glory

Agreed the Jays will get nothing for him in a trade. The market hates 1B/DH more than any other position right now. The best hope is if a contender wants to clean up its 40 man roster and gives up a Thornton type (back end SP type/multiple inning RP type).

Hopefully Biggio plays everyday. We really need his bat in the lineup. Vlad, Biggio, Jansen, Tellez (power might be realer than I thought)........we're getting closer. Bichette when he gets healthy is next. Would be nice if Alford didn't completely decline but I'm not expecting much there anymore.

Agreed completely with both these points. Jansen was a top prospect in baseball, had great minor league performance with good indicators for success (BB/K in particular), and is in his rookie season. You can be patient with players of that ilk. There's a pretty strong chance Jansen can become a good MLB starting catcher, if not a really good one. The others are just wishful thinking. Tellez with the power he has shown so far might be more interesting than I thought originally, but get out of here with McKinney, Teoscar, Drury, Gurriel, etc. Brian Cashman is the king of taking undervalued talent and helping them grow as players, and he moved Drury as quickly as he could once Andujar panned out. What makes anyone have more faith in the Jays helping him than the Yankees? I realize people want to play devil's advocate and be positive even in bad situations. I get it. I do that too some times. None of us want to hate on what the Jays are doing. But some times it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, etc.

One is considered a positive defensive player at a critical defensive position with a minor league track record of very good offensive performance (K/BB rate in particular) and was a top prospect in baseball as of the start of this season, while the other plays a s*** OF, has no base running value, and even in the minors was pulling off sub-.300 OBP's in AAA. I don't think it needs to be explained why Jansen would get more rope than McKinney. What you're basically saying is "this fringe guy has no redeeming qualities but it's only 150 plate appearances so it's too early". I mean, you can use that logic with anyone. Teoscar, McKinney, Brito, Hanson. Just as you did by bringing up McGuire and Ramirez earlier. Those guys do not project to be anything beyond bench players (McGuire moreso). Just because you can rattle off a bunch of names it doesn't mean any of those guys are good. That's where the disagreement comes from in this thread. Yeah, Atkins acquired a s*** ton of prospects in the past two years. How many of them are any good? Majors or Minors? Any top 100's? Anyone you can reasonably project to be a starting player on a playoff contender down the road? That's a pretty important distinction. If we are just stockpiling a bunch of back end 40 man roster depth, and throwing a party because we didn't give up much to get those players, that's not good.

Yeah seriously. I'll take Stroman on my team any day. He's fun to watch, passionate, and isn't afraid of the big moments. The good old boy mentality is the reason why no one gives a s*** about MLB in the mainstream. You are competing against the NBA and NFL. Give me a larger than life personality any day of the week over the Randal Grichuk's of the world who want to put their head down and bore the audience to tears.

Sure that's why I said as of now Atkins is not doing well. If suddenly the players he acquired take giant steps forward, then my opinion of him will change. I hope it does. Right now the only thing I have confidence in is the drafting and international signings.

Osuna trade was good especially considering the circumstances, plus Giles can be flipped for better prospects. Both Diaz deals were good. Grichuk deal was good but made worse by the unnecessary extension. However, the rest of the deals ranged from inconsequential to trash. I mean, yeah, for a s***** Liriano we got a better prospect than we probably should have, but that doesn’t mean it was a good prospect. Hernandez has been bad and he’s old for a prospect now. The Happ trade sucked from day 1. Solarte sucked (Olivares might be something better than filler). We got bodies for some expiring vets but nothing beyond depth pieces. Pillar was dumped and we somehow got the worse end of that because the players we got back suck and we don’t even have a CF to replace him (Grichuk is better off in right). Like I said maybe he hits a home run with Stroman and Giles (and Sanchez if he stays healthy), but if he doesn’t, then it’s just more bad to stack to the pile. I actually don’t mind acquiring fringe type prospects and giving them a chance to play but Atkins is like 0 for infinity in actually acquiring an undervalued player and having them improve. If anything Grichuk is the same dude he’s always been and that’s one of Atkins’ best moves. If Paulino becomes a good reliever, and Drury becomes a starting infielder, etc, then we can start talking. But so far there’s been no development, while the Yankees can pluck guys from the minors and watch them succeed. Jays need to be better.

I miss AA. Atkins and Montoyo have annoyed me so much this season that the GM I couldn't wait to see leave has now become someone I look back on fondly. Damn you Atkins.

I think the most frustrating part of all of this is I don't even think they are trying (and failing) to build like the Rays. I don't think there is a distinguishable plan at all. It seems like they are waiting on their draft picks to come up the system while accumulating as much back end 40 man roster depth as possible while making the payroll as low as humanly possible. It's like taking the money saving aspect of the Astros rebuild and current Rays minus the top 5 picks (until 2020) or astute player development. if they are banking on their drafting alone to produce a WS winning lineup, how f'n long do we have to wait for that to materialize? Atkins has swung and missed on almost every important young player acquisition he's made aside from Thornton so far. Even a good player like Grichuk was signed to an extension he probably didn't deserve and may not be able to live up to. We see players like Biggio dominate the upper minors, but can't get called up presumably for super 2 reasons, even though who bloody cares if there's an extra year of arb when you have no financial commitments beyond 2020 anyway? Atkins is 100% going to trade Stroman and Giles. He better fit a f'n grand slam in the return for those two. THis is probably the least interested I have been in the Jays for a long time. The roster sucks, the front office hasn't established itself as one we can trust (Atkins), and even looking forward to the trade deadline is a bit of a letdown when we have two years of sample size that show Teoscar, McKinney, Drury, Wall, Paulino, Perez, Waguespack, etc.

