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Still continuing on with the outright Bo slander I see. What did Bo ever do to even warrant this kind of suspicion? I challenge you to provide even the faintest shred of evidence that Bo deserves the hate and disrespect you've been throwing his way. This is a guy who needs to be dragged out of the lineup against his wishes when he's healthy enough to play so you can rest assured that this is a team decision to keep him out of the lineup to allow the knee to heal sufficiently so he at least has two healthy'ish legs beneath him. I don't think he'll have enough time to get to 100% before his activation but Bo with one healthy leg would be a shadow of his usual self at the plate.

You can likely say that about nearly every reliever in MLB this season.

I'd like to see more of a matchup based closer by committee setup employed, but given how Schneider tends to completely empty the pen on the way to the closer I don't know how likely this is to happen unless Hoffman is removed from the primary closing spot. I do eventually expect a far tighter leash on Hoffman given the stakes of the post season, but even this may not occur before he's allowed several meltdowns along the way.

The August numbers are yet again entirely due to a bad week. I'm not trying to argue that this isn't a massive potential issue for the post season as a bad week for a closer can end the team's season. Hoffman at least managed to avoid opposition barrels in September on the way to a 2.84 xERA largely on the strength of an 85.6 MPH average exit velocity. The FIP numbers are still ugly but this is due to an excessive walk rate vs the barrage of home runs from earlier in the season. It's highly debatable how repeatable a skill inducing the soft contact will be based on the declining velocity of stuff and command but at the very least the homer problem was kept at bay.

Your entire premise is that Hoffman has been terrible all season long and that's not remotely true.

I have a far more detailed reply in this thread but the numbers look the way they do due to 5 shockingly bad outings that occurred in two separate really bad weeks. He's been very good the rest of the way.

Hoffman didn't crap the bed all year. If that were remotely true he would have been removed from the closer role a long time ago. I think the fact that Hoffman had a series of truly awful outings in early May has created a picture of him being far worse than he has been in reality. There have been times when he clearly doesn't have it, and his manager has left him in games for far too long and allowed him to surrender a bushel full of runs. The worst 5 outings saw him surrender 18 ER in only 2/1/3 innings which occurred in a really bad week in May and another really bad week in late August. The rest of the season saw him allow a 2.03 ERA over the remaining 65 2/3 innings over 5.5 months of play so I believe in actuality he's generally been a very solid closer, albeit one who allows too many home runs for comfort and is prone to spectacular meltdowns at times when he doesn't have it. Hoffman was MLB's best reliever for the month of Apri, had a really tough month of May with the bulk of the runs being allowed in 3 disastrous outings, then he was very solid for 3 months from June to the end of August where he had a tough week, and he's barely allowed a thing in September albeit being of the smoke and mirrors variety due to his stuff and command faltering at times. I think he should be fine in a closer role but the club should monitor his work load a bit to avoid the excessive 4 games in 5 stretches that have seen him suffer from reduced velocity and stuff afterwards. I believe a key is to get another arm up far sooner on days when it's obvious that he's struggling with command instead of allowing the tying or go ahead runs to score.

I would guess that Bassitt is likely going to figure into the ALDS rotation as well if required.

LMAO you of all people are here insulting somebody else's IQ. That's almost too good to be true. And I actually think that Vlad is improving his decision making on the field in this season in particular and making more heads up plays within the games. He's taken a big step forward defensively in terms of deciding to throw home, starting double plays etc., and I was impressed in a recent game when he managed to dive out of the way to avoid an incoming tag at first place on a throw that went wide.

Hats off to the boys for getting the job done by running the table over the final 4 games. The offensive explosion was massive and hopefully the 28 runs over the final 4 games are a sign of things to come in the post season. Gausman wasn't at his sharpest but was dealt a bunch of bad luck seeing eyes singles and this allowed the pen an opportunity to continue completely shutting down the opposition.

