Brewers (Priester) vs Blue Jays (Gausman): 8/30/25, 3:07pm

[jaysthebest]

Just now, Barrelsandbombs said:

What does it mean.... Is Coughman going to keep closing games?

[CJ-Freeway]

5 minutes ago, jaysthebest said:

What does it mean.... Is Coughman going to keep closing games?

Sure seems like it, with the way Schneider is talking.

[John_Havok]

7 minutes ago, Barrelsandbombs said:

Yeah that's just it, it's not just Hoffman or it would be an easy fix. Virtually every reliever is struggling in some form with the exception of Nance and Dominguez. 

[Masterbather]

25 minutes ago, Grant77 said:

We're the Brewer's equal in terms of starting pitching, defense, and hitting. The bullpen is what makes all of the difference.

Nobody would take Bieber, Gausman and Scherzer over Peralta, Woodruff and Misiorowski.

[Ziggy Halladay]

Does Pete walker deserve any criticism? Who is he fixing?

[jaysblue]

[Grant77]

1 hour ago, Masterbather said:

Nobody would take Bieber, Gausman and Scherzer over Peralta, Woodruff and Misiorowski.

Nobody would take their defense over ours either. I was just making a general statement in order to help highlight the tremendous differences between our bullpens.

[Nexii]

1 hour ago, Ziggy Halladay said:

Does Pete walker deserve any criticism? Who is he fixing?

I did a look back at the bullpen's preseason projections for everyone who has pitched 20 or more innings this year. None of them were projected to be good, Rodriguez and Hoffman projected to be average. The rest were replacement level or very close to it.

Varland should be average or a bit better based on projections, but he hasn't been. Probably because they messed with his pitch mix. 

Little and Fisher exceeded expectations, but a lot of the rest of the pen hasn't. So it's kind of a wash.

[glory]

1 hour ago, John_Havok said:

Yeah that's just it, it's not just Hoffman or it would be an easy fix. Virtually every reliever is struggling in some form with the exception of Nance and Dominguez. 

Honestly at this rate I’d be tempted to call up Yesavage and pray he turns into a good RP for a month. Other than calling up Fisher, which will be pointless because Schneider doesn’t view him as anything special, there’s not much the team can do. Hoffman should not be the closer though. Maybe make the closer spot a fluid situation based on what batters are up in the 9th rather than go to Hoffman because it’s the 9th or a “sAvE sItUaTiOn”.

[max silver]

2 hours ago, jmomcc said:

I'd fire them if we don't win the division but i would have fired them 5/6 years in and still no pitching development. 

Like, with our payroll, there are front offices out there who could develop some pitching, and win the division 2 times in a decade, plus 3/4 wild cards. That's a reasonable expectation. 

The yankees and tampa have significantly better front offices than us. I personally think Boston is too. Alot of that is what Bloom did. I think Baltimore clearly is as well. 

A lot of this criticism in pretty myopic and isn't really looking at the entire picture. Like saying that the front office should have won the division twice in ten years, but they inherited an aging/injury prone/expensive team that was good enough to challenge for a wildcard spot but not the division for a single season. The years from 2017-2019 were largely spent rebuilding the team behind the scenes as the previous GM left a terrible farm system behind on top of the team that was post apex. The core from this front office didn't start to reach the majors until the end of the 2019 season, and was a surprise post season entrant in 2020 in the covid shortened season. That's essentially 5 years into their tenure where this group had very little chance to win the division due to no fault of their own as they had to clean up the mess the previous guy left behind. 

This team started to hit it's peak from the 2021-2023 seasons, in which winning the division would have required between 99-102 wins. This would have required the greatest single Blue Jays seasons in team history as the division was stacked with very high quality teams. You can certainly fault the front office for the failed 2024 season and it would have required a more reasonable 94 wins to take the division. You are pretty dramatically overstating the length of time the payroll has been upper tier as well as they didn't even pay up to the luxury tax for the first time until the 2024 season so let's not pretend this team has been some massive spending behemoth in the upper echelons of the sport until very recently. 

