5ToolPhenom

***Plan the parade route!***

Despite the team looking entirely unimpressive, that 3rd wildcard is still there for the taking and the Jays have as good of a shot at it as anyone.

It's been a trend for the Jays for about 4 years now despite having a lineup packed full of righties. Can anyone make any sense of this?!

Damn, these are the games that the Jays really have to win right now. I don't know what it is, I've followed the team for over 30 years and it seems like EVERY time they go play out west, they just go through the motions. I understand that the time change must be an inconvenience, but my God, I don't know how many times I've watched them play the Mariners with the stands packed full of Blue Jay fans and the team just doesn't give a damn.

I still can't believe that the Jays showed 0 interest in signing Stroman. He would have been a great addition to the rotation and it would have been a grand-slam PR move. Imagine the excitement around the city if Stroman was brought back? Shapiro's an absolute moron.

What in the world happened to Randy Arozarena? Guy's become a black hole for the Rays offense. Wild that the Rays are only 2 games under 500 with everything that's broken wrong for them this season.

Lmao that really does about say it all.

This team reminds me of some of those weak hitting JP Riccardi teams, the ones that the Toronto media dubbed 'The Toronto White Jays'. I look around at the roster and it's full of low ceiling, limp noodle white guys like Ernie Clement, Cavan Biggio, Keimaier, small-sample-size-Schneider and so on and so forth. Aside from Vlad (pretty much the only guy on the team who can put a charge in the ball), there's really no high ceiling international talent. The roster is void of the international physical specimens like the Elly De la Cruz, Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, Jose Ramirez and Adolis Garcia's of the world. Alex Anthopolous was never scared to dig into the international talent pool but there seems to be a concerted change in tactic with the roster construction from Shapiro. It's my opinion that we need some fiery international talent to shake up the doldrums of this tired and lackluster roster. I hope no one takes this thread in a politically incorrect way because it's not intended to be. It's just something I've noticed about the Blue Jays when comparing them to other good teams.

You mean to tell me that a 40 years old Justin Turner wasn't going to be enough to turn this team around?!?

Kevin Pillar's been on a tear since joining the Angels! Still only 35 years old too. Nice to see him doing well.

Yeah man, what a joke. Didn't even take until mid May before they were all but out of it:eek:

It's truly obnoxious. But as I think it was you who pointed out on this forum a couple of days ago, GM/manager/player statements to the media in 2024 are beyond pointless and contrived. Nobody has anything authentic to say anymore and in the situation that a player actually does express how he feels, it gets dealt with in harsh terms. Like Pillar getting cut from the WS for example. So I don't even pay attention to it anymore. It's a complete waste of time.

Well credible people on this forum have reported otherwise and I've read conflicting things in the media about this, so I'm not sure that's the case.

This is something that I've been confused about too. I've been a baseball fan for over 30 years but credible people have told me over the past couple of years that Schneider doesn't actually make any bullpen decisions and that that kind of thing is decided from an analytics department ahead of time and essentially Schneider is following a script in regards for who to put in and when. To me, that just sounds insane. At that point I don't see what a purpose of a manager even is? May as well just hire a psychiatrist to manage the clubhouse or someone who's trained in getting the best results out of 26 people.

I thought it was reported that Schneider doesn't decide who to use and when in the bullpen?

He called a pitch in that exact location a strike to Arozarena when he was in a clutch position too a couple innings earlier.

That's what I'm confused about. It's clear to anyone who watches the team that Springer SHOULD NOT be leading off in the heart of the order. I'd blame John Schneider, but I'm always told on this forum that Schneider has nothing to do with it and that the lineups are constructed by a team of the brightest analytic minds. And if that's the case, WHAT DATA ARE THEY LOOKING AT!?!? Even if we're to chalk up his statistics to a small sample size, the eye test doesn't lie. He looks like crap. So it's just very perplexing. I haven't heard any reasonable explanations.

Amen, brother. It seems like it sucks even more than usual because we don't even have a hot prospect up with us to watch or anything. We're barely halfway into May and the team is 5 games below 500 and already a whopping 10.5 games back of first and 9.5 games back from 2nd. Not a whole lot to be excited about or to tune in for.

Good point. Any decent team has at least 1 big offensive beast that you wanna manage the pitching around, but Jays simply don't have that guy. They don't have that guy that you're counting down the lineup, anticipating when he'll be up again. So it's going to be pretty hard to win many games without any bonafide offensive threats.

To their credit, they have put out some teams with solid records. But even as good as some of those teams were, they always felt a little underwhelming and were always missing key pieces. Shapiro and Atkins were hyped for their ability to roll out sustainable rosters without ever needing to tear things down but I look at the system right now and I'm not seeing a whole lot to be excited about. Hard to imagine that these guys will be trusted with yet another rebuild so it looks like they're reaching the end of the road.

I was just looking at his stats the other night and was surprised by how fast they've cratered. He's a helluva ball-player but father time catches up with everyone eventually. Basically impossible to retain bat speed as you hit the big 40, especially now that we're out of the steroid era.

Imagine if Alex Anthopolous never left? How different history would've been.

I don't get it. I hear all of the time about how advanced the stats department is and yet they roll out the corpse of George Springer to lead off the lineup every night. I'm sick of it.

Lmao can anyone please explain to me why Springer is batting in the 1 spot?

Friday night divisional rival game and it's not even being offered by Sportsnet? Unreal. Don't even know why I bother paying for it at this point.