John_Havok

That was his happy " murder the baseball " zone. No problem with swing at all, he just didn't get it that time.

Fighting the curveball a bit but the change-up is working nicely. Need Ryu to show up today

Even Adam Wainright was well on his way, putting up some monster seasons before falling directly off a cliff. I think what it shows is truly how much more difficult it is in today's game to be that good for that long. The gaps between the HOF and the replacement level guys is a lot closer now than it was even 30 years ago, let alone 50 or 100 years ago when the talent pool was more like a puddle.

Damn but it would be sexy to see Buxton in CF for the Jays....

Edited to include the rest of my ramblings

Ohtani is 2.7 fWAR from pitching right now, 4.6 from hitting. Vlad at 6.5 fWAR, obviously all from hitting. so 7.3 to 6.5 for now. Vlad beats Ohtani in all offensive categories that really matter, though of course HRs are quite close and will likely finish very close. If Ohtani is indeed shut down from pitching for the rest of the year (and ffs if he's got elbow soreness, yes shut him down without a second thought, why risk it in meaningless games?) their value at the end of the season overall will likely be extremely close, close enough that voters will be left with essentially only 1 consideration... is Vlad being a superior hitter enough to overcome the pitching/hitting unicorn narrative? The only way I see Vlad winning is if he goes full beast mode to finish the season, gets the triple crown, Jays get in the Wildcard, and Ohtani shits the bed hard with the bat. The unicorn factor will be too hard to ignore otherwise. Side note, Vlad might not just win the triple crown in the AL , but all of baseball if he beats Marte in batting average. All the HR and RBI leaders are AL guys so he could be triple crown of the entire league, not just the AL. Only 5 players have ever done that, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Lou Gehrig. That would be pretty unicorn-ish also

Well sure, moving up from obscurity to "maybe kind of worth keeping the corner of the eye on"

Yeah for sure. Would be a dubious honour to have the MVP and the Cy Young and not at least make a deep playoff run.

I really think Vlad needs that meaningless triple Crown to take it from Ohtani. Ohtani's true value in allowing an extra roster spot to be filled cannot be understated, not to mention he's really really good at baseball.

I've no doubt that the FO is in constant contact with Charlie and have the conversations they need to have regarding some moves that he's made in games and get his thoughts on why he went one way vs another. There's no doubt the players love the guy, how could you not like a bongo playing manager? I admit I'm not his biggest fan when it comes to in-game moves with the bullpen and when he pulls starters, but ... as long as he can defend his decisions to the satisfaction of the FO, or make corrections in the future, then he's not the anchor tying the team down that many think. Yes, if i had to make a choice today on whether I would prefer Montoyo to be the manager next year I would likely say no, but big picture he's not that bad.

It's not the offense from Semien that realistically needs to be replaced, there's enough of that on the Jays roster even without him. Yes, you always want to add more runs if you can, that's never the wrong thing to do, but replacing his defense is key. It really is the one issue with the Jays as a team, their team defense is ... not where you would want it to be. Yeah, they can outscore anyone, but counting on those offensive outbursts in the playoffs is more risky given that you're mostly facing top end pitching and top end pen arms for the vast majority of your PAs. Doesn't matter how great your hitters are if a pitcher is dealing and you definitely don't want to give the opposition free baserunners and runs due to mistakes in the field. Semien right now is the only full-time player aside from catchers where the Jays can be truly confident in his defense, maybe Grichuk as well.

Might be a lot of vote splitting with Semien though. So many writers look at the MVP as "most valuable to his team" and will see Semien doing what he does, Teo doing what he does, Bo, Springer etc, and the pretty decent rotation the Jays have and arrive at the conclusion that Vlad isn't the most valuable Blue Jay. It doesn't make sense to me, but then again I'm not 90 and 40 years removed from covering the sport.

Follow up: Whichever Mod locked the HR jacket thread... kindly eat a bag of dicks.

Youre right, SSS weird things can happen. and as established earlier, we know xBA doesnt take hit direction into account. It's a limitation of the stat so we dont take it so seriously that we automatically assume things, it just gives us reason to look deeper. Can't recall but someone else said something about hitters knowing what field they can hit it to... yeah, true to a point, but those fields are pretty wide and also the defense is capable of moving before the pitch, so even then taking hit direction into account would still be limiting. xBA is a general stat that is generally useful and somewhat limited. In fact, looking at that 4 AB sample size, it pretty much worked perfectly. With the xBA, if he hit 100 of those balls with the same EV and launch angle, he'd have 75-80 hits most likely. Since it was 4 ABs, 3 out of 4 would likely be hits... which is precisely what happened.

Doubtful unless he gets those walks under control.

He meant the last series when the ump sucked Gardners balls and gifted him a few extra pitches instead of calling strike 3, allowing the Yankees to win and now they’re on a roll.

Slow down poncho, Dunedin is low A now and he is 22. Love the results, but let’s not get all “top 100” crazy yet. He’s also walking more than 6 per 9 innings so far.

If the Jays go to arbitration with Guerrero it would be a colossal mistake. Lock him up for 8 years and get it done with. You’re correct though that the CBA and how it turns out in the off-season will be extremely impacting. It’s not just Vlad though, Biggio, Jansen, Teoscar, Berrios, Cimber, Mayza, Stripling….all of them are arbitration eligible in the off-season as well, just in varying stages. Bo doesn’t hit arb 1 until next off-season which is nice. Mayza won’t be expensive, Jansen won’t be either, Cimber will be cheap, stripling probably a bit higher than his 3 million this year. Teoscar will get a bump for sure but he deserves it. Berrios will be interesting as they might try to extend him, Biggio will be cheap but certainly retained. Borucki will be cheap, Thornton will be very cheap or just cut loose.

I don't doubt the general rule either, but Cimber and Mayza both pitched yesterday, so I can understand why he didn't want to go there. I mean he used Richards in an 8 run game the night before (gave up the solo Hr). I just wouldn't have gone to Soria, definitely would have liked to see Richards, Merryweather or Pearson

Would have rather seen Merryweather or Pearson there, but I can't really fault him for using Soria in a 5 run game. Didnt turn out well

Wow, Soria isn;t even getting close to the strike zone. Lets nip this problem in the bud before it gets out of hand. Welp....ah well. still a 3 run lead. Lets see the good arms now please.

I agree. Overall they hit the ball hard, just couldn't find a way to not him them directly at the defense.

Vlad has 2 doubles today with runners on 1st and no RBI. Dude just hits the ball too hard I guess.

Holy s***, a Robbie Ray curveball sighting! That's a rarity these days

It really seems to me, and I honestly have no evidence to support this other than the eye test and looking at our own hitters hot and cold zones... the Rays pitch to the hitter's weaknesses very effectively and really don't deviate from that plan. If the cold zone is away, they throw everything away, away, away, and take their chances that the hitters won't suddenly get good at hitting in their weakest areas. Yeah, they'll be the odd mistake pitch and missed locations, but they don't change unless the hitter's show them they have to. If I were a betting man, I would put a decent amount of money on the Rays having a very good pitch analytics department that digs way deeper than other orgs into pitch sequencing, locations, hot/cold zones in combination with sequencing etc. It would really help explain why it seems like all the nobodies in the world can go there and pitch like they are a front of the rotation starter or top end pen arm.