Blue Jays mailbag: Will the return of George Springer and Teoscar Hernandez have Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the move?

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This article was published 27/04/2021 (1660 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Blue Jays will have to wait at least another day or two before they welcome their prized off-season recruit back into the fold.

George Springer was not activated from the 10-day disabled list prior to Tuesday’s series opener against the Washington Nationals as initially expected. A return was ruled out after Springer went through some running drills at TD Ballpark on Tuesday afternoon and felt lingering discomfort.

Springer should still be back soon, possibly for Friday’s series opener against the Braves, and his debut could not come fast enough for a team that has been getting almost no production out of its top spot in the batting order.

Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. have proven to be the only consistent performers in the lineup but getting Springer back will give the club another high-impact bat to complement a pitching staff that has exceeded expectations. Teoscar Hernandez is also nearing a return after he tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, which means the roster should look a lot different in about a week, if not sooner.

With that in mind, it’s time for the weekly Blue Jays mailbag. As a friendly reminder, questions can be submitted to bluejaysmailbag@gmail.com or by reaching out to me on Twitter @GregorChisholm. The following questions have been edited for length and grammar:

Once Hernandez and Springer are back, do you think the Jays should do something with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (trade him, send him down etc.)? He seems to misjudge flyballs a lot, drop them, and I’m not sure what he brings that the other outfielders don’t. — Madison, Brandon, Man.

Gurriel is off to a bad start but the Jays need to give him a chance to hit his way out of the current slump. The 27-year-old is a notoriously streaky hitter, and it should only be a matter of time before he turns it around. Gurriel’s .882 OPS in 2020 and .869 OPS in 2019 were both higher than what Randal Grichuk produced in either season and this is someone who still projects to have a plus bat, despite a rough first month.

Rowdy Tellez hasn’t done much out of the designated hitter spot so even when everyone is healthy it shouldn’t be difficult to get the four outfielders a lot of at-bats. The last thing the Jays should be doing is trying to trade Gurriel when his value is this low and let’s remember the native of Cuba has been down this road before. In 2018, he got off to a slow start and then enjoyed a great second half. The last two years, he started off strong and later saw his production tail off. Gurriel’s career has been a roller-coaster but he’s a much better player than he is showing right now.

Where do you see Marcus Semien fitting in the batting order upon Springer’s activation? Also, with what we’ve seen at third from Cavan Biggio and the return of Teo and Springer, is it a possibility that Gurriel ever gets back into the infield? — Dave, Conception Bay South, N.L.

When everyone is healthy, Semien should be slotted fifth or sixth. Springer, Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Hernandez make sense as the top four and the No. 5 spot comes down to whether manager Charlie Montoyo wants to mix in a lefty like Tellez or Cavan Biggio, or instead go with a veteran bat like Semien or Randal Grichuk in the run-producing spot.

Moving Gurriel to the infield is the last thing I would do doing right now. Despite being named one of last year’s finalists for the gold glove, Gurriel still has a lot of work to do in the outfield and he requires reps to improve. This is a guy who has more than enough athleticism to play the position, he just needs to get better at reading the ball off the bat and taking better routes. I’d rather see the Jays give him that time in left instead of starting another experiment. Gurriel as an infielder didn’t work out well before and there’s no real reason to think this time around would be any different.

When Springer, Teo and the others return, who do you think is/are the odd man out? I think Anthony Castro and Joel Payamps have pitched their way into sticking. — Noah, Toronto

Ahh, we’re playing this game again. The last time we did this Springer appeared to be on the verge of returning from an oblique injury and Josh Palacios was thriving as a temporary fill-in. Then Springer strained his quad and Palacios’s production tailed off, which showed just how much these projections can change in the blink of an eye.

I’m with you on Castro and Payamps deserving to keep their spots. Once Hernandez is back, it would seem logical to option Jonathan Davis and right-hander Ty Tice to the minors. While Davis’s speed and defence are assets, he’s a redundant piece when there are four other outfielders on the roster. Tice was just a short-term add for the bullpen, Castro and Payamps should be ahead of him on the depth chart. Santiago Espinal is also at risk of losing his spot if the Jays decide to carry an extra arm.

