General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2024)

[L54]

18-20 is expected.

 

Okay so it’s not bottom 5 it’s bottom 10. That’s still not good

[Spanky99]

Okay so it’s not bottom 5 it’s bottom 10. That’s still not good

 

Thanks buddy.

[L54]

Thanks buddy.

 

That was leaffie’s point

[Brownie19]

You see as a fan you’re supposed to just get used to the mediocrity. As long as Rogers is happy with the ROI on their investment Mark and Ross get to keep their jobs. Put together a high floor low ceiling team like the Cleveland Indians who can squeak into the playoffs, get stomped and then throw your hands in the air and say well we tried

 

Then the guys who shill for the giant media corporation and actually cheer for the front office and not the team can exclaim WELL WHAT DID YOU WANT THEM TO dO?? They made the playoffs it’s a crapshoot!

 

Loser mentality tbh. I agree with your take. Jays fans were promised this sustained winner who would bring a WS to Canada. Pipelines of talent blah blah blah. The farm sucks and the only players signed long term are old. Hope I’m wrong but running it back with the slap hitting run prevention squad is going to be an uphill battle

 

I don't get this. Cleveland lost in the WS in 2016 (after a 94 win season) and won 104 games in 2017 - then won 91-93 games 3 more times between 2018 and 2022. They've made the playoffs in 5 of the last 8 years. I'd certainly consider that to be a sustainable winner. It sometimes feels like anything short of being the Yankees or Dodgers is a massive failure.

[Spanky99]

Huh?

 

The best prospect planet in life man, Baseball America.

[L54]

I don't get this. Cleveland lost in the WS in 2016 (after a 94 win season) and won 104 games in 2017 - then won 91-93 games 3 more times between 2018 and 2022. They've made the playoffs in 5 of the last 8 years. I'd certainly consider that to be a sustainable winner. It sometimes feels like anything short of being the Yankees or Dodgers is a massive failure.

 

The Yankees haven’t won the WS since 2009. Why would I want them to be like the Yankees?

[Spanky99]

That was leaffie’s point

 

A mid org in MILB? I'd agree.

[Dick_Pole]

Atkins is deserving of any scorn. The guy comes into the offseason with Stone Cold Steve Austin level of swagger and is getting his ass kicked like Barry Horowitz. And that comes from a guy who totally defends the club's actions around Ohtani even if it didn't pan out. The team has a worse roster right now than it did four months ago.

 

And people are defending him because he is in a tight spot with not a lot of options? Um, okay? There are only 30 MLB GM slots available in the world. You get the job understanding that it's hard and that you need to be very good at it. If he can't handle it, then he should just quit. A lot of the circumstances surrounding a mediocre farm, out of shape players, questionable team culture and dumbass computer model decision making is of his own doing. It's not like he inherited a cluster f***. He created it. People have every right to be critical while still trying to remain optimistic.

[L54]

The best prospect planet in life man, Baseball America.

 

Yes I should’ve known WW stood for Baseball America

[L54]

A mid org in MILB? I'd agree.

 

Mid is generous but we’re making progress

[Spanky99]

Yes I should’ve known WW stood for Baseball America

 

lol

[Spanky99]

Mid is generous but we’re making progress

 

We'll see man.

[Dick_Pole]

Three years ago the Jays graduated a bunch of guys who had an immediate significant impact on the MLB roster. The farm rankings took a hit but that was expected and totally fine because the team had time to replenish it. But fast forward three years and the team isn't nearly in the same situation as I expected them to be based on what I heard about sustainable winning and prospect development. It doesn't matter whether the farm rankings are 25 or 23 or 20 or 18. If the Jays move up the rankings, it'll be because other teams graduate their 4 WAR ROY candidates to their MLB squad, not because things have drastically improved for the Jays.

 

The Jays don't have any MLB ready impact players like they did in 2019-21 to take over an MLB role and excel. Maybe Tiedemann, but his upside is limited because his workload is unlikely to be significant. The rest of the guys are a bunch of jobbers that unless the Jays get lucky or have found the golden key to player development, aren't going to be more than 1-2 WAR players. Nobody should be excited about Spencer Horwitz or Davis Schneider. But that's all we hear from the ultra bulls on this team about "prospects" for this coming year. If this was the Orioles guys like Spencer Horwitz wouldn't even be mentioned in the first ten options.

