General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[BB17]

On 4/23/2025 at 1:53 PM, Terminator said:

I don't disagree with the sentiment here but Lukes might not be a run of the mill bench player is my point. It's rare, but old guys do break out every season.

His ROS Zips projection right now is 2 WAR in 296 plate appearances. His "Zips600" for him is over 4 WAR!

Yes, that WAR value isn't coming from him hitting for power. But does it matter? It's not like he's projected to be a bad offensive player, it's just built more around his OBP (remember how important this stat used to be?) and his defense

I'd take 3 WAR out of a good defender with a .333 OBP over a 1.5 WAR player who hits 25 bombs but has a .310 OBP and sucks at defense, not that we even have that choice right now anyway

Yeah he definitely deserves to stay on the team over Roden. I'm not sure I buy him as a 3War player but he's fine as a 4th OF who plays 4 times a week.

[Terminator]

On 4/23/2025 at 7:46 AM, glory said:

I remember reading a blurb posted here from Baseball America last year about Barger, where after his great 2022 they had him change his approach to improve his contact rates at the expense of launch angle. So he was making more contact but it was on the ground or line drives. I think they just overvalue contact, even if it’s weak contact, and I don’t know how a team in 2025 can feel that way. 

I think the new hitting coach is helping but the FO went too far deep into the contact hitting where squeezing power out of this group is going to be next to impossible, unfortunately. It’s why Springer has been fixed (so far) but the results for Wagner, Roden, etc, aren’t there. You actually have to have some power potential to develop it. That’s why I’m hoping Barger plays more, but he’s likely a 30% K% type of player so this team may not value that enough to give him a fair look.

Since we are so absurdly power starved everyone around here has lost sight of the fact that avoiding outs (aka OBP) is still the most desirable batting skill. Wagner was pretty elite at this through his time in the minors, hence the favorable projections.

I think one of the problems that guys like Wagner have though is that if you don't have power, MLB pitchers who have better stuff and control will live in the zone against you a lot more. And if you don't have the hit tool to match your elite swing decisions you might not realize the projected OBP.

I'm sure the projection systems have dealt with guys like Wagner thousands of times but each player is different and not all of them can overcome it.

[Orgfiller]

I'm of the opinion that as much as Wagner and Roden have been swinging a pool noodle to date, it's far too early to give up on them. They're not being completely overpowered or the K/whiff rates would be bad. Roden in particularly hasn't been drawing as many walks as you would want, but he's a guy getting his first taste at the MLB level so he could be pressing, or just hasn't made the adjustments to make himself feel comfortable with taking more pitches. The projections for both these guys are what they are because their success at the upper minors was legit, despite merely okay power numbers. Not many Ks, good amount of walks, lots of line drives, that's been their profile.

I don't think there's any good reason to send them to AAA just yet, this could just make things worse. Roden needs to fix his swing path, there's no question about this, to what extent the team believes this can be worked on at the MLB level versus a lower pressure environment will be the determining factor. He's providing value in other areas which has been a surprising development, so while he's not totally killing you, see if he can make adjustments on the fly.

[John_Havok]

28 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Since we are so absurdly power starved everyone around here has lost sight of the fact that avoiding outs (aka OBP) is still the most desirable batting skill. Wagner was pretty elite at this through his time in the minors, hence the favorable projections.

I think one of the problems that guys like Wagner have though is that if you don't have power, MLB pitchers who have better stuff and control will live in the zone against you a lot more. And if you don't have the hit tool to match your elite swing decisions you might not realize the projected OBP.

I'm sure the projection systems have dealt with guys like Wagner thousands of times but each player is different and not all of them can overcome it.

For sure. For Roden, it's very clearly just that ptichers have identified the weaknesses in his swing and are absolutely exploiting it until he shows he can adjust. Same issue Schneider had, he just couldn't adjust to the high heat. With Roden, it's low and breaking. 

[Orgfiller]

1 minute ago, John_Havok said:

For sure. For Roden, it's very clearly just that ptichers have identified the weaknesses in his swing and are absolutely exploiting it until he shows he can adjust. Same issue Schneider had, he just couldn't adjust to the high heat. With Roden, it's low and breaking. 

