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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.

It would be infinitely more in the Rays self interest to let up against the Yankees vs playing them super tough as the Jays are a far stronger first round playoff opponent.

I checked out Palmer's stats since the start of August and they are indeed much improved. His BB/9 is down to 3.72 over the last 6 weeks. While still obviously not great this is a sizable drop from the 6.00 average for the season.

Sweet series win for the boys. Jays outscored the Rays 14-5 in the series.

Romano is throwing bullets today.

Charlie is doing Romano a solid and hoping to create a save opportunity so Jordan can get a nice arbitration payday when the time comes.

They are up to 5 so hopefully that's enough cushion.