John_Havok

Looks like White and Richards are the only guys with 0 options of any consequence and both can make the team as one of the 8 pen arms.

Probably a bit of one, but not massive. They got better defensively, made the money work and maybe take a slight hit on the powerplay which they can easily afford. Ekholm is a good get for them.

Not much else for them to do really. Kane is back in a week or so and they really dont have issues with any forwards, this is probably their only move unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat that nobody sees coming. For next season: they get Sekera and Lucic's retained/dead money off the books next season, so that frees up 2.25 million. 3.35 million more from 3 bottom 6 UFAs ... doesnt help them this season of course.

Probably the exact percentage needed to make the cap work for the Oilers.

What scenario would have to happen to see Tiedemann break camp with the Jays though? Top 4 are as written in stone as it gets, and if Kikuchi has a spring that is even close to his first outing, he's the #5. Then Ryu comes back late in the season... no way he pitches out of the pen... there would have to be at least 1 long term injury to the starting 5, or kikuchi would have to lay a giant egg for the rest of ST for them to even consider using Tiedemann out of the gate, especially with him being good for about 130ish innings for the entire season.

The trade Oilers get: Defenseman Mattias Ekholm (4 percent of salary retained by the Predators), 2024 sixth-round pick Predators get: Defenseman Tyson Barrie, forward Reid Schaefer, 2023 first-round pick, 2024 fourth-round pick

Aim higher. a left handed Jose Fernandez.

Hard to say. There are some who chalk it up to being horribly mishandled in his development by the previous regime which .. is kind of hard to argue with. Season 1 - They put him right on roster at 18 years old, he played 28 games (scored 1 goal) and was a healthy scratch for 12 when they finaly sent him down to the AHL to finish out the year, where he scored 12 goals and 28 points in 39 games. Season 2 - started in the AHL for just 10 games, scored 1 goal, 4 assists, and they recalled him. he played 60 games with Edmonton scoring 12 goals and 8 assists. 19 years old. Season 3 - started on the 3rd line with edmonton, sucked, got healthy scratched for a few games then sent down. Cored 4 points in 4 games and they recalls him yet again ( will point out there was a coach firing at this time, McLelland was let go and Hitchcock came in). He scored 8 points in the remainig 35 games, and was getting like 10 minutes of ice time per night. 20 years old. Hard to argue with the mishandling narrative. They never let him develop in the AHL and only played him on average of 12 minutes a night at the NHL level from ages 18-20. They healthy scratched their #4 overall pick for 12 games in his rookie season rather than send him to the AHL to play consistent minutes.

OIlers cleared some cap space by trading Puljujarvi for prospect Patrik Puistola from Carolina. Puistola is playing in the Finnish pro league so a good move my Edmonton to get some wiggle room for the looming deadline.

I imagine we'll see a lot of the minor league lefties this spring. Either someone steps up and earns that second lefty role or Atkins will have to go shopping. Fry has looked like hot garbage so far.

I was thinking about this the other day, I think the Jays will likely start him in the minors and bring him up at some point where he could get 10+ starts down the stretch. He could be the next Jose Fernandez - hopefully without the poor judgement on drinking and boating

I’d like to see some more swing and miss if he wants to be a high leverage guy, right now I can see a bulk role at best. Ground ball machine though which is good if can’t get guys to whiff

Stop watching then. Baseball won’t miss you. The only way to show your dissatisfaction with MLB is to stop watching. They don’t care about random bitching on Facebook, Twitter or message boards.

Can’t believe they left him all alone like that, and great hustle from Kostin to nullify the possible icing.

Good. Break the rules, see the consequences right away so you don’t do it again. f***ing excellent

Okay, but... half a point a game + pest = player return plus 5 draft picks? Still seems like a gigantic overpay unless Tampa has a bunch of picks stockpiled they're just ditching because they can.

Interesting idea... but nope IMO. If it's a balk, it's a balk, if you're not in the box, too bad. Players have an entire season + spring training to get used to this. if they can't get used to a rule having 600+ PAs with it, I have little sympathy for them. Would it suck? absolutely. Just like it sucked the other 23 times in baseball history than ended with a walk-off balk. I think people are just imagining in their heads that this problem is somehow going to be rampant and so many games will be decided like this - when that's extremely unlikely. In the minors last season, when the rules were first used, there were about 4 violations per game. After 2 weeks there was less than 2 violations per game. The number keeps going down the longer the rules are in place. By the time any of this matters in the playoffs, it wont be a concern. People are actually inventing hypothetical rage.

No doubt. Really the only super fair criticism of his offseason is Atkins curious lack of virtually anything in the left handed reliever role. Mayza is far from elite and right now in camp there's nothing but has-been's and minor league invites. But beyond that, he's addressed every single need the Jays had from last season.

This might be my new favorite GIF of all time

Yeah, and all the idiots losing their minds about " a game ending on a batters box violation..." It was Spring trainning and the game was tied, had that been the regular season the game would still go to extra innings. Now, had the violation been on the pitcher... sure the game could have ended. But it could end on a balk already, so... just dont f***ing balk and there's no problem. I swear people just love to rage about the dumbest s*** at any opportunity

Bottom 6 guys are getting a player return plus 5 draft picks including conditional 1sts ? Is there something I'm missing about Jeannot as his numbers look really ... meh.

Agree with this assessment. The stuff was there, the control was not.

Some fun leaderboards from yesterdays game: Interestingly enough, the top 4 exit velo's all resulted in outs, none went for hits. In fact, the jays had 9 exit velos over 100 mph, only 2 went for hits, Vlad's HR and Merrifield's double The Yankees had 11 100 mph+ exit velos, only 2 didn't go for hits. 1 was was double play, the other a lineout.

Here's Pearson's pitch map. Fastballs in red, sliders in yellow, curves in blue. The 101 mph was the one way at the top there that he got Donaldson to wave at.