max silver

Why on earth would a compensation pick be worthless? If the team is serious about attempting to compete Varsho is the only legitimate full time center field option in the organization and removing him would seriously weaken the team.

Lukes doesn't possess the necessary athleticism to play center field on more than an occasional basis.

Yesavage had a tough inning where he lost his command and then the gascan relievers came in and threw gas on the fire.

I thought it was likely out for a couple of months?

I see little to no upside here but at worst SWR can eat some innings for a club that's desperate at the moment.

The Braves have been following a similar trajectory to the Blue Jays albeit a year behind. The Blue Jays had a top level offense in 2022, bad offense but still solid team in 2023, had a horrible year in 2024 where everything went wrong and then rebounded massively winning a division in 2025. The Braves had a historic level offense in 2023, took a big step backwards in 2024 offensively but still had a solid squad, had a terrible year in 2025 where everything went wrong and now lead MLB in wins in early June.

Good for you, I hope the team gets healthy and the bats wake up personally as I would rather enjoy the season vs watching it get blown up at the deadline.

That's cool you are able to feel what Santander feels inside his shoulder to make this type of definitive statement. From what I can tell the club had a carefully curated rehabilitation plan for the partially separated shoulder and the pain didn't become apparent until Santander started ramping up for the season. It's just empty surface level criticism of an injured athlete to make accusations like this.

Yeah obviously Santander has spent zero time rehabbing his initial injury or rehabbing after surgery and has been spending all of his time eating Cheetos and playing video games.

That's maybe a tad melodramatic.

I couldn't stand the steady stream of disorganized thoughts and had to place Olerud on ignore.

With Hoffman I don't think it's as simple as throwing his 4 seam fastball more frequently. In the outings where he struggles a good deal of that is due to complete inability to command his fastball as he tends to fall behind hitters and inevitably ends up grooving pitches down the middle of the plate. If you were to examine the log using Location+ I suspect you would see the disaster outings corresponding to the days where he has little to no command of his arsenal with the 4 seam fastball being particularly poor. Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ Total - - - - - - 0 104 80 103 106 106 103 110 Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ 2026-05-30 TOR @BAL 0 71 -528 129 77 95 61 60 2026-05-28 TOR @BAL 0 68 62 79 94 74 79 2026-05-27 TOR MIA 0 74 76 122 114 106 115 2026-05-23 TOR PIT 0 51 149 98 111 110 120 2026-05-21 TOR @NYY 0 38 113 107 100 107 2026-05-20 TOR @NYY 0 129 73 105 101 100 99 2026-05-18 TOR @NYY 0 117 103 135 97 127 132 2026-05-15 TOR @DET 0 141 59 111 116 116 124 2026-05-13 TOR TBR 0 77 -109 139 129 109 91 102 2026-05-12 TOR TBR 0 128 237 75 106 116 128 2026-05-08 TOR LAA 0 97 168 93 114 101 114 2026-05-05 TOR @TBR 0 97 126 163 136 109 145 2026-05-03 TOR @MIN 0 146 106 96 148 100 136 140 2026-05-01 TOR @MIN 0 127 59 102 150 106 115 122 2026-04-28 TOR BOS 0 147 131 113 110 105 128 129 2026-04-26 TOR CLE 0 83 111 64 114 80 93 2026-04-21 TOR @LAA 0 207 69 164 71 106 103 104 2026-04-20 TOR @LAA 0 102 164 107 62 106 103 110 2026-04-18 TOR @ARI 0 52 176 84 128 90 85 82 2026-04-14 TOR @MIL 0 121 190 60 132 89 112 112 Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ 2026-04-12 TOR MIN 0 132 150 197 115 153 157 2026-04-08 TOR LAD 0 81 127 137 101 99 102 109 2026-04-07 TOR LAD 0 82 142 131 99 114 118 2026-04-03 TOR @CHW 0 76 135 93 97 103 2026-04-01 TOR COL 0 52 161 90 122 108 106 107 2026-03-31 TOR COL 0 122 135 109 153 120 126 135 2026-03-29 TOR ATH 0 116 101 100 89 102 103 103 2026-03-27 TOR ATH 0 108 82 70 125 69 85

