max silver

Instead of the power arm or Murphy who has already displayed the ability to get outs at the major league level, Tyler Saucedo has been called up. In further bad news AJ Cole has been moved to the 60 day IL with a left oblique strain. Funny how "neck soreness" turns out to be an oblique strain, I don't recall the two being connected in any way.

The bottom is what it feels like we should be doing while watching the bullpen lately.

The pen has been solid so far. Hopefully Romano is available today if things end up getting closer.

This person is likely the dumbest poster on the board.

You just have to hope it's not another case of wasted opportunities biting them in the ass eventually.

Especially in the case of Chatwood coming into the game.

Careful, we're not supposed to enjoy having Springer doing his rehab around his teammates and enjoying their company. He should be relegated to the minor league complex for rehab so he can enjoy team building with the physio specialists instead.

Home run derby time.

Go Semien! What an amazing signing this has been, I really hope the Jays are able to keep him going forward.

I have zero inclination that's the case with Matz. His problems up to this point of his career largely look to be related to things spiraling out of control when he runs into trouble in an inning. He has very good stuff and an effective assortment of pitches, consistency is all that he's missing now.

I think it's most likely a yes. Vlad is doing things as a 22 year old that nobody else was able to do in their prime.

Aside from his gold glove nominated season he's been more of the very good variety defensively rather than elite. The bat right now just isn't good enough to carry him as a starting catcher option going forward. To keep his starting job he'll likely need to at least provide the average level of offense for a catcher, otherwise he's going to eventually find himself as the backup.

I'm almost at the point where I'd be satisfied with a single victory.

Something else that might be a good option would be to option Jansen down to AAA once one of Kirk/Moreno/Adams shows that they are ready for starting catching duties. Jansen still has a few options remaining, and working on his swing in a less pressure packed situation could be of great benefit to his career. The minor league swing doctors in Buffalo had a lot of success with helping out Gurriel, Teoscar and Tellez reworking their swings and approaches, so taking the same approach with Jansen may be worth a shot to help him take the next step forward.

That should certainly help him hit the ground running with the bat when he's able to return to catching duties. There will be very limited DH opportunities on the major league squad once he returns, so any playing time Kirk received will likely be at catcher only. Once Springer returns there Gurriel and his three blind mice routine will likely see very limited time in the outfield aside from days where Springer needs a day off at DH, and if Tellez is still on the roster at that point then that further reduces the DH at bats which will be available.

At this point then sure it's maybe only a few weeks time to a full return, but from the time where he reaggravated the quad strain to now is a much larger quantity of time.

Do you think he wants to be injured? From reading between the lines from his earlier comments about being sick of being on the injured list I think Springer himself really pushed to get himself back to playing before he was fully healed, and how well did that turn out? Messing around with quad injuries and having players return before fully healthy inevitably leads to further injury and an even more prolonged absence. So unless what you want is for Springer to miss basically the entire season a little patience to allow him to utilize an intelligent rehabilitation process is fully warranted.

From a pure physical healing standpoint that would certainly be true, but the mental aspect of being away from his teammates for several months would have a very detrimental effect on Springer mentally.

I'd like the club to extend Ray as well, he just keeps getting better and better as the season goes on. If he can keep the homeruns under control he's basically a very good number 2 starter, but even with the homeruns being an issue he's like a decent number 3. I'd love the club to use some of the available payroll going forward to make an attempt to retain Semien and use the minor league system to trade for another starter. With milb being in swing plenty of Jays prospects have been able to raise their relative trade value, so a decent starter should be attainable without decimating the minor league system to a large degree. The Jays have a wealth of good catcher and middle infielder prospects, and sooner or later it will be time to leverage that strength in order to fill needs on the major league squad.

Maybe packaged with somebody like Hiraldo Kirk could bring back a Sonny Gray starter type. With Ray and Matz on expiring contracts there are certainly rotation holes to fill next season. Perhaps Pearson is finally ready by then, and Woods Richardson could be a viable option as well, but I would hate for the team to repeat what has happened at the start of the last two seasons and only have 2 or 3 real viable rotation options. It's just played havoc with the bullpen having to cover so many innings.

