General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[R.O.]

 

[Spanky__99]

2 hours ago, max silver said:

I don't think Bo would have enough value on his own to bring back a controllable player that's an upgrade over what the team already possesses. 

Than he stays.

[BB17]

5 hours ago, hanton said:

yep discussed before, lowest attack angle in the league and bo isn't far behind.  This is not easily fixed,  Hopefully Popkins can do something with him

He has Pujols upside but he just doesn't seem to have a strong enough baseball IQ. He also doesn't seem to hunt for pitches the same way the great players do. A lot of the time  it seems he doesn't have much of a plan at the plate

[SuperFuzzBigMuff]

17 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

Than he stays.

They should trade him. He's not going to sign with the Blue Jays next year. Not with Vladdy getting a $500 Million contract to be less productive than half the starting line up. 

[hanton]

17 hours ago, BB17 said:

He has Pujols upside but he just doesn't seem to have a strong enough baseball IQ. He also doesn't seem to hunt for pitches the same way the great players do. A lot of the time  it seems he doesn't have much of a plan at the plate

Sometimes he just looks lost at the plate either going in without a plan, not knowing what the pitcher throws. Maybe he can't pick-up pitches/spin etc?  maybe he needs glasses - I wonder if they considered that?

[SuperFuzzBigMuff]

Does anyone think the Orioles knew about Santander's shoulder? 

[max silver]

12 minutes ago, SuperFuzzBigMuff said:

Does anyone think the Orioles knew about Santander's shoulder? 

Santander hurt his shoulder crashing into the stands when attempting a catch in the outfield. 

[SuperFuzzBigMuff]

1 hour ago, max silver said:

Santander hurt his shoulder crashing into the stands when attempting a catch in the outfield. 

Or did it just aggravate a preexisting injury? 

[max silver]

6 minutes ago, SuperFuzzBigMuff said:

Or did it just aggravate a preexisting injury? 

I don't think there's any reason to expect that to be the case.

[John_Havok]

2 hours ago, max silver said:

I don't think there's any reason to expect that to be the case.

The more you respond to the very clearly stupid, the more they post. 

Please, think of the children.

[connorp2]

On 6/19/2025 at 1:07 PM, Laika said:

If Gimenez doesn't start hitting, he might lose some 2B playing time to Clement. 

They simply can't justify benching Barger or Clement, they are too good and have been too good.

I don't think it makes sense to put Barger's 3B development over the importance of fielding an optimal lineup, though. 

LF - George
CF - Varsho
RF - Barger
3B - Clement
SS - Bo
2B - Gimenez
1B - Vlad
C - Kirk
DH - Santander

George gets regular games off and a bench OF plays.
Santander gets some regular rest days and a bench OF plays (George DH)
Gimenez gets some days off if he isn't hitting, and Clement slides in there with Barger covering 3B. 

$100m man. How can you take that kind of glove out of the lineup everyday? I guess it makes it better when you have a good fielder that’s a career utility man and can hit with something better than a wet noodle, making 1/2.

[infinitebook]

7 hours ago, SuperFuzzBigMuff said:

They should trade him. He's not going to sign with the Blue Jays next year. Not with Vladdy getting a $500 Million contract to be less productive than half the starting line up. 

We need Vlad to hit for more power, but he does lead the team in wRC+ amongst every day players. I think if Bo doesn't have a strong second half, there's a chance he signs a qualifying offer and tries to enter FA again next year. Or perhaps a short term deal with an opt out. 

[max silver]

15 hours ago, John_Havok said:

The more you respond to the very clearly stupid, the more they post. 

Please, think of the children.

I typically try to give the newer posters a chance to show they are capable of rational discussion of baseball before adding them to my ignore list. 

[connorp2]

22 hours ago, SuperFuzzBigMuff said:

Does anyone think the Orioles knew about Santander's shoulder? 

They just knew not to give him $100m

[Doubleplay21]

If Gimenez has a .200 average at season end, it shows Cleveland was wise to off load him to Atkins.

[Brownie19]

56 minutes ago, connorp2 said:

They just knew not to give him $100m

Given their history over the past 2 seasons, it's really bizarre to suggest the O's know who to give money to and who not to...

[BB17]

On 6/21/2025 at 1:04 PM, hanton said:

Sometimes he just looks lost at the plate either going in without a plan, not knowing what the pitcher throws. Maybe he can't pick-up pitches/spin etc?  maybe he needs glasses - I wonder if they considered that?

It also seems when he does get a pitch to hit and is sitting on it, he hits it for a single or double which limits his production. I doubt it’s a vision issue cuz he does have a pretty good eye at the plate.

