Toronto Blue Jays: Can Michael Saunders Reverse Slump?

Michael Saunders has gone from a first half stud to a second half dud for the Toronto Blue Jays. Is there reason to believe the outfielder can turn things around?

The emergence of Michael Saunders was one of the real surprises of the first half of the season for the Toronto Blue Jays. The 29-year-old Canada native slashed a hearty .298/.372/.551 with 16 home runs and 42 RBI before the break, earning him the first All-Star Game appearance of his career.

It was a major turnaround for the outfielder, who played only nine games last year after tearing the meniscus in his left knee. Before that, he had been a rather tepid performer for the Mariners, slashing .231/.301/.384 with an average of eight homers and 30 RBI per season from 2009 to 2014. It appeared that Saunders might be a late-bloomer finally coming into his own in his eighth major league campaign.

Unfortunately, it’s been quite a different story since the All-Star break ended. Since play resumed on July 15, Saunders owns a meager .194/.294/.396 slash line along with seven home runs and 12 RBI. That’s a sizable .234 disparity in OPS between the first and second halves, and a 40-point drop in wRC+ (144 pre-ASG, 80 post-ASG). Earlier this season you could have made an argument that Saunders was the most productive hitter on a team stacked with weapons. More recently, he’s been far less assertive at the plate.

While the Jays certainly have the offensive firepower to offset Saunders’ decline, that hasn’t exactly happened. Toronto is 16th in runs scored (231) in the second half and 17th in OPS (.736), which isn’t where you would expect them to be. After posting a 51-40 record before the break, they have managed a 26-23 mark after it, relinquishing the division lead to the Red Sox earlier this week.

This slowdown can’t all be laid at the feet of Saunders, of course. Jose Bautista, one of the Jays’ cornerstones, has missed significant time to injury this season. Reigning MVP Josh Donaldson has put up monster numbers overall, but he’s also cooled off a bit in the second half (.159 decrease in OPS since break). Having Saunders unexpectedly swinging such a hot bat was definitely a nice bonus for the Jays to have earlier in the year.

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Saunders still has time to turn his second half slump around, however, and there is reason to think he’s already doing so. While he had a generous (and likely unsustainable) .377 BABIP in the first half, he’s been the victim of a .235 BABIP since the All-Star break. That will probably correct itself at some point. And while his strikeout rate has elevated a bit (26.7 to 30.0 percent pre- and post-ASG), he’s been walking more in the second half (9.3 to 12.5 percent).

Saunders’ HR/FB (home run to fly ball) ratio has actually increased from 20.0 to 24.1 percent in the second half, but the problem is that he is hitting far fewer balls in the air. His ground ball rate has jumped from 37.4 to 50.5 percent before and after the break. If Saunders can start elevating the ball again, he should run into some more homers.

In his last 11 games, Saunders is slashing .297/.333/.622 with three homers. It’s a small sample size, but the Jays and their fans have to be at least somewhat encouraged that things could be looking up again.

Saunders will be a free agent this winter, and despite his recent struggles, the Blue Jays are interested in keeping him around. According to Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball, Toronto is considering extending a qualifying offer to Saunders in addition to fellow free-agents-to-be Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion. Reports have indicated that the qualifying offer for next season should be around $16.7 million.

Retaining Saunders would provide a decent safety net in what could be a tumultuous offseason for the Jays. If Bautista and Encarnacion both leave, Toronto will need to try to make up some of the production somewhere, and they could do worse than take a chance that Saunders will regain his early season form. Heyman believes that he could very well accept the QO as well, as other teams might be wary of giving up a draft pick and offering a multi-year deal to a player without much of a track record.

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Though the upcoming free agency decisions could change the face of the franchise, the Blue Jays aren’t going to worry about them just yet. They’re currently locked in a division battle, after all. Michael Saunders is a player to continue watching, though, and if he can bounce back down the stretch, he could make Toronto’s decision-making a whole lot easier.

All statistics courtesy of Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference.

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