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I love what I'm seeing from this team right now. Schneider has them playing very aggressively on the bases and it's really paying dividends. The club manufactured several runs today with help from a perfectly executed hit and run and a timely steal from Zimmer. Charlie's teams really struggled to manufacture to help make up ground in games or tack on much needed insurance runs, and it's a real breath of fresh air. I was also very satisfied to see him showing proper leadership and addressing the little blowup Manoah was having with the Red Sox. This was another thing that was largely missing with Montoyo as the boss.

That's a pretty terrible look pointing the finger at a potential abuse victim in such a fashion. Just because Bichette is famous it doesn't automatically preclude him from being a rotten piece of s***.

Damn if this has a chance to be true I think the club is going to have to distance themselves from Dante Bichette Sr. Just spitballing here but maybe that's why he's no longer employed as an assistant hitting coach by the club.

It's a bit of a misnomer that salary was saved in the Tapia deal, but that simply isn't the case. The deal was essentially salary neutral for this season as the Jays sent out $5,383,333 this season to Colorado. Add that to Tapia's $3,950,000 salary and you end up exactly with Grichuk's $9,333,333 2022 salary. The Jays sent $4,333,333 to Colorado for the 2023. Tapia is arbitration eligible for 2023 so if Tapia is to receive a small raise the 2023 total cash outlay could be essentially equivalent as well.

This trade is looking more and more like a win over time. After a horrid start of the season Tapia has worked his way up from a -0.8 FWAR towards the end of May up to a -0.2 FWAR presently. He has produced a 138 WRC+/0.6 FWAR over his last 38 games. He is looking more and more like a useful 4th outfielder as the season goes on. He is a poor defender in center field and the club would likely be much better off using Teoscar out there instead, but given how Grichuk is down to a 77 WRC+ and having the worst season of his career it's easy to see moving on from him was a necessity. The fact that Pinto was added is just icing on the cake as he's up to a 121 WRC+ in A ball. He was heating up as the season progressed but looks to have missed a good chunk of time in July.

I can only guess that Springer has been undergoing some sort of intensive treatment on his elbow during the All Star break that requires a bit of time to settle down before returning to play. Keeping Springer out of the lineup and maximizing rest/healing time could potentially be a worthwhile short term sacrifice in order to improve his health for the second half of the season.

The Blue Jays version certainly was. From examining his numbers it seems entirely possible that the Mariners coaching staff has turned him around though.

It's entirely possible that Berrios has turned his season around. His last 4 starts are pretty much peak performance level. 3.09 ERA/2.94 FIP/11.19 K/9 with underlying statcast numbers to back up a turnaround as his quality of contact numbers have been much better as well. I'm just going out on a limb here but it seems at least slightly possible that Walker was involved in assisting with the tweaks Berrios has been making recently.

It almost pains me to say it, but based on Tapia's play over the last few months he's actually not a terrible choice for leadoff on a short term basis. He looks to have turned his season around in mid May, around May 12th or so. Since then he has produced a 127 WRC+ with an OBP of .347. The only regulars who have better OBP during this timeframe are Gurriel (.400) and Kirk (.416). It appears as though the club is attempting to run a set batting order where the primary bats remain in the same relative positions in the lineup with minimal shuffling. I'm not necessarily convinced the current lineup couldn't benefit from further tweaking though.

I suspected it was your usual Redsox are the devil type drivel but I thought I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. I do agree that Cora was let off far too easily, but really don't see why the entire organization needs to be painted with the same brush.

What are you even trying to say here? Sale has reportedly suffered meltdowns with nearly every professional team he has played for.

The recent change in drafting philosophy is becoming increasingly apparent. It appears as though the days of burning high draft picks on "polished" but low ceiling college pitchers thankfully become a thing of the past. We've seen the organization waste far too many picks on the likes of Deck McGuire, Chad Jenkins, Jon Harris, etc. instead of taking the upside play and attempting to draft and develop actual impact pitchers. I liked that they appear to be targeting bullpen help through the draft more as the organization has largely failed to develop their own bullpen talent in the past.

Does that really serve to lower the eventual asking price from the Nationals though? Blowing up a farm system for a few years of a player is just too risky in my opinion, no matter how good the player is. I really wish that the front office could have made a Ramirez trade happen in the offseason as he would likely been a reasonable costing superstar compared to Soto who is asking for the moon. It's obviously with the benefit of hindsight but seeing how Moreno has yet to regain any of the power he displayed in AA, and Martinez has been largely exposed at AA sending both of these guys out in a Ramirez trade as was reportedly the ask for Cleveland may have been totally worth it. Had the team known Kirk was about to explode with the bat it would have been easier to stomach moving out Moreno, but that's another hindsight scenario.

Soto would be a helluva consolation prize. Short term downgrade for a much younger player with similar upside in a peak season. How high the Mets are willing to above the luxury tax remains to be seen, but all indications are that Cohen is willing to splash nearly unlimited cash on his team.

I assume if the Yankees traded for Soto that would mean Judge would likely leave in free agency.

I just find I have a hard time determining what is a reasonable offer in a prospective Soto trade. The guy is a potential hall of famer, but he still has a few questions marks when it comes to overall performance. The bat alone is top 3 in MLB since he debuted, but his defence looks to have taken a large step backwards this season. Maybe this is just a one year blip, but when it comes to handing out a potential $500 million contract to a player this doesn't feel particularly wise if he maxes out as a 6 or 7 win player during his prime.

This is definitely a nice potential haul of talent for the team given their relatively low draft position for the first and second round picks. Hopefully they can manage to get all of these guys under contract. This regime has a good track record of signing their picks up to this point so I'm hopeful they can get this done.

I guess this all depends on whether the front office determines it's time to give a middle finger to sustainable winning and decides to push all the chips in to maximize winning for the next few seasons. This really goes against what they have stated they are trying to accomplish long term but it would certainly be exciting in the short term.

My bad, I thought Martin was being discussed.

It's 63 games, not 60 plate appearances.

Jays seem to prefer neck strains for phantom injury list stints.

That's really not being fair to the brown stains in the toilet bowl though. They didn't do anything to deserve such treatment.

Made a small change to your original post. I think Horwitz is most likely dangled as trade bait to bring in some much needed pitching help.

This is easily the most excited about a Jays pitching prospect since Noah Syndergaard. This time around we shouldn't have to worry about him being traded away for a 40 year old knuckleball pitcher.

I have a hard time seeing this front office making a move of this sort in which they weaken the MLB roster in a competitive season. Jansen is a no-brainer trade candidate eventually given the emergence of Kirk and reasonable debut of Moreno, but my money is on the front office eventually sending Moreno back to AAA for more regular playing time so that he's not sitting so regularly. Why is there very little chance the team can pay Teoscar? It's not like they are operating on a shoe-string budget, and it's been stated that as the team has more success and brings in more fans to the stadium payroll will continue to increase. I get that the Rays do a good job in remaining competitive given the financial challenges that they face, but I don't particularly find myself wanting to see the team I cheer for being run like it's full of nothing but mercenaries. The Rays don't have any fans that actually go to their games, so it's easy for them to point the middle finger at the fanbase with the constant churning of players as soon as they are on the verge of getting paid, but in a large market like Toronto it's simply not necessary to operate this way.