Brownie19

It took Stripling time to adjust in Toronto too. Changing organizations can be very difficult on some people and White's obviously been dealing with injuries. Burying him like he should be DFA'd is pretty short sighted (coming off a 1.3 WAR season). Par for the course on this board though.

That is interesting. For me, the eye test suggests there is more hits this year. I wonder if there's a difference in BABIP? I could be totally wrong about this, but I thought offense typically improves as the weather warms up and the year goes on. I wonder if you compared the current league average of .247 to previous years at the same point in the season if you'd see a bigger difference. Maybe not! I wonder if the pitch clock has actually helped to improve defense (and pitching?) - which is countering the gains that the shift ban provides?

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Probably. Noda is the one who got away. This FO is s***!

Thought this was interesting... The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal says the Royals have told teams they'd like to pair Aroldis Chapman with another veteran in trade talks in order to shed salary. It's not a must, according to Rosenthal, but it's something they're looking at. Rosenthal speculates on a Chapman-Scott Barlow pairing, which is odd since Barlow has positive trade value and will bring a decent return himself. If the Royals are truly looking to trim salary, the injured Brad Keller or Amir Garrett would make more sense to attach to Chapman.

I'm buried right now, but am interested in understanding what this means. Anyone have a second to provide me with the recap on what this means? Do the LIV golfers still get their $$$? Will the PGA players now similar $$$ too? Part of me was really hoping to see the LIV golfers get f***ed over and regret "taking that dirty Saudi money and selling their soles", but it looks like that won't be a thing now?

We need to remember he was entering his age 31 season had had exactly 2 seasons with a wRC+ over 100 in his career. There was a ton of risk. Luckily, he somehow transformed into a great base runner last year, which helped overshadow a VERY slow start and just a 107 wRC+, allowing him to post a 4.2 WAR season. This year, he looks like one of the best all around players in baseball. Known as a very hard worker, I'm really happy to see Marcus have success and that deal looks great for Texas right now. We'll see how long his physical skills hold up though. A lot of middle infielders hit the wall in their early to mid 30's.

The man suggested those teams all deal with starting pitching injuries "no problem at all". Each team has given 10 to 19 starts to pitchers who have been bad this year. I don't consider that to be "no problem at all". Even the best teams don't have unlimited resources and a bus full of guys who step right in and give them a ton of quality starts. The Dodgers have literally given 19 of their 60 starts (32%) to a collection of absolute bums. Nobody is going to tell me they've had "no problem at all". Even the best teams in baseball are rolling out a bunch of stiffs 15-20% of their starts. I think if/when they Jays need them (and they are healthy), they can roll out Ricky T, White, Francis, Thompson, etc. with similar results. Oh - and Ryan Pepiot has been hurt all year and hasn't thrown a pitch yet.

Reminds me of O'Neil Cruz...

Yankees Jhony Brito - 9 GS, 5.32 xFIP, -0.1 WAR Randy Vasquez - 1 GS, 6.30 xFIP, -0.1 WAR Rays Josh Fleming - 3 GS, 5.67 xFIP, -0.7 WAR Trevor Kelley - 3 GS, 5.80 xFIP, -0.2 WAR Calvin Faucher - 4 GS, 5.21 ERA, 0.0 WAR Braves Mike Soroka - 2 GS, 6.37 xFIP, -0.3 WAR Dylan Dodd - 4 GS, 5.91 xFIP, -0.2 WAR Jared Shuster - 6 GS, 6.19 xFIP (6.16 K/9, 5.58 BB/9) Houston Jose Urquidy - 6 GS, 5.10 xFIP, 0.0 WAR Brandon Bielak - 6 GS, 5.47 xERA, 5.22 FIP, 0.0 WAR Dodgers Noah f***ing Syndergaard, 11 GS, 6.54 ERA Michael Grove, 5 GS, 8.14 ERA Gavin Stone, 3 GS, 14.40 ERA, 6.28 xFIP I see no reason we can't be just like those teams and run a bunch of depth starters out there too and watch them struggle... And again, if Ricky T was healthy and dominating, or White/Francis was healthy and one of those guys stepped in 3 weeks ago to replace Manoah, everyone would be praising Atkins for the depth he created in the minors. It's really unfortunate that all 3 have been hurt at a time when we really need them to help the big club. And with that said, there's still a distinct possibility the FO wouldn't have been prepared to demote Manoah then anyway (and they still may not be).

