Olerud363.354

Does he need more rest possibly? His playoff run where he launched balls at exceptionally optimal angles, he got 5 days off, then the playoff schedule with 2 off days a week. Could low grade fatigue effect attack angle? It would be horrible for the fans (little Johny shows up to see Vladdy, starting at first base Lenyn Sosa) but is there any evidence the 140 game year Barry Bonds schedule would be better for position players? On top of everything else Bonds did in his late 30s, he scheduled himself an off day a week.

Anecdotally we see a lot of guys hit .220 .320 .400 in Vancouver then .350 .450 .700 in New Hampshire which is a much better hitters park (AFAIK). I exaggerate, and really only one guy I know of off-hand, Keys. Though Vlad, Barger, Biggio, all broke out in New Hampshire surpassing their previous performance. If Nimmala was a bit injured last year, suffers from some bad batted ball luck, and Northwest (Seattle effect) humidity has an effect then he could put up some nice numbers in New Hampshire.

Keeping some bullets for September/October?

Optimism 22/100 Okamota ? Power tool 70? 110 mphers regularily at 22-33 degrees. 450 feet easy power. Brandon Venuezuala ? Power tool 60? 110 mphers occasionally at 22-33 degrees. Myles Straw. Power tool 40. Seems improved from last year and hit the upper deck 395 feet or so. Vladimir 'Luis Aaerez' Guerrero Jr power tool 30. Contributes in other ways. Key walk in the 8 run inning.

As negative as I am there is still lots of time to get over .500 and build and get some separation. Problem is if they are in this position late August in a 5 team race for 1 wild card with the division out of reach then it is just a lottery. Used my Prime Subscription to watch Raptors. As they blew a 10 point I knew it was true that they would disappoint me too but a miracle happened. Then I checked the twitter and they were tweeting about 2 Okamota bombs. Positivity 7:00 pm May 1st - -10/100 Positivity 9:48 am May 2nd - 15/100 (slight improvement) Expectations - still very little Sunday - everyone will disappoint and will use my streaming subscriptions to watch Better Call Saul.

96.7 mph 26 degrees. Launch angle good exit velo not good enough combined with weird Vladdy spin that makes balls go 20 feet shorter (True even his 110 mph 28 degree-ers go 435 instead of 460 for Judge and Ohtani, twice a year he goes 104 26 degrees and it's caught 385 feet at the wall). New Arraez style Vladdy typical night AB 1 = 25 degrees 95 mph fly ball out AB 2 = 9 degrees 101 mph opp-oo single AB 3 = 112 mph -4 launch angle double play AB 4 = 88 mph 18 launch angle single to center.

That is why the models quickly turned on them. Those games were modeled as 7-3 or something, the entire season as 89 or so wins... when you go 2-8 in those it takes 5 wins off the projected win total.

Raptors on Prime Video -- which I bought in quest to see all 162 Blue Jays games (105 anticipated victories).... so even though no longer watching Jays 200 dollars a month of streaming services still at least useful for something. Remember when Sportsnet paid Apple TV some sweet cash to get Blue Jays clinching playoff game against Royals on the Sportsnet instead of Apple TV streaming service, but Jays lost 20-1, behind 15-1 or something in first???? That is how this season feels everyday. Can't believe gave so much good money to all the streaming services for this.

March 27th - Positivity 110/100. Excited that the 2026 Blue Jays would bring happiness to my summer. I rebought Apple TV and several other streaming services at the beginning of the season in anticipation of watching 162 games, March 29th - Sweep of As - Positivity down to 109/100, slight, slight tweak down because run differential was a bit off and victories not... easy. March 30th - Ponce down - destroyed by Rockies. Unsettled feeling. A bit worried. Positivity 90/100 April 3rd - Kirk down. Heineman throw bunt away. Positivity 77/100 Evening April 4th - decided to use my apple TV to check out something called Pluribus (hive mind show, could explain the hive mind on this board. April 5th - White Sox sweep - Positivity 50/100. April 6th - Dodgers blow out - turned off game first time in years. Watched the Pluribus. April 30 - No offense against Twins turned off game. Pluribus long watched but watched Pluribus re-runs, and used Apple TV for something called Shrinking. May 1 - Positivity -10/100. Hope none. Game won't even be turned on. May watch some Raptors but I am sure they will fail me too. Tonight will watch Pluribus fan theory podcasts + Shrinking. At least buying all the streaming services introduced me to new shows.

I was there a couple of years ago. Nice enough. I liked Coors Field, Fenway, Updated Rogers Center, Anaheim Stadium, and Seattle better in terms of ballparks I've been to the last few years.... Not sure why. I want to say the seats in the lower bowl weren't super close to the field. That is the one thing I love about the Rogers center renovation. I think they really nailed the angles in the lower bowl. Like you can get a seat down the line but feel like your right on top of the infield.

Since showing up at 280 pounds in 2020 after being on lockdown for a couple of months he has stabalized the weight nicely. He is now a modern day right handed hitting Mark Grace. Slender. Great line drive swing. Good first base defense. On pace for 10 homers. Which is fine given his other skills.

If it was me I'd do that for sure. Yesavage looks fine. Move him up 50. Shoulder injuries are ussually a couple of years, but I'll be optimistic for Crochet and have him back in August and ding him just 100 innings.

