max silver

If I recall correctly Ray had retired something like 12 batters in a row before the meltdown. He had shown no signs of real trouble up to that point other than the original Judge home run.

My bigger issue isn't so much that Ray wasn't removed before the third time through the order came around, but more so that he was allowed to remain in the game well after he was actively getting demolished by the Yankees the third time through the order. I see no issue if you want the manager to trust what his eyes are telling him instead of relying on analytics to help formulate a decision as to when to remove his starter, but this was the worst of both world's when neither tactic was employed.

We already knew full well that Charlie was in over his head managing a major league squad based on the multitude of absolutely baffling lineup and in game strategy decisions that we've been witness to up to this point. The thing that I hope will break the camel's back with respect to the front office's view of Montoyo is the complete lack of urgency in games in which the club's entire season hinged upon. In 2 of 3 games in the Yankees series he stayed with the starter too long despite having help warming in the bullpen. With Ryu this lead to 2 extra runs after the lineup turned over a third time, and with Ray the final 2 runs of the 4 run Yankee outburst should not have been allowed to happen. I can see sticking with Ray after the Rizzo home run, and I can even maybe excuse the second Judge home run, but Ray should have been unequivocally removed from the game at this point. Seeing the manager sit on his hands and hope for the best when it's obvious that the opposition has locked into the starter should be a fireable offence, but we can only wait and see if the front office views things this way as well.

It's too bad Ray didn't have it today. Lately I get the feeling that he's running on fumes right now which makes sense when you consider he's basically had no extra rest the entire season. After being absolutely dominant for several months prior the command suddenly isn't there and he's been struggling as a result.

Would you prefer the team lose and miss the playoffs? Like it or not we are stuck with Charlie so maybe we should cheer for the team to win?

If we are comparing the short stop play of Semien and Bichette I hardly see how a year when Bichette wasn't even in the league has any relevance. Are 2018 defensive numbers for a 32 year old player really of any relevance at this point anyway? What in the world is wrong with including Semien's 2021 short stop metrics for this comparison? Semien played 134 innings in 2021 for the Blue Jays and the defensive metrics are separated by position so I really don't see how it isn't relevant here. It's not like I'm putting any of Semien's second base numbers into the comparison, and you still end up with a very close innings total for each player which is making for a very good apples to apples comparison over the chosen time frame. I really have no idea what you are trying to get at with the Gurriel/Springer tidbit. Over the time that Bichette has been in the league the simple fact remains that during this time frame Semien has actually ranked worse in 2 of 3 major metrics. Semien is by no means a bad defender at short stop as he is sure handed and doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but it's really not true that he is some kind of gold glove calibre defender at the position.

I have suspicions Bo would be willing to move off of short stop if it meant the team was able to retain Semien. He was reportedly willing to move off of the position for Didi Gregorius prior to the 2020 season and Gregorius is a fraction of the player that Semien is. The team is just so much better with Semien on board than without and I have a hard time seeing any comparable free agents with respect to expected contract vs actual production offered. In a perfect world the team could sign somebody like Correa, but he is more likely to receive an 8-10 year mega contract which will make it hard to squeeze him into the team budget. Perhaps Story or Seager could be attained without completely breaking the bank but I simply think Semien is a better overall player than either right now and into the immediate future.

When you start to examine the various defensive metrics it becomes apparent that this is somewhat of a false narrative. I chose to utilize numbers from 2019-2021 to capture a more recent sample and to better compare to Bichette. During this timeframe there really aren't any metrics that show Semien to be an elite defender at this stage of his career. As he isn't getting any younger it seems unlikely that he will suddenly return to the elite defensive production of earlier seasons. The best defensive metric for Semien looks to be UZR. If you are to look at UZR for 2019-2021 Semien ranks better than Bichette with a 9.7 UZR rating with most of his value accumulated in the error runs category. This still only ranks him 15 by UZR/150, good but certainly not elite. Bichette fairs poorly due to errors but when you look at the individual components such as range and double play runs he shows better than Semien in each, it's only large amount of errors from Bichette that is holding him back. He has been cleaning this up as the season has gone along and should continue to improve here. From 2019-2021 In a 1796 inning sample Bichette has 7 DRS vs 2020 innings for Semien with 2 DRS. When you examine Statcast Outs Above Average Semien has produced -14 OAA vs -9 OAA for Bichette. Neither one is great but I'll put my money on the younger player as being more likely to improve these numbers vs the aging veteran. When you compare the metrics as a whole Bichette has actually produced better defensive numbers than Semien in 2 out of 3 of the most commonly cited metrics. Semien is an elite defender at second base, and Bichette looks to be improving to a large degree at short stop, whereas Semien looks to be declining. With Semien at short stop you would see less errors however he has worse range and a weaker arm and subsequently would make fewer tough plays than Bichette is capable of. Which of these players would ultimately save more runs defensively is obviously up for debate, but the one thing that is for certain is that Semien is far from a lock to be an improvement defensively at short stop vs Bichette at this point of his career.

