P2F

Ljay Newsome is absurd this season. He leads the minors in strikeouts. In 58 1/3 IP, he has 82 K and 6 BB lol. That's: 12.65 K/9 0.93 BB/9 Might be time for the Mariners to move him up to AA, but what do I know.

Ugh, that was some pretty suboptimal quadrangularness there from Drury.

...Gruber said to himself unknowingly.

You know what the best part about that Tellez hit was last inning? It was hit rather quadrangularly.

A very opportune quadrangular at that.

This is correct.

Hit another quadrangular, Vlad!

Damn it, Eric.

Making him work, man. I like it.

But that's just the problem - the more baserunners he allows, the less sustainable that ERA becomes. ERA is not as predictive as FIP, xFIP, or SIERA, and those stats like Sanchez a whole lot less.

Vlad strikes again. Worth the price of admission all on his own.

My point was a general one - that we should all know better than to use such a small sample of PA to entirely write off these guys. I saw a lot of optimism around here six weeks ago and that's all but gone now, so we must be using the first 48 games to determine that the players we were previously hopeful for are actually awful. Personally, I'm still just as hopeful as ever that Jansen becomes a star and that a couple of Drury, Hernandez, Gurriel, Tellez, and McKinney become average players. I also still think there could be a little more offensively in the tank for Grichuk than we've seen so far. Pannone, too, I think could make an excellent relief pitcher in either a long-man or setup role. In hindsight, the writing was on the wall for this season when the Jays drafted Elvis Luciano in the Rule 5 draft with the intention of keeping him on the major league club all season. I know this season has been pretty unwatchable for some lengthy spells, I know that the team is not where we hoped it would be regarding the supporting cast, I know that we may be further away from contention than we had hoped, and I know that a season like this one tends to bring out the worst types of fans and the worst in some of the best posters. But let's not lose sight of the fact that this team is rebuilding, as we knew before the season began. There are some very interesting close-proximity prospects on the way such as Biggio, Bichette, Murphy, and Pearson, and we'll soon learn how good they are. This season is about determining what the Jays have in types like Drury, Gurriel, Hernandez, Tellez, McKinney, Davis, Urena, etc., so the FO knows what they need to add to this team when the young core is ready and has established itself. Did this nothing approach they chose absolutely have to be taken? I honestly don't think it did, but, from a business standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to cut as many costs as possible if the team executives don't believe the team can compete with the likes of the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox. They clearly didn't believe that this team could. Fault them for that if you like, but it is what it is. You might call me an optimist, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't label myself as one - more of a realist. I feel like we need to wait out this season to see where we're at. We might see a couple or more of the supporting cast emerge as viable to average major league players. Of course, maybe there's literally nobody worth a damn on this roster but Vlad, Smoak, Stroman, Giles, and maybe Grichuk, and at the end of the season we can look back and have a good laugh at this post.

I thought some of you guys knew a lot better than to use ~150 PA to completely close the book on MLB players, but I guess I was wrong. There are some truly awful takes in this thread and pretty much all of the other ones. Do the Jays suck? Most likely. Are there any long-term building blocks here? Very few. But there could still be some decent to good assets among the players that have struggled in the early-going. Let's not kill ourselves just yet.

Giles is better and saves his beatings for himself.

This is why.

There's nowhere to f***ing go on this forum anymore.

Eat dicks, Bucks!

Okay, now take Kawhi out of the game.

I'm looking to move elite 1B Christian Walker for a pitcher. HMU.

I love Norm.

Great first half.

This gang rape on Kawhi that continues to go uncalled has got to stop.

Well that was about the best opening two minutes to a quarter we could've possibly asked for.

Where the hell is everybody?