General Jays Discussion 2015

[King]

[Stangstag]

Does MLB actually schedule playoff games for a weekday afternoon? Don't they know that people have to go to work?

 

Yes they do, and its been like that for years. You have clearly never watched playoff baseball.

 

MLB schedules the games so that they aren't played at the same times. On Thursday there are 2 playoffs games, so the start times will be something like 5pm and 8pm. On friday, there will be a total of 4 games, so the times will be something like 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm.

[Stangstag]

 

Imagine those 2 in the same outfield...

[Daniel Labude]

Thursday games are at 4 and 8...still don't know who plays when

[Stangstag]

Thursday games are at 4 and 8...still don't know who plays when

 

Gaurantee the Jays play at 4

 

KC vs Houston/Yankees is a bigger draw than Jays vs Rangers.

[Jonn]

Thursday games are at 4 and 8...still don't know who plays when

 

I do. The Blue Jays are playing at 4.

[Krylian]

Imagine those 2 in the same outfield...

 

They'd only need 2 outfielders.

[nextyear]

Yes they do, and its been like that for years. You have clearly never watched playoff baseball.

 

MLB schedules the games so that they aren't played at the same times. On Thursday there are 2 playoffs games, so the start times will be something like 5pm and 8pm. On friday, there will be a total of 4 games, so the times will be something like 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm.

 

Thank you for the information. I have watched playoff baseball but it has been a long time since I have watched early playoff rounds in the afternoon (1981 to be exact when the Expos played the Phillies and then the Dodgers, and for that I had to miss university classes). However, I now have a real life outside of watching baseball so I feel no shame in not devoting my life to staying at home and watching non-Canadian teams play playoff baseball in the afternoon.

 

How many people outside of Toronto and the Dallas area are going to stay home from work to watch the Blue Jays play the Texas Rangers on TV in the afternoon. Having separate, early playoff times in the afternoon when people are working (or going to class) is ridiculous; I doubt that it increases overall TV ratings. The NHL, NBA and NFL don't schedule games when people are at work for a good reason. Baseball switched from predominantly afternoon games to night games 70 - 80 years ago when artificial lights were installed; the MLB could easily have simultaneous playoff games like the other sports and it might even increase TV viewership.

[intentional wok]

 

Dear Blue Jays Message Board users:

 

As a courtesy, please keep your hands where everyone can see them.

[Jonn]

Dear Blue Jays Message Board users:

 

As a courtesy, please keep your hands where everyone can see them.

 

Too late.

[RealAccountant]

Does MLB actually schedule playoff games for a weekday afternoon? Don't they know that people have to go to work?

 

Always have always will.

[intentional wok]

Always have always will.

 

I'm going to try and take a half-day Thursday to get home in time. I'll try and force it if I have to: "I'm leaving now, so f*** you."

[Stangstag]

I'm going to try and take a half-day Thursday to get home in time. I'll try and force it if I have to: "I'm leaving now, so f*** you."

 

This. Just call in sick or something

[intentional wok]

This. Just call in sick or something

 

I'm trying my best to not make it completely transparent and also I don't want to screw anyone who needs to pick up my slack.

[SaskJaysFan_2]

Which Jays play of 2015 is your fave?

 

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/vote-now-blue-jays-play-of-the-season-the-final/

 

I have been watching the Pillar one over and over for days, so that's my pick.

[Stangstag]

I'm trying my best to not make it completely transparent and also I don't want to screw anyone who needs to pick up my slack.

 

f*** 'em. Jays are in the playoffs

[BlueBirdBro]

Interview with AA about the behind the scenes acquiring Tulo/Price. Once again, it's from the Sun, but quotes are quotes. Copy/pasted because you only get so many free articles a month and I'm sure nobody actually subscribes.

 

 

If you’ve ever bought a new house, paid full price, without having yet sold your old house, you might have an inkling of how anxious Blue Jay GM Alex Anthopoulos felt on the evening of July 27.

 

The Blue Jays were four days short of the trade deadline, the most important trade deadline in club history. For the current management group it was now or never and they desperately needed a starting pitcher.

