Orgfiller

His last 60 innings are ROUGH lol. About to turn 33, fastball velo declining, history of shoulder troubles, and the slider which was his calling card is straight up a below average pitch now. The Location+ on his fastball is 48. Yikes. He's so cooked, it's kind of sad.

Let's go with Okamoto. Surely he has to pull one out one time.

Sproat has been awful but he throws gas and has an elite slider. I'm not too optimistic for this matchup considering our own SP.

Nice play there by Sosa.

Let's go with Gimenez.

Lukes who is struggling mightily leading off, Sosa included to lengthen the lineup - I can buy this, except - at the expense of Davis Schneider starting. Puzzling lineup with the table setters being Lukes who currently sucks and is not a high OBP guy even when he wasn't, and Varsho who at his best is still not cracking a .300 OBP.

Despite him looking comically large next to everyone else in this clip, there's no reason to move him off SS for the time being. Even if he's a butcher to begin with, he's young and it's good to develop players at the tougher position for as long as you can. Addison Barger had minor league SS starts in 2024 and 2025 and if you look at the man he should be nowhere near the position. Of the rookie phenoms this year, McGonigle is splitting his time 50/50 between SS and 3B, Wetherholt has been a full-time 2B - mostly due to the preexistence of the elite Masyn Winn. Hell the Blue Jays stuck with a fat Bo Bichette for years after he was past his athletic prime and was bleeding runs on defense even before that. Move him off SS when he forces you to or there's a better defender occupying the position that necessitates the move.

You're wrong as usual Jonn: https://www.mlb.com/video/louis-varland-in-play-out-s-to-luis-rengifo?partnerId=web_video-playback-page_video-share 1. Varland gets the comebacker, quickly looks to second to see where the runner is. Runner is sprinting to third on contact 2. Okamoto is obviously shifted, but as soon as he's in frame you see him sprinting to third 3. Varland considers throwing to 3B, but Gimenez is yelling at him to go to first for the easy out with a 3 run lead 4. Varland reconsiders going from the risky play for a runner that means nothing to getting the easy out at first Not sure what more you want Okamoto to do in this situation. He's playing where he's told due to the shift, and he can't magically teleport himself to the third base bag to be ready for a play. He reacted well and covered his position well in this scenario, there was just no need to risk it from Varland's perspective

Jays @ brewers and Misiorowski (miracle if I spelled that right) Clement (3) - Orgfiller Varsho (1) - Landry Vlad (1) - Laika Jesus (2) - John_Havok Eloy (2) - Mphenhef Lukes (4) Kaz (2) - Gimenez (3) Valenzuela (3) Bench (10)

Pasquantino and Salvador Perez have a combined wRC+ of 62...the ultimate rally killers. It gets even worse when you consider that Maikel Garcia in the leadoff spot currently has a .380 OBP.

Yeah I think the Sosa acquisition is more bad news for Nathan Lukes than anyone else. He's been brutal at the plate. It probably also tells us Okamoto's stock is down in the manager/FO's office. Could see a few more Ernie starts at 3B while giving Okamoto less aggressive playing time so he can take his time in figuring it out. Sosa becomes the de facto backup infielder, and Fitzgerald is likely sent down? We haven't seen him on the field at all despite strong numbers against lefties and experience playing literally every position except catcher. Maybe someone else is injured that we don't know about.

Edit: give me Schneider now that I know he's starting.

I mean it's just generally unheard of for a bullpen to not have even one guy who isn't a "hard thrower" these days. In ours we have Fisher who was acquired for a DFA'd Cavan Biggio, Nance who was picked off the scrap heap, and Miles who was a rule 5 pick all meeting the 94+ avg velo criteria. Half the Rockies' bullpen averages 97+. The White Sox have a number of these guys as well.

Is the one that got away in the room with us right now?

Unless you think his .538 BABIP is sustainable then I don't know what to tell you, it's not all up to him whether the few balls in play he's allowing at the moment are falling. He's striking out almost every other hitter lol. If that's not enough because he's also not preventing the other guys from aiming their line drives then nothing he does can ever be enough.

A's 1-hit shutout the Yankees on the back of a 7 IP dominant performance from Springs.

It's so early that it's hard to make conclusions on if things like his command are sustainable, but I've definitely noticed his command of the splitter is night and day compared to last season. He's using it pretty aggressively against lefties, unsurprisingly, but where he's spotting it is huge. Seeing a lot of down or down and away and significantly fewer hangers. Combine that with the regained fastball velo and everything plays up. He froze Ohtani yesterday on a fastball down the middle lol, that doesn't happen if they're not respecting the splitter. With Freeman he went down and away with the fastball, with a splitter mixed in there, and then went up and away for the whiff. This kind of sequencing and command of his stuff should mean he's hopefully closer to 23-24 Hoffman that last season's version. I'm also hopeful that having Varland and Rogers to lengthen out the bullpen and cover some of those high leverage innings means he's not as overused as he was to begin last season. He notably started strong last year, but was being used so often that I wouldn't be surprised if this led to his stuff and location both backing up as the year progressed.

The game he "lost" and got his second blown save on is when Heineman got subbed in following Kirk's injury and promptly blew the game for him. He's striking out 48% of hitters, I guess "swing and miss is king" only for guys you like eh?

Multiple hits with RISP? In this economy?

His Zone rate sits at 43% which is 10 points lower than it was last season. Unsurprisingly, his O-Swing% has skyrocketed, from 31% to 48%. It hasn't led to a huge jump in K rate because he makes contact often, in fact his O-Contact% has also gone up, but this leads directly to making worse contact. Swinging at bad pitches and making contact -> less walks, more weak contact. He needs to cut down on the chase and force pitchers to give him hittable pitches.

He's way too chase prone unfortunately. 65-70 grade power on its own just won't cut it if you can't even play a good enough 1B, lose value on the basepaths, and chase so much that your OBP isn't cracking .300. He's also right handed so he's on the weak side of the platoon. Weak side platoon 1B are essentially worthless.

April 8 versus Shohei Springer (1) - mphenhef Varsho (1) Vlad (1) - Landry jesus (2) Kaz (2) - jonn Clement (3) Lukes (4) Gimenez (3) Heineman (5) - Orgfiller Bench (10)

Jesus Sanchez I guess idk

Our run differential is in the shitter. We got the rest of the league right where we want them. First place team with a -50 run differential coming up. Michael Kay's head will explode. The World Series will be easy to make.

Wrobleski is a lefty and Barger would be getting a day off regardless following his removal from yesterday's game.