glory

The Dodgers basically did nothing this past winter in preparation for going after Ohtani. They’ll get him IMO, and I think the total value starts with 6. I doubt he’d even consider Toronto if the money is anywhere near equal, and the Jays won’t be blowing the Dodgers and Cohen out the water with an offer so that’s a pipe dream.

Do the Jays trade for a SP or hope that Ryu comes back? From the looks of it they'd rather take a bullet to the chest than start Francis, so their options are kind of limited beyond that if Manoah is done for the year.

Vlad and Manoah have been collectively replacement level for 3 months, so that almost negates the positives for Kooch and Berrios. Not to mention Kirk is a singles hitter now (on top of being the slowest man on earth). Last season the ancillary pieces disappointed while the stars played like stars. It has been somewhat the opposite now aside from Bo and Gausman, as guys like KK, Berrios, Kikuchi, Merrifield, etc, have picked up some of the slack for Vlad, Manoah, Kirk, Springer (who has picked it up lately), Varsho, etc.

Yeah if the playoffs started today it would be: Rays (1) and Rangers (2) get a bye Jays (6) at Twins (3) - Wild Card Yankees (5) at Orioles (4) - Wild Card Winner of Yankees/Orioles vs Rays - ALDS Winner of Jays/Twins vs Rangers - ALDS

Using the off days to push starters up is not something this FO has done often. I don’t know if it’s desperation or not trusting internal depth options. Maybe both. Maybe Francis sucks or is a RP long term but having him start a few games in place of Manoah should have been done. If you wonder why this FO can’t even luck their way into developing a SP, stuff like this is why.

The Yankees are running minor league lineups out there due to injuries and the Astros are missing Yordan, while the Jays are having great luck with health, yet here we are. I guess when Vlad and Manoah are collectively replacement level heading into July it’s almost as bad as having injuries but still hard to see the Jays finishing ahead of the Yankees and Astros once they get healthy. That’s not even factoring the O’s, Red Sox, Angels, Mariners, etc. The Jays have a +8 RD, and that’s with a 20-1 win (or whatever the final score was) included. This isn’t like 2021 where they were underperforming their RD until August. It’s still very possible for this team to go on a run and end up in a playoff spot but it does feel like even if they get one it’s going to be hard to advance.

Unless Atkins is fired this month, the only direction they will go is doubling down on what they have now. So we will see prospects traded for big league help regardless. Only way it doesn't turn out like that is if the bottom falls out and they are like 10 games back of a playoff spot by the deadline, which likely isn't happening.

Analytically speaking, the team is 2-0 since boooobz started a game thread, so yes.

He has had a really good career so far. Very consistent and embraces the big game. I still wish the Jays kept him long term.

That lineup against Sandy is pretty gross, but it’s baseball.

It won't happen, but I think trading Kiermaier makes sense regardless. He's almost certainly going to decline offensively the rest of the way, and Varsho's value to the team is severely diminished as a LF where his bat isn't quite good enough. Trade KK, trade for a stop gap LF who has a better offensive profile, and put Varsho in CF. That type of move works whether they are buyers or sellers. Of course there needs to be a LF available that makes sense. Maybe they could steal Tyler O'Neill for little (assuming he comes back) and take a chance with him. But to answer your question, it would have to be a significant amount of games back for the Jays to be sellers. Atkins has no reason to sell given that he doesn't/shouldn't have job security, and the team is going to prioritize asses in seats with all their stadium renovations. They'll be buyers unless the bottom falls out in the next month.

The problem with this team is that this 2019-2025 window was predicated on Vlad and Bichette both being superstars. Bichette has basically been a 4-5 WAR player every season so he’s living up to the expectations but Vlad hasn’t even been a 4 WAR player if you combined his WAR in 2019, 2020, 2022, and 2023. How do you fix this? Find a superstar piece to pair with Bichette and expect Vlad to be a 2-3 WAR player until 2025 when he will undoubtedly have a prime Pujols type of year before hitting the open market. I wouldn’t have any issue with a trade deadline retool that involves trading impending FAs (Merrifield, KK, Chapman, Belt, etc) and even a riskier move like selling high on Romano. The issue with that is I don’t want Ross Atkins to be the one making those trades, and replacing Romano for a smart front office would be a lot easier than Atkins having to replace him. I really don’t see any realistic scenario other than Atkins doubling down on this roster and trading prospects for immediate help. Thankfully the farm system is ass cheeks right now so whoever he trades probably won’t hurt the team unless he moves Tiedemann, but still.

