John_Havok

Im so tired of watching position players lob pitches like losers. Just end the game.

They hit 62 HRs as a team in August. Thats More than half of the Jays current HR total as a team all season

Cease only at 74 pitches, still 2 more innings left in him easy, maybe 3

How do you know Vlad has a had a horrible season? When Keegan Matheson puts out an article like 30 minutes after a HR. https://www.mlb.com/news/vladimir-guerrero-jr-hits-3-run-homer-against-guardians?adobe_mc=TS%3D1788393976|MCMID%3D09660501635494515108312789126360778446|MCORGID%3DA65F776A5245B01B0A490D44%40AdobeOrg&affiliateId=mlbapp-android_webview&rsid=mlbat.bat.android&theme=light

Not sure he was deliberately trying to miss in 2-0 and 3-1 counts with fastballs Seems more like he was giving in becasue he knew Bateman has no power, still missed his spot and Bateman bailed him out by swinging at borderline pitches.

Good. Beats pounding into the dirt 3 feet in front of the plate. Means his swing had some uppercut to it

I mean, we knew Cease was really good but did anyone truly expect a Cy Young calibre season?

That voice coming out of that human doesnt make sense.

Bateman has definitely made some questionable swing decisions on his time up here. I hope he adjusts because pitchers will absolutely pick up on it and exploit it until he does ***edit*** Both his PAs tonight so far he had the count in his favour with ducks on the pond and swung at fastballs out of the zone for weak contact. Bases loaded, 2-0 swings at a very borderline pitch down. Weak contact. Gotta take that even if it gets called a strike. 2nd and 3rd, 3-1 count swings at a high fastball put of the zone. Weak contact. Young guy. Probably a bit amped up. Calm it down and wait for the pitch you can do some damage with, even if his best case damage is a double

Kilometers Straw can play on my team anytime.

Thats just it. The majority of the owners offers have been playing into exactly this: bringing up the lowest paid guys to make more money at the expense of the biggest stars. Theyre trying to pit 80%-90% of the union to be like... why do we care if the Ohtani's or Vlad's or Tucker's have to take 5 less million per year over fewer years when we all get a big pay bump. Realistically, the owners offers as a whole so far actually would result in the entire player base making more total money on average, but it wouldnt be going to the biggest stars. Tellin ya, the owners are a step ahead this time around. If the players union was smart, they shoykd have already agreed amongst themselves to accept a cap/floor, but only agree if those cap/floor numbers are a tier or 2 higher than the owners lame-ass numbers of 171/245. Wait till they keep offering even more for the pre-arb guys, earlier FA, earlier rule 5, then say... deal, as long as your cap goes to 350 million, the floor starts at 200 and heres a list of alll the revenues that get included for the 50/50 revenue split.

We need this to be the start of a nuclear streak by Vlad. That's the only way this team gets in Not trying to take away from Kirk or Springer or Kaz but... lets face it, when Vlad goes nuclear they just don't lose

Im going to buy a lottery ticket. VLAD PULLED A FLY BALL AND IT WENT OVER THE FENCE!!! ***edit*** IN FAIR TERRITORY!!!!

Ive been looking at all the back and forth from the league to the PA and vice versa...and i gotta day the league is doing a hell of a job making themselves look good to the casuals. Their very first offer including the cap and floor (which most casuals see as necessary) and now a few more that include all kinds of things that the PA absolutely wants as long as they agree to a cap and floor... and the current union head just flat out saying no to everything and their counter offers being borderline lunacy... as it stands now i think the players are going to lose in the court of public opinion, which is a pretty important court in sports.

I have no issues with the Jays deadline at all. No way they were looking seriously at contending for playoff berth. They were already clearly out of the division race andd 4.5 back of WC3 with 6 teams to pass. Cleveland was holding the WC3 spot and only 3 games back in the central because it's dogshit. So, some calculated moves were made that have turned out pretty well. 17-11 in August and actually held the WC3 for a blink. Swapping out Gausman for Soriano has pretty much been a push with more control for the next 2 seasons and a clear upside win when you consider where they are in their careers. Hoffman being turfed was expected, he was no longer the closer, was making a ton of money, and they had Miles to take over Hoff's role (which he's done nicely). Either way, what's carried the Jays has been some key guys actually remembering how to hit and the pitching being solid overall despite a rotation in shambles due to injury. Vlad Jr being the glaring exception

Realistically, we're all just guessing at to to how much input Atkins has on the on-field decisions. Based on everything I've seen and heard, and inferred from decision making... it looks like all on-field decisions are made by John Schneider. Yes, there's a pile of data given to him about hitter splits, pitcher splits, who matches up well with who based on X and Y for both hitters to opposing pitchers and our pitchers to opposing hitters and there's probably very obvious decisions based on that data more often than not. I very much doubt Atkins pours over this data daily and questions Schneider's every move or cross-checks it with decisions he would have made with that same data, but I very much assume that large decisions that end up impacting games that maybe don't match up with the data, he's going to want an explanation, as any GM in baseball would to hold his manager accountable for decision making. I would certainly want to know why Manitply was the play in a 2-1 game. Even looking at all the decisions JS has made, the vast majority of them work out just fine, but nobody remembers the good... the good is boring. It's expected. Mantiply in a 2-1 game though??? I struggle with that one myself but we don't have all the info JS has about his player's availability. Maybe Flu is dealing with someone nagging right now and said he was at 90% even after the off day. There's any number of different reasons that may have played into it, but sure, on the surface it looks like it doesn't make sense. Managing is not really even a leadership position in a traditional sense. He isn't on the field playing with the 26 guys in the clubhouse, he can't lead by example on the field, or be the first guy over the wall on a walkoff HR. That's on the players. It's the players game. A managers job is mainly in-game decision making, ego management in the clubhouse, keeping them pointed in the right direction and discipline when it's needed if the player leaders haven't handled it themselves. Look at Torey Lovullo right now in Arizona... having to try and keep that clubhouse together with Marte being the world's biggest twat. Is that a failure in Lovullo's leadership because Marte is a clown? JS is a perfectly fine manager that probably impacts the game far less than ret*rds like Aaron Boone who's only job seems to be screaming at clouds.

Shapiro may actually be the next commissioner after Manfred.

No doubt. it HAS to be a part of his arsenal to help keep the defense from shifting into his more prominent ground ball zones, especially against LHP

disgusting. I suppose the plan to face a guy with this kind of stuff on this day is just to eliminate the outer half of the plate and hope you don't miss the fastball when you get it.

Glaring omission really when #2 and #3 weren't even league average hitters over the month. he had 92 PA so it can't be that. Kirk being #1 is a no brainer as he was one of the best overall players in MLB in August.

Apparently nobody can hit the curveball tonight so he'd fit rit in

I hope so, tonight might just not be the right night to be seeing if the improvements have stuck. He's going to get his PAs for sure over the next month or he wouldn't be up

Well the 3 hotter hands from all of August are already in the lineup. If you cut the sample size down to the last half of August to get the more recent recency hotness, Straw is sitting at 137 wRC+, behind Sanchez -138, Bateman - 138, Lukes - 141, Kirk - 148, Okamoto - 167 and Springer - 233. That's 6 pretty hot hands right now... and Sanchez. Vlad? 43 Ernie??? 20 Gimenez? 73

Keys also can't hit breaking balls and 2 of William's 3 most used pitches are the sweeper and curve ball. Not really a good matchup for him on any level.

He served his purpose well enough here but yeah... see ya! He'll catch back on somewhere as a depth guy to be abused at some point