glory

Yeah if Atkins is the GM, not only will he not sell, but I don't think any Jays fan would want him to be the one doing the selling.

I was just thinking how much the current team/situation reminds me of the JP years. Farm system is ass cheeks with Tiedemann playing the role of Snider as being the only guy in the system currently that the team can pin their hopes on (hopefully it ends up better than Snider did), and the team looks like it's going to be a high 80s win team barring a big 2nd half run. At least JP had some excuse for having to work around a pretty low/modest payroll, while Atkins built this team while paying the luxury tax. I don't know. Maybe we overstated how good this 2023 team is/was. I suspect they'll still end up being pretty good (whether it's enough to get a playoff spot with more good teams this season remains to be seen), but the short and long term prognosis looks pretty grim. If I'm Shapiro, I'm replacing Atkins with Click as soon as I can.

But when the alternative is Ernie Clement? The optics of trading a top 10 prospect in baseball (plus a good hitter as a throw in) for a player who the manager trusts less than a career minor leaguer against LHP is pretty bad.

Is there a reason, other than "Schneider gonna Schneider", that Clement pinch hit for Varsho?

If I had any faith in Atkins building a bullpen, I’d probably stretch Pearson out and live with the consequences, but there’s a good chance Nate is one of the best relievers on the team.

Due to the 20-1 loss, the Rays no longer have the best RD in the league. That belongs to the Rangers now. Didn't expect Texas to be this good but let's see if it's sustainable.

I was expecting Swanson and Romano given Schneider’s tendencies.

Finally a fun game to watch (....so far).

Yeah but any Schneider slander is ok in my book, even if it's from Yankees fans.

Varsho made more sense for the org to acquire given his years of control. The Jays have the very difficult task of trying to sustain contention with a s***** farm system and multiple holes needing to be filled as early as 2024 (3B, LF, 2B). A controlled CF was pretty much a necessity and I would imagine once Varsho is playing CF full time in 2024-26 that his value to the team will be more noticeable. Hopefully next season they resist the urge to bring KK back and get a LF who can hit. This trade deadline I think we might see an AA-2015 level purge to the farm. They need more Varsho’s but are no where close to developing even one of them. Try to turn prospects into MLB players with multiple years of control, if possible.

Jomboy adding to the Schneider slander and I’m here for all of it.

The Orioles and Rangers got better, and the Red Sox, Mariners and Angels are right around where the Jays are with similar or better run differentials. Probably says more about the improved competition than the Jays themselves, but clearly the Jays aren't helping their cause with the way they've gotten their asses kicked by the AL East lately. I actually like when there are more competitive teams. It makes the season a bit more fun (if not stressful) but the added competition, assuming it stays this way, is only going to make it harder for the Jays to make the playoffs.

Yeah, if Varsho were playing CF, then his presence here would be more appreciated as his bat isn't great but doesn't need to be in CF. As a LF it seems a lot less ideal since it puts more pressure on his bat, and his defense (while still really good) is coming from a much less valuable defensive position. Feels like the Jays should have done an either/or with Varsho and KK. They ended up with both, and that's not the best fit together unless KK's bat right now is legit (it's not) or Varsho's bat takes a massive step forward (it might, but how much?).

The Jays are 1-11 in their last 12 games against the AL East, and the 1 game they won was an extra inning walk off. They are 20-10 against non AL East teams so thankfully with the balanced schedule they can turn things around when the schedule clears up, but not a good sign to be this bad against teams they will be competing with for playoff spots all year. The Rangers have the 2nd best RD in the league right now so if they're legitimately good and others muddy the waters a bit (Red Sox, Mariners), then a WC spot is not going to be easy to get.

Agreed on all of this. It's actually somewhat impressive that the team has been this good for a couple of years now given how it was put together. Basically the antithesis of building a sustainable contender. They got nothing in return for the departing 2015-16 core, and the drafting/international signings post 2017 have mostly been awful aside from Manoah. The 2nd best player the Jays have drafted from 2017-onwards is probably Ryan Noda at this point. Hopefully Tiedemann changes that but pitching prospects are the hardest to count on. Schneider and Montoyo have a bunch of things in common (not in a good way) but the biggest thing they have in common is the biggest issue, and that is they were hired by the same guy/front office. That's where the real issue is.

John Schneider post game: “I f***** up”. Will probably get a lot of use out of that quote.

James Click rubbing his hands together seeing how things are unfolding right now.

“Shut up Fat Boy” is Schneider’s legacy. He literally hasn’t done anything else worth anything.

Varsho finally not batting 4th anymore. He’s going to get better with the bat but let him do it towards the bottom of the order first. Thankfully Belt is resembling a big league hitter now so easier to make that switch.

Yeah the negativity about this team shouldn’t be about the quality of the 2023 team but the division they play in. Hell, it wasn’t even 2 seasons ago that the Jays won 91 games and missed the playoffs. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to happen in 2023 as well. The long term outlook for the team is a bit more worrisome to me when I look at a team like Baltimore and how they are set up, not to mention the Rays who are always good, and the Yankees who haven’t finished below .500 in like 30 years. This division forces excellence so the bar has to be set higher.

Springer looked safe on the replay but still a bad decision on his part.

The issue with the Jays is they have prioritized middle infielders who hit like middle infielders. It's hard to turn those guys into passable outfielders unless they somehow become plus CF'ers where offense isn't as important as RF/LF. On top of that the outfielders they have drafted over the past few years have not been able to hit as they climbed the ladder in the minors. I actually think it's a drafting issue in general, not just an outfielder issue. The amateur drafting since 2016 aside from hitting on Bichette and Manoah has been ass cheeks for the most part. Bichette was drafted 7 years ago. They haven't developed a homegrown drafted position player at any position even close to that level since (Kirk/Moreno were international FAs). The Cardinals drafted Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and Alec Burleson in a 5 round draft in 2020, as an example. The prospects are there, the Jays just don't seem to be identifying them as well as other teams, and it shows in the current state of the farm system. Even the international drafting since Moreno/Kirk has been suspect, although to be fair with international prospects you need to give more time due to how young they are. It's actually a credit to Atkins for how good the MLB team is given the lack of real farm development over the years. He's done really well on a lot of trades and signings, to his credit.

Bases loaded, 0 out with Weber on the mound, Belt/Vlad/Springer hitting, and the Jays only get a run in. That’s pretty bad.

The hypothetical of "we could have gotten X for Kirk" is pointless. The decision to trade Moreno instead of Kirk isn't. There were arguments to keep or trade any of the 3 catchers during the off season. The only thing we don't know for sure is what the offers were for the others (or even the other offers available for Moreno), so we can safely assume the Jays went with the trade they perceived as being the best value, but we can still debate whether they chose the right player to trade. To clarify, I was fine with them trading Moreno for Varsho. Whether it was fair value player for player or not is debatable, but the team's window is 2023-25, and Kirk/Jansen was probably the safest way of maximizing that window without the risk of having to wait to see if Moreno turned into something (if he ever does). Plus getting a legit defensive CF who can also hit is becoming very difficult, never mind the Jays inability to develop OF'ers internally over the years. If you asked me which catcher I would have wanted to keep long term it would have been Moreno because I don't trust Kirk's aging curve, but Moreno being an all star in 2026 does nothing for 2023-25's window with Vlad/Bo so that had to be the main consideration.

We’d have to compare Moreno/Varsho to whatever deal we may have been able to get for Kirk. Of course unless those offers are leaked then we will never know what the true alternative was. With that said, if Varsho continues to be a 3 to 4 WAR player again and Kirk finds his extra base power, then it won’t matter what Moreno becomes.