glory

He also has a 5-6% BB% for his career and is in an era where he will increasingly see more and more off speed stuff. I think expecting a huge breakout, beyond the 2.5 WAR type that he has been, is not as likely as I would have thought a year ago. They could have sold at the 2017 deadline (JD and Happ would have had 1.5 years of control left, and Stroman/Osuna 3.5 years each). Regardless, they didn't need to tear down. They could have traded JD in mid 2017 and still tried to win in 2018. Maybe they use that saved money in free agency, or to acquire a player in trade, etc. Not being able to leverage the assets they had while still being able to fake an attempt at contending is definitely on them. Rogers wants to make money, so of course they won't want to rebuild when attendance is high, but that should not have prevented Shatkins from trading certain players in order to maximize the return. What percentage do you give any of those players turning into 2-3 WAR types, especially in this organization? 10%? 5%? It's pretty damn small. At least with Grichuk you can hope on a 3+ WAR path if he puts things together, but the others are huge long shots. As far as development, almost nothing in baseball is linear, but there are indicators to show breakout potential. For me, BB% is huge. If you're a 5% BB type, then I'm not counting on that player turning into much unless he has a Javy Baez type of hitting ability, and that's not very common. Base running is important. Defence (which Shatkins typically ignores) is important. Exit velocity and stat cast performance is important. You can't just look at age and some minor league numbers without context and assume a player has potential to improve.

Grichuk is pretty much the same dude he was in St. Louis with slightly fewer K's. Decent player, 2 WAR type, but he hasn't taken that step forward yet. If it happens, then that would be a point for the front office, but so far it looks like they made a good trade for a good player who simply maintained the level he had previously. It's not like he came to Toronto and took a step forward. That's my point. The Jays have not shown the ability to make players, hitters in particular, take a leap forward in their development aside from Smoak. On top of that, they sold low on a lot of their veteran talent in order to go for a WC spot in 2017-18, so they weren't able to maximize returns there. That puts more pressure on player development to compensate for that lost opportunity. Like I said, I like Shatkins, but I can't sit here and pretend that this is a well oil machine that maximizes the talents of their players. That needs to change. They can't spend like the Yankees/Red Sox, and can't do what the Rays do, so they need to be way more successful at finding the underutilized talents and having them become good under their watch.

I meant bust relative to what he was expected to be, but I'll concede that was too harsh of a word. Maybe not hitting as well as expected would have sufficed. 2017 (AAA): 312 PA, 85 wRC+, 7.7 BB% 2018 (AAA): 179 PA, 100 wRC+, 5.0 BB% 2018 (MLB): 191 PA, 110 wRC+, 5.2 BB% ------Gets traded------- 2018 (AAA): 106 PA, 223 wRC+, 7.5 BB% 2019 (MLB): 83 PA, 189 wRC+, 9.6 BB% Good prospect, but immediately goes to the Rays and becomes ten times better than what he was showing before. There is a trend there. Would he have gotten there anyway had he stayed with the Pirates? Maybe, but I'm just going by what actually happened. It was like a switch turned on immediately after stepping into a Rays facility. If you want to argue that the Jays have never acquired players of that caliber, fine. They could have acquired Yandy Diaz and turned him around, right? Ji-Man Choi was in like 5 different orgs before Tampa got him and he immediately became a good big leaguer. I could go on and on, and I f***ing hate the Rays so hyping them up like this makes me ill. Almost all of TOR's pick ups have flopped. In some cases badly. Making matters worse is that almost all of them suck on defence so they are not even maximizing that aspect of value. The Jays have not shown the ability to take players, whether highly rated or otherwise, and turning them into good MLB'ers. Smoak is the exception in over 3 years. So far their main strength is getting cheapo relievers and turning them into good RP's, which is fine, but not exactly franchise altering. The player development side for this team needs work. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wearing blinders. I like Shatkins and I see this as a major issue. Let's see what they get back for Stroman, Giles, etc, and see how those players develop.

Dude the first thing I said in the post you were quoting is that they were not reclamation projects, so why is reclamation in quotations? I clearly said they were players who the Rays acquired who became better after they were acquired. That's a sign of an org with a strong player development structure. The Jays don't have that.

They weren't reclamation projects, but they were players who the Pirates were either not utilizing properly or gave up on. Meadows looked like a bust from 2016-18, and Glasnow was being used out of the pen by the Pirates. Those weren't Brito types of rec projects, but still players who the Rays acquired and turned into much better players. The Jays need to start doing this. If Paulino was a Ray, he'd be pretty damn good right now in whichever role they had him in. I'm almost sure of that.

The point about taking flyers on players is that how many of them are actually panning out for the Jays? Smoak was already here though I'll give Atkins credit for that one since it was a contract extension, but who else? Tampa gets Yandy and he turns into something. They get Meadows and Glasnow and turn them into stars. They have a reliever carousel every year and somehow have great results with it every year. That's an organization that you can count on to be good for a while. The Jays can't spend more than the Yankees, and they clearly cannot identify/develop underutilized talent better than Tampa, so where's the competitive advantage? If Thornton, Merryweather, Waguespack, Pannone, Paulino, etc, turn into good pitchers, then that would be a good sign. I have more faith in them than I do the Drury/Teoscar/McKinney's of the world, but still a bad sign that Smoak is the only one in three+ years that we acquired and turned around based on adjustment or swing changes. That's not good enough.

