Dick_Pole

Only 2 of the 3 reasons could be seen as troll bait. Jays fans have a legit interest in seeing this team lose for at least 6 of their last 17 games. Plus the Orioles Hangout thread was allowed to continue for 50 pages. The only difference is the Orioles have a fan base which post on another webpage while the Rays' total fan base comprises of a couple of people who post here. And discussing team O/U win totals is a legit topic. The Jays are already at their total of 83. Where are the Rays and their -130 odds of over 77 wins? Not looking too hot right now.

They are 70-75 now. They need to go 7-10 or worse for the rest of the year for this to happen. I'd love to see it because: 1. They are done with the Yankees and play the Jays 6 more times so there is absolutely no reason for them to win another game this year. 2. The Rays suck, and the people on here who supposedly support that condemned team mostly to rustle the jimmies of other posters on here need to be made aware of this. 3. I remember in a thread earlier this year about win totals, TwistedLogic absolutely took it up the ass from several posters on here because he had some sort of a "gut feel" that a Rays under bet was a good one, when the stat heads clearly argued otherwise (and the poor return on the over bet relative to under was an indication the public felt that way too). I would find TL's long-winded, drawn-out rubbing of egg on the face of those individuals if he turned out to be right to be a source of entertainment on this board. Hope he put some money where his mouth is because I recall the under 77 wins bet was +110 or something which is about the best odds you'll ever get betting on O/U season wins.

...except that Price was traded within the same league so all his stats are under consideration for 2015.

2003....now that was an interesting season...Delgado and Halladay rake and the Jays had nothing to show for it...and people complain about the depth of the Jays and tendency to give PA's to replacement level players under AA's tenure. We saw what happened the year after that.

Players getting traded are at a disadvantage if they are traded mid-season to another league. As a whole you might be the best player, but breaking it down by each league you don't stand a chance. Mark McGwire's 1997 season is the first one that comes to mind. He wouldn't have won MVP in either league that year, but would have been a reasonable top 5 candidate in either league had he spent the full year in either. Sutcliffe was actually kind of lucky because his suckage to start the season all came in the AL and voters deemed his final 2/3 season in the NL to be good enough.

Good for him if he gets it. You can't keep all your front office talent with phony titles and promotions.

Price should just no-hit the Yankees then this discussion is over.

So what you're saying is you're actually John Gibbons' account?

You guys are so spoiled nowadays with your fangraphs playoff probabilities calculating 99%+ playoff odds weeks in advance of mathematical elimination. Back in the days before computers, we had to rely on the math skills of sportswriters which is pretty much limited to Team A Wins + Team B Losses +1. Thus, the magic number was invented and beloved by all baseball fans of winning teams.

This one too. We need the Orioles thread back so we can open up this old wound for them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K45FDlsIIE4

Record since All-Star Break: Yankees 30-24 Astros 28-24 Rangers 33-21 If they are the worst team of the three, they certainly haven't been playing like it in the second half. Oh and since the ASB: Jays 37-15

Dunno what to say man....you've been deprived of winning sports teams your whole life I guess. The magic number has always been huge in sports, especially in the MLB because of the difficulty of making the playoffs and the amount of games there is to be played. The Blue Jays' playoff spot has been solidified for a couple of weeks now, but not one player is celebrating. When/if that magic number against the Yankees hits 0 and the Jays' clinch the division, then you will see stuff like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_(sports) For instance the magic number against Cleveland is 10 until it's mathematically impossible for them to catch the Jays in the standings. They have 71 losses. If the Jays don't win another game they'd finish 82-80. If Cleveland loses 10 the best possible record they can have is 81-81. Similarly if the Jays won 5 more games the worst they can do is 87-75. If Cleveland loses 5 more the best they can do is 86-76. 5+5=10=magic number Pretty sad that anyone under 30 would have no familiarity with this term in the Toronto sports world. When I was a kid in the early 90's, the magic number was our version of BABIP or FIP. It ALWAYS came up every year starting in early September

The combined number of Jays wins and opponent losses need to clinch finishing ahead of them in the standings: Cleveland - 10 LA - 11 Minnesota - 13 Texas - 14 Houston - 15 NY - 17 KC* - 22 * Jays only need to tie KC to claim #1 seed since they own the tiebreaker. Go Jays! Even though it's pretty much a foregone conclusion, it'll still be pretty sweet to finally see "x-Toronto" in the standings after two decades. Minnesota is currently the team to beat.

