Diamondbacks (Nelson) vs Blue Jays (Gausman): 6/19/25, 3:07pm

[Brownie19]

31 minutes ago, glory said:

Yeah it’s either a long term upside play for someone like Cabrera or all in play for someone like Alcantara. Peralta either won’t be moved or would cost way too much to acquire. Anything beyond that probably isn’t a difference maker. Depends on what the mindset is. If it’s “just get in”, then a mid rotation SP works but won’t help push the team’s upside forward. If it’s to get in and actually have a shot, then they have to think big. Options are definitely limited.

I think Alcantara is probably the guy. Whether the Jays have enough to get him, especially if they want to avoid giving up Nimmala, is the question. 

You aren't giving up Nimmala to get Alcantara.  There aren't many signs that Alcantara is anywhere close to returning to his previous form.  His statcast page is ice cold.

[Laika]

11 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

You aren't giving up Nimmala to get Alcantara.  There aren't many signs that Alcantara is anywhere close to returning to his previous form.  His statcast page is ice cold.

I think Alcantara is fixable. 

His Stuff+ was 110 before the injury and is 108 now
His Location+ was 103 before and it is 96 now 

The Location+ on his fastball is still okay but he completely lost command of his slider 

There should be a way to right that ship. 

[AMS528]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Yeah not many sellers.

A few more teams will fall out of it but the ones that tumble will probably only trade expiring contracts.

I am not sure I see a SP acquisition that is really worthwhile. 

Peralta is not getting dealt. Sale, AA said he isn't trading him. Kelly and Gallen and Eflin would be like trading for another Bassitt/Berrios. Alcantara has been so bad. 

Only thing that might make sense is paying A LOT for a guy with t eam control and upside on a bad team, like Edward Cabrera. 

Wouldn't Kelly basically be our best starter by FIP/xFIP by a pretty large margin? 

[Masterbather]

20 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I truly hope you're not surprised by this.  Doc was a HOF pitcher - the best to wear the Jays uniform (for an extended period).

How often do you expect the Jays to have a pitcher as good as Doc on their roster?  They call them "generational talents" for a reason right?

All that said, Gauman's 2022 was on par with the best seasons Doc had in a Blue Jays uniform, albeit in 50-70 fewer innings pitched.

Yeah, I know he's generation. Although it's been over 15 years now, it would be nice to have another. My whole point was that even the aces we have had, including Gausman in 2022, can't replicate the soothing feeling of having Doc on the mound. 

Price maybe came the closest, then came the playoffs where the difference between clear again.

[Laika]

8 minutes ago, AMS528 said:

Wouldn't Kelly basically be our best starter by FIP/xFIP by a pretty large margin? 

Yeah but he's over his skis and in the NL.

I think he would be their SP3 by projections.

[glory]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

You aren't giving up Nimmala to get Alcantara.  There aren't many signs that Alcantara is anywhere close to returning to his previous form.  His statcast page is ice cold.

It shouldn't take Nimmala based on Alcantara's season so far, but do they have enough aside from Nimmala to get a deal done? Depends on what the Marlins are looking for, I guess. I think Sandy should still have a good market. His salary is very reasonable for someone with his upside, and he's coming back from TJS, so he seems very fixable. Put the Jays defense behind him + Pete Walker (who has a good track record with big league SP's at least), and it has tremendous upside. Worst case you took a $17M gamble on a potential ace and it doesn't work out. I think he has to be the target, or as mentioned an upside play on Cabrera.

[AMS528]

18 minutes ago, Masterbather said:

Yeah, I know he's generation. Although it's been over 15 years now, it would be nice to have another. My whole point was that even the aces we have had, including Gausman in 2022, can't replicate the soothing feeling of having Doc on the mound. 

Price maybe came the closest, then came the playoffs where the difference between clear again.

Yeah it's been a while I think if you were to come up with the list of best Jays starters since Doc left, there's basically no one with any kind of sustained performance, just guys with fairly good numbers for a couple of years here and there. 

According to fWAR, Stroman and Gausman top the list since Doc was traded, and then you've got Happ, Buehrle, Romero, Estrada as other guys who had more than a single season of good work. Beyond that's it's just guys who had a single really good season like Sanchez, Manoah, Ray and Ryu. Gausman was the closest to elite for those two years out of that set. Although I did find Buehrle in his best season pretty soothing to watch. 

