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I don't think there's enough information to make a properly informed choice. It's next to impossible for hitter B to actually exist, and to run this type of split would require an extremely small sample size of plate appearances.

I specifically recall that you were the president of the Raimel Tapia fan club last season so you must be heartbroken to see him on the roster of the enemy.

That's a good thing you don't take yourself seriously because nobody else does. For what it's worth I've yet to receive a single booster shot as of yet but thank you for your concern.

Who peed in your cornflakes this morning? You're fuller of piss and vinegar than usual, good on you as it looks like your balls finally dropped after years of serving as the resident board punching bag. I didn't claim anywhere that Varsho is having a great offensive season, but merely pointing out that he's turned the corner and given the team a few consecutive solid months of production at the plate at a time when the club really needs it given the struggles of much of the roster. He's been hitting much more like the player the front office thought they traded for over the course of nearly a third of a full season so it's not just a small sample size anymore. It's obviously hard for you to grasp that a player is going to see ebbs and flows at the plate over the course of a 6 month season, and it's a good thing that Varsho has largely been hitting well at the most important time of the year heading into the playoffs. Varsho still only has 1600 MLB plate appearances in his career and very well not be a finished product at the plate. Varsho has been one of the Blue Jays players who has struggled hitting at home this season as he's produced a 107 WRC+ on the road vs only 60 at home. Breaking down the numbers further it's specifically only right handed pitchers he's primarily struggled against this season, but once again only at home with 50 WRC+ vs 106 WRC+ on the road. At this time of the year I place a hell of a lot more importance over who is hot at the plate and who isn't rather than looking at overall season numbers and making proclamations about how so and so sucks and how so and so is awesome. Like Whit Merrifield has provided the team with a decent enough season with a 97 WRC+ and nearly 2 FWAR, but the guy has been ice cold for several months and has provided very little offensive help to a struggling team.

He's exactly as good as advertised in the outfield. His technique is pretty astounding as he doesn't have elite physical tools (good but far from elite speed, low end velocity on throws etc.).

I was perusing the team's stats and aside from Schneider's flashes of brilliance Varsho has arguably been the team's most valuable position player over the last few months. He's historically been a stronger offensive contributor over the second half in his brief career and this season is no exception. He's been hitting especially well since early August as he's produced a 120 WRC+ over his last 47 games. If Varsho can keep his bat above water while playing in center field full time next season he will have a very good shot to be the team's highest WAR contributor.

I generally don't wish injuries on players but in the case of Manoah it could be a blessing in disguise if his issues this season stemmed from arm related injuries as he and his camp seem to believe. I recall he received some sort of injections in his pitching arm recently, although there has been no information shared as to the nature of these injections, whether PRP, prolotherapy, corticosteroid (hopefully not this type) etc.

I'd have no issue with the team calling Tiedemann up to help the team if it was a break glass in case of emergency type of situation with the pitching staff but that was far from the case this season. They had really good health in the starting rotation and the bullpen had enough depth to cover the occasional short term injury as well.

David Price came out of college throwing 133 innings in his final year. He was about as close to major league ready as you can find out of the draft and made his MLB debut at age 22 after throwing 109 innings in the minors that season. Ricky Tiedemann by comparison has only thrown 122 innings in his entire career and would be debuting at age 20. The Jays have been very aggressive with promotions when they deem a player being ready for prime time (Manoah debuting with very little time in the minors, Kirk coming up straight from A ball etc.) but I would still side with being a little more cautious with Tiedemann given his importance to the long term success of the organization. Nearly half of this team's salary obligations are tied up in the starting rotation and they really need to start developing more of their own pitching if long term sustainability is to be realistic.

The organization has had a lot of success avoiding major injuries to their rotation for several years now. Eventually it should be acknowledged that it's more than dumb luck that has allowed the team to field consistently healthy starting rotations.

Some of it's luck for sure, and some of it could be attributed to not pushing the starters well past the 100 pitch mark every time out. I think it's smart to pull the starters a little earlier from time to time instead of having them empty the tank every time out as injuries become far more likely as fatigue accumulates over the course of a season.