[Spanky99]

My Eyes... you

[L54]

Dick is on a heater

[jaysblue]

Big applaud for Dick Pole. He is the hero this board needs!

[Terminator]

Three years ago the Jays graduated a bunch of guys who had an immediate significant impact on the MLB roster. The farm rankings took a hit but that was expected and totally fine because the team had time to replenish it. But fast forward three years and the team isn't nearly in the same situation as I expected them to be based on what I heard about sustainable winning and prospect development. It doesn't matter whether the farm rankings are 25 or 23 or 20 or 18. If the Jays move up the rankings, it'll be because other teams graduate their 4 WAR ROY candidates to their MLB squad, not because things have drastically improved for the Jays.

 

The Jays don't have any MLB ready impact players like they did in 2019-21 to take over an MLB role and excel. Maybe Tiedemann, but his upside is limited because his workload is unlikely to be significant. The rest of the guys are a bunch of jobbers that unless the Jays get lucky or have found the golden key to player development, aren't going to be more than 1-2 WAR players. Nobody should be excited about Spencer Horwitz or Davis Schneider. But that's all we hear from the ultra bulls on this team about "prospects" for this coming year. If this was the Orioles guys like Spencer Horwitz wouldn't even be mentioned in the first ten options.

 

Horwitz isn’t mentioned in the first ten of Jays prospects either. For 2023 he was 27 on Fangraphs’ list and this year he’s 16. Not sure what he has to do with the Orioles but if he was on their team he’d be battling for big league ABs with OHearn and Mountcastle. On our team he’s not even being considered for the wide open DH job.

 

Schneider didn’t even crack Fangraphs Top 41 Jays prospects last year. Apparently he graduated and isn’t on this year’s list either but he projects for about 2.5 WAR per 150 games. That is higher than Hiestard, Westburg and Connor Norby, all of whom are of a similar age and are top 10ish prospects for the Orioles.

 

Things really aren’t that dire on the farm. It’s looked really grim to start the year as all of our top prospects got off to horrible starts. But they mostly rebounded and then we had a ton of non prospects turn into prospects. I agree the top end guys are weak compared to other systems but we do have some good depth and the system is climbing (and no it’s not climbing solely because other systems are dealing with graduates).

[max silver]

Horwitz isn’t mentioned in the first ten of Jays prospects either. For 2023 he was 27 on Fangraphs’ list and this year he’s 16. Not sure what he has to do with the Orioles but if he was on their team he’d be battling for big league ABs with OHearn and Mountcastle. On our team he’s not even being considered for the wide open DH job.

 

Schneider didn’t even crack Fangraphs Top 41 Jays prospects last year. Apparently he graduated and isn’t on this year’s list either but he projects for about 2.5 WAR per 150 games. That is higher than Hiestard, Westburg and Connor Norby, all of whom are of a similar age and are top 10ish prospects for the Orioles.

 

Things really aren’t that dire on the farm. It’s looked really grim to start the year as all of our top prospects got off to horrible starts. But they mostly rebounded and then we had a ton of non prospects turn into prospects. I agree the top end guys are weak compared to other systems but we do have some good depth and the system is climbing (and no it’s not climbing solely because other systems are dealing with graduates).

 

This is very well stated. The Blue Jays definitely need to improve the minor league system but too many people are acting like it's completely devoid of talent which simply isn't true. There is a lack of potential impact talent compared to better systems as too many of the Jays minor leaguers seem to fall into the 45/45+ bracket (Fangraphs) or largely top out in the 50 bracket (MLB Pipeline) with very few players currently grading higher than this. This has somewhat hampered the team's ability to trade for players to supplement the roster as it removed them from contention for the services of elite players such as Juan Soto both when he was traded initially and when he was traded earlier this offseason.

