Dick_Pole

I've been warned before not to engage in serious conversation with you but: 1. If you want to mention Baltimore's "half the crowd" status, you might want to dive a bit deeper like size of the city, economic status and location of the nearest competitor (Nationals) as mitigating factors. 2. Chris Davis and Adam Jones are easily EE and JB comparables in terms of fan affection.

I don't really follow you. The Yankees aren't going to be that good next year. They are still transitioning and are likely a 78-85 win team in 2017. The Indians and Tigers aren't in the A.L. East (if we're talking about A.L. opponents, Texas and Houston are equally as big threats) and the Tigers are on the decline.

My random thoughts after skimming through some comments in this thread: If the Jays don't sign JB or EE and do nothing to replace them, the fan base will be pissed off. If the Jays drop those guys and do something smart to replace them, the fan base will be just fine. Just look at 1992 to 1993 as an example. Key, Henke and Winfield were out, all extremely popular players and big contributors to the team. Morris and Molitor in, and internal replacements for Henke fixed that all up. The team being "oldest in the league" is a myth. Three contributors averaging 40 on the pitching staff whose contributions are small in the grand scheme of things. Two will be unlikely to return. The Jays pitching staff should be the envy in the league in terms of young and/or controllable talent in key positions. The star hitter is a late bloomer who is still around for two more years and likely nets a fortune in prospects should the team choose to go that route. Tulowitzki and Martin are the only two locks over 30 who will be here more than one year. So the Jays can get young really, really fast. I think this team can compete next year and several years after with some smart moves. If you look around the AL, what teams are in a better spot than the Jays in the next 3-5 years? That's considering controllable talent in the MLB, minor league rankings and expected payroll flexibility. Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers, Astros, maybe the Indians. That places the Jays right in the mix. The biggest obstacle to contention is the fact that two of the good teams are in the Jays' division playing them 38 times combined. So we have to hope that the O's and Rays equally self-destruct to offset that.

Extent*

After thinking about this for a while, I'm pretty indifferent. Boston has the slightly better team, but I think the Jays match up better in Fenway than Progressive.

Hey guys, The Jays are -183 favs tomorrow in an elimination game with the ace (one of them) going out at home against a Texas shitballer after the offense just creamed their 2 best pitchers. Maybe tomorrow the Jays can focus on just getting outs with the bullpen instead of worrying about a LOOGY. If the Jays have one problem tomorrow the Rangers have 10.

Guys, we don't need to debate about this here. There are financial reports that Rogers must publicly disclose. Of course they don't have to disclose every little detail, but they have disclosed enough: http://netstorage-ion.rogers.com/downloads/IR/pdf/quarterly-results/Rogers-2016-Q2-Results-Release.pdf Higher revenue Consolidated revenue increased 2% this quarter, reflecting revenue growth of 1% in Wireless, 6% in Media, and 3% in Business Solutions, with stable revenue in Cable. Wireless service revenue increased by 5% primarily as a result of a larger subscriber base and the continued adoption of higher-postpaid-ARPA-generating Rogers Share Everything plans. Cable revenue was stable as continued double-digit Internet revenue growth of 15% fully offset the ongoing decline in Television and Phone revenue. We continue to see an ongoing shift in product mix to higher margin Internet services. Media revenue increased primarily due to the continued success of our sports-related assets, mainly from the Toronto Blue Jays and the strength of Sportsnet, partially offset by lower advertising revenue in conventional broadcast television, publishing, and radio. So without the Blue Jays, Rogers would be s***ing the bed. Keep in mind these numbers cover April-June quarter. Q3 numbers ending September should be out in a couple of weeks. More details: Revenue The 6% increase in revenue this quarter and 2% increase year to date were a result of:  higher sports-related revenue, driven by the strength of Sportsnet and success of the Toronto Blue Jays; partially offset by  lower advertising revenues across radio, publishing, and broadcast TV. Operating expenses The 7% increase in operating expenses this quarter and 3% increase year to date were a result of:  higher sports-related costs; partially offset by  lower conventional broadcast TV and radio costs, partly due to cost savings from previously announced job cuts. Rogers is spending more on "sports-related" costs. Some of that could be payroll, otherwise it could be from the bad NHL deal that other people have already mentioned. Unfortunately we don't have that level of detail, but at least this time around we know the Jays aren't funding Rogers' bad magazine business. I like the wording in the revenue versus expense section where in the revenue section they specifically attribute the rise of sports-related revenue to Sportsnet and the Jays, but on the cost side they don't wish to disclose the exact cause.

