Terminator

It's the end of the line boys

If we eat 99% of Vlad's contract they might do it.

Vlad also needs to quit saying "the fans are who they are, they love you when you're good and they boo you when they are bad. My true fans cheer me all the time." Also not helping. He should just take it on the chin and say I don't blame they I would be booing as well. One of the reasons they gave him the deal was to use him as our own marketable star player. Not only is he playing like a toilet, but he is turning a giant fanbase against him on top of it. I can't believe we are at this point in year 1 of 14 of his deal. I was hoping we'd be at this point in year 10. Wasn't going to be surprised if it was Year 7. But year 1?? This might become one of the most PAINFUL contracts in sports history. The sheer length of it makes it potentially worse than Anthony Rendon. Kill me.

I've seen Vlad's quote about teams paying for past performance from others plenty of times before, but it's really outdated now. Front offices aren't looking at a 32 year old's last three seasons and paying him accordingly. They have aging curves, projection systems, Statcast data, injury models, etc. But in any event, this is the classic situation of a stupid person noticing something that he thinks is clever then repeating it because he thinks its an astute observation. Many such cases these days. A woman gets harmlessly hit on by a guy she isn't attracted to and suddenly he's a creep. Someone learns the term "gaslighting" and suddenly every disagreement is psychological manipulation. Someone learns about "boundaries" and suddenly every basic obligation to another person is toxic. Someone watches three videos about narcissism and starts diagnosing everyone who has ever annoyed them with a personality disorder, including their parents who they are now no contact with. It's the same phenomenon every time. Stupid people discover a concept that contains a kernel of truth but lack the judgment or nuance to understand when it actually applies, so they use it to explain everything. Vlad should talk to Jeff Hoffman about media training. Hoff was as hated as anyone in recent memory, and he dealt with some extraordinary bad luck to start the year. But he never blamed bad luck or anything else other than himself, and as such he didn't make his situation worse. And sure enough, by the end of the year his numbers started to normalize and he ended up having a good year.

Makes sense to me because most of the guys in the lineup seem to treat every count like it’s a two-strike count. Whether they’re up 3-0 or down 1-2, that low-and-away slider six inches off the plate is apparently just too irresistible not to flail at.

Thank god. I couldn't take anymore of Lorenzen out there looking like a body builder while he was tubing 92 mph fastballs down the middle of the plate. Might be the worst pitcher I've ever seen don a Jays uni.

Kwan, Arraez and Vlad are the three premier slap hitters in all of baseball. The World Series will be easy to make. Love the depth throughout this mock lineup but also the bench and even AAA would have some good depth too. If they want to go heavy on pitching in FA, they might be able to get away with no Aroz and use Lukes/Barger/Taters/Keys in one corner spot and DH? I'll probably get tarred and feathered for suggesting only Kwan and Arraez is enough to turn this lineup around but I think we will get some strong rebounds from Vlad, Barger, etc. Lean in to the slap hitting!

Yeah if we go 7-2 I think we get in. Even 6-3 gives us a shot. But having watched the 2026 Blue Jays and the state of the lineup/rotation, it's hard to believe that we can rack up that many wins down the stretch. But we shall see.

All Ross Atkins slap-hitter jokes aside, I would take Arraez in a second. It's fun to watch players on your team get hits, and he's the best in MLB at doing that. It's also fun to have quirky players who make it work. Tyler Rogers is that kind of player and he's been a blast to watch this year. I don't trust Arraez to remain a Gold Glove 2B moving forward, but it's clear something has changed here. I think you can expect him to at least be competent there, with a chance to remain above average for the next 2–3 years. And what's he really going to cost after signing a one-year deal last offseason? 3/$50M? 4/$65M? Who gives a crap, that's chump change in today's MLB. Sign me up.

Must win game and this time I mean it

No but both of them winning has less of an effect combined than just the White Sox winning.

There are three games that have WC implications tonight: White Sox, Astros and Rangers are all playing. The Guardians and Orioles are off and so are we. If the Astros or Rangers win it doesn't effect our odds that much. Less than a percentage point in either direction. But the outcome of the ChiSox game produces about a 4.5 point swing. If they win, our playoff chances drop 2 points, if they lose we jump 2.5 points. So no surprise but that's the biggest game on tonight's schedule.

https://thatsball.baby/jays/maybe/ Fun tool to map out the various scenarios. We currently have a 19% chance to make the playoffs. If we go: 7-2: 86% chance to make the playoffs 6-3: 56% 5-4: 20% 4-5: 2.5%

Ross Atkins dreams of the chance to acquire the king of all slap hitters. He'll be a Blue Jay.

This is small in the grand scheme of things but I think if there is a 3-way tie we would be in. Say we all end up with 83 wins: White Sox hold the tiebreaker over the Guardians for the AL Central That kicks the Guardians down to the WC race, where we come out on top with the tiebreaker So the White Sox don't hold the tiebreaker over us but there is one scenario where we still make the playoffs if tied with them.

Tigers are sneaky good. Their bullpen sucks but 1-6 in their lineup is very good and they have real starters taking a turn through the rotation each time (no small feat by this point of the year). We need them to hang some losses on the White Sox. Royals and Rockies suck but they will be trying their hardest. Royals are a division rival and the Rockies will be trying like heck to avoid 100 losses for the 4th straight season.

Need the Red Sox to wear out the Rangers' bullpen tonight and tomorrow night before the series starts on Friday. We get an off day tomorrow so hopefully that helps.

The season is back on boys!

The math says cheer for the White Sox but my gut says it may not be a bad thing if they lose again. They are in a free fall and it seems possible that they might go something like 3-7 down the stretch. Regardless, win today and we will be either 1.5 back or a game back of the WC with 9 to go. But winning today with Max on the hill will be no small feat.

Had to him with a Spanky classic for this one

Must win game and this time I mean it

Don't Don't worry though, we will probably play the sorry ass Astros so we should be able to dust them off even with the old man on the hill

Max Scherzer is our G1 playoff starter lmao

Well we are 11-8 since the Yankee series. Good enough for a .579 win percentage and a 94-win pace.

Well they've basically been running a 2-man rotation and I'm amazed at how well it has been working. This is largely due to the "braintrust" coming up with plans that the bullpen has mostly executed. They tried to split the baby last night by saving relievers for today's bullpen game while also locking down the win last night but it blew up in their face. Was it the worst decision in the world to use Mantiply against two lefties last night? Maybe but he has had a good year and in his past 4 appearances he had gone 5.2 innings while giving up just 1 hit. Mantiply needed to get one of those lefties out but couldn't do it. Unfortunately Varland wasn't very sharp either.