Cooler Heads Prevail

I think they wanted Tanaka. My opinion, as long as we continued to be noncontenders every year, we couldn't get these top notch free agents anyways. But now that we are contenders, we might get somebody good this off season. That was what was good about the Marlins trade, even if it was highly inefficient, it sent a message to our stars ( Bautista and EE ) and potential acquisitions that we are interested in being a winning club again ( not just lip service to appease fans ).

Just for a laugh, people should review the Raptors thread on this site, focusing particularly on early season posts. The extreme negativity about the team was similar to what we see here. You'd think people would learn but apparently not. What is really funny is the Jays at the moment are 5 games up in the AL East and the wildcard this season is probably going to be a very low win total. I suppose some posters would enjoy being 10 games out better, because they could write even longer posts about how bad the team is, how they never win, how great other teams like the Rays or Yankees are ( somebody needs to fill that void, BTS seems to have gone AWOL ). Here's a thought. Jays are in great shape still and a few setbacks happening now might firm up their resolve to acquire a pitcher at a time when it has some impact. If they need some offence, well, this lineup has plenty I have no worries, and Rasmus > Gose if we truly need an upgrade. Attendance seems to be growing, that suggests our budget is ok. Too much optimism for ya ? Not for me, they are 5 games up in a division full of pitching injuries and crap outs. The chances of meaningful games in September is 95%. A few losses now might put a scare into mgmt, if it is even a fraction like the knucklehead reactionary posts on here, we'll get a player within a month.

Pressure is on Baltimore, their starting pitching is not reliable and if they lose 3/4 they drop way back in the race. Let's revisit this next week, I doubt that Baltimore has the talent to sweep us, we have our best starting pitching lined up too. Funny thing is when we played Oakland, one of the critics like you said "if we sweep Oakland I'll start to believe". Funny because they probably thought the chances of sweeping Oakland were zero, and the fact is the chance they'd believe in the Jays is neglible until the day they clinch a playoff spot. Face it, you'll always expect bad things. Embrace it and cheer for another team. I hear the Rays need some new fans.

I'm sure if we ran a simulation we could find plenty of great playoff teams that have done this. Just from memory I can think of a couple. Tampa Bay ( 2013 ) and Texas ( either 2012 or 2013 ) had completely dead offence for the greater part of 6 or 7 games and they both finished very strong.

Do you not realize that panic is a condition to avoid not recommend ? Go seek medical help if you get so upset over this kind of trivial event. Seriously, if you think this team is going to struggle on offence all year now you aren't thinking clearly.

Not even close to accurate. Do you watch much baseball ? I don't see any 15-9 or 18-10 games happening, but I do see them in the morning box scores. It's now 2-0 in the 5th. If Stroman can get a few outs, he gets another quality start ( in fact, most of our starters are doing so regularly ). Calling the pitching "terrible" is an overreaction. With our offence matching their average pace, we'd be either 4-2 or 5-1 in this set of games.

GDTs are getting really stupid, seems to be the same group of trolls posting negative stuff every inning. If these so called fans really hate the Jays, why are they on here posting s*** on here every inning every game ?

You are one dumb poster.

If people looked closer, they'd realize that the way Dickey has pitched the last 8 or 9 starts is better then several "top" pitches in baseball and he doesn't flame out early ( sure 6th or 7th inning, but it's not 5 or 6 runs in the first two innings ). Sure, we could have an "ace" like Verlander or spent a boat load on money on Jiminez or Nolasco and get a pitcher that is much better then Dickey .... oh wait, that's not true, Dickey is pitching as good or better then all of them. Dickey is a valuable member of this team, just because you were hoping for better, so what. Two top assets ? TDA is questionable, was already injury prone when the trade was made. Syndegaard is now injured, he's the only guy who could be valuable ( maybe ). Without Dickey, we'd be in trouble, domino effect on our staff weakening it across the board. The only asset we gave up that would have helped our 3 year window is Alvarez. In fact, without the trades one could argue that both the Mets and the Marlins would be in better shape to contend this year in their weak division. They chose to rebuild and reduce payroll, sometimes there is an unexpected cost. I'd say all the teams got something out of the trades now.

I think they'll do better then 88 wins, but I could see that occurring. Specifically, if the Yankees hang close and kick our butts head to head, picking up some guys at the deadline. A wild card fight behind the Yankees would be a failed opportunity in my opinion. What the Jays have earned so far is a nice head start, an offence that is for real, and a good reason to add pitching depth at the deadline ( we have offensive depth now ). Add pitching and the 96 win pace we are on is highly sustainable, even just one guy covers a lot of risk.

