General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2024)

[glory]

Problem with trading Bassitt at the deadline was that another team would have been on the hook for $21m in 2025. Not sure he would be valued at that price point by another team. Green falls under the same criteria. There's not much (if any) surplus value in their 2025 salaries. They are far more likely to fetch something in July 2025 if the Jays are out of it.

[G-Snarls]

Problem with trading Bassitt at the deadline was that another team would have been on the hook for $21m in 2025. Not sure he would be valued at that price point by another team. Green falls under the same criteria. There's not much (if any) surplus value in their 2025 salaries. They are far more likely to fetch something in July 2025 if the Jays are out of it.

 

You don't think a bunch of teams would want him for 1 year 21M in 2025?

 

I do. And that also happens to be about exactly what the qualifying offer is expected to be for this off season.

[Spanky99]

[Jonn]

Where is Roden? Why Pukey Lukey

[John_Havok]

Where is Roden? Why Pukey Lukey

 

Roden isn't on the 40 man, Lukes is. Probably his last chance to look good enough for a 4th OF role.

[Jonn]

Roden isn't on the 40 man, Lukes is. Probably his last chance to look good enough for a 4th OF role.

 

I hope they are aiming a lot higher than Lukes for that role. Especially when they employee several OF’s that already can’t hit.

[John_Havok]

I hope they are aiming a lot higher than Lukes for that role. Especially when they employee several OF’s that already can’t hit.

 

Sure, but Roden surely wouldn't be in the running for a 4th OF in 2025 given that he doesnt play CF. He'd be a guy that would be moreso in the running for a fulltime corner OF gig if the power comes around, which ... while improving, still isn't where it needs to be.

[jaysblue]

If we sweep the Twins we will be 4.5 games back of the WC with 23 games left. Do you believe in miracles?

 

If Joseph Gordon-Levitt was sitting behind home plate every night, I would.

[Spanky99]

I think Bowden takes home the POM Award for August.

[connorp]

If we sweep the Twins we will be 4.5 games back of the WC with 23 games left. Do you believe in miracles?

 

ATL has lost an All Star team and they’re 3 games up for the last WC. Where’s the resident Girl Scout on that. She talked a lot of s*** on every bad luck break, as some sort of vindication for Jays s***** season. They’re still cooking.

[Barrelsandbombs]

[connorp]

 

I remember picking him up a few times in fantasy over the years thinking at some point he could become a real asset once he started striking people out. Just didn’t happen

[Masterbather]

I think Bowden takes home the POM Award for August.

 

Really going out on a limb with that pick.

[Masterbather]

ATL has lost an All Star team and they’re 3 games up for the last WC. Where’s the resident Girl Scout on that. She talked a lot of s*** on every bad luck break, as some sort of vindication for Jays s***** season. They’re still cooking.

 

Amazing how good teams overcome the excuses. We've actually been pretty lucky with injuries the last few seasons compared to other teams.

[Omar]

Really going out on a limb with that pick.

 

Bryan Woo had a good month too.

[Joltin Joe]

Former 4th overall pick. Hopefully we can right him. Turn him into another Francis

[AMS528]

Former 4th overall pick. Hopefully we can right him. Turn him into another Francis

 

Bowden Francis was a prospect when we got him. Dillon Tate is a 30 year old reliever. Not really the same thing.

 

If we can get him to get him to perform like he did in 2022 as a reliever, that's a good win.

[Ryu In My House]

Former 4th overall pick. Hopefully we can right him. Turn him into another Francis

 

I don't get it, he's a FA in 2025 if I read this correctly. What's the point?

[Omar]

I don't get it, he's a FA in 2025 if I read this correctly. What's the point?

 

Because with the expiring contract he is eligible to go through the arbitration process with the Jays now and be with the team in 2025.

[Laika]

Tate will be cheap in 2025 if they want him.

