Laika

?????

I would call up Yesavage. The strike zone in AAA is weird. He has a 2.79 FIP there. Have to take a shot because how else are they improving the pen this year other than praying a couple of guys figure it out?

I like how we go from yanking Bieber at 90 pitches and going straight to the supposed A bullpen to.... Justin Bruihl the next inning

It's bizarre Don't remember a pitcher like this. 70% of his fastballs seem to be middle middle

Is Varland tipping his pitches or something? This is horrible to watch. Little can't throw a strike to save his life and Varland gets hammered like batting practice with plus stuff. Unforgivable

Yimi minor elbow surgery to clean up scar tissue Honestly decent news. Wasn't expecting him back this year anyway. Maybe he can help next year. It was looking like TJS was coming.

seems like weird timing i guess just laying the groundwork for a 2026 MilB deal? lol

Third 4 HR game of 2025 is wild 21 in MLB history and three in one season

Kyle Schwarbaaaaaa legacy game

Yeah but how long will he stay healthy for

Yeah this is my worry too

I feel like the only ones who are comparable to Hoffman as far as anxiety inducing full season closers might be Miguel Batista and Kelvim Escobar Miguel Batista is in my head as a nightmare. Kevin Gregg always seemed like he was going to blow it but lucked his way into a decent year. There were others who were even worse but they didn't last a year. I think Jon Rauch closed for a few months? He sucked. Hoffman has to be having one of the worst full season closers years in Jays history by ERA and blown saves measures.

Never a doubt

DS homer, homer, walk Gotta bench him for Ty France though!!!

0.2% chance to miss the playoffs still

Toronto is funny. SP: nearly the worst Stuff+ in MLB. RP: the worst Location+ in MLB.

Yes, but there is a stark difference between a 97 Location+ and something around 90. I don't remember the standard deviations but I feel like once you get down around 90 you are talking about nearly 20 grade command. I think 3 points is about 1 SD. The Jays have the 4th and 5th worst qualified RP by Location+ in Little and Seranthony and also the 17th and 23rd worst in Fluharty and Hoffman. That is out of 163 qualified. 2nd percentile to 14th percentile on the scale, for those four guys. At the team level, seasonally, they have a 94 Location+ which is tied second worst in baseball. But the worst team is the A's who traded Mason Miller, and the Jays acquired Seranthony, so it is possible the Jays pen in fact has the worst Locations in MLB right now, at the true talent level.*** Yes they trade it for Stuff and being tied for #4 in Stuff+ is good. 106 Stuff+. But there are 10 teams with a Stuff+ of 105 or better in their pens on the season. And only one of them has a Location+ under 97 (Toronto). Have to wonder if they just have one or two too many scattershop command guys in there, though, and the tradeoff they have made for Stuff has cost them disproportionately in the command department. I mean if you are going to be "the worst" in baseball at locations you might need to be the best in the stuff department. We don't have a Mason Miller. *** actually, you can just filter for Stuff and Locations by dates. Toronto has a team RP Location+ of 89 since August 1st. omgz.

Holy s***. Brendon Little just has bottom tier command. 82 Location+. 20 grade. Hoffman has 91 Location+ for his career. 30 grade. Dominguez is the same as Hoffman. Double minus natural command. You would expect these three to go through stretches like this. For it to happen simultaneously is poor luck at the team level. Yariel should not be this bad though. Varland is the one who is supposed to have plus command. I don't know about Fluharty. Kind of one of the follies when you ACQUIRE and don't DEVELOP your plus Stuff relievers is that they almost certainly have warts, command being the most likely wart, because teams just don't tend to let guys with plus Stuff and Locations go very often. They retain them, extend them, etc. And maybe there is a cumulative effect issue where opposing teams can kind of have a general gameplan against the entire Jays pen - make them throw strikes. Unless it's Louis Varland, then you should hunt meatballs early. Probably some benefit on the other side where they don't have to check the iPad and gameplan every single opposing pitcher with intensity or even if they do, there is this overarching preparation theme to fall back on. All of them suck at throwing strikes. Wait them out. Let them hit you. Wait for Jeff to throw a 96 mph fastball down the middle because he just missed with every other pitch.

The Jays don't really have any SP that you want to just trust to go deep. All of these guys, except for maybe a Bieber when he is on, probably have bad drops third time through the order and they become worse options than your worst RP. Just look at Bassitt last night at the end. He was cruising and then he wasn't. And the Jays also don't really have a bullpen depth problem. So shrinking the pen isn't the solution. The only thing they could really try to do is hunt for more talent/quality which is obviously almost impossible after the deadline. The aggressive moves to this end would be callups. Other than getting Fisher back up for Bruihl soon, the only one I see is Yesavage. That's kind of it. Get Yesavage up and see if he is a difference maker somewhere. Or get in the heads of Little, Varland, Hoffman, etc. and get them to figure it out. Really no reason that Varland should be getting hit around like this. Little needs a different game plan because guys are not swinging as much. Hoffman needs a lobotomy and his Jekyl/Hyde shtick is stale at this point.

Ty France as a Blue Jay: .274/.343/.355 for a 95 wRC+ Davis Schneider this year .245/.364/.453 fir a 131 wRC+ Ty France has 70 PA since August 1st and Schneider has 44. Schneider even has 3 bombs and a 162 wRC+ in that limited time. If the team wanted a different backup 1B they needed to just be repping Schneider/Lukes/Springer/Barger at 1B for the last few months. Any of them can probably play 1B fine with some reps. This is kind of an indefensible downgrade offensively! France is old and washed and just not it. Schneider is 26 and was peaking and they bumped him down for what? 1B defense!?!? What f***ing year is it!!!!!!!!!????????

Horrendous loss. Hoffman was ass, again. He has bottom shelf command and it's sort of the worst kind because he both walks people and gives up meatballs. The other relievers were trash as well. The offense was pathetic. Outhitting a team 14-9 and losing 7-5 is unforgiveable. The season is over.

Sigh. I miss Yimi.

imagine typing or saying or even thinking "I am not the biggest fan of Alejandro Kirk" Go watch football

Well they are .500 since their last win against Detroit Not stumbling or bumbling but not surging or blurging either Have not had that killer instinct and have just seemed like a decent team for the last month

Literally tied in fWAR. Yankees fans and people who only like offense will tell you it isn't close but I think Cal is the odds on favourite right now. The Yankees are a mess and Aaron Judge is their leader. What does that say to a certain subset of voters? And the slashline numbers may continue to get closer. Judge has been pedestrian since coming back.