max silver

I was a big box score watcher in my high school days. I used to head over to my grandmother's house after school to peruse the box scores in the newspaper and to pick up VHS tapes with the latest games on them. She was like my baseball enabler, aside from listening on the radio and the occasional weekend game I had no access to Jays games so it totally rocked that she was able to hook me up like that.

I went through a similar lull in the mid 90's until probably about 2005 or so. After the 1994-1995 strike and terrible 1995 Jays team I sort of lost interest in baseball for awhile. I didn't have cable television for a good chunk of time during this period as well so it made it very hard to actually watch any of the games. It took regaining access to cable television and having an easy venue for watching games again to rekindle my passion for baseball.

Yeah that's a sad statement about the state of umpiring when a game that bad isn't near the top of bad performances. During the latest Baltimore series the Joe West "performance" was actually worse for accuracy which is hard to believe. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the amount of distance these missed calls were in or out of the strike zone was among the worse though. He called a lot of pitches that were 4+ inches out of the strike zone strikes, and plenty of pitches that were inside of the strike zone by several inches balls as well. This was one of the smallest strike zones vertically I can recall yet it was super wide at the same time. Good luck figuring out what's supposed to be a ball or a strike when you are a hitter with this type of umpire behind the plate.

This was one of the worst umpiring displays in recent memory. Is there a way to look up how this compares historically to other terribly called games?

Thanks man. Must have missed that day in grade school or something.

I'd guess either Saucedo or Kay would likely be the first guy sent packing back to AAA since they both have options. I'm guessing Barnes would have to pass through waivers first and the organization doesn't like throwing away assets, so he would likely be the last guy to go. The front office keeps insisting Hatch is going to remain as a starter, but the more bullpen meltdowns we see the softer this stance is going to become. It already sounded like Atkins's (should this still be Atkins, Akinseses or something) armor is starting to crack a little.

I'd say Beasley would be the most likely guy to DFA out of everyone on the roster. I fail to see what situation would warrant bringing Milone back though. Where does he even fit? As a mediocre longman? I have nightmare visions of Charlie declaring him as a high leverage type of arm. He could be like the left handed version of late inning destroyer Sam Gaviglio.

I really have the give the bullpen a lot of credit today. Murphy came in and shut down an Oriole's rally, and then when he faltered Mayza came in to put out the fire. Castro looked absolutely dominant today, every once in a while he shows glimpses of being an end of the bullpen monster, but then he gets hit around the next few times out. Romano has been amazing, but he's only one man down there. It's great that he may finally be getting a bit of help to shut down the opposition.

That's easily the worst outfield collision I've ever seen. I have a hard time seeing how this guy can return to the outfield after this wreck, but I'm really pulling for him to fully recover. It's been a totally f***ing awful couple of days for young Canadian ballplayers, with Soroka retearing his achilles and Naylor's leg being decimated.

LOL this is like my favorite comment ever. 😁

Holy overreaction Batman. Or Iceman or whatever. This team's only real weakness is the lack of reliable relievers. If/when Borucki and Merryweather come back this team should be able to fire off a ton of victories.

Just to be clear I'm thanking this post as a kind of thank you for deleting the incoherent crazy guy posts. Trying to decipher some of those feels like trying to crack an ancient code.

Holy f*** this team knows how to break your heart. If the team actually had any decent alternatives I would be banging the drum to move Chatwood to a lower leverage spot given the Jekyll and Hyde routine he's been performing lately. But realistically who does the team have available that's any better? Perhaps Patrick Murphy could be that guy eventually, but he's been a bit shaky to start his season. Castro looked really good for awhile but he's been getting lit up lately. Thornton's stuff has ticked up nicely but he's had his own share of recent troubles. Could Payamps maybe have earned a shot at a little higher leverage? He doesn't wow you or strike many batters out but the results have been consistently good. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be for the team to constantly see the bullpen pissing away leads late in games. The offence has been solid, the defence typically makes the plays it should, and the starters have been very reliable lately. But until this bullpen gets some more consistent arms it's going to be hard for this team to stay in the race. They desperately need for Borucki and Merryweather to make it back and immediately start contributing. Aside from the typical waiver wire garbage there looks to be no external help realistically available at the moment.

I really like the coherent version of Spanky, he adds an interesting flare to the board.

Must have been Jon Rauch. Absolutely huge f***er but didn't have the stuff to match.

That walk rate in the 7 BB/9 range certainly isn't helping. Hopefully his issues are mostly command related given the seemingly high quality stuff.

Every single one of these player development failures occurred under different front office regimes, under largely antiquated training methods and with an underequipped dilapidated training complex. This organization under Mark Shapiro has been striving to modernize the entire minor league system and overhauling every single aspect in order to maximize the potential of every single player in the system. Players are being highly encouraged to spend their winters in Dunedin in order to utilize the new developmental complex. Whether it's making strides in practice routines to practice at full game speed, or utilizing nutritionists and chefs to maximize nutrition, or utilizing the pitching and hitting labs in the developmental complex, we are starting to see this new minor league system really starting to bear fruit. This season alone we have seen breakouts from players like Gabriel Moreno, Kevin Smith, Samad Taylor, etc., and I think we will continue to see more and more success stories like this over time. Obviously there won't be spots for all of these players on the Jays, but this system is well primed to produce a talent pipeline going forward to both feed the Jays with quality inexpensive talent, and to function as trade currency for filling holes on the major league roster as required. In the last few seasons alone we have seen prospect graduations/success stories in players like Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Alec Manoah, Alejandro Kirk etc., and there are more players in the upper and lower levels of the minor leagues making strides towards becoming effective major league contributors. I think the days of lamenting about all of the Blue Jays players ultimately becoming busts is a thing of the past.

Holy s*** man that's a truly awful trade proposal. Martin is an elite prospect, so the idea of moving him out for a rental starter and a decent left fielder is unnecessarily throwing away value.

I more meant that he's likely to end up as a utility player than a regular if he sticks with the Jays. That's still a potentially valuable piece but simply doesn't put him in the same conversation as higher upside talents like Moreno, Martin, Groshans etc.

The lack of home run power and no defined position take a lot of the luster off for Lopez.

Must be gods will.

I think I might be inclined to switch Vlad and Springer around to maximize Vlad's at bats but you really couldn't go wrong either way.

Imagine how great it would be to make Buck eat his words when it comes to catchers catching on a single knee. Although at his age it would be lucky if he can even get into any kind of crouch.

I can't open the story as it's paywalled. Who is the player in question here?

I agree that you wouldn't want to mess with the top of the lineup right now, they really have a good thing going. I certainly wouldn't mind Springer hitting in the cleanup position with Teoscar backing him up, but no matter where you put Springer this is just a massive addition.