 

Get used to this because Toronto will be cycling through relievers from the waiver claim pile for the next ten months or so

 

Some of them won't last a week, others will end up in the 2025 pen and a few of them will probably be good

 

Here if a funny f***ing list. Top Jays 2024 RP by FIP (only including relief appearances):

 

1. Yimi Garcia

2. Ryan Burr

3. Ernie Clement

4. Ryan Yarbrough

5. Chad Green

6. Mitch White

 

Every other Jays RP in 2024 has a FIP of 4.68 or higher and negative fWAR hahahahahahahahhaahha

[connorp]

Tate will be cheap in 2025 if they want him.

 

Get used to this because Toronto will be cycling through relievers from the waiver claim pile for the next ten months or so

 

Some of them won't last a week, others will end up in the 2025 pen and a few of them will probably be good

 

Here if a funny f***ing list. Top Jays 2024 RP by FIP (only including relief appearances):

 

1. Yimi Garcia

2. Ryan Burr

3. Ernie Clement

4. Ryan Yarbrough

5. Chad Green

6. Mitch White

 

Every other Jays RP in 2024 has a FIP of 4.68 or higher and negative fWAR hahahahahahahahhaahha

 

I feel like actually a lot of let you let homerism get in the way of your nerdy objective views, in terms of the Jays RP. It was always an ERA mirage. Not many horses over the years you’d feel confident bringing to the Derby. Yet you’d view it as a strength, when it was an objective house of cards. This is a legitimate take and not an empty troll. There just wasn’t anyone like these other teams that you could define as “nasty”. Jays have just mostly consistently turned out AAAA guys. I’m not sure if that has to do with drafting strategy, as I don’t pay attention past the 2nd or 3rd round. Like do they seek the “polished” type more of than not? Teams are going to draft more than “one way”, but I’m sure you’ll find trends with teams over a large sample size

[tango47]

The starting lineup on Sept.1 was 100% different from opening days'. I find that astounding. Is that a first in MLB history?

[Olerud363]

The starting lineup on Sept.1 was 100% different from opening days'. I find that astounding. Is that a first in MLB history?

 

Probably happened a lot with 40 man rosters... especially the day after a good team clinched a playoff spot.

 

Second game of a October double header in Baltimore 2015... Dalton played opening day so it wasn't completely different.

 

 

Dalton Pompey CF

Cliff Pennington LF

Ryan Goins SS

Ezequiel Carrera RF

Chris Colabello DH

Matt Hague 1B

Josh Thole C

Munenori Kawasaki 3B

Darwin Barney 2B

Jonathan Diaz SS-LF

[Barrelsandbombs]

From Ken Rosenthal, explains why the Jays are unlikely to make changes to the front office in the offseason, and why other teams in similar situations will likely follow suit:

 

Fans in a number of major-league cities want change. Ownership changes in many cases, yes. But front-office changes, at the very least. And in many cases, those changes seem unlikely.

 

“I’m a huge believer in stability and continuity, and those are competitive advantages in professional sports, that reacting and change don’t necessarily mean improvement,” Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro said last month when asked about the job status of his general manager, Ross Atkins.

 

No one should be surprised in the coming weeks to hear similar comments from other executives with disappointing clubs. Which raises the questions: Why are owners so complacent? Why aren’t more front offices on the hot seat?

 

Many fans of the Blue Jays are exasperated, if not downright angry. Ditto for fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates. Those teams intended to contend and didn’t. And yet, more trust-the-process blather likely is coming their fans’ way. Insular, sadsack franchises – the Chicago White Sox, Oakland Athletics, Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies, to name four – belong in a separate category. Those teams barely even bothered to try.

 

For underachieving clubs, managers are always easy scapegoats. The Mariners already fired theirs. The Reds, Pirates and others might, too. But modern managers are glorified middle men, extensions of their front offices. A managerial change often is an act of deflection by the head of baseball operations, a bid to buy more time.

 

Shapiro had a point. Stability and continuity indeed should be valued. If teams, particularly in this age of social media, reacted to every fan eruption, they would be firing people every three days, if not every three minutes.

