John_Havok

"He may have been moved from the INF to C due to strong arm and build, before his bat exploded." Or he was moved because he couldn't catch a grounder and his range was ass. Hard to say really but even when he was signed at 16 he was already being converted to catcher.

Start calling it the "PETA Sucks Pen"

Where does the term bullpen in baseball come from? Latecomers to ball games in the late 19th century were cordoned off into standing-room areas in foul territory. Because the fans were herded like cattle, this area became known as the "bullpen", a designation which was later transferred over to the relief pitchers who warmed up there. And now you know.

But just to add to the casual fan head explosion experience when they do both leave… Semien and Ray just won a couple of Players Choice awards, Semien won the Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award given to a player who inspires others to higher levels of achievement (beating Andrew Miller and Max Scherzer) and Ray won the AL Outstanding Pitcher over Lance Lynn and Gerrit Cole.

Interesting. Bob Melvin is going to the Padres to be their manager, even though Oakland had picked up his 2022 team option. Padres then signed him to a 3 year deal, and no compensation going back to the Athletics. Weird that Oakland would allow the Padres to interview, and then hire him in a lateral move and not get compensation when he’s under contract isn’t it?

91 was the real season results. Run differential and many other systems would show the Jays should have won 99ish games. Improper pen usage, some bad bounces, inexperienced kids in tight games …whatever narratives people want to spin to explain the 91 wins vs the 99…. One could say losing Semien (6.6 fWar) and Ray (4 fWar) would drop the Jays to being around 88 wins assuming all other contributions remain similar. So you don’t need to add 13-14 wins to get to 91, not even sure where you got the idea those guys were responsible for 14 wins. There’s tons of room to recreate those guys in the aggregate. Couple of solid pen arms, Montoyo not being a brain dead idiot, Jansen hitting like he can see the ball again rather than waving at butterflies, Ryu remembering the goal of his job is to miss bats, Manoah starting a full season, Pearson doing something for more than 10 games….add a decent starter, grab a decent bat, some defensive depth and the Jays would be in the 95ish win projections and could easily surpass 100 wins. Losing Semien and Ray is not some deathblow to the team that puts them in the mid 70s win expectations. Give your head a shake.

Agree with everything here, and right now the catching situation is the Jays position of depth. I can easily see them dangling Kirk or Jansen as trade bait, running with the other guy as the main with (insert random backup here) until Moreno is ready. It's probably not at the point where they need to do something imminently, but if Moreno keeps going the way he is going... unless a position change happens with him, one of them will have to go.

This is gonna be a good meme for a while.

Cromulent? Damn. Did you get a “word of the day” case of tall boys recently?

Very different scenarios there, Bautista was a free agent coming off a monster year out of relative obscurity. What interesting to me about the whole Bautista thing... when pittsburgh put him on waivers and the Jays got the claim, the deal almost fell apart because the Pirates wanted Brian Jeroloman, and the Jays said no. Luckily the Jays had Robinson Diaz as a backup offer the Pirates took.

Nice to see. Game was a real pitcher's duel too, ending up 16-15.

It's beyond disgusting how he got those guys to sign for such amazingly team friendly deals. The best part for the Braves is that as time goes on, the deals get even better due to salary inflations. Can't even really apply the "if he get's injured" caveat, that's how gross these deals are for the players and how amazing they are for the team.

The CBA negotiations will be far more impacting than this sideshow.

I know... it's so hard not to let loose on such low hanging fruit.

Sad that it always gets to that point before they can agree on things isn't it?

Oh it's real. While out as chair of the company, he remained as chair of the family trust that has voting control over the company his father, Ted, founded. And he used his seat atop the trust to call a board meeting on Sunday with his hand-picked directors, a meeting at which he says he was reinstated. So he gets voted out, then calls a secret meeting that has nobody in it except his own backers, takes a vote and says he is back in as Chairman. But honestly, the scariest part of this whole thing is this: The bizarre power struggle comes as the company is in the midst of trying to finalize the $26 billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc. If Rogers and Shaw merge.... that's dangerously close to a monopoly in a lot of the country. Sure... there's still Telus in the west, Bell in the east, but it's getting closer and closer to something that is no good for the consumer.

Yesterday he declared himself back in as the Chairman. What a goof. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-chairman-board-takeover-1.6223557

Fans don't care about a work stoppage in baseball from December to March and free agent signings slow down. They care if games are lost as a result.

No, but he can still live the DR and join US based travel teams for showcases and events. Pretty sure that’s what Manuel did. And yes, they get money sooner from IFA, but a ton of that coin goes to the guy who runs his camp. It’s pretty disgusting how much those guys take of the kids bonuses.

I thought the same thing. 9 million per for Gray would be cheap IMO. I was thinking anywhere from 12-15. Same with Matz. There might be a lot of guys out this year looking for pillow deals if guys like Matz and Gray are only expected to land around 9m per over 4 years.

I know the number I’ve been quoting it for the last pages of this thread

Maybe, but it could also go down. The QO is just the average salary of the games top 125 players from the previous season.

Beltre’s family you mean.

Well the Jays are going to make their decision based on more factors other than just what Matz is worth. They'll be having conversations with his agent to try and find out what Matz is leaning towards doing. If they get the feeling that he is really leaning towards testing the free agent market because he and his agent feel like his value is at it's greatest right now, then it's a pretty easy decision to start with the 1 qualifying offer to ensure that if he doesn't sign here, the Jays will get a compensatory draft pick back. That comp pick has a pretty good chunk of value attached to it on it's own. Second, offering the QO doesn't eliminate the chances of also offering a multiyear deal later if his market isn't what he thought it was. But at that point, maybe Matz and his agent feel like 1 year at 18.4, would be better than 2 at 23 or 2 at 24 + an option. It that happens, sure, it's an AAV overpay, but it's only a 1 year deal with almost 0 downside. Signing him at 1 year 18.4 vs 2 at 24 is a 6 million difference in AAV but only for 1 year, so its not like that 6 million is going to hamstring them for years to come. The QO is just the Jays safety net to get the comp pick if he goes elsewhere. That pick isn't just about getting a pick either, it makes the Jays signing bonus pool go up which gives more flexibility to go over slot on guys they want to go over slot on without penalty. There's lots of potential value in getting additional comp picks when you can get them aside from just getting another minor league player.

Glad it was in jest, because if it wasn't it would a stupid take. And yes, it was 2017, that's 4 years ago. They just didn't announce the results of the investigation until January 2020.