Laika

Kevin Gausman has a bonkers 125 Stuff+ on his fastball this year. What the heck? The velo is back slightly but not above his prior years when this was a 100 Stuff+ pitch. ... hmmmm it has the highest IVB ever at 17.9 per PitcherList and his VAA of -4.8 is the lowest it has ever been (lower is better for this, if you have a rising fastball). And per statcast his extension is the lowest it has ever been. I think he's done something with his arm slot or release point to juice this fastball into a plus pitch. That might have also made the splitter less effective. INTERESTING KEVIN VERY f***ING INTERESTING YOU VETERAN YOU

It was indeed... interesting.

Jays have had what, one stinker from a SP and then twelve straight good or okay performances? I guess 11/12 since the Scherzer one can't be counted.

Vlad English interview alert

For a laugh go look at Jordan Romano's stats

The Jeff Hoffman Effect

Jeff.

Kirk's swing is broken.

Brutal

Okay time to string together a walk and three singles so we can get the go ahead run

K rate not stable in Gausman's sample size but velocity is!

6 inning 10 hit shutout more likely

this is wild buddy took Ed Rogers behind the woodshed and isn't even going to try to hide it or act like he cares about the team or organization at all, lmao respekt

Congrats to Vlad and his 45 children

something's gotta give

Gausman's Stuff+, Location+, and of course Pitching+ so far this year are his highest of the Stuff+ era. Interesting.

Yeah Rogers clearly stepped in and saw Vlad as a marketing extension. That won't apply for Bo Bichette so the numbers need to make sense to Boss Atkins.

Definitely feels nice to have Santandar and Gimenez up top and then Roden and Wagner at the bottom, against big split righties. I wonder if they also get Lukes in there. Put Wagner at 3B, DH Santander. Why the f isn't Daulton Varsho playing games ugh. His spring was such a tease.

Don't worry, Baltimore. Kyle Gibson was up to 3 innings on the backfields so reinforcements are coming.

Time to start looking at his other characteristics like arm angle, extension, deception, stuff like that. Is he better than his raw stuff numbers would indicate?

holy moly Yesavage gets a mulligan. The walks must have been contagious and sitting around for that long, in that weather, was probably horrendous.

Honestly, Bo's defense may be more interesting to watch this year than his bat. I don't have a lot of doubts about his ability to hit. Yeah the power comes and goes and we would all like him to pull 28 homers but if he hits .280 with 15 homers as every system expects, that's still a very good hitter for the position in a league where the typical player hits f***ing .239 these days. But the defense is a more interesting question. Fringe defender by scouting reports entering the league and bad metrics in his first two full seasons, 2021 and 2022, including a -7 OAA in 2022 with an even uglier UZR. Different story in 2023. Positive UZR! An OAA of -3 is more palatable. 2024, limited time of course around the injuries, but UZR and OAA were both in the green. Too early in 2025 to tell but he looks solid and has +1 OAA. Anecdotally we do seem a few years removed from him being an obviously bad shortstop. Perceptions of him in terms of a long/big contract are much different if you think he can provide 4 years of shortstop defense at the front end of the deal.

Big Shortstops Age at Big Contract Commencement Seager - 28 Lindor - 28 Machado - 30 Bogaerts - 30 Turner - 30 Bo will be 28. This doesn't mean he deserves 10/$300 but it does mean he has a good argument for a long deal if he has a good season. Maybe it's more like 10/$250.

ez win today why even play the game tbh?

Four pitch lefty with four average pitches. He might actually have five pitches. Pitcherlist hints at cutter, slider, and sweeper. The separator is command. He might be a bit of an artiste. I'll be ecstatic if he's an SP4/5. JP Sears or whatever.