The big difference here is that Schneider literally could not touch the high fastball. Roden is just driving it into the ground, and he's demonstrated a much better hit tool that should allow him to make adjustments to these pitches.

[John_Havok]

Just now, Orgfiller said:

The big difference here is that Schneider literally could not touch the high fastball. Roden is just driving it into the ground, and he's demonstrated a much better hit tool that should allow him to make adjustments to these pitches.

Oh for sure, I have much more faith in Roden figuring it out than Schneider did. 

Wagner on the other hand, for me in the limited eyeball-in-no-way-professional evaluation.... it's just like he's waiting too long to decide to swing and getting beat by pedestrian 93-94 fastballs because he can't pull the trigger fast enough once he's recognized it's a hittable pitch.

[Stangstag]

3 hours ago, glory said:

I'm still curious how any human being or computer system thought Will Wagner was going to have a ~120 wRC+ in 2025. The knock on Wagner when acquired was that he doesn't hit the ball with any real damage and hits a lot of ground balls. He just has great bat to ball skills, which obviously makes Ross Atkins have to cross his legs to avoid his excitement showing, but I don't see how that translates to a well above average offensive player. Maybe I'm wrong and he turns into Arraez or something, but the fact that the FO throws his name around like a top prospect is sad. He'd be a nice option at 3B only because the Jays literally have no one else, so a ~100 wRC+ slap hitting 3B is probably an upgrade on this team, but he has a ways to go to be league average with the bat at this point. 

Looking at the system (AA and AAA) is kinda depressing. Only player who looks like they could help is Clase, but he's not hitting the ball hard at all so probably facing a similar reality check once he sees MLB pitching consistently. 

Sounds like the Shatkins special

[Angrioter]

April 25th and our best player so far is Tyler Heineman..

 

Push the panic bottom

[Brownie19]

17 minutes ago, Angrioter said:

April 25th and our best player so far is Tyler Heineman..

 

Push the panic bottom

Remember all the worry this offseason that we needed to upgrade our backup catcher?   Pffff - Atkins is a boss.

[HomeRunHomer]

[Orgfiller]

11 minutes ago, HomeRunHomer said:

bWAR is pretty bad for evaluating catcher value since it misses a lot of modern components involved in catcher defense. Kirk is at 0.1 (similarly bad) fWAR since his defense generally grades as elite or near elite.

[mphenhef]

Jordan Beck has more home runs in the last two days than any Jays hitter does all season.

[BTS]

I just realized that Bo's last homerun was on May 27, 2024. 

[G-Snarls]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

I just realized that Bo's last homerun was on May 27, 2024. 

That's unbelievable actually 

"Bat first SS "

He's certainly not getting a massive contract 

[glory]

1 hour ago, BTS said:

I just realized that Bo's last homerun was on May 27, 2024. 

Since returning from the IL in August 2023, he has a 0.9 WAR and 81 wRC+ in 587 PA with a .103 ISO (7 HR).

Keep Ed Rogers away from the negotiating table on this one. 

[jaysblue]

2 hours ago, BTS said:

I just realized that Bo's last homerun was on May 27, 2024. 

You think Bo has gone all Tim Anderson now? 

[jaysblue]

1 hour ago, G-Snarls said:

That's unbelievable actually 

"Bat first SS "

He's certainly not getting a massive contract 

If he only hits single digit HR's this season with a mid. 700 OPS, he likely only gets a one-year pillow deal from someone. 

[gruber9292]

What's Bo realistically looking at in free agency? 5/125?

[jaysblue]

1 hour ago, gruber9292 said:

What's Bo realistically looking at in free agency? 5/125?

If he reverts back to his career averages, likely similar to Wily Adames.

If he has an empty batting average with little to no power (single digit HRs), I think he'll have to settle for a one-year pillow deal or a 2-3 year deal which includes opt-outs. 

