Ray

We're gonna need a seasons worth of AAA plate appearances to figure out. If he continues on this path and keeps proving himself in AAA, I would think he has to shoot up? It's not like he's an out of nowhere guy either. He was a 4th round pick with some pedigree. He had a pretty fantastic minor league season in 2018 where he hit 25 homers and stole nearly 29 bases. Scouts were high on him afterwards, and he was even a Top 100 guy on Baseball-America's list coming into the season. He faltered in AA which is hurt his stock, then COVID happened, and now he's (maybe?) made an adjustment. I love the potential power-speed combo he's showing. He's already at 9 home runs for the season, and 7 steals. And with the improvements in BB% and K% he's showing, you just can't help but be impressed here and think of the possibilities. Could be a 20-20 guy! He was heralded a defense first guy at short and I've still never read a bad thing about him there, so I think he should be at least average. By the way, still only 24 since he was drafted as a 20 year old. Actually, writing this out, I think I convinced myself to become the conductor of the Kevin Smith hype train. I was already a fan of him post 2018, but then thought he might be one of those guys who just never adjusted to AA pitching. But development isn't linear!

Kevin Smith had a 2 homer day last night (as well as Richard Urena who’s having a pretty decent stretch in AAA and Vandy product Harrison Ray). Smith now has a .994 OPS (161 wRC+) with a 14% walk rate and 24% K-rate.

There's no shortage of good pen options in AAA if we really want to go in-house. Namely: * Kirby Snead * Taylor Saucedo * Conner Overton * Hobie Harris * Bryan Baker These are all guys having a ton of success out of the bullpen in AAA. I would go with any of these guys and see what we have in Logue as a starter.

Sem Robberse has a 2.51 FIP and 2.16 xFIP in A-ball so far. His ERA is inflated due to one rocky outing, but he's been great since. He has a 14.5 K/9! Nick Frasso and Roither Hernandez have done well in Dunedin so far too. Paxton Schultz (guy we got back in the Derek Fisher trade), Nick Fraze, Brandon Eisert, & Hagen Danner are pitchers to watch in High-A. Zach Logue has a 3.63 FIP & 2.86 xFIP in AA to go with a 12.9 K/9 and a miniscule BB%.

Literally every team has hot streaks during the coarse of a 162 game season. For reference, the Diamondback are the worst team in the majors and had a 9-2 stretch in the last month. We have yet to really go on a hot streak. Kind of hard to do that when the schedule has been as tough as ours.

To put it in perspective: We need to go 57-41 the rest of the way to get 90 wins. Playoffs or not, I'll use that arbitrary barometer to mark it as a successful season. That's a big accomplishment for a team that lost nearly 100 games 2 years ago. Our schedule has been super tough and we've kept our head above water anyways. If at the beginning of the season, people told you that we'd be 33-31 with the amount of injuries we incurred and the schedule we had, I think most would be happy with that. And that's with a +49 run differential too. Considering we have ~50 games against bottom tier teams still left (Orioles, Tigers, Marlins, Mariners, Twins, Royals, Rangers), I don't think 57 wins is unreasonable at all. It's a good position to be in.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/save-your-closer-terms-and-conditions-may-apply/ Don't have much of a problem with Romano not coming in. Dolis hasn't been good, but he's also been unlucky. Castro over Dolis is a wash at best. It's a tough situation with the bullpen right now. It would've been good (if not at least average) had it not incurred a severe amount of injuries. The front office did its job by compiling a good amount of arms that got wrecked by injuries. Montoyo literally only has 1 good reliever in Romano right now with the rest being gigantic question marks. We probably shouldn't overpay for a reliever right now, but it’s sucks blowing games like this. Tough spot.

Steven Matz diagnosed with COVID. He’s symptom free, but he’ll presumably still be unavailable for about 2 weeks. Thomas Hatch to get the start in his place?

This is hilarious: After yesterday’s game, the Blue Jays single handedly increased Ryan Weber’s career ERA from 4.86 to 5.30.

Pythagorean record after that blowout is now at 37-26.

Unfortunate to think about what could’ve been if Springer was mostly healthy and our bullpen didn’t fall apart completely due to injuries. Maybe we’d be battling it out with the Rays for 1st place? I don’t think that’s unreasonable. It is what it is I guess. After the Yankees, our schedule lightens considerably. Hoping for a big month in June.

Sem Robberse: 4-Seamer: 91-94 mph, 2600 rpm max Curveball: 81-84, 2600 rpm max,

I just listened to the Baseball-America Top 100 podcast, and to say they love Gabriel Moreno would be an understatement: Josh Norris: "Without question the best reviews of any player I've gotten in the entire minor leagues this year, and probably in a while, has been Gabriel Moreno. That guy based on what I'm what I'm hearing from scouts has the word 'stud' written on him in 72 pt font all capitalized, underlined and bolded. I think right now he's the #1 prospect in the Blue Jays system. He can hit, he can hit for power, he has aptitude and attitude, and he can play on both sides of the ball. He can throw, he can defend. There are some fine points of his game that need to be ironed out. They're certainly minor at this point. But the scouts coming out of there (and these are not Blue Jays scouts) are extraordinarily high on this young man. JJ Cooper: "So what is it that stands out?" Josh Norris: "Everything. People are going in there and saying this is a major league ready product right now" JJ Cooper: "So is he big league ready defensively" Josh Norris: "Yeah. He can block, he can throw, he can receive. But right now he needs to work on commanding a pitching staff. That might be the biggest issue at this point but that will come with time. I bet you see him in the big leagues this year. We had him on the fringes of the Top 100 before. And he's all the way up in the 30s. And he'll probably make an even bigger jump in the next update" Goes on to say that he hasn't kept a rostered a minor leaguer on his fantasy team just to keep him away from other people since Fernando Tatis Jr. lol

Our injured list alone is probably a better team than the Orioles

For what it’s worth, Eno Sarris says Manoah’s Stuff+ for his fastball/slider are off the charts. Velo may be inconsistent, but at least he has good movement. He’s been better than Pearson through 3 starts anyway. Even if Pearson probably has the higher ceiling.

We maybe should’ve resigned Taijuan Walker.

There’s an alternate universe where Merryweather, Borucki, Phelps, and Yates stay healthy and we have 37 wins by now. Still, we’re in a great spot considering we’ve had the hardest schedule and have had some key injuries. Have yet to go on a real hot streak.

Max Meyer’s slider is SO filthy Pretty much every mock had us getting him before Martin fell to us.

Former top draft prospect Riley Pint (went #4 overall to the Rockies in 2016) announced his retirement today at age 23. Surprised he decided to hang it up so young, but he just really never showed the consistent ability to throw strikes. That top of the 2016 draft class is...not great.

Pearson hasn't looked good at all (and I'm not arguing he shouldn't drop) but it's kind of funny. Dude changed up his entire mechanics, had 1 terrible MLB start when he really shouldn't have been called up in the first place, and all of a sudden he's terrible. If he didn't have that one start and had the exact same performance in AAA, we'd be saying he's just figuring out his mechanics and wouldn't necessarily overreact as much.

First off, holy s*** Gabby Moreno & Manoah. I predicted they'd be Top 50 prospects by end of season, but it's crazy to see them rise drastically so quickly. Meteoric. Baseball-America don't just rank on their own evaluations either. They take industry consensus amongst executives and scouts in the league, so safe to say the league views both highly at this point too. Second, 5 Top 100 position player prospects (even though Kirk will graduate soon) is insane for the youngest position player core in the majors that's already having some level of success.

Red Sox may be outperforming based on season projections, but they’re not really getting lucky, per se. They were a great hitting team last year, and they are a great hitting team this year. I don’t think that’s going to change going forward. Last year, they legitimately had one of the worst pitching staffs in their history which is the real reason they were terrible. This year, they have a staff ERA of 3.83 and a FIP of 3.41, so technically their pitching has actually been unlucky thus far. I don’t expect that to continue, but I don’t think it’s going to fall off dramatically either. They’re probably a league average pitching staff at this point. They’re going to beat up on bad teams. All they have to do is go .500 against the good teams to really make the postseason, which is more than possible.

Not sure what happened to the Yankees offense seemingly overnight. #1 team in the AL by OPS and runs scored in 2020, 11th in 2021. That's a steep decline, and over a pretty large sample at this point. This is more than just the dead ball. Almost everyone besides Aaron Judge is severely underachieving. Stanton is the only other guy who has been halfway decent offensively, but he's not even DH'ing regularly right now. Dude sits out so many games, it's ridiculous.

I had zero idea that Kevin Smith was doing as well as he is in AAA. .253/.355/.527, .883 OPS whilst actually maintaining a decent 25% K%. He was younger for the draft class too, so still only 24. Could end up being a good depth piece.