Blue Jays (Bassitt) vs Astros (Blanco): 4/22/25, 8:10pm

[Brock Beauchamp]

[Orgfiller]

All jokes aside from the "must-win" trope, this is a game we gotta put on the books. Blanco has been struggling out of the gate, and this is a much different lineup than the one that faced him in Houston last season. As long as Bassitt continues his good stretch of pitching this is one that has to go our way.

[Terminator]

Yeah if we want to win the AL East these are the games we gotta win

[Laika]

win the AL East? 

lol

[Laika]

I just don't know where the Jays are going to find any pop.

I guess Varsho coming back soon will help. I guess Barger could start getting to his power a bit more often if he gets some playing time. But that's about it internally. Bo is showing no signs of wanting or having the ability to hit for pull power anymore. Bo and Santander will start hitting more but a pair of 25 HR hitters is ho-hum, every team has that.  

Orelvis, Loperfido, Schneider, McAdoo... everyone in AAA and AA sucks from what I can see. Outlook, weak. 

[Terminator]

This division is not that good. Yanks project the best and they top out at 87 to 88 wins. They are an Aaron Judge injury away from a losing season.

As for the homers, regression to the mean from nearly everyone should provide A LOT more and I don't think we need to lead the league in homers to get to 88ish wins.

We are going to slap hit our way to the AL East title and everyone is going to learn to love it.

 

 

[Orgfiller]

17 minutes ago, Laika said:

I just don't know where the Jays are going to find any pop.

I guess Varsho coming back soon will help. I guess Barger could start getting to his power a bit more often if he gets some playing time. But that's about it internally. Bo is showing no signs of wanting or having the ability to hit for pull power anymore. Bo and Santander will start hitting more but a pair of 25 HR hitters is ho-hum, every team has that.  

Orelvis, Loperfido, Schneider, McAdoo... everyone in AAA and AA sucks from what I can see. Outlook, weak. 

I think you're underestimating how much power the top 3 can produce, and how badly we've been missing it. Santander still projects for 30 HR RoS and that's with him scuffling badly to begin the year. Bo, despite his relative lack of power, has a .526 xSLG compared to his true .390 SLG mark, he's been underperforming his expected stats pretty significantly, particularly in the power department. His Statcast page looks great. Vlad's in the same boat, almost exactly matching Bo's xSLG - SLG discrepancy, his xWOBA would make him a top 5 hitter.

[Brownie19]

Bassitt is due for a dud unfortunately.  In a time where we simply can't afford for it to happen.  Awful position to be in right now.

[Laika]

6 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

I think you're underestimating how much power the top 3 can produce, and how badly we've been missing it. Santander still projects for 30 HR RoS and that's with him scuffling badly to begin the year. Bo, despite his relative lack of power, has a .526 xSLG compared to his true .390 SLG mark, he's been underperforming his expected stats pretty significantly, particularly in the power department. His Statcast page looks great. Vlad's in the same boat, almost exactly matching Bo's xSLG - SLG discrepancy, his xWOBA would make him a top 5 hitter.

The xSLG for Vlad and Bo matters but those are missing doubles, almost entirely. I can't recall either of them hitting any or many would-be homers that died on the track. Both are just slapping the RF alley and getting defended.

There is a chance Santander is just a bum from now on. 

Ring the alarm bells, fire Ross. 

[Laika]

3 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Bassitt is due for a dud unfortunately.  In a time where we simply can't afford for it to happen.  Awful position to be in right now.

let's get a beer 

[BTS]

If Bo and Vlad keep doing more or less what they've been doing, they're going to end up with fine offensive seasons. The glaring red flags right now are Kirk/Gimenez/Santander. These three guys are on long-term contracts and were supposed to add at least league average depth to the lineup (more in Satander's case). 

If you have Bo and Vlad going well, then a 125 wRC+ Santander and a 100 wRC+ Kirk and Gimenez, you can squint and see a team that will challenge for a WC spot. 

If Santander is doing whatever it is he's currently doing, Gimenez is actually an 80-90 wRC+ slap-hitting all-glove 2B and Kirk never actually finds the power he showed before 2023, then this offense is in serious trouble. 

A month in and its been the latter - the team is getting nothing at all from the supporting cast on offense. Which isn't really a surprise. 

[Doubleplay21]

Varsho on Triple A Buffalo today. He had 18 home runs last season.Those 18 home runs seem colossal this year.

