max silver

Heineman dramatically outproduced his underlying numbers last season and was an easy guy to pencil in for regression. I think it's just a case of a 35 year old catcher with limited offensive talents no longer possessing the necessary skills to produce anything at the plate.

That's not remotely true. Valenzuela has been the defacto starting catcher since shortly after Kirk went down and Heineman has been benched and called out by Schneider publicly as well.

He's literally been MLB's worst hitter this season and has shown minimal signs of emerging from a season long slump.

He's suddenly up to 123 wrC+ on the season.

Hopefully he's put the defensive slump behind him. He's been having a really nice season with the bat but has been making a ton of uncharacteristic errors in the field.

Yeah that could be an option, but we shall see how Kirk performs with the bat coming off of the broken thumb.

I think that blocking is really the only area that Valenzuela needs to improve, and I see no reason that this can't continue at the major league level after Kirk returns. I am somewhat expecting Kirk to be brought along pretty carefully early on upon his return and this opens the potential for a 1A/1B tandem that would be the best catching duo in MLB. This would also open up more pinch running opportunities when Kirk reaches base late in games and allow the team to hardly miss a beat with Valenzuela being inserted into the game, and this would also open up more DH and pinch hitting opportunities for Kirk as well given the quality of backup the team enjoys.

Valenzuela has been an impact player on both sides of the ball since dropping the leg kick. I think he's fully earned the right to stay in the majors once Kirk is ready to return.

I think it would be an awfully tall order to expect Clement to take over starting duties in center field despite hardly having played the outfield in the majors.

Why on earth would a compensation pick be worthless? If the team is serious about attempting to compete Varsho is the only legitimate full time center field option in the organization and removing him would seriously weaken the team.

Lukes doesn't possess the necessary athleticism to play center field on more than an occasional basis.

Yesavage had a tough inning where he lost his command and then the gascan relievers came in and threw gas on the fire.

I thought it was likely out for a couple of months?

I see little to no upside here but at worst SWR can eat some innings for a club that's desperate at the moment.

The Braves have been following a similar trajectory to the Blue Jays albeit a year behind. The Blue Jays had a top level offense in 2022, bad offense but still solid team in 2023, had a horrible year in 2024 where everything went wrong and then rebounded massively winning a division in 2025. The Braves had a historic level offense in 2023, took a big step backwards in 2024 offensively but still had a solid squad, had a terrible year in 2025 where everything went wrong and now lead MLB in wins in early June.

Good for you, I hope the team gets healthy and the bats wake up personally as I would rather enjoy the season vs watching it get blown up at the deadline.

That's cool you are able to feel what Santander feels inside his shoulder to make this type of definitive statement. From what I can tell the club had a carefully curated rehabilitation plan for the partially separated shoulder and the pain didn't become apparent until Santander started ramping up for the season. It's just empty surface level criticism of an injured athlete to make accusations like this.

Yeah obviously Santander has spent zero time rehabbing his initial injury or rehabbing after surgery and has been spending all of his time eating Cheetos and playing video games.

That's maybe a tad melodramatic.

I couldn't stand the steady stream of disorganized thoughts and had to place Olerud on ignore.

With Hoffman I don't think it's as simple as throwing his 4 seam fastball more frequently. In the outings where he struggles a good deal of that is due to complete inability to command his fastball as he tends to fall behind hitters and inevitably ends up grooving pitches down the middle of the plate. If you were to examine the log using Location+ I suspect you would see the disaster outings corresponding to the days where he has little to no command of his arsenal with the 4 seam fastball being particularly poor. Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ Total - - - - - - 0 104 80 103 106 106 103 110 Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ 2026-05-30 TOR @BAL 0 71 -528 129 77 95 61 60 2026-05-28 TOR @BAL 0 68 62 79 94 74 79 2026-05-27 TOR MIA 0 74 76 122 114 106 115 2026-05-23 TOR PIT 0 51 149 98 111 110 120 2026-05-21 TOR @NYY 0 38 113 107 100 107 2026-05-20 TOR @NYY 0 129 73 105 101 100 99 2026-05-18 TOR @NYY 0 117 103 135 97 127 132 2026-05-15 TOR @DET 0 141 59 111 116 116 124 2026-05-13 TOR TBR 0 77 -109 139 129 109 91 102 2026-05-12 TOR TBR 0 128 237 75 106 116 128 2026-05-08 TOR LAA 0 97 168 93 114 101 114 2026-05-05 TOR @TBR 0 97 126 163 136 109 145 2026-05-03 TOR @MIN 0 146 106 96 148 100 136 140 2026-05-01 TOR @MIN 0 127 59 102 150 106 115 122 2026-04-28 TOR BOS 0 147 131 113 110 105 128 129 2026-04-26 TOR CLE 0 83 111 64 114 80 93 2026-04-21 TOR @LAA 0 207 69 164 71 106 103 104 2026-04-20 TOR @LAA 0 102 164 107 62 106 103 110 2026-04-18 TOR @ARI 0 52 176 84 128 90 85 82 2026-04-14 TOR @MIL 0 121 190 60 132 89 112 112 Date Team Opp GS Loc+ FA Loc+ SI Loc+ FC Loc+ FS Loc+ SL Loc+ CU Loc+ CH Loc+ KC Loc+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ 2026-04-12 TOR MIN 0 132 150 197 115 153 157 2026-04-08 TOR LAD 0 81 127 137 101 99 102 109 2026-04-07 TOR LAD 0 82 142 131 99 114 118 2026-04-03 TOR @CHW 0 76 135 93 97 103 2026-04-01 TOR COL 0 52 161 90 122 108 106 107 2026-03-31 TOR COL 0 122 135 109 153 120 126 135 2026-03-29 TOR ATH 0 116 101 100 89 102 103 103 2026-03-27 TOR ATH 0 108 82 70 125 69 85

Hoffman has been almost comically unlucky with results on batted balls but his last few games have featured horrible stuff and command. Hopefully this is a result of fatigue and not underlying injury of some sort. Stuff+/Location+ 5-30 95/62 5-28 94/74

I'm not an angry simpleton who thinks that this was an easy situation and believe no matter where you inserted Hoffman he easily could have blown the game. If Hoffman came in during the 7th with how much rope Schneider gave him the team would likely be losing before he was replaced. They had a precarious 1 run lead at that point, and with how quickly things unraveled for Hoffman there's nearly no chance that the Blue Jays would have still been leading by the time he was replaced even if the manager had a much quicker hook. Hoffman was given the easiest job of any of the relievers that came into the game as he was facing the bottom of the lineup with a 4 run lead. It's hindsight criticism to suggest that it's Schneider's fault that Hoffman picked a really bad time to experience a meltdown. Hoffman had pitched to a 1.64 FIP in the month of May and was looking the best he had as a Blue Jay since the month of April a season ago.

I had that thought as well, but at the same time I don't know if Varland can keep being pushed to the degree he has been early this season. If the team loses him due to injury as a result of overwork they are rightly f#$ked.

I don't but this in the slightest. Hoffman came into the game with a combination of crappy stuff and no command and it likely wouldn't have mattered what inning he pitched in.