Orgfiller

Camera had me fooled thinking Casas robbed him of a hit.

There’s no scorebug or graphics from Sportsnet at all, surprised we can even see a strikezone lol. Something must be going on behind the scenes.

It certainly seemed from watching it that the ump had a good night. I was always holding my breath that pitches just outside the box would get called strikes, from bad experiences the last few fames, but he was very consistent with it. The one glaring missed call was on a pitch where Jansen was standing to indicate to Kikuchi to throw a high fastball and he missed all the way down in the zone for which he had to reach for it. I remember Joe Siddall even calling out Jansen’s receiving on that particular pitch.

I don't think they need to add a starting calibre bat, but potentially upgrade on the depth if Belt-Biggio-Espinal continue to give us nothing. The team has the 9th highest wRC+ and that's with Springer being garbage(/highly underperforming expected stats), Varsho not getting hot with the stick, Jansen also underperforming, and Kirk sleepwalking to a 120 wRC+.

Yes, but being shelled doesn't just mean homeruns. For instance, Berrios last year had a HR/FB rate of 13.5%, which is only slightly higher than career numbers. His xERA was also awful, so in general yes he was giving up a ton of loud contact and without the Ks to make up for it. Over the long run some of these homerun pitches Garcia has given up will turn into hard singles, doubles, or warning track flyouts. And he's shown he has the stuff to get away from these kinds of spots unscathed.

It doesn’t really matter tbh. Not every meatball is hit for a homerun, and this is especially true when the stuff is good. There’s still an aspect of luck involved if all of your “bad” pitches get put over the bleachers, and the same is true that not all of your good pitches won’t be hit out of the park. Garcia’s HR/FB rate is completely unsustainable.

Am I the only one that doesn't see a problem with Yimi Garcia, even in high leverage spots? His fastball velo is up, whiffs and K rate way up, walk rate unchanged. His groundball rate is even up. His xERA is 3.13 so it's not like he's getting destroyed, just seems like he's given up an unsustainable amount of homeruns. If his homerun rate regresses I still think he should be right there in the mix for high leverage spots, when he's not being overworked the fastball is reaching as high as 98-99 with movement to go with pretty good secondaries and good command.

Nah, doubles are for suckers.

Devers was cheating badly on Kikuchi’s fastball and he still could barely catch up to it at all, let alone put a good swing on it.

Great job Kikuchi.

Well both, but Belt and Biggio provided absolutely nothing, not even one midly well struck ball.

Vlad’s raw power is still there. He still scorches the ball. It’s all about launch angle. He hasn’t hit as many groundballs this year which is a big step forward, he just doesn’t have his timing down fully atm so instead of clobbering balls over the fence he’s popping them up.

The Jays have a .354 xBA. They’re all over Kluber, frustrating it’s only been for 3 runs.

Kluber is getting rocked, he’s getting so lucky.

He's looked pretty washed this year...of course he gave the Rays a dead cat bounce last year for 3.0 fWAR but now that he's no longer in a competent org it seems his age and injury history has totally caught up to him. The stuff is good enough to still get chases, but if it's the zone it's been getting hammered.

He’s raked in the upper minors and the projections believe in him for what it’s worth. But lots of injuries and the performance hasn’t translated at the MLB level. Still only 25, time for him to figure it out.

It’s just plain and simple WP added by the call. A couple of (ultimately extremely costly) blown calls in the first inning won’t usually have a big swing in win probability since the whole game is still to be played. Of course, the reality was those two blown calls resulted in Bassitt throwing a bunch more pitches, further draining the bullpen, and the grand slam being given up. This scorecard doesn’t even mention Merrifield getting a f***ing walk taken away from him, despite not a single umpire actually motioning for a balk regardless of claims that this is what happened, a convenient excuse. 1st and 2nd sure adds some WP to the Jays rather than the inning being over.

He fully just had a walk taken away.

Varsho is 26.

Dude our hitting coach’s name is Guillermo Martinez. Gabriel Martinez is a 20 year old OF prospect in A+.

The lettering is based on the Seattle Pilots' font: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2379/8161/products/seattlepilotsbluejersey_800x.png?v=1664236547

Only 1 walk too. That makes his first three starts: 5 IP - 11K/1BB 4.2 IP - 5K/6BB (oof) 5 IP - 6K/1 BB He's a bit old for the level but clearly the stuff is there. If he can get the walks down he's an actual starting pitching prospect, if he can't he's probably in the bullpen by next season with a good chance to move quickly if the stuff plays up even more. The bulk of his innings this year ideally should come in AA and hopefully a taste of AAA if it goes well.

This is an incredible fan rant. Not only are all of his points exactly right, he’s also using advanced stats to make his point. This is the gold standard.

First of all, I don't know why you're so obsessed with the batting average, given that Walker is hitting for no power, while Vladdy in his first month was at least hitting for some (.181 ISO in his first). Walker also has an awful K/BB, Vlad had a 20% K rate and 10% walk rate, both indicative of a much better approach. And then the easier to justify part, the Blue Jays were not that good of a team and could afford to give their top prospect more rope, the Cards want to be competitive, and can't have the worst defensive outfielder in the majors who's just average offensively to drag down their production when they need wins. This argument makes zero sense. Vlad dominating the minors means there's nothing else for him to prove by sending him down, it's just a waste of development time for him. Walker could actually use some more development, as his hitting approach clearly has some flaws and the defense needs major work. He did not dominate AA, he merely did well at it at a good age. Julio Rodriguez and Kelenic both had far more MiLB success at younger ages, and the latter got sent down multiple times so I don't get the point that he was babied, at least Rodriguez and Kelenic weren't butchers in the outfield. It's pretty clear Walker is not a finished product, he needs more development both defensively and offensively. The Cards thought he was more of a finished product and had the athleticism to learn RF on the fly in the MLB, obviously this has not been the case.

I mean they're on pace for 103 wins with their .640 winning rate. Even the 92-93 teams never won more than 96 games in a season. Their top season in wins was in '85 with 99. This year's team has been pretty dominant with a tough schedule (considering opponents and amount of road games) despite the lack of a prolonged winning streak. Odds of having a streak like the Rays for example are pretty low, and even lower if you set the qualifier to be in the first month of the season.