Laika

Enough to literally not f***ing comment on it hahahaha You just can't keep your mouth shut about this stuff Any type of opinion is an opinion. Even "wait and see" is for situations like this a political and legal position with implications. That's why you would suck as legal counsel on this stuff.

bookmarked

Jim would honestly be the WORST possible lawyer for stuff like this.

I will defend Atkins to my grave, and his grave. If he gets fired, I will defend him. If he ends up on the Epstein list, I will...

Okay, you can be happy and surprised and apologetic. I will be happy and arrogant.

Hey, when the Blue Jays win the World Series just remember - I get to be happy and you have to be disappointed. There are various ways to view that press conference. One could view it as Shapiro just trying to justify a confusion/complicated decision to a confused fanbase.

Nothing changed or morphed. They expect the facilities to pay dividends over the next 20 years, probably. The new complex was unveiled in February 2021, so it hasn't even existed for three full years yet. It's not a miracle lab, it's just f***ing gym equipment and some iPads with high speed cameras... still lots of personnel and staffing and implementation stuff to figure out, none of that is easy, it's all trial and error. The fact that payroll has gone up should be seen as just objectively good, not cynically as the if Rogers as begrudgingly letting Atkins bandaid over a failure to develop talent by raising payroll.

ah now we are back to negatively clinging onto a 6 year old soundbite I can't disagree with the idea that the front office has underperformed expectations a bit. It mostly has to do with drafting and development. But, I just think people are blowing it out of proportion. There is a misapplication of the criticism. It should not rise to the magnitude you would think if you read some of these posts. Mike seems to think the front office is geriatric, ten years behind the times, and they need to be replaced. Dick Pole and his minions seem to think the front office is approaching the point of abject failure and Atkins should spill his own guts on the podium to save his family's honour.

Sounds like those U of T nerds would like the IKF and KK signings. As far as the bolded goes, it's just not obvious yet. Prospecting is a media scam to sell clicks to fans and all of these lists are ill-informed snapshots. For all we know the next wave of core Toronto Blue Jays are already in the system. I mean this front office literally did it once. Other than Vlad (who is only sometimes helpful), Mayza, and Jansen (who is only sometimes helpful) everybody from the current core was drafted/developed/acquired by Shatkins. Davis Schneider in a couple of months goes from not even on the org top 30 prospect lists to 2 WAR in 141 PA and now a healthy 113 wRC+ projection. The naysayers just ignore him because his xBA was .200. Nevermind the solid xwOBA.

We could steel man the critical side. I imagine it would look something like this: - Varsho trade looks poor - Mitchy White trade looks poor - Charlie Montoyo signing was abysmal - The front office is responsible for fat players - The front office is responsible for underperforming 2023 hitters - Donaldson trade was mishandled - Stroman trade was poor - Even if they sold high on many prospects, they made a mistake drafting some of them in the first place - Prospect development has been weak - Atkins is annoying - They pulled Berrios

It is definitely disappointing that the Blue Jays have been unable to take the leap from a top ~8 org (or whatever) to a top 3 org. I want Toronto to be an elite franchise as well, and they are not an elite franchise right now. That said, a lot of the people applying these perpetual criticisms are simply not giving the front office credit for the appropriate things, and failing to apply reasonable limited criticisms in context. You all want to throw the baby out with the bath water. So you want to fire Ross Atkins. Awesome. Who is replacing him and why would they do a better job? The essential question is whether it is best to start over, or let this front office continue to develop. Who the f*** are you going to bring in that will be able to do all of this stuff: - steal Matt Chapman from the As - sell high on Austin Martin, SWR --> in the process, acquire a 27 year old 3-4 WAR SP and extend him for a lower AAV that Lucas Giolito and Eduardo Rodriguez just got - sell high on Samad Taylor, Max Castillo - sell Jordan Groshans before he's worth nothing - steal Bowden Francis, Trevor Richards from Milwaukee - steal a couple of decent years of Adam Cimber from Kim Ng - profit massively on a cute little Steven Matz trade - profit massively on a cute little trade of expensive Teoscar Hernandez - profit massively on a cute little trade for Robbie Ray - win big on picking the correct value free agents last year in Belt and KK - somehow locked up Kevin Gausman from free agency for 5/$110M I mean... I also wish the franchise had a new Vlad and Bo knocking on the door so the current competitive roster was obviously going to be supported by a second wave of elite, controllable players. But I just can't bring myself to be a dork and hate on this front office when they mostly do really good things. And prospect evaluation is not a science; for all we know, Alan Roden is the next Alejandro Kirk, Arjun Nimmala is better than Bo Bichette, and Ricky Tiedemann will be the pitching prospect who actually reaches his ceiling.

