Laika

Nats being annoying

Apple TV crew is great this year

f*** yeah Ernie Redemption

Potential for a huge inning killed by lame at bats from Springer and Vlad Sigh

The Nats are weirdly decent CJ Abrams will dominate this series

Not everyone needs to be given a big long chance Not every prospect has 50 FV upside I don't really care how the team handles most of these AAA guys, Orelvis Martinez aside. Barger looked like f***ing s*** and bled -0.4 WAR in almost no playing time. He can try again later this year.

kennorp

ANY negative posts will be deleted This is a safe space where we can be positive about the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays! Let's go Blue Jays!

Entertainment bias (or lack of entertainment bias) The Jays are decent but they are about as fun to watch as the f***ing Rockies so a lot of people think of them as inept I swear the 2023 and 2024 brand of Blue Jays baseball has been close to the worst I have ever actively watched, and that includes every team in the last 19/20 years. Granted, some of those years were casual watching because there were no expectations of success.

So Tristan Casas was told by doctors that his rib/cartilage injury was comparable to a car crash injury. That is the result of the types of swings some of these massive baseball players have to perform to be good, to hit 99 mph fastballs and adjust to modern breaking balls. Who f***ing knows what is going on within Vlad's body but he is directly comparable to an elite pitching prospect who comes up throwing 101 ---- high risk high reward. Very possible that his rotation, force etc. from his early career was just never going to be sustainable for a decade and he has indeed broken down a bit physically.

Those guys all mashed for most of their 20s though. Gave the teams that developed them huge amounts of value.

Closest thing in recent history might be Victor Robles. He, like Vlad, was a special prospect getting 65+ FV grades and arguable #1 prospect consideration 4 WAR at 22 years old then immediately replacement level forever Yoan Moncada was 70 FV prospect and had 5 WAR at 24 years old then... one dead cat bounce after Benintendi was 65 FV and 4.4 WAR at 23 then sucked (mostly) Meadows was 65 FV then 4 WAR at 24 then horrible Alex Reyes was 65 FV but injuries Eloy was 65 FV but injuries Franco was 70-80 FV then pedophilia Whitley was 65 FV then sucked and injuries Royce Lewis was 65 FV and cannot stay healthy Lux was 70 FV then sucked Gore was 70 FV has not lived up to that Adell 65 FV then strikeouts This is only looking at Fangraphs since 2017 and who they put 65+ FV grades on Maybe we lick our fan wounds too much RE Vlad? I know some of the language around him as a prospect was hyperbolic ("messianic hit tool") but we all knew he was a zero speed zero defense player with immense pressure on the stick and we all know or should realize that 65+ FV still fail or disappoint at a decent clip. He's a bum. Need to get over it. Realistically he had less than a coin flip's chance of being the player we hoped, anyway. The projection systems are misleading. ZiPS is a liar. Steamer cannot be trusted.

I think the Leafs were just bad with sick Matthews in there because they were giving all those minutes to someone who sucked (sick Matthews). With him out everyone else just has clear roles and they aren't wasting ice time on a zombie. Leafs sort of dominated last night. Well, they dominated half the game. Pastrnak and Marchand were non-existent. I can't believe Boston is giving shifts to Pat Maroon. He can't even skate anymore.

I think the nuance kind of plays out like this: - hitting coaches probably have minimal impact to no impact on the majority of players - therefore, from an outside perspective it makes the most sense to assume that the hitting coach is NOT the cause or reason for a certain player being bad or good - however, there is a tiny chance that a hitting coach could have a significant impact (or, that a bad hitting coach could f*** up a player) - therefore, it makes sense to employ good ones. The cost vs. benefit is simply there. How much does a good hitting coach make, low six figures? If you can get 5% more out of one $10M player, the coach is worth it. Not to mention all of the routine stuff they do (the 9-5 work). So... they could be at fault but they probably never are.

Leafs are better!

Would prefer Vogelbach cut

Even more interesting: - They can apparently coach MLB pitchers well - They can't develop minor league pitchers ???? - They can apparently develop decent minor league hitters (see DS, Clement, everyone in Buffalo...) - They can't coach MLB hitters at all ???????

You're overthinking it for sure You could do basic $/WAR math and the 1.1 combined fWAR so far from Turner and IKF would carry the day and make the offseason adds looks better than what most teams did. That's like 5.5 fWAR pro-rated, for $20.5M. Will they end up being worth that much? I guess probably not, but the returns so far are very good; you can't reasonably find bang for your buck like that in free agency. fWAR so far from FA bats: Ohtani 1.7 Hernandez 0.8 Pederson 0.8 Gurriel 0.6 Turner 0.6 IKF 0.5 Caratini 0.4 Chapman 0.3 Hoskins 0.2 Soler 0.1 Bellinger 0.1 Hader 0.1 Candlebro 0.0 Santana 0.0 JDM 0.0 KK 0.0 Whit 0.0 Gallo 0.0 Cutch -0.1 Heyward -0.1 Anderson -0.2 Blackmon -0.3 Garver -0.3 Frazier -0.4 Renfroe -0.7 This is how the top 25 FA bats by AAV have performed so far Early returns say the Chad Ross Atkins stared at this pile of dogshit and somehow went 2/3 and signed 2 of the best 6 options on the board. Wow!

Then call him the GM and demote Ross to a new, more girly title Ross would probably be into it Secretary of the 40 man roster

I don't know why this is so hard for (some of) you to understand. Did they do a bad job this offseason, in a nutshell? No. Was their situation this offseason self-inflicted? Yes. Develop a few more quality players and you don't have to go desperately hunting for offense or defense or relievers when the f***ing weather changes.

Yes. And not even in the states; I bet every one of these junior data/science people with the Blue Jays will inevitably just think they are drastically underpaid in ~5 years and want to jump ship from just looking at certain other jobs within Toronto. MSc in Math or CompSci/AI with several years quality working experience is six figures anywhere competitive, maybe $59k with the Blue Jays lol

You can find the entry level and early career Baseball Research Analysts on their website and google them. See their resumes. It's kind of fun. They seem pretty smart. Some examples: Claire Wilson, 2022 Notre Dame grad. Interned for the Cubs in school. Marlins after school. Emma Ritcey, MSc in AI, Comp Sci major, former OUA basketball for Queens. Peter L'Oiseau, Masters in Math a few years ago... you can find his Fangraphs articles from a few years ago about things like aging curves for statcast metrics But yeah at the top end, who knows. Maybe for the Director level positions on the Analytics side, Toronto isn't a desirable spot.

He is just bad everywhere for some combination of bad footwork or throwing. They've tried him at every position, 2B 3B CF... Sort of seems like the 1B thing is just short term since the Brewers depth chart is weakest there. They've been giving Jake Bauers 1B reps and Gary Sanchez DH reps. Definitely see them just throwing him in LF when it opens up. god damn the Brewers developmental system has become elite

well it ain't working replace Click!

Dignity not required