WTH are people thinking? The Yankees are the oldest, beat up recently and have the worst top 3-4 rotation of those three choices. Oh, and the Jays have used Yankee Stadium as a launching pad all year: 8-2. They are undoubtedly the team out of those three you'd want to face. Angels and Twins are the obvious preference but for now they are on the outside looking in.

This sounds like BS, or an extremely condensed version of what Shapiro actually said. AA will be kept - I mean ok, he is working in his home country...but he is a free agent. "We came to an agreement to extend is contract" would be the right way to say this, not unilaterally stating he will be kept as if he has a contract to be fired from otherwise. Regarding Dickey - if AA is to be kept, should that not be his decision to pick up the option? Although this looks like an obvious statement with how he's pitched recently. Regarding Price - Good news, hope it's not a rash decision/platitude by the new guy to try to placate the fans.

They have more opportunity to catch us, not necessarily a better chance. Most likely the 6 remaining games get split 3-3. There was a time when people said the Royals had the easiest schedule of the three teams. They've been s***ing bricks recently with those supposedly winnable games and now play 16 of their last 22 on the road. In Detroit and at home to Seattle are the Royals' only two easy match-ups remaining. But yeah, I'll feel a lot better after this series against the Yankees is over.

Jays are 3 back of the Royals (with tiebreaker advantage) and 2.5 up on the Yankees. So they essentially have the same chance of taking over the Royals for #1 seed as they do to losing the division to the Yankees

5-4 in those 9 games. If that's what's considered struggling then I am happy with it.

He has a point. If you wait 40 years, you might get 10x your money back in an eBay auction! http://www.ebay.com/itm/1975-World-Series-Ticket-/400989006061?hash=item5d5ccea8ed

There's way worse names than that.

Bautista is the better hitter when looking at offensive WAR and considering that he's had far fewer plate appearances in a Jays uniform. There's a chance he will pass Delgado for #1 on the list by the end of next year with ~1,300 less plate appearances. The only way I can see Delgado being considered better: 1. The question is posed as who is the best hitter, regardless of position. So the negative positional adjustments applied to first basemen versus right fielders when calculating WAR should be excluded. Bautista would benefit from superior baserunning which would also need to be excluded. 2. Delgado performed in the steroids era with high league wide offense. Therefore it was more difficult for him to achieve an elite level of offense versus the league average compared to Bautista's output versus league average. If Delgado was transplanted to 2010, would his numbers still be the same, and thus things like wRC and oWAR be higher? He was never implicated in any steroids witch hunt so he has that in his favour, but this point is still too speculative to say for sure. Delgado's counting stats like HR and RBI are still significantly higher than Bautista's as well as most of the rate stats. 3. Delgado mashed for a long time while Bautista wasted most of his 20's being a marginal player. Bautista has achieved almost as much oWAR as Delgado in far fewer PAs, but the fact that Delgado has so many PAs in a Jays uniform in the first place speaks to his longevity of being a useful player. Bautista would have to hit at this level until age 40 to make up for his lost youth. 4. Delgado put up some useful years in other uniforms while Bautista's career outside of Toronto has been marginal. But then this goes back to considering players like Molitor, Thomas, Henderson etc.

This should settle things: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/TOR/leaders_bat.shtml Offensive WAR Rank Player Offensive WAR PA 1. Carlos Delgado 39.1 6018 2. Jose Bautista 34.2 3957 3. Tony Fernandez 33.1 5900 4. Vernon Wells 30.0 5963 5. Roberto Alomar 25.1 3105 6. Lloyd Moseby 23.7 5799 7. George Bell 22.2 4883 8. Edwin Encarnacion 22.0 3399 9. John Olerud 19.5 3689 10. Fred McGriff 18.3 2322 Bautista has about two-thirds of the plate appearances as Delgado, so an argument could be made that he's already #1.

Oh yes, I'm certainly not looking past it...but the last thread in the same vein about catching the Yankees had to have its role reversed two weeks after it was made What I'm optimistic about is that KC plays Cleveland 7 times and they have been sneaky good. They helped big time against the Yankees while just bad enough against the Jays to lose 2 of 3. But the other posters have a point...if the Jays are successful in catching the Royals, that pretty much implies they took the AL East unless there was a 10 game losing streak or something on their part.

Thanks to the Royals' implosion against the White Sox at home, the Jays find themselves within striking distance of first place overall and home advantage through the playoffs. 4 games back with 26 left. The Jays won the season series so they only need to tie them to take first seed in the AL. First priority is taking care of the Yankees but we can always dream big.