[BB17]

4 hours ago, max silver said:

Wasn't there a runner or two on base when Fisher came into the game? He only faced a single hitter, so that shouldn't have a massive effect on his availability for today's game at the very least. The team was making a lot of late inning noise so as mentioned I have zero issues with bringing in a more trusted reliever to quell the Dbacks rally before they added more runs and potentially put the game out of reach. 

Nobody was on base like I mentioned.. Dumb move I'll leave it at that.

[BB17]

3 hours ago, BatFlip said:

Agreed.  Loud tools, but probably a solid bench guy.   

Interesting how quickly everyone has given up on Roden.  He's not young anymore, but it does remind a bit of Barger's struggles when he first came up.  Too early to waive the white flag.

 

 

I think for me the upside is just low as a platoon corner OF who doesn't hit for much power. If he can made an adjustment against big league pitching he can have a pretty good career but so far we haven't seen that and given the Jays roster its looking like he might be better off in trade bait than on the roster.

[Orgfiller]

21 hours ago, Masterbather said:

God I miss the feeling of having Roy Halladay on the mound.

Really haven't had that feeling since, even with Robbie Ray even when Gausman was really good, still never felt that same confidence.

Meh, I think this is somewhat based on recency bias. 2022-2023 Gausman was an absolute treat to watch, pure dominance night in and out. Halladay is obviously a different breed, but we've had glimpses of ace like production from the likes of the 2015 David Price and 22-23 Gausman. With '21 Robbie Ray we got the production but it was on the heels of Ray being s*** for a few years so you were always kind of expecting the bottom to fall out on him and revert to his wild days.

[Orgfiller]

3 hours ago, BatFlip said:

Agreed.  Loud tools, but probably a solid bench guy.   

Interesting how quickly everyone has given up on Roden.  He's not young anymore, but it does remind a bit of Barger's struggles when he first came up.  Too early to waive the white flag.

 

 

Agreed. Roden's AAA performance tells me he's still a guy to watch out for. His issues at the MLB level have been swing angle related, I think once he gets over the adjustment period he can still be a guy of value. The defense has been better than advertised which at least gives him a floor as an MLB player.

Clase's age still makes him interesting enough to somewhat dream on. He won't be a superstar, but switch hitter with elite speed and untapped power potential is someone you don't write off while only being 23. He's a bench guy right now, and a low end regular with some more seasoning with a chance for more. He's not a true CF however, his reads are lacking.

[BatFlip]

16 minutes ago, Orgfiller said:

Agreed. Roden's AAA performance tells me he's still a guy to watch out for. His issues at the MLB level have been swing angle related, I think once he gets over the adjustment period he can still be a guy of value. The defense has been better than advertised which at least gives him a floor as an MLB player.

Clase's age still makes him interesting enough to somewhat dream on. He won't be a superstar, but switch hitter with elite speed and untapped power potential is someone you don't write off while only being 23. He's a bench guy right now, and a low end regular with some more seasoning with a chance for more. He's not a true CF however, his reads are lacking.

Yup.  Everyone gapes at Clase's loud tools of speed and aggression, but Roden's level of plate discipline combined with a promising hit tool is a much more rare commodity.  The probability of Roden making some changes to induce more power is far higher than Clase suddenly becoming more patient at the plate and making better swing decisions.  I just find it ridiculous to write Roden off this early, especially when he went down to Buffalo and raked after struggling early this year.

I'm definitely not writing Clase off and I love the speed, but his best chance to stick at the bigs is at CF and I agree that his reads aren't great.   

 

 

[max silver]

2 hours ago, BatFlip said:

Yup.  Everyone gapes at Clase's loud tools of speed and aggression, but Roden's level of plate discipline combined with a promising hit tool is a much more rare commodity.  The probability of Roden making some changes to induce more power is far higher than Clase suddenly becoming more patient at the plate and making better swing decisions.  I just find it ridiculous to write Roden off this early, especially when he went down to Buffalo and raked after struggling early this year.

I'm definitely not writing Clase off and I love the speed, but his best chance to stick at the bigs is at CF and I agree that his reads aren't great.   

 

 

If you could transplant Roden's brain into Clase's body you would end up with a fantastic player. I like Clase's tools as much as anyone but he's just so raw at the plate and in the field and it's far from a given that things will eventually click for him to allow the natural talent to fully shine through. 

