Olerud363

Also sort of funny that Tapia is hitting lead off. Imagine if Schneider did this last year. Gave Springer the day off for elbow rehabilitation (guy could hardly swing last year) and put Tapia leadoff. bahhh... Schneider or probably Charlie probably did and I just don't remember it. What is with Springer come to think of it? Last year he was hitting way better even though he only had one elbow and was in very serious pain after every swing.

Wow! All our great left handed power has returned (Biggio/Belt) and Varsho has been promoted to cleanup. Does the Red Sox pitcher only throw 85 or something? Is Kirk ready to pinch hit when the red sox bring in their first righty reliever?

Like others I'm not really defending Schneider, or maybe I am. I don't know. I think people just have a flawed logic about all this, because it is really easy to see the s***** things that did happen and easy ways to prevent them. Jays had a 99% chance of winning, so the s***** things were all really unlikely. What if Schneider stayed with Gausman for Santana, Santana snuck a ground ball through, then he went to Mayza, there was a blooper and a walk, then Mayza had to face J-Rod, and it was 8-8 just like that. What would people say? That's all really unlikely. Or what if Bradley was put in, but no balls were hit to him, Mariners came back in a different way, but Bradley struck out with a guy on third in a the bottom of the 7th when the Jays just needed contact? Also super-unlikely that such a scenario arises. But the analytics just basically takes in the entire history of baseball, every game played ever, probably runs 1 million billion simulated games in a big AWS server, then they connect the ipad to it and it spits out win expectancies for different moves, and Schneider chooses the best win expectancy (maybe with some wiggle room as a bunch of moves will have similar WE). I'm betting the moves he did make all had similar win expectancies to alternatives. Or do you guys think he made moves that lowered Win Expectancies from like 99% to 95% because they were so bad, and he left the moves that kept the win expectancy as high as possible on the table?

3 batter rule. Analytics probably said, assuming that you had to use Mayza, as one of the relievers to cover those innings that was the spot for him because he faces Santana instead of potentially J-Rod. And in terms of Tapia vs Bradley since there were 2 at bats left the analytics slightly favored Tapia for 2 at bats, then put Bradley in. If the goal was to just minimize the chances of the Mariners scoring 7 more runs Bradley would have been the right decision. If the goal was to minimize the chances of the Mariners scoring 7 more run THAN the Blue Jays score than Tapia, followed by Bradley after Tapia (likely) doesn't have at bats left, was the right decision.

There was some hard contact off him after he was hit on the shin, but I just watched the one inning I missed and there was some bad defense behind him like a pretty routine grounder that Vlad messed up (and they scored a hit?). Espinal also made an error in the 4th or 5th. Defense was awful tonight. Maybe the wet field?

He looked OK until he got hit on the shin with a grounder, than looked awful after that. Two could have been related or maybe not. Red Sox stack the lineup with left handed hitters and may have gotten to him anyway.

? I wasn't trying to explain the joke. Just remembering that Boston held up for about 90 games last year before falling apart and becoming a laughing stock.

I know you are joking but it is hard for the season to be over with the 3 wild cards. Last year Boston was a couple of games ahead of Jays until after Charlie got fired. So even if they get swept by Boston they still won't be any different than the low points last year.

Poor Manoah. John Henry is the author of trend following, and while I am not convinced it works for stocks, at least not what I can do myself with an a single RTX 3900 gaming card and Python I am convinced Henry's 7 rather exciting left handed power hitters will have an excellent plan against Manoah and will likely do some serious damage. While Pivetta is also bad, Biggio and Belt have neither the talent, excitement or preparation that the 7 red sox lefties will. Is Kirk starting? If not at least we have our 5'2" 275 pound right hand pinch ready if a tough righty comes out of the bullpen.

Between the Boston Marathon which I've done several times, a few times I had meetings with clients for biomed stuff, and games at Fenway I've been to Boston 50 times over the last 20 years and had a great experience each time. Admittedly these kind of activities will show you the best of the city, I can only assume Grant must have somehow ended up in a bad part of Boston with the Irish mob and other various un-kempt, un-civilized hooligans and gotten a different impression.

