General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[Stangstag]

3 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Rare instance of "healthiest he's ever felt" potentially actually being true. Perhaps the shoulder issue had been holding him back? Who knows. You can fake SSS performance noise but straight up hitting the ball harder, especially at top end velos, is no fluke.

Nice to have 2 LHH in the lineup that can absolutely smoke baseballs to complement help compliment Vlad.

Santander too once he gets going

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Orgfiller said:

Rare instance of "healthiest he's ever felt" potentially actually being true. Perhaps the shoulder issue had been holding him back? Who knows. You can fake SSS performance noise but straight up hitting the ball harder, especially at top end velos, is no fluke.

It's hard to say whether the shoulder was a long term concern for Daulton. I do recall it was mentioned he initially hurt it diving for a ball in the field, and it was further aggravated when he collided with Pete Alonso when on the basepath. I suspect the increased swing speeds could be a case of Daulton strengthening his overall shoulder and supporting muscles as part of the post surgery rehabilitation, and retraining his swing afterwards may have unlocked a bit of new athleticism as well. Hopefully he maintains the swing speed gains moving forward.

[John_Havok]

Some injury updates:

Scherzer felt some back tightness in his last throwing session to hitters in Anaheim so his next session will be delayed. 

Gimenez started baseball activities yesterday and is starting to ramp up

Swanson and Burr both scheduled to pitch for Buffalo tonight. 

 

 

[John_Havok]

4 hours ago, John_Havok said:

Some injury updates:

Scherzer felt some back tightness in his last throwing session to hitters in Anaheim so his next session will be delayed. 

Gimenez started baseball activities yesterday and is starting to ramp up

Swanson and Burr both scheduled to pitch for Buffalo tonight. 

 

 

Swanson got his tit's lit... 0.1 IP, 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 K. ERA at a tidy 108. 19 pitches, 10 strikes.

Burr was better, but that's a low bar. 1 IP, 1 K and gave up 2 hits including a 2 run HR.   ERA much better at 18. 14 pitches, 10 strikes.

Help is on the way boys!

[max silver]

11 hours ago, John_Havok said:

Swanson got his tit's lit... 0.1 IP, 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 K. ERA at a tidy 108. 19 pitches, 10 strikes.

Burr was better, but that's a low bar. 1 IP, 1 K and gave up 2 hits including a 2 run HR.   ERA much better at 18. 14 pitches, 10 strikes.

Help is on the way boys!

I had a look at the Statcast box score and Swanson got BABIP'd in that game. None of the hits were hard hit, and he gave up an average exit velocity of only 70 MPH. Burr was hit much harder by comparison as he allowed an average exit velocity of 97.5 MPH among 3 hard hit balls.

[connorp2]

On 5/11/2025 at 3:43 PM, John_Havok said:

Santander is star-level talent. 

I believe you're referring to superstar level talent they haven't been able to land. 

Another major issue is their current star-level players at the top of the order drastically underperforming

I don’t buy the guys that have their best year at 30, right before FA. Sorry. Juicing in baseball isn’t really difficult. You can run a couple cycles in the off-season and come into the season clean. Mostly everyone is getting caught in the “cruise/PCT phase” with HCG, Nolvadex, etc. It’s really not worth the gamble imo. They should just let their T levels normalize naturally. They arent running 2000-3000mg wk like body builders do on cycle, To my understanding too, they only have one test during the year, so if you get it in June, you can hop back on, as you won’t be tested again. I think Santander is what his career stats say he is. .240 hittter, .765 OPS. His power makes him 10% better than league average.

[connorp2]

Santander was always pretty much Eddie Rosario. It’s a really close comp. All the sudden he puts 44 balls out. Rosario it should be noted completely disappeared at 30

[hanton]

1 hour ago, connorp2 said:

Santander was always pretty much Eddie Rosario. It’s a really close comp. All the sudden he puts 44 balls out. Rosario it should be noted completely disappeared at 30

or Morales

[BB17]

4 hours ago, connorp2 said:

I don’t buy the guys that have their best year at 30, right before FA. Sorry. Juicing in baseball isn’t really difficult. You can run a couple cycles in the off-season and come into the season clean. Mostly everyone is getting caught in the “cruise/PCT phase” with HCG, Nolvadex, etc. It’s really not worth the gamble imo. They should just let their T levels normalize naturally. They arent running 2000-3000mg wk like body builders do on cycle, To my understanding too, they only have one test during the year, so if you get it in June, you can hop back on, as you won’t be tested again. I think Santander is what his career stats say he is. .240 hittter, .765 OPS. His power makes him 10% better than league average.

There is probably wayyyyy more guys taking PED in sports than you think. Look at the numbers Lebron puts up at that age.

[connorp2]

1 hour ago, BB17 said:

There is probably wayyyyy more guys taking PED in sports than you think. Look at the numbers Lebron puts up at that age.