If he had the brain of Jose or Edwin he would be a 200wRC+ type bat. Good thing is he has the upside to be that type of player if he does figure it out.

[John_Havok]

1 hour ago, BB17 said:

It also seems when he does get a pitch to hit and is sitting on it, he hits it for a single or double which limits his production. I doubt it’s a vision issue cuz he does have a pretty good eye at the plate.

If he had the brain of Jose or Edwin he would be a 200wRC+ type bat. Good thing is he has the upside to be that type of player if he does figure it out.

I think it's a bit different. 

I don't think Vlad goes up there looking for a specific pitch to hit. I think he overthinks himself into guessing at what's coming and just isnt ready to hit all the mistakes when he gets them. He still hits a few but..not as many as he should.

Also, when he gets a borderline call against him, he has a tendency to swing at the very next pitch unless its very obviously a ball. Pitchers can take advantage of that by throwing just a bit further out in that same location to induce a bigger swing/miss chance. 

Another problem is his the fact that he has the capability of inside-outing pitches on the inner half. That's a great skill. That type of swing with two strikes is fine, but he does it way too often in non two-strike counts. It's like he doesnt realize he should be looking to park those pitches in the left field stands. 

Couple all of that with an objectively bad attack angle swing, and an inherent talent for making hard contact and you get what we see today; a guy who hits missiles all over the park, but not at the optimal launch angles with enough regularity to generate the type of power results that a guy of his talent should generate. A bad season for him should be 30-35 HRs.

[Stangstag]

On 6/20/2025 at 7:33 PM, BB17 said:

He has Pujols upside but he just doesn't seem to have a strong enough baseball IQ. He also doesn't seem to hunt for pitches the same way the great players do. A lot of the time  it seems he doesn't have much of a plan at the plate

The thing that makes guys like Pujols, Bonds, Soto, Trout etc. so good isn’t just the physical talent… they have elite eyes/pitch recognition and extremely good baseball IQ.

I don’t think Vlad will ever come close to replicating the career numbers of those guys. He just doesn’t have it between the ears unfortunately.

[Stangstag]

Vlad having a 20hr sub 850 OPS season the first year after signing a 500m deal looks comically bad for the outlook of the organization 

[mphenhef]

20 hours ago, connorp2 said:

They just knew not to give him $100m

So did the Jays with the present day value at 68 million

[mphenhef]

2019 did a disservice to fans when it comes to Vlad.  He was a hit over power prospect and that 48 homer year had people thinking he was a huge power bat.  That's simply not been his batting profile and while I believe our front office knew that they were unfortunately overruled by ownership resulting in a $500 million dollar contract that isn't going to age well.

[BB17]

49 minutes ago, Stangstag said:

The thing that makes guys like Pujols, Bonds, Soto, Trout etc. so good isn’t just the physical talent… they have elite eyes/pitch recognition and extremely good baseball IQ.

I don’t think Vlad will ever come close to replicating the career numbers of those guys. He just doesn’t have it between the ears unfortunately.

Agreed. Jose I thought was the best example, in his prime it seemed like he would crush every mistake and spit on pitches that were an inch outside the zone. Bautista wasn’t the biggest guy and his tools weren’t really that elite other than his arm but he knew how to get the most out of his swing and when he got his pitch he barely missed it.

Even Edwin in 2012-2015 was the same way.

[BB17]

32 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

2019 did a disservice to fans when it comes to Vlad.  He was a hit over power prospect and that 48 homer year had people thinking he was a huge power bat.  That's simply not been his batting profile and while I believe our front office knew that they were unfortunately overruled by ownership resulting in a $500 million dollar contract that isn't going to age well.

I feel part of the blame still should be on the FO. I mean you have to do a good job communicating to them that the contract would be an absolute landmine and they should not sign it.

In my opinion the problem is Shapiro/Atkins want to save their jobs so they aren’t going to speak up as strongly or as convincingly. Tough to really know what happened but Rogers never seemed to meddle before this.

[mphenhef]

24 minutes ago, BB17 said:

Agreed. Jose I thought was the best example, in his prime it seemed like he would crush every mistake and spit on pitches that were an inch outside the zone. Bautista wasn’t the biggest guy and his tools weren’t really that elite other than his arm but he knew how to get the most out of his swing and when he got his pitch he barely missed it.

Even Edwin in 2012-2015 was the same way.

It was clearly the man in the white shirt facilitating this /s

[John_Havok]

17 minutes ago, BB17 said:

I feel part of the blame still should be on the FO. I mean you have to do a good job communicating to them that the contract would be an absolute landmine and they should not sign it.

In my opinion the problem is Shapiro/Atkins want to save their jobs so they aren’t going to speak up as strongly or as convincingly. Tough to really know what happened but Rogers never seemed to meddle before this.