This looks very much like a mid/high 80s win team. Good enough to contend for a WC, possibly sneak in, but not a roster that I’d want to double down on which Atkins almost certainly will at the deadline.

Samad Taylor gets the game winning walk off hit for the Royals in his big league debut.

This front office extended Randal f’n Grichuk two years before free agency when the team was openly tanking so I would hope they prioritize someone like Jansen during a competitive window. If they think they are set at catcher long term then they might be in for a rude awakening. Extend Jansen, keep splitting time with him and Kirk to keep both healthy/fresh, and go from there. Kirk hasn’t hit for any power in 12 months so I’m not sure a grossly out of shape singles hitter is a huge asset even at catcher. The Jays need Jansen.

If Atkins is aware that it's not against the CBA to actually extend young players, I think Jansen should be a priority. Catching depth in the system isn't great anymore and Kirk hasn't hit for any power in 12 months (that's not factoring the fact that he's fat, slow, and a lot more likely to decline early).

This competitive window was based on having two young superstar position players. However, if you remove 2021 (which had 4 months in a minor league complex), Vlad has a career 3.5 WAR in 1757 plate appearances. Granted he gets penalized for being a s***** 3B (2019) and a bad base running 1B, but for the majority of his career he's resembled nothing close to a superstar player. Right now he's tied for 7th on the team in WAR and is 5th in wRC+. That's going to decrease this roster's ceiling significantly. Manoah s***ing the bed hurt a lot, and we can talk about strength of schedule, but ultimately the Jays are going to need Vlad to be a star otherwise it's going to be an uphill battle.

Pearson as a RP is a stud.

Jimi hitting 99 is interesting.

Agreed. Cimber has been good since coming to Toronto but I'm not sure he's a guy you want to hold on to for years given his age, lack of velo, and lack of swing/miss. I feel like maybe they could have sold high on him after his 2022 season (wouldn't get much back either way), but one thing about Atkins is he always tends to sell big league talent at either the lowest value or damn close to it, so I guess we have to wait for Cimber to pitch his way off of the team before cutting bait. Though to Atkins' credit, his love for Trevor Richards is being validated so far.

There were quite a few promotions from 2018-22 (Jansen, Gurriel, Mayza, Vlad, Bichette, Biggio, Romano, Pearson, Kirk, Espinal, Manoah, Moreno), so yes you can't say that Atkins has been bad from the development side. However he hasn't been good with pitching development, and there are real concerns about whether the team can produce a next wave of prospects over the next 2+ years. His strength, at least from 2020-now, has been MLB moves. His FA signings and trades, for the most part, are usually pretty good. That's been able to compensate for some of his weaknesses. It's actually impressive that he's put the team in position to possibly get to 90 wins for the 3rd straight season, it shows how good his FA/trades have been because his pre-2020 work was pretty subpar. The long term question is whether he can develop more young players, close to Vlad/Bo caliber, in time to prolong this competitive window. I'm not banking on that, but who knows. I'm firmly back on the Orelvis bandwagon, and maybe he can be the start.

Yeah with Bo here another 2 years my guess is Jimenez will be traded at the deadline (or winter). He's at least young enough at a high enough level to be interesting, but without any power it does seem like his upside is very limited even if he's good/great defensively.

Orelvis seems to be the only top prospect that is worth getting excited about. If Leo Jimenez is a legit defensive SS then he might be another one, not much power, but seems to do everything else at a decent level. Beyond that I am drawing a blank. If Davis Schneider is coming out of no where to be a big league option at 2B, then that's great. The issue with the Jays being in the middle of a contention window, I'm not sure Atkins would even put any of the prospects in a position to play a lot at the big league level. It's probably more likely they are traded at the deadline for a player(s) with a year or two of control. This does feel a lot like the JP Ricciardi era. What looks like a competitive high 80s win team + a farm system where you have to squint in order to find something to get excited about. Not fun but hopefully we see some development in the next few months.

Nice, use Francis tonight in a blow out so that Mitch White is fresh for the bullpen game.

Did they explain why they optioned Francis? My guess is they'll try the same thing next time except with Mitch f'n White following Richards, which seems like a really bad idea in Texas, but whatever. Maybe Atkins thought that he finally might have caught lightning in a bottle with a SP prospect out of no where and decided to sabotage it before seeing if it would succeed.