I do think this and it’s why I look at numbers with suspicion at times. Baseball testing isn’t hard to get around. Like I said, most of the people getting popped are mostly on the PCT size of it. As you would expect, people are going to consider it much more so in the arb years coming into FA. Santander made $2m and $3m, not a ton after taxes, in his first couple of years. He got himself a $100m deal. Why run cycles now and risk losing over $10m in salary and a black eye with the team and baseball? I think you only see the motivation come from the guys on big contracts where they used to be superstars and they’re trying to hang on to that, or get back to that. The expectation to be the best. 

[jaysblue]

Santander never was anything special with the bat. Eddie Rosario is a good comp, though with Santander you get more HR pop. 

Santander is mostly just a .240/.300/.460 type of guy offensively who can hit around 30 HR's. He's a switch hitter which is nice. Just hope he provides between 2-3 WAR every season along with a wRC+ of around 120, which isn't that bad given the contract. 

If he starts to become a negative WAR player, which is also definitely possible, then all of a sudden this contract isn't looking good. 

 

[Brownie19]

2 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Santander never was anything special with the bat. Eddie Rosario is a good comp, though with Santander you get more HR pop. 

Santander is mostly just a .240/.300/.460 type of guy offensively who can hit around 30 HR's. He's a switch hitter which is nice. Just hope he provides between 2-3 WAR every season along with a wRC+ of around 120, which isn't that bad given the contract. 

If he starts to become a negative WAR player, which is also definitely possible, then all of a sudden this contract isn't looking good. 

Agreed.

And at the end of the day $13M a season isn't crippling.  It's also not like last year was some major breakout.  It was his best year, but it was only a 5-10% bump on the previous 2 years.  Not overly surprising for a 29 year old to have his "best" year.  That's how hitting your prime works.

The breakout season Profar had last year was much more "questionable" IMO and it turned out there was a reason for it.

Everyone wanted more power on this team.  Santander at the contract he got was a very reasonable way to add power.  It's also not uncommon for players to struggle in their first year in a new org.  I think we all hope he turns it around soon.

[glory]

The only thing Santander does well is hit home runs and he’s not hitting them right now. Once he starts (hopefully) then it will be better, but really shows how much of a one trick pony he is. When he’s not hitting home runs, he doesn’t provide any other value.

[polar bear]

On 5/14/2025 at 2:01 PM, Stangstag said:

Nice to have 2 LHH in the lineup that can absolutely smoke baseballs to complement help compliment Vlad.

Santander too once he gets going

If he ever gets going.

[Jonn]

I never really liked the Santander signing but that’s basically a contract you can bury at some point. He’s just been really f***ing bad so far. Probably should move him down. Him hitting third is not ideal.

[Brownie19]

16 minutes ago, Jonn said:

I never really liked the Santander signing but that’s basically a contract you can bury at some point. He’s just been really f***ing bad so far. Probably should move him down. Him hitting third is not ideal.

I tend to agree.  Targeting Santander always made me uncomfortable, but I certainly didn't complain once I saw the terms of the contract.   I also like how much he's regarded as a leader.

Maybe drop him to 6th for a bit and take the pressure off?

[Jonn]

1 minute ago, Brownie19 said:

I tend to agree.  Targeting Santander always made me uncomfortable, but I certainly didn't complain once I saw the terms of the contract.   I also like how much he's regarded as a leader.

Maybe drop him to 6th for a bit and take the pressure off?

Just until he gets going. Varsho, Barger, and Lukes can all move up. It’s crazy Lukes OPS is over .800 right now. He’s quietly been quite good.

[Orgfiller]

17 minutes ago, Jonn said:

Just until he gets going. Varsho, Barger, and Lukes can all move up. It’s crazy Lukes OPS is over .800 right now. He’s quietly been quite good.

Not so quietly if your radio frequency is tuned to the right channel.

[glory]

2022-24 as a DH: 90 wRC+, 453 PA
2022-24 as not a DH: 134 wRC+, 1511 PA

Maybe Tony just hates being a DH. 

Unfortunately if Santander is not hitting home runs then there really isn't much you can do. At this point I think giving him more OF reps and batting him lower in the lineup is a reasonable first step. Of course  it is not going to mean anything until balls start leaving the yard. Once that happens then all is right. 

[max silver]

30 minutes ago, Jonn said:

Just until he gets going. Varsho, Barger, and Lukes can all move up. It’s crazy Lukes OPS is over .800 right now. He’s quietly been quite good.

Lukes is a very solid ballplayer on both sides of the ball. Ideally the team would have a right handed platoon mate to partner him with as hasn't had any success in a very small sample against left handed pitching.

[Laika]

1 hour ago, Jonn said:

I never really liked the Santander signing but that’s basically a contract you can bury at some point. He’s just been really f***ing bad so far. Probably should move him down. Him hitting third is not ideal.

