TwistedLogic

Despite Beeston saying that the Jays aren't using it as an excuse, I think it's a legitimate reason why attendance is down: ATTENDANCE IS DOWN Paul Beeston was on the Fan 590 Monday talking about the Blue Jays’ drop in attendance this season and, while we agree with Beeston that some fans have taken a wait-and-see approach to the ballclub after the massive under-achievement of 2013, that’s not the only factor. “If we’re playing well in July, the attendance will be there,” Beeston said. “I’m not worried about that. Last year we kind of broke their trust. Everyone anticipated we’d be playing in October so they (are saying) ‘show me and why should I come back?’ “Quite frankly, we’ve had some good weekends but it’s been quiet during the week. I look at who were playing and the fact that we have to build that back. As we win, the fans will be back. The TV ratings are good and more importantly the team is playing entertaining baseball.” Interesting about those TV ratings. Last week, the final game against Tampa Bay produced an audience in excess of 800,000, which is comparable to a Leaf game. People are watching on TV, but not live. And why is that? Well, there isn’t a city in North America that makes it more difficult for fans to get to the games than Toronto. Sunday’s turnout of 38,008 was an astounding number, considering that one line of the subway system was closed, the Gardiner Expressway was closed and the Lakeshore also had lane closures. Two lanes of the Gardiner are out of commission for up to two years from the Humber to downtown. You have to be a very avid fan to fight that snarled traffic when you can sit back and watch in high def on your 50-inch set at home. The GO Train is an alternative but it’s still a hassle. We’re guessing a lot of those fans would forgive and forget 2013’s disappointment if they could just get to the ballpark.

If we could get a trade done for Samardzija where we keep Stroman, Hutchison, Norris and Nay, I would be really really pleased. I have no problem giving up Sanchez and a few others in that deal, and maybe I'm being selfish, but I wouldn't give up any of the four I mentioned. You still can't trade regular draft picks, but every year the MLB holds a small lottery designed to award "competitive balance" picks to small market / low revenue teams. Those twelve picks (6 are awarded for after the first round, and another 6 for after the second round) are the only ones in the draft that can be traded. The Jays will never get one of those picks though, due to being in a massive market. If it's relating to the draft, which it very well could be, the deal will have to get done very quickly. Getting cautiously excited at the idea of it. I always felt that if you're going to make the painful payment on a rental player, get him as soon as you can, so you can make it matter most.

Wasn't going to make this thread until at least a few weeks into June, but I guess we can get a headstart after this tweet: You can use this thread to discuss anything and everything relating to rumors, trades, or your own speculation relating to the July 31st annual trading deadline.

Jesus christ, that's horrific. The only reason they weren't that many games behind was because the Twins won the division with only 90 wins. And yet the Tigers still managed to fall 47 games behind. In the East, they would have been down by 60. It's scary to think that the Tigers were once that bad. Edit: I have no idea how the Padres ended up getting a higher draft pick (first overall) the following season, but whatever the reason, that abysmal season for the Tigers lead to Justin Verlander.

My favourite GameDay was the one they had prior to the last one (GameDay Classic), where if you went and clicked on a previous at-bat, you could see where all the pitches were located and how they were called. The new GameDay didn't let you do that, only showed the pitches thrown in the current at-bat. The newer GameDay (which I think is terrible, although in the two minutes I used it, already seems less buggy than the old one) is the same in that regard.

Thanks, should have just checked Sportsnet to see if they had something, wasted like 20 minutes going through the standings for the past 20 years LOL The exact dates for the last time we got close though: June 30, 2000 - Blue Jays lead the Yankees in the AL East by 3.0 Games May 18, 2009 - Blue Jays lead the Red Sox in the AL East by 3.5 Games June 02, 2014 - Blue Jays lead the Yankees in the AL East by 4.0 Games

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time since 1993 that the Blue Jays have lead the AL East by 4.0 games. It would be cool if someone can confirm it, but as much as I could check, the Jays lead the East by 3.0 games at one point in 2000, and by 3.5 games in 2009, but the last time they lead by 4.0 was when they clinched the East in 1993. If that's true, then today is a day for a very mild amount of celebration.

