Down But Not Out

Um, somebody who's really going through it right now also is Cosmo Okamoto.

In August, hitting 162 with a 205 on base and a 162 slug.

That is good for a three weighted runs created plus in August.

Uh, and he's got a 36% strikeout rate, and you, you, you dive deeper than that, and he's basically getting what he ought to for the quality of contact that he's producing right now.

Uh, 'cause it's a 167 expected batting average, a 204 expected slug, and a 188 expected weighted on base.

So, uh, this is a guy who has played in Japan his entire life, and the schedule in Japan is that you play from Tuesday till Sunday, and then every Monday is an off day.

And that's just how their schedule rolls.

Every Monday for all teams across the league is off.

So it's a different schedule, and then it's also a different travel grind because you just think about the size of Japan versus the size of North America.

You are covering vastly different distances when you're going on the road, and the length of your flights, uh, is nowhere near the same in Japan as it is in North America.

Uh, and I would imagine, I don't know this for sure, but I would imagine they actually take rail to some of the away games, uh, in Japan.

So, uh, it's just a totally different demand physically and mentally playing a regular season in NPB than it is in MLB, and I think you're starting to see that catch up with, uh, with Okamoto a little bit.

You can see the, the measurables, like the bat speed is down, the hard hit is down, exit velos are down, chase rate is up, whiff rate is up.

Uh, his whiff rate this month is 40.6%.

That's his highest in any month this season.

So you've got indicated, indications there that both physically and mentally, uh, this is a guy who's fatigued.

Um, and pitchers are gonna take advantage of that.

They're gonna bust him with velocity in, and they're gonna throw him breaking balls away.

Uh, he is gonna get spammed with breaking balls because this month he's chasing them 46% of the time.

So nearly half of the breaking balls that he's thrown outside the zone, he's swinging at them.

Uh, and so that's why his whiff rate is so high, because you're just not gonna make a lot of contact with breaking balls outside the zone that you swing at.

Uh, and if you do, that contact is gonna be really poor.

So, uh, expect the man- the, the Blue Jays to just manage his workload a little bit going forward, maybe a, an extra off day here and there.

I mean, I think for all the regulars over this home stand, everybody should get an off day cycled in just to, like, preserve, um, s- just to avoid injuries, [chuckles] to avoid mental bur- burnout, honestly.

So I think, like, Vlad could use a true off day in this stretch, not just one because his hamstring is, uh, banged up.