DSJ being a better outfielder than anyone currently on the roster aside from Grichuk is not a far fetched outcome. That might say more about how bad the Jays are than DSJ, but it's true. Even if he's league average, that unfortunately might be better than Teoscar, McKinney, Drury (now that he's playing OF), Gurriel, etc.

Thank god.

At some point if Shatkins is to be trusted from a player development side, they'll need to turn some of these guesses into hits. Smoak definitely helps, but that's it in 3+ years. If you asked to name all the players the Rays fixed over that same span, the list would be a lot longer. Hell, the Yankees list would be a lot longer. That's who were are competing with.

Rebuilding in the shadows and rebuilding are two different things. Or at least two different strategies. In no way were the Jays rebuilding in 2017 and 2018. In the background, sure, they made sure the farm system was being taken care of, but in the forefront they held on to players they should have moved and let big league assets depreciate in value before trading them. My example of rebuilding in 2018 would have been trading Donaldson to the Cardinals in the winter and then starting Solarte at third. In hindsight Solarte sucked, but you could have at least projected a 1-2 WAR out of him, while maximizing the return on JD. That's the type of off season the Jays should have had here. They are obviously salivating to trade Stroman, Sanchez, Giles, etc, but wanted their values to increase, but what stopped them from signing good vets instead of spoon feeding playing time to Hernandez, Drury, McKinney, Brito, Hanson, etc? Why sign Galvis then, should have just went with Gurriel and Urena and lived with the consequences. The Jays partially rebuilt in 2017 and 2018 (and even 2016 when they were adding to a playoff team), but no way were they really rebuilding. There was more value wasted in those three seasons than anything else. This team took a huge hit by waiting to trade certain players.

Rogers will force them to win either in 2020 or 2021. No way they let the attendance decline even further. I'm with BTS. I was all for letting the young kids play, but as the off season played out, we saw good players get traded for nothing, free agents who wanted more than the damn minimum sitting out, etc. The Jays could have easily improved the big league roster with cheap vets without sacrificing the farm system. Maybe you don't give 500 plate appearances to Tesocar, Drury, McKinney, etc, in that scenario, but boo freakin hoo. I'm also in the minority who thinks the extension to Grichuk was too soon, and he's not good enough to warrant it, but I was proven wrong with Smoak so hopefully that ends up being the case here as well. I'll let them try to win with Vlad. By the end of 2025, this team better than at least 2 playoff appearances, if not more.

They weren't rebuilding in 2017 and 2018. They kept everyone, let their value depreciate, and then traded them at lesser value. In 2019, they could have signed a Michael Brantley type (for example), still got rid of Tulo, Martin, etc, and not had it affect the rebuild. I and many others were screaming for them to trade for Yandy Diaz since the Indians didn't seem to give two shits about him, and of course the damn Rays get him. There were ways to rebuild and try to improve the big league team at the same time, and that Jays didn't do that.

AA rebuilt in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Then after a horrid 2012 season, the payroll suddenly shot up due to short sighted trades/signings. JP rebuilt in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and then after a horrid 2004, Rogers announced a huge 3 year payroll hike which caused a short term window. In other words, Rogers could come out this winter and force Shapiro to win, and it wouldn't surprise me.

It's a combination of baseball as a whole not being popular (everywhere not just Toronto), Shatkins willing to tank for at least a year if not more, and Toronto being a bandwagon baseball town. Baseball is practically irrelevant in the mainstream. It's completely regional now, and when there is no hype even in your own city, then it's going to spell disaster for attendance. Shatkins could have rebuilt while still trying to field at least a palatable roster. They chose not to. Maybe it will be the right move in the end, but it's going to hurt short term.

Gaviglio again? Damn how often is he being used?

Grichuk believes in his manager so much that he swung as hard as he could to hit the ball a few feet off home plate. A swinging bunt. Play for one run, you get more, dammit.

Buntoyo is the manager we don't deserve.

Tepera is in so this game is over.

Don't draw a walk Vlad, he'll take you out of the game!

Carlos Garcia 1997 is the worst that I remember.

Don't forget the pinch running in the 9th, and giving him a day off less than a week into his debut. No other org would treat a generational talent like that.

Nurse has been a big problem with rotations. Last night he played Lowry/FVV/Norm together in two critical spots and the Sixers killed that lineup. He pretty much cannot have more than 2 bench players in the lineup at one time, so he has to stagger the minutes/rest a lot better.

Good lord, trade him to Atlanta to be reunited with AA and be done with this dude. One good season in his entire pro life and he thinks he can mouth off like this. That quote is worse than anything Stroman has said.

The A's messing up the plans.

Pissed yes, but realistic. The Magic winning game 1 was a fluke. I can accept that and knew the ship would be righted. But I see no optimism here. It's a really bad matchup for the Raptors.