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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.

Gurriel continues to be MLB's streakiest hitter. He at least was able to tread water this year during his down times at the plate compared to previous seasons. The newfound plate discipline is so out of character for him it seems as though a switch may have flipped for him. It's still a very small sample size but if he can continue to make good swing decisions like he has recently the sky is the limit offensively given the quality of his hit tool. We can only hope that Bo would also see the light and rein in some of the excessive aggressiveness at the plate, but that's unlikely to happen. Jansen's power surge looks legit to me. He also displays very good plate discipline, so if the home run surge continues I think he is going to start accumulating a lot of walks as he will be pitched very carefully.

I quickly looked this up and Pearson is indeed preparing for more of a bulk/hybrid role. It remains to be seen how he's actually deployed though. Maybe it could be somewhat similar to how Stripling was used in a jack of all trades/swiss army knife kind of role. He could see the occasional spot start, close on occasion, act as a fireman mid game to put out opposition rallies etc. https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/blue-jays-nate-pearson-building-up-for-bulk-role/

I actually like his nicknames on here given the immense swag he displays in game. Rocket Raimel and Skinny Predator/Skinny P are great.

Biggio was barely ever fully healthy last season starting right from spring training. He recently stated that he feels the best physically that he's felt in years. The Bison's coaching staff has a long history of completely turning around the fortunes of struggling Jays hitters in the past, including Teo, Gurriel and Jansen, so hopefully the extra time in Buffalo had the same effect for Biggio. The early returns are very promising as he is having great at bats, leveraging elite plate discipline and making a lot of hard contact.

I thought the intention was more to have him serving in a multiple inning relief role, has that reportedly changed with the Ryu injury?

The Smallgio s*** is seriously tired. I don't think he even came up with the stupid nickname in the first place.

Hopefully his hand isn't broken.

He does lift, I've seen gym photos of him deadlifting in the offseason.

Jays hitters are making Kaufman Stadium look small.

Yay runs!

Kikuchi has been pretty damn good since simplifying his mechanics and ditching his cutter. I also have strong suspicions that Berrios made some sort of adjustment in between starts given how much more dominant his overall stuff was in his last outing. I think the shakiness should hopefully be behind him moving forward.

I'm not sure I said reinforcements wouldn't be needed. Pitching reinforcements don't require sending out a top 4 prospect or breaking up MLB's top offensive tandem. You seem to be desperate to bleed value in trade for some reason.

That's not what I meant. I was saying that the Jays can trade from the minor league system to grab a back of the rotation starter. Remember the Robbie Ray and Taijuan Walker trades? These trades cost essentially nothing. There is no need to subtract from the major league squad to fill a rotation spot right now. That can certainly change if one of the top 4 goes down due to injury but that's an issue that hasn't arisen yet.

The team has 4 very good starters already. Adding a back of the rotation starter is not going to necessitate panicking and shipping out one of the Jays 3 catchers. This can easily wait until the offseason as the Jays have a plethora of good players in the minor league system they can utilise in trades.

Having Moreno available as depth in case of injury to either Kirk or Jansen is a good thing. Trading away one of the three mid-season would be unnecessarily risky as we have no way to know whether Moreno hits the ground running or whether he is more of the typical prospect who faces a tough initial adjustment period. If the more likely latter scenario raises it's head you've weakened the offence greatly and suddenly have no minor league depth to call up in case of emergency.