Positional players can pitch when a team is leading by 10 or more runs in the 9th or when they are losing by 8 or more runs at any time, or when the game is in extra innings. Therefore the Varsho HR made the differential <8 and thus we needed a real pitcher.

This is true for most good, playoff teams man. Arms like White, Francis, Thompson, Hatch and Hutchison, plus prospects like Tiedemann, Zulu and even Robberse in the upper minors and the potential return of Ryu is exactly what good SP depth looks like on paper. That put us at like 12-14 starters deep. Sure you can tell me you knew Hatch, Hutchison and Thompson were going to suck tiddies, but every SP11-14 in baseball sucks tiddies. We all need to remember that 'decent' starters don't want to sign with a team to be their #7 starter, while pitching in AAA, waiting for an opportunity...they'll sign with s***** teams like the A's or Nationals instead so they are in the majors. All you can do is try to find good fits and keep developing options in the upper minors and hope a few are throwing well when you need them. Why do all the other options suck right now? I don't know - people fail at baseball every single day. It's a difficult game. Unfortunately, instead of injuries plaguing our starting rotation, they've affected our depth with White, Francis, Tiedemann + others getting hurt. Why does Zulu suddenly suck and can't throw strikes? I don't know - there are several factors that may be affecting him and I'm sure the team is doing everything they can to help correct it. There's a lot of luck and timing involved in baseball. Even if we entered the year thinking there was an 80% chance we had sufficient depth to cover some injuries at the ML level - and that probability was one of the very best in baseball - there was still a 20% chance we didn't and we may very well be seeing that probability playing out. We need to stop pretending that we all knew Ricky T, Francis and White would be injured at the exact time we could really use one of them to step in for Manoah and that it was obvious Zulu would walk 8 per 9 this year and thus we needed way more starting pitching depth. Trying to find someone to blame for this is stupid. That said, the FO does need to react to this very unfortunate and s***** situation and should be flipping tables looking for a solution and I fully expect they are.

Reading is difficult eh? JH's quote is in response to your bitching about how Atkins struggles to add enough depth to the team - it had nothing to do with Stroman. It's f***ing hilarious you think Atkins can't add enough depth...if you wanted to see a lack of depth, go take a look at the teams that AA put on the field. This is easily one of the deepest Blue Jay teams in the past 20 years.

It turns out that you don't have to tell the truth or tell the media what you're really thinking in a press conference. It's sad some still don't really grasp this.

Don't you have to be losing or winning by 10 runs to use a positional player? I thought I heard them say the Varsho HR forced the Jays to use a real pitcher in the 9th...

We'll see. I don't think his numbers last year were that good. Lowest Yards/Rep and Yards/Target of his career, only 3 TDs in 9 games, injury prone the last 2 seasons. Don't get me wrong, he's looking at 1,350+ yards over a full 17 game schedule, but I think his best years are well behind him.

What are the chances that Luis Arrez challenges .400 this year?

Anyone have like 5-6 seats available for July 1st Canada Day game?

Anyone know how the new dimensions and configuration within the dome are playing out so far? Is it more hitter friendly than last year?

yikes! I just can't fathom how disappointing it must be to have butchered the #1 pick like that...although almost every pick from the 2020 draft is awful.

I think people will point to the Dodgers and Astros over the past few years - both of whom I believe had some of the best K rates in baseball. Not to say they didn't also have power, but the thought was in the playoffs, when the pitching gets tougher - you need hitters who make more contact.

The most famous bunt I remember was crackhead Otis Nixon when he handed Timlin and the Jays their first World Series Championship

Good call - but at least Vaughn is currently a 115 wRC+ hitter and could still develop into a very solid player. It's looking pretty grim right now for Tork and Pavin Smith.

I guess he's just another 1st base bust like Tork. If you're taking a 1st baseman early in the draft, you better be 1000% sure he can hit.

I thought making more contact and manufacturing runs was how you won in the playoffs? People have been bitching about that on here for years. We finally do it and now we're bitching that we can't win or make the playoffs with an offense like that. I guess that's exactly what I should expect around here.