[Jesusindashed]

5 minutes ago, max silver said:

A lot of this criticism in pretty myopic and isn't really looking at the entire picture. Like saying that the front office should have won the division twice in ten years, but they inherited an aging/injury prone/expensivev+ team that was good enough to challenge for a wildcard spot but not the division for a single season. The years from 2017-2019 were largely spent rebuilding the team behind the scenes as the previous GM left a terrible farm system behind on top of the team that was post apex. The core from this front office didn't start to reach the majors until the end of the 2019 season, and was a surprise post season entrant in 2020 in the covid shortened season. That's essentially 5 years into their tenure where this group had very little chance to win the division due to no fault of their own as they had to clean up the mess the previous guy left behind. 

This team started to hit it's peak from the 2021-2023 seasons, in which winning the division would have required between 99-102 wins. This would have required the greatest single Blue Jays seasons in team history as the division was stacked with very high quality teams. You can certainly fault the front office for the failed 2024 season and it would have required a more reasonable 94 wins to take the division. You are pretty dramatically overstating the length of time the payroll has been upper tier as well as they didn't even pay up to the luxury tax for the first time until the 2024 season so let's not pretend this team has been some massive spending behemoth in the upper echelons of the sport until very recently. 

Love the use of the word myopic. So smart man

[Nexii]

It is interesting though that our starters have been relatively worse than the relievers

17th in reliever WAR

26th in starter WAR

 

[Grant77]

1 hour ago, Ziggy Halladay said:

Does Pete walker deserve any criticism? Who is he fixing?

The traditional role of the pitching coach is confined mostly to working with starters and in-game management.

He does work with relievers too and can accept some blame, but if you want to blame a coach then I would focus more on the bullpen coach 

[bronson44]

15-16 in the last 31 games. They are lucky to still be in 1st. Need to snap out of this.

[John_Havok]

2 hours ago, Masterbather said:

Nobody would take Bieber, Gausman and Scherzer over Peralta, Woodruff and Misiorowski.

If all 3 are at their best, it's damn close.

[John_Havok]

9 minutes ago, bronson44 said:

15-16 in the last 31 games. They are lucky to still be in 1st. Need to snap out of this.

Happens to every team at some point, and thanks to all those earlier banked wins, its not hurting them...yet

[Horses Fart]

If the Yankees don’t hit dingers the Yankees don’t win. f*** i hate them. 

[Waylanderz]

This is sad but let's go White Sox!

[Masterbather]

2 hours ago, Grant77 said:

Nobody would take their defense over ours either. I was just making a general statement in order to help highlight the tremendous differences between our bullpens.

Fair enough, we probably have the least reliable bullpen of any of the contenders.

[Masterbather]

51 minutes ago, Horses Fart said:

If the Yankees don’t hit dingers the Yankees don’t win. f*** i hate them. 

Well if you take away any team's strength they don't win. 

It's very rare where they don't hit dingers though because they hit a f***load of them.

[Masterbather]

1 hour ago, John_Havok said:

If all 3 are at their best, it's damn close.

If all six are at their best it's not close because Scherzer's best is relative. He'll never be the pitcher he was several years ago, he can only be the best version of his 41 year old self, which is a couple of notches below.

[John_Havok]

Just now, Masterbather said:

If all six are at their best it's not close because Scherzer's best is relative. He'll never be the pitcher he was several years ago, he can only be the best version of his 41 year old self, which is a couple of notches below.

In the words of Toby Keith, he's not as good as he once was, but he can be as good once, as he ever was. 

 

[Pinkfloid]

With how volatile our relief pitching has been, I wouldn't be surprised to see us continue to scuffle and wind up in 2nd or 3rd wildcard spot. That said, I could also easily envision a Sportsnet graphic around 3rd week of September showing our bullpen is top 5 for the month in multiple categories, hence why the Jays are in first place and holding onto one of the top 2 spots in the league. August and September could have very different feels to them.

[BB17]

6 hours ago, jaysthebest said:

I want to stay positive, but among our division rivals, the Jays have the hardest schedule remaining. Even an easy schedule we have is the Orioles and the Rays, which we know the Jays will struggle to beat.

