Laika

since when do you have a "job"

The situation with the pen sucks, man. 2023 Jays relievers - 9th in fWAR, 8th in ERA, 12th in vFA (94.6) 2024 Jays relievers - 21st in vFA (94.4), 28th in ERA, 29th in fWAR If there is any lesson there^ it's that basic velo measurements should have at least hinted at the pen being just another normal middle of the pack bullpen. Swanson actually has a decent xFIP right now and his velo is the same, he may be able to just get over this. Possibly some random HR swings happening to him. Mayza on the other hand looks completely cooked and I don't understand why he is still throwing fastballs 70% of the time with 2mph gone. He should be 50% sliders. We can blame the front office for over-relying on Cabrera and Pearson I guess. Romano might have just mildly declined (fastball slightly worse) and some injury rust is making the effect of that even worse for now.

Hard to criticize without knowing if the other options were even willing to sign here For all we know JDM was asking for $20M up until he capitulated and signed with the Mets and maybe Pederson never entertained Toronto

Dunno if I would say that exactly. I thought Crochet and the White Sox got a bit lucky on batted balls last night. Look at these from the scorecard: 2nd inning, Bo, 102.2mph lineout at 363 feet, expected BA of .420 3rd inning, Clement, 102mph flyout at 366 feet, expected BA of .580 4th inning, Jansen, 106.7mph lineout expected BA of .650 4th inning, Vlad, lineout expected BA of .400 5th inning, Turner, his double wasn't crushed but it was off the wall and would have been a homer in Minute Maid, funny enough 6th inning, IKF 103mph lineout 386 feet expected BA of .550 7th inning, Springer, 101.7mph lineout expected BA of .430 The two furthest hit balls last night were actually IKF and Clement (tied with the Danny Mendick double) Crochet was throwing strikes and gas. You could say that some of the Jays hitters actually had a decent, aggressive approach against him and it just didn't work out? We did however see the bullpen problems on full display. Leasure and Kopech are really tough so even a s***** team like the White Sox can basically make it game over from the 8th on unless one of those guys is having a weird day. So Toronto after Crochet kind of had to just get to Brebbia... Meanwhile the Jays are using Pop in a close game and then Mayza, who is f***ing brutal and has no stuff and should be sent to Dunedin for a month.

Crochet is nuts It never helps much when Bo sees like 4 pitches the entire game. Certain other "good" hitters see 20 pitches a game and are personally responsible for the SP leaving an inning earlier Not Bo! Starting Pitchers love bo bichette

that's f***ing wild just throwing away all that ad revenue do they know how easy it is to just scrape projections/salaries and do this?

I subscribe DODGERS GET BO BITCHET - $15M BLUE JAYS GET NICKY FRAZZO - $16M .json Hey, Ward? - ($1M) COMPUTER SAYS FAIR TRADE

Match made in heaven tbh They have guys like Outman and Vargas who might be okay but are just depth pieces to them They have Lux who sucks but is cheap and controllable through 2026 They have many injured young P they could deal. Hurt, May, River Ryan, Sheehan... They have tons of other interesting prospects down the farm system They have this Nicky Frazzo kid

Buy when others are scared The reason some FA deals look horrible is because teams end up buying the pico top of the player stock I do agree it would be a good time to extend either of these bums, if they would. They have physical tools (Vlad) or track records (Bo). It makes me sick to my stomach to say that.

There is some ******** union - MLB rule that "enforcement has to occur on the field." So they can't just robo every call. At least I don't think so. It probably HAS to be something similar to the current video review system where the ump on the field relays the call.

Yeah yeah yeah do both Extend this torturous VladBo era another 7 years

Springer 6th against a LHP nice

At the time of the trade Sean Murphy looked like the superior player and possibly the best C in the league.

Yeah and it arguably sets a weird precedent for the team if they cater to every fan that gets bonked

He is blocked. The thing with Horwitz and guys like him is it will ALWAYS make more sense to sign an MLB guy like DV (projected 113-117 wRC+) and then keep Horwitz in AAA if he has options. Then you have two of the same guy, and you have depth. If you instead put Horwitz on the big team (112-117 wRC+ projection) you won't be able to sign a guy for AAA nearly as good as Vogelbach. So your depth is worse and you don't project any better. Is what it is. He is blocked but it's just because of how MLB roster rules work. Once he is out of options he will be a big leaguer somewhere. The other possibility is he slides in as an injury replacement and does so well, overperforms, then he leapfrogs the other option above him. Wally Pipp. I do think they are scared to platoon Turner at this point. Maybe later this year...

What adjustments did DS make? Everything seems the same to me. I think he has just been good since 2023 and it has carried through. The "slump" at the end of 2023 was one part random variation (flyball hitters with some whiff will slump) and some parts bad luck. 2023 to 2024 Swing% = same FB% = same Pull% = same barrel rate = same hard hit rate = same maxEV = same K%-BB% = same (same meaning within like, 2 percentage points or something)

Sure Either way, let's please not complain about being awkwardly competitive after beating the White Sox

Let's just put a pin in the WC3 talk for a couple more weeks okay? For all we know they'll stink the rest of May and the direction will be obvious

Bo actually pulled a fastball hard today Sure it was a 92.5 mph s***** sinker but a pulled FB is a pulled FB Also hit a fastball to CF. Then pulled two sweepers. He's back!!!!!

One of those ones that is hard to evaluate with WAR because Atlanta cared more about getting someone they thought was a good bet to be positive value while CHW just cared about sorting through a bunch of players that would probably suck as they try to find one or two decent keepers. Bummer - 0.2 WAR in 15.2 innings Shuster - 0.2 WAR in 18 innings Soroka - horrendous Shewmake - horrendous Nicky Lopez - horrendous Riley Gowens - good numbers in A+ So you could say it looks like a good one for CHW. They get Shuster, who seems to be an MLB arm and he is pre-arb, along with a so-so prospect in Gowens. Bummer has options after this year but at $7M they aren't really worth anything. Lopez, Soroka, Shewmake --- possibly irrelevant and will only stick on the Chicago 40 man if they fail to find viable alternatives. But I guess they have all year to continue working with Soroka. His 93 stuff+ is close enough to viable that maybe if he at some point finds average command, he could piece it together as an SP5. There are worthwhile SP5s with worse stuff+ numbers than 93.

Sounds like the Blue Jays minus some payroll

For the most part it just hates his fastballs Stuff+ like rates secondary pitches based on the fastballs Location grades aren't stable in one start anyway

You have to go to the pitcher leaderboard on fangraphs then toggle to Blue Jays and pitch modeling and stuff+ One possibility is that his changeup is actually good and stuff+ misses it. It has issues with change ups Visually the slider has more depth now

Yeah still bad Location+ was very good though

Vlad is now seventh in 1B fWAR Not even on pace for 20 HR but the defense is much better per the fancy stats Feeling better about him. I'm sure he'll go on a homer binge at some point.