I don't agree with this, we can make playoffs even with our current crew, but there is no reason to chance failing when decent pitching rentals will be available at the deadline at a fraction of the cost people are discussing now. I'm not even sure which starter they would cut at this point if they got someone, someone needs to fail to set the correct path. I doubt any of these guys ( Happ, Stroman, Hutch ) would be useful in relief, it would be insulting to them to lose their spots when they are still pitching well ( Hutch is an unusual case, it's more stamina or consistency, the real reason unclear ). We just need a few weeks treading water with these guys and their performance will determine our path. I don't think we need to move one of our big pitching prospects ( + ) for an ace like Price, myself I think we can transition to 2015 and 2016 much better if we have the group Hutch/Stroman/Sanchez/Nolin in our system. If Hutch gets hurt and Stroman gets shelled a few times, I could change my mind on that, but I'd still rather get a rental if our best prospects can be spared. And throughout this season, I am unclear why they have zero confidence in Redmond, in a pinch could he not be a decent 4th/5th starter ? He could be a bridge to some one better if needed. Worse case scenario moving forward, NYY stays close and makes some outrageous pick ups again ( I'm guessing pitchers ). We struggle in our head to head match ups, primarily because of the pitchers I mentioned above. AA hesitates and the full brunt of our issues don't hit until the week after the trading deadline. Sure, it could happen. It's just too much of a perfect storm of negative events though to be likely. Surely AA realizes he needs to get it done this year, and insures success by adding pitching depth at the deadline. But it is AA, so I'm prepared for anything.

Past season performances are pretty irrelevant, this is a new team with it's own strengths and weaknesses. It's extremely ambitious of you to predict an 82 win season, in fact start betting against them every game now you could make a mint IF you are right. 38-26, so you are thinking they finish 44-54 ? Last year, the three teams that were supposed to be good but sucked wind for half a season plus were Toronto, LA Angels, and LA Dodgers. They were all expensive mediocre teams. Dodgers decided to turn it around last year and dominated the second half. The other two have waited until this year to win. Could it be that talent wins ball games eventually ? Could it be that bringing in numerous vet players takes time to build team chemistry ? Could it be that past stars like Bautista, Pujols don't drop off the map at a certain age ? Could it be that young turks like Headley, Machado, Profar, even our good friend Lawrie are not guaranteed stars ? So many questions suggest the unpredictability of baseball. But wait, you think 20 years of "futility" is useful to predict this season ?

Re Sanchez : My instincts are still telling me that despite his struggles this season he has the best potential to be a game changing star from our system. We won't know for 2 or 3 years. If it was the Rays or As, no way they move him, he develops and becomes whatever he becomes.

Two games is nothing. It's just a random event where we didn't match up well against a couple of pitchers. Vegas must have known something about the middle game because it looked like a mismatch for us and the line was only -1.30. Check out Boston if you want to see a streaky team ( lose 10, win 7, lose 5 ).

10 million does seem like an overpay, was surprised it was that much.

They're maybe 3 games out of a wildcard. Some of their deep system is arriving, plus they signed free agent pitchers already. Why would they just give up on the season ? Fans have waited long enough throw them a bone even if ultimately they aren't quite there yet as a team.

No, I'm deadly accurate on this, look at that signature you've been running it for months. Not even creative. I think even the site owners on here are starting to understand that stomping on the so called "old guard" by the hive isn't good for business here. All your posts are in history, you are very light on real content. Try harder.

The era from 1983-1993 is very instructive on how the Jays can proceed now. In fact, if you watch local sports TV, these discussions occur every week in detail. For some reason, you think these kind of discussions shouldn't be allowed here, simply because you are too young or stupid to understand what happened. It's all a turf war to you isn't it ? Bring it all you want, I don't care. I thought you would be too busy applying for some technical school to be bothering with any of this ?

Buddy, you define bitter, have you read your posts ? Childish ? Come on now, you post garbage about how nothing prior to year 2000 means anything at all. You basically just react to others and rarely post any actual content. This is the funny thing about this site, a lot of aggressive rude young guys who run with topics until the moment when reality interferes with their overdone theories. Delighted to have presented a contrary opinion. Thanks for your input, sir !!!

In reality, the two recent occasions when I saw young people at the Jays game interfering with our players, I quite seriously thought that either of them could have been you or King. Which reminded me that despite all the bs being posted on here by several frequent posters, a lot of it means nothing, considering the source and likely immaturity of at least half the posters on here.

You don't want to start up some fresh discussions on how we should blow up this team by the deadline ? Those threads were all the rage earlier this year, some of the die hard cynics wrote this team off mere weeks ago ( only the odd person now still doing so ).

Getting ahead of the curve on May 15th. All the signs were there, the Rays fans on here didn't want to see them. BTS seems to have deleted his prediction that Tampa Bay and/or Boston will win 90+ games, that is going to be a huge miss.

According to this poster, as of May 2nd our season was flushed down the toilet and we needed to blow this team up.

Might be time to explain to us all why your rebuilt roster would have been a good thing this year. I prefer having one of the best teams in baseball, winning games. An Astros style s*** show dreaming about doing something in 4 or 5 years that we are already doing now seems stupid. Oh I know, hindsight and all that but how many weeks since you posted this ?