glory

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.

Maybe Touissant or Gohara would be available for Sanchez. They both come with huge risk (especially Gohara with his shoulder) but AA loves Sanchez and it's about time Shatkins takes a risk with high reward rather than more McKinney's and Thornton's.

I don't know, I have some hope that a team out there will overrate him. Probably wishful thinking. My gut still tells me AA can't help himself and trades some excess mid level SP depth for him but AA post Toronto isn't trading prospects like candy anymore so who the hell knows at this point.

The Yankees have so many injuries but are still a great team. Unreal. It's bad enough competing with the Rays who could turn everyone they acquire into stars at 50 cents on the dollar, but the Yankees can have their entire 25 roster get hurt and still nearly lead the division. Rebuild will be hard.

Shatkins clearly wants to build internally so their legacy will come down to how well they develop players. Their problem so far is that they sell at such a low leveraging position that the returns have not been very good. JD was traded when he was hurt and had like 3 weeks of service time remaining. Osuna was traded after a DV situation (though they did pretty well there considering the circumstances). Happ was traded with 2 months of control left for 2 players Cashman wanted to clear off the 40 man roster. That's three of the best assets they had from the 2016-17 teams and the returns were very disappointing as a whole. The other trades were marginal pieces like Pearce, Grandy, middle relievers, so that won't yield much back regardless. What they get back for Stro, Sanchez, and Giles will be pretty damn important. If it's more 24-25 year old's who other teams want to take off their 40 man roster crunch, then this rebuild is going to take an eternity. Home run won't cut it, they need a walk off grand slam in these three trades. No doubters with bat flip included. If they end up with more McKinney's, then FML.

Yeah don't blame Stroman at all for that response (though not acknowledging Sid would have been better).

They chose Pompey over DSJ, but Pompey got hurt and then Davis got hurt so they had to trade for Brito once they traded Pillar. In hindsight they could have dropped Pompey and kept DSJ, but unfortunately I don't think Shatkins valued Smith at all, and probably would not have played him over McKinney or Teocar. Pompey probably would have played CF after Pillar was moved, but he got hurt again.

Man I wish we had Tim Anderson. None of this "put your head down and run the bases" BS. He hit a bomb and admired it. All the Brian McCann's (and unfortunately Grichuk's) of the baseball world can cry all day.

I'm on Team Shatkins, but even I'm not that impressed with what they've done, especially from 2018-present. Their peak so far was probably 2016 with their small incremental improvements that helped push that team back into contention, although a giant part of that was 'Shacava' (Estrada, Happ). The rebuild is supposed to be the easy part but they are routinely selling low and targeting lower upside players closer to the bigs. I'm trying very, very hard to see upside in some of these players (Drury, Teoscar, McKinney, Thornton, Paulino, Perez, etc), waiting for the player development side to fix some of these guys and turn them into solid big leaguers or fix them in the minors, but I'm just not seeing it. Too early? Maybe. But I need to see something that makes me optimistic about future moves.