Hoffman has been almost comically unlucky with results on batted balls but his last few games have featured horrible stuff and command. Hopefully this is a result of fatigue and not underlying injury of some sort. Stuff+/Location+ 5-30 95/62 5-28 94/74

I'm not an angry simpleton who thinks that this was an easy situation and believe no matter where you inserted Hoffman he easily could have blown the game. If Hoffman came in during the 7th with how much rope Schneider gave him the team would likely be losing before he was replaced. They had a precarious 1 run lead at that point, and with how quickly things unraveled for Hoffman there's nearly no chance that the Blue Jays would have still been leading by the time he was replaced even if the manager had a much quicker hook. Hoffman was given the easiest job of any of the relievers that came into the game as he was facing the bottom of the lineup with a 4 run lead. It's hindsight criticism to suggest that it's Schneider's fault that Hoffman picked a really bad time to experience a meltdown. Hoffman had pitched to a 1.64 FIP in the month of May and was looking the best he had as a Blue Jay since the month of April a season ago.

I had that thought as well, but at the same time I don't know if Varland can keep being pushed to the degree he has been early this season. If the team loses him due to injury as a result of overwork they are rightly f#$ked.

I don't but this in the slightest. Hoffman came into the game with a combination of crappy stuff and no command and it likely wouldn't have mattered what inning he pitched in.

If I recall correctly the game was much closer in the 7th inning when Rogers entered and if Hoffman came in at that time featuring the lack of stuff and command he featured them he likely would have allowed the Orioles to take the lead at that point. There's just no easy solution here as the team plays a ton of close games, only has 3 healthy starters and is missing bullpen pieces as well. My only real complaint was that Hoffman was left in for several hitters too many which left an impossible situation for Seabold.

That is my main complaint as well. Hoffman had been pitching quite well recently including some 9th inning appearances. Varland took the tougher matchup in the 8th inning so unless Hoffman was used in the 7th and Rogers in the 9th Hoffman needed to be used somewhere in this game.

Fingers crossed he shows enough to enable an immediate Sosa DFA as soon as he is eligible to return from the injured list.

Valenzuela has been so good that there may not be a need to push Kirk this hard. I'm waiting to see if the club will be willing to put Springer in the outfield a bit once the toe is healed up as that can open up DH time for Kirk.

The same kind of thing has been happening to Ernie Clement this season. I think his second base issues are largely due to a basic defensive slump which is something he's gone through in the past, albeit this time it's taken him a bit longer to get out of the slump compared to prior seasons.

Yeah we shall see how Valenzuela looks at the plate once Kirk returns. I tend to think that Kirk is going to be eased back into action a bit and as such Valenzuela will be receiving regular playing time for at least the first few weeks. Valenzuela is bound to hit a slump at some point as he's still human but the quality of his plate appearances are very impressive at this point to the point of walking more than he strikes out since he dropped the leg kick. I think the Trajekt machines are a bit of a cheat code to allow players to keep their swings largely intact in reduced playing time bench roles but not seeing real live pitching with as much regularity will certainly be a test for Valenzuela.

Kirk maxed out at 965 innings last season. That works out to about 2 out of every 3 game and leaves about 3 games a week for Valenzuela. The team is dramatically better with a Kirk/Valenzuela tandem as they are both impact players on both sides of the ball when locked in at the plate. Heineman is basically like a bad hitting pitcher with the stick this season as he's an auto bunt every time a runner is on base ahead of him. I legitimately think there's a good chance he would pass through waivers if DFA'd.

Hoffman has been lights out spamming his slider continuously. It's kind of crazy the club waited this long to simply have him throw his best pitch more often.

Good grief this team feels cursed by the injury bug this season. It's good that the club had plenty of solid depth options for the pen to bring up from Buffalo as needed.