 

Now they were faced with a dilemma. A deal was on the table with the Colorado Rockies to get Troy Tulowitzki and reliever LaTroy Hawkins. To get it done, they would have to spend a big chunk of prospect currency. The deal was going to cost them (in addition to Jose Reyes) Jeff Hoffman, Jesus Tinoco and Miguel Castro, three premier young arms.

 

It was a very tempting deal both for now and for the future, but what about that premier starting pitcher that they so desperately needed to solidify their run to the playoffs?

 

“We debated a lot,” said Anthopoulos this week. “Not about the player but about the acquisition cost. We knew we wanted to get a starter. We were doing the deal on the Monday night so we had a conference call in the early evening. We decided that we weren’t going to do the deal but we would re-visit it on Friday.

 

How the Blue Jays' trade deadline deals got done

 

Jays fans contemplate sick days, vacation requests

 

Whiny Jays fans should wake up and smell playoffs

 

“The concern was that we would be shut out on starters. That was what the group thought. We felt we needed to get the starter done.

 

“Afterwards, I got off the call and thought about things and I sent out a note to the group to say ‘Guys, I still want to go forward with this deal, and we’ll get a starter one way or the other.’ We were going to get a starter, I believe, one way or the other. You just didn’t know who it was going to be. There was a chance Price would be available. You just couldn’t time it, and the concern was moving some of the assets in the Tulowitzki deal.”

 

Who could be sure, after spending big on Tulowitzki, they would have enough to spring the deal for a starter? Anthopoulos already knew which starter he wanted the most: a tall lefthander employed 400 kilometres down the highway in Detroit.

 

“I just felt confident we would come away with a starter,” he says now. “I think that was a concern: Are we going to get shut out? If we move these assets, Hoffman, Castro, Tinoco, is that going to limit our ability to get another starter?”

 

Anthopoulos gambled that he could still get it done and continued to pester Detroit Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski about David Price.

 

“David was just a great fit, he was totally healthy, performed in our division, great teammate and he fit everything we wanted in a front of the rotation guy,” said Anthopoulos.

 

“Even as we asked about Cueto, the whole time I’m still calling Dave to check because David would’ve been our first choice. I called Dave Dombrowski, I told him, ‘The Cueto market’s starting to move, any chance, anything change, if anything changes please call me.’ We were always enthusiastic to get a guy like David, we just couldn’t force Dave Dombrowski to make a deal. We knew it was going to be expensive.”

 

The one shiny, enchanting asset Anthopoulos had was lefty Daniel Norris, a talent he was loathe to give up in almost any deal. The one exception was Price. When Dombrowski finally indicated he was open for business on the Wednesday night, less than 48 hours ahead of the trade deadline, he went right to Norris. That’s what it was going to take: Norris, plus Matt Boyd and Jairo Labourt, for two months of David Price.

 

“And, look, Norris was being asked about in every other deal,” said Anthopoulos. “We just weren’t prepared to do it. The one exception was a guy like Price. It was an expensive ask, but obviously we were prepared to do it.”

 

Anthopoulos couldn’t dither. It was not widely known yet that Price was on the market and if the word got out, who knows what other teams might have offered?

 

“I just knew that the Astros had been in on the Hamels deal,” said Anthopoulos. “We knew the Dodgers would be involved, we knew the Giants would be involved. Timing’s a big thing. Deals can fall apart fast on you. The deadline’s on Friday, it’s Wednesday night. If you have a chance to close a deal, you should close it. I can’t tell you the number of times a deal’s fallen apart on us — millions of times. You think you get close, you might try to buy time, stall and then all of a sudden it’s gone. Things change that fast.”

 

Things certainly do change fast. The Tulowitzki deal was announced on July 28. The Price deal went down on July 30. On July 29, the Blue Jays beat the Phillies 8-2 to pull their record back to .500 (51-51) after 102 games. From there until the end of the season, they played .700 baseball, winning 42, losing 18, overcoming a seven-game Yankee lead by the third week of August.

 

“When you win it validates the work you’ve done, validates the work of your staff,” said Anthopoulos. “You don’t do it alone. There are a lot of people involved and I could go over every single transaction and I could single out one or two people in each case that were very prominent in those decisions. All the work we have done as a group finally paid off for us.”

