Toronto Blue Jays Call-up Tim Mayza
With Kendrys Morales hitting the disabled list, the Blue Jays have elected to call-up left hander Tim Mayza. He's a fastball/slider pitcher that sits around 94 MPH with the heater and throws both of his pitches equally. His slider generates a lot of chases and even when he throws it in the zone it generates a lot of swing and miss.
Mayza made his major league debut last season, and while the 6.88 ERA was ugly, his underlying numbers were much better. Mayza had a very solid 2.98 FIP and a superb 2.15 xFIP. He struck out a ridiculous 34.2% of the batters he faced and walked only 5.1%.
Almost all of the damage against him last season was done by right handed batters. He allowed a grotesque .415/.429/.756 slash line against righty bats. Against left handed hitters he held them in check to the tune of a .206/.270/.235 slash line. Statcast data found at Baseball Savant supports the idea that he can dominate left handed bats and puts his expected wOBA against them last season at .274. For context, the average left handed pitcher held left handed batters to a .296 xwOBA. The past two seasons in the minor leagues Mayza has held left handers in check, so it would appear that he has same-handed batters figured out pretty well.
It should be mentioned that there are some red flags in Mayza's profile. When you focus solely on balls put in play his xwOBA is .367 compared to the league average of .343. When batters made contact they did damage to Mayza's pitches. If he's going to continue to succeed as a lefty specialist he's going to have to maintain a high strikeout rate. He had a 11.34 k/9 rate in AA last season, but that number fell to 7.45 in AAA. His numbers in every category have fluctuated wildly throughout his entire professional career so it's difficult to get a good gauge on what he will do going forward. Mayza is the type of player that I find interesting because he causes me to question how I evaluate players.
Based on his minimal appearances last season, Mayza should be a positive contributor to John Gibbons' bullpen as a lefty specialist. He will need to show serious improvement against right handers if he doesn't want to get slapped with the LOOGY label. Since he has options there's a good chance that he could be shipped up and down between the minors and majors many times this season. For now, he will likely be the first man out of the pen when the team needs to get a left handed batter out.
