Brownie19

Just scrolling through Fangraphs today. Some observations: - Cronenworth is having a nice bounce back season in SD. - Carlo Santana punched father time in the dick and is having a big season at age 38. - Jesse Winker remembered how to hit again (must be healthier). - DeJong is reminding people why Atkins traded for him. - Julio Rodriguez continues to really struggle. - Bellinger seems to be settling in and the offense isn't what it was last year. Looks like he's a good, not great bat (115 wRC+). - Riley has figured it out. - The Cardinals decision to jump the market and get Gray, Lynn and Gibson seems to be working? - Jordan Hicks seems to be running out of steam.

It's sad this has to be explained...

You don't think it's a melting pot anymore?

What's hilarious is that most people on this board wanted Trent Thornton punted to the moon long ago and were ripping Atkins for keeping him around far too long.

I played ball against him. Our team had connections with a team in Nepean, so for like 15 years, we'd go to their tournament and they'd come up and play in ours. We got to know all those guys really well over the years. Tinnish didn't play for Nepean, but was good friends with several of them and decided to pull together and enter his own team into our tournament for 4-5 years. It was mostly old teammates from Brock. I was always so fascinated about the inner workings of the team and the thought processes, but it always felt so invasive, so I picked my spots. A teammate and I went to his Christmas party one year and got to meet AA there. AA asked everyone at the party to guess who he (AA) felt was the best prospect in our system. It must have been like 2011 or 2012 because my guess was Drew Hutchison, but the answer was Aaron Sanchez (which nobody guessed). Anyway - life's gotten in the way and I probably haven't seen him in 8 years now.

Walk rate is still a major issue. But he's got a huge arm.

Tinnish might go there too. AA was taking him with him until he made a last minute decision to back out and keep his family in Ontario.

That all seems correct to me. The new guys who come in will decide if they want to keep Mense and Hague, or bring in their own guys. Tinnish is the VP of International Scouting & Baseball Operations. I used to know him fairly well, but we don't cross paths anymore. I'd be curious to know what he's responsible for now. Again, the new guys will come in and decide who they want to keep and who gets shown the door. It will be interesting to see if they go for a young, inexperienced GM - or go with a more seasoned one.

f***ing creep can't go a day without talking about me. So sad.

Fire the players. Not many earning their pay.

There are lots of high payroll teams who are terrible this year. Mets, Astros, Jays, Texas, Cubs, SF. 5 of the Top 10 payrolls in baseball are below .500 and pretty s*****. It's not nearly as uncommon as some may think.

He does? I must have missed that.

I wonder how much other teams believe in Bo right now. Of course he has like 4 great seasons and the year we should look to trade him, he's Ryan Goins.

Interesting that Barger seemingly swings at everything at the ML level. His career AAA BB% is like 14%.

If my kids team was "out" of their tournament in Pittsburgh on Saturday, we were thinking of zipping over to Cleveland to catch the Jays game Sunday before returning home. Had all my kids with me and it was a chance to knock another stadium off their bucket list. Luckily we won enough that this didn't materialize...(albeit the kids would still have loved it).

Essentially - yes. I suspect they felt that Varsho would replace LGJ's offensive, while providing a massive upgrade defensively. The only real move from offense to defense was supposed to be Teo to KK (likely with some hope that moving Springer from CF would keep him healthier). Of course in a bubble, KK was better than Teo in 2023 and wasn't much of a downgrade offensively (albeit things may have been much different if Teo was still in TO). I doubt many people would have looked at the 2022 team and said if you replace Teo with KK, that the offense would go from amazing to "stab yourself in the eye with a fork" awful. This year they bet on the core rebounding, but it isn't going to happen. Even the 1 super consistent offensive performer, Bo, decided to tank his career this year. It's been a lot of fun. Again, I get the logic. The execution sucks goats for whatever reason.

There's probably some truth in all of that (some truly bizarre decisions), although there were some obvious defensive concerns with the LGJ/Springer/Teo OF defensively, especially as they aged. Several fans were quite sick of Teo's effort and ability defensively and moving LGJ and Teo before they became FA's should also have been viewed as a way to sustainable success. I still think if you told fans they were going to go from 2nd offensively and 15th defensively to 5th-7th offensively and Top 5-10 defensively that most would have been on board with that. Despite several unexpected down years, they did almost produce that last year....but the actual runs lagged way behind the wRC+ a ton, which meant we needed that unsustainable pitching health to succeed in 2023. Again, I suspect they felt that with some predicable improvements from core players, they'd be in much better shape. It didn't materialize AT ALL and now we're all miserable and Atkins will be fired.

I sure hope the FO worries more about the results vs. how fans perceive the product they are watching. I also don't think that bailing on a sound strategy after one failed season makes sense - especially if it's to try and revert back to a strategy that they tried for 2 seasons without the desired results. I suspect they felt the offense should have been better last year and should have been a top 5-10 offense, which, coupled with a great defense and good pitching, was a good recipe for success. Obviously that hasn't worked out at all, but I can appreciate the logic. Had they known Bo would hit like Goins and that Kirk, Springer, Vlad, KK, even Jansen would take another step back offensively, I do think they would have taken a different approach this offseason. Why that happened is the real nugget to answer. The team entered the season with a 50-60% chance of making the playoffs, so it's not like this approach was projected to produce horrible results.

I didn't put words in your mouth - I literally asked you a question... The Jays were a Top 2 offense, with a middling defense (ranked 15th overall combined in 2021/22 in Def) in 2021/2022 and the results weren't there. I fully expected they though they could sacrifice "some" offense for defense and field a team with a Top 5-7 offense and a Top 5-10 defense. I think most would have supported this adjustment and felt it would lead to better results. And to be fair, that's almost what happened last year. The team's wRC+ was 7th in baseball and their def was 4th overall. The issue was the wRC+ didn't produce runs at the same rate. Whether that was RISP issues, lack of power or bad luck, the actual runs scored fell well behind some of the other offensive metrics they would use. If you're the Jays FO, they probably looked at this and said "f*** sakes - the projections and metrics suggest we're actually quite close to executing the plan. RISP success isn't consistent from year to year and if a few of our key core players rebound even a bit, there's a good chance we could be a Top 5-7 offense with a Top 5 defense. We also have several prospects in the upper minors who are close and/or ready who can fill in if we get injuries or need a boost". Obviously that's completely blown up in their faces, but I don't think it's that difficult to understand why they decided to double down for a second season (I do think the difficulty in understanding it comes from the incredible frustration of watching if fail again). Would you rather have a Top 2 offense with the 15th best defense, or a Top 5-7 offense with a Top 5 defense?

It sure is (assuming it's real). Seems like it shouldn't be legal, but I guess it is?

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Man - I was so pissed that he wasn't pitching while I was in Pittsburgh this past week (Wed-Sat). He's must seen TV right now.

First Red Lobster, now Swiss Chalet? What is this world coming to?

His ISO isn't "that" much higher than it was in A/AA the past 2 years. In his age 23 season, there's a chance he's just developing physically and adding enough power to his game to be a ML regular. It's a nice development.

What's up with Danny Jansen? What a rut he's in at the plate.