glory

If Pearson wasn't so injury prone I would have tried to stretch him out and use him as a SP (gradually working the innings/pitch count up) but that ain't happening, so it's gotta be Mitch White at this point and accept whatever results come out of it. Manoah is broken and needs to be fixed.

Lol at Kirk running to 1st.

Can Manoah stop starting home games at least? Being down before the Jays even have an at bat in the game is getting old with him.

A few more regular season home games against the Yankees and Red Sox > consistent playoff revenue Makes sense.

Wasn’t Swanson warming up? Why on earth didn’t they bring him in to face the top of the order? Man, Schneider sucks.

I'd be ok with having no divisions. Just an AL and NL. Top 6 teams in each league make it. Top 2 in each league get a bye to the DS, and then 4 WC teams. With the balanced schedule and every team facing each other throughout the season, the divisions are essentially meaningless. It only serves to the get the historically low spending teams (both Central divisions) into playoff contention when they'd otherwise be way out of it (ex. the AL Central this season).

If you told me before the season that Orelvis' BB% would be around 8.0, K% around 23.0, and ISO over .300, I would think he's in the midst of a breakout season. It's crazy how bad his numbers are even after the last couple of games.

Great outing by Bassitt and really glad Schneider went against his norm and didn’t go to the pen.

Not watching the game, but please tell me no one is warming up. I know Schneider probably has the sweats right now wanting to make a pitching change.

Signing Eovaldi over Bassitt would have been fine with me. I'm not sure if that was possible (it takes two to tango in free agency) or whether the Jays valued Bassitt higher due to less perceived injury risk, but performance/stuff/AL East history definitely was in Eovaldi's favor, and he got a shorter contract on a lower AAV. Thinking about it further, Atkins usually aims pretty highly in free agency (Ryu, Springer, Semien, Gausman, etc). In this case, Bassitt was a floor rather than ceiling signing, but still got a pretty large AAV. Could be worse though, the Jays could have been holding the bag for Rodon, which thankfully they didn't pursue.

Yeah, Kirk's ISO in his last 400 PA dating back to last season is .082 and wRC+ at 101. He was great in April-June 2022, but then fell off big time and hasn't rebounded. It's early and he's still young, so he could easily bounce back, but considering his weight and the fact that he's the slowest man on earth, I'm not sure him vs. Moreno moving forward is going to be a slam dunk unless Kirk's 2021-first half 2022 power comes back. Who is better for 2024-beyond is probably debatable, especially if Moreno develops even a little bit of pop. Of course if first half 2022 Kirk comes back, then it's a different story.

The 2026 talk doesn't negate the fact that 2023 (and likely/hopefully 2024-25) should be good, competitive seasons. It's just looking more and more likely that this is going to be a 3 year window, followed by a forced rebuild. I guess we have to hope Atkins has some Houdini trades left in him where he trades minor league junk and gets good, controllable MLB talent in return.

Yeah, it’s looking that way. Atkins has been a solid GM on the big league level but he’s built this team in the exact opposite way you would have imagined when Shatkins took over (massive investment in free agency, trading prospects, no extensions to young players, middling/poor farm system during competitive years). If Atkins, Click, or whoever the GM is over the next few years can keep the train moving without any rebuilding phase in 2026, I’d honestly be shocked at this point.

The Jays saw what happened in Game 2 of the WC series, knew they likely only had a three year window remaining, and decided to extend Schneider anyway. Whether it's him, the org's analytics, or both, they deserve whatever they get from this point on.

Why is Kirk pinch hitting for KK rather than Espinal?

We talk about Moreno and his lack of power, but should we be concerned about Kirk's? Since July 1 of 2022, he has a .083 ISO in 394 plate appearances (not counting tonight). His best attribute is clearly drawing walks and making contact in general, but he's probably the slowest runner on earth, so if he's not hitting for power then that's not the most useful skill for him. Hopefully he starts hitting for at least modest power at some point. He did early in 2022 but then stopped mid season and has never recovered.

