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I edited my previous post. It appears as though Bastardo may need to spend 90 days on the 26 man roster in 2026.

I just sort of assumed as long as Bastardo was kept on the injured list throughout the entire season that this would effectively remove the need to add him to the 26 man roster at any point. Correction: I looked this up and it appears as though Bastardo will need to be on the 26 man roster for 90 days in the 2026 season. The blurb is a little confusing as I believe they may have mixed the years up. https://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2025/1/6/24337316/better-know-your-blue-jays-40-man-angel-bastardo

Nice political bait post.

Maybe you weren't trying to compare but O'Neill and Santander largely fell into the same type of bucket as outfield power bats. Now Santander has suffered from a serious shoulder injury and we simply don't know how the power bat is going to look moving forward.

It still would have been a more productive signing in year 1 vs Santander although if Santander can make it back in time to be a productive playoff bat that would shift the narrative a lot.

That's far from ideal but at least it's better than experiencing a setback in the injured shoulder.

Holy s*** I was aware his season numbers had taken a nosedive but wasn't aware of the level of prolonged struggles. Heading into last night's game his last 79 games saw a 66 wRC+/-1.2 FWAR. He's literally been MLB's least valuable position player over this period and that's a pretty sad level of decline.

Berrios is a bit of a coin flip recently as to whether he's going to be awful or pitch a decent game. It's key that the plays are made behind him in the field and the manager needs to have a quick hook as well as the wheels are always on the verge of falling off at any point.

If that leads to Santander playing right field more often than not that's a really bad defensive alignment in the outfield so it's just strengthening the infield but weakening the outfield.

I fully agree with this assessment. The plate blocking rules are likely among the dumbest in MLB. It just makes no sense that a catcher is only disallowed from blocking the plate before he receives the ball, but has free rein to set up fort if he's either moving to receive the ball or has already received it. In this particular play the way the rules are set up was a direct cause to the collision at the plate as Bo had very little time to alter course once the throw was received. It's dumb that the catcher only needs to leave a sliding lane open when he doesn't have the ball in his possession if the intent of the rule was supposed to be reducing collisions at the plate.

And this certainly isn't going to help with Bo's already diminished range at short stop.

And he produced pretty well against the Reds as well.

I guess the guy who was calling Bo a massive pussy after he missed the final game of the Yankees series and then proceeded with a full bore character assassination owes Bo a bit of an apology at this point.

I was looking at the minor league schedule for the Jays today and noticed that the lower level teams are all finished for the season. The team generally liked to let the rehabbing players get their feet wet a bit in Dunedin before sending them up to AAA but Santander is going to be forced to go straight to the upper minors for his rehab stint. I recall that it was mentioned that Santander's right handed swing was a long ways behind his left handed swing at the moment so perhaps he'll be forced to hit primarily left handed for the rest of the season if he can't get the right handed swing up to speed in time. The Jays are certainly receiving a bit of a favorable pitching matchup in this series as they miss Brown and Valdez. I feel the key will be limiting the damage that Alvarez produces at the plate as it's felt like he's been murder on Blue Jays pitchers in past seasons. Alvarez's numbers are down at the moment but he's sporting a fearsome .412 xwOBA at the moment so he appears to be a strong candidate for positive regression.

The Blue Jays have been playing at a 100 win pace record for the last 4 months and you just came here to proudly proclaim that it's primarily due to dumb luck. Over this time the club has produced a very solid +104 run differential in a 107 game sample, but you are trying to suggest that this is due to nothing other than dumb luck and as such giving no credit to the team where it's deserved. At the same time you are constantly singing the praises of a division rival who the Blue Jays enjoyed an 8-5 record in the head to head matchup this season. It shouldn't be so difficult for you to wrap your brain around the fact that other posters aren't going to enjoy a total buzzkill/killjoy type who has a post rate of approximately 99% saying how much the 2025 Blue Jays team sucks and how much better their primary divisional competition is. I have a really hard time believing you when you claim that you've enjoyed this season. Every day features a barrage of posts about how bad the Blue Jays are in some fashion or another, and that's exactly the same kind of posts you made last season when the Blue Jays were terrible. It's all doom and gloom all the time and nothing else is ever allowed.

I don't necessarily blame the previous hitting coach for the team's offensive struggles the last few seasons given the previous success under his tutelage, but I do think that change was needed as Martinez wasn't able to provide solutions for the struggling hitters to improve their success at the plate. I believe that the new hitting coaches do deserve a ton of credit, as does the advance scouting group as well. I believe this notion that hitting coaches essentially do nothing and that the players alone drive the bus is foolish at best as pregame preparation is massive in terms of getting the players ready to face the starter on a given day. On top of that in game/pre-plate appearance preparation is also massive in order to allow the players to utilize the most effective game plan possible as well. I recall that Teoscar Hernandez mentioned that the Dodgers were next level in terms of pre game preparation and I think it's not a coincidence that coaches who spent time in the Dodgers organization have allowed the team to morph into a much more effective offense.

Of course here you are to proclaim that the primary reason the Blue Jays have been successful this season boils down to nothing other than dumb luck. That's totally on point for your continuous series Blue Jays suck/Yankees are awesome posts. It's just par for the course that during a season that feels miraculous in nature that you are completely incapable of enjoying it at any point and go out of your way to ensure that others don't get to enjoy it either.

Nice job completely ignoring the massive chunk of extra payroll that the Yankees enjoy every single season. I think the Blue Jays have done a better job producing their own position players with the Yankees getting the nod in pitching development. You have set an impossibly high bar to satisfy your requirements. This team has won 99 games exactly once in it's entire existence

They are taking a massive defensive hit as they either have to play an outfielder with the worst range in the sport or the outfielder who is playing with an arm injury that completely nullifies the ability to put anything on his throws.

So a below average GM is on track to make the playoffs in 4 of the last 6 seasons while playing one of MLB's hardest schedules in a murderous division. That's just a perfectly fair and balanced evaluation from you. The obviously better Yankees front office has typically ran payrolls of $100lion more every season. Imagine what Atkins could accomplish with the types of payroll allotments that Cashman has enjoyed.

That tie breaker feels like a really big deal right now.

I think Atkins has easily done enough to let him play out the rest of his contract. He has his team in first place in September largely on the strength of internal improvements that the team has been chasing after since the massive offensive underperformance th 2023 season. The offense is arguably the best in the sport this season with the pitching taking a step backwards. If the team can find a way to improve the pitching as they did with the offense this can be a really scary team next season.

That one still stings. I think Ohtani's presence alone last season could have been sufficient to push the team close to contending for a wild card spot.

Thankfully there were a few silver linings from this series. The bullpen was largely tremendous, and Fisher came back looking like he didn't miss a beat and can be a key arm for the stretch run. Vlad also appears to have locked in at the plate again as well which is huge for the lineup.