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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.

Ignore WAR if you want, but the reduction in WAR in recent seasons is due to a combination of declining value in every phase of the game. Alonso was coming off of the worst defensive and baserunning seasons of his career along with the worst expected statistics of his career. It's a neat story that he's producing the way he is right now but there was nothing to indicate this type of resurgence was coming. He was a picture perfect candidate for a pillow contract to prove that he was capable of a bounceback. It's completely hindsight criticism on your part to suggest it was somehow dumb for MLB front offices to be wary of handing out an expensive long term contract to a player that appeared to be firmly into his decline phase. This really has nothing to do with your claim of WAR not properly encapsulating value of offensive players and more of a case of a player who was showing signs of serious decline in his physical skills. None of this is intended to attempt to take away from what Alonso has done so far. He's managed to improve his overall swing speed while shortening the length of the swing, reduce his whiff rate, drop his strikeout rate, and impact the baseball at Aaron Judge levels so far. It's a very impressive turnaround up to this point.

Gimenez has cooled off on the road trip and has produced a 38 wRC+ in the month of April. I don't think it would be productive to move him into the slot reserved for the team's best hitter until he at least shakes the current slump.

That looks an awful lot like Ricky Romero to me.

Do you ever take a second to think before you post? Alonso was a steadily declining player coming off of a 2 win season so there's no reason to act like "stupid" teams should have been beating down his door to sign him to a $100 million+ contract.

Bo has made a sizeable 4% improvement to his overall contract rate despite not really improving the chase rate to any degree. This has led to a large decrease to his strikeout rate which is pretty encouraging to see. It's too bad he's not being properly rewarded for the top notch underlying metrics, I recall this was an issue for him at points last season as well.

That might be possible if the defensive improvements hold up over a full season. Bo has been comically unlucky with batted ball results as he's sitting at .432 xwOBA at the moment.

I'm guessing this is complaining that the high performance department should employ a team of meteorologists to avoid Vlad receiving consecutive days off.

I can think of at least one poster who thinks this was a smart deal.

Bo was actually +1 runs in the 2024 season for Statcast range so the range isn't necessarily an issue at this point. I fully agree in not being a fan of the super long term contracts that are becoming more commonplace in MLB. It feels like the 11 year deals the Padres handed to Boegarts and Machado opened the floodgates to seeing players under contract until their late 30's/early 40's.

I think Bo has improved tremendously at short stop. Statcast had him as a slightly positive defender for last season and the start of this season combined. That is just fine if he's hitting the way he's capable of. When he's 31 I don't think the athleticism is going to decline so severely that he can't move to second base.

The game cameras showed Schneider harping on the umpire for most of the game, and he had to come out several times during the game to intervene to prevent his hitters from getting tossed.

You are a far more patient man than myself. I would have gone all Jays24 on a roid rage if I were to attempt to watch that one sided umpiring travesty again.

Yeah this one feels like it's going to be dramatically shifted in the Red Sox favor. Key moments included the Red Sox being gifted a walk when Little was pitching, and the missed strike 3 call in the final inning that was immediately followed by the hit by pitch.

You have zero self awareness as that's a statement that you actually made.

Nice of you to step in so you can regale us with your words of wisdom about how the current Blue Jays front office is the worst management team in Toronto sports history.