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Chapman was specifically mentioned during Jays broadcasts as having gone to the coaching staff for a little more assistance in getting him on track after the early struggles. Guillermo and the rest of the coaching staff can likely get at least a little credit in helping Chapman to turn his fortunes around at the plate, although he was still producing a lot of solid contact early on and simply not seeing the expected results.

Ok thanks for the realism. Jays are playing their best baseball of the season lately. The Jays are very healthy themselves right now, and the only player of note missing presently is Gurriel. After the shaky start to August they have turned things around and gone 16-7 in their last 23 games. Despite struggling against the Orioles earlier in the year they largely dominated them on their home turf. The Rays bullpen was just taxed to the extreme in back to back games over the weekend, and there is a double header coming up tomorrow. But the Jays automatically have no shot against the Rays just because.

Bo's defense seems to go in cycles. He gets into ruts where he makes a ton of errors on easy plays for several weeks at a time, and then gets into a groove where he's very solid for several months at a time. Once he cleans up the errors on routine plays (bad/rushed throws, bobbles on transfer, etc.) the talk of him needing to move off of the position will halt.

Can't do that due to roster limits on total number of pitchers.

Schneider has had to deal with the same type of rotation issues that Charlie dealt with. White really hasn't been any more effective than Kikuchi, and Berrios has continued to be incredibly inconsistent from start to start as well. I won't argue that the bullpen is far more reliable now, as we are no longer subject to a parade of sub replacement relievers being utilized in close games because nobody more effective is available. We aren't privy to what was going on behind the scenes. From the comments we have heard from Atkins and the players themselves there was something going on which necessitated the managerial change. Whether Charlie simply couldn't handle the pressure of a close pennant race, couldn't help rally his team around the Budzinski tragedy, or had some other sort of issues in the clubhouse we didn't hear about it was rather clear that he had lost the team. I don't think it's a coincidence that they have performed better after the managerial change. This could certainly have been a result of the players simply stepping up and performing more up to their abilities, but the fact remains that there is often a very fine line between winning and losing in baseball. We have seen more than enough differences tactically in game which has directly contributed to the team winning more games. During a game the manager is responsible for placing his team in the best possible position to win games, and I think that Schneider has been far more effective with his in game decision making than what we saw under Montoyo.

It's definitely up to the players to perform on the field, but you can't deny the team has performed far better under Schneider than under Montoyo. Under Montoyo the team was 46-42 with a .523 winning percentage. Under Schneider the team is 30-18 with a .625 winning percentage. This is good for over 100 wins over a full season, and is far more indicative of the level of talent on this team. I see far more accountability under Schneider, both on and off the field of play than we ever saw with Charlie.

This isn't true at all. Under Schneider the team has been far more aggressive on the bases, particularly in terms of attempting to steal second. It remains to be seen if this is a net positive or not as they have run into plenty of outs. The team is sacrificing far less than under Montoyo. The bullpen has been deployed differently, as Romano has been utilized for multiple inning saves on several occasions under Schneider. Starters are being allowed to pitch further into games, although this may have been allowed in Charlie were still manager as well. We have seen different bullpen deployment, as the team's leverage relievers have been employed in more games when the team is behind in order to keep the game close.

I think Bass is being underutilized a little so far, he's been a little buried in the 6th/7th inning, and even seems placed behind Cimber in the pecking order.

I think Bo has improved by leaps and bounds defensively this season. He still makes a few mistakes but he's far more reliable and makes some very nice plays.

At least they are improving through baby steps.

It's like he's been mainlining rails of coke and popped a bunch of Viagra.

The Jays seem to be locked into the overuse your closer mindset right now. Last night they use him up by 5, tonight it's using him up by 4. Now it's all but guaranteed he won't be available tomorrow which is a big loss if the game is within a run or 2 late.

Well hit ball by Gurriel. He just needs to tap back into some of his previous power to become a beast at the plate. He's really leveraged his well above average hit tool into a much more sustainable approach at the plate.

Nice job Jano.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Yanks bullpen went from what was likely MLB's almost dominant bullpen into something more resembling the Jays bullpen in some respects.

He's likely a real terror on the bases. It would be quite the improvement being able to upgrade Alejandro Kirk into Billy Hamilton in a big moment late in the game.

Lol love the Bronx cheer.

The front office is busy playing a pointless game of s***** outfielder merry go round. Shuffling from Zimmer to Bradley Jr. to Hamilton is just so pointless. Maybe the prognosis of Springer playing more than semi occasional outfield is looking bleak and Hamilton may provide some injury backup for in case Bradley Jr. goes down with injury.

Jays pitching staff is almost completely shutting down the Yankees offence this series. Assuming Roman gets the job done and if White gets it done tomorrow a sweep won't be out of the question.

AAV seems very reasonable but the length of the contract is a bit long as he'll be pretty old in the tooth the last few years.

The guy was absolutely ruined by injuries. He's had a lot of surgeries over the years including several hip surgeries and a wrist surgery as well. He was never particularly quick/fleet of foot and the hip surgeries made him too slow to keep up, and the wrist problems largely robbed him of his best asset, which was a top notch quick fire wrist shot in the slot.

When Gaudreau walked and Tkachuk indicated he wasn't resigning in Calgary I thought a rebuild was likely imminent. Fast forward several weeks later and the team might actually be improved compared to last season, that's quite the turn of events.

Go check out Kikuchi's statcast results for his cutter for last year and this year and then you'll see why the team took the cutter away.

It seems very unlikely Severino is going to be sufficiently stretched out to start in the playoffs as he was recently placed on the 60 day IL. He still has elite stuff and will be a weapon out of the pen if he makes it back in time.

This sounds a lot like complaining just for the sake of complaining. The Toronto Blue Jays are a big market team who don't need to intentionally game the arbitration system to artificially deflate their players salaries. They pride themselves as being a player centric organization and not one looking to pinch pennies around the fringes. If Jordan Romano ends up making a few extra million dollars a season in his later arbitration years because he largely got the job done in the closer position this isn't going to hold the team back from making necessary improvements to the rest of the roster. The team does their utmost to keep their players happy, and splitting save opportunities in order to save a few bucks is far out of character for this organization compared to everything Mark Shapiro has shown up to this point.