2025 Trade Deadline

[BB17]

Well at the beginning of the season the team wasn’t striking out but wasn’t hitting for any power and you heard about how the team was struggling to score runs. Last 30 days the Jays are 4th in baseball with a .200 ISO and by far the best wRC+ in that span.

If you can hit for moderate power while not striking out that’s the key I think. Interesting the Jays are 26th in barrel rate during that same time span and do have a .341 BABIP so there may be some luck involved there too. The Jays obviously still have a great offence but I’m not so sure this is some trend setter or anything. If they go out and can’t score in the postseason you’ll hear a narrative of how they can’t hit good pitching or don’t have enough power blah blah.

[Nexii]

Well we are second in the league in doubles. We might not have home run power but that's something. It's probably the case that more line drives is better for most players. The fly ball revolution only worked for players that have a lot of power, IMO

[Brownie19]

8 minutes ago, BB17 said:

Well at the beginning of the season the team wasn’t striking out but wasn’t hitting for any power and you heard about how the team was struggling to score runs. Last 30 days the Jays are 4th in baseball with a .200 ISO and by far the best wRC+ in that span.

If you can hit for moderate power while not striking out that’s the key I think. Interesting the Jays are 26th in barrel rate during that same time span and do have a .341 BABIP so there may be some luck involved there too. The Jays obviously still have a great offence but I’m not so sure this is some trend setter or anything. If they go out and can’t score in the postseason you’ll hear a narrative of how they can’t hit good pitching or don’t have enough power blah blah.

I think you'll hear media within baseball talk about it a lot - simply because most hate strikeouts and hate how much the game has changed.  They don't like the mentality that strikeouts are OK/accepted because it's viewed as bad for baseball (which is probably is).

I do think there's something to making contact in the playoffs.  You're often facing the best pitchers and if you can't get the bat on the ball consistently, it's hard to have success.  I think that was a big part of the Astros success (along with stealing signs of course).

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[BB17]

3 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I think you'll hear media within baseball talk about it a lot - simply because most hate strikeouts and hate how much the game has changed.  They don't like the mentality that strikeouts are OK/accepted because it's viewed as bad for baseball (which is probably is).

I do think there's something to making contact in the playoffs.  You're often facing the best pitchers and if you can't get the bat on the ball consistently, it's hard to have success.  I think that was a big part of the Astros success (along with stealing signs of course).

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

I personally think power plays in the playoffs more. The Royals had a lot of success in 15 with that strategy but that was also 10 years ago and pitching is even better now. It’s tough to string hits together against elite elite pitching where as home runs are guaranteed runs. The Phillies in the last few postseasons were super successful because of the homers.

 

[sliderguy35]

i know everyone realizes the offense is good, but the slow start & the fact that they're hitting more doubles than homers is kind of clouding how good they actually are. since may 1st (so basically 3 months and change), they've literally been one of the best offenses of recent memory.

only 2 teams in the last 15 years have ever had both a batting average & slugging percentage 10%+ above league average at the same time:

• 2017 Houston Astros (110 AVG+ / 111 SLG+ / 121 wRC+)
• 2023 Atlanta Braves (110 AVG+ / 120 SLG+ / 126 wRC+)

The Blue Jays since May 1st: (115 AVG+ / 112 SLG+ / 124 wRC+). They're also the only one of the 3 to have an above average walk rate (106 BB%+). it's kinda shocking to see & it will probably come a bit back to earth over the last 2 months, but don't take for granted what we've seen so far. This team isn't just a slap-hitting squad, they've got real juice.

[jmomcc]

25 minutes ago, Nexii said:

Well we are second in the league in doubles. We might not have home run power but that's something. It's probably the case that more line drives is better for most players. The fly ball revolution only worked for players that have a lot of power, IMO

I think the fly ball revolution works best for guys with 45/50 power. Get the bat out early, and pull as much as you can in the air, and you can get as many home runs as someone with 55/60 power gets spraying line drives. There's just more available power to the pull side. Isaac Paredes is an example of this approach. 

[Masterbather]

19 minutes ago, Nexii said:

Well we are second in the league in doubles. We might not have home run power but that's something. It's probably the case that more line drives is better for most players. The fly ball revolution only worked for players that have a lot of power, IMO

I think this team was built to have home run power. I think if they're healthy and Vlad and Bo are hitting to their power potential, or even close to it, this could be one of the best home run hitting teams in baseball. 