Come on man, the guy was a down ballot MVP candidate for crying out loud so it should be easy to recognize the impact the guy provided in his season as a Blue Jay. Semien posted comparable defensive metrics to Merrifield and Fletcher that season at second base and any one of them were completely deserving as gold glove candidates. A few unmade plays that you witnessed doesn't negate the 11 DRS/6 OAA that Semien produced that season. Not being able to retain Semien was the biggest factor in my view of the team's inability to hit the next level in the following seasons as the club was never able to fully replace his impact as he was a plus player in all phases of the game.

I can maybe agree that the Yankees are a better team than the Blue Jays right now, but that's largely due to the Jays missing Bo at the moment and the Yankees lineup being healthier. The Yankees have been playing well recently but you shouldn't ignore the powder puff schedule they've enjoyed to end the season. I think that the Blue Jays line up very well with the Yankees in a post season series and have the pitching to match the Yankees, but this is contingent on Bassitt making it back in time. Hoffman is a concern to be certain but the Jays pen has been nails in recent weeks and are hitting their stride at the perfect time. The Blue Jays enjoyed a 4+ month stretch of the season where they were baseball's second best team behind the Brewers and own the season series against the Yankees as well. On top of this the Blue Jays have outscored the Yankees since the calendar turned to May since the inexplicably bad month of April, although we've seen a similarly futile stretch of games in recent weeks as well. I fully believe if not for the poorly timed Bichette injury this division would have been wrapped up a week or more ago.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are extenuating circumstances in this situation. Manoah simply didn't really resemble a major league caliber pitcher during his rehab stint and I think it's far more likely he's never a rotation member for any team in the majors again vs this move being something the Blue Jays regret.

That's patently unfair to blame the 6 win second baseman for a single errant throw as being the reason the club didn't make the post season. If not for his contributions that year the team wouldn't have even been in contention.

Hoffman tends to go through periods of struggles but it's not really true that he's exclusively pitched badly since May 1 as a quick glance at the numbers would suggest. He tends to do a bit of Jekyll and Hyde routine, and when he's bad it's like max level bad. His May struggles alone were bad enough to paint a picture that his entire season has been bad as they drag the numbers down, but he's produced extended periods of success with some awful periods mixed in. May 1-31 10 IP 13.5 ERA 8.64 FIP -0.7 FWAR June 1-Aug 22 27 2/3 IP 2.28 ERA 3.65 FIP 0.5 FWAR Aug 23-30 3 1/3 IP 21.60 ERA 21.14 FIP -1.1 FWAR Aug 31-present 11 2/3 IP 0.77 ERA 4.77 FIP 0.0 FWAR Hoffman has generally been getting the job done in September but there's a definite luck component. The stuff and command are both poor recently which doesn't lend much in the way of confidence of him being reliable in the post season to say the least.

Manoah is averaging 90 MPH with awful command. I have a really hard time seeing how there would be a team interested in trading for a player like this, and if they did it would be absolutely nothing of value coming back in return. I don't think there's a lot of worry about this being a Chris Carpenter situation barring a dramatic improvement to his stuff and command.

I hate that Hoffman is allowed to completely melt down and blow a game before the manager even gets another arm up in the pen. It was apparent from the first hitter that Hoffman had no command of his offspeed pitches as he was nowhere near the zone, and he benefited from a lot of help from the home plate umpire or else this would have been a different outcome.

Santander's metrics in left field are fine this season.

Why would you assume this is a phantom IL stint? It was mentioned that Berrios has been dealing with this for awhile and his stuff is down to a large degree in recent months compared to the start of the season.

Varland has looked quite a bit better in recent outings and gives the club a bit of a chance for length as an opener.

How does a baseball player compare to a cake mix brand? I'm just not getting the association.

WTF is a "Betty Crocker"?

I seriously doubt that given the stakes at this point. I don't recall a player being benched by this manager for lack of hustle at any point of his tenure and this would be an odd time to start.

You can apply the same kind of thinking to individual slumps as well. I've looked at the underlying numbers of players at times and more often than not when a player hits a deep slump the expected statistics aren't nearly as bad as the results would lead you to expect.

I don't know if it really matters if the club extracted an org guy by trading either of these two.