max silver

If it had been up to people that only look at the short term and jump to conclusions we wouldn't even be witnessing the massive steps forward that players like Teoscar and Rowdy look to be taking. This team's history is full of late bloomers who struggled in several go rounds of MLB playing time, but once everything clicked for them they turned into monsters eventually. There are guys like Carlos Delgado, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, and most recently Teoscar Hernandez as perfect examples. I can understand frustration of seeing other phenoms instantly become stars, but before the last few years can you really think of many examples of guys who instantly became stars like this outside of one or two guys per generation? I see no utility in writing guys off so soon before they have a chance to take their lumps at the highest level and make the necessary swing and/or approach tweaks in order to maximize their success. This is still a supremely talented 21!!! year old player, it's not like he's a late 20's guy signed out of Japan who's at the make it or break it stage. There are plenty of plusses to the guy's tools still, the plate discipline is decent and improving at this early age, he has a pretty low strikeout rate and decent walk rate for such a young player so it's not like he has no idea what he's doing. Sure it sucks to see Vladdy have growing pains at the major league level, but what choice is there but to keep running him out there and seeing if he can improve?

It's still possible Martin shifts over to third base, so maybe none of these guys?

We have a young player that has only had about 6 months in MLB, in two of those he's put up very good numbers, in a few he's been a little better than average, and in a few months he's really struggled. In this season he has improved upon his plate discipline numbers and is on average hitting the ball harder. Why in the world should we make any conclusions about what the finished product is, especially by basing this conclusion on how the player is looking when he's at his worst?

I didn't think I'd say this but it might be time to move Panik up in the lineup until he starts to cool off. You gotta really hand it to the hitting coach tandem of Martinez/Bichette, many of the young players have taken big leaps forward, and they've managed to get some of the old veterans straightened out as well.

I think Vladdy has a chance to be a pretty good first baseman, he has pretty good hands and he's naturally far more athletic than Rowdy, he just needs to get his weight under control.

He looks pretty good at first base to me as well. By DRS he's been graded as slightly below average at -2, UZR likes his defence quite a bit with 5.1 and 7.4 UZR/150 the last two seasons, and by OAA he's been slightly below average as well at -1.

Can we just ban this clown already?

Bring on the robo-umps, I've had enough of their bad calls to last a lifetime.

There's plenty of hating on young players on here. You have to be blind if you've missed the statements like Rowdy sucks and he'll never amount to anything, Teoscar is a total mirage and will never sustain success, etc. etc. Those who have tried to take opposing viewpoints are derided and mocked for having bad opinions as if the negative posters have some sort of crystal ball that sees into the future.

A lot of posters seem to take a strange delight in hating on the Jays young players for some reason, it's almost like they are actively cheering for the players to flame out rather than being hopeful of improvement over time.

s***** news about Teoscar, I guess that means we will continue to get all we can handle of Panik and Villar on an everyday basis until Bo comes back. At least Biggio has been ok in the outfield so we don't have to watch Fisher bumble around all the time.

With no Bo or Biggio in the lineup it's sort of slim pickings for leadoff so Villar is probably fine.

That's pretty f***ing terrible to not pinch hit for a bench player in the highest leverage situation of the game. It seems like he rolls coins to help make decisions or something.

It would be impossible to overstate the impact of having these guys available for the games against the Yankees. Especially Bo, going from Panik/Espinal to superstar offensive force should help kickstart the struggling offense.

If it's a choice between being impotent and having excruciating boners then sign me up for the latter. And what man hasn't secretly wondered what it would be like to have tits?

He's looked pretty damn good in his limited innings so far, fastball has ticked up and his command has been pretty good as well. A relief role may just suit him nicely.

Mid to late 30's man can face all this s*** even without steroids so they might as well get jacked and hit more dingers.

Positively Joe Carteresque.

Once Bo is back it seems like a good possibility that Shaw will be the odd man out, he's just so hopeless at the plate. The pinch hitting appearance last night captured his season perfectly, just completely overmatched by average fastballs.

Look about halfway down the page under pitch tracking: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/travis-shaw-543768?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Before Bautista showed up with a noodle arm he was a decent right fielder though, not much range as he was pretty damn slow but far better instincts than Teoscar has displayed with less bone headed plays.

Awesome win for the boys last night, I was excited to see if Teoscar was able to maintain his gains from last year but he's found another gear and activated beast mode. Pitching continues to be great, Walker was a very astute pickup by the front office, I wouldn't be at all disappointed to see him retained going forward, he would be a nice Shoemaker replacement if he manages to stay healthy going forward.

Hopefully Bo makes it back before the season is out, pushing either Shaw or Villar to the bench.

Latest I heard about Kirk was he was still learning about how to effectively call a game and pitch sequencing. He's already on the taxi squad, so it's not out of the realm of possibility we could see him get some playing time this season.

Awesome win for the boys, I never would have guessed that they would be playing and winning a bunch of close games based on the strength of their pitching, I expected more of a slugfest going on each night instead.