[BigCecil]

I'm trying my best to not make it completely transparent and also I don't want to screw anyone who needs to pick up my slack.

 

You are a good man IW. You should have joined the new mod group.

[Candy Maldonado]

October Confidential: Blue Jays

Rival players offer inside look at facing the AL East champs

 

 

 

How do you beat the Blue Jays? MLB.com asked rival players from around Major League Baseball to offer an inside look at how best to face the AL East champions.

 

David Price

"You have to attack him before he attacks you. With a guy like that, you have to get to him early: early in the game, early in the count."

-- AL East position player

 

"He's got command. He's a guy who can locate everything really well on both sides of the plate. Good velocity. I've faced him his whole career but I think the guy has gotten better. When he first came up, he was more of a power pitcher. Now he probably goes down a couple of miles an hour but he locates and doesn't walk people. He's putting it where he wants and making you feel comfortable. Experience has taught him to be who he is, and he's one of the best pitchers in the game."

-- AL East pitcher No. 3

 

 

R.A. Dickey

"When he's on, he's really on. I've seen it where the ball is dancing really well. If he gets behind in the count, he comes in with that fastball, so you have to ready all the time. He throws a hard one and a slow one. I prefer to hit the hard knuckleball, because I'm a fastball hitter. You still have to be prepared for the fastball. It's only in the 80s, but compared to the knuckleball, it starts to look pretty fast."

-- AL East position player No. 2

 

Brett Cecil

"That 87 mph breaking ball is flat-out nasty on a lefty like me. Make him throw it on the plate. Otherwise, you've got no chance. Get ahead in the count so he has to throw a fastball."

-- AL East position player No. 3

 

Roberto Osuna

"He's going to attack you. A lot of fastballs. He's got 97, 98, 99. He's got a very explosive fastball and he's got a good slider too. He throws all three of his pitches, so when you're going up to hit, just be ready, because it's coming over the plate and you don't know what pitch it is. He's coming right at you."

-- AL East position player No. 4

 

Josh Donaldson

"You have to keep him off balance. He's a good fastball hitter but at the same time, he will hit a mistake and offspeed pitches in the zone, too. Be aggressive. You've got to get ahead of him, throw strikes but also know when to not let him beat you."

-- AL East pitcher No. 1

 

"He's tough. He's sort of the same as Miguel Cabrera was a couple of years ago as far as the scouting reports. He's a guy that's always looking to do damage. He's not necessarily looking to hit the ball the other way, but he can. So you have to be conscious of that. If you allow him to sit on one particular pitch, it doesn't matter how hard you have to go or how nasty an off-speed pitch it is, the dude can hit it. And like I said, he swings hard and he's trying to hit the ball hard every time he swings. You just can't make mistakes with him and if you walk him, you'll take that and go about getting the next guy, and that's usually [Jose] Bautista or [Edwin] Encarnacion, so that's not very easy either."

-- AL East pitcher No. 2

 

Troy Tulowitzki

"If anything with him, he really balances out the Blue Jays lineup. You see the four or five guys they run out in a row and he does some big things for them. If anything, I feel like he's getting better pitches to hit now. He's a guy like Donaldson, you have to minimize the mistakes to. You have to get ahead and get in a count where he's a little more defensive."

-- AL East pitcher No. 1

 

Edwin Encarnacion

"You can see what you can do by the first pitch and how he swings and his takes. I've always stayed away, away, away, just to try to get him to roll over it. It looks like he's made a pretty conscious effort to stay on balls away and he's obviously got power too. I think he hits those off-speed strike pitches really well. You've got to make sure he's respecting the fastball before you do anything off-speed. He's another guy, if you walk him, take that over a home run."

-- AL East pitcher No. 2

 

Jose Bautista

"He and Encarnacion are pretty similar. If you go in, you have to go in deep. It's more of an effect pitch but they want to swing the bat so they tend to swing at pitches out of the zone trying to do damage. You just try to stay away from the barrel. If they hit it, hopefully they hit it at somebody."

