glory

Bryce was hyped as baseball's LeBron. No way Tork is on that level of prospect.

I agree with this. Black culture has blended into pop culture and it has been that way for many years now. If baseball were 20% black (for example), the league’s marketability would increase dramatically. So I agree spending money to improve in this area will come with benefits. However, I don’t think you can underestimate the marketing aspect of this. A few weeks ago MLB’s Youtube channel posted a concert by Dropkick Murphy. Apologies to any of their fans who are reading this, but if MLB thinks that’s going to appeal to a young demo, they are out of their damn minds. MLB needs to feel trendy. They need to market their black athletes so that black kids can see them on their TVs/phones. Mookie Betts prior to the pandemic was going to get a contract north of $350m. Tell a black family that you could be under 6 feet and potentially make over $400 million in your career without the risk of CTE, and it would have an impact. Even knowing who Mookie is would make an impact.

I agree with the points being made here. The NBA and NFL present a much greater chance of being paid right away than MLB does, the latter being more of a long term play (and no guarantee you'll play in the majors long enough to ever truly cash out). It's also easier to toil in the minors for years if you grew up in an upper middle class or better family, so combine that with the cost it takes to play baseball as a youth compared to just buying a basketball/football and going to a park, and those factors definitely contribute to the drop in black players over the years. I think marketing the game/players better will help a lot though. If black kids see Judge, Betts, and others marketed on social media like crazy, and suddenly it becomes cool to play baseball again, then you might see more kids pursue it. Either way, I don't think baseball has a race issue when it comes to players. It's the marketing of the sport that needs work. If anything, the racial breakdown in MLB is likely superior to any other sport in North America. It just has seen a decline in African Americans over the past 30 years, something they are at least trying to remedy, which is more than any other sport would do to improve a demographic.

Yeah I think it's way too simplistic to say "fewer black players in MLB = racism". There are a whole bunch of factors involved, including just the general decline in popularity in the sport among youth today. I hope for the sake of the sport that the % of black players increase over time, as some of the greatest players who ever lived were black, and in the future you want to the Kyler Murray's to choose baseball over CTE. However, it is going to require a lot of work from MLB, not just the RBI program but also making baseball more accessible period. Every black person in America needs to know who Mookie Betts is. Or Aaron Judge. or Tim Anderson. And so on. If young black kids see black athletes playing baseball on TV, it becomes a lot easier to attract them to the sport. MLB can't even market Mike Trout, so it's not a race issue with them, it's more about not having a clue how to market the sport or its players. I remember reading that over 30% of MLB is Hispanic, and it is ~50% in the minors. That % is likely going to grow beyond any other race looking at the minor league trends (fewer draft rounds in the future will certainly add to that likelihood). Without looking it up, I'm pretty sure MLB has more Asian players than any other US sports league. I don't think it's fair to lump baseball in with hockey as a "white" sport. It's actually ignorant to do so.

Holding Pearson back for 2 months is a debatable point. Holding him back for one start is not. It’s one start in a 60 game season. Losing a year of service for that would be damn near negligent. With that said, I hope the Jays are done gaming the system in a typical season. They waited to get an extra year of Vlad, now one of those years will be 60 games (if it happens) and another might be locked out (2022). Bring talent up when they are ready. Whatever happens after that, you deal with it.

Jays starting season 0-3 confirmed.

I think we are at a point where someone testing positive, especially before the season starts, is being considered more of a formality. Every sports league is expecting a bunch of positives. The real test will be whether they can prevent as many positive tests during the season.

For the MLB to have approximately the same positive % as the NBA, they'd have to have around 95 players, give or take, test positive (out of 1800). The NBA figure is actually a lot lower than I was expecting, so maybe there's some hope with the MLB number as well.

Man, the Jays playing in the Trop as a road team is bad enough. Thank goodness they said no to that option.

Hard to say. I think we are one serious hospitalization away from all sports shutting down, but if athletes are simply testing positive and being quarantined, then I think every sport will try to work through it. I'd say 50/50 right now for all sports.

I actually think because of not having any long term commitments aside from Grichuk, the Jays should hold off from signing Giles to an extension. The free agent market might be crowded with bargains this winter. Even the top end free agents probably won't get paid as much as they expected prior to Covid. Before sinking in to a longer deal with Giles, which we might be able to do anyway if we wait, I'd prefer seeing what's out there first. If owners don't spend money this winter, then the Jays are one of the few teams who could benefit (low payroll, a s*** load of players making the minimum, etc).