And all it takes is one week for all of that to turn around. It's way too early in the season for them to be out of it. On the topic of the Rays though... This is before I started following baseball, but ouch: http://i.gyazo.com/07eabc654e3c2fe986039ba3796b1f4b.png Can't remember ever seeing a team lose a division by 48 games. I'm sure it must have happened, but I've never seen it.

Not exactly. I mean yeah its possible that they're out of the playoffs (to a certain extent; we're talking about the f***ing Rays, nobody forgot 2011), but even if they're 30 games out, the Rays are the kind of team that if you end up facing them while in a pennant race and have a desperate need for wins, they'll probably do something s***** like sweep you in a 4-game series, before going back to losing against other teams.

http://cdn.mlbmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/47981_470752976328334_212780173_n.jpg

Masterson K'd the Red Sox on 9 pitches in the 4th lol.

As much as it pains me to admit it, Bogaerts is a f***ing stud.

Here's the expanded summary of the Alex interview: Alex Anthopoulos Interview: - Begins the interview talking about this team's new resilience in bouncing back after devastating losses (like the bullpen implosions and the Reyes throw), and how they are different from last year. - Talks about Marcus Stroman's place in the rotation going forward. Says he hopes Stroman can stay in the rotation for the rest of the season, and that he's happy he got that first stint as a reliever because it helped move the jitters and pressure out of the way. He says that the team's performance in June will be a huge indicator of who they are (and that Stroman will be a big part of that) and that he hopes Stroman can have a Sonny Gray-like impact for the Jays. - In regards to the Liam Hendriks demotion, he mentions that they've made a decision on who they're going to call up in his place for the bullpen, but that they want to tell the player first so that he doesn't hear it on his phone. Also mentions that they didn't like demoting Hendriks because they feel he played well, but that they'd prefer to keep him on his regular turn and stretched out so that he can come back into the rotation after 10 days if needed, as opposed to putting him into the pen as a long-man and interrupting his rotation cycle. - Mentions that the Blue Jays don't have any type of caps or inning limits, but he likes pitchers getting an off-day every now and again. April had an off-day in almost every week, but they feel that they can manufacture their own offdays during long stretches of games (like May), the way they did by bringing up Stroman to push Hutch back after he began to look a little tired (something we saw ourselves in his velocity drops). Hendriks can be used in a similar manner, being brought up to make a spot start to give another guy some well-needed rest. - Directly addresses Hutchison, acknowledging that they did notice the velocity drop, and that they didn't feel he looked very sharp in his last outing. Makes it clear that there's no "conspiracy theory" to it, and that he hasn't complained about anything, implying that Hutchison's velocity drop had to do with fatigue, and had nothing to do with any sort of injury. Mentions that this isn't exclusive to Hutchison and that they can even give extra rest to Buehrle or Dickey if they need it. On the opposite end, they can even shuffle the rotation to pull guys forward and have them pitch on normal rest (despite an off-day) if someone else needs a day off. They want to stay on top of the rotation and don't want it to end up where guys are complaining about being sore. - Discussing the Melky Cabrera and Colby Rasmus free agent cases, he says that they prefer to avoid in-season contract talks because players go to other players for advice, it becomes the talk of the clubhouse, leaks to the media, and then becomes a huge deal and an unnecessary distraction. He says they've always felt this way, and if you had asked them about the Encarnacion extension prior to the signing, they would have said the same thing. That being said, similar to Edwin's situation, they wouldn't rule anything out. When it comes to Colby and Melky, he feels that they both like playing in Toronto, and then this gem: "I have every confidence in the world that we'll have the resources to sign them and I wouldn't rule out that we would do something before the end of the year". Still, he thinks that the ideal situation is that you don't have to talk about contracts while the guy is playing. - In regards to Gose, he feels like he's made major strides. He took time out of his actual offseason to go down and put in some serious practice for his bunting.