 

 

[BB17]

Giminez actually had a few flyballs that were close homers IIRC. One was in Boston that would have been a homer in like half of MLB parks, another in Baltimore and I want to say there was maybe 1 more. You'd like to think those would have left the yard in the summer. His xOBA of .331 right now actually would be the highest of his career ironically lol. He's really struggled lately but I could see him hitting 15 bombs. He certainly shouldn't be hitting in the top 5 of the order though.

Springer could maybe get 20-25 but that's probably just wishful thinking given the age he is.

The real problem are the Rodens/Wagners/Kirk being groundball machines. When the rest of the team is hitting only singles and those 3 guys having a GB rate of 50% you're gonna get a lot of rally killing double plays. Kirk obviously has to stay in the lineup given his position but I'd be close to pulling the plug on Wagner/Roden pretty soon. Both are fine players on the surface but they just really fit poorly with this current Jays Lineup right now. 

Barger hasn't lit the world on fire but I'd put him in over Roden and hope to get him going a bit. He at least has the upside to hit 25 bombs and with his arm in RF he's serviceable there at least.

[Stangstag]

Another must-win here tonight

[G-Snarls]

Just now, Stangstag said:

Another must-win here tonight

Joking aside it feels urgent to win some games ASAP to stop what feels like a possible major freefall.   

Need some bats to come alive in the worst way

[Stangstag]

4 hours ago, BTS said:

If Bo and Vlad keep doing more or less what they've been doing, they're going to end up with fine offensive seasons. The glaring red flags right now are Kirk/Gimenez/Santander. These three guys are on long-term contracts and were supposed to add at least league average depth to the lineup (more in Satander's case). 

If you have Bo and Vlad going well, then a 125 wRC+ Santander and a 100 wRC+ Kirk and Gimenez, you can squint and see a team that will challenge for a WC spot. 

If Santander is doing whatever it is he's currently doing, Gimenez is actually an 80-90 wRC+ slap-hitting all-glove 2B and Kirk never actually finds the power he showed before 2023, then this offense is in serious trouble. 

A month in and its been the latter - the team is getting nothing at all from the supporting cast on offense. Which isn't really a surprise. 

These guys simply need to play to their projections. And if most of the lineup is failing to come close to projections… a failure by this organization? Hard to say its just bad luck when it continues happening.

Pitching seems to be better than projected so far though, i’ll give them that.

[Terminator]

Most of the struggling secondary players are at least contributing with their gloves and accumulating positive WAR. Gimenez, Kirk, Roden and Clement are all putting up positive WAR despite their bats being cold. 

I don't think a couple of no defense, 20+ homer types (aka the kind of Free Agent pickups that this board clamors for) would be providing much more value than they are.

The one guy who is really sucking big time is Will Wagner. He's a negative on defense so needs to hit but he's not at all. His projections are so good I'd keep playing him but 3B is the most obvious spot to improve at the trade deadline right now.

 

[Laika]

At least Jerj Springer is 28 years old again 

Dead red statcast page 

[Terminator]

 

[Laika]

Revolting lineup tbh 

[Terminator]

Off the top of my head, our #3 and #5 through 9 hitters probably have a combined career total of about 12 home runs lmao

[Terminator]

That said we slap hit and defend our way to a 3-1 victory tonight. Book it.

[Stangstag]

What happened to Tony Taters

[Omar]

Gimenez batting 3rd?!?

One thing this management group does is try to justify their signings via lineup construction.  I wish they would stop it.  They need to adopt a Realpolitik approach.  I swear lineup construction alone costs the Jays 3-5 wins per season.  

We may have to rename this team the Punch and Judy hitters.

[Terminator]

1 hour ago, Stangstag said:

What happened to Tony Taters

Giving him a day off to rest up for the hot steak that he's about to go on

[Spanky99]

8 hours ago, Terminator said:

Yeah if we want to win the AL East these are the games we gotta win

 

[Spanky99]

8 hours ago, Laika said:

I just don't know where the Jays are going to find any pop.

I guess Varsho coming back soon will help. I guess Barger could start getting to his power a bit more often if he gets some playing time. But that's about it internally. Bo is showing no signs of wanting or having the ability to hit for pull power anymore. Bo and Santander will start hitting more but a pair of 25 HR hitters is ho-hum, every team has that.  

Orelvis, Loperfido, Schneider, McAdoo... everyone in AAA and AA sucks from what I can see. Outlook, weak. 

[Spanky99]

Swinging bunt, of course... BABIP Luck showing its ugly head.

[HomeRunHomer]

Getting BABIP'd to death

[Abomination]

So it's gonna be one of THOSE kind of days.