BillBucknorslegs

For me nothing will beat the mid 90's Braves rotation: Maddux Glavine Smoltz Avery Unreal. And I hated the Braves.

This is the wrong move I think for many reasons. i) Timing. They just couldn't have done this at a worse time; the team is hurting, players are regressing or ageing and the season is lost. ii) Shatkins has not had time to really put their stamp on the team yet. To this point, this is still largely AA's team and we have not yet seen what Shatkins can do to change the direction of the franchise/turn things around/push things forward. We may believe that Shatkins is moving things in a positive direction, but try telling that to the fans who are seeing basically the same team from 2015 fall near to 10 games under .500 and disappear under the waves. iii) Lack of a farm system/spending on significant names in the free agent market. Again, this goes back to timing - we don't know yet what Shatkins will do in the next off season or the names we will bid on, but fans will use this last off season as a barometer (probably wrongly) and this will not exactly imbue them with a sense of confidence given the performance of the squad this season. Worse, every commentator under the sun has been bemoaning the basic truth that our best prospects are in A ball and even the casuals have had time to process/understand this and so it will be almost impossible to sell them on hope. iv) The Jays are already battling with the Raptors as the big ticket in town, but the Leafs are on the up and the Raptors may soon be facing a significantly weakened Cavaliers team. This will not stop a lot of the fan base who come in from out of town but these increases are aimed at some of the most dedicated and loyal fans that the team has which, ultimately, may not be the savviest business move. I know many here will justify this based on the cost of living or the cost of the exchange rate or even to provide some extra funds for spending on the squad, but unfortunately I tend to think this is a move borne more out of greed and desperation given that some fans may be disappearing, than any sound business plan. We shall see.

Sorry, formatting issues!

Good point. Big difference there: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=biagijo01&year=2017&t=p Plus, this game now officially stinks.

I agree with this and I would have left Estrada in against EE, but I would also like to see Beeg stretched out for several starts again.

Biagini: ERA 5.11, FIP 3.74, xFIP 3.89, 0.89 HR/9 Estrada: ERA 5.33, FIP 4.31, xFIP 4.60, 1.46 HR/9

Not to nitpick, but shouldn't it be death knell? Y'know as in 'never send to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for the 2017 Blue Jays?'

In last 30 years: >17 different teams have won the World Series >14 different teams have won a Super Bowl or a Stanley Cup >10 teams have won the NBA Championship. What the f***'s the point?

After Liriano s*** the bed and we go 7-3 down we still find a way to win with a team full of scrubs...this is why we love baseball. Every once in a while...

Liriano is rapidly becoming the RA Dickey of this rotation; without his personal caddy Martin he apparently cannot pitch well.

Sorry, I mean how long they'll leave him out there? My bad.

I wonder what Biagini's pitch count is?

I say we sign him for $160m+ for 5 years. Who's with me?

f***ing typical of this season. Smoak smashed the ball and lined out right to the 1B, Pearce misses a home run by a foot or so. When are we going to catch a break?

Man, watching the Jays this year is like watching a monkey try to hump a football. Lead off single and nothing to show for it yet again.

Agreed. You're not paying Morales $32m to be this s***. Pearce = $12.5m, Salty $1.25m, Howell $3m. Morales is a very streaky hitter though and I believe he will get better.

I'd be willing to bet real money on that in a staged race.

If that was Morales he's probably thrown out at third.

f*** me, you really don't understand my point? Morales = s*** base runner / s*** slide, Beckham = great base runner / great slide. Also, the world is spherical and revolves around the sun. Seriously.

Switch Beckham and Morales and it's 2-0 Jays.

There is always a reason to pick on Spanky... Also Morales is a f***ing useless base runner and Rivera had better learn that quickly.

This from a guy who's location says "in shambles?" Sorry bud, just kind of had to point that out. I'm off too - still going to hope for some respectability to return in the near future.

6-17...It's almost unfathomable.

No, but fans will be fans. They hurt when the Jays hurt, nothing wrong with that.

Seriously dude I have nothing whatsoever against you, but you need to climb down from your soapbox just a little. It's getting pretty f***ing tiresome.