As long as they keep on the juice (booze, not PEDs), I'm sure these professional athletes will know that they have to go in for the kill Sunday evening.

Was that a superstition or was that him starting as early as possible to ensure that nobody usurps the GDT in the morning and f***s things up?

I cheer for whatever team matches up the best for the Jays. The Giants are clearly the worst team of the four except they have one secret weapon. Hopefully they ride Bumgarner for 4-5 more starts to get to the series, he's tired, and we roll the dice on the Jays lefty-mashers. Bonus: I just love hearing about even-years so much Bonus #2: Haha, Cubs. 108 years and counting Bonus #3: The possibility of the Jays being able to ruin the Giants' even-year media hype streak.

After the first game in Boston. It seems like an eternity ago. Amazing how things can change, especially after ringing off 5 straight wins. Yes I know this random thought is completely thread-worthy. Let's hope there's no change in how we feel exactly one week from today.

Carrera and Pillar hit a home run each, Donaldson goes for the bunt single....opposites day

In two ways. One mocking and one complimentary

Vladimir Guerrero Jr's been bringing his dad around.

Auto-ban

I think it is fine the way it is. Default goes to the call on the field unless there is conclusive evidence otherwise. The umpire still has the best angle (at least when it comes to base path decisions) even if it's with human eyes. Ugh. Maybe I have too much faith in humanity, but I'm more confident that maybe, just maybe, umpires will base their decisions to uphold the integrity of MLB. You know, their employer and the major league of the sport that they love so much that they decided to make a career out of trying their best to uphold that integrity. And not just to make their buddies on the field look good, when it is a commonly held understanding that judging plays with human eyes is incredibly difficult. There's no shame in being wrong and having a call overturned every once in a while.

Should have gotten his ass kicked regardless. Can't believe they haven't found him yet.

I guess I can understand some reasoning for this, if it's more than just trying to protect the young starters. Sanchez and Stroman at home against two Texas shitballers makes the Jays the heavy favourites to win those games. Any of the four guys in that situation would, but with those two, the probabilities are the highest. Assuming that they win those games as planned, then all the Jays have to do is squeak by in one game out of three in Texas.

I want the Giants to win so we can hear about their "even years" for as long as possible.

Nice selfie.

I was posting that in the context of the argument that Texas was bad against bad teams and good against good teams. They beat up Houston and Seattle real good. Slightly over .500 against the rest of the over .500 teams. But while we are on this discussion, we have to consider that this is a Jays team without Goins and Dickey, who were both substantial features of this squad earlier in the year. No key injuries (Osuna knock on wood), got rid of Storen, brought in Liriano. So if the Rangers are bringing their best possible roster forward, vastly improved since these two teams last met, so are the Jays.

Yesterday doesn't mean much. The team had to get through the Orioles first.

Understand your point but I disagree this time around. That deep starting rotation is going to be a huge boost to the BP. It already paid off huge just last night. That depth also guarantees Dickey won't even see the ball. It also means anyone outside of Osuna (knock on wood), Biagini, Cecil and Grilli won't see the ball unless it's garbage time in a blowout or a 14 inning game.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/head2head.cgi?teams=TEX&from=2016&to=2016&submit=Submit So we can stop talking about Texas dominating who and what. They dominated Houston and to a lesser extent Seattle and that's about it. 5-2 against Cleveland as well but 7 games is not a lot to go on.