Imagine being a casual fan, who didn't read analytics and watched 10 games a year, but the girlfriend was away and they sat down and watched the last three games. There were by my count 4 game changing homeruns in Sundays game, 4 game changing homeruns in Monday's game, and 2 or 3 last night. There was one failed bunt attempt by one of the grittiest players of all time that led to a lead off double being stranded at 2nd. What fan would ever think bunts should be a thing, and homeruns weren't that important after watching those 3 games. Only 3 games. I guess there are historic games with great bunts that made all the difference that I am just not remembering because of my bias. Even myself, who 5 minutes ago claimed I just didn't care about bunts either way, has now changed my mind and decided to hate them based on what I saw so far this week.

I've never said the former. I think manufacturing runs is pointless, because if you look at the win expectancy it doesn't make much of a difference to ever bunt a guy over and is useless because even the grittiest, gamer, "knows how to it the right way", guys fail to get the bunt down occasionally (like Kiermaier the other night). On the other hand do I want to fire the manager if he bunts to get the win expectancy from 60% to 60%. Not really unless he is bunting 100 times or something. I like homers as long as there is some on base percentage with it. Like not the 250 homer .300 on base percentage Cito teams that would be outscored by 200 runs by the 220 homer .350 on base percentage red sox and yankees teams. Recipe for good offense On base percentage = high homers = high bunts = who cares

If you could magically go back to 2021 and have this team as constructed in 2023 together with their 2021 seasons they would have hit for enough power, though not as much power as the real 2021 team. Or actually maybe they would when healthy because Springer and Belt were great in 2021 with 40+ homer power (but injuries), so if they were all together healthy in September of 2021 it would have been a team with great power. Everyone is 2 years older though, which is good for Varsho/Vlad/Bo and Kirk (or should be as a group) but not good for 4 other starters Springer, Merrifield, Belt, Keirmarier. It would suck if Springer is aging 3 years ahead of Bautista and has arrived at Bautista 2017 level.

Was just talking about that on another thread. It's an overall weird trend for the team for and against. They are being out-homered 42-32. I've seen some weird stats that Spring/Vlad/Chapman have hit together like 15 390+ foot outs, not to mention several long doubles. Where is Cito? Where is Laika (he wrote about this last year). Need to pull these fly balls. Though can't complain about Chapman, whatever he is doing is working. Or do we want Chapman back to .230 with 38 bombs instead of .310 with 25? Cito would prefer the former, but as a trade-off could get Varsho/Kirk/Springer and maybe even Biggio and Belt going. Pull dat ball!

Homeruns for and against AL East TBR 62-19 Baltimore 36-34 Boston 44-42 Yankees 37-31 Toronto 33-42 Theoretically the Jays should not have lost homerun power since last year or even 2021 (though the ball is apparently softer). For example Varsho replaced Teo, Chapman replaced Semien, Belt replaced Gurriel. The group of players has changed a bit, and the scenario where 2 players (Vlad, Semien) hit 93 homers probably won't happen again. However this team should be able to out homer it's opponents 205-175 or something. It is beyond bizarre that this group of big strong guys is getting out-homered 2-1 by TBR. Need Tabler back to tell these guys how strong they are...

A couple of those runs were un-earned weren't they? Plus the team has been out-homered 8-3 I believe. No add-on runs after a big couple of innings.

There is every chance Boston has a good year. Their team has a 4.99 ERA, they have a better run differential than the Blue Jays, all of a sudden they've built a very nice looking well rounded lineup with some young left handed power. The fact their starting pitchers have an ERA of 6.0 is actually a positive indicator, because that will regress, though other aspects of their team might to. There is a chance they destroy Manoah tonight with their left handed power, a good chance, and this place wiil go nuts, but you probably won't even show up if the Sox win 11-2 tonight. I'm not saying they will finish ahead of the Blue Jays this year, but I'm not discounting it. Long term trend is they are good more years than not and are the one rival that builds back quick and takes the Jays playoff spot in years that Jays fans thought were theirs. You've watched baseball for years, how could you not know this? 1988, 1990, 1995, 1998, 2007, 2013, 2016-2018, 2021 All those years Jays had built a good team, or what the fans thought was a good team, and Boston in the end came out on top And before you accuse me being a Boston fan I am not. I live with in driving distance and spent more time in that city than any other big city (even though I'm Canadian), more games at Fenway than any other stadium (again even though I am Canadian) and I respect their organization, their fans, the city greatly. Some of the best people in the world and a great, great organization that should never be discounted. The 2023 Boston Red Sox. Left handed power, excitement, and a possible surprise.