Even Aroldis Chapman has seen some sizeable chinks start to appear in his armor.

Projecting relievers is like voodoo magic. Kimbrel was ridiculous with the Cubs surrendering all of 2 earned runs in 36 innings. With the White Sox he's surrendered 12 earned runs in only 19 innings. Given what was given up for Kimbrel I'm certainly glad it's the White Sox that have to deal with trying to turn him around and not the Jays.

Even Charlie would have a hard time hitting any of McGuire, Lamb or Dyson ahead of Gurriel.

Definitely an odd game for Manoah, but despite the 6 walks and 5 hits in his 6 innings of work he still had only a 4.33 FIP for the game.

There is plenty that went wrong, so much so that it took a miraculous September run for the club to have any shot at a playoff spot. For much of the season injuries and underperformance caused serious problems. Heading into the season this looked to be one of the most talented and complete Jays rosters in recent memory, but despite that this club floundered through much of the season. You can basically look at this season as two separate parts, there are the first 5 months of the season where the team was only a few games above the .500 mark for the most part, and September where they caught fire and look like the best team in baseball. Prior to the trade deadline in particular the club had a ton of issues that led to a lot of lost games. For the longest period of time they received basically nothing out of the third base position. People seem to want to argue that Biggio being hurt most of the season is insignificant, but heading into 2021 he had almost been a 4 win player in his first full season's worth of games. Receiving a sub replacement performance out of a player like this is not a small deal. Espinal ended up stepping up for a period, but then he ended up getting hurt as well. Panik was played by the manager almost every day despite being sub replacement. Biggio's lost season and Tellez's lack of production ended leading to the team having no good left handed options in the lineup. The club has a lot of very good/elite right handed hitters, but a little more balance in the lineup would have likely helped the team receive a little more offence against the parade of righty relievers that the opposition has been able to shut down the Jays late in games for most of the season. For the start of the season the club received very little out of the catcher's position, and when Kirk came up and started playing well he ended up injured and missed a good chunk of time as well. Jansen missed a bunch of time on the injured list also, although that may actually end up being a blessing in disguise as he may have turned things around a bit during his AAA stint. For the first two months of the season Gurriel looked like one of baseball's worst players, and was still at replacement level at the start of August. It has taken a remarkable hot streak for him to start looking like a player who was actually worth rostering. The rotation has also had it's share of issues. Roark was given a roster spot and ended up being cut from the roster. Pearson ended up with a chronic injury and missed another year of development necessitating trading for Berrios. Ryu has looked to hit the decline phase of his career in a serious way, Stripling started the season looking completely lost, finally found it but then ended up missing time due to injury. The rotation has ultimately ended up as somewhat of a surprise strength as the season went on but this wasn't the case early on in the season in particular, when the club received terrible performances from the likes of Roark, Zeuch and Kay. It's impossible to gloss over how much of an issue the bullpen was in the first half of the season prior to the additions of Cimber and Richards. If the team ultimately ends up missing the playoffs this is going to be the major reason given how many leads were coughed up earlier in the season.

Are you arguing that because players have sustained injuries in previous seasons that this somehow means their injuries had no effect on this season? I would argue quite the opposite, given how the bullpen injuries in particular led to a parade of relievers such as Edwards Jr., Beasley, Thornton, Barnes, etc. pitching innings in their place. Even the expected depth guys ended up getting hurt such as AJ Cole and Patrick Murphy ended up getting hurt and missing significant time. The presence of the roster chum and missing presence of the planned relievers heading into the season played no small part in the underperformance of the club for much of the season.