If Santander was healthy, that's another, what, 10-15 HR right there? Just that alone puts us in the top 10. 

We're not the Yankees or Dodgers, but I think our potential when healthy lies much closer to a top five team in home runs.

[Laika]

Yes if Santander and Varsho had been healthy all season, it skews the Jays team numbers back to normalcy. That adds pop and strikeouts and tanks the batting average a bit. 

[glory]

The Jays offense was absolutely brutal in April, due to a combination of slumps, slow starts, injuries (Varsho), or fringe big leaguers with no pop getting everyday AB's (Wagner, Roden). From May-onwards, it's been a substantial increase in overall offensive performance.

March/April
85 wRC+ (24th in MLB)
104 Runs (26th in MLB)
.110 ISO (29th in MLB)
19 Home Runs (29th in MLB)
19.2 K% (t-2nd in MLB)
8.5 BB% (20th in MLB)

May-onwards
124 wRC+ (1st in MLB)
472 Runs (1st in MLB)
.174 ISO (8th in MLB)
114 Home Runs (9th in MLB)
16.3 K% (1st in MLB)
8.7 BB% (t-6th)

As mentioned, a healthy Santander and a healthier Varsho probably reduce the team's contact rates over that span while increasing the power, but when you consider the main beneficiaries of the playing time in place of Tony and Varsho were guys like Straw, Clement, etc, I think I would have preferred the added pop. Or at least I'd prefer it in a playoff setting. 

[Masterbather]

6 minutes ago, Laika said:

Yes if Santander and Varsho had been healthy all season, it skews the Jays team numbers back to normalcy. That adds pop and strikeouts and tanks the batting average a bit. 

If Varsho, Santander and Gimenez are regulars come the postseason, it definitely changes the profile of the lineup vs what it's been.

[Masterbather]

5 minutes ago, glory said:

The Jays offense was absolutely brutal in April, due to a combination of slumps, slow starts, injuries (Varsho), or fringe big leaguers with no pop getting everyday AB's (Wagner, Roden). From May-onwards, it's been a substantial increase in overall offensive performance.

March/April
85 wRC+ (24th in MLB)
104 Runs (26th in MLB)
.110 ISO (29th in MLB)
19 Home Runs (29th in MLB)
19.2 K% (t-2nd in MLB)
8.5 BB% (20th in MLB)

May-onwards
124 wRC+ (1st in MLB)
472 Runs (1st in MLB)
.174 ISO (8th in MLB)
114 Home Runs (9th in MLB)
16.3 K% (1st in MLB)
8.7 BB% (t-6th)

As mentioned, a healthy Santander and a healthier Varsho probably reduce the team's contact rates over that span while increasing the power, but when you consider the main beneficiaries of the playing time in place of Tony and Varsho were guys like Straw, Clement, etc, I think I would have preferred the added pop. Or at least I'd prefer it in a playoff setting. 

Barger and Schneider have benefited as well. 

I want Santander back as an option for this team but by the same token I am concerned if we tried to force him back into the everyday lineup we might be losing some of what made us so good. Let's face it, unless he's hitting a ton of home runs he's a negative player in just about every way.

[Brownie19]

Varsho yes, but Santander adds a ton of pop without a huge K%.  44 HRs with a sub 20% K rate last year...he certainly fits the "don't K" mentality the Jays have adopted.

[BB17]

1 hour ago, Masterbather said:

Barger and Schneider have benefited as well. 

I want Santander back as an option for this team but by the same token I am concerned if we tried to force him back into the everyday lineup we might be losing some of what made us so good. Let's face it, unless he's hitting a ton of home runs he's a negative player in just about every way.

If Santander is healthy he for sure should be in the lineup. As good as Lukes, Schneider, Straw and Clement have been those guys have weaknesses that good teams/pitchers can expose. Those guys are valuable over the course of the season but in the cases of Schneider and Lukes they really struggle with high velo fastballs up in the zone. They feast on mistakes/bad pitching which there isn't much of in the postseason.

I'm also not convinced Santander ever gets healthy this year. Sounds like a serious Labrum injury and that surgery is inevitable if he isn't even swinging a bat now.