Laika

Here is a fun exercise. Double Play Adjusted Batting Average We are pretending to be a Bill James wannabe in the early 1990s and making up dumb stats. For this one we take away a single for every double play a guy hits into. Of course everybody gets worse but the colour shading should help you appreciate who holds up more. Kirk is interesting, you would expect him to be a GDP monster but he is not.

Danny Jansen only hit into ONE double play all year. That's an often ignored benefit of being a huge flyball hitter. Biggio - only 2. Chapman - only 7.

Goddammit the double plays this year were excruciating. Vlad was #1 for qualified hitters with 26 Bo was #4 with 21 Teoscar was #16 with 18 Toronto was 3rd in baseball behind only Washington and the Rockies. The only other playoff teams in the top 10 were the Mets at 9 and the Yankees at 10, with 122 and 121 double plays. But both of those teams were as to 20th (Detroit, 108) as they were to Toronto's 136.

Yeah it would be interesting to see the numbers. Specifically for SPs who were traditional SPs all year and then relieve or long relieve in the playoffs. From my memory alone these guys tend to give up runs a lot. Thinking of Price in the ALDS relieving Dickey... 3 IP 6 H 3 ER

It's not "okay". It sucks. It's a bad outcome. A pattern of inexplicable bad outcomes = you are probably missing something. The fact that the WHY can't be easily seen does not mean it is not there. One bad outcome = one bad outcome. It doesn't really mean anything. There is no "so what" to it, at all. It would be asinine to decrease your opinion of the GMs competency because of one inexplicable bad outcome. All GMs have the odd dogshit outcome. The Yankees traded for Joey Gallo and are holding Donaldson and Stanton and Chapman together with duct tape. The Dodgers trusted their due diligence and signed Trevor Bauer. Juan Soto and Josh Hader and Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer suck and every other SP the Padres acquire dies. Jesse Winker is useless and the Ms dealt a lot for him, and Robbie Ray also sucks and is way overpaid.

Even for the majority of 2022 the data STILL had no idea why Berrios was bad. I remember Eno Sarris for most of the year talking about how his stuff and location numbers looked mostly the same as all previous years. One of the most bizarre seasons in recent Jays history. There is legitimately a chance he comes back in 2023 and is the old effective workhorse Berrios.

I mean I don't think there is anything special about Ross Atkins. If they have a limp dick finish again in 2023 then sure, let Ross amicably leave to pursue new opportunities and get a different kind of guy in that role. But leave most of the front office and staff in place.

I had Robbie Ray in there but yeah those other two were THEFTS On balance this front office has been close to excellent. People who want front office changes need to grapple with the total track record. Yes, they are not perfect. Pitching development seems a bit rotten the last few years. There might be something off with the culture and how the front office communicates with and controls the manager(s)... a few of their moves have not worked out or were bad in context. BUT the majority of what they do is gold! Gold! And jesus f***ing christ nobody is allowed to lay a hair on Shapiro until the stadium renos are 100% done..

Nah even if they LOVE him the years of control are way too different

There is less than no chance Arizona would do that trade

Which type of team is targeting Kirk though? I feel like old school teams won't want him and new school teams will only be heavily interested if they think they are getting a deal or scoring on some fat bias market inefficiency. I feel like Jansen should be somewhat easy to trade since he's a traditional looking power catcher, well rounded. Moreno everyone will want so not hard to find a dance partner but obviously hard to find appropriate value.

