max silver

With Martin and SWR gone two of the premium trade chips are already used up. Cleveland would certainly be well within their rights to ask for either Gabriel Moreno or Orelvis Martinez, and as you say giving up either of these guys in trade would be a tough pill to swallow.

Going forward I wonder what his role will be on this team. If Semien is retained he might not have a starters job available, I wouldn't be surprised if Kevin Smith ends up claiming the starter's job at third base next year. Does Biggio have more value as a trade chip or as a super utility player? Time will tell.

Biggio came off the IL a while back and went on a heater for a few weeks. Perhaps we was actually healthy for once instead of battling through various back and neck issues. Either of those would have to be pretty debilitating for a sport that is so rotational. There is a good player still in there somewhere, he hasn't suddenly lost all of his talent.

How is it looking any worse than it did initially? I originally wasn't a huge fan as I thought that Martin and Woods Richardson were close to untouchables, but post trade reflecting has me realizing that each guy given up had some serious warts emerging. I think Martin can still turn into a great player if he can tap into his power professionally, but there is no guarantee here. Woods Richardson was still striking out a ton of batters, so his ceiling remains very high. Like Martin there are question marks whether he will be able to reach that ceiling or not. Berrios was terrific in his first two starts with the team, and looks to be fitting in nicely so far as we can tell from the tv broadcasts. There is a very good chance the club will be able to extend him before his contract expires, and he's likely the clubs number 2 starter at worst heading into next season.

Teoscar has been on a heater in August which has inflated the BABIP numbers a fair bit, but his lowest BABIP month of the season is July where he still posted a .321 BABIP. His xWOBA and WOBA are within a few points of each other, so ultimately the high BABIP is of little concern when evaluating his offensive performance. All of Teoscar's batted ball metrics are within the upper 80-low 90 percentile rating, so his offensive stats are well earned.

That's a relief at least. At the initial time of injury this looked like something that could have ended Springer's season.

The long term prospects are great. I disagree greatly about them never making the playoffs this year though. The team as constructed in the offseason was very strong, but unfortunately they have been sunk by injuries to the bullpen. If they had even a bit better bullpen health they very likely would be several games ahead in the standings compared to now.

I felt really good about the team after the amazing homestand. That has really reversed after the back to back disaster games in this series. If Springer is out for an extended period I'm having a hard time seeing this team staying in the wildcard race.

He has a knack for consistently making the wrong moves.

Well that's just wonderful.

Do you honestly prefer players that don't attempt difficult plays? That's just asinine man.

Trying to make a great leaping catch in a 1 run game is dumb s***? What in the world are you even talking about?

Oh f*** Springer looks hurt.

Odd they just threw Murphy away in order to replace him with an anonymous AAA reliever instead. As soon as Pearson is ready Overton likely finds himself on waivers next, likely having pitched one or two innings total. Terrible asset management by the front office.

I watched this quite a few times, there is absolutely no way you can definitely say the catchers glove touched Valera's forearm on the tag attempt. The angle is such that there's no clear way to see whether contact was made or not. Unless New York had a different angle than was available for us to see this is another example of the umpires botching another replay challenge.

Offering $120 million to a starting pitcher who has sustained so many injuries that he's only pitched in the neighborhood of 170 innings in 5 professional seasons? You are joking right?

Of course. That's just typical for how the Jays season has gone with respect to the bullpen.

It's good to see Bo back in there today. That really deepens the lineup nicely. I just wish the club would give Kirk more of a chance to show what he can do. I can't see his development being helped out much by playing twice a week.

You are seriously underrating what these pitchers can bring when at the top of their games. In his 17 innings of MLB experience Merryweather has accumulated 0.9 FWAR. Extrapolate that to full 60 or so innings of work and you suddenly see a 4 win reliever. Does that sound "pretty good" to you? I'm guessing that's a hard no. Remember what the reliever version of Pearson did in the playoffs to the Tampa Bay Rays? If he's fully healthy and effective he's a player that struck out 5 out of 6 batters against a good hitting Rays team. Don't you think that's an impact addition? Mayza has been an absolute stud this season. He had a rough stretch of 5-1/3 innings from May 7-24 where he allowed 12 earned runs. But outside of that bad stretch he's been basically perfect. Outside the short stretch where he struggled he's given up a grand total of 3!!! earned runs in his other 30-2/3 innings. Does that not sound like another elite bullpen addition? Soria admittedly won't have the same type of impact, but his presence removes the worst from the middle reliever stash on the club, removing the weakest link from the bullpen. Having a bullpen of Romano, Pearson, Merryweather, Mayza, Dolis, Hand, Cimber, Richards and Soria has a very high possibility of elite production. With the starting rotation mostly pitching well there wouldn't be a ton of innings to cover, and each member of the bullpen would likely get ample opportunity for proper rest as well.

If Grichuk were utilized more like a true 4th outfielder rather than full time player there would likely be less consternation as well. Lately since Springer has been playing more frequently in the outfield and Dickerson has returned from injury we have seen a fair bit less of Grichuk in the lineup thankfully. I have no issues with having Grichuk on the roster, as you mentioned the excess salary is pretty small in the grand scheme of things, and will do nothing to prevent the Jays from signing more high quality players in the future.

It's a little hard to know what to think with regards to Martin's lack of power up to this point. He has displayed the top notch hit tool and plate discipline but hasn't really excelled anywhere else if reports are to be believed. There were whispers that the Jays were very concerned about the lack of power Martin has displayed up to this point, which would certainly lend credence to his internal value having fallen off a fair bit. If Martin was dealing with a hand injury for most of the season that would certainly help to alleviate much of the concern. Heading into the season I thought he was one of the untouchable prospects in the organization, but now aside from Orelvis Martinez and Gabriel Moreno I don't know if anyone else would rank as untouchable at this point.

I'm fairly certain it was Keith Law who mentioned that Martin had altered his swing due to a hand injury. I've not heard a peep from the organization or any of Rogers multiple writers about this issue though.

If the club can add most of Pearson, Merryweather, Mayza and Soria back to the pen it suddenly starts bordering on elite. If Borucki can get his s*** together as well that adds another potential fireman to the club to snuff out opposition rallies. These are 5 high quality potential reinforcements that will force the lower end options off the 26 man roster and hopefully make the constant bullpen worries a thing of the past.

https://theathletic.com/2759638/2021/08/08/this-week-in-blue-jays-george-springer-delivers-his-signature-toronto-moment-lingering-questions-for-stretch-run/

Yeah that's a ridiculous understatement. Merryweather has already smashed past that limit as he managed 13 innings in 2020. If the Jays manage his workload and stick to a 20% increase year over year he should be good for 15 innings this season.