Adam Lind Interview: Talks about what it's like to be hitting between Joey and Eddy, how he feels this team's newfound health and resilience, what it's like to be lead by two pitchers who throw in the 80s, and how he feels about transitioning into a complete platoon player. Also talks about the state of the AL East, who his toughest pitching opponent was so far this season, and how it feels being a first place team going into a series against the Tigers, another first place team.

Already done. I was gonna post all of it in the Stroman thread, but I realized that I should check if someone already made one about the interviews themselves, and sure enough you did. Here's the report for the first three interviews I've listened to, gonna check up on Lind and Alex after this and write something for those as well. Stroman Interview: Talks about his first start, Hosmer's "wow" reaction, the run support he got, how he kept warm during the 7-run inning, how he felt about his struggles in his relief innings, etc. Delgado Interview: Talks about the offense, talks about the epic 2000 Jays offense (four guys with 20 homers at the all-star break), what he thinks about the club right now. Listening to this interview, I don't know why someone hasn't already hired him as a hitting coach, some of the stuff he says is exactly what you'd want your players to hear. Paul Beeston Interview: Talks about payroll, pitching options in the event they're still contending a month from now, trade deadline, impending FA's (Colby/Melky), and the grass field. It seems that the Jays are intent on getting a grass field eventually because they want to attract FA's, don't want to sit people on the turf, and want to be like the rest of the teams in baseball, so the Argos will have to find a new place to play, whether it's BMO or somewhere else. Heavily implies that Melky and Colby won't be extended mid-season and that they'll deal with all of that after the season's over. Really like something he said in regards to attendance, where he admitted that the Jays broke the trust of the fans last year and so they'll have to work to get them back. People thought they'd be playing October baseball last season, and they weren't, and he believes that now those fans are saying "show me". Says that attendance will not have any bearing on what they do at the trade deadline, and that he also won't use excuses like the Gardner being busy as a reason for fans not showing up. Based on the Beeston interview, it really seems like they've got a good idea of what they have (they know it's early in the season), what they want to do (explore the trade deadline, deal with the FA's after the season, keep winning to draw more fans), and how they have to proceed. I gotta say it made me feel better, since Beeston's interviews usually do the opposite for me.

That was just excellent. Thanks a lot for posting it.

We found him. http://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gif

Yeah I'm almost certain that they just went around and picked the two most popular mock choices for the Jays and thought "Well everyone is saying these two players, sounds like a slam dunk! Let's pretend we have a source and write this article so that after the draft we can say 'see? we've got our own sources.'" At least I'm hoping that's what's happening because I'm not gonna be happy with Turner/Touki.

I tried to make it public for that very reason, LOL. But then I forgot to add a title to the poll, so when I went back to add the title, the public voting option took itself off >.<

It feels really really similar to what the Rays did. The bonus for them is that once they build a contender, they'll be able to afford to keep it sustainable. The Astros are an old franchise with some good history, they're going to be a very dangerous team very soon.

They're not "reports", it was one random line Shi Davidi made the blasphemous mistake of adding into a completely unrelated article, and the Jays community being the Jays community collapsed and went f***ing ape-s*** about it. In other words, it's all ********. If it was an actual thing, Shi wouldn't have masked it inside one of his articles; the guy's a hound for controversial Jays stories, he would have made an entire piece about it.

Smart way to look at it

http://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gif

Shh

I knew they'd be close, but I didn't think they'd be this close. I just looked it up, and I feel like this is pretty damn insane, they're basically the exact same guy. Can you tell which Blue Jay is which, without cheating, using google, or reading the thread? (A) http://i.gyazo.com/778f6786efa7a630cd395c46e1d2f3ee.png ( http://i.gyazo.com/d12553838735e7b23d83a5c3e197d332.png