Laika

Ugh

I dunno about that. Santander being healthy means they don't trade for Jesus. The one thing Toronto has going on right now is offense-first corner outfielders. I mean having a second guy with 10+ homers right now sure would be nice.

People think you are polluting the threads They don't understand how your brain works and they don't appreciate your insights You could work on being CONCISE. I am sure you have heard this before in your travels. Intelligence and insights are useless if they aren't facilitated by appropriate and socially understandable communication vectors.

btw Matt Olson's game winning homer last night had a 49 degree launch angle and landed one inch over the wall, it would not have been a homer in 16 of 30 ballparks the Jays hit two balls *almost* as hard but with -2 and 6 degree launch angles. Pinango's single and Vlad's GIDP. Toronto has the fourth lowest barrel rate in baseball. When they hit the ball hard it is on the ground way too often. But they also have the third highest IFFB% in the sport. When they try to air it out, they are hitting tons of pop ups and pathetic fly balls. Just chronically caught in between, with poor approaches, poor game plans, poor swings. 24th/30 in "squared up contact rate" Something is completely amiss in the biomechanics/coaching department. These guys are f***ED. Letting guys hack at everything if they feel good about it. Letting their franchise hitter just try to find it himself in his class case of gradeschool emotions. Letting their power hitters try to hit groundballs the other way (Varsho) What. The. f***.

Starting to think the Blue Jays just... actually suck? The top of the rotation would be good enough for a playoff series but you have to get there first. The depth behind Cease, Gausman, Yesavage has completely imploded. Anything Miles and Corbin provide going forward is gravy. The only rational hopes at stabilizing the SP4 and SP5 slots with above average production might be Bieber and Bloss getting healthy and performing (big ifs all around; Bloss and Miles would probably share the SP5 innings). The bullpen is good enough as well, the only real problem being how to use Hoffman. But the lack of SP depth (which might be an issue all year) directly negatively impacts the bullpen as it is overworked and some of the good RP need top be used early or as openers, multiple times per week. The defense is gone. Negative OAA and DRS this year compared to +14 and +51 last year. Some of this is by choice (playing guys like Sanchez, Sosa, Pinango), some of it is by bad luck (Kirk injury) but some of it is either inexplicable or natural decline (Clement and Varsho have fallen off a cliff). Hard to say this will improve. Kirk coming back will help. I guess we should expect Ernie to figure it out, regress. But him and Varsho are 30... The baserunning is bottom tier and will not improve. The hitting is bottom tier. Third worst xwOBA in baseball. Gimenez is obviously completely cooked, and locked into the lineup. Vlad is a mess, hitting like Yonder Alonso while getting paid to be Miguel Cabrera. The team's best HR hitter is a TTO import who is useless in most games. Kirk's return might help mildly but who knows how he will hit with that broken thumb recovery. Barger's return will be a soft impact as he is very redundant with so many LHOF on the roster. Springer is almost 37 and 2025 looks like it was indeed a dead cat bounce. Daulton Varsho is a moron who turned away from his offensive carrying skill, power. The lineup is out of balance, with too much aggression and not enough patience. Almost every player has a broken swing and it is June.

Sanchez is almost outhitting Parker now. JoJo not doing much lately

Nice swing Vlad lmao

Okamoto you beauty The only good Blue Jay

This is embarrassing I can't believe how embarrassing it must be for the players and everyone around the team

This is NOT fair. The Braves are taking pitches and swinging hard when they get a cookie. How is this allowed?

ARE THEY ALLOWED TO TAKE PITCHES WHAT IS THIS

NOW WATCH THE BRAVES AND SEE WHAT THEY DO I BET THEY WORK THE COUNT AND HUNT PITCHES AND HIT THEM WELL

These guys are USELESS THREE WEAK OUTS ON SINKERS TWO OF THEM WERE MEATBALLS FIVE f***ING PITCH INNING FOR BRUCE ELDER AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Pinango

It is probably part of it His slider becomes a crutch pitch if he thinks he has a better chance of landing it for a strike than the other stuff

Nah we aren't doing this.

I think I figured out Jeff Hoffman, a bit This does NOT explain his 6.31 ERA vs his 2.61 FIP and 3.15 xERA but it probably explains some of his inconsistencies and a reasonably elevated ERA The guy has more or less lost his slider and his splitter at this point. They vary between horrible and average. Look at the game logs of his Stuff+ This guy needs to go back to being a normal, establish the fastball dude. Throw the heater 50% of the time or more. It is the only consistently plus pitch. This is not rocket science, Jeff. I don't know what happened but two years ago your Slider was good and now it's cooked.

Yeah there is no definition https://www.mlb.com/news/check-swing-challenge-comes-to-single-a-florida-state-league the 45 degree thing was used for various reasons, one of them being that the umps from the baselines CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE REFERENCE since they are on the lines. If the bat points straight at you, it's a swing. So if the rules shifts to that, the humans can make calls. Right now, they can't even actually tell if home plate is crossed, for example, they just guess. It's also interesting that historically a check swing was way more liberal (see above link). You can't use home plate because then players who are more forward in the box or drift more are at a disadvantage Personally I like it. The 90 degree thing never really seemed like a SWING or an actual OFFERING at the pitch, to me. Like, if you hit the ball it's just a bunt... Also, from a policy perspective, strikeouts are so high and stuff is so nasty. Pitchers don't really need those extra few whiffs, do they?

people will be mad for a couple of years because they didn't use the front of home plate as the line in the sand

That hanging slider from Juff Huffman is just the most hittable pitch in baseball history Your 10 year old son could cream it for a double Your grandma could get a bunt single on it

it keeps me up at night

Well he already lost the job I have no real problem with how he was used on Saturday. They gave the middle of the order to Varland.

people will say things like "he hangs too many breaking balls" or "he is a mental midget with 9th inning PTSD" and those things may be somewhat true but none of that would explain more than perhaps a .340 BABIP

Okay now here is the non-alarmist stuff on Vlad. YES April and May were two of the worst HR months of his career. May being the single worst since the September of his rookie season. HOWEVER he tends to have cold HR months every year (except 2021) and there is still lots of season left. His career mean for June to Sept homers is 22.6. He is only two homers off his 2024 pace, and in that year he hit 8 and 8 in June and July. It is time to be worried and mad but limit your anger, don't let it ruin your day. If he hits 2 homers in June, you can cry. 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 Mar/Apr 0* ** 7 6 5 3 3 2 May 6 ** 9 3 3 2 5 1 June 2 ** 10 9 4 8 4 July 3 1* 7 3 5 8 3 Aug 4 4 6 6 3 6 6 Sep/Oct 0 4 9 5 6 3 2 * less than 30 PA ** COVID no games 2021 to 2025 June to Sept Average 22.6

He uses a two strike approach on every single pitch. Just goes up there and battles, trying to get something in play. It's absurd and stupid. Popkins should be slapping him, daily. SWING FOR THE FENCES UNTIL YOU HAVE TWO STRIKES.