With only 2 years of Vlad/Bo left after this season, it would be pretty ballsy to replace Chapman with Barger, but at some point the Jays do have to start replacing departing players with prospects. If they put Barger there in 2024, then hopefully they can improve 2B/LF/DH enough to compensate for whatever growing pains Barger would have. Thankfully they have 5 SP's locked up for next season so in theory we shouldn't see another $20m AAV SP signing.

Yeah I think it's clear now that if the Jays want any chance at sustainable contention beyond 2025 they are going to have to bite the bullet and sign both Vlad and Bo. That's going to be a $600-700m investment for two players, and likely some dead money in the back end for both, but I really don't see any other option. The farm system on the position player side is kind of ass right now, and I don't see that changing dramatically by 2025 to the point where they could replace either of those two internally.

If this is the start of Belt turning things around then that changes the outlook for the lineup tremendously.

Schneider can always make an easy bullpen day more complicated. Bass could have pitched the 8th and Jackson the 9th. Not sure why Mayza was needed at all here.

Yeah there's no apology that will save that. Can't even say he misspoke.

The Orioles bottomed out far more significantly, but from a timeline standpoint, was putting up with a couple of 100 loss seasons really that much worse than what the Jays endured right after the Bautista window closed? To put things into perspective: 2016: Jays and Orioles had the exact same record, met in the WC game, Jays won. 2017: Both teams tried, and failed, to extend the window of an aging roster. 2018: Jays tried again, Orioles were just really bad, held on to assets way too long only to trade them for nothing (Machado, JD, etc), and gave up mid season. 2019: Orioles hired a new GM to completely tank, Jays began a 1 year tank 2020: Pandemic season, no fans, throwaway year for the entire league from a development standpoint. 2021: Orioles finish 52-110, 2nd year of their Elias tank, the Jays win 91 games while missing the playoffs by a game. 2022: Orioles finish a respectable 83-79 in what was expected to be their 3rd full season tank, while the Jays win 92 games and make the playoffs. So essentially, both made the playoffs in 2016, both held on to an aging roster rather than start a rebuild in 2017-18, both began a real tank in 2019, and the Jays became good (2021) one year sooner (2022). Unfortunately we don't know what the Jays would have done in 2020 if the pandemic never happened, but a full season rotation (after Ryu) of Roark, Anderson, an injury prone Shoemaker, and trash Thornton combined with a middling pen probably doesn't see .500, although maybe the offense would have carried it to respectability. The Jays also spent significantly in 2020-21, getting Ryu, Springer, Semien, etc. The O's basically did nothing and it's been nothing but organic growth. I guess the main difference is the Jays were just bad in 2017-18 while the O's were horrendous, but I mean, bad is bad. I think we have to give the O's some credit here. This was a pretty quick turnaround all things considered, and the farm system is still in an amazing spot. Wouldn't shock me at all if 2023 is the last season the Jays are better than them for a while, assuming they end up better this season to begin with.

Atkins is solid, but definitely replaceable. I'd be fine with it. Whether it would actually happen is another story. It would have to take either missing the playoffs this season or getting embarrassed in the WC round again for it to be possible, and even then I'm not sure. With Vlad/Bo only controllable through 2025, if Click stays around long enough (he probably won't), then I could see him being Atkins' successor at some point. It's not like Atkins has set this up to be a sustainable juggernaut. After 2025 it's highly possible the team will have to go through a rebuild depending on what happens with Vlad and Bo's contracts, and I sure as hell don't want Atkins around if that happens.

Agreed. The farm system in particular is not making me very confident for a sustainable run beyond 2023-25, so the Jays really have to take advantage of these next 3 seasons. The fact that the team has over $80m invested in the rotation and we'd still have a hard time feeling confident with whoever would start Game 2 of a playoff series is kinda scary. I still expect the Jays, barring significant injury, to be around where they were the last two seasons (90-95 wins), but the strength of the division is intense.

Gausman has to be tipping his pitches. Or Cora is cheating again. Maybe both.