glory

My guess is it will either be: CA Heineman, 1B Vlad, 2B Schneider, SS Bichette, 3B Clement, LF Straw, CF Varsho, RF Barger, DH Kirk or same lineup except Ty DeJong at DH (or 1B with Vlad at DH) if they want to give Kirk a full day off. Loperfido likely out, Lukes never plays against LHP, and Buddy forgot-his-last-name should never be in a MLB lineup, so choices are limited to the above.

Yeah that pitcher could aim for a pitch right down the middle and it could go 10 feet in either direction. No command at all. Bad teams will have these types of pitchers. Just beat the crap out of the Rockies pitching and hope to get out of Denver with no more HBP.

Yeah 98 mph to the knee is going to hurt for a bit. Hopefully Joey is ok by Friday. We need him if only to keep France off the team once Springer/Gimenez are back, so he's pretty important now (the 177 wRC+ helps too).

Nice to have Varsho back.

On the plus side, Loperfido and DS have performed so well that there's no shot either one is optioned in favor of keeping France once Springer and Gimenez are back. So this is just JS spoon feeding undeserved playing time to the vetrin.

Yeah if that's the case, combined with the fact that there's no guarantee he's even going to be 'Tony Taters' in time for the playoffs/stretch run if he does come back given the type of injury he has, then it might be best for him as a long term investment to just sit out the year. Let him heal up and be the starting RF in 2026. The sad thing is a healthy Santander in this lineup would be exactly what it needs.

A Gimenez/Clement platoon would be very good. The Jays actually using Clement as a platoon player seems unlikely to me, though. Maybe Loperfido's hot streak has changed things. I thought for sure that Clement would start at 3B and Barger in RF once Gimenez came back, but don't think they want to bench Joey while he's performing this well. Everyone has to be healthy first, which hasn't happened often with the position players on this team over the last few months. Agreed completely with Santander making the lineup way better. I just don't think we will see him again this season but I hope I'm wrong.

Berrios in Colorado sounds terrifying. Hopefully the bats don’t cool down.

Interesting (and a good thing) looking at the Jays pen right now, there isn't a Chad Green type who you don't want pitching in leverage innings that they can throw out there. Maybe Fluharty. Most likely the RP's used tonight will be Flu, Rodriguez (hasn't thrown in a while for some reason), Fisher, and Nance.

Yeah it's possible Santander is not coming back this season, so they absolutely cannot afford to lose Springer for much longer considering he's one of the few guys on the team with power. Hopefully he's healthy soon with no lingering effects.

Usually I'd be against converting a "failed" starter turned good reliever back into a starter, but Varland's profile isn't the sexiest for a reliever, at least this season. Maybe next season they can work on generating more K's/swing and miss as a reliever, assuming they want to keep him in that role, but if they view him as a SP option long-term then it wouldn't be the worst option to try it out. If he had Brendan Little's profile as a RP where he was striking everyone out with lots of swing/miss then I'd be temped to leave him in the pen, but that hasn't been the case. That's where the 5 years of control is beneficial. They have time to figure it out. Based on everything i've read about Rojas, I think he would have helped the 2025 bullpen. Him panning out as a SP given his injuries and lack of innings might be a bit of a long shot, but the profile seems there for a high leverage reliever. Of course it wouldn't have been a lock for him to come in and succeed right away, and the Jays wanted to maximize 2025, as they should, so this swap likely made sense for that reason. Will be interesting to see how this trade looks over the years. The Twins have done a good job developing RP's (as witnessed by the trade deadline) so Rojas is probably in a good spot if that's his best role.

The only overpay was the Varland trade, and that depends entirely on what you think of Rojas. Based on what I was reading about Rojas before he was dealt, I thought they’d use him as the 2nd lefty in the pen down the stretch but obviously the 2025 window was very important so Varland already being a successful big league RP made him the safer 2025 play. One thing Atkins is good at typically is picking the right prospects to trade so we will see what this trade looks like down the road. The other deals seem fine value-wise.

I’m watching a feed that’s a little behind. Gameday said “in play out(s)”, so I expected to see an out, and instead it was Bo messing up that Witt ground ball. Clean it up Gameday.

Bieber, Scherzer, Pray. Playoff rotation.

If France is going to be 2023 Paul DeJong, meaning he is going to get bounced as soon as injured players come back, then I can live with that even though it might be painful to watch while he's here. Springer is old and on concussion protocol so maybe they wanted some RHH depth in case he's out longer than expected and France (unfortunately) was the best they could do. Atkins just made 3 deals based purely on ceiling/upside (Bieber, Varland, Dominguez). France doesn't do anything for upside and he might actually lower the team's floor, so hopefully it's just a short term depth move. In other words, please be healthy soon George!

Jays have now given up the 2nd most HR's in baseball, passing the Orioles. Only team worse than them in that category are the A's who play in a minor league park. Having an elite defense when all your pitchers do is give up home runs is not ideal.

The Yankees just blew a 9-4 lead because trade deadline pickups Bird and Bednar getting rocked. The Jays night stunk but I guess it could be worse (of course Yanks could still come back and win, currently down 10-9 in the 7th).

Gausman giving up a lot of hard contact. Man he's so frustrating. You never know if you're getting the good version or whatever this is from start to start.

Yeah really just need him to go on a hot streak for a few weeks, which isn't an unreasonable ask. How likely it is remains to be seen.

Giving a veteran player to Schneider is one of the most dangerous things the front office could do. Gotta hope for a Steve Pearce 2018 run here.

Looks like tonight's lineup is: RF Lukes LF Loperfido 1B Vladdy SS Bichette 3B Barger DH France CF Varsho 2B Clement CA Heineman Sucks about Springer. Hopefully he's back soon with no issues.

Getting rid of Roden and Wagner (on the same day no less) was a great sign, IMO. I don't ever want to go into another spring training hearing the front office talk up 26-27 year old slap hitting dudes with no power as if they are about to become core players. If there's any indication that Boss Atkins is back, it's dumping those two.

I wouldn't rule out Loperfido being the one optioned. As bad as Clement has been against RHP, it seems like Schneider views him as an everyday player, so I expect Clement at 3B/Barger in RF to be the main lineup against RHP once Gimenez returns. In that alignment, having a bench of France/DS/Straw makes more sense as the Jays would have 4 lefties in the starting lineup so there's a bit more balance. If the Jays intend on starting Loperfido against RHP and benching Clement (very unlikely given Schneider plays Ernie like a little league coach plays his son), then that's the only way I see DS going down. If Santander also comes back, then both DS and Loperfido go down until September call ups as then Clement has no where to play against RHP as a starter, so he becomes a bench guy with France and Straw. Either way, yeah I hate the France pickup in so many ways. Seems like a move for the sake of saying "we added a RH bat", and might actually make the team worse. I guess we have to put our faith in Pope Popkins to fix another batter.

I think this deal comes down to what you think about Rojas and his upside/potential. Roden and France are really irrelevant here (more so France). Roden is already 26 and both the underlying numbers and the eye test look terrible. At least Barger had a history of great exit velocities in the minors where you could dream on that and his bat speed. Roden is very ordinary and looked as such in his brief time here. If he's a high floor 2 WAR player, then I don't think that moves the needle for me. So it comes down to Rojas for Varland. The Jays have been pretty good with identifying which prospects to trade and which ones to keep over the years. I think the only misstep I can think of is Otto Lopez. Otherwise they've been pretty good there. We will see.

I feel like Ty France is either going to be 2018 Steve Pearce or be awful and play a lot anyway because Schneider placates to vetrins. No in between.