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I don't understand this either. Soriano was sitting mid to high 90's pitch count coming out of the 5th and this was a perfect opportunity to remove him and allow him to end on a high note. Schneider takes heat for not allowing his starters to go deeper into games but this outing illustrated perfectly how it's better to remove a starter a little too soon vs leaving him in too long.

He's another dude I've been following. I'm encouraged that he's finally healthy enough to pitch some innings as he's barely been able to take the mound in his career. The velocity isn't anything to write home about but his recent start saw him averaging 93 MPH on the sinker while touching 95 MPH. The slider appears to be generating a solid amount of whiffs and is rated his best stuff pitch by TJSTATS with a 111 rating. Barriera has an odd fastball shape as it possesses a surprisingly low 6.3 iVB rating. Hopefully Sliderguy can eventually chime in to offer a few insights as to how Barriera's arsenal would play in higher levels of the minors and hopefully MLB some day if he makes it in any capacity.

Who do you expect to be starting in center field?

It certainly seems as if something clicked in early July. He had a bit of a tough start to his professional career as he was striking out too damn much with a nearly 28% K rate and anemic 78 wRC+ into early July. He's found a nice groove then with a bit of a reduction to the strikeout rate down to 23% and produced an overall 135 wRC+. The recent power development is a very encouraging sign as well as he's produced 4 doubles, 3 triples and 4 home runs over his last 125 PA. He'll need to find a way to produce better exit velocities as he's only produced an average 84.3 MPH during this time. It would be cool if MLB were eventually able to provide swing speeds for minor leaguers at some point in the future so we could get a better read of the improvements over time when the goal is to coax out more power from a prospect.

If Cook finds a way to add power to his game this dramatically raises his potential ceiling. I've been following his progress closely in recent months as he managed to significantly reduce his strikeout rate while producing far more hits. The power was largely missing in the successful July but he's turned up the heat in recent games with the power surge.

Dylan Cease is amazing. It's crazy how he can show up in games without peak command of his arsenal and still end up 1 hitting the opposition for most of the game.

I would have thought that Schneider would have learned his lesson in the world series about handing Straw so many plate appearances in key situations but alas that wasn't the case. Last night was a perfect opportunity to give Cameron a start to see whether his AAA success would translate to the major leagues and whether he can be a steady contributor with the bat, but I can only guess that Straw was handed a start simply because he's capable of putting the ball in play and avoiding the strikeout vs actually possessing any offensive upside.

I'd be fine with Straw being on the club if Schneider stopped using him in key offensive situations on a regular basis. Straw has been passable offensively as a Blue Jay if he were to be utilized in more of a 5th outfielder role, but he's received far more playing time than that particularly with the injury riddled state of the Blue Jays roster this season. I thought it was ridiculous Straw came up to bat several times late in yesterday's game when Cameron was left on the bench for an opportunity that never came.

Straw isn't hurting the club the "most" but his 65 wRC+ is absolutely part of the problem.

I think it's actually a bit of a plus if you are able to get Bieber on a 1 year deal vs needing to make a sizeable multi year commitment for a similar calibre of pitcher. The club does have a lot of money coming off of the books, but one concern over aiming higher is the possibility of an incoming salary cap as that would limit the total available spending money for the front office. I would hope that previously existing contracts could be grandfathered somehow to lessen the impact on the bigger spenders to improve their clubs moving forward but it remains to be seen if MLB and the MLBPA would be willing to lose a full season of play in the battle over salary cap implementation.

I think this is assessment is maybe a little premature. Bieber has been improving more and more as the season progresses to the point where he's performing like a solid mid rotation starter in recent months. He had trouble commanding his arsenal initially coming back from the forearm issue but outside of the obvious outlier appearance against the Phillies where he couldn't grip the baseball the command issues are largely a thing of the past. It's only a single outing but Bieber produced a stuff+ rating of 98 to go with a location+ rating of 112 which is far from indicative of a pitcher who has little to offer. In fact his season Stuff+ rating is back to 90 and trending upwards as the season progresses with 92 in his last 7 outings which is right where he was in his 2022/2023 seasons with Cleveland. I think this pitcher is back to full health and has a lot of potential value to offer even if it's at the rate of a qualifying offer. Mid rotation arms are earning $20+ million per season in today's MLB and I believe that if Bieber finishes the year strong he's going to find multi year offers in this range if/when MLB is ready to return from lockout. This isn't to say I'm Bieber or bust for a rotation spot next season but the club could do far worse than bringing back Bieber on a 1 year deal if he were to accept a qualifying offer.

Lukes is a stud defender in right field. On top of that since his vertigo issues were addressed he's been a very steady performer with a 108 wRC+/1.6 FWAR over his last 303 PA.

The dude was a little big for his britches at times but his words had literally nothing to do with his career being ruined.

Yeah that's crazy talk for fans to be interested in retaining a pitcher who has allowed 1 earned run or less in 5 of his last 7 starts.

Bateman did manage to produce solid enough average exit velocities in AAA this season albeit with a low top end. I think his primary issue has been excessive chase up to this point and that could be behind the weak contact he's been producing.

I am flabbergasted that Sanchez somehow managed to produce positive defensive metrics in the corners for much of his career. He's seemingly completely lost his ability to judge flyballs this season and looks more like a player who is converting to the outfield vs one with so much experience.

We can only hope spending an offseason working out at the PDC would add some much needed strength. He did manage to produce decent average exit velocities in the minor leagues but he's been waving a pool noodle in MLB so far.

It's BATEMAN.

Bateman doesn't possess the offensive upside of Schneider when he's locked in but he has a very high floor as an elite outfield defender with top end speed. They really aren't comparable in any way so I don't know why you'd bother bringing up Schneider in the first place. Bateman has just been keeping his head above water with an 87 wRC+ vs Schneider who was the second coming of Babe Ruth in the early going so it's not exactly apples to apples.

To be fair Soriano has been walking a bit of a tightrope in his starts with the amount of runners reaching base. He's seemingly always a pitch away from getting out of a jam due to the elite ground ball rate but if he keeps allowing this many runners to reach the bubble will burst eventually.

Just imagine if the fanbase got it's wish and all of Vlad, Tucker and Bo were Blue Jays on their current long term deals.

Yeah this was one of the worst umpire "performances" I can recall in recent memory. The missed call that bugged me the most was the potential ball 4 call to Kirk which was immediately followed by a GIDP.

I think Bateman has a high floor as he displays fantastic athleticism in the outfield with a ready made center field defensive toolset. The ceiling remains to be determined as of yet and if he's a legitimate plus defender in center field this drastically lowers the bar of necessary offensive output for him to be a solid contributor moving forward.

Damn the club essentially decided to keep Waldron vs Tiedemann.