General Blue Jays Discussion Thread (2025)

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Masterbather said:

Well have you noticed what we have on the major league roster? They are tested and...well...they kind of suck. As a collective group the best they've been this year is mediocre.

Sometimes you try to catch lightning in a bottle. 

I've seen the whole thing about the petition but I don't think they would leave this to chance, especially since it's not like we're sitting here with a 10 game lead and cruising.

It seems they just don't want him here. Whatever I guess we'll see.

It seems like you could stand to temper your expectations a tiny bit. You seem to think that this pitching staff needs a savior to come up from the minor leagues to save the season but I tend to think if they are going to go anywhere the guys already on the roster are going to need to pitch closer to their capabilities. This was evident with the insistence that the team needed Manoah to instantly return to peak form for the team to have a shot, and now it's exactly the same kind of thing with Yesavage. It's perfectly defensible for the club to decide to delay calling up a first year professional for a bit instead of immediately thrusting him into a pennant race. To my eyes the primary reason why the pen has struggled so much recently is that the majority of the relievers have been handing out far too many free passes. Yesavage almost certainly isn't going to do anything to improve this issue as he's currently sporting a 6.55 BB/9 rate in AAA. The last few starts have been better as the majority of the free passes came in his first AAA start so hopefully with another solid outing or two the front office will deem him ready for a shot.

[Stangstag]

3 hours ago, jaysblue said:

Yeah, even one of my friends had a ticket rep contact him and they're trying hard to sell these seats for next year. $250-300 per game is a lot. I was even contemplating going in 25% but that would be $10K lol. Would rather just buy another pair of Buffalo Bills season tickets haha. I told him if he wants to go to a game in that section, just purchase them off SeatGeek or StubHub the day of for likely cheaper or pay the price for that experience as a one-off. Would be tough to unload so many games at that price, especially games in April or against bad teams. 

Like you said, they over saturated the Rogers Centre with too many premium seats/clubs that are out of price range for the average person. A lot of these premium dugout/infield seats used to be $70-80 or even $100. Only corporations could really purchase season tickets here now. 

I was lucky back in 2009. One of my dad's friends knew a guy who had season tickets two rows behind the away dugout and I always bought a strip of 25 games off him before the season for $50 each seat/$100 for the pair. Those days are over when it comes to those prices lol. Did that for a couple of years, which was nice and saw some great games as well. Like the Halladay/Burnett pitching matchup in 2009. 

I think alot will get sold in the offseason. A lot of companies (specifically the big banks) have started going back to 4 days a week in-person for work. The demand will be there IMO. Seems there is a big push recently to get Toronto back to where it was pre-covid. Shap and Co probably have an idea that x amount of these seats will be sold.

[Grant77]

Does Brendon Little have options? He's been one of, if not the worst reliever in baseball for quite some time now. He's got good stuff, but desperately needs a stint in the minors to work things out instead of costing us games. He's single handedly lost us a minimum of 3 games in just one month.

[Masterbather]

2 hours ago, max silver said:

It seems like you could stand to temper your expectations a tiny bit. You seem to think that this pitching staff needs a savior to come up from the minor leagues to save the season but I tend to think if they are going to go anywhere the guys already on the roster are going to need to pitch closer to their capabilities. This was evident with the insistence that the team needed Manoah to instantly return to peak form for the team to have a shot, and now it's exactly the same kind of thing with Yesavage. It's perfectly defensible for the club to decide to delay calling up a first year professional for a bit instead of immediately thrusting him into a pennant race. To my eyes the primary reason why the pen has struggled so much recently is that the majority of the relievers have been handing out far too many free passes. Yesavage almost certainly isn't going to do anything to improve this issue as he's currently sporting a 6.55 BB/9 rate in AAA. The last few starts have been better as the majority of the free passes came in his first AAA start so hopefully with another solid outing or two the front office will deem him ready for a shot.

Proof again today. 

We need a hero.

[max silver]

2 hours ago, Masterbather said:

Proof again today. 

