Blue Jays halftime report: Chris Bassitt

Chris Bassitt is in the middle of his three-year deal with the Blue Jays. He’s getting $63 million over the three years, which, as my dad would say, “is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

This year he has made 16 starts. 8 of them were good starts. He has averaged 5.7 innings per start.

His pitching line:

Baseball Reference puts his WAR at 0.8, FanGraphs at 1.6.

The batting averages of the batters against him are .259/.338/.353. Left-handed batters hit him hard (.286/.376/.434), right-handed batters hit him much less (.231/.296/272).

Like last year, his first few starts weren’t great, but then he got better. He’s thrown at least five innings in his last ten starts and has a 2.36 ERA.

Chris occasionally gets off to a bad start, but that’s the case with every pitcher. I like watching him think his way through games. It’s interesting to see him work through the couple dozen pitches he throws and figure out which one is the right one for the moment.

Every pitcher works in his own way. Mark Buehrle didn’t think; he just got the signal from the catcher and threw. He believed that staying in rhythm was more important than throwing the “right” pitch.

Bassitt would rather take a moment (limited now by the pitch clock, of course) and decide which pitch the batter could not hit at that moment.

Both pitchers were successful. I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to do things. My dad always said, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” When I think about it, most of my dad’s sayings were laced with a level of violence that was disturbing.

Anyway, let’s do the poll: