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Seems a bit like karma biting him in the ass. I recall he trashed the Blue Jays clubhouse years ago when the team dared to trade him to the Mets instead of his preferred New York team in the Yankees. I loved watching that guy pitch when he was a Jay but the massive Napoleon complex and constant chip on his shoulder and associated drama got old in a real hurry.

I've made the observation that George seems to have maintained a lot of his athleticism in the field and on the bases, but despite still possessing above average swing speeds he's lost a huge chunk of his power output at the plate. He's gone from a player who was solidly able to outproduce his expected statistics year over year to one who has been underproducing the last few seasons as compared to xwOBA. I've presented a theory previously that the post season collision and subsequent shoulder surgery could be behind the sudden loss of ability to pull the ball in the air, but perhaps it's simply a case of slowing reflexes and more of a timing related issue. I think that it could be beneficial to make some sort of adjustment to either shorten his swing a tad to allow him to square up the ball more effectively, use a lighter bat if possible or to start simply cheating a little at the plate and starting his swing a little bit sooner.

I think you are placing entirely too much emphasis on a single bad season at the plate. In his 3 years as a full time MLB regular he's produced an elite season at the plate, one where he was basically league average, and one where he really struggled. He's still young enough to be able to make adjustments at the plate so it's far from a given that he won't bounce back to at least a certain degree. People were making exactly the same type of arguments about Varsho after a single bad season at the plate and he bounced back to right around his career norm to once again be a league average bat. His previous GM believes that Gimenez can make the necessary adjustments to once again be more successful at the plate. The Blue Jays have made the same types of comments as well so time will tell what the future holds at the plate. Gimenez is still a useful player if he continues to struggle with the bat somewhat as he's presented a 3 win floor based on his defense alone. If he simply bounces back to league average at the plate the Blue Jays have a 4 win player on their hands. Any more than that and he starts to look more like a star, it's a worthwhile gamble in my view.

There's likely a fine line between persistent fan and stalker you know.

L54 busting out the special moves.

I guess the big difference is that they are "all in" on Sasaki, instead of just sort of dipping their toes in the water.

Right, for a "friend"

You seem to misunderstand that xwOBA is not a measure of the actual result, it's more of a measure of the aspects of offensive output within a players control. Gimenez has managed to outproduce his xwOBA's in 3 of his 5 seasons in MLB. At the same time you seem to be ignoring the fact that he actually underproduced his xwOBA by a fair margin last season, and that by simply seeing this even out he would have been close to a league average bat.

That core would obviously include the guys you were discussing a best case scenario if they signed with the Blue Jays. Recall that I said that the best case scenario with a Bregman and Santander signing would *also* include a Vlad extension. A core of position players including Vlad, Bregman, Santander, Gimenez, Varsho and Kirk would be a very solid group.

Literally none of this should apply to the 2020 playoff game in question. It's not like peak Roy Halladay was on the mound. The initial starter was a journeyman type, and the second guy to come into the game was a sub replacement level pitcher that season who was walking the ball park for most of the year. In a high stakes playoff game I think it's infinitely preferable to apply the hook to mediocre pitchers in a fashion that maybe feels a little bit too soon at a glance vs waiting too long given how quickly fortunes can be altered with a single swing of the bat.

Best case scenario is the team also signs Vlad to an extension and the team has a pretty solid core for the immediate future.

That's exactly the same as his overall career wRC+ as well. And ZiPS has him projected for close to 4 wins which would just have to rely on bouncing back offensively.

In two of the last 3 seasons 86 wins were sufficient to earn a wild card spot in the AL so 82-84 wins wouldn't be that far out if the overall league is on the weaker side again.

I guess this largely depends on how many wins a fully replacement level team is expected to generate. I've seen anywhere from 40 wins on the low end up to 50 wins on the high end so the readily available information is highly variable.

I quickly added up the wins and it amounted to nearly 37 total wins above replacement. That seems like a team that can compete for a wildcard spot, but then the Blue Jays have largely seemed to underperform compared to the projections in recent seasons.

Bringing in AJ Cole was not a logical move as he was probably 4th or 5th in the pecking order for the Blue Jays pen. Obtaining ace level results from piggybacking the two largely struggling starters that led up to that point was an excellent move. That should be an easy concept to understand as the bad move in brining in Cole doesn't change how one should view the previous moves that led to a very favorable outcome.

I apparently have an entirely different recollection of that particular game than you do. I think that was brilliant strategy as Matt Shoemaker was hardly some kind of ace pitcher that should be given extended rope in a playoff game. Ray came in and pitched a great 3 innings, and the team obtained 6 innings of 1 run ball combined from these two pitchers, that's a fantastic outcome as neither of them were having very good seasons in 2020. The mistake was bringing in a middle reliever in AJ Cole in the late innings of a close playoff game, not the pitching strategy that led up to that point.

I believe the Blue Jays were hovering around the .500 mark right until early June, which still had them within a stone's throw of a wild card spot. I simply don't get comparing Vlad's month of May last season to Luis Arraez. That would be a great comparison if Arraez was capable of running an average exit velocity of 95 MPH in a singular game, let alone over an entire month of play. It was apparent at the time that literally all it was going to take for Vlad to go on a massive heater was an incremental improvement to his launch angle as he was regularly crusing line drives off of the outfield walls.

Black kinda looks like a more athletic version of Spencer Horwitz to me. He's potentially a nice piece moving forward but not a particularly exciting return for Bo.

One of Ross's bigger weaknesses has been his inability to clearly communicate to the media and apparently this extends to his players as well at times. I can see the argument for this being grounds to eventually lead to his dismissal, but I was always more concerned with how the team was performing on the field and judging the man based on the success or failure of his attempts to improve his squad. After the disastrous 2024 showing of the team I was more than happy to see him shown the door, but I still believe him when he said he wasn't aware of when Berrios was going to be pulled in the playoffs. Everyone involved has been saying the same thing in that it was fully up to Schneider regarding when to make the switch, so I see no benefit for Atkins to fall on his sword to placate an angry fanbase when it wasn't his decision that had the fanbase so angry in the first place.

This argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me either way. Vlad has performed up to his peak level when surrounded by a juggernaut team (2021) and when on a poor offensive squad (2024). The team didn't really hit the skids until early June as they were hovering around the .500 mark until then, and Vlad started performing very well towards the end of April so his turnaround largely started happening before the season was effectively over.

He was great at acquiring stars through trade but he was absolutely awful at producing his own home grown players. I think that's a primary gripe of mine of his time at the helm, as he attempted to take short cuts to contention by shipping out prospects and never really built a cheap home grown base for his team first. I don't know if the new group that takes over will actually be in worse shape than the current group was when they took over for AA. By that time the Tommy John brigade should largely be working their way back into competition, and if a few of these high ceiling arms take a step forward that will give the overall system rankings a sizeable boost. The team also stands to choose high in the upcoming draft, and depending on how the rest of the offseason unfolds in terms of signing any qualified free agents there should be a nice infusion of talent through the draft. Finally if the club flounders again this season there will more than likely be another sell off at the trade deadline. The team received some nice pieces last trade deadline, and this time they would stand to have higher quality players to offer on the trade market.