Yeah if Vlad is hurt or banged up, I have no problem resting him. But it sounds like it was a pre planned rest day, which is stupid as hell since they could have done it the day before (on the road) or day after (when there will be more people at my gym than there will be at the Dome). Doing it today on a day where they expected a larger than usual crowd on a holiday is just going to make people not want to buy tickets later. Of course the Jays won't be a hot seller until they are good again but I don't think they want 10k at the Dome every night either.

It’s well deserved. They are already admittedly tanking the s*** out of this season, but to not play Vlad in a game where actual human beings show up (as opposed to a normal night when it will be nothing but blue seats) is just being tone deaf to optics. It’s like Shatkins go out of their way to piss off a fanbase that already hates them. Easy fix is DH him today and rest him tomorrow. Not sure why they went with the dumbest option possible.

To be fair to Sir Bunt-A-Lot, he gives everyone days off once or twice a week and cycles a bunch of different lineup configurations, so maybe this was a scheduled day off, but damn, improvise a bit dude.

I think Buntoyost is in way over his head, but this has to be a front office call, right? I mean, no way a rookie manager who wants to win games would give this many days off to a 20 year old who puts the team in a much better position to win, right? There is a reason Charlie didn't get a manager job in 20 years, and we are seeing why first hand, but I doubt this is his call. The question is, why is Atkins giving Vlad the load management treatment?

I’m starting to think the Jays don’t deserve Vlad. Between holding him back longer than they had to (after they already got the extra year) to benching him a week into his debut, to now benching him again when they could have DH’ed him. I’ve never seen a team have an elite young player and find as many ways as they could to not play him.

I think the only fair point people made with DSJ was he might end up as good or better than Teoscar and McKinney, but all three of them probably suck, so it's not a huge accomplishment either way.

The Yankees could sign one of us and we’d suddenly be able to hit.

God damn, Sanchez couldn't stay healthy long enough for us to trade his ass? Come on. Just make him a reliever and trade him as a RP. He'd be worth more on the trade market that way anyway.

Lol, touche, but I've said before Gibbons improved in 2016 onwards. If Buntoyo was replacing Gibby 1.0 (2015), I would have embraced bunting like it was my children.

The drafting and international signings have been fine. I was talking about the big league transactions. That's been the dumpster fire for the most part. I won't be too hard on him for not trading vets sooner since that was likely ownership's call, but that's another blunder. Objectively I just don't see how we can view him in a positive light to this point, and I say that as someone who likes Shatkins. It's possible he's just not as good as we thought/hoped based on the Shapiro association. Don't even get me started on firing Gibby 2.0 just to replace him with the human bunt machine.

I hope Stroman is extended, and he should be, but I agree I think he's going to be traded. Too much smoke for there to be no fire. Sanchez should not be extended (and won't want to with Boras), so he can be traded whenever.

Questioning Atkins is very fair at this point. The best moves the team made for 2016 were made by LaCava, and almost everything since the start of 2017 has been a dumpster fire aside from extending Smoak due to prospects acquired either under performing or flat out sucking. Plus the vet signings have been pretty bad (Morales, Pearce, Grandy, Garcia, etc). Then the one time he gives a long term extension it is to a player with a 5-6% walk rate for his career and a projected 2 ish WAR. Shapiro is fine. Atkins is definitely someone who deserves criticism (so far). The season is still young so if young players start turning it around, then opinions can change.

By the time the Jays are realistically good again, Giles will be in his 30's. With reliever volatility the way it is, an extension would be a risk, especially if we are looking at another bad season or two before becoming good. If there was a chance to seriously contend in 2020, and 2019 was just a bump in the road, then I'd consider an extension, but practically every young player on the roster aside from Vlad either sucks or has struggled badly so far, so it's hard to say what the team's timeline is right now. Biggio is the only prospect in AAA close to ready with Bo injured and Alford s***ing the bed. The Jays are devoid of high end young talent, at least in the upper minors. That's where trading Giles will help. Of course, if the offers are more Drury/McKinney level, then sure keep him and try to extend him. I'm assuming as a closer with amazing numbers, he'd fetch a pretty decent return.

Kirk 1-1 with a double and a walk so far. I'm a believer.

Yes 2+ months of Happ wasn't a great asset, but Drury was an arb eligible 26 year old who peaked at a 1 WAR to that point, and McKinney is a jack of no trades. 1-2 WAR players are signing minor league deals in today's market. They really have no value anymore. They'll have value to a good team that can use 1-2 wins for $550k, but to a rebuilding team? Just sign Adam Jones and Josh Harrison to play OF and 2B/3B and flip them at the deadline for lotto tickets (vetrin presents). Don't trade actual vet assets for 1 WAR young players. That's why I actually liked the Russell Martin trade. Ronnie Brito probably sucks, but at least you can dream. I'd rather have that than a 24 year old 0.5 WAR outfielder who is ready right now.

Dude do you ever post anything other than a one liner that does nothing to further a discussion? Holy s*** you're obnoxious. The Braves are not giving up Touki. That's all you have to say. I'm throwing it out there because he's doing poorly and I'm hoping AA still has some 2013-15 derp in him. If you disagree, that's cool, I won't lose any sleep over it. Let Ray argue your side man. He does a much better job.