We need a hero.

Yesavage wouldn't have been used in today's game with such a small lead anyway.

[Masterbather]

41 minutes ago, max silver said:

Yesavage wouldn't have been used in today's game with such a small lead anyway.

Maybe not, but we need a jolt. I don't know what the f*** is going on. I don't have the highest bar for this bullpen and they're even falling below my standards, it's like they've all caught this weird disease. Like their collective psyche is broken. I don't remember the last time the bullpen was as consistently f***ing awful.

[glory]

Schneider and the Jays have prioritized resting starters consistently, whether it be with extra rest or super low pitch counts and early hooks. The pen was used pretty hard early on. It might just be catching up to them

[max silver]

41 minutes ago, Masterbather said:

Maybe not, but we need a jolt. I don't know what the f*** is going on. I don't have the highest bar for this bullpen and they're even falling below my standards, it's like they've all caught this weird disease. Like their collective psyche is broken. I don't remember the last time the bullpen was as consistently f***ing awful.

You only need to back to last season to find a comparably awful bullpen.

[mphenhef]

9 hours ago, glory said:

Schneider and the Jays have prioritized resting starters consistently, whether it be with extra rest or super low pitch counts and early hooks. The pen was used pretty hard early on. It might just be catching up to them

Even with a 6 man rotation they continue to baby their starters.  Like pulling Gausman while dealing at 93 pitches?  How can one justify that with a 6 man rotation? 

[glory]

1 hour ago, mphenhef said:

Even with a 6 man rotation they continue to baby their starters.  Like pulling Gausman while dealing at 93 pitches?  How can one justify that with a 6 man rotation? 

I don’t mind babying the starters to some degree as long as the pen usage is spread out to avoid relievers getting overworked, but if the game is close then Schneider is only going to use the guys he wants to use. Hoffman for example has at least 5 instances this season where he pitched 4 of 5 days. Little was pitching practically everyday when he was going well early on. Yimi came off the IL and threw 30+ pitches in his first outing back, then was never seen again. Even yesterday they could have just rolled with Nance, for better or worse, but had Little warming up as soon as Nance threw his first pitch. 

The pen holding up all season with their early season usage was probably a pipe dream in hindsight. 

[BB17]

21 hours ago, Stangstag said:

I think alot will get sold in the offseason. A lot of companies (specifically the big banks) have started going back to 4 days a week in-person for work. The demand will be there IMO. Seems there is a big push recently to get Toronto back to where it was pre-covid. Shap and Co probably have an idea that x amount of these seats will be sold.

Thing is a lot of the corps who would be interested in these seats already have seats. You add 950 tickets at a price point of $250-$300 per tickets when you already have 1800 seats at $250-$600 behind the dugouts and there is over saturation.

Theres a reason they are pushing them so hard on the Tv broadcasts.. they haven't sold many lol. They'll probably just end up giving a lot of them to corporate sponsors so it doesn't look half empty next year.

Now if the Jays are able to make a postseason run they might sell a bunch by telling people we will give you World Series tickets in exchange for taking seasons next year etc.. 

[Big_Walleye]

3 hours ago, glory said:

I don’t mind babying the starters to some degree as long as the pen usage is spread out to avoid relievers getting overworked, but if the game is close then Schneider is only going to use the guys he wants to use. Hoffman for example has at least 5 instances this season where he pitched 4 of 5 days. Little was pitching practically everyday when he was going well early on. Yimi came off the IL and threw 30+ pitches in his first outing back, then was never seen again. Even yesterday they could have just rolled with Nance, for better or worse, but had Little warming up as soon as Nance threw his first pitch. 

The pen holding up all season with their early season usage was probably a pipe dream in hindsight. 

John Schneiders biggest shortcoming is his bullpen management.  He manages the bullpen like he's scared.  Yesterday is a perfect example.  Nance should have finished the game no matter what happened and I'm sure they would have won the game.

