Laika

The Jays must be so annoying to face Reminds me of the no K game against DeGrom

Remember when people thought the Varland trade was an overpay? Five more years lmao

Good send with two outs but bad with one out

wow what

Fangraphs does have the Jays updated projections as best in the AL. Jays - 92 wins Tigers - 91 Mariners - 90 Astros - 90 Yankees - 87 Red Sox - 86 Strength of schedule remaining: Jays - .501 Tigers - .489 Mariners - .502 Astros - .495 Yankees - .483 Red Sox - .500

Probably true and that is why Ross and teams like TBR and CLE tend to assemble Wild Card teams It's the optimal thing to do!

I am starting Brown in a FIP league so please guys, go oppo and top spin those flyballs. Doubles only.

He's such a weird stat line this year Jays will need to hit some bombs off him, that's the key. Tonight will be a tater fest.

I mean he's Yakuza it doesn't get much more villainous

Jays are 77.6% to win the division and 63.2% to clinch the bye. The bye is more important than being the 3rd best division winner. Yeah, I guess we do cheer for Boston against Houston now? That is weird to say. Jays have 3x HOU, 3x BOS, 3x NYY on their remaining schedule. Other teams are CHC, TEX, MIA, PIT, MIN, MIL, CIN, BAL, TBR, KCR. So, for the most part no other realistic direct competitors. Boston has HOU x2, NYY x7, TOR x3, DET x3 NYY has HOU x3, DET x3, TOR x3, BOS x7 NYY and BOS will beat up on each other for those 7 games and Toronto still has 3 games left against each of them to step on their necks. We are probably, uncomfortably, hoping BOS and NYY take some wins from HOU and DET to be honest.

I won't go as far as to agree with Grant here but you have to admit that to completely buy Ohtani's story about the gambling thing you had to suspend your disbelief. Like, there is no rational explanation for him to just have no idea what is happening with his money. He can plead ignorance but it's a fair response for people to not accept that explanation. This lawsuit... it could be Ohtani and his agent being dicks or they could have used their leverage to save the project for all we know. Maybe they are being sued by a scumbag. No way to judge. There is just a small element of "him again?" here. Smoke, fire? Ohtani Yakuza!

Tango basically explains it through the links. They married some analysis of where the line is "as presently called" with what seems easy for people to understand and umpire on the field. There is no actual definition of a swing in the rulebook I guess? Breaking the plane of home plate is just same random reference?

The stuff about the automated check swing systems is interesting. So, if "crossing the plate" is the reference then 95%+ of possible check swings would be called a strike. So this is perhaps too aggressive of a reference. Do we want even more strikeouts? And it is possible to cross the front of the plate without really committing to the pitch. The automated system in the minors uses a 45 degree angle from the front of home plate as the line in the sand. This is used because it is easier for the 1B and 3B umps to visualize to make the call (basically if the bat goes past pointing straight at the ump, it's a swing). Other degrees like 30 or 20 would be too hard to visualize. 45 degrees is also something most people understand intuitively. So the automated check swing systems use 45 degrees. And the Ohtani swing would not have got there. 37 degrees. Wild.

Lmao just saw this side angle of the Ohtani non check swing

Between Little, Seranthony, and Hoffman, a good chunk of the Jays pen is just scattershot up there. Varland is a nice counterbalance to that though. Historically Yimi has been great so hopefully he gets back this year.

Jeff Hoffman has horrible command and almost always has. It's just been masked by whiffs from 2023 to present. He has a 3.00 K/9 even after last night, somehow. His location+ is a 92 though. That's like 30 grade command. And it was that bad from 2020 to 2023 as well. 2024 was his only outlier command year with a 99 location+. Most of the homers he gives up are command based. Middle-middle misses, hung splitters... He has fundamental issues.

Every pitch Mason Fluharty threw was perfect for the situation I still can't get over it He executed more pitches against those two batters than Jeff Hoffman has executed since June 1st

Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Mariners, Astros, Rangers, Tigers TBH the AL is wide open, all of these teams have their strengths and flaws

fWAR ranks Position Players: Jays #1, Seattle #9 (6.3 fWAR gap; Seattle has a horrible defense) Arms: Jays #24, Seattle #19 (1.9 fWAR gap) Org is right. The Ms pen is surprisingly thin. They have 3.5 good relievers and then some real slop. Their bats can be pitched to. It's a good offense now but most of their core bats have big holes somewhere. They are scary in a short series because Gilbert/Woo/Kirby could just dominate though. The problem with their rotation and lack of WAR there would be the other arms. Logan Evans sucks, Bryce Miller has been brutal as well. These guys are not starting playoff games. Luis Castillo probably doesn't either. I mean, if the Ms win the playoffs it's because those three SP dominate and they hit a bunch of homers and Cal Raleigh is WS MVP. If they lose in the playoffs we probably see some of the core bats strike out too much + the pen blows some games where the SP can't go deep. If a team can work Woo/Kirby/Gilbert and get them out at 5 innings or less, they have a good shot. Toronto is a more "complete" team IMO but they don't have that playoff SP package.

She had a 91% call success rate today which is below average and bad but it was her first game, lots of pressure. I'm sure she'll be "fine".

The entire pen was gone other than Fluharty and 34 year old journeyman Nance It never really made complete sense to go to Fluharty until the platoon advantage made it make sense If he went to Nance against Call for example, he's committing to Nance against Ohtani. Wild closers like Hoffman can find their release point and suddenly be nearly unhittable. For *most* of Hoffman's outing it still made sense to kind of think that could happen. Obviously if they still had Little to use they probably would have deployed the replacement RP sooner - against Call or Freeland.

Seems like this kind of guy, you just give up on the SP thing next year and make him a good LHRP

My quarter chicken dinner just arrived Perogies on the side

Still can't get over Fluharty throwing 12 straight nearly perfect pitches to Ohtani and Betts

Embarrassing post Go watch a league of legends stream or something