Are you really suggesting that the bullpen pitchers who were injured had no effect on how this season unfolded? The team lost most of their expected back end of the bullpen for crying out loud. This has hardly been an everything is awesome injury season for the Jays despite how much you seem to want to belittle the players who ended up missing large chunks of time due to injury. Plenty has gone right for the team but there has also been plenty that has gone wrong as well. I'm going to give Biggio a chance to get healthy and return to playing a position he is suited for before completely writing him off.

The slider rating in particular seems awfully low. When Manoah's slider is on it certainly plays higher than a 55 rating pitch.

Pretty much the entire reason his defensive metrics show so poorly seems to be due to errors. Lately aside from the odd missed throw I have no other complaints about his defence. He's shown good range, made a lot of nice plays and his throws have improved a ton as well. I really don't think he's been performing badly at short stop lately but that doesn't improve his overall season numbers as a whole given how long he struggled for early on.

Bo took way more s*** early on than was deserved. There was a lot of complaining about his arm strength which hasn't been an issue, it was more his mechanics were so bad that he didn't give himself a shot to repeatedly make good quality throws. I'm encouraged that he has a chance to turn into an above average defender with time. I think Gurriel deserves a lot of credit for how much he's improved lately as well. He's made a large number of very nice running catches lately which have him suddenly looking like a fully competent left fielder. He's come so far from earlier in the season where almost every ball that came his way turned into an adventure.

Holy f*** this is one of the worst instances of watching a team get shafted by an ump I've seen. Not only were the Jays pitchers getting squeezed all game the Rays were constantly being gifted extra strike calls. The 9th was the worst as strikes were called several inches down, several inches up and several inches off to the side of the plate.

The club reportedly opened extension talks with Semien recently so it's obvious they want to retain his services. Unfortunately they weren't able to come to an agreement, but there is obvious interest from the front office to do keep Semien going forward. Ray is the best pitcher on the roster and if he walks that leaves a Cy Young contender sized hole in the pitching staff. I think there is going to be a concerted effort to sign both. Whether that comes to fruition remains to be seen of course but the desire is certainly there.

Last season was Ray's walk year after his first contract and he had the worst year of his career. Kind of disproves the whole "career year on walk year" theory don't you think? He looks to have unlocked the key to maximum performance with himself by rebuilding his body with twice a day workouts and returning to simpler, easier to repeat mechanics from earlier in his career. I sincerely think he is going to be a top of the rotation pitcher moving forward. I don't necessarily think he'll be competing for Cy Young awards every season as he's basically a 2 pitch pitcher, but he started spring training dealing, and after a little bit of a slow start after a minor injury scare in the spring, has actually been getting better and better as the season has continued.

Pure speculation on my part just like with yourself. Has either of these guys given the slightest indication that they are lazy types who are going to sit on their asses during the offseason after getting paid? Semien is one of the more respected players in the game, and that's well earned. He plays every single day and is known for his meticulous preparation. Both Ray and Semien are known as lead by example types and as such are integral parts of this team given the amount of young players on the roster. What in the world gives you the slightest bit of concern that they are going to start resting on their laurels? Each guy has been lauded for their character and how they bust their ass every single day to stay prepared in order to perform at peak levels of performance. I simply see no reason why this won't continue based on everything we have heard about these players. By the way this isn't Semien's career season, this is more like a return to the form he displayed in 2019.

I have zero concern with either guy coasting after getting a well deserved large money contract. You likely won't find another individual more dedicated to his craft than Semien, and Ray pushed his body through twice a day offseason workouts to help get to the point where he is now. Each guy knows what it takes to reach peak performance and should accordingly do what it takes to maintain as much of that performance as possible as they age.

Can't say I agree with the mostly fully healthy comment as Springer was far from the only guy to miss a lot of time. The bullpen was basically decimated by injury. Yates missed the entire season, Phelps and Merryweather both missed most of the year, Borucki missed significant time as well. Pearson has had yet another season ruined by injury, Kirk missed a good chunk of time, and Biggio had his year pretty much ruined due to various injuries as well.

The 2015 and 2016 teams were just so much fun and it was great how much opposing fanbases hated the team as so many of the team's best players had chips on their shoulders (JD, Bautista, Stroman before his antics got to be unbearable).