There's no reality where Atkins or Shapiro thought this was a good value signing. It just doesn’t fit their MO. 

As for whether they "spoke up as strongly or as convincingly" ... i mean, when do billionaires ever really listen to their underlines who disagree with them? What were Atkins and Shapiro supposed to do differently? Refuse to sign the paperwork or resign in solidarity?

Besides, its not purely an on-field baseball signing. There's nobody I know of with any baseball acumen that thinks its a good on-field value signing. But, Rogers has their marketing face locked in for the next 14 years to sell advertising and all kinds of crap that isnt related to the baseball product. Vlad is likely worth more than 500 million to Rogers Corp. 

[Brownie19]

Apparently Varsho may start a rehab assignment this week...

[glory]

1 hour ago, BB17 said:

I feel part of the blame still should be on the FO. I mean you have to do a good job communicating to them that the contract would be an absolute landmine and they should not sign it.

In my opinion the problem is Shapiro/Atkins want to save their jobs so they aren’t going to speak up as strongly or as convincingly. Tough to really know what happened but Rogers never seemed to meddle before this.

As mentioned I don’t think there was much Shatkins could have done. Clearly they do not value Vlad as a $500M player but Rogers wanted to get the deal done by any means. After a last place finish for a team that had to sell at the deadline in order to get under the luxury tax, I don’t think Shapiro on the final year of his deal was going to sway anyone’s opinion in ownership. Just do what your boss wants and smile during the press conference.

[BatFlip]

2 hours ago, BB17 said:

I feel part of the blame still should be on the FO. I mean you have to do a good job communicating to them that the contract would be an absolute landmine and they should not sign it.

In my opinion the problem is Shapiro/Atkins want to save their jobs so they aren’t going to speak up as strongly or as convincingly. Tough to really know what happened but Rogers never seemed to meddle before this.

I posted this before, but Rogers is looking to aggressively reduce their debt load after acquiring Shaw a few years ago.  Rogers management has been vocal with investors (including on the last quarterly conference call) about monetizing their sports holdings (Blue Jays/MLSE) through either an IPO or partial/whole divesture.

After trying and failing to sign Ohtani and other marquee names during the last couple offseasons, they probably concluded the following:

• Guerrero is the face of the franchise with mainstream fans and the most marketable player on the roster.  Mainstream fans would be quite upset in the short-term if they traded him or let him walk.
• Without Guerrero on the roster, they believed it would be more challenging to sign other marquee free agents to the roster.
• $500M is a huge sum, but in the short-term, Guerrero's $40M per year won't hamstring the roster, given he's already close to $30M/year now.
• Atkins/Shapiro probably concluded the contract was $100 - $150M too rich, but that Guerrero still had the upside of an elite player. 
• The premium above would be amortized over 14 years, the premium was worth it to Rogers as they look to maximize the current appeal and value of the team.

In the end, the short-term impact of losing Guerrero on the franchise's current fan and brand appeal outweighed the long-term possibility of an albatross contract, given the transaction Rogers is exploring.  

I'm not defending the contract, I hated it and think we grossly overpaid.  But as you hinted at, there were clearly other factors at play and I'm not going to browbeat Atkins/Shapiro for this one.

 

[John_Havok]

2 hours ago, BatFlip said:

I posted this before, but Rogers is looking to aggressively reduce their debt load after acquiring Shaw a few years ago.  Rogers management has been vocal with investors (including on the last quarterly conference call) about monetizing their sports holdings (Blue Jays/MLSE) through either an IPO or partial/whole divesture.

After trying and failing to sign Ohtani and other marquee names during the last couple offseasons, they probably concluded the following:

• Guerrero is the face of the franchise with mainstream fans and the most marketable player on the roster.  Mainstream fans would be quite upset in the short-term if they traded him or let him walk.
• Without Guerrero on the roster, they believed it would be more challenging to sign other marquee free agents to the roster.
• $500M is a huge sum, but in the short-term, Guerrero's $40M per year won't hamstring the roster, given he's already close to $30M/year now.
• Atkins/Shapiro probably concluded the contract was $100 - $150M too rich, but that Guerrero still had the upside of an elite player. 
• The premium above would be amortized over 14 years, the premium was worth it to Rogers as they look to maximize the current appeal and value of the team.

In the end, the short-term impact of losing Guerrero on the franchise's current fan and brand appeal outweighed the long-term possibility of an albatross contract, given the transaction Rogers is exploring.  

I'm not defending the contract, I hated it and think we grossly overpaid.  But as you hinted at, there were clearly other factors at play and I'm not going to browbeat Atkins/Shapiro for this one.

 

Well stated.