Bingo!

I'd be very tempted to use Kirk as trade bait. He's likely to be a very valuable commodity if he's made available, guys who can hit like him at the catcher position just don't come around very often. There are still questions about his ability to stay at catcher long term, so I'd let a different organization worry about that potential issue. It certainly is nice to dream on a Moreno/Kirk combination offensively though, given the total black hole of offensive production that the catcher spot has been for the team since Martin was shipped out. At this point Kirk is only rated as a 50 FV prospect by both fangraphs and MLP Pipeline however, so perhaps he would need to be part of a prospect package to bring a good player in return.

Moreno is up to a nice tidy 200 WRC+ in AA as a 21 year old. Moreno's emergence with the bat is like adding another Bo Bichette type talent at the catcher position, it's impossible not to be incredibly excited about this level of talent being added to the major league roster in the not too distant future. The club will have some interesting decisions to make before too long, once Kirk returns from the 60 day IL there will be 4 MLB caliber catchers on the 40 man roster. (I'm choosing to ignore McGuire, he's basically waiver wire quality, and any success he's had with the bat looks to be largely undeserved) Somebody will need to be traded soon, who stays and who goes won't be an easy decision to make. Jansen is a nice veteran receiver now who calls a good game, works well with the pitching staff and is a very good defender. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to provide any offense which really limits his value, both to the Jays and as a potential trade chip. Kirk has shown reasonably well behind the plate but to me it looks like he has a ways to go defensively before he's ready for a starting job. The bat is too good to ignore though, he is likely to hit a ton, but if he's not catching he's basically limited to DH on those days. First base wouldn't be an option for a guy of his height, especially given how short his arms are. In the short sample of games where we've seen him behind the plate Adams looks like he's pretty decent behind the plate, and I've liked his game calling for the most part. It remains to be seen how the bat translates to MLB pitching, but he's had good competitive at bats for the most part, and the power was really starting to show up in AAA. Moreno looks to be a star in the making, the future starter's job looks to be his, it's just a matter of when this happens. Would the Jays be willing to go with a tandem of Moreno and Kirk as soon as next season? Having two rookie catchers on the same roster could lead to some serious growing pains, and with the club likely looking to pivot to full contention as early as next season two catchers with so little relative experience could lead to quite a few extra runs being scored by the opposition.

I'm sure the club was still hoping for some improvement with the bat at that point though. Jansen had good success with the bat in the minors and still showed some remaining upside at that point, so I think he was more valuable to the organization at that point than the return that would have likely came back. With Kirk, Adams and Moreno in the pipeline now trading Jansen for whatever he can bring in return is more palatable, but before last season the only other catcher in the organization that was close to MLB ready was McGuire. I sure as hell wasn't interested in seeing him as the starting catcher, he's just barely passable in my view as a backup.

f*** that was a tough loss, likely the most demoralizing loss of the season. While some of this loss was bad luck the team just isn't playing well fundamentally in this latest rough patch. Whether it's failing to cash in runners from third with less than two outs, or defensive miscues at inopportune times, runners getting picked off, or bullpen meltdowns there are just so many things going wrong right now. There is so little margin for error that bad decisions by the manager just amplify the chance of potential victories slipping away. I don't know what Chatwood did to so quickly regain Charlie's trust, but bringing him in with several runners on base was just asking for trouble. He should be relegated to the bottom rung of the bullpen totem pole until he can consistently throw strikes again, it's folly to keep running him out there in high leverage situations with runners on base when he's constantly battling his command and completely unable to hit the strike zone. Was bringing in Chatwood really any more likely to get the final out of an inning than Stripling at the point where Stripling was pulled? This now makes it 4 complete meltdowns in his last 7 outings, when will our moron manager finally get it through his thick skull that Chatwood can't be trusted when the game is on the line?