General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[Brownie19]

31 minutes ago, Laika said:

This rendition of the Toronto Blue Jays has been sewered by relievers more than once:

2020 WC Game 1 - AJ Cole gives up 2 ER in a 3-1 loss
2021 - Brad Hand single handedly makes them miss the playoffs
2022 WC Game 2 - The infamous bullpen collapse. Mayza, Bass, Romano give up 6 ER in 10-9 loss. 
2023 WC Game 2 - "reliever" Yusei Kikuchi gives up 2 runs in 2-0 loss. 

If they miss the playoffs by a game or two this year, people are not going to look back in an understanding way at these innings being given to Green and Swanson
 

To be fair - this years bullpen has been really really good.  2nd in MLB in xFIP and K/9.  7th in BB/9, 10th in WAR, etc.

A massive bright spot for the team.  Most teams have a couple of pretty useless pieces at the back end of their bullpen and we have some good to very good RPers coming off the IL soon to replace them.  

[Laika]

I don't know why this doesn't bug you, lol. 

It's generally true that good teams can be fine with one bad arm in the pen but it tends to be a replacement level guy soaking innings or a young kid with upside who is struggling. 

Toronto's backend is uniquely bad. Swanson has a 10.20 FIP and Green's -0.7 fWAR is nearly the worst of all RP in baseball. They essentially play shorthanded every night, two men down unless you want to punt the game. 

[Brownie19]

14 minutes ago, Laika said:

I don't know why this doesn't bug you, lol. 

It's generally true that good teams can be fine with one bad arm in the pen but it tends to be a replacement level guy soaking innings or a young kid with upside who is struggling. 

Toronto's backend is uniquely bad. Swanson has a 10.20 FIP and Green's -0.7 fWAR is nearly the worst of all RP in baseball. They essentially play shorthanded every night, two men down unless you want to punt the game. 

It does bug me - but if we miss the playoffs by a game, I'm not sure I'm going to nitpick the last couple of arms in the bullpen being the root cause when the bullpen has been fantastic this year.

Swanson's pitched 5 1/3 innings this year man - the same # Dillon Tate has.  Green was bad, but not horrific up until the end of May (xFIP of 4.08).

I don't want either to be in the bullpen.  Hurry back Garcia, Sandlin and Burr!

 

[glory]

[Laika]

HOORAY!

[Jonn]

Swanson gone. Hopefully Green next.

[Brownie19]

2 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

It sounds like reinforcements are coming to me...

Spot on prediction...

[Terminator]

Turnbull got up to 51 pitches on Sunday.

The game on Friday against the ChiSox will be 5 days later. I wonder if the plan is to let Turnbull go 65 pitches that day.

I suppose with the off day we could also just bump everyone up a day but they tend to avoid that if possible.

Might be time to see what Turnbull has got in a longer outing.

 

[june.june]

Swanson gone.  The guy who we trade Teo for.

 

Atkins will always be judged by history as one of the moronic executive of the Jays for more than a decade.

[BatFlip]

16 minutes ago, june.june said:

Swanson gone.  The guy who we trade Teo for.

 

Atkins will always be judged by history as one of the moronic executive of the Jays for more than a decade.

Guy we trade Teo for no good.  Trade no good.

 

Seriously though, about time they cut Swanson loose.  Green is hopefully on borrowed time.

[Terminator]

In order to judge the Teo trade as an L for Atkins you have to use the following mental gymnastics:

• Ignore Swanson's 2023 season
• Ignore Teo's 2023 season
• Ignore that we used the savings from Teo and signed KK who had the same OPS as Teo (.741) while playing a gold glove CF
• Ignore that Teo has signed two FA contracts since the trade
• Apply Teo's 2023 and 2024 seasons at which point we wouldn't have had him anyway
• Ignore that we got Adam Macko in the deal who is developing pretty well

We probably miss the playoffs in 2023 if we don't do that trade tbh. Swanson, KK and Belt were pretty important pieces that we likely don't acquire if Teo is still around.

[Barrelsandbombs]

 

[John_Havok]

53 minutes ago, Barrelsandbombs said:

 

Coming up for Clase?

[Terminator]

4 hours ago, John_Havok said:

Coming up for Clase?

He’s ready

[Terminator]

We will never forget the summer of ‘25 I’m telling ya 

[mphenhef]

15 hours ago, june.june said:

Swanson gone.  The guy who we trade Teo for.

 

Atkins will always be judged by history as one of the moronic executive of the Jays for more than a decade.

They traded one subpar year of Teo for him.

[Eat My Shatkins]

Imagine if Santander comes back and is Tony Taters again, and Vlad goes on a 2nd half heater like last year.