They have Atlanta and NY Mets in the division not to mention Philadelphia who just went to the World Series. They were a wild card 4 games behind the Braves. With the 3 Wild Cards could still see something like that happening in the AL East lol. Baltimore and Tampa Bay could win win 100+ games each, one would be a wild card than Boston or Toronto sneaks in with 85 wins as the last Wild card and gets through with a hot run. That scenario actually happened in the NL East last year.

Sure... However if you look at fans as like a wasp hive mind they are pretty smart even if one by one they seem irrational. Like if Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Boston developed line-ups of half decent left handed hitters that could destroy Manoah, Bassitt, and Berrios, and if the 4-6 guys in the bullpen weren't good enough, and if the Jays weapon against tough righties in was to pinch hit for their lefties with a 5'2" 270 pound right handed hitter... the hive mind might start to pick up on the problems early, even if the team is 18-11.

To make things clearer here are just position and sOPS+ sOPS+ as C 92 as 1B 122 as 2B 58 as 3B 189 as SS 160 as LF 76 as CF 76 as RF 82 as DH 76 Here are my groupings, not all groups have even size 150+ MVP 120-149 All Star 100-119 above average 85-99 mediocre 70-84 sucky 0-70 f*** you

Yeah. Not sure how the formatting will work out, but here is the table from baseball reference. Second base has been horrible but will get better if Merrifield becomes primary 2b. G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB GDP HBP SH SF IBB ROE BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ s C 29 119 103 10 22 2 0 4 17 0 0 16 21 .214 .319 .350 .669 36 0 0 0 0 1 0 .231 81 92 as 1B 29 128 112 19 33 8 0 4 14 0 0 13 22 .295 .375 .473 .848 53 3 2 0 1 0 0 .333 128 122 as 2B 29 116 101 12 19 6 0 0 11 3 2 12 25 .188 .285 .248 .532 25 1 2 0 1 0 0 .247 46 58 as 3B 29 123 108 17 38 14 0 5 21 1 2 14 28 .352 .431 .620 1.051 67 0 1 0 0 1 1 .440 181 189 as SS 29 133 126 20 44 5 0 8 22 1 2 6 19 .349 .384 .579 .963 73 2 1 0 0 0 0 .364 157 160 as LF 29 125 109 11 24 4 0 2 10 5 0 12 25 .220 .304 .312 .616 34 1 2 0 2 0 0 .262 68 76 as CF 29 116 106 13 27 4 2 1 8 3 0 7 29 .255 .313 .359 .672 38 2 2 1 0 0 2 .342 82 76 as RF 29 130 122 17 29 2 0 5 14 4 1 7 27 .238 .285 .377 .662 46 3 1 0 0 0 2 .267 78 82 as DH 29 125 107 15 21 5 0 3 12 4 0 16 36 .196 .312 .327 .639 35 4 2 0 0 0 0 .265 74 76

Wasn't a horrible gamble. So no reason to totally slam the FO for it. The more interesting question is about the future not the past. How do they make sure the DH position isn't a disaster going forward? They are almost 20% of the way through the season. In terms of offense 2 positions are MVP Level (SS and 3b) 1 position is all star level (1B) 1 position is mediocre (catcher) 4 positions are sucky (lf, cf, rf, dh) 1 position is f*** off brutal (2b) Kind of weird that DH is just sucky and not f***-off brutal, I guess Kirk or Springer or someone must have done something as DH. Anyway the problem children are really Belt, Biggio, and Espinal. Well Varsho and Springer are problem children but not really going to do much with them except let them work out of it.

I'm sort of old, but not old enough to have watched Keith Hernandez in his prime, never got to enjoy a great and responsible coke head, lead a bunch of younger coke heads to an all time great season. I'm familiar with Keith mostly through his excellent broadcasting skills on the rival network to the YES network. (though I did watch the 86 Mets documentary and the Keith Hernandez documentary recently. I think Keith's Dad and Whitey Herzog both abused him (at least verbally)).

Hasn't found his power yet, but in a normal year if he hit .300 .380 .480 with gold glove defense that would be like a giant Keith Hernandez. That's good enough. Except Belt and Biggio are on the team, so feels like he needs to hit .350 .450 .650 to make up for them.

Don't worry, if it's a slugfest we have a secret weapon. If we need a slugging lefty to counter a righty relief pitcher in a game changing situation in the slugest we'll just pinch hit Kirk. Check that. Kirk catches Manoah, so we'll pinch hit Jansen instead.