Terminator

If you factor in the costs of the guys we acquired, it wouldn't have been worth it if all we did was take on those contracts and give them nothing in return. The fact that we gave them multiple guys who weren't great, but did contribute at various points, makes the trade even worse.

Where do I turn in my badge

Going to need someone from the high performance team to test John Schneider's testosterone levels STAT Displaying very LOW ENERGY here

lol I tried

The defense is playing some inspired baseball. Wouldn't be surprised if they read the GDT before the game.

Damn he got just under that.

Lol let's ride!

We are winning tonight, we are winning tomorrow and we are going to the playoffs. The World Series will be easy to make.

Jays Lineup: Rangers Lineup:

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. -Batman" -The Sheriff Look folks, I know a lot of you guys hate me. Maybe deservedly so. But I know that deep down you all respect me. And that's because decades ago I took it upon myself to grab a badge and proclaim myself the Sheriff of BJMB. Some of you fought it and some of you still do. But someone around here has to do it and I took it upon myself to lead this fandom through thick and thin. It hasn't been easy. I was here for the 20 year playoff drought. I led the charge to fight back against real life celebrity Roy Firestone and his hordes of Orioles trolls (truly sick people). I started the Raimel Tilapia fan club. The Biggio Fanboys, the Jansen Fanboys, the future superstar Nick Frasso Fanboys and even the Greg Bird Fanboys have all tried to take me down. I may have even have been mortally wounded by the Bellinger Fanboys (you guys got lucky as hell on that one). Some say I've lost a few mph off of my fastball. Maybe I have. But in the words of The Batman/The Sheriff, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain and I'm going out as a hero. So with that said, I'd like to announce that this season will be The Sheriff's Last Ride™. That's right, I'll still be around but I'll be hanging up my badge. My guess is that when Biggio gets a new thread every other day or some Quad-A veteran hits a couple of homers in Spring Training some of you will actually miss me more than you'll admit. But I can read the room and the act is getting a bit villainous so it'll be up to the next generation to carry on that fight. So grab your hats boys. Load your six shooters. And saddle up. And oh yeah, don't forget your badges because you've all been deputized for The Sheriff's Last Ride™. It's World Series or bust and these motherf***ing Texas Rangers are going to feel some pain tonight.

You got it sir.

8 righties and a guy who is going to bunt anyway. Let's ride.

Yeah I probably shouldn't have put Whit in there I knew the comparison would get nitpicked to death. My point was that players go for team friendly deals all the time and a guy who was looking at either being a career minor leaguer or retiring just 1 year ago might be willing to take grab the bag more willingly than people think.

Whit Merrifield didn't debut until he was 27 and he signed a really team friendly deal. I could see Schneider doing it too. Might not be 6 years for 20 mil but something similar gets it done. Schneider almost retired but now he's got 20+ mil in his lap and can then take another crack at free agency when he's 30 or so. If he's still producing he can try and get a 10 mil AAV deal to add the cherry on top.

I just listened to his Gibby podcast appearance. It came out a while ago but he's got a very mature approach to the plate. He was saying how he struggles with the high fastball (I'm not even sure that's true lol) but that pitcher's aren't perfect so you've got to be ready when they miss their spot. It seems like the new thing is to pitch him low and away so he can't pull a flyball. But I imagine he's going to take a similar approach and will wait for the pitcher to screw up at which point he plops a 390 foot homer over the left field fence. If we could take his brain and put it into Vlad's body we would have a first ballot hall of famer.

We will win the next two vs Texas and everything will be ok again.

Corey Seager is dominating. 5-9, BB, 3 2Bs, 2 2-out RBI, 3 runs. Vlad is 0-8 with 4 Ks.

Well like I said, 2000-2012 was ROUGH. But I think the point of your post is to indict the current regime but those years aren't their fault. Also, I think people's viewpoints on this get warped because there really just isn't as much homegrown talent out there as people think. Teams make a ton of trades, FA signings, dumpster diving, etc. to build their rosters. I didn't want to get into this too much but let's look at a couple other teams. Yankees Judge was picked in 2013. But who else? Geezers like Gardner who was a 3rd round pick in 2008 and Cano who signed in 2001? Ok, we are using your arbitrary "turn of the century" language so they count. Who else? Gary Sanchez? Luis Severino? They suck. Rays Everyone's draft and development darlings. Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, Kevin Kiermaier, David Price and Chris Archer are probably their top 5. That's pretty darn good but it's not THAT much better than ours and you think we are one of the worst. Cubs Let's do a good but not great franchise over the past 23 years. They did have some good bats. Kris Bryant they got with the #2 pick in 2013. Javier Baez with the #9 pick in 2011. Wilson Contreras in 2009. I'm not even sure who their best pitcher is. Maybe Mark Prior who was drafted in 2001 and had a few good years before his arm exploded. Jeff Smardsija had about 7 WAR from 2006. So you probably have to use more bats to fill out the Top 5. Probably Ian Happ in 2015 or Geavonay Soto in 2001? Seem pretty comparable to us. Angels Let's do a bad team. The Angels are supposedly the worst at developing talent. And they are but not if you go back to 2000. Jered Weaver in 2001, Howie Kendrick around then, Mike Trout in 2009, a few others that are decent and basically nothing since Trout. A's They are bad at this game but make it worse because their best guys they traded for nothing. Donaldson and Chapman to us and Olson to the Braves. Best pitchers are probably Sonny Gray and Joe Blanton. It's hard to know who was drafted and developed at a glance so I could be missing someone from the above teams but you get the idea.

We had some really lean years from 2000 until Stroman was picked in 2012. So I'd say Stroman is on the list and the rest are probably guys currently on the team. Bo, Vlad Jr. and Kirk (despite the down years from the latter). Not sure who would be #5. I'm not going through the rest of the teams but I bet you we would rank a lot higher than you think.

Mainstay at 2B with Whit platooning in the OF. Or put Schneider at DH and Biggio plays some 2B. Plenty of ABs to go around with Belt and Jansen out.

He can replace Belt

Saw Chapman hopes to be back this week. Getting his glove will be helpful enough but hopefully he hits.

Jays should officially move him to the 60 day IL (obesity)

Here we are in mid September and Vlad's OPS is currently just 2 points higher than our #9 hitter Kevin Kiermaier. Going to come down to the wire as to who comes out on top.