intentional wok

I'm not really on Team Fire Montoyo, but six or seven pen arms were available on the date I mentioned. If someone else f***ed it up we'd be bitching all the same, but Chuck put zero per cent of his brain into salvaging what was a likely win. It was a pretty, pretty, pretty bad thing to watch.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who resents the White Sox over winning their vacation of a division. I'm fine if any of the 100-game winners take it all but also would enjoy the Brewers going all the way too. Everyone else can f*** straight off.

Oh yeah, it definitely worked brilliantly. I should have been more specific in that YES, they were obviously contending but not exactly as a division favourite and more in the "if things land right" sort of way. My original post on this probably reads harsher on the FO than I intended. I do actually believe they did everything they could to field a great team before the season and during (and by the end of the season the Jays looked like world killers). Unfortunately, as you say, there are only so many additions based on what was available that can reasonably be expected in a single off-season.

They came into the season light on quality pitching and it cost them. I still think this was NOT meant to be a genuine contention year and that the FO was still assessing the core and determining needs from there. Did anyone in the FO really expect the sheer explosion of dominance from the lineup this year? If so, would the opening day rotation really have been Ryu, three reclamation projects (Ray, Matz, Strip) and Roark? Would the SP and RP depth have consisted of broken prospects and veterans and a stable of total wild cards? I think way, way more went very right than the FO could have reasonably expected with the huge, glaring exception of everything going wrong for the pen (which includes overwork from a rotation that, while not terrible, still struggled to even deliver five innings per night for the first chunk of the year).

I think the atrocious bullpen and the rocky SP rotation for the first months was really more to blame. If the pen was even partially less s***** and exhausted Charlie could have just auto-piloted. Sometimes I don't understand Chuck's moon logic but there were times this season where his quality options were so limited that picking an arm at random and saying a prayer was about as likely to work as anything else. Charlie goofed a few of games away and maybe doesn't deserve his job but if the team wasn't so light on quality innings in April/May/June then the margin for error wouldn't have been so thin.

Remember when Chatwood walked four consecutive Cleveland batters in his second inning of work to lose a one-run lead with two outs left in the game while the entire bullpen was just sitting around being available?

Why would the garbage bullpen have performed better at the cheering RC? They f***ing sucked this year. There was nothing stopping the team from salvaging two more games down in Florida or Buffalo. Tampa won 100 times and their stadium is regularly empty.

Remember the time it was 1-1 in bottom 9 and the Jays had their first two hitters walked aboard by a totally wild Gregory Soto and then Valera pinch-hit for Kirk and made a series of terrible and obvious sac bunt attempts and then finally got something down but straight to the awaiting 1B who was positioned closer than the f***ing pitching mound who then made the force out at third and then Grichuk hit into a double-play and then the bullpen gave up three two-out runs in the top of the 10th.

Poor dude. He's definitely in worse shape than the rest of us.

How much incompetence and f***ing ******** has to come together to keep a +200-run team at 91 wins and one game short of the f***ing second Wild Card in the one league where 91 wins is not enough? f***in surreal.

Romano himself is worth 1+ this year.

Glad I haven't eaten yet after reading those numbers. Worst week ever and I still somehow remember the Cleveland loss being the most traumatic. Maybe because it honest to god felt like that game was being thrown rather than simply blown.