What I notice is the way JS gets guys up in the pen without bringing them in.  He does this constantly.  John Gibbons must have a good laugh.  Gibbons was the best at bullpen management.  He almost never got a reliever up without using him.  If he did the reliever was given an apology. 

It's not just overuse that's causing these bullpen arms to s**t the bed lately, it's abuse!

 

 

[Brownie19]

33 minutes ago, Big_Walleye said:

John Schneiders biggest shortcoming is his bullpen management.  He manages the bullpen like he's scared.  Yesterday is a perfect example.  Nance should have finished the game no matter what happened and I'm sure they would have won the game.

What I notice is the way JS gets guys up in the pen without bringing them in.  He does this constantly.  John Gibbons must have a good laugh.  Gibbons was the best at bullpen management.  He almost never got a reliever up without using him.  If he did the reliever was given an apology. 

It's not just overuse that's causing these bullpen arms to s**t the bed lately, it's abuse!

Yet we have fans who think Schneider should get someone up immediately after bringing Hoffman into the game...

Bullpen management isn't something we have stats on - it's all based on people's perception.  I LOVE Gibby, but you have to acknowledge that nobody else in MLB gave him a job as the Manager.  If he was this bullpen guru, then I suspect he'd be managing today - or at the very least, would have gotten a shot to manage another team.

[Big_Walleye]

5 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Yet we have fans who think Schneider should get someone up immediately after bringing Hoffman into the game...

Bullpen management isn't something we have stats on - it's all based on people's perception.  I LOVE Gibby, but you have to acknowledge that nobody else in MLB gave him a job as the Manager.  If he was this bullpen guru, then I suspect he'd be managing today - or at the very least, would have gotten a shot to manage another team.

I'm not claiming that Gibby was a great manager.  Schneider is a much better communicator for example.  But it's a well known fact that Gibby was great at bullpen management. 

It's not a great mystery why the bullpen is faltering down the stretch. You can't abuse these arms for 5 months and expect them to be good in September and hopefully October.  I say hopefully  because the way it's looked lately the playoffs may be a dream.

[Rimar]

We need 2 relievers that can close games, and 4 that can be used in 7/8 innings. Good relievers was low cost, Atkins can have easily get 1-2 very good arms in the trade deadline. 

[Stangstag]

1 hour ago, Rimar said:

We need 2 relievers that can close games, and 4 that can be used in 7/8 innings. Good relievers was low cost, Atkins can have easily get 1-2 very good arms in the trade deadline. 

Hoffman, Dominguez, Varland, Little fit that bill IMO, they’re just all s***ing the bed at the same time.

But yeah too late now to stack the bullpen for a doomsday scenario like we are witnessing 

[BatFlip]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

Hoffman, Dominguez, Varland, Little fit that bill IMO, they’re just all s***ing the bed at the same time.

But yeah too late now to stack the bullpen for a doomsday scenario like we are witnessing 

I think that's why the situation seems so incredibly dire, basically all the arms went stone cold at the same time.

I think it's highly unlikely we don't see some performance reversion here in the next month.  If we don't... it's going to be a tough slog, because this isn't the type of team to be slugging their way to victories.

 

 

[Angrioter]

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[Masterbather]

They wanted to throw this game away so badly.

The offense refused to let them.

Forget about just leaking oil, this pitching staff is leaking engine coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, windshield washer fluid even air conditioning refrigerant. Did I miss one?

What the actual f***?

Is Berrios just done? Is Lauer now broken? At least the rest of the bullpen wasn't terrible today. But we can't keep giving up this many runs.

[Ryu In My House]

17 hours ago, Stangstag said:

Hoffman, Dominguez, Varland, Little fit that bill IMO, they’re just all s***ing the bed at the same time.

