Eat My Shatkins

Hopefully the Jays can land an ace this off season to anchor the weakest part of the team. The line up is honestly pretty damn stacked on paper with a crap ton of potential 3-4 fWAR players and then several guys who could be in that 1-3 fWAR range. 1. Vlad (3-5?) 2. Kirk (3-4?) 3. Varsho (3-4?) if healthy 4. Giminez (3-4?) if healthy 5. Springer (2-3?) 6. Santander (2-3?) if healthy 7. Clement (2-3?) 8. Barger (2-3?) Then players they have for depth and to fill out a bench, Heineman 2.2 fWAR in 146 PA's never been a negative fWAR back up. Lukes 1.6 fWAR in 349 PA's. Straw 1.5 fWAR in 260 PA's. Schneider 1.4 fWAR in 169 PA's. Loperfido 0.7 fWAR in 89 PA's. A ton of solid depth and just loaded with positive contributors. Not a one trick pony at all. No wonder they are such a scrappy team. And who knows, maybe next season one of Schrek, Kasevich or Pinango come up and pull a Barger, or maybe the Jays bring back Bo or land a stud like Tucker.

Can't be walking the lead off guy Bassitt, especially with a 3 run lead.

Poor Barger is really struggling with a 62 wRC+ in August. Hopefully he turns it around in September and gets red hot again.

It'll be interesting to see how they go about building next seasons rotation too. It's completely wide open and loaded with question marks. 1. Gausman - seems to be losing a bit every year 2. Berrios - a couple notches below Gausman and also losing a bit each year 3. Lauer - is he for real, or will he be the next Bowden Francis and implode after showing promise? That's it, the only 3 MLB starters in the fold. You'd feel better if that was your 3, 4 and 5 starters or maybe even your 2, 3 and 4 starters after getting a healthy Bieber to come back.. After that there is a huge pile of pure question marks that could turn out very bad or possibly even turn out great. 1. Francis - can he rebound? 2. Manoah - same as Francis 3. Bastardo - probably more of a reliever 5. Tiedemann - probably best served building back up in AAA but certainly has upside. 6. Yesavage - pretty raw but might force his way in 7. Estrada - had some hope, but got blown up by the O's and seems to have cratered in AAA since 8. Bloss - should be higher on this list but not sure on his time line 9. Macko - not sure if he's anything more than AAA filler Certainly some potential in there, but boy would it be nice to get a guy like Bieber inked long term and then use that list of question marks to fill out the 5th spot and emergency depth.

I'd be fine with either Gausman or Sherzer in game 2 at this point, right now I lean towards Sherzer though because he's really been good lately. 5 straight QS is no joke and he's got a huge history in the playoffs. The top 3 are very clear though unless something changes.

Scherzer just had 5 quality starts in a row before last night where he still went 6 innings and gave up 4 runs instead of 3 or less. Plus, he has a wealth of experience in the post season. He is your clear number 2 starter in the playoffs, if Bieber holds up as the number 1, in my opinion.

Are the Jays really stumbling and bumbling? They're 6-4 in their last 10 games (.600) which is a better win percentage than they've put up this entire season so far (.585) where they are in 3rd place in all of MLB. If that's stumbling and bumbling I hope they keep stumbling and bumbling for the rest of the season and playoffs.

Hopefully Biebs is coming away impressed with the city of Toronto and the Jays organization, as well the as the defense behind him. Looking at the rotation for next year, it's really thin at the moment. Extending Bieber would be massive.

You really seem to know your stuff. What are your thoughts on Kasevich? Sucks that he missed most of the season, I was really hoping he'd be a factor for the Jays next season especially with SS potentially open.

Man, feels like they really wasted a rare opportunity with Bassitt having a good road start. Ah well, they lost 2 of 3 to the As a while back and didn't have to cancel the season, I'm sure they'll survive this one too.

Exactly

Man, what a shame. Maroudis looked so good to start last season before going down to TJS. Thankfully 3 or 4 more decent SP prospects seem to have emerged this year in his absence.

You got 4 old, tired, grizzled vets, a guy that pitched 100 innings in the KBO last year and a guy coming off TJS. 6 man rotation until the playoffs makes a lot of sense.

Semien can f*** off any time now.

I like the thought of a Lukes, Straw, Schneider, Heineman bench next season. As long as there isn't a ton of regression, the main position players roster is set up really well going forward into next season. Other than Springer they're all relatively young, and other than Bo they're all set to be back. Bullpen looks promising as well with only Dominguez a free agent and a huge chunk of them not even arb eligible yet. Rotation will definitely need some work though. Hopefully Bieber is still a stud and likes his time in TO enough to sign back in free agency.

Bassitt should not be starting any more road games from here on out. The guy has an ERA over 6 on the road this year. That should factor into any decisions now that they have 6 starters to work with.

Is that money from the Guardians in the Straw trade?

I think the Pinto bean might be in there too if he could stay healthy. Dude is a hitting machine.

Just saw a headline on MLB app that says Yesavage is getting promoted to AAA

Bassitt and his 6+ ERA on the road vs the Dodgers. Yikes.

That they should run a 6 man rotation now that they have Bieber

Nice to still have a series left to play against the Twins Holy s*** did they gut their roster. Like 9 guys off the 26 man, including 4 high end, high leverage relievers?

Man the Jays BP is going to be super cheap next year and probably pretty damn good and deep. Hoffman ($11.0) Garcia ($7.5) Rodriguez ($6.4) Varland (Pre-arb) Little (Pre-arb) Fisher (Pre-arb) Sandlin (Arb 1) Fluharty (Pre-arb) Burr (Pre-arb) Nance (Pre-arb)

So no real chance they try him as a starter again?

It's going to be interesting to see if the Jays try to stretch Varland back out into a starter next year. Seems like it would be a good idea to try.