max silver

Fantastic post.

The board has been a bit of a nuthouse at times this offseason. It's perfectly understandable as many here are completely stressed out and people are at each others throats even more than usual. It's interesting that there are some loose factions that have formed over the offseason as well.

I'm actually low key a little bit worried about how his shoulder bounces back from the surgery. He's not blessed with the strongest throwing arm to start with and primarily relied on getting rid of the ball quickly with great accuracy. Losing any zip on the arm could force him to play primarily left field. A greater concern of mine is whether the power output is affected, as he could very quickly become useless at the plate if he can't even produce decent power output.

Well to be fair you did suggest that Varsho should be fired into the sun...😆

That's an interesting discussion topic to be certain. I went a little further back and George also featured reverse splits in the 2022 season as well which makes 3 seasons in a row. You have to go all the way back to 2018 to find another season where he performed better against left handed pitching, so that makes 5 of the last 7 seasons where he posted reverse splits. It appears as though his career split totals are largely being driven by the results from his first 4 seasons in the league. Over the last 3 seasons he's gone backwards year over year so hopefully this is something that he can reverse with the appropriate adjustments at the plate. Springer RHP/LHP splits over time Career 124/134 2014-2018 120/150 2019-present 127/124 2022-present 113/99

Springer has reverse splits the last two seasons so this might not be a great option. Popkins has his hands full trying to squeeze some more juice out of Kirk and Springer as these guys have both been underperforming their expected statistics to a large degree.

Come on man you should know by now that Orelvis didn't test positive for steroids.

I'm hoping that Wagner can at least be passable defensively at third base to open up a little more potential playing time. I believe the club is giving him some reps at first base as well to increase his versatility. DH could be a little clogged up with both of Santander and Vlad featuring quite a few plate appearances there which could limit his playing time a bit.

The primary issue that held the team back was the lack of performance when it mattered from the all star talent on the roster. If you examine the 4 year period in the current window from 2021-2024 peaked the club enjoyed peak combined performance from their two young cornerstone players once, and had one season where the duo was basically acceptable. The other two seasons saw a really disappointing combined contribution. Bo and Vlad Combined FWAR 2021 11.2 FWAR 2022 8.1 FWAR 2023 5.2 FWAR 2024 5.8 FWAR Imagine how much better the 2022 and 2023 teams could have been if both of Bo and Vlad performed up to their capabilities. 2023 in particular was a massive disappointment, and that team very well may have been challenging for the division instead of squeaking into a wild card series if the supposed core didn't disappoint to such a large degree.

Dude, you made a grand declaration about how people on the board were going to be in shambles. I have no idea whatsoever who this was supposed to be directed at. Maybe you'd like to expand upon this a little bit but it appeared to be directed at an imaginary Alan Roden detractor that doesn't really seem to exist. I guess I have to spell things out for you, which honestly isn't surprising based on the types of wisdom nuggets that you constantly bless us with. You are obviously attempting to save face after making an embarrassing statement and are fooling literally nobody but yourself.

Dude just take your lumps and move on. You said something dumb and got called out over it. Your attempted dunk ended up with you slamming the ball off of your own face. It's not helping your case by trying to claim you are using some sort of newfangled "internet lingo".

The first sentence is a perfect illustration of the illogical types of post that you regularly feature. You are using an 8 year sample size for the current front office when they've been in charge of the team for the last 9 years. It's perfectly fine and even probably reasonable to give the credit for the bulk of the 2016 success to AA as that was a team that he built. Having said that it also stands to reason that he should receive the blame for the next 3 seasons as well as those years were a direct result of the team that he built crumbling to dust and an eventual rebuild being forced upon the new front office. There is literally nobody on this board that is "impressed" with the current front office. The overall tenor of the comments tends to range from those who are disappointed with how things unfolded and are ready to see wholesale changes, and those like yourself who are downright angry at the front office. There you are again with using an 8 year sample, when the actual team that was built by the current group has largely been in place for the last 5 years alone. The payroll didn't even reach luxury tax levels until last season. In the previous years it settled more in the top 10 range, which is the same identical range that AA's teams were featured in as well. The "franchise record payrolls" sounds impressive at the surface, but even at the current levels it's only a top 5 payroll in MLB. The Blue Jays ran the highest payroll in the sport back in the early 90's, which is a far bigger deal that simply being in the top 5. This is a point where I am more disappointed that the players largely didn't perform on the field when it counted. I believe that there was sufficient talent to have success in the playoffs if the team played up to their capabilities when the games counted. There were some questionable decisions by the manager mixed in with a failure of the hitters in particular to plate any runs in the short wild card samples. MLB playoffs are notorious for being a crapshoot. Look no further than the Braves for evidence of this. I believe they have been MLB's second best regular season team over the last 3 years and they have a single win to show for it in the playoffs. I've literally never felt talked down to a single time by the current front office group. I could listen to Mark Shapiro speaks for hours as I find him to be very articulate and appreciate his passion. Atkins speaks like an AI that was implanted in a robot at times, but I don't find I particularly have any issues understanding the message. The farm system experienced a definite lull in recent seasons as they've been typically churning out one major league player in most recent seasons. I think there is actually a wave of talent in the upper level of the minors right now, but unfortunately the best of these guys have realistic ceilings of potentially good major league players vs potential stars. We have a rumor that Shapiro was displeased with AA for selling the farm at the trade deadline. I have little doubt this rumor was worded in an especially salacious fashion to make it appear as though Shapiro was threatening to drop kick Alex from the top rope vs simply voicing his displeasure. Nobody can take away the accomplishment from AA of winning the AL East division title, but take a deeper look at the state of the division at the time and it loses quite a bit of the lustre. The Blue Jays won the division with a whopping total of 93 wins. The second place team Yankees won all of 87 wins that season, and the third place Orioles only managed a paltry 81 wins. Contrast that with the meatgrinder that the 2020-2023 Blue Jays team competed within, when it required a minimum 99 win full season pace to take the division. AA's team would have finished second place at best in those seasons. Even in the 2024 when the division took a step back would have seen the 2015 team place second assuming the same end of season records. Not all projection systems are in agreement. Pecota for instance projects the team to win 85 games with a 46% chance at the playoffs. The Yankees by comparison are projected by this system to win 89 games, so there stands to be serious competition for the division this season as the teams in the division are very closely matched in overall talent. I don't know why people act like the fact that the team has a lot of available payroll is a bad thing. That will eventually allow the team to accelerate a future rebuild if one is required. It's far from a given that the current window is going to slam shut, and this will largely depend on whether Vlad is retained at the end of the season.

