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I see Pearson had an appearance where he only threw 3 pitches before exiting. Anybody know if he suffered yet another injury?

There wasn't really $5 million saved because the Jays sent almost $10 million cash to the Rockies in this deal. To me it looks more like using cash to get an interesting prospect back in return.

That sounds an awful lot like that JuniorFelix moron that used to frequent here.

What's this "slobbing Cavan's knob" garbage supposed to mean? This constant bashing is making you look like a dumbass. The guy has produced a 158 WRC+ since returning from AAA and it largely looks to have been earned as he's been barreling baseballs, hitting a ton of line drives and walking at a 20.8% clip. This is a really nice player to have batting at the bottom of the lineup, and if it weren't for the fact that the entire team is on a heater it would be very easy to justify hitting him higher in the lineup.

Whoa why so angry here? You might just be tearing a new ******* for the wrong poster in that particular conversation.

You live in a fantasy land if you expect the baseball team you follow to constantly go on extended 10-15 winning streaks simply because they are playing teams that are below them in the standings. Since the Jays offence came to life they have a 14-5 record, that is a 119 win pace over an entire season. Are you going to continue throwing a temper tantrum like a 4 year old over a team with a win record of this nature? Sometimes s*** happens and the other team ends up winning, typically the best teams in MLB still end up losing 60 games or so. Like it or not most MLB players simply aren't going to play 162 games anymore. Maybe Espinal picks up a hit or two or maybe he goes 0 for 4 as well, you can't simply assume that a player who is resting for the day is going to have a better game than the player that filled in that day.

Pearson has to first show the ability to actually remain on the field before the team can get to fixing him. Kikuchi's command struggles have nothing to do with Pearson coming back as a starter, it's strictly health and workload related. If the team really wanted Pearson to work as a starter this season they have the perfect guy in Stripling to go back to the swingman role, so if they thought Pearson could handle a starters workload it would be a no brainer decision.

Kikuchi was expected to be a bit of a long term project and there is still 2/3 of the season left right now. There is still plenty of time to get him on track and with 2-2/3 years remaining on his contract he'll be given ample opportunity to do so.

Gee if only teams were able to make trades in season to pick up rotation depth. We better start panicking now because there isn't great depth stashed away at AAA already. This isn't the end of the world, Atkins has shown ability to pick up rotation help mid season when needed.

Gage has a 40% whiff rate so far in his limited appearances. In AAA this season he was striking out 11.34 batters per 9 innings. It doesn't appear as though missing bats has been an issue for him. The team might as well continue to throw him out there in lower leverage spots to see if he continues to have success as he's fully earned his chance.

I'm just guessing but maybe he's referencing how much of a dick you look like when you cheer for a player on the team you follow to have a potential career ending injury. On top of that it leads to the team getting almost no value out of nearly $40 million in salary. That's just fantastic news all around, we should all be dancing in the streets.

I wouldn't trade Groshans straight up for a single relief arm but I'd have no qualms including him as part of a package deal with multiple players coming back. I really don't see Groshans being a great fit for this team long term unless he starts showing some sort of power potential as he's a slap hitter right now. The only near term opening in the Jays infield is likely to be third base, and with the bat Groshans is displaying right now he likely maxes out as a utility player. I think Orelvis Martinez displays a much higher ceiling than Groshans and that Groshans is the far likelier player of the two to be shipped out.

I think that Biggio isn't a guy that you would necessarily want to keep long term as he may not be good enough to be a "core" player, but during his recent stretch of play he's shown how his skillset can help the major league team win games. In a perfect world he would be able to cover the left side of the infield, but he still offers plenty of versatility as he can cover the right side of the infield as well as the corner outfield spots. The team is much better with him healthy and playing up to his capabilities as it helps to limit the amount of at bats being given to Tapia as Biggio can cover Tapia's primary positions. It's still a pretty small sample of at bats but he's producing the best expected stats of his career up to this point of the season. He'll likely never hit for much of a batting average but he has the capability to provide some nice offence at the bottom of the lineup, and the ability to get on base for the top of the lineup with regularity is a big plus. I am not terribly high on Groshans right now as I'm starting to become concerned over the lack of power he has displayed in AAA. In 33 games of play he has produced all of 5 extra base hits with only 1 home run and 4 doubles. For a player largely touted for his bat a 111 WRC+ in AAA really isn't very inspiring. In my view he is increasingly becoming a guy who the front office should trade while he still has a relatively high trade value, as his stock is dwindling ala Austin Martin who also has failed to produce any power as a professional.

I have zero concern about this myself, it's just a long term possibility. I certainly would be wary of any kind of extension with Kirk given his body type, he's such an anomaly it's hard to tell how he'll hold up physically.

I don't get the feeling that the front office is remotely interested in trading Moreno, if they were Jose Ramirez would likely be a Blue Jay.