 

Still, the passivity in the sport is disturbing.

 

Part of it might stem from the expansion of the postseason in 2022, and the illusion of contention provided by the addition of a third wild card in each league. Consider the Chicago Cubs. A good month of August thrust them into the fringes of the wild-card race, and now things don’t look so bad, if you’re willing to overlook how for four months they underachieved.

 

Another factor is the analytically based groupthink that pervades front offices. Fire your head of baseball operations, and who will you hire? Probably another executive whose decision-making is not all that dissimilar from the one you let go.

 

The biggest issue, though, is that many teams face minimal financial pressure, the kind of pressure that would motivate a business to act.

 

Most franchises evidently have it quite good, not that you would know it from their occasional sky-is-falling rhetoric, whether during the COVID-19 pandemic or recent regional television shakeup. Nor would you know it from the rumblings by management, every time collective-bargaining talks roll around, about the need for a salary cap.

 

But consider how some teams operate:

 

The Blue Jays are in last place with a club-record payroll. They have not won a playoff game since 2016, the year after former GM Alex Anthopoulos rejected a five-year extension to work under Shapiro. But why should the team’s owner, Rogers Communications, worry?

 

Rogers has a monopoly on baseball in Canada. And the team still ranks ninth in the majors in home attendance, even with renovations reducing the capacity at Rogers Centre.

 

Struggling teams always point to tomorrow. Some, like the Baltimore Orioles, eventually get to a better place. But too many others are running what amounts to a borderline con.

 

In most cases, the problem starts with ownership, not the head of baseball operations. Owners should be scrambling to find the next Anthopoulos, the next Dave Dombrowski, the next A.J. Preller. No one would accuse any of those executives of being afraid. But each also works for committed ownerships.

 

Financial commitment is one thing. Emotional commitment is another, and too many owners see no need to make that type of investment. Stability and continuity represent the easy way out, even when such noble concepts fail to produce results.

 

When financial success is attainable without on-field success, why rock the boat?

 

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5740079/2024/09/03/mlb-front-office-changes-blue-jays-reds-pirates-cardinals-giants/

[Jimcanuck]

Owners should be scrambling to find the next Anthopoulos, the next Dave Dombrowski, the next A.J. Preller.

 

LMAO

[Barrelsandbombs]

Bowden got AL pitcher of the month

 

[Laika]

they put fWAR in the graphic lmao

[connorp]

Yeah, but the key to any business is looking at your KPIs. His logic is kind of ignoring that. It’s like, the data looks good today, why change it? The assumption being made is that things will just stay on the same trajectory with poor performance on the field. I think that’s hardly a given.

[Jimcanuck]

Getting back to AJ Preller, he has singlehandedly turned around the Nats franchise.

 

CJ Abrams - All Star SS

James Wood - superstar in the making

McKenzie Gore - MLB SP with upside remaining

Jarlin Susana - entered BA top 100 today (#89)

 

Robert Hassell was considered the best of the package at the time of the deal, jury still out on him but can't seem to hit upper level pitching

[Brownie19]

Yeah, but the key to any business is looking at your KPIs. His logic is kind of ignoring that. It’s like, the data looks good today, why change it? The assumption being made is that things will just stay on the same trajectory with poor performance on the field. I think that’s hardly a given.

 

You're also assuming the poor performance on the field will continue. The way I see it, Atkins is an OK GM. He isn't Top 5, but he's also not Bottom 10. The Jays likely look at this and ask themselves if there is another GM out there that is going to be tangibly better than Atkins - and the answer is likely "maybe". Who would replace Atkins? The answer is probably someone who's inexperienced and never been a GM before - which most businesses see as risky. If some new GM is consider equal to Atkins, then Atkins may get the nod, as there is value in stability and continuity.

 

Fans don't want to hear that because "Atkins bad" and "no playoff wins", but from a business perspective, the Jays are probably really happy with this FO.