Laika

On the season: By WAR - 19th By ERA - 10th By K rate - 14th By average velocity - 17th Since May 15th By WAR - 28th (minus 0.5!) By ERA - 24th By K rate - 13th By average velocity - 9th

Toronto should graduate to a more dynamic way of thinking about roster construction, anyway. Smith can be like generic Tampa Bay rays player #1245. If he keeps hitting he'll get his chance to carve out a bench role, then a platoon role if he keeps it up, then perhaps even what is more or less a starting position player role. Most of those guys can co-exist on the same future roster. Players will always fail or get hurt, traded. Prospects are precious flowers to cultivate and let blossom, but they are also just ammunition to use and deplete.

Hitters play the game too

It's a tricky rule to enforce, Jim. Everyone has trace amounts of pine tar on their equipment Reasonably players have sunscreen and lotions on their bodies Do fans want to watch umpires patting down players every game? There was no evidence that foreign substances were actually creating vicious pitching weapons until rather recently There was little evidence that batters even cared until fairly recently It only became a large PR issue recently, with the extreme dip in offense and some of the reported stories (Angels clubhouse guy, etc.)

lmao okay Jim the rule against foreign substances his existed forever they have enforced it historically they tried more passive enforcement measures this year and pitchers ignored them (MLB officials are saying this in the articles)

Dude launched a f***ing clothing brand right when he got called up: https://shop.kelenic.com/ lmao

Not on the 40. Maybe some asset hoarding going on, waiting for value trade(s) to materialize. They have an obvious sell high on their roster in Joey Wendle and it feels like Yandy Diaz could be given up on at this point (traded, not cut; breakout never going to happen). Vidal Brujan might come up before Franco.

Some part of me takes joy in seeing elite prospects from other teams come up and suck. Am I a bad guy?

Is Yelich past his prime already? Maybe...

"I'm choking the s*** out of my pitches" Sounds like Glasnow doubled down on the stupid and was trying to retain some of his lost spin by gripping the ball harder? That's on him, not MLB. Nobody said he had to compensate for the lack of tack by squeezing harder

Sad

Are you aware of Ryu's extensive injury history?

Permanent bench job. I love him, irrationally

Lmao wtf

It became a big PR issue recently, kind of organically. League had to do something.

He can turn any pitch into a swinging strike

The rule didn't change. Tyler and his cheater friends made decisions to cheat, and they carried risks like this whether they appreciated it or not

If McGreevy sits 91-93 and touches 96, isn't that just the 2021 version of Deck sitting 90-92 and touching 94 back in 2010? Basically the same fastball, relative to their peers at the time. Deck was more or less 50 FB, 60 SL, 50 CB, 50 CH, 60+ command, good track record and size. McGreevy's scouting figures IN CONTEXT are not that different. The problem with Deck was two fold, I think: 1) Toronto didn't care enough about velocity and stuff. They were behind the curve and they valued other (apparent) skills too much. Like size, pounding the zone, etc. 2) Toronto wasn't on top of Deck enough to know that he was declining heading into the draft. His K rate actually peaked as a sophomore, not a junior. They drafted a declining asset who unfortunately continued to decline athletically in pro ball, or at least failed to improve in pro ball. You might even blame a huge part of Deck flopping on Toronto's failed development of him, and not the selection. Did they even try to fix the guy in any aggressive way? As far as I remember he just plugged along in the minors putting up 26 starts and 5.00+ ERAs for a few years then debuted throwing 92-93 still.

I actually don't think so. I just travelled to every single known universe and Deck McGuire goes to Korea in 2019 to get his s*** pushed in in all of them.

Stop talking about Deck McGuire! Nightmares. 11 - Deck McGuire - Toronto 12 - Yasmani Grandal - Cincinnati 13 - Chris Sale - Chicago

You typically have to wait until close to the deadline. Time for sellers to become sellers, or admit that they aren't getting the sun and the moon for, I dunno, Taylor Rogers.

Everything is possible What is probable though? The run expectancy of having a runner on second with no outs is about 1.068. So if Dolis pitches a clean ninth, the most probable scenario is Toronto scoring one run in the top of the 10th.

shut up connor

No, to win the game Toronto has to pitch the bottom of the 9th and the 10th innings, at minimum. Montoyo has to think of them both simultaneously, he can't just ignore the 10th until it happens. Really just a question of whether you want Dolis vs. the heart of their lineup with nobody on base, or Dolis vs. the other part of their lineup with a man on base. A: Romano against the heart in the ninth + Dolis trying to hold the extra inning runner B: Dolis against the heart in the ninth + Romano trying to hold the extra inning runner You would need to actually do the math on the leverage of both situations and consider the reliever results tendencies (strikeout rate, etc.) It's possible that facing the bottom of the order with an inherited runner is HIGHER leverage than facing the heart of the order with nobody on base. It really is NOT the classic mistake of "saving the closer for a save situation" because of the extra inning rule. You manage the game to win the game, not to survive one more inning.

salty tears