Don't give yourself so much credit, I don't "worry about what you post" in the slightest. A more correct assessment would be that I disagree with nearly everything that you post. If you don't want people to comment in response to the posts you make then there is a really easy solution to that problem.

Fans would have run AA out of town well before he eventually built a competitive team.

There's the old expression if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen that's perfectly suited for this. I don't know why you felt it was necessary to start a thread after your initial attempt was completely ignored.

I thought they did a tremendous job at the deadline last season.

I think the biggest benefit for a Grandal signing would be adding depth to cover for Kirk if he were to miss any time due to injury. It's maybe passable to run a guy like Heinemann as backup catcher, but if he's forced into starting and the team is forced to use the depth guys in any capacity the catching situation gets pretty ugly in a hurry.

That doesn't feel very realistic as he's maxed out at 92 starts in a single year in the last 5 seasons.

The team was still a good team during their 4 year run whatever the playoff format happened to be. They were still playing in a division where it took a winning percentage equivalent to 99 wins to take the division over these 4 years, so making the playoffs while having to compete and play the bulk of your games against teams of this quality should still count for something. The payroll thing is overstated as well. The team didn't even pay luxury tax until the 2024 season.

It wasn't anywhere close to as long winded as the Cathal Kelly'esque hatchet job piece you linked to. I'm not going to waste my time going piece by piece to refute that crap, but I'll grab a small snippet to showcase the types of half truths contained throughout. The Blue Jays were not the only other team that was bidding for Ohtani's services until the end. If Ohtani hadn't outright told the team that he wasn't going to sign with him I don't know why any serious fan of the team would actually want the team to voluntarily take themselves out of the running. That's dumb as hell. I'd love to know who these other big name free agents were that the Blue Jays missed out on while waiting for Ohtani to sign. Oh that's right, there was literally nobody of note that signed before Ohtani made his final decision. Most of the better remaining free agents were Boras clients, and due to his ridiculous asking prices and refusal to drop to more reasonable levels the bulk of these guys were forced to take short term deals as spring training approached.

Yeah I don't get why anyone would be in shambles. I don't even recall any major criticism sent his way either so this is just a puzzling post. I'm a big Roden supporter personally and I think he's the player with the best shot of providing any level of impact in the upper levels of the minors based on his toolset.

I don't see the point of efforts like this. If the team has another season similar to 2024 change is going to occur organically. The team had a single bad season in the last 5, but based on the fan fiction piece you linked to one would think the team just endured 10 consecutive losing seasons. It was intentionally ignored that the period from 2017-2019 were poor because the team that the previous GM built was old, expensive and increasingly injury prone. The writer acts like the previous GM walked on water despite only having his team be successful for half a season while he was in charge, and a single season after he left. He left behind a weak farm system which was ranked similarly to what it is now, except the current system actually has a lot of ready/nearly ready position players in the upper minors that have a good shot to contribute to the team as soon as this season. The people who write partially accurate pieces like the one you presented utilize a lot of half truths and intentionally withhold a lot of crucial information as well with zero effort expended towards presenting fair and balanced information. I seriously doubt Rogers would particularly care about a petition, if the stadium is half empty because the team sucks and the tv ratings slip accordingly the bottom line will be affected and change will occur as a result.

I believe the stated plan for Kirk was to have him start in the range of 120 games this season.

I'm trying to be civil. I would say much worse but I've been on my best behavior since new management took over.