Aug 18, 2015
Dickey quietly a rock for Blue Jays rotation
Lost in the acquisitions of Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, the MVP-calibre season of Josh Donaldson and another solid campaign on the way from Jose Bautista is a story of personal resurgence from within the Toronto Blue Jays. Very quietly, as Blue Jays fever captures the imagination of Canada, Robert Allen Dickey is playing some of the best baseball of his career.
, TSN.ca Staff
Lost in the acquisitions of Troy Tulowitzki and David Price, the MVP-calibre season of Josh Donaldson and another 30-plus home run/100-plus RBI-campaign on the way from Jose Bautista is a story of personal resurgence from within the resurgent Toronto Blue Jays.
Very quietly, as Blue Jays fever captures the imagination of Toronto and the rest of Canada, Robert Allen Dickey is playing some of the best baseball of his professional career.
When the Blue Jays acquired the knuckleballer in the winter of the 2012, Dickey native was coming off of a Cy Young Award-winning season with the New York Mets. The Nashville native didn’t come cheap with Alex Anthopoulos surrendering top prospects Noah Syndergaard and Travis d’Arnaud in order to obtain him. Dickey was part of a massive retool that winter that saw the Jays also bring in All-Stars Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle from the Miami Marlins at the cost of several highly touted assets including Henderson Alvarez, Anthony DeSclafani and Jake Marisnick.
Even though Buehrle has been the picture of consistency for the Jays in his two-plus years in Toronto (38-25 with a 3.62 ERA and a WHIP of 1.287 in 506.2 innings pitched), it’s safe to say now that Anthopoulos’s bold moves as the calendar turned to 2013 didn’t pan out. The Jays moved into win-now mode and they simply did not. Reyes struggled with a variety of injuries (missing 88 games over the past two seasons and another 30 this year before he was traded to the Colorado Rockies) and saw his defence deteriorate greatly. Johnson’s sole season with the Jays was a horror show cut short by a persistent arm injury that saw his ERA balloon to a career-worst 6.20 in just 16 starts.
Dickey has by no means been poor for the Jays in the last two years. He’s tallied 28 wins and eclipsed the 200 innings mark both times. He cut half of a run off of his ERA last season, going from 4.21 to 3.71, and he’s started a career-high 34 games in both seasons. By any metric you want to look at, Dickey has been fine.
Except fine is not what Anthopoulos envisioned when he traded away Syndergaard and d’Arnaud. He wanted Cy Young-calibre Dickey – the Dickey of 230 strikeouts and a 2.73 ERA. He might have that Dickey now.
R.A. Dickey sits at 7-10 on the year with a 3.96 ERA and a 1.242 WHIP. Again, respectable, but take a look at Dickey’s last 13 starts, beginning with a June 7 visit from the Houston Astros.
DICKEY SINCE JUNE 7
| DATE | GAME | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR | ERA (SEASON) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 7 | HOU 6, TOR 7 | 5.2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 5.35 |
| June 13 | TOR 5, BOS 4 | 6.0 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 5.29 |
| June 18 | NYM 1, TOR 7 | 7.1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 4.96 |
| June 23 | TOR 3, TB 4 | 7.0 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 4.88 |
| June 29 | BOS 3, TOR 1 | 6.0 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 4.85 |
| July 4 | TOR 3, DET 8 | 5.2 | 11 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5.02 |
| July 9 | TOR 0, CHW 2 | 7.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 4.87 |
| July 18 | TB 3, TOR 2 | 6.0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 4.70 |
| July 23 | TOR 5, OAK 2 | 8.1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 4.53 |
| July 29 | PHI 2, TOR 8 | 8.0 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 4.27 |
| August 2 | KC 2, TOR 5 | 7.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 4.07 |
| August 7 | TOR 2, NYY 1 (10) | 7.0 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3.93 |
| August 12 | OAK 3, TOR 10 | 6.0 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3.96 |
| TOTALS | AVERAGE (13 STARTS) | 6.1 | 5.5 | 2.1 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 4.3 | 0.5 | 2.95 |
That is seven quality starts in a row and a 1.49 ERA in six starts since the All-Star break.
He's also 4-0 and that time, but wins and losses are hardly a fair metric by which to judge starting pitching.
To wit, Zack Greinke and Drew Hutchison are both 12-2 on the year. Greinke has a 1.58 ERA and a WHIP of 0.86, while Hutchison sits in Triple-A Buffalo with a 5.06 ERA and 1.44 WHIP. On top of this, Hutchison benefits from the best run support in the MLB with an astounding average of 6.71 runs per game. Greinke is 47th at 4.08, while Dickey is 43rd with 4.17 a game.
What's even more suprising about Dickey's renaissance is that he might not be utilizing his bread-and-butter pitch enough.
Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight has begun to use something called a 'Nash Score" to measure the effectiveness of one pitch versus the rest of his pitches combined. Each difference is then weighted by the frequency of each pitch. Dickey uses his knuckler 87 per cent of the time. With his number two pitch, his fastball, considerably less effective than the knuckleball, the metric suggests that Dickey could benefit from using it even more frequently.
At 40, Dickey's chances to compete for a World Series are dwindling and this current Jays team might represent his final kick at reaching the Fall Classic. If the Jays, currently holding the first American League Wild Card, are to head to the postseason, much of their success will have rested on Dickey's rediscovered form.