PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — “It’s gonna happen,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said, over and over. “It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.”
He was talking about Aaron Sanchez, and the club’s plan to transition the young starter into the bullpen at some point this season when the innings toll on his arm grows too high for the team’s comfort. At that point, Drew Hutchison, currently pitching for the triple-A Buffalo Bisons, would take Sanchez’s place in the rotation.
“The plan all along was Hutch is going to come up and we’re hoping Hutch is good. And with Sanchey down in the pen, we think that’ll make the pen that much better too,” Gibbons said. “It’s a roll of the dice. But we’re going to try it.”
Outside of Marco Estrada, who has been exceptional, Sanchez has been the Blue Jays’ best starter this season. He holds a 3.38 ERA over his 13 starts with an 8.8 K/9. He’s third in the majors in groundball rate (58.6 per cent) and had allowed just four home runs in 80.1 innings pitched coming into his most recent start, when he doubled that home run total on an exceptionally windy day at Rogers Centre.
But it’s those innings pitched that concern the Blue Jays, as Sanchez has never thrown more than 133.1 innings in a single season. He did that in 2014 across three different levels. With his innings standing at 85.1 today, and Sanchez pitching so deep into games so regularly, it’s plausible that he could set a new high by August.
“He’s burning it up pretty quick because he throws seven or eight innings every time he goes out there,” Gibbons said.
Of course, that’s a good thing. Sanchez has thrown at least seven innings while allowing three earned runs or less in seven of his 13 outings, and he looked as dominant as he has at any point in his brief career recently, when he threw eight innings of two-run ball against the Detroit Tigers, striking out 12 in the process.
Still, Gibbons could not have been more direct in his assertion that the team will be removing Sanchez from the rotation at some point this season in order to protect his arm against overuse.
“They have all the studies now with injuries and what happens if you jump too much. Whether you agree with that or not, that’s the plan,” Gibbons said. “It’s pretty universal. Organizations watch their guys in the minor leagues. Guys get hurt more now than they’ve ever been. It sure seems like it, anyway.
“So, they’re guarded and protected pretty well. And then they get to the big leagues where everything counts and you sometimes view things differently. But you still sometimes have to put plans in place for the kid’s sake and the organization’s sake.”
The Blue Jays have been discussing exactly when and where Sanchez’s limit as a starting pitcher will be and say they have yet to decide on a firm target. General manager Ross Atkins has said the club will focus on more than just innings when making their decision, considering the consistency of Sanchez’s velocity, release point and spin rate, as well. The club will also keep a close eye on how he responds to treatment between starts.
Sanchez has maintained time and again that he’ll be accepting of whatever course the organization charts for him and that he wants to help the team win any way he can. Of course, when he was competing for a rotation spot during spring training, Sanchez was very vocal about his desire to start, saying, “I’ve started for my whole career — it’s what I’m all about.”
“This is something I’ve worked so hard for — I didn’t do all this work to come out of the pen,” Sanchez said in February after a strenuous off-season spent working out at Duke University where he added more than 20 lbs. of muscle to his frame. “The team knows what I want to do. Writers and media know what I want to do. Everybody knows what I want to do.”
The sense around Blue Jays camp during spring was that Sanchez was destined for the bullpen to begin the season, but the 23-year-old pitched so well that the club had no choice but to put him in the rotation. He led all Blue Jays starters with a 1.35 spring training ERA over 20 innings, striking out 19 and walking just three.
But when he won the job, Gibbons and the Blue Jays front office made it clear to Sanchez that he would be transitioning to the bullpen at some point during the regular season. And despite his terrific performance, that plan hasn’t changed.
“He understands it. We’ve laid it out for him,” Gibbons said. “I’m sure when the time comes he won’t be happy about it. I don’t think anybody would be happy about it. But it’s for his best interests and, really, the organization’s best interests.”
Blue Jays brass discussed a similar rotation-to-bullpen plan for Marcus Stroman during spring training but decided they were more comfortable in his prior workload (he threw 166.1 innings in 2014) and ability to hold up as a starter over the course of a season without hampering his performance in coming years.
Gibbons also said the Blue Jays have discussed a scenario that would see Sanchez move to the bullpen for a phase of the season and then transition back to being a starter late in the year, depending on the team’s results. That would be exceptionally risky, especially for a team that is trying to make decisions in the best interests of Sanchez’s long-term health.
“It wouldn’t be easy, but you could possibly do that,” Gibbons said.
Part of what would make that possible is how the Blue Jays would manage Sanchez’s workload in the bullpen. Gibbons said the Blue Jays would be hesitant to pitch Sanchez on back-to-back days out of the bullpen and that the right-hander likely wouldn’t be asked to warm up multiple times in one game.
“When he gets up, he’s going in,” Gibbons said. “It won’t be one of those ones where he’s throwing two, three days in a row and having ups and downs. It won’t be one of those type of deals.”
The hope is Hutchison will be ready and waiting to take over for Sanchez whenever the club does make the move. The 25-year-old has made 12 starts for triple-A Buffalo this season, posting a 3.12 ERA while striking out 75 over 69.1 innings. In a late May start he carried a perfect game into the sixth inning, and his 1.11 WHIP is good for eighth in the International League.
The Blue Jays have a pair of off-days next week around a two-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, which will allow the club to manage Sanchez’s workload even more. It’s also very likely that Hutchison will make a spot start for the Blue Jays at some point in late June or early July, when the club is scheduled to play games on 17 consecutive days going into the all-star break.
That would push everyone in the rotation back a day, and ideally aid the longevity of a rotation that has experienced remarkable health and consistency so far this year. Outside of a lone Hutchison spot start in late April, the Blue Jays have used the same five starters for the entire season, all of whom are averaging more than six innings per outing.