 

The 2019 team saw the biggest infusion of talent with Bo, Vlad, Romano and Cavan graduating, and it seems like there are people that expect it should be like this every season based on the "waves of talent" statement from Shapiro which was a stated goal. The team has basically been graduating one quality prospect from the system in each season since the rebuild finished. I haven't compared graduation numbers from other teams as I don't follow other team's systems as closely. 2020 saw Kirk and Espinal graduate, 2021 saw Manoah graduate, 2022 saw Moreno make his major league debut, 2023 saw the debuts of Schneider and Horwitz, and 2024 has potential graduations of Tiedemann with Barger, Martinez and even Roden as possibilities.

[glory]

The biggest issue for me, and we will see if that continues in 2024, is the team's reluctance to even play their prospects. Davis Schneider needed to hit like roided up Barry Bonds in August in order for the team to reluctantly start him consistently, and once he fell back down to earth, the team was licking their chops to bench him again. The team preferred a completely broken Alek Manoah start games for them rather than giving someone like Bowden Francis a chance. Sometimes teams luck into useful prospects but you have to play them in order to get that value. Whether you like the system or not, they are going to have to develop their own talent at some point if they want a shot at sustainable contention beyond 2025.

[The Cats Ass]

Three years ago the Jays graduated a bunch of guys who had an immediate significant impact on the MLB roster. The farm rankings took a hit but that was expected and totally fine because the team had time to replenish it. But fast forward three years and the team isn't nearly in the same situation as I expected them to be based on what I heard about sustainable winning and prospect development. It doesn't matter whether the farm rankings are 25 or 23 or 20 or 18. If the Jays move up the rankings, it'll be because other teams graduate their 4 WAR ROY candidates to their MLB squad, not because things have drastically improved for the Jays.

 

The Jays don't have any MLB ready impact players like they did in 2019-21 to take over an MLB role and excel. Maybe Tiedemann, but his upside is limited because his workload is unlikely to be significant. The rest of the guys are a bunch of jobbers that unless the Jays get lucky or have found the golden key to player development, aren't going to be more than 1-2 WAR players. Nobody should be excited about Spencer Horwitz or Davis Schneider. But that's all we hear from the ultra bulls on this team about "prospects" for this coming year. If this was the Orioles guys like Spencer Horwitz wouldn't even be mentioned in the first ten options.

 

Non-top prospects break out all the time. I can agree on Spencer Horwitz, he doesn't have power or a position which limits his ceiling. Davis Schneider is actually fairly comparable to another guy that came out of nowhere, James Outman.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/james-outman-681546?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/davis-schneider-676914?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

[Laika]

It is definitely disappointing that the Blue Jays have been unable to take the leap from a top ~8 org (or whatever) to a top 3 org. I want Toronto to be an elite franchise as well, and they are not an elite franchise right now.

 

That said, a lot of the people applying these perpetual criticisms are simply not giving the front office credit for the appropriate things, and failing to apply reasonable limited criticisms in context. You all want to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

So you want to fire Ross Atkins. Awesome. Who is replacing him and why would they do a better job?

 

The essential question is whether it is best to start over, or let this front office continue to develop. Who the f*** are you going to bring in that will be able to do all of this stuff:

 

- steal Matt Chapman from the As

- sell high on Austin Martin, SWR

--> in the process, acquire a 27 year old 3-4 WAR SP and extend him for a lower AAV that Lucas Giolito and Eduardo Rodriguez just got

- sell high on Samad Taylor, Max Castillo

- sell Jordan Groshans before he's worth nothing

- steal Bowden Francis, Trevor Richards from Milwaukee

- steal a couple of decent years of Adam Cimber from Kim Ng

- profit massively on a cute little Steven Matz trade

- profit massively on a cute little trade of expensive Teoscar Hernandez

- profit massively on a cute little trade for Robbie Ray

- win big on picking the correct value free agents last year in Belt and KK

- somehow locked up Kevin Gausman from free agency for 5/$110M

 

I mean... I also wish the franchise had a new Vlad and Bo knocking on the door so the current competitive roster was obviously going to be supported by a second wave of elite, controllable players. But I just can't bring myself to be a dork and hate on this front office when they mostly do really good things. And prospect evaluation is not a science; for all we know, Alan Roden is the next Alejandro Kirk, Arjun Nimmala is better than Bo Bichette, and Ricky Tiedemann will be the pitching prospect who actually reaches his ceiling.