On one hand, everyone admits that a baseball organization can't really control what happens in the playoffs. It's very random and even the best teams in the regular season often only have marginally better probabilities than the teams that barely made the playoffs. On the other hand, Toronto has flopped three years in a row. 2020 - only made it because of expansion but didn't win a game. 2021 - didn't even make it, missing by a single game. 2022 - lmao. If you are going to entertain things like cultural or management changes I think an honest critique of the process is needed. Judging the Process Good Process - Berrios trade. Good timing on trading the prospects. Nice, aggressive target. - Springer signing. Ryu signing. Yeah Ryu won't be worth the money and George might not quite be when it's all said and done but both of these big signing were important. Springer is needed both as a competent CF (organizational thin spot) and a leader (another thing spot). Ryu's signing sent an important message to lots of people inside and outside the org and really kickstarted a positive culture shift. - Bass and Pop trade. I still think this off-the-board trade was great, despite what happened on Saturday. They not only addressed an in-season problem but they perhaps salvaged a significant amount of value from a rapidly declining asset in Groshans. - Gausman signing. Self explanatory. - Ross Stripling. I guess he is a good example of why you get a guy with multiple years of control and flexible usage, if you can. Then if you don't get immediate positive returns there is a chance to work with the asset, if the talent is there? - Matz trade. Worked out great. Gave up only trash for him. - Ray trade + development. He was free and won a Cy Young. - Chapman trade. They gave up basically nothing for him lol. Neutral Process - Berrios extension. It was fair money to a good pitcher. Can't really fault the team for his 2022 disaster season. - Tapia trade. An innocuous trade on the fringe to slightly improve the roster and save a tiny bit of money, maybe. - Hand and Soria acquisitions. These were lateral moves at worst in context so it's hard to criticize these moves specifically, despite what Hand did. - Merrifield trade. Bad Process - Use of Raimel Tapia. Overused and misused, including at the most critical juncture of 2022. This is on the front office because they either a) misevaluated the player or failed to ensure that the coaching staff were using him properly. - Charlie Montoyo. Should have never been the guy. He would be a good choice for a team entering a 3-5 year rebuild but that was NOT the look of the 2019 Blue Jays. - Yusei Kikuchi. I don't even think the IDEA of getting Kikuchi was terrible in context but the money/term seemed high at the time and is very tough to rationalize now that it's coloured by hindsight... - Pitching development. I think the disappointment people have with some of the trades and moves in the pen should be directed at a slightly different, fundamental issue. This organization has not developed or found enough high upside relief pitching and competent pitching depth, for several years now. The fact that they even have Romano is basically dumb luck since they let him go at first without recognizing his potential as a reliever. They have made very questionable decisions with guys like Pearson and Hatch, and maybe Merryweather, letting them start and arguably putting their development and health off track. They let high leverage relievers like Bryan Baker and Jason Adam slip through their control. The SHAPE of the bullpen right now and the style of pitcher that fills it out, after Romano, is a symptom of the developmental problem. I know lots of people want more "swing and miss" in the pen but really you can't just go out and pay money for that as a winning strategy - you can do it for maybe one guy in a compete year but other than that you have to either develop it yourself or be smart enough to find it on the scrap pile. Toronto has a huge problem here, ostensibly. I think in response to their own issues the GM has done an okay job patching the pen with veterans and budget additions... but the starting rotation now looks very top heavy and too expensive. Far too much right now seems to be riding on the immediate rise of a small number of promising minor leaguers in AA/AAA. - Control of tactical decision making - Montoyo had continuous issues, here and there, where he would make dogshit in game decisions. Schneider is probably not any better and it was on full display in the final game this year. This is a communication problem, perhaps a coaching staff personnel problem. The pitching developmental problems also make it hard to evaluate the Mitch White swap because it seems so very reactionary and something they kind of "had" to do because of the fundamental problem. What did I get wrong? What did I miss? When you look at all the stuff the team has done objectively WELL in the last few years it's hard to even entertain the thought of firing front office people. But I do admit there are some problems.

Tender him with passion But show him more confidence next year CF and leadoff should both be his

I feel like you should just say Rogers is cheap and should run a top 5 payroll Because if they are going to hover closer to 10th, or whatever they were this year, then they have to try to make value moves somewhere on the roster.

Stuff like that. Not work ethic for Bo - that’s not an issue

The only part I will maybe agree with is the repetitive falling short might reveal something. But it has nothing to do with the bullpen or rotation depth or even the front office’s choices around the edges. I am starting to legitimately wonder if the core youngsters, Bo and Vlad, have soft skill flaws that are irreparable.

Bass is better than Robertson right now. That’s not even debatable. Iglesias makes dumb money. This is just one of those ultimate Process vs. Results situations. There’s honestly no point debating it I guess. Some people just can’t mentally separate the two things.

He had a skill change, lol It’s well documented “Douche” interesting word to slip in there. You don’t like me anymore, friend?

Of course they could upgrade the pen But there a bunch of stooges here acting like this was one of the worst pens in the league and they knew from March that it would sink them. That’s dumb. They made the pen way better at the deadline and it ended up decent for the playoffs. They blew chunks on Saturday but most of that was random. Mayza was great for several months then bad for one inning. Bass had an excellent season then gave up three hits in a row. That’s just randomness. The Cards had one of the impressive arms in baseball as their closer and they blew it too

No, those aren’t the facts They had a borderline elite closer and several solid relievers behind him. There is not some categorical box to tick for them to let you into the World Series where Rob Manfred checks to see if you have two closers and a lefty that throws 100

The bullpen was fine, lmao. They blew it of course but it was good enough. Max Scherzer gave up four homers in one playoff game this year you know

Gurriel could be a platoon guy on a high level team to be quite honest

Nah he’s stocky and slow now. I bet he’d suck

Yes a lefty CF who can crack skulls would be sick But archetype fixation also kind of led the front office to think Tapia filled a need I dunno. There are lots of ways to improve the offense I just want the org to be aggressive more than anything

Joc Pederson is a super serious platoon DH at this point right passssssssssss