[Masterbather]

3 hours ago, Orgfiller said:

Meh, I think this is somewhat based on recency bias. 2022-2023 Gausman was an absolute treat to watch, pure dominance night in and out. Halladay is obviously a different breed, but we've had glimpses of ace like production from the likes of the 2015 David Price and 22-23 Gausman. With '21 Robbie Ray we got the production but it was on the heels of Ray being s*** for a few years so you were always kind of expecting the bottom to fall out on him and revert to his wild days.

Nah, it's not. Halladay was a pitcher you knew would be nails even in the highest pressure against the greatest lineups. Look at the ridiculous roided Red Sox and Yankees lineups he routinely had to navigate. We all knew he'd be a great postseason pitcher even before seeing him pitch in the postseason. And he was.

Never felt that way about Gausman even in 2022. Then he proved he wasn't that guy in the postseason. Halladay was just a different breed man. 

I think it comes down to the fact that you couldn't game plan around Halladay. You knew what was coming, you knew it was in the strike zone and you couldn't do f*** all against it. Sort of like Mariano Rivera. Swing and pray. You can game plan against Gausman, and we've seen teams do that successfully.

[Hogtown]

11 hours ago, Brownie19 said:

That's right up there as one of the dumbest things I've heard this year.

Lol you would trust Gausman in any important game? I wouldn't. He's been absolutely trash in June with an ERA over 7

[Brownie19]

Some really good discussions there men. Well done.

[Brownie19]

Just now, Hogtown said:

Lol you would trust Gausman in any important game? I wouldn't. He's been absolutely trash in June with an ERA over 7

You compared him to Bowden Francis.  That's a joke.  Don't ruin the good discussions with that type of nonsense please.

[max silver]

16 hours ago, Masterbather said:

Nah, it's not. Halladay was a pitcher you knew would be nails even in the highest pressure against the greatest lineups. Look at the ridiculous roided Red Sox and Yankees lineups he routinely had to navigate. We all knew he'd be a great postseason pitcher even before seeing him pitch in the postseason. And he was.

Never felt that way about Gausman even in 2022. Then he proved he wasn't that guy in the postseason. Halladay was just a different breed man. 

I think it comes down to the fact that you couldn't game plan around Halladay. You knew what was coming, you knew it was in the strike zone and you couldn't do f*** all against it. Sort of like Mariano Rivera. Swing and pray. You can game plan against Gausman, and we've seen teams do that successfully.

I don't agree that you knew what was coming with Halladay. He was a master at dotting the outside corners of the plate with cutters and sinkers, and he also mixed in plenty of curveballs and changeups. 

[jaysblue]

Jays pitchers the past two decades since 2000:

Legendary:

1) Roy Halladay

In a class of his own. Nobody touches him. By far was one of the best if not best pitchers in baseball from 2002 until 2011.

Second Tier:

2) Kevin Gausman, David Price, A.J. Burnett

Gausman was elite from 2022-2023 during the regular season. Would have been nice if he dominated in the WC rounds. David Price felt the closest to having an arm like Roy Halladay down the stretch during the 2015 season, however was inconsistent during the Postseason. Burnett when healthy was dominant and in the second half of the 2008 season, Doc and him were a fantastic No. 1-2 punch! Would have been awesome seeing that Jays pitching staff in the Postseason. 

Third Tier

3) Marcus Stroman, Jose Berrios, JA Happ, Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, Mark Buehrle, Shaun Marcum

Each of these guys were reliable arms who had multiple years of success. A solid group of No. 2-3 starters. Marcum from 2007-2008 and in 2010 because of injuries. Brandon Morrow at times showed flashes of his ace upside, but durability and health set him back. Otherwise, he might have been included in the second tier. 

Fourth Tier:

4) Robbie Ray, Aaron Sanchez, Yusei Kikuchi

Each had one dominating season for the Jays, but Ray left as a FA and Sanchez just s*** the bed. If Ray was here for multiple years would have included him in the third group, but like Org said, you felt that the bottom might fall out at some point. Kikuchi also only really good here for a short period. 

Fifth Tier:

5) Chris Bassitt, Marco Estrada, RA Dickey, Hyun-jin Ryu:

Crusty old vets who were decent but nothing spectacular. Pretty much provided between 2-3 WAR each season. 

 

 

[Spanky__99]

Dave Stieb would be in Halladay's tier, he's arguably the best ever Blue Jays starter. His slider was a video game pitch, lol.