaching staff that like they're not really there telling them what to do they're kind of letting the the big league players big league players but at some point you got to step in and be a effing coach all all other professions have coaches that step in and give them advice give them a strategy give them helpful tips to get better and continue to get better CU guess what the other teams are doing it if the other teams are doing it why aren't we doing it we're falling behind and that's how we become losers uh yeah I mean like the whole like oh we're just going to let these guys do what these guys do whatever that's complete [ __ ] because you guys get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the MLB coaches so [ __ ] I'll take your job I'll be a coach if that's all it requires in fact we might be thought might been extra say we might be better because I have stats but no no no no I I'll still give it to them everybody but clearly they're not doing enough right now and if they are trying to be competitive in 2025 or literally any season past this you are going to need to have a de developmental system and just an overall organizational shift where we can make those mid-season adjustments and we can address our players and get the best out of them because you can pay $100 million this offseason but it's not going to matter if you're not getting the best out of those guys so guys you let us know in the comments down below what do you think about this and what do you think about you s kuchi and do we need to make some changes to this coaching staff guys $3 a month to become a patreon member shout and thank you to all of our current patreon members you guys are absolutely phenomenal thank you so much for watching and as always go J's go [Music]