Meh I don't care much about the schedule. You gotta worry about yourself and how your team is playing. If the Jays can get back to playing better baseball they'll be fine. 

With the tie breaker if the Jays go 14-12 in their last 26 games then the Yankees would have to go 17-10 to pass them. That series in the Bronx will be huge and if the Jays could take 2/3 they would be in great shape. Conversely if they get swept that will blow the lead they've gained on them all year.  The Red Sox being 3.5 back is even more stacked odds.

Outside of the bullpen (which is a big question mark) Vladdy is the biggest thing I'll be watching for. Not sure if its injury related but since he's come back it looks like he has no legs in his swing with lots of flailing of the arms. When he's at his best he stays back on the ball and drives it oppo with authority which he was doing before the injury. If the Jays are going to go on a postseason run they are going to need him to be that middle of the order bat.

[SuperFuzzBigMuff]

A closer with a 5.11 ERA... lol

[jaysblue]

13 hours ago, John_Havok said:

Happens to every team at some point, and thanks to all those earlier banked wins, its not hurting them...yet

Ah so earlier banked wins are a thing now? 

Last season, the phrases flying around on here was that "it's still early" when the Jays lost a winnable game in April/May. When I myself said and other posters said its important to bank wins early, that was dismissed. 

[jaysblue]

2 hours ago, SuperFuzzBigMuff said:

A closer with a 5.11 ERA... lol

4.91 FIP and -0.3 fWAR now as well damn. What happened? 

3.34 xFIP though. 

[max silver]

23 minutes ago, jaysblue said:

Ah so earlier banked wins are a thing now? 

Last season, the phrases flying around on here was that "it's still early" when the Jays lost a winnable game in April/May. When I myself said and other posters said its important to bank wins early, that was dismissed. 

Of course banked wins are a thing but at the same time there's no sense in hitting the panic button in the first month of a 6 month long season. 

[jmomcc]

17 hours ago, max silver said:

A lot of this criticism in pretty myopic and isn't really looking at the entire picture. Like saying that the front office should have won the division twice in ten years, but they inherited an aging/injury prone/expensive team that was good enough to challenge for a wildcard spot but not the division for a single season. The years from 2017-2019 were largely spent rebuilding the team behind the scenes as the previous GM left a terrible farm system behind on top of the team that was post apex. The core from this front office didn't start to reach the majors until the end of the 2019 season, and was a surprise post season entrant in 2020 in the covid shortened season. That's essentially 5 years into their tenure where this group had very little chance to win the division due to no fault of their own as they had to clean up the mess the previous guy left behind. 

This team started to hit it's peak from the 2021-2023 seasons, in which winning the division would have required between 99-102 wins. This would have required the greatest single Blue Jays seasons in team history as the division was stacked with very high quality teams. You can certainly fault the front office for the failed 2024 season and it would have required a more reasonable 94 wins to take the division. You are pretty dramatically overstating the length of time the payroll has been upper tier as well as they didn't even pay up to the luxury tax for the first time until the 2024 season so let's not pretend this team has been some massive spending behemoth in the upper echelons of the sport until very recently. 

We had the 10th and 11th highest payroll in 2015 and 2016, and we have the 5th highest payroll now, and need to spend like this to be competitive. They have received more help from ownership than any front office in my memory. 

I also don't see how this is THAT much better outlook wise going forward than the 2015 team. Vlad and Kirk are the only two in their prime pieces locked down long term that anyone would really strongly believe in. We will need to add free agent pitching and again hope for excellent injury luck to be good.

We MIGHT have good pitching coming. But anyone who looks at the last ten years and doesn't want to wait and see on that.. and even then i'd rather have more competent people further develop that.  

[jmomcc]

16 hours ago, Nexii said:

It is interesting though that our starters have been relatively worse than the relievers

17th in reliever WAR

26th in starter WAR

 

Over the season as a whole our starting pitching has been bad backed up by excellent defense. And also really healthy which is kind of nuts.