But yeah too late now to stack the bullpen for a doomsday scenario like we are witnessing 

It is sort of a worst case scenario, isn't it? The FO brought in great talent for the BP. But things have been rolling snake eyes ever since. I have said this already, but I am still shocked Yesavage is not up with the team. Maybe he's not instantly used in leverage spots, but I would be tempted to use him there over Little, etc. at this point. When Little is up in the bullpen, I turn the game off.,

[Doubleplay21]

Berrios looks like he is now a mop up reliever if that. His pitches are hit hard no matter what zone they are in. When pitchers go downhill their careers are over fast. He may be a bullpen arm like other failed starters next season to get something on the remaining years of his contract..

[glory]

BNS seemed pretty confident on X that Yesavage is an option for September and that the Jays will be granted the exemption to have him be post season eligible. Adding him and Fisher to the staff should be a big help. Beyond that, they need to hope the relievers get right and quickly. Not much else they can do at this point. Berrios looking awful and Lauer falling back down to earth is another issue for this team. 

[Spanky__99]

11 minutes ago, glory said:

BNS seemed pretty confident on X that Yesavage is an option for September and that the Jays will be granted the exemption to have him be post season eligible. Adding him and Fisher to the staff should be a big help. Beyond that, they need to hope the relievers get right and quickly. Not much else they can do at this point. Berrios looking awful and Lauer falling back down to earth is another issue for this team. 

Yes, he mentioned it during the game yesterday and Yesavage was used out of the pen... 3 IP 2H 1BB 6K's

[max silver]

7 hours ago, Masterbather said:

They wanted to throw this game away so badly.

The offense refused to let them.

Forget about just leaking oil, this pitching staff is leaking engine coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, power steering fluid, windshield washer fluid even air conditioning refrigerant. Did I miss one?

What the actual f***?

Is Berrios just done? Is Lauer now broken? At least the rest of the bullpen wasn't terrible today. But we can't keep giving up this many runs.

No the team did not want to throw the game Eyeore. The poor showing from Berrios was concerning to be certain, but if IKF didn't make a poorly timed error that would have erased 4 runs from the Reds total for the game and it likely never would have been close. The bullpen pitched pretty well as a whole only allowing 3 runs over 7 innings of work. 

[Laika]

Other than winning, the positive from last night's game is that it lines Berrios and Lauer up to piggy-back the rest of the way. The Jays would be silly to not take advantage of that. They should be in a hard platoon SP situation with short hooks and matchups played depending on the opponent. 

[BB17]

6 minutes ago, Laika said:

Other than winning, the positive from last night's game is that it lines Berrios and Lauer up to piggy-back the rest of the way. The Jays would be silly to not take advantage of that. They should be in a hard platoon SP situation with short hooks and matchups played depending on the opponent. 

With the day off Thursday and Monday you just skip their rotation spot all together. I would put one on the IL as its a waste of a roster spot and they could use an extra arm.

[max silver]

27 minutes ago, BB17 said:

With the day off Thursday and Monday you just skip their rotation spot all together. I would put one on the IL as its a waste of a roster spot and they could use an extra arm.

I thought the collective thought here was that skipping Lauer's start last turn through the rotation was entirely why he pitched so badly and that skipping a start in the rotation was guaranteed to lead to a poor start the next time around. 

[BB17]

17 minutes ago, max silver said:

I thought the collective thought here was that skipping Lauer's start last turn through the rotation was entirely why he pitched so badly and that skipping a start in the rotation was guaranteed to lead to a poor start the next time around. 

Have him start a minor league game then. He wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire before that break either, there was signs of regression. 

[Masterbather]

1 hour ago, max silver said:

No the team did not want to throw the game Eyeore. The poor showing from Berrios was concerning to be certain, but if IKF didn't make a poorly timed error that would have erased 4 runs from the Reds total for the game and it likely never would have been close. The bullpen pitched pretty well as a whole only allowing 3 runs over 7 innings of work. 

And after the error, a walk and a home run.

Yes errors hurt, but he still sucked after the error.

We're closer to the bottom of the league than we are the top when it comes to runs against. But by all means keep pretending like pitching  hasn't been a problem for this team all season and continues to be a problem with the playoffs looming.