[Jimcanuck]

But the Varsho trade

[max silver]

Non-top prospects break out all the time. I can agree on Spencer Horwitz, he doesn't have power or a position which limits his ceiling. Davis Schneider is actually fairly comparable to another guy that came out of nowhere, James Outman.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/james-outman-681546?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/davis-schneider-676914?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

 

Interesting comparison offensively but Outman appears to have the not so insignificant advantage of being a fantastic defender in center field.

[Laika]

But the Varsho trade

 

We could steel man the critical side. I imagine it would look something like this:

 

- Varsho trade looks poor

- Mitchy White trade looks poor

- Charlie Montoyo signing was abysmal

- The front office is responsible for fat players

- The front office is responsible for underperforming 2023 hitters

- Donaldson trade was mishandled

- Stroman trade was poor

- Even if they sold high on many prospects, they made a mistake drafting some of them in the first place

- Prospect development has been weak

- Atkins is annoying

- They pulled Berrios

[John_Havok]

Atkins is deserving of any scorn. The guy comes into the offseason with Stone Cold Steve Austin level of swagger and is getting his ass kicked like Barry Horowitz. And that comes from a guy who totally defends the club's actions around Ohtani even if it didn't pan out. The team has a worse roster right now than it did four months ago.

 

And people are defending him because he is in a tight spot with not a lot of options? Um, okay? There are only 30 MLB GM slots available in the world. You get the job understanding that it's hard and that you need to be very good at it. If he can't handle it, then he should just quit. A lot of the circumstances surrounding a mediocre farm, out of shape players, questionable team culture and dumbass computer model decision making is of his own doing. It's not like he inherited a cluster f***. He created it. People have every right to be critical while still trying to remain optimistic.

 

You can slam Atkins all you want but you leave Barry Horowitz out of this!!!!!

[MikeM3]

All that matters is drafting and development and development of mlb players. All the good moves Atkins makes at mlb level are band aids.

 

He's really really good at those but you can see how we get passed by draft and develop orgs.

 

The bottom is about to fall out, how is that not insanely obvious? We're red lining our payroll and he's hitting on every 32 year old we sign.

 

In relation to 2010 team building, Atkins is basically god. But team building in 2024 is different.

 

Research scientists (ironically from U of T) are writing research papers on how having positional roster flexibility adds 1-2 war because baseball is actually like manufacturing.

 

All our 40 FV prospects are at LF/DH

[Jimcanuck]

We could steel man the critical side. I imagine it would look something like this:

 

- Varsho trade looks poor

- Mitchy White trade looks poor

- Charlie Montoyo signing was abysmal

- The front office is responsible for fat players

- The front office is responsible for underperforming 2023 hitters

- Donaldson trade was mishandled

- Stroman trade was poor

- Even if they sold high on many prospects, they made a mistake drafting some of them in the first place

- Prospect development has been weak

- Atkins is annoying

- They pulled Berrios

 

Can we blame RA for Nate Pearson flop?

 

RA has been an above average GM overall, but the failures in drafting and prospect development will be the undoing, even if it's mostly just bad luck.

[Brownie19]

Atkins is deserving of any scorn. The guy comes into the offseason with Stone Cold Steve Austin level of swagger and is getting his ass kicked like Barry Horowitz. And that comes from a guy who totally defends the club's actions around Ohtani even if it didn't pan out. The team has a worse roster right now than it did four months ago.

 

And people are defending him because he is in a tight spot with not a lot of options? Um, okay? There are only 30 MLB GM slots available in the world. You get the job understanding that it's hard and that you need to be very good at it. If he can't handle it, then he should just quit. A lot of the circumstances surrounding a mediocre farm, out of shape players, questionable team culture and dumbass computer model decision making is of his own doing. It's not like he inherited a cluster f***. He created it. People have every right to be critical while still trying to remain optimistic.