 

 

[Orgfiller]

12 hours ago, John_Havok said:

Coming up for Clase?

Clase or Straw more likely. He's played quite a bit of CF still.

[AMS528]

I've missed more games than I'd like to this year, but can anyone tell me how legit Vladdy's defensive improvements have been? Is he genuinely above average out there and also not one of the ten worst baserunners in the game now? 

If he heats up at all (or gets at least closer to his expected numbers), he should wind up with a very good season cause those other numbers aren't dragging them down as much as in past years. 

[Terminator]

46 minutes ago, AMS528 said:

I've missed more games than I'd like to this year, but can anyone tell me how legit Vladdy's defensive improvements have been? Is he genuinely above average out there and also not one of the ten worst baserunners in the game now? 

If he heats up at all (or gets at least closer to his expected numbers), he should wind up with a very good season cause those other numbers aren't dragging them down as much as in past years. 

Seems like less brain farts, more accurate feeds to the pitcher, and is making the plays as they come to him instead of playing hero ball. 

[BatFlip]

1 hour ago, AMS528 said:

I've missed more games than I'd like to this year, but can anyone tell me how legit Vladdy's defensive improvements have been? Is he genuinely above average out there and also not one of the ten worst baserunners in the game now? 

If he heats up at all (or gets at least closer to his expected numbers), he should wind up with a very good season cause those other numbers aren't dragging them down as much as in past years. 

 

10 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Seems like less brain farts, more accurate feeds to the pitcher, and is making the plays as they come to him instead of playing hero ball. 

 

I would also say his anticipation/range seems to have improved a bit this year.  I'm not convinced he's "above average", but even playing close to average defense is a meaningful improvement.

His sprint speed is similar to past years, except that one year where he showed up plump as f***.  I just think he's not running into as many outs as last year.  His 26.8 sprint speed is 37th percentile, he just needs to make less mind-numbingly poor decisions to dramatically improve.

 

[Laika]

Hard to notice any difference as far as 1B defense goes. -10 OAA to +2 (so far) is a huge and meaningful swing though. 

I haven't thought about his baserunning at all since the first week or two of the year when he had a TOOTBLAN so I guess that means he has been better on that front. 

[AMS528]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Hard to notice any difference as far as 1B defense goes. -10 OAA to +2 (so far) is a huge and meaningful swing though. 

I haven't thought about his baserunning at all since the first week or two of the year when he had a TOOTBLAN so I guess that means he has been better on that front. 

Yeah that's why I had asked if anyone had noticed real changes, it's such a big swing. It's big enough that he's still tracking for about 4 WAR this year even though he's not hitting near the level you'd want him to. 

[Laika]

I wonder if having strong defenders at 2B is helping out his positioning? 

[max silver]

1 hour ago, BatFlip said:

 

 

I would also say his anticipation/range seems to have improved a bit this year.  I'm not convinced he's "above average", but even playing close to average defense is a meaningful improvement.

His sprint speed is similar to past years, except that one year where he showed up plump as f***.  I just think he's not running into as many outs as last year.  His 26.8 sprint speed is 37th percentile, he just needs to make less mind-numbingly poor decisions to dramatically improve.

 

The baserunning improvement is a result of taking more extra bases when available. He was -4 on extra bases last season due to holding too frequently. He's successfully attempting to advance a lot more this season and this is the primary reason the baserunning numbers are so much better.

[SuperFuzzBigMuff]

5 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

Imagine if Santander comes back and is Tony Taters again, and Vlad goes on a 2nd half heater like last year.

 

 

More like Mashed Potatoes. Vladdy is a joke... 

[Terminator]

 

[Vancouverite]

Anyone got an update on possible return for Varsho and Santander?

 

Im hoping they come back and tattoo the ball

[BB17]

2 hours ago, Vancouverite said:

Anyone got an update on possible return for Varsho and Santander?

 

Im hoping they come back and tattoo the ball

Not sure but Id give them all the time they need to get back to 100% especially Santander. The lineup looks pretty damn good on paper with both of them in it though. The Bench looks pretty solid with Lukes as a 4th OF and Straw as a 5th OF

vs RHP

Bo

Barger

Vladdy

Kirk

Santander

Varsho

Springer 

Giminez 

Lukes

 

vs LHP

Bo

Barger

Vladdy

Kirk

Santander

Springer

Varsho

Clement

Straw

 

 

[Brownie19]

The beauty thing about Barger is he's shown the ability to hit LHP throughout the minors and so far this season at the ML level.  We shouldn't need to platoon him.  What an incredible development for the Jays.  

And who doesn't LOVE cheering for Barger?  If he sustains this production, he'll quickly become a massive fan favourite.

Bargers jerseys are going to soon be...

Perhaps as hot as his statcast page?