How concerned should Blue Jays be about Manoah's early-season struggles?

From the pageantry of Opening Day, to the Rogers Centre renovations, to Kevin Kiermaier’s heroics, there was plenty for Toronto Blue Jays fans to be excited about on Tuesday night.

After falling behind 3-0 to the lowly Detroit Tigers, Toronto gave the hometown crowd a show in a 9-3 win.

While it may seem overly negative to zero in on how they fell behind in the first place during a feel-good game for the team, Alek Manoah’s start to 2023 is worth examining.

The third-year starter was expected to be a top-of-the-rotation weapon entering the season and he hasn’t lived up to that standard thus far. In his first three starts of 2023, the big right-hander has produced a 4.91 ERA with a 7.94 xERA and 7.02 FIP — good for -0.2 fWAR.

In simpler terms, he has gotten out of the fifth inning just once and walked as many hitters as he’s struck out. He’s also allowed more home runs (3) than he did in his final eight starts of the 2022 season (2).

The sample is too small here for outright panic, but some level of concern is warranted. The pertinent question is just how concerned the Blue Jays should be.

In order to best understand that, the first thing worth looking at is whether Manoah has experienced other mini slumps like this one. The 25-year-old has had similar struggles keeping runs off the board in a three-start span, but his peripherals have never been worse over a trio of outings.

Prior to 2023, Manoah had never posted a K/BB ratio below 1.9 over a similar sample ...

... and his FIP had never risen above 5.32:

Not only has he done a poor job of avoiding free passes and missing bats, he’s also never allowed a higher hard-hit rate over three starts:

It seems fair to say that the opening to 2023 is the worst we’ve seen from Manoah. It’s a pretty jarring start to the year from a guy who pitched at least five innings in each of his 31 appearances in 2022, allowing two or fewer runs in 25 of them.

To gauge the appropriate level of concern for where Manoah is right now, we need to look at the why as opposed to just the what.

The first thing that jumps off the page is the right-hander’s velocity dip. His average fastball velocity in his last two outings has hit unprecedented lows:

Manoah’s velocity has always been a bit more volatile than most starters, but this is not a great sign for him. The good news is that his heat looked solid in the first game of the season less than two weeks ago.

After Tuesday’s contest, Manoah told assembled media that he’s not happy with his mechanics, and a mechanics issue is a possible explanation for his velocity loss:

Another reason for sagging velo could be a nagging injury, although there’s no indication that’s the case, and Manoah has been remarkably durable in his MLB career so far.

Whatever the cause may be, the All-Star starter’s fastball velocity for the season currently sits in the 41st percentile among MLB pitchers. Raw power isn’t necessarily Manoah’s game, but he’s at his best when he compliments his trademark slider with respectable heat.

Speaking of the slider, it simply hasn’t been as effective in 2023 as it’s been in the past.

Manoah’s best offering earned him 2.3 strikeouts per start in his first two seasons, but he’s punched out just three batters with it so far. Hitters are also slugging .500 off of it, after managing a .324 mark last year, and .293 in his rookie season.

That may well be early statistical noise, but the pitch’s properties look less impressive than usual right now. Manoah’s slider has approximately average vertical drop like it did last season, but its gloveside run has noticeably diminished.

We’re still talking about some impressive movement, but the drop -ff is notable. Manoah’s slider is at its best when its running away from right-handed hitters like this:

More and more often this season we’re seeing his signature breaking pitch look straighter. For instance, the placement — and framing job — on this slider is beautiful, but it only breaks 12 inches.

A big reason right-handed batters hit a miserable .159/.211/.249 against Manoah last year is that they got caught reaching on his elite slider. This season they’re slashing a solid .255/.355/.370 in 31 plate appearances.

It is far too early to panic about the trajectory of Manoah’s season. His struggles are too brief and his resume is too strong. That said, objectively speaking, his stuff isn’t as crisp as it was last year — in terms of both velocity and movement.

He may be a small mechanical tweak away from righting the ship, but until he shows he has his 2022 stuff back, it seems likely he’ll have a hard time matching last year’s production.