 

How many current GM's would you classify as the cream of the crop? GM's you look at say "that guy is way better than Atkins"? How many - and who are they? I would agree that Atkins isn't a Top 5 GM in MLB right now. I mean there's only 5 guys in the world who are that good right? If Atkins is the 10th best GM in baseball right now - is that "good enough"? Should we fire him because he isn't Top 5? Who would we replace him with? Some guy who's currently outside the Top 30? Who are we going to get that's going to be better?

 

Does Atkins have upside? He certainly could. I mean a lot of people hated AA between 2012-2014 and wanted to tossed him to the curb, only to watch him develop into one of the best baseball GM's in the world.

 

What's the probability that we fire Atkins, hire someone else, let them reset s*** and move this team in another direction - only to find out that he's not a Top 5 GM either and the he has warts and needs to learn and develop more? I'd render a guess that there's a 90% chance that happens and we'll be having the same stupid conversations in 5 or 6 years - calling for the guys head. I mean we've seen this with AA and Atkins over the past 10+ years - not sure why we'd expect any other outcome. They aren't Top 5 GM's while they're here and so that's not good enough and we cycle through someone else - hoping for to find the needle in the haystack.

[Jimcanuck]

Has AA really improved though. He inherited a dynasty in the making, and has been showing the same strengths he showed with the Jays.

[Olerud363]

Three years ago the Jays graduated a bunch of guys who had an immediate significant impact on the MLB roster. The farm rankings took a hit but that was expected and totally fine because the team had time to replenish it. But fast forward three years and the team isn't nearly in the same situation as I expected them to be based on what I heard about sustainable winning and prospect development. It doesn't matter whether the farm rankings are 25 or 23 or 20 or 18. If the Jays move up the rankings, it'll be because other teams graduate their 4 WAR ROY candidates to their MLB squad, not because things have drastically improved for the Jays.

 

The Jays don't have any MLB ready impact players like they did in 2019-21 to take over an MLB role and excel. Maybe Tiedemann, but his upside is limited because his workload is unlikely to be significant. The rest of the guys are a bunch of jobbers that unless the Jays get lucky or have found the golden key to player development, aren't going to be more than 1-2 WAR players. Nobody should be excited about Spencer Horwitz or Davis Schneider. But that's all we hear from the ultra bulls on this team about "prospects" for this coming year. If this was the Orioles guys like Spencer Horwitz wouldn't even be mentioned in the first ten options.

 

I'm like the extreme Orioles bull (greatest franchise ever about to go on a run of 20 consecutive 110 win seasons with the greatest prospects ever and several first ballot hall of famers) but ironically I don't see the differences in the farm systems to be that extreme, not because I'm not an Orioles believer (Mike Elias is not only the greatest GM ever but one of the greatest human beings ever) but because I'm not down on the Jays farm system at all.

 

I think people are having trouble evaluating it because the players are a bit old, don't have big time power and are heavy on the walks, a skill people think doesn't translate to the majors. So let's deal with each of those points.

 

1. Plenty of old prospects work out fine. Jays 2015 team had huge contributions from guys who were old prospects. Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson were old prospects at 25 that developed into super-stars in their late 20s. Kevin Pillar, Ryan Goins, Devon Travis were old prospects that didn't work out long term but contributed nicely in 2015 and 16.

 

2. Players don't have big time power - some do (Orelvis, Schneider) and the guys that don't (maybe yet) like Roden and Howritz have great k-bb ratios. I bet that's important. Take a guy like Miguel Hiraldo. His ISO is barely higher than Roden's but his k-bb is like 25-110, while Roden's was 68-64. Guys like Hiraldo have no room to sell out for power, but if it isn't working for Roden there is room to change the approach and be more aggressive. So I think lack of power isn't a huge deal for guys with a Roden/Horwitz profile. More room to change approach.

 

3. Some people think walks don't translate to the majors because pitchers will have more control and challenge guys - true to a point, but more relevant when talking about a 24 year old college guy in short season A-ball, not the 24 year old leading the international league in on base percentage.