Yeah the actual value of the contract is only $14M per season. 

They Jays quite literally are not even paying him the market rate for a 2 WAR player over 5 years. 

I'm sort of expecting him to suck all year but bounce back in 2026.

 

[jaysblue]

7 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

Agreed.

And at the end of the day $13M a season isn't crippling.  It's also not like last year was some major breakout.  It was his best year, but it was only a 5-10% bump on the previous 2 years.  Not overly surprising for a 29 year old to have his "best" year.  That's how hitting your prime works.

The breakout season Profar had last year was much more "questionable" IMO and it turned out there was a reason for it.

Everyone wanted more power on this team.  Santander at the contract he got was a very reasonable way to add power.  It's also not uncommon for players to struggle in their first year in a new org.  I think we all hope he turns it around soon.

Yeah Santander's contract isn't that bad to be honest and was a safer play than Profar. Santander was pretty solid for the last 2-3 years with Baltimore. Plus, this team needed a power bat badly.

Lets hope Santander can hit his 30-35 HR's, and will take whatever other numbers come with it. 

 

 

[max silver]

22 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

Yeah Santander's contract isn't that bad to be honest and was a safer play than Profar. Santander was pretty solid for the last 2-3 years with Baltimore. Plus, this team needed a power bat badly.

Lets hope Santander can hit his 30-35 HR's, and will take whatever other numbers come with it. 

 

 

Santander is kinda like a switch hitting version of Joe Carter. You can reasonably expect 30'ish home runs, 90-100 RBI's, below average but passable corner outfield defense, low OBP's etc.

[Laika]

1 minute ago, max silver said:

Santander is kinda like a switch hitting version of Joe Carter. You can reasonably expect 30'ish home runs, 90-100 RBI's, below average but passable corner outfield defense, low OBP's etc.

extremely good comp, wish I had thought of it 

.243

.305

.461

.259

.306

.464

[John_Havok]

11 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Santander never was anything special with the bat. Eddie Rosario is a good comp, though with Santander you get more HR pop. 

Santander is mostly just a .240/.300/.460 type of guy offensively who can hit around 30 HR's. He's a switch hitter which is nice. Just hope he provides between 2-3 WAR every season along with a wRC+ of around 120, which isn't that bad given the contract. 

If he starts to become a negative WAR player, which is also definitely possible, then all of a sudden this contract isn't looking good. 

 

Very much so. 

But if anyone is looking for some kinda optimism on Tony Taters... as of May 15th last season he only had 7 HR, 2 more than he has now. 

so... maybe soon?

[Jonn]

3 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

Not so quietly if your radio frequency is tuned to the right channel.

Well considering they have him hitting 9th despite out performing most of the roster they  probably should get that s*** tuned up.

[Terminator]

4 hours ago, max silver said:

Lukes is a very solid ballplayer on both sides of the ball. Ideally the team would have a right handed platoon mate to partner him with as hasn't had any success in a very small sample against left handed pitching.

I feel like a proud father 🥹

[connorp2]

12 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

Agreed.

And at the end of the day $13M a season isn't crippling.  It's also not like last year was some major breakout.  It was his best year, but it was only a 5-10% bump on the previous 2 years.  Not overly surprising for a 29 year old to have his "best" year.  That's how hitting your prime works.

The breakout season Profar had last year was much more "questionable" IMO and it turned out there was a reason for it.

Everyone wanted more power on this team.  Santander at the contract he got was a very reasonable way to add power.  It's also not uncommon for players to struggle in their first year in a new org.  I think we all hope he turns it around soon.

12 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

Agreed.

And at the end of the day $13M a season isn't crippling.  It's also not like last year was some major breakout.  It was his best year, but it was only a 5-10% bump on the previous 2 years.  Not overly surprising for a 29 year old to have his "best" year.  That's how hitting your prime works.

The breakout season Profar had last year was much more "questionable" IMO and it turned out there was a reason for it.

Everyone wanted more power on this team.  Santander at the contract he got was a very reasonable way to add power.  It's also not uncommon for players to struggle in their first year in a new org.  I think we all hope he turns it around soon.

The only thing he did better was put more out. Went from consistently good power guy 27-30 HR guy over a full season, to putting out 44 in contract year. The next year he’s nowhere close, likely won’t touch that number again. We’re all free to draw our own conclusions.

[Stangstag]

50 minutes ago, connorp2 said:

The only thing he did better was put more out. Went from consistently good power guy 27-30 HR guy over a full season, to putting out 44 in contract year. The next year he’s nowhere close, likely won’t touch that number again. We’re all free to draw our own conclusions.

Gotta pay a premium for good power bats though. I thought that was your whole MO

[Brownie19]

24 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

Gotta pay a premium for good power bats though. I thought that was your whole MO

100% it is.  Power bats are worth more right?

I don't think anyone excepted another 44 HRs from him. We aren't paying him for 44 HRs a year...