The narrative I keep seeing is that the bullpen is the single biggest reason that has limited the team's success this year. So how many games do you actually think the bullpen has chucked this year? This can be anything from allowing a come-from-behind loss or letting a close game become a blowout. Would this be more than any other team's blown games? Are these offset by some of the miraculous victories the team has achieved this year? The worst stretch I can remember: May 14-30 had eight terrible pen perfomances, and resulted in 1win-7 losses: 5/14 vs Phillies (Thorton, Mayza, Beasly allow a two-out 5-run inning, including four walks with a run walked in) 5/16 vs Phillies (Mayza, Romano, Beasly allow 4ER, 5H, 2BB over 2IP). Jays salvage a 10-8 win with a white-knuckled Beasly v Harper (probably hurt, couldn't even throw) AB. 5/20 vs Red Sox (Dolis 9th inning implosion for 4H, 1BB, 3ER). 7-5 lead in 9th becomes 8-7 loss. 5/21 vs TB (6 BP arms allow 3ER over 7IP because of a short Anthony Kay start. Beasly gives up 4ER in the 12th and the Jays lose despite getting two in bottom 12. What more could have been done here, really? Taxi squad guy is last man standing and gets pasted by AL's best team in 12th.) 5/22 vs TB (3-1 loss with winning run surrendered by BP. IMO, these losses happen, but with so many poor recent performances, it looks a bit worse.) 5/23 vs TB (Chatwood and Bergen combine for 1IP, 4ER, 5BB, 2H.) 4-2 lead in the 9th becomes a 6-4 loss. 5/24 vs TB (Extras. Castro, Payamps, Mayza combine for 2IP, 7ER, 3BB, 7H.) 5/30 @ CLE (infamous Chatwood walking the tying run around the bases in his second inning of work and no one warming) You could probably find six or seven more of these heartbreakers through June and July too. So my question is if this number of avoidable losses is really more than other (good) teams face. Given the Jays' very positive run differential, it seems to suggest the miracle losses really are the big anchor.

I would like this too because it would also even out the schedule more so we don't see the same four teams in half the games we watch either. I don't see it happening for several reasons, but I wish it would. It might also elbow out a lot of mid-market teams who would then be directly competing with the big boys, but maybe it wouldn't either, I don't know. Owners probably make bank on regional rivalries so I can't see them wanting to drop the division system. Players might not enjoy making more cross-continent trips either. I just think seeding the successful WC candidate by W-L is a nice compromise between the Division/WC system and the no-Division cagematch system.

Crazy idea: once a WC team wins the WC game, they should be seeded by record in the postseason. So in this case, Giants (1) would get Braves (4) and Dodgers (2/WC) v Brewers (3). It's ******** that Chicago and Atlanta get to put up modest results over their non-competitive divisions and take higher seeds from better teams.

I feel like every year I am unclear on the matchup scheduling. Does the WC winner not play top seed? Seems like the one of the two W-L leaders will be gone by the NLCS if so. Do they re-arrange if top seed and WC are in the same division, or is my brain wasting away? Was that ever a thing?

I drafted him in LoD because I liked his strike-throwing. I don't think I ever got to boast about this at all.

I just wanted to figure out Jim's acronym.

There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect?

First person who has brought up that KK did what he's supposed to. His squad is going for a WS. Imagine how you look to your own dugout if you surrender all that intel like a boyscout when there is no rule forcing you to. This is basically all hurt-feelings theatre. Don't drop your f***ing cheat sheets (not that the Rays aren't already aware of the pro strats being used against them).

Somewhat agree and disagree. I think this season actually could have gone a lot better. The results don't really stack up to how much the expectations were exceeded. Coming into the year light on pitching is probably why we're seeing a heart-pounding race rather than the team in a more advantageous position. That said, this year is just the tip of the iceberg. The future looks extremely bright. This might even be my favourite group ever put together, or at least in the last 25 years.

He really would have This strikezone this series has been a critical mass of horseshit.

He comes off really soft. Didn't even say anything when an opposing manager was chirping his ace. That said, Kiermaier did what anyone who wants to win should do and the Jays are huge bitches today, unfortunately.

I am going to say that Dyson is out there over Dickerson because they're (unsurprisingly) expecting a lot of hard contact by the Rays.

I don't really agree that they worked a whole lot tbh. Manoah, Richards, and Romano all went completely wild at times. Six or seven of those walks weren't even close and may as well have been intentional just to conserve pitch count. Not to mention the umping embarrassments we all saw re: balls and strikes. The Rays were handed the game by both the Jays and the umps and they barely did anything with their opportunities, and then lost.