I don't think there are ANY who would be realistically available Luis Robert the closest but does not project for 4 WAR. Does have 5 WAR upside though.

Yeah they were horrible to watch last year. Just.... gross. For the most part we have to just pray to the Steamer gods right now.

Because it's not really "reasoned criticism" It's wilfull ignorance about the expected positive regressions, and a lot of swimming uphill against the realities of the free agent class It's fair enough to say that going from almost signing Ohtani to signing IKF and KK is a huge letdown, and it is, but that's sort of just because the free agency class this offseason was Ohtani and then a bunch of garbage. As far as regression goes... to tread water, Toronto offensively needs to replace like 7 batting runs above average from Chapman and 18 from Belt. So, 25 runs above average. Vladdy alone would add 12 by simply regressing to his 2022 numbers. And his projections are better than that. Kirk's projections remain close to his 2022 numbers, which would add about 20 runs in the same volume of playing time. We are already in the green here.... Varsho projects to improve (+15 runs) Springer projects to improve (small amount probably). There is no projected/expected decline from Bo or Jansen. Even if KK is worse, it's not a huge needle mover. Minus 5 batting runs or whatever. Does Toronto need to desperately give Cody Bellinger 8 years, or assume Yoan Moncada's entire contract, or whatever, to fix the offense???? Probably not unless you just don't believe in Steamer at all. So I just don't know why you guys think you are wise wizards for complaining about them not bringing in a stud on offense, or pointing out that they don't have 10 viable SP options. Can't really make a time machine to address to latter and personally I don't want them to force the issue and do anything stupid to try to fix what may not be broke offensively. Being said, I am sure they are still trying to add 1-2 pieces with pop from the FA pile and working the phones for a big trade.

Mostly the latter Their program for him did not ask him to go deep into games, then he got hurt anyway

tinstaapp

# of hitters who project for 2 or more WAR: Blue Jays - 7 Yankees - 5 Rangers - 8 Rays - 5 (ignoring Franco) Dodgers - 7 Braves - 6 Red Sox - 3 Orioles - 5

I understand all of the roster criticisms but most of you sound like dorks with sports PTSD 1. The offense is not putrid. There was a differential between wRC+ (talent) and runs scored last year that was almost certainly due to a lot of bad luck. The fact that some key pieces project for offensive improvement should matter a lot. The Jays also have better position player depth MLB ready than they have in recent years. 2. The pitching depth could be better, sure, but you have to give the organization actual credit for keeping SPs healthy and for signing SPs with track records of health. They got lucky last year but they kind of planned to get lucky. Also, the RP depth with upside approaching the MLB level is real and should help cushion some injuries.

It's possible. Patently obvious that multiple incumbent players need to just do better. And most of them are capable of it. I would EXPECT more from Vlad, Kirk, and Varsho. I would not expect much from Springer anymore, unfortunately. KK will probably be worse with the bat. The Jays need f***ing Danny Jansen (Mr. Glass) to stay healthy for 500 PA.

Oh boy, people are going to hate this press call. This is either just positioning to lowball players, or they will really just add an old DH and call it an offseason. KK the fulltime CF. IKF to get 650 PA.

2. Blue Jays presser: As noted by Keegan Matheson of MLB.com, Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins is expected to address the media at 9am CT this morning followed by recent signings Kevin Kiermaier and Isiah Kiner-Falefa later in the day. The press conference comes on the heels of a December that saw the Blue Jays connected to many of the league’s top free agents including Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Cody Bellinger, and Matt Chapman. Since then, however, Toronto has come up short in their bids for both Ohtani and Yamamoto while the signings of Kiermaier and Kiner-Falefa seemingly cast doubt on the club’s odds of landing Bellinger to play center field or reuniting with Chapman at third base. Will today’s presser provide additional clarity regarding Toronto’s pursuits of a the two biggest bats left on the market?

contract is a nightmare, never going to happen, even if SDP ate half the money Toronto would be paying this guy $20M a year until he is 40 team should just sign Chapman if they are that desperate Machado also had elbow surgery in October and might not be playing 3B to begin the year

Yeah I don't think MLB even needs to suspend him They will but even if the guy dodges criminal charges and gets a visa... no team is signing him

He's never playing in MLB again regardless of what happens from here on

It will probably come to that if he can't post much less I want to give him some rope because I think the MH issues are real