I would counter that plotting a proper course of action for the long term success of a potential ace is far more important than the short term potential (far from guaranteed) boost to an already excellent bullpen.

Tiedemann has barely pitched this season and I'd much rather he continue to work on building up his innings base in a lower pressure environment rather than see the team make a panic move and bring him up to pitch in the bullpen. The guy missed most of the season due to injury and I simply don't think it would be in his best interest to immediately thrust him into the middle of a pennant race. I get that you are all Blue Jays suck all the time but the team already has one of MLB's best bullpens as it is already. The team has really struggled to score runs at times and have played themselves into the precipice of a playoff spot based on having a really good pitching staff and defence. There is no need to press such an inexperienced pitcher into major league service so soon.

Maybe your standards are a little high with regards to number 2 starters. Berrios is 25th in all of MLB by FWAR this season. By your definition the "true" number 2 starter is incredibly rare with only a handful of teams possessing a number 2 pitcher of this nature.

I doubt he's really ready to compete against major league hitters. The stuff is absolutely filthy but he's walking nearly 6 runners per nine innings over his last 8 starts. That doesn't really portray someone with the necessary command to succeed in the post season.

Minnesota is also likely to have an issue with Blue Jays pitching as well, and the two pitching staffs as a whole have posted basically interchangeable whole season numbers to the point if you did an A/B comparison of the numbers side by side you'd be hard pressed to choose which team was which. The Twins definitely get the edge in the rotation with the 1-2 punch of Gray and Lopez which could see the Jays in trouble scoring runs. One thing which may help the Jays out in the wild card round is that they are a much better offense on the road vs at home. The home/road splits are pretty remarkable, as they are the 6th highest scoring club in MLB away from Rogers Center, but that moves down to 25th at home. I had a look at the Jays runs scored and runs allowed at home and away, and their home offense is so bad that they have all of a +5 run differential at home vs a run differential of +63 on the road. Tampa is so injury depleted that I can see them bowing out of the playoffs rather early depending on who makes it back to health in time for the playoffs.

That's very noble of you.

Chapman had a really nice month of July as well. It would be nice to at least see that version of Chapman vs the guy with the noodle bat who's making mistakes defensively as well.

I'm kind of torn whether I want him to come back to the Jays. On the one hand he might be a good depth piece given the resurgence in AAA. He was suddenly getting whiffs for days. But on the other hand if he succeeds as a Jay we'll never here the end of it from Terminator. I'm sure you can see my dilemma.

This might boil down to whether White thinks he will receive a legitimate opportunity to compete for a major league job next season.

You need to start paying attention for once. Espinal is one of the team's hottest hitters right now and has produced a ton of important hits lately. Over his last 18 games the dude has a 175 WRC+. He's the team's 4th most valuable position player over this span with 0.5 FWAR. But of course you want to bitch and moan like usual even when a guy is white hot at the plate and really helping the team win.

A lot of the Jays hitting issues are centered in their inability to hit for power at the Rogers Center. They have hit 103 home runs away from the Rogers Center but only 77 at home. It seems as though the offseason outfield changes potentially changed the Rogers Center to an extreme pitchers park this season. Perhaps the upcoming reduction of foul territory will help to balance this out a little bit moving forward.

Moreno is a poor framer by every available metric. He gains a huge boost from DRS adjusted catcher ERA which from what I can gather is a measure of game calling ability behind the plate. Perhaps the Yadier Molina comp is still valid, just not in the realm of framing. https://fieldingbible.com/Fielding-Bible-FAQ.asp

This is a team full of players that have hit for a lot of power in previous seasons so it's not outside the realm of possibility the power bats show up for the playoffs. There are guys like Vlad with 30-40 home run power, and all of Bo, Chapman, Springer and Varsho are capable of 25 home runs in a season so it's not like this is a team full of players with no power. I won't necessarily place money down on enough of the bats getting hot at the right time but at least there's a chance if the talent on the roster performs to their capabilities.

And it couldn't be happening at a better time either. The issues with hitting with runners in scoring position is thankfully a thing of the past, but if the team can finally start hitting with the type of power that was expected of them that's a massive development with the playoffs right around the corner.