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I can't say I particularly agree with this statement. The 2023 team would have scored plenty of runs if it were not for 8 of the position players simultaneously taking steps back at the plate and overall value. Basically every holdover player on the roster had a worse overall season in 2023 compared to the 2022 season. On top of that the bad overall offensive result was primarily due to the team inexplicably being unable to score at the Rogers Center as they were a top 10 offensive club away from home. In 2022 the combination of Bo, Kirk, Springer, Chapman, Guerrero, Jansen, Espinal and Biggio combined for 26.8 FWAR. Fast forward a season later and the same combination of players provided a total of only 15. 1 FWAR. Some of this was due to injury, a bit of it was due to lower defensive contributions, but the bulk of the lost FWAR was due to bad worse offensive seasons across the board.

Hate to break it you but you are the village idiot here.

Aside from the unusual release angle Cimber and Sandlin don't share a lot of similarities. Sandlin is more of a strikeout pitcher whereas Cimber was largely a pitch to contact guy who relied in inducing soft contact.

I believe the leverage arms were taxed early last season largely because the club only had two reliable relievers in the early parts of the season. Only Garcia and Green could reliably retire MLB hitters. Romano and Swanson had delayed starts to their seasons due to spring training injury and featured diminished stuff and command. Mayza was also a shell of his former self so the team was missing their 3 of their most important bullpen arms which was an insurmountable hill to climb.

The Jays have pulled off surprises against plenty of aces this season. They hit aces like Crochet and Schwellenbach surprisingly hard and Bassitt has been pitching at ace level up to this point of the season.

That one was more of a Dave Stieb slider.

It seemed apparent that Roden's mechanics were a little out of whack. The early results of his adjustments at the plate were certainly encouraging to see.

It's amazing how quickly a guy's numbers can improve at this early point of the season. Roden is suddenly up to 123 wRC+ after the double and home run tonight.

It's a little early to write Roden off this early in the season before giving him a chance to prove he can make some adjustments. He had an awful debut in AAA last season over the first 3 weeks or thereabouts before he flipped a switch and entered beast mode the rest of the way out.

I don't think all of Straw's improvements are necessarily fluky in nature. He certainly hasn't fully earned the stellar batted ball results but he's currently running a solid .348 xwOBA which is fuelled by a .363 xwOBACON and a marked improvement is his strikeout rate which is sitting at 10.3% currently. It's certainly a little bit early to make any conclusions on the quality of defense but he's accumulated +1 DRS in 69 innings and by Statcast has a 3% success rate added, which is right in line with his more successful full season results of his career.

This was a typical Blue Jays offensive game where the well hit fly balls were hit to the deepest part of the park.

Absolutely, I wasn't implying the team shouldn't be drafting more short stop but was simply outlining the early improvements to Nimmala's strikeout rate early in the season.

Super small sample size alert but Nimmala is sitting at a 21% k rate right now.

That team slapped it's way to a world series championship.

His stuff+ ratings have taken a real nosedive in the early going. The Blue Jays front office may have dodged a bit of a bullet when Burnes turned down their offer in free agency.

The most painful part was watching Springer hurt his wrist further after getting checked out by the trainer. It seemed really obvious to me that he should have been pulled out of the game after the second swing of the PA in question.

If that's true then you were dramatically underselling how good a healthy Jordan Romano was. From 2020-2023 he was 14th in MLB in reliever wins above replacement. If you don't like FIP/FWAR he was 8th in ERA, 4th in shutdowns, 2nd in RA9 WAR etc. By basically every available measure Jordan Romano was an elite reliever but low information members of the fanbase were incapable of recognizing this fact. It seems pretty damn unlikely there were a ton of teams out there with 2 relievers better than Jordan Romano during that span of time as there were a lot of teams that didn't have a single reliever better than Jordan Romano.

Hoffman and Yimi are a premium 1-2 punch at the back end of the pen.

My main wish for this game is that the umpiring crew doesn't dream up a new infuriating way to stack the odds against the Blue Jays.

This is bound to change eventually. The team has received a whopping total of 1 home run from the top of the order, and this trio could reasonably be expected to provide around 80-90 home runs over an entire season. Adding Varsho back into the lineup should inject a little more thump as well.

That was an excellent PA by Lukes.

I'll guess you meant to say he's been extremely useful. He's certainly been better than advertised so far.

It will be a giant nut punch to lose this game as that would make consecutive losses where the team really shot themselves in the foot with unforced errors.

I legitimately can't remember the last time I saw a runner called out for leaving too early on a tag up play.

Alonso wasn't even particularly impressive when you only factor in his offensive contributions. Consecutive seasons of approximately 120 wRC+ output from a 1B/DH type is not something would have any front office in the sport clamoring to hand out a massive deal. Alonso has typically been a one trick pony who hits a bunch of home runs and doesn't offer a ton of value aside from this, and he was coming off of his worst full season total of his career. But MLB front offices are stupid for not thinking he was worth a massive deal. I am fully aware that you were banging on the Alonso drum this offseason as I was right there with you. I just find it fascinating that you would be so willing overpay players that are forced to take pillow contracts. These players are largely due to a combination of inflated asking prices and declining results on the field. For you to go about insisting that MLB front offices are stupid for not opening themselves up to the massive risk of handing out largely underwater contracts to declining players is exactly the kind of low thought post that you tend to take so much flak for.