In watching a recent Rafael Dolis outing, I nearly turned off the game, which up until then had been a good one. It’s torture to watch the man pitch, even the Jays announcers have acknowledged this. The situation made me recall a Sports Illustrated article from March that declared pace of play has become an “existential crisis” for baseball. The SI piece offered glimmers of hope in the form of comments from Rob Manfred and Theo Epstein that they want to fix the “dead time” problem. But do you think anything will change as a result of the coming 2021 bargaining sessions? And do the Jays ownership and players know or care they’re all but ruining the game? — Jeff, Colorado

I read that article too and the good news is that MLB knows it has a pace of play issue, so yes, I do think it will be addressed. Per that Sports Illustrated report, games last season took an average of three hours and seven minutes to play nine innings despite fewer hits per game than any season except 1968 and 1906-09. Since 2011, players are taking an average of 2.6 seconds more between pitches, which added almost 15 minutes of dead time to each matchup.

That’s a problem, if not for the diehard fans, then the casual observers who are just as vital to the economic sustainability of the sport. The issue is there haven’t been a lot of great ideas on how to solve any of this. At this point, a pitch clock seems inevitable, and hitters should be forced to stay in the box for the duration of their at-bats. A lot of the other proposals are just window dressing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a fan complain about extra innings and yet the league seems content to keep its new man-on-second rule.

The big positive here, at least from my vantage point, is that Epstein will be heavily involved in any recommendations put forth by the league. He’s someone who has never been scared to think outside the box and if someone is going to put forth an appealing proposal, he might be the guy. One idea I like is capping bullpens at seven relievers to limit the number of pitching changes. A less popular change would be banning the shift and discouraging the use of openers by having teams lose the DH spot whenever they remove their starter from the game.

With the injuries piling up, I’m wondering if you think it’s time to point a little finger at the Jays conditioning/training/physiotherapy departments. I get that injuries happen in sport and I’m no expert to be sure, but 11 pitchers (I think) seems like more than a run of bad luck. Is the pitching staff being taken care of the way they need to be? — Ross, Toronto

The Jays opened themselves up to criticism based on how they marketed their high-performance department. During the early days of Ross Atkins’ and Mark Shapiro’s tenure, they went out of their way to praise changes that were being made behind the scenes. The insinuation seemed to be that the club was devoting more resources this area than other teams to create a competitive advantage.

It’s impossible to test that theory because none of us — media or fans — have access to the behind-the-scenes environment where all this takes place. But, no, I don’t blame the Jays for their current run of poor health. Entering this year, I said to expect a lot of injuries across the board following last season’s disrupted schedule. A lot of teams dealing with similar issues. Even within Toronto’s own division, the Rays have more guys on the IL right now than the Jays do.

Does his experienced glove and the need to shore up a shaky defence advance the case for giving Joe Panik a couple of weeks of regular starts at second and third base? — Chris, London

If the Jays want to shore up their infield defence, the guy they should be turning to is Espinal, not Panik. A case could be made for dropping someone like Davis as an extra outfielder and instead going with an additional backup infielder like Espinal. But I view that as more of a late-game defensive replacement situation than a permanent change to the lineup.

Biggio has struggled defensively, there’s no doubt about it. But there is still a lot of value in his bat and I’m not taking away his plate appearances in favour of Espinal or Panik. An alternative worth exploring would be swapping Biggio and Semien. Biggio’s arm plays better at second than it does at third and Semien should be able to handle that transition relatively easily.

Who’s the long man out of bullpen? — @nfbruins

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It changes by the day, but Trent Thornton, Tommy Milone and Tanner Roark are the ones providing length. One move the Jays should explore, now that Thornton is occasionally being used as an opener, is stretching him out to give them another starting option. Thornton has yet to throw more than 34 pitches in a game this season so the transition won’t happen overnight, but it could be done gradually. Keep Milone and Roark where they belong, mopping up innings out of the bullpen.

Who is providing the leadership from within? — Richard, Antigonish, N.S.

This is like the Maritime Bingo card. Living in the town where I went to school — shout-out to St. Francis Xavier University — and originally from the same part of Saint John (Fundy Heights) where I grew up. Yeah, that’s going to be good enough to get into the mailbag, just make sure to pick me up a bag of sour candy from the Blue Store next time you’re in town.

On a more serious note, the leadership should be coming from the coaching staff, they’re the ones being paid to guide their players through the long season. For the guys in the clubhouse, it’s really the young core that is leading the way. Biggio and Bichette both have the makings of strong leaders and they’ll be supported by more veteran guys like Springer and, at least for now, Panik. Baseball is an individual sport masked as a team event, so I personally think the leadership angle is overrated as long as the coaching staff makes everyone accountable for their action.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca