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Yeah maybe not, I was remembering that Taylor hit a bunch of jacks in AA a few years ago but that looked to be more of a single year anomaly.

I'll be curious to see how he does. If he clicks at the big league level he's likely to be pretty similar to Merrifield with a worse hit tool but more power.

It dawned on me that the Jays are largely being judged as a disappointment based on their record against two teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Red Sox. The Blue Jays have a very poor divisional record, however most of this is against two teams. They have played the Yankees and Rays closely with records of 3-4 against each of these teams. However against the Red Sox and Orioles they have floundered and only have a record of 1-9. Against non Red Sox/Orioles teams the Blue Jays have a 37-23 record, good for a .617 winning percentage. The team has a robust +49 run differential in these contests as well, vs a run differential of -29 vs the Red Sox and Orioles in 10 games. Against non Oriole teams above .500 the Blue Jays have a 23-18 record, which is a .561 winning percentage. They have beaten up on non Red Sox teams below .500 with a record of 14-5 and gone 16-10 against teams above .500 when playing outside of their division. This is a very good team that for whatever reason has struggled against two teams so far, and dominated as a whole over the rest of their schedule. There are plenty of games remaining against the Red Sox, and I suspect by the end of the season the Blue Jays record against them should work it's way above .500 as long as they play anywhere close to their capabilities. It appears as though the Orioles have played a much easier schedule compared to the Blue Jays this season. They have only played a total of 37 total games against teams with records above .500, vs a total of 46 games against teams above .500 for the Blue Jays. Against non Blue Jays teams above .500 the Orioles have a record of 16-17. When you compare this against the Blue Jays record 23-14 against non Oriole teams above .500 there is every reason to believe the Orioles good record is a bit of a mirage that has largely been built on beating up on weak teams and beating up on the Blue Jays head to head so far. The Orioles have a much harder remaining schedule as well so they have work ahead of them to prove that they are a legit contender. Fangraphs predicts them to experience a serious correction in their record for the rest of the season with a projected .478 winning percentage.

Jesus that's infuriating. MLB needs to incorporate technology for calling fair/foul for home runs rather than rely on terrible camera angles that aren't even pointed at the foul pole.

Ultimately I don't see the point of wasting so much time complaining about either of Biggio or Espinal. Each of these guys appears to have a bench player level of talent, and accordingly is going to see their playing time increased or reduced based on how they produce at the plate. Espinal is a better defender in the field vs Biggio who provides more value on the bases. Each of them has shown spurts of offensive production that gets you hoping for more, but ends up going into a deep slump where the results basically fizzle away to nothing. Biggio is in one such surge right now where he's barreled up 6 balls in the last 3 weeks, compared to 10 for the entire 2022 season. He very well may have been ripped off of another barrel in last night's game as well off of an elite reliever. I don't recall him ever having a stretch of games like this where he's hitting the ball with this type of authority, so I'm going to stubbornly hope this is at least somewhat sustainable and not just a short term hot streak.

Espinal has been legitimately bad for an extended stretch dating back to July of last season when he went into a tailspin at the plate. Since then he's been exactly replacement level over 84 games with a paltry 73 WRC+. He provides no value on the bases so literally the only thing he has been good for is his glove. Whether or not that's fine is obviously within the eye of the beholder but he hasn't really been doing much to help the team win.

I don't know if the replacement call-up would receive much more playing time than Lukes anyway as the team is largely covered across the diamond.

I think Vlad's issues are more a result of poor swing decisions. Chris Black posted an excellent twitter thread in the offseason that concluded that Vlad largely hits the ball on the ground when he starts chasing out of the zone, particularly on low pitches. When he is more selective and forces pitchers into the zone he hits the ball in the air far more frequently and his number take off accordingly.

I think these guys make enough dough that they can afford to buy the games.

I have a custom build PC with an RTX 4090 Strix (my CPU is a i7-9800 so a couple of generations old) but it's mostly been collecting dust since I purchased a PS5.

He's assembled a 90+ win team (although admittedly underperforming this season) that plays in baseball's hardest division. He can't be THAT bad at his job, surely you can admit that much at least.

Stretching out Pearson is something to work on in the offseason/spring training if they decide to go that route. If he manages to escape the season injury free this is something I would give serious thought to as he has a starters arsenal of pitches. If they decide to keep him in the pen I'm perfectly cool with that as well as the reliever version of Nate Pearson is really damn good.

If he was a good teammate he would have set them up with PS5's.

Yeah I fully agree that Vlad most likely won't have the same type of overall impact as his father given that he doesn't have the same kind of toolset with most of his value tied up in his bat. Vlad Jr. needs to hit his vast offensive ceiling if he's to have the same type of overall impact. I'm old enough to have seen his father play but in those days (at least his Expo days) games which he played in were rarely available for me to actually watch. I think Vlad's issues are mostly mental as he needs to eventually rein in his propensity to hack away at pitches off of the plate. Whether or not he regains the necessary patience to fully leverage his talents is the million dollar question.

That statement wasn't overly clear. It just says Vlad isn't as good as his old man, and I took it at face value.

That first statement looks pretty damn definitive to me.

Unless you have a crystal ball there's zero way for you to make such a definitive statement and have it be more than conjecture. Vlad is still up and down based on his plate discipline. He's fully capable of cranking out 160 WRC+ months when he's not chasing, and then sub 100 WRC+ months when he starts getting himself out at the plate. There's no guarantee Vlad ever fully clicks at the plate but he's all of 24 and the raw physical tools are still there to be among baseball's elite hitters. His dad didn't produce his first 160 WRC+ season until his age 25 season after all.

The Jays have played really good baseball outside of their own division, so I see no reason they can't continue to do so. They'll need to clean up the divisional play at some point for sure.

Vlad Jr. will have a hard time matching his father's WAR totals given the fact that he plays first base but he has a shot to put up even better offensive numbers over his career.

Vlad Jr. very well may end up being better than his old man was, it's far too early to be making any proclamations one way or the other.

Cimber's velocity has been slowly creeping up as the season goes along so hopefully he can regain the form of the last few seasons. He started the season averaging about 84 MPH on his fastballs and more recently has been having a few games where he's reaching upwards of 87 MPH.

Yeah the health issue was always front and center with Merryweather. A guy who is out of options, can't stay on the field, and showed no ability to retire major league hitters is a tough guy to hang onto despite the tantalizing raw stuff. I honestly hope he's able to turn his career around and have sustained success, but chances are extremely high he'll eventually end up missing a huge chunk of the season due to soft tissue injury. If I recall correctly he essentially missed an entire season due to an oblique injury, so this is a guy who has had a really hard time healing from injuries that keep popping up.

I looked at his pitching bot and stuff+ metrics and they are basically both unchanged. The biggest difference I can see is drastically improved fastball command based on his heat maps. Last season there was a giant blob of red right middle middle, this year it looks like he's been placing it up in the zone more effectively. His pitch mix has been altered as well, he's even at 45/45 fastball slider with about 10% changeups, whereas last season he was 52/34 fastball/slider despite his fastball being regularly clobbered.

I think I heard he was exclusively working out of the pitching lab to start with, with bullpens to begin shortly.

I just hope Manoah and the organization can get his mechanics and slider sorted out so he can return this season and at least provide some innings.