Wow. I was a big supporter of starting Pearson in the rotation from the start, but having him miss one start and then getting an extra year of control out of it is a no brainer, and this coming from someone who thinks hoarding service time for pitchers is stupid due to their enormous injury risk. Go with Ryu-Shoemaker-Roark-Anderson-Thornton for the first five games, Ryu-Shoemaker for games 6 and 7, and then Pearson for 8. Done and done.

Ryu is not one of them according to Daniel Kim. His test came back negative.

Based on the schedule (assuming it’s similar to the 2018 setup), if I were the Jays I’d be less inclined to try Anderson, Yamaguchi, Borucki, etc in the rotation. Mediocre innings eaters have way less value in a 60 game season, and the Jays could easily plug in Pearson in one spot and Thornton (who at least has some upside) into the other to go with Ryu, Roark, and Shoe. The Jays are going to face almost all good offences in the 60 games except the O’s and Marlins. Need to worry about getting the best guys the most innings, and not about who can soak up 5 average innings at best.

Phillies: 6 Mets: 4 Braves: 4 Marlins: 3 Nats: 3 That’s how it broke down for the Jays in 2018.

Universal DH will happen in 2020 to avoid additional injury risk for pitchers. Expanded playoffs seems like a no-go because the owners want it and the MLBPA wants to hold that over them for the next CBA drama, so unless something changes, looks like the regular playoff format in 2020. Whatever your feelings are on expanded playoffs, this was the year to do it since there will only be 37% of the regular season played. Missed opportunity for the league, but that's on the players. Also the trade deadline is August 31. I think this deadline will resemble the waiver deadline of year's past where vets will be moved for practically nothing. I find it hard to believe any team would trade even a remotely decent prospect for 20-30 games of a player in a truncated season with no fans and no guarantee of the playoffs concluding. But I guess if the Jays fall out of it and want to get Julian Merryweather part II for Ken Giles, that's still a possibility.

Since teams face their own division opponents 10 times each, I wonder if they will do a pair of 5 game series' or spread it out more. For example, if the Jays are the road team going to Yankee Stadium, just get through all 5 games there in one series, and be done with it. Seems pointless to spread them out more as it will just add more travel than necessary.

Baseball is officially back.

We are in the launch angle, exit velo era of baseball. Most teams are not going to bunt with a runner on 2nd in extra innings. You might see the home team do it as mentioned if the team in the top of the inning doesn't score, but beyond that, most teams are going to try for a 2 run HR. In fact it would be smarter for the road team to try to score as many runs as possible, so bunting the runner over would be pointless as the home team could do the exact same thing. Count me in as being fine with that rule change. I don't need to see a 17 inning game where half the pitching staff has to be demoted to the minors afterwards. This isn't 1973. Torch all the traditional BS that just makes the game longer and more boring to the average fan.

Read it on Twitter. Don't think it's official yet, but that seems to be the framework to avoid excessive travel.

With the region based schedule the Jays play the AL and NL East for all 60 games. That's a good thing when we face the O's and Marlins, but beyond that it's the Yanks, Rays, Red Sox, Mets, Nats, Braves, and Phillies. Not going to be easy. Expanded playoffs there would have been a shot. Regular playoff format is going to be tough.

With no minor league season, it would be insane not to have him on the roster from day 1. He already missed all of 2018, and now 2020 is compromised due to Covid. He turns 24 in 2 months, and pitchers who throw that hard have an unpredictable shelf life. I mean, if everyone stays healthy (big if), he'd only start about 12 games in a 60 game season, but that's better than being on the taxi squad throwing fake simulated games. Of course, starting him on the roster right away means that him, Vlad, Bo, and Biggio become free agents at the same time, but between potential work stoppages, CBA changes, etc, in the coming years, just put the best players on the field when it makes sense to do so. If Pearson is on the taxi squad because we have to take a long look at Chase Anderson, Borucki, Yamaguchi, etc, in the rotation, then even a 60 game season will start to feel long. A rotation of Ryu-Pearson-Shoemaker-Roark-Thornton actually looks decent on paper, and the other guys can be used as depth in case of injury. Although they have to explain how the 40 man roster situation works in a truncated season.

The players getting screwed under the leadership of Tony Clark is like the sun rising every morning. Some things don’t change. You’re right they have no chance of winning this grievance, so this seems pointless, but whatever. I’ll take the 60 games. I really wanted expanded playoffs, though. I might be the only one but make it happen some day.

The players would be idiots if they didn't report. Some may not report for other reasons (health), but I'd expect most/nearly all players to be ready for ST on July 1. Where the Jays report is the question. Florida seems like a s*** show right now, and getting into Canada is likely a no go for the rest of the season. Maybe Buffalo is the solution here.