Dick_Pole

If they win tomorrow, the mediocre 2020 Toronto Blue Jays, undeserving of a playoff spot, will have a winning percentage for the regular season of .550. Good for 7th highest in franchise history and ahead of the even more mediocre 1983, 1984, 1989, 1998, 2006 and 2016 teams.

Nope. And he just aged 40 years from 15 to 55. Skipped the best part of life.

.526 winning percentage converts to 85-86 wins which has a pretty good chance at a wild card spot most years. I mean, the major reason why last year had such a high bar was that the AL had three absurdly bad teams losing well over 100 games. Also, given the remaining three games, 30-27 could easily be 33-27 or 32-28, with the former converting to 89 wins over a full season. A full season that would include a healthy dose of Royals and Tigers match ups.

LOL this is better than any of his hockey takes...

I vaguely remembered some trivia about a catcher in the 70's the Jays had who was a teenager and kicked ass in a couple of games and was never heard of again. Through the magic of Baseball Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/milnebr01.shtml That's probably the high water mark to beat.

What's the point of s***ing on the team? Everyone here knows that beyond Ryu is a black hole on the starting pitching side. Everyone here knows that because of that and several other reasons that the team's chances are slim. Hell with 16 teams in the playoffs, EVERYONE'S chances are slim. The Dodgers have by far the best chance and their fans have a 5/6th chance of being disappointed this year. Do people get off pointing out the obvious that the team is just slightly on the correct side of mediocre and is realistically two years away from serious contention? How about let's all just enjoy the season for what it is and see how it plays out?

The Jays' chance of winning the World Series in 2020 is probably around the same chance of the team missing the playoffs. That should make both sides of this debate equally as happy.

Pretty sure that run differential thing was an Olerud troll and the sensitive bunch fell for it.

When has the FO ever cared about optics? I guess the Osuna trade but that was an extreme case and we can certainly argue for that being a baseball trade. He may have been hired to be rolled under the bus at the right time, but that "right time" is not yet, no matter how this season ends. The Jays weren't expected to be serious contenders at the start of the season, and they might not be if the Angels didn't s*** the bed as much as they did. So missing the 2020 playoffs isn't going to be the tipping point. Which at this point is about a 2-3% chance.

There is no chance the performance for the rest of the year will have any impact. If the FO wants to fire him, they already made that choice. Might as well cheer for the Jays to win every game.

That's a fun game to keep this thread on life support for a while OF - Moseby, Bell, Barfield. That's the easy part. No idea who backed up C - Whitt, Borders? 1B - Hmm guessing Upshaw I think McGriff came in '88 2B - Manny Lee, probably SS - Fernandez 3B - Mulliniks/Iorg DH - Cliff Johnson? SP - Stieb/Clancy/Key/Doyle Alexander maybe/Jeff Musselman, the guy they traded for Mookie Wilson had one good year and I think this is it. RP - Henke/Acker/Eichhorn. Pretty sure Ward came later

Nothing at all like 1987. The sad 8th seed in an expanded playoff format in a year the Jays were expected to be fringe contenders is not nearly a big of a prize as division title heading straight to the ALCS. Also there is a much more recent example of 2016.

A fringe player would be dancing on the moon to earn the league minimum for a week for whatever team will sign him. You want stability? Play better so a team will want to keep you. I know how things work out on the Canadian east coast but us here Ontario folk believe in competition, capitalism and a meritocracy. You don't even wanna know what the Albertans believe in.

As in other words they leveraged their decade of dogshit start into some decent homegrown players eventually. Then every one of those players walked or was shipped out pretty much at the first opportunity except Longoria. Sort of like the Jays, except it took the Rays longer, resulted in no World Series, the Jays kept a lot of their homegrown talent or traded them for equal stars and the Jays packed their stadium. The Rays are no Gillick or Beane-led FO. More like a cheap knockoff that has no lower bounds in order to invent some kind of advantage. I'll take the banging of pots and pans like a two year old from the Astros than what the Rays do any day.

I actually forgot about them. They do have 2 World Championships though in only 5x the length of existence. We'll reconvene in about 100 years to see who had the least successful start.

In Olerud's head in the future.

The only reason I ever liked the A's as my #2 was because of their sweet colour scheme that appealed to my 8 year old eyes. Then the 1989 ALCS happened and now those f***wits can all drop into a canyon for all I care. I like teams that cheat2win. Go Astros.

But yeah. If I was a star pitcher and pulled after 4 innings with an 11-0 lead I'd request a trade out of town so fast. Despite what all the baseball nerds and progressive writers think. W-L records still count for something.

I see Olerud's point. The Rays don't give a s*** about free agents. Glad to see that the blowbang on here with the Rays is finally starting to come to an end. Baseball's worst franchise. Lowest value, lowest attendance, one of the least successful all-time on the field except maybe the Padres and Mariners and is always f***ing around with the game. Put the team somewhere where it can handle a decent payroll. Nashville is calling if not Montreal. If baseball follows the Rays model there will eventually be no high end pitching talent left. Just a bunch of interchangeable scrubs maximized for the situation. The trend was so dire that even Manfred recognized it with his three batter limit rule.

That's not true. Many in the fan base and I'm sure some people in the FO got ulcers from watching Drury. As far as the trades evening out, yes that's the theory behind filling a dartboard with a bunch of random darts. Some will miss, some will hit. The Liriano trade was particularly sweet. That was a trade for today AND tomorrow because the Pirates were being cheap asses. Remember that time when people were far more excited about Reese McGuire? lol

So now you guys are worried about Siakam after the fact. When I said the FO should have waited a year and got crapped on over it because he bitch slapped the Eastern Conference bottom feeders. Ok so they got him for the next few years unless they can pull off the sign and trade for Giannis. Right now his stock is in the gutter. But he can rebuild and there are a few things working in his favour. He's not Marc Gasol. Marc Gasol is Marc Gasol because he's old and slow. Siakam is Gasol because he's young and inexperienced. I don't know him personally but he doesn't seem like a Wiggins type who will phone it in after securing the contract. His s*** performance weighs on him. Toronto has a smart coaching staff who can teach him some new tricks and he will be a willing pupil. I think he'll come back next year as an improved player. As far as the future is concerned, I'm hearing way too much DeRozan chatter. I'm assuming it's mostly very stupid Raptors fans and smarter NBA fans trying to troll the team. If Lowry is insistent on playing with DeRozan, they can both f*** off to the Knicks or something. The most important thing right now is to keep Ujuri right where he is. If he pushes for Giannis now, you know his intent is to stay for the long-term. Even if he fails to ever recruit him to the Raptors, I have enough confidence in his ability to build a winner. Roster a deep team then find a way to score a top end talent.

I bet the under in that game too

Or an attempt to fairly direct criticism. The FO might have their reasons for pulling starters early or resting players. But if they are the ones behind it, Montoyo shouldn't be the scapegoat. By some miracle this patchwork BP of journeymen, Jays non-prospects and rule 5 castoffs has been one of the best. Someone should take credit for that and it's probably a mix between the FO and manager.

100% agreed. It's not like Carter was an outlier, even today. Plenty of examples across sports of legends hanging on too long and their teams s***ing bricks for a while. Pujols, Kobe Bryant, Sedin twins. Only NFL teams dump their guys quickly. Otherwise you have to be Chris Davis level of bad or Tulowitzki level of injured to lose your spot.

Hoping there will be a bunt that leads to a run at a pivotal point in a key game in the playoffs. Just like how fashion comes back in style every few decades, Charlie is going to lead the way back to managing styles of the 80's.