[BB17]

This season feels like 2018 all over again. Last year was like 2017 where after coming off the postseason decided to try to patch some holes with aging vets for it to fail. This year they double down on trying to compete when the reality is the roster is just simply not good enough. You have all these pending FA with an objectively below average farm system. 

Given their payroll it’s actually pretty sad the situation is as bad as it is. What they really need is star level talent (5+ war players) and it doesn’t look like the Jays have had any luck in FA so you’re only other avenue is trade/draft. You may as well trade Bo/Gaus/Bassit and try to get some blue chip prospects who have high upside. 
 

Even if the team starts to play better an 86 win Wildcard team isn’t doing anything to bring a championship calibre roster for the next 3 seasons. The whole goal is to win a World Series and sure the playoffs are very random and an average team can win a round or 2. But a team like this isn’t going to win the World Series and I’m not sure I see a path to contention with all the pending FA leaving and all the holes to fill with a lacklustre farm system.

[Stangstag]

On 4/26/2025 at 11:51 AM, BTS said:

I just realized that Bo's last homerun was on May 27, 2024. 

Thefuk

[Stangstag]

On 4/26/2025 at 12:58 PM, G-Snarls said:

That's unbelievable actually 

"Bat first SS "

He's certainly not getting a massive contract 

He will if the Jays decide to bid against themselves again like they did with Vlad.

[mphenhef]

I wish there was a multiverse thing where the Vlad extension wasn't signed so we could see what he would have got in the open market.  I have a hard time believing it would have been anywhere near what the Jays gave him.  It will be interesting to see what Tucker commands.  

[AMS528]

It's pretty remarkable to create a team that can't hit (and has declined in hitting for years), that also has inadequate starting pitching depth, and also has no immediate help available to call up from the AAA or AA level for 250 million dollars. That takes some long term mistakes across several areas. 

If our hitters do not turn it around, this team is so screwed going forward for years. We're basically going to praying on the prospects under the AA level to start figuring things out. 

I swear to god if this team f***s up Nimmala who definitely seems to have the power and overall talent to be a top 10 prospect by nerfing his power, I will be so pissed. 

[Laika]

• Chronic hitting problems
• Old and shallow rotation
• Worst pen in baseball last year
• Very few good prospects
• Bloated payroll 

🙃

[xposbrad]

32 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

I wish there was a multiverse thing where the Vlad extension wasn't signed so we could see what he would have got in the open market.  I have a hard time believing it would have been anywhere near what the Jays gave him.  It will be interesting to see what Tucker commands.  

Have heard in the 300m range. Would have been great to trade Vladdy + sign Tucker.  But, when Shatkins gets fired we can go through all the logical things the team should have done.

[glory]

Nimmala is so screwed the longer Shatkins is here. 

[AMS528]

You know the overall idea of it is just so remarkably dumb if it really is the case the Jays spent the last few years focusing on contact over power. 

In an era where batting averages have dropped every year to around .240 now, where pitchers strikeout more batters, and utilize more relief pitchers there is a significantly lessened ability to string together a few singles in a row to get a run or two. 

You've gotta focus on quick damage cause you're unlikely to get regularly get sustained long innings of hits. The odds are just incredibly against you.  

[John_Havok]

49 minutes ago, AMS528 said:

You know the overall idea of it is just so remarkably dumb if it really is the case the Jays spent the last few years focusing on contact over power. 

In an era where batting averages have dropped every year to around .240 now, where pitchers strikeout more batters, and utilize more relief pitchers there is a significantly lessened ability to string together a few singles in a row to get a run or two. 

You've gotta focus on quick damage cause you're unlikely to get regularly get sustained long innings of hits. The odds are just incredibly against you.  

Its not even about the unliklihood of sustained long innings of hits, it's that even if you get sustained long innings of singles, you don't score many runs.

In a lineup that features Santander, Vlad, Kirk and "insert anyone else here" it could take a minimum 3 singles, even 4 just to score 1 run. It's not efficient

[Laika]

1 hour ago, glory said:

Nimmala is so screwed the longer Shatkins is here. 

I just literally vomited all over my desk