Laika

Yeah, having Revere bunt makes little sense. Good contact hitter, should have been able to move Goins over even while trying to pull a hit. Could have been Revere doing it on his own though.

Dyson-Rios decision just had a big impact

Everything was bad. Gibby managed like it was a regular season game. Almost threw in the towel.

Can we do Gibbons too? Goins hit down 3-0 in the 7th Goins hit down 5-0 in the 9th No excuse

Imagine a few years ago what you would think if someone told you that the Mets/Cubs/Jays/Royals would be the final 4 teams standing in 2015. Crazy. In 2012 these four teams finished a combined 88! games back in their divisions.

No. No.

Probably going to trade Chris Davis at some point this offseason so feel free to send me serious offers! 1B/OF Dual eligibility 50 HR threat.

Yes please

Not really sure why this is so funny, but it's worth checking out. Salty O's fans on Orioles Hangout talking about the game, how much of a clown Bautista is, etc. http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/150385-2015-ALDS-Rangers-vs-Blue-Jays/page9

They would have to limit him, obviously. 35.1 innings in 2014 75.1 and counting this year They would have to use him as the 5th SP, skip a lot of his starts, watch his pitch counts, piggy back him with someone perhaps, move him to the pen later in the year, and possibly even shut him down.

I like Spencer Patton. I guess his ERA sucked too much though.

He has the arsenal to start. Would probably sit ~93, slider and changeup both look plus in relief, most of the time. No reason he couldn't develop a decent two-seamer. The only reason not to try him as a SP might be his mechanics. He has a big elbow lift and his arm is late. It's noticeable even in real time video. Helps him throw hard but probably increases stress on his elbow. Now, there's more to mechanics than elbows and arms. Things like when his shoulder turn happens and how stiff his front leg is also impact stress on the arm, and thus durability. He could have decent mechanics all things considered. But if the team doesn't think his mechanics look clean, then he should probably be left in the bullpen. Better to have a healthy reliever than a starter on the operating table. So it depends on the bio-mechanical analysis!

I agree that maintaining White Power in North America is one good argument in favour of having babies.

Everyone please vote in the offseason check in poll on proboards, so we know if anyone needs a poke to get their ass over there. Poll is in the general discussion section. Only like 7 team trade blocks have been updated.

Why do people even have babies, in general?

It wasn't Goins' decision to bunt. TBH, once the wheel play is obviously on, the hitting team should probably swing away. What is Goins supposed to do here? http://i.imgur.com/kgjBBmB.jpg Andrus is already in motion towards 3B and maybe 12 feet ahead of a flat footed Pompey. Moreland and Beltre are already picking Goins' pocket. Unless he lays down a nearly perfect, 90th percentile bunt, Texas has a good chance to force out Pompey. I think Goins' expected batting average on a groundball there would be tremendous. Probably up around .500 (guess). And I don't know enough about the technical aspects of baseball strategy and baserunning, but I feel like Pompey should have been a bit more aggressive, and breaking closer to Andrus' heels. I might be wrong on that though. It's tricky because they could put a pickoff play on with Odor and then get Andrus to break and draw him off for an easy out.

Yeah I was surprised Gonzalez was even on the roster. Very bad move. Equivalent to if Gibbons had called on Tepera in a close game for some reason.

Pretty hard to ask someone to lay down a bunt so good that it foils a cognizant and crashing Adrian Beltre. I wouldn't call it "bad". I mean, he didn't pop it up, so that was good.

Nah. The Rangers had the wheel play on (which is the reason Pompey pinch ran at that point) and, after a firm bunt, Beltre made a perfect throw that beat Pompey by like 5 feet. Beltre, as per usual, played his position perfectly.

106-MPH, 431-feet (JB) 110-MPH, 436-feet (EE)

It was also clear very early that Toronto was right on Holland, and he had Colby Lewis and Gallardo that he could have gone to. But he left Holland in for another inning+ and he ended up giving up 6 runs.

I thought Bannister made a mistake showing Diekman and Dyson to Toronto with his team down by so much in game 4. I know he wanted to give his best relievers work with the off day on Tuesday, but he just gave the Blue Jays another look and more information on his relief aces. Dyson faced Revere-Donaldson-Bautista-Encarnacion in game 4 in the 8th inning, with his team down 8-2. Then the very next game, those same Toronto hitters get the same pitcher. Same look. It might have been the difference.

It's a fact that the Blue Jays think it's easier to scout amateur pitching. I don't think it's about a lack of development. They just draft a lot of arms. On one hand, it's not a good approach because of the failure and attrition rate of pitching. High school pitching is the riskiest of the four main draft prospect types. But on the other hand, pitching makes for very fluid trade currency because every team in baseball always will covet controllable pitching, to some extent. Whereas if you have a hitting prospect at a specific position, you might simply not line up with teams that have depth at that position. Also, if the organization truly is better at scouting pitchers then that could overcome the attrition "risk" of amateur arms and make selecting them more often a viable strategy. Further, you need to invest in pitching somewhere. Maybe it's a more sensible prospecting strategy to load up on arms, and try to create a pipeline. Even if many of them fail, as they will, you should have more cheap ones coming. And then when it comes to the major league payroll you can invest heavily in hitting there, in the place where the injury risk of pitchers really hurts when you get dinged by it. This is ostensibly what the Blue Jays do, from the outside looking in. They spend most of their amateur budget (~$10M) per year on a truck of amateur pitching, let it develop over time, and spend most of their major league payroll in any given year on hitters. Vlad Guerrero jr. might have been a slight deviation from the normal plan, but they still had 4 of their top 5 rule 4 draft players as pitchers.

Estrada was in the pen with his 80 grade changeup. He made Fielder look goofy on it numerous times in game 3. Also could have called on Osuna a bit earlier so Sanchez at least never faced Fielder and Moreland, who both ended up reaching base. Even if you have to finish the game with Mark Lowe in that scenario, that's probably a better use of the bullpen. There were a number of things they could have done.

And me! We were talking about it before the game. http://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/threads/5543-Blue-Jays-vs-Rangers-ALDS-Thread/page22?p=779968#post779968 Just retarded to let Sanchez face the lefties.