-- AL East pitcher No. 2

[FirstPitchStrike]

Did anyone catch MLB's top 100 yesterday? The Jays made the highlight reel more than any other team! Pillar's catch was #1.

Nice to see the defence get some attention instead of the offence.

[kapty19]

Pretty sure this has to be on here somewhere else, but I couldn't find it. Here's a good vid of Pillar's case for the AL Gold Glove.

 

http://www.westcoastsportsblog.com/2015/10/kevin-pillar-has-to-be-gold-glove.html

[Jonn]

Pretty sure this has to be on here somewhere else, but I couldn't find it. Here's a good vid of Pillar's case for the AL Gold Glove.

 

http://www.westcoastsportsblog.com/2015/10/kevin-pillar-has-to-be-gold-glove.html

 

That blog didn't even mention Kevin Kiermaier who will win the gold glove.

[intentional wok]

You are a good man IW. You should have joined the new mod group.

 

I tried!

[nextyear]

October Confidential: Blue Jays

Rival players offer inside look at facing the AL East champs

 

 

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I don't actually have a comment on what you posted but I like the new avatar.

Edited October 7, 2015 by nextyear

[Caper]

This guy has to throw out the 1st pitch.

 

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/10/12/meet-the-man-keeping-the-jays-reputation-intact-on-wikipedia.html

[labadee]

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/toronto-blue-jays-david-price-relief-game-4-texas-rangers-alds-101215

 

Ken Rosenthal article

 

"Would Price have performed better in Game 1 if the Jays had kept him on normal rest? There is no way to know. But suffice it to say that Price’s postseason schedule has been rather disjointed. The start in Game 1 on 11 days' rest. The two times warming up in Game 3. The 50-pitch relief outing in Game 4.

 

The Blue Jays, then, might be costing themselves any chance to re-sign Price, a chance that was slim to begin with."

 

What do you guys think about the quoted paragraph. Do you think it will play in Price's mind how he was managed in the post-season?

[nextyear]

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/toronto-blue-jays-david-price-relief-game-4-texas-rangers-alds-101215

 

Ken Rosenthal article

 

"Would Price have performed better in Game 1 if the Jays had kept him on normal rest? There is no way to know. But suffice it to say that Price’s postseason schedule has been rather disjointed. The start in Game 1 on 11 days' rest. The two times warming up in Game 3. The 50-pitch relief outing in Game 4.

 

The Blue Jays, then, might be costing themselves any chance to re-sign Price, a chance that was slim to begin with."

 

What do you guys think about the quoted paragraph. Do you think it will play in Price's mind how he was managed in the post-season?

 

 

David Price hasn't looked very dominant in the playoffs, so maybe signing a pitcher to ~30 million a year for multiple years isn't such a good idea.

 

There might be good pitchers available in the 15 - 20 million a year range.

[intentional wok]

The thing is that a Game 1 starter doesn't get normal rest in the ALDS. He either goes short or long (with long meaning the second starter doesn't pitch at all). I don't think Price resents this.

 

As for the 11-day layoff, I'm reasonably certain Price probably had a say in that.

 

Kind of a silly conclusion to jump to by Rosenthal, that Price would turn down a huge contract because of scheduling quirks from the previous season.

[Stangstag]

David Price hasn't looked very dominant in the playoffs, so maybe signing a pitcher to ~30 million a year for multiple years isn't such a good idea.

 

There might be good pitchers available in the 15 - 20 million a year range.

 

What a novel idea

[Atothe]

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/toronto-blue-jays-david-price-relief-game-4-texas-rangers-alds-101215

 

Ken Rosenthal article

 

"Would Price have performed better in Game 1 if the Jays had kept him on normal rest? There is no way to know. But suffice it to say that Price’s postseason schedule has been rather disjointed. The start in Game 1 on 11 days' rest. The two times warming up in Game 3. The 50-pitch relief outing in Game 4.

 

The Blue Jays, then, might be costing themselves any chance to re-sign Price, a chance that was slim to begin with."

 

What do you guys think about the quoted paragraph. Do you think it will play in Price's mind how he was managed in the post-season?

 

No Lol. What strange quote. Rosenthal is better then this.