Kirk's height isn't an issue now but it certainly might be in the future. If his body fails to hold up to the rigors of catching his short stature will limit his versatility as he is far too short to play first base, not to mention the short arms further limiting his total wingspan. His bat is almost certainly good enough to be a full time DH in the future though.

Your expectations are unrealistic to the point of absurdity. I really don't think you are in a position to be commenting on the education level of other board members at the moment.

Earlier in the season when most of the team's better offensive contributors were largely struggling game to game lineup construction may have been worth griping about, but with the team being hot offensively top to bottom this really isn't such a big deal. If the game is close in the late innings this type of lineup allows for some very potent bats to come off of the bench, but lately this hasn't been the case very much even when the B lineup starts the game as the team has been scoring runs in bunches.

The team is first in almost every major offensive category recently and top to bottom every player in the lineup is producing well above career averages. How do you realistically see further room for improvement compared to what we've witnessed recently?

Moreno started a little slow in April as he had basically no spring training due to Visa issues. He only produced a 73 WRC+. As the season has gone on he's gotten much better, producing a 135 WRC+ from May 1 onward. I still agree that it's best for him to stay in AAA as Jansen is only expected to miss a few weeks, but if this were expected to be a longer term injury I suspect Moreno would have already gotten the call up to the MLB squad.

If this not an offence firing on all cylinders recently it must be awfully close. The team has a collective 167 WRC+ since May 25, which started during the second game in the St. Louis series where the improved approach at the plate seemed to click. They have scored 92 runs in a 12 run span, a 7.66 run per game pace. During this stretch the team is first in WRC+, batting average, on base percentage, slugging, walk rate, second in home runs, second in runs scored etc. It's hard to really expect much better than that. I also looked up the stats during this recent hot stretch for the players you've listed, and each of these guys has been hot during this stretch as well; Vlad has produced a 163 WRC+ but has another gear available as he is only sporting a .224 average/.152 BABIP during this stretch Teo has produced a 174 WRC+ but only 1 home run during this period Bo has produced a 194 WRC+ and an uncharacteristic 12.9% BB/9 Chapman has produced a 160 WRC+ and is finally being rewarded for his quality of contact, only 16% k rate during this period Lourdes has produced a 170 WRC+, 16.3% BB/14.0% k rate during this stretch Aside from the guys listed in your post there have been other contributors up and down the lineup. These include: Kirk absolutely on fire with a 307 WRC+ Espinal hot again after a mini slump with a 149 WRC+ Springer continues to be consistently good in early going with a 146 WRC+ Jansen cooled off a bit but still good at 114 WRC+ Even the bench players have been pitching in: Biggio with a 158 WRC+, 24.1% walk rate Tapia with a 131 WRC+, much better walk and k rates during this stretch, hopefully a sign of better things to come

You seem like the type of guy who would hate his own grandmother so this isn't surprising.

This is my biggest remaining complaint with Charlie. He really needs to stop listening to his player's self diagnoses when it comes to potential injury. There was the Giles fiasco, Teoscar with the obvious oblique injury, and now Jansen with a broken bone. It seems that almost all players are going to lobby to stay in the game even when potentially injured, and it's up to the manager to do the thinking on their behalf to avoid further injury.

I disagree that we have a true gauge on Gurriel at this point. He is still evolving and improving as a major league player. Something to keep in mind is that he missed a lot of time early on during his Jays minor league tenure, and as a result only has a total of 543 total games in North American professional baseball, or basically only 4 full seasons worth. Randal Grichuk for comparisons sake has played 927 games in MLB alone so we have a lot more data to rely on regarding his likely potential. Within the last year Gurriel has improved tremendously as a defender, to the point where he has become a quality defender in left field despite looking like a little leaguer out there as recently as last season. He presently is sporting the best walk and strikeout rates of his major league career as well. I suspect the power is going to return eventually once he starts barreling up baseballs a bit more. His 3.8% homerun/flyball percentage is a long ways off of his career value of 16% and seems unlikely to stay that low. It's certainly possible that this is nothing more than a typical Gurriel hot streak and he continues to be a slightly above average offensive performer, but I can't recall him ever displaying the type of plate discipline that he has shown recently. Over the last two weeks he has been swinging at only 20.8% of pitches outside of the strike zone vs 33% for his career, hopefully he can keep this up.

I've read plenty of complaints about mind-numbingly bad in game decision making from Maddon this season. It seems as though he may have reached his best before date as a manager. I didn't expect to ever be saying this but Charlie has actually improved dramatically compared to his previous seasons. The incessant bunting has almost completely disappeared, he has displayed a far quicker hook with struggling relievers which can be directly tied into the number of 1 run victories this season, and lately even his lineups are starting to look better as the bench players are starting less frequently.