Laika

I don't really know what they CHANGED for process but it looks like he is going oppo less, and making better swing decisions, and spinning or aiming his flyballs better since the HR/FB is up so drastically. All of a sudden murdering 4 seamers and sliders. Probably just got him on a properly tuned Trajekt machine or something, lol. And told him to not go to RF so freaking much.

yeah use Fangraphs game logs, pick dates, pick statcast

I think he's likely just a bust. Always had a fringe contact / batted ball profile and his bull case projections were like, Jake Burger. Maybe some of his moderate MiLB success was built on steroids.

Season is over.

It's not a loss until they lose! Go Jays Go!

No, Bassitt. That signal from the bench was "hit Pham in the dick" NOT "throw a sinker down the dick"

3 called strikeouts in one inning does NOT redeem you, Christopher Bassitt You gave up a 2 run double to Tommy "Knuckles" Pham and are losing to the goddang Pirates

The Lauer to the pen thing is a nothingburger. They have off days this Thursday and next. There is even a chance Lauer relieves Berrios and ends up pitching more innings than him in a game.

Bassitt needs to man up and dominate for 5 more innings today OR ELSE

I feel like a good throw nails him by five feet.

No Vlad, makes sense with the early time. Hopefully he plays in Miami. I guess the next 7 games are soft opponents so it's not the worst time in the world for him to miss a bit?

Must win game! Boston 3-7 in their last 10. Cooling off. Hopefully Boston and New York just beat each other up in their final 7 games. I think NYY has the easier remaining schedule overall, so Boston winning that season series might be for the best. Jays now 4.5 up on Houston for the second bye in the AL.

Red Sox lose. Go Orioles! Rodon looks sweaty and wild. Maybe Tampa can come back. Shane Baz got obliterated lmao

Springading

Just getting his guard down in case he had to plunk him 4D chess

dude bat flipped his way to the bench wow

100% maybe they are considering it kind of embarrassing

call up Ally Manoah and get him to bean Pham tomorrow

Oh weird Well he probably tweaked it a few games ago when he did THE SPLITS LAST TIME STOP DOING THE SPLITS YOU WEIGH 300 POUNDS!!!!!!! JUST EAT AND HIT THE BALL IN THE AIR THAT'S ALL WE WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay time to stop doing the splits splits are not cool anymore

i dunno about torching he might pull a few singles through the hole

Arjun Nimmala really turning a hot start into a bad year, somehow. Completely lost. Has been bad since June began. Now flirting with an OPS under .700 on the year. His K and BB numbers look fine right now and fine in the last 30 days. So it's not your typical "can't hit" problem. Probably a big batted ball profile problem though. Is he trying too hard to not strikeout?

I think it has been a mini market inefficiency and teams will continue to look for it but it might become too popular, like, immediately. Not sure I would put King in that bucket. Wasn't his more of a long term rehab thing? It's a thing that has always happened at some level. It's more about identifying arms that could do it than jumping on a trend. It will probably always be a trend at some level because our understanding of what makes a good pitcher, and therefore a good SP, changes over time and some teams have differing opinions. The Rays do it all the time. E.g., Zack Littell was not starting when TBR acquired him and he became a full time, good SP. When they trade for guys like Bryan Baker I always half expect that to be a SP candidate the next year. Ostensibly Baker has a decent FB, two decent offspeed pitches, and good command. Why not? CJ Wilson was a huge success conversion 15 years ago. Texas then tried to do it with Neftali Feliz and it ruined his career. A couple of years before that, Ryan Dempster successfully went back into the rotation after 4 years as a RP. Derek Lowe did it even earlier, at 29 years old, with great success. Shaun Marcum was a full time closer in College and was abruptly converted into a SP in the minors.