max silver

The Pinto return was the real key to this trade. The Jays sent something like $5 million cash to the Rockies so it was basically salary neutral.

At first blush I'm not a huge fan of this trade given how Teo was a legitimate middle of the order thumper. Swanson was a beast in 2022 so hopefully he can keep that up. Macko looks to be the key return for the Jays, his K numbers in the low minors are very impressive, hopefully he can develop into a starter moving forward, the stuff looks to be legitimately very good.

Bo's numbers were affected very strongly by a remarkably poor month of April. From beginning of May to end of August Bo and Vlad has basically the same WAR total.

He's left handed, pull heavy, hits the ball on the ground a lot, and gets shifted against over half the time. The shift ban in 2023 should help improve the batting average a bit.

The Semien situtation was different as he was only a one year "rental". The team didn't want to move Bo for good when they didn't have a long term short stop option to replace him with. Had the team been able to sign Semien for more than a single season as they had attempted I suspect things would have played out differently with Semien taking over short stop and Bo moving to accomodate.

Come on man you don't really believe that. I recall Bo reportedly offered to move off of short stop several years ago to allow for a Didi Gregorius signing, so you can rest assured he sure as well would've had no issues moving for a world class defender like Lindor.

Wait, are you actually placing more importance on minor league numbers vs major league performance? That seems backwards.

That guy has zero world championships to his name, so surely that must mean that he simply isn't a winner.

Kirk makes up for the difference in baserunning by getting on base in the first place at a dramatically higher clip than Varsho. Kirk made his way on base at a .372 OBP vs .302 for Varsho. While the difference in baserunning value for the two is rather stark, with a 10.4 run difference between the two, Kirk outproduced Varsho by 12 WRAA. The overall offensive value between the two tips slightly in favor of Kirk in this comparison.

Vlad and Teoscar made exactly the same kind of mistakes in 2021 with Semien on the roster as they did in 2022. Any changes that occur with these players with regards to on-field decision making and effort is ultimately going to have to come from within.

Just curious who isn't serious enough for you. You state "many" players need to go, who in your estimation fits into this group? Given that a huge portion of the team appears to be not very "serious" in the dugout during games, and many of these players are part of the core group, you make it sound as though the team essentially needs to be blown up.

I didn't say Tapia could play those positions well, but he is at least familiar enough with them to cover some innings out there. In a perfect world I would see Tapia non-tendered and a much more capable defender be brought aboard from outside the organization to man the 4th outfielder spot. I'd actually like to see the club give Gurriel a shot at picking up some right field innings in the spring to see if he can learn the position. It took him a lot of years to finally resemble a competent left fielder though so it's not a given that he could learn the position without a great degree of difficulty.

I'm not sold on Gurriel's bat being good enough to receive regular DH at bats. This would take away from the chance for Kirk, Springer and Vladdy to get these at bats. I'm definitely on board with a Conforto signing, he is a great fit for the Jays roster.

I guess this depends on what you expect out of your 4th outfielder. I expect a player who can fill in at multiple positions as required. Until a better player is acquired Gurriel is the defacto starter in left field, and not a bench player.

Tapia has the distinction of at least being able to cover innings in all 3 outfield positions. His numbers in center field are actually perfectly acceptable, however oddly enough he struggles in the corners. I'd guess this is likely due to inability to gauge spin/slice on the ball off of the bat which is amplified in the corner outfield positions.

Gurriel is a terrible choice for a 4th outfielder given that he can only play one outfield position, and is average in that position at best.

Schneider is on record as being a fun loving guy who embraces having fun while playing baseball. He is the guy who implored the players to celebrate clinching a wild card berth, and the same guy who has done things like bring in clubhouse DJ's to keep the players loose. If you expect some sort of seismic clubhouse shift under his rein I suspect you are in for some disappointment. He has made it obvious that on-field blunders due to lack of hustle/head not being in the game will not be tolerated, but there is no indication whatsoever that he intends to change the overall culture of how the team operates off of the filed whether in the dugout or in the clubhouse.

I finally was settled enough after the crushing defeat and went back and checked out the replay from the play in question. I see that Springer actually had a very good shot at catching this ball and had to change course due to Bo being in the way. Given the volume in the building it's highly unlikely that Bo could have heard Springer calling for it. I just have a hard time being terribly upset with Bo for the way this play turned out, given the circumstances at play.

This isn't anywhere close to the play in New York. That one was an easy catch for Teoscar compared to this play where it was a next to impossible play for both Bo and Springer. Are you really suggesting that you want your starting short stop giving up on a pop fly just past the infield in an elimination game with the bases loaded? Bo deserves plenty of flak for how inconsistent his defensive play has been at short stop, but it's nowhere close to reasonable to assign blame to Bo for this play as it was one of those no-man's land pop-ups that was perfectly placed between the infield and outfield.

I think Gausman earned the right to face Santana as he had largely been cruising in the game aside from some unlucky seeing eye singles in the 6th. Choosing to bring in a lefty who doesn't generate many strikeouts with the bases loaded and struggles vs righties instead of sticking with your $100 million ace level starter who was on top of his game? Simply inexcusable. The rest of the pen didn't get the job done either (Romano was also super unlucky) but this terrible move opened to floodgates.

I thought that it hurt last season when the Jays missed the playoffs by a single game. But that paled in comparison compared to what we just watched today. I've generally been very positive so far with Schneider as manager, but he simply has to take a huge amount of the blame for this loss. There is simply no way whatsoever to justify bringing in Tim Mayza to face Santana with the bases loaded. Mayza has really struggled against right handed pitchers this season, allowing a .347 WOBA against, vs a .221 WOBA vs lefties. What's even more baffling is the fact that Santana crushes lefties while struggling against right handed hitters. Against left handed pitching he raked to a 134 WRC+, vs righties only an 89 WRC+. Gausman had really settled in after allowing the bases loaded, and was only a single out from getting out of the jam that he was unlucky to be facing in the first place as the Mariners picked up several lucky hits to load the bases. In what conceivable scenario was it viewed as preferable to bring in a left handed pitcher who struggles against right handed hitters to turn a switch hitter around to his strongest side?

Kikuchi definitely is nowhere close to stretched out enough at this point to handle 100+ pitches, that would be potentially inviting an unnecessary injury. The team will have an extra spot available to bring in another pitcher from the minor leagues, so no need to kill White and/or Kikuchi to cover the innings.

Charlie would be jealous at the shear mediocrity of that lineup.

Kikuchi has been surrendering a lot of hard contact during this stretch also so it's not all bubblegum and rainbows. His average exit velocity is 90.8 MPH with a 48% hard hit rate, so the .440 BABIP isn't all just bad luck.

You can track the baseball's coefficient of drag pretty easily. This season's baseballs look to be significantly more consistent compared to the previously data that is available. Nothing here suggests any kind of tomfoolery from MLB beyond excessively deadening this year's baseballs in the first place. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/drag-dashboard#:~:text=The%20distributions%20of%20drag%20coefficient,2020%20and%200.02584%20in%202021).