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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).

Cleveland would be fully within their rights to insist that prospects the ilk of Pearson, Martinez and Moreno (not all 3 obviously) be included in any talks for Ramirez given the crazy surplus value his contract creates relative to his production. Instead of blowing up the farm system and the subsequent shortening of the competitive window that would result I would far prefer the Jays somehow manage to convince Semien to stay. That only costs money and no talent needs to be sent out for this to happen.

We've seen what this team can do when all facets of the game finally started clicking at once. I do see the point that having all of Springer, Semien and Ray on big dollar contracts in their decline years could certainly start to cause some issues 4 or 5 years from now, but I'd still say go for it as this team as constructed is a true world series contender in my view.

Sarcasm dude.

I'm simply hoping the front office is able to keep this current group together. Add a few high leverage arms to the bullpen and this team should be a nightmare for the opposition to face for years to come.

Nope fit as a fiddle. Are you honestly dense enough to continue to hold the position that Ryu pitching more effectively that Matz is recently? Going back to my original point I stated that Ryu is the 5th best starter on the Jays right now. I made no declaration of what the future holds for each pitcher moving forward, but for you to be so outright dismissive if not downright hostile still has me rather puzzled. By the way I'm still waiting for you to somehow prove your point that Ryu has been unlucky with his batted ball results lately. I see a ton of hard contact with many of these hard hit balls leaving the park.

I 100% place more weight based on recent results when comparing the relative merits of Ryu and Matz. You can call it recency bias all you want, but when in the thick of a playoff race I don't see how you can continue to hold your breath and hope for the best when a pitcher is looking like Tanner Roark 2.0. You come across like Charlie in his defence of Dolis earlier in the year when he stated that he was good in 2020 so therefore he has to be good again this season. I see you seem to have come to your senses but maybe in the future you don't need to be such a dick when you are spouting nonsense opinions such as these.

That's very cool. I hope that eventually Statcast can include metrics like arm speed and bat speed as well.

If Stripling were stretched out to the point where he could go 80 pitches or so I would seriously yank Ryu out of the rotation. The team simply can't afford to be throwing games away right now in hopes that Ryu finds himself.

This is as good a point as any to send out a giant FYSMC to those that attempted to ridicule me recently when I suggested that Ryu is the team's worst starter right now. I have more confidence in Hatch giving them at least passable starts than Ryu right now and that's scary given the fact that Hatch has been a weak performer this season.

John_Havok looks to giving Palmer the Keith Law Cavan Biggio is not a prospect treatment.

Charlie is much like Cito Gaston in that he deservedly takes a lot of heat for his in game managerial decisions, but for both Charlie and Cito it's purported that their influence outside of game time are their most positive attributes. Charlie may be clueless when it comes to proper in game strategy, and he also has a propensity to bring in the wrong relievers based on game scores and situation while also falling in love with mediocre veterans, but he has managed to keep this team positive despite any adversity that comes their way. There has been minimal complaining from the player base about the s***** situation they found themselves in to start the year playing out of minor league stadiums in Dunedin and Buffalo, and I think Charlie should receive a lot of credit for that. The club has also displayed a lot of resilience in being able to bounce back from tough losses which happened all too frequently throughout the season. Ultimately I would still let him go as he has likely cost his club a chance at many victories that didn't ultimately come to fruition as he on many occasions failed to put his players in a proper position to succeed. I think he has served his purpose in guiding the club through the worst of the pandemic and allowed the team to keep a positive mindset despite whatever came their way, but a club with aspirations of competing can't afford to have their manager repeatedly making poor decisions over and over again.

I really don't know how the voters are going to weigh traditional stats vs saber stats. Traditional stats wise right now I'd go Ray due to slightly better ERA and more innings pitched, but by saber stats like K rate, walk rate, FIP, xERA etc. Cole gets the nod. I say Ray due to the crazy run he's gone on for the last several months but I'm biased as a Jays fan.

It would be amazing if the Yankees ended up losing out on the Wild Card as a direct result of their s***** play against the Orioles.

Gregory Polanco has been hitting well in AAA lately and he's up to a .957 OPS after tonight. The Bison swing doctors have a pretty good track of history of reversing the fortunes of struggling hitters, with success stories like Rowdy Tellez last season, Gurriel and Teoscar all having found much more success upon return to MLB. I see Polanco has been playing some center field as well which is interesting. I'm guessing he wouldn't be available for post season play if he finds his way back up, but perhaps he could be a nice left handed outfield addition to the roster.

Hopefully the Jays continue to take care of their own business so they won't end up relying on out of town scoreboard help to squeak into a wildcard spot.

Burnes' low home run rate might not necessarily be totally luck based. The home run rate mirrors that of the shortened 2020 season so it's not like he hasn't done it before. He looks to be nearly impossible to square up as his barrel rate is a minuscule 2.6% and average exit velocity against is all of 85.2 MPH. That exit velocity is like 2020 Danny Jansen levels, and Jansen hit a ton of lazy arcing fly balls with no chance to either fall in for hits or leave the park.