I am Aldman. I have Billions. I love AI. AI is awesome. No jobs for commoners. All done by AI now. Except one job left. Guy who adjusts Crochets playing time manually. Who will do that? Can we teach AI to do that so we have no jobs left at all? On a more serious note lots of bias if some guy manually adjusting playing time. Over a couple of days they could move Yesavage's innings up by 50 and Crochets down by 100. Not saying that happened but it could.

Fangraphs much happier with Jays then just 48 hours ago. Crazy. 48 hours ago it was 40% chance Red Sox make playoffs, 33% Jays. Now 40% Jays 25% Sox. Is that crazy? Probably not. It was a 4 game swing plus I am not sure how they model injuries. Like Yesavage/Crochet. Like does the model know Crochet is on the DL now and Yesavage off? How do they project a guy like Yesavage with limited MLB data (lots of minor league of course). How do they project 'sore shoulder' when you have no idea if it's 2 weeks or 2 years?

1990s Blue Jays 1. Devon White (fastest player) 2. Roberto Alomar (bat control and good) 3. Paul Molitor (best all around hitter) 4. Joe Carter (best Power hitter. .300 on base) 5. John Olerud/JPat Tabler (high on base guy, low on base guy platoon). 6. Candy Maldonado (but technically he didn't overlap with Molitor) 7. Manuel Lee/Tony Fernnandez (bad switch hitter 92, good switch hitter 93) 8. Kelly Gruber/Ed Sprague - third base 9. Pat Borders (catcher) Good teams. Good lineup construction. Got 800 runs out of 900 run teams. No foolin around with the crazy s*** they do these days.

IQ - 104, emotional IQ 72. Weight high. Blood pressure high Eyesight poor. Diabetes almost certainly. Why is he not on Ozempic? Or is he and he was far worse before?

Laika - 490k a year (got raise since I last posted), boss never bothers him except occasionally in the afternoon to go golf or watch Day Games at the sports bar and decide who to lay-off. Lots of time to browse Baseball Savant and scouting blogs all day. Rest of board - 65k a year (decreasing often so less then last time I posted), boss always on their case, no time for savant, many spelling errors and typos because have to write posts in 11 seconds when boss looks away.

Laika Bought NVIDIA 2017 TRAD WIFE 8 kids 450,000k a year job which allows him time to post here all day with no pushback, while TRAD WIFE is taking care of kids. IQ = 126 (above average), EIQ (emotional IQ) = 158 exceptional political skills LAYOFFS - will survive always and get raise as others leave. Rest of board (on average, some better, some worse) Sold NVIDIA 2017 (smart enough to realize it is good stock in 2010, but too chicken to hold after making 12k) Divorced or never married - 0.8 kids on average (some a few, some none) 78k a year job, 10 hours a day with boss constantly looking at their screens and yells at them, so post on their phone. IQ = 142 (way above average), EIQ (emotional IQ) = 84 (barely functional). LAYOFFS - unemployed often, first out the door

I say get him up to New Hampshire ASAP. His confidence is high right now so good time to get up to a new level.

Happy to be wrong about Yesivage, at least last night... If he is healthy that is a big difference maker.

Can't remember who hit homers off him in the regular season, but Varland had a 4.94 ERA for Jays in regular season. Around 4.00 in the playoffs, but in the playoffs he faced middle of the order a lot. Judge, Jazz, Polanco and Cal Raleigh all hit big homers off him to win or potentially win games.. The Jays 2025 season just so improbable. Varland had a tough job. Opposition best hitters every night, inevitably Judge/Raleigh will get you if facing them every night. At the same time, he gave some big homers that could have been classics had the other team won... but Jays came through in ALDS and ALCS.

I think the issue is that collectively the backups have something a 50 OPS+ and are running .220 on base percentages... part of the road to a good season is the guys that suck just sort of suck, and put 80 OPS+ .280 on base not 10 OPS+. Not saying it's Popkin's fault, just that the hope is a good hitting coach gets everyone to their so called true talent level. Get the back up catchers up to .220 .280 .350 or something. Could all be just random of course.

Something changed. Springer changed himself? Springer randomly found a new batting stance? Springer found a better amphetamine ?? (not implying illegal, some legal red bull like thing, taken at the right time, right amount of sleep, could help). Springer was injured in 2023 and 2024 and still injured in 2025 but not as much? It's all just random? I mention this a couple of times a year, but my all time favorite baseball article was a Bill James article where he simulated thousands of seasons from players just to see what the best and worst they would do was. For Wade Boggs it was any where from .250 to .400. He actually somehow had a .250 season in his mid 30s but rebounded to .340. Anyway either it is random, or there is a reason.

Cynic in me thinks he's injured still and won't pitch well or last long in the Majors. Schneider was kind of luke warm on a couple of comments to the media "we want to make sure he's OK", "He assures me he's feeling fine", "Want to make sure when he's up, he's up to stay". Kind of reading between the lines they are not convinced he is healthy. Dominates Yankees and Dodgers in the most pressure packed games possible against elite lineups... but gets hammered in St. Lucy and Scranton (or wherever it was). Yeah I know rehap assignment, but if a guy is healthy these are usually a breeze... 6 innings, 2 hits, maybe a homer, 2 walks 7 ks... struggles going 3 innings against minor hitters do not predict good things tonight... Hopefully I am full of s***.

League adjusting to their approach? I always joked about Mattingly's approach not really working for most, except maybe Bo. Hey you just need Mattingly's hitting tips and 99.99999th percentile hand eye coordination. Popkins was a minor league journeyman so one could guess might relate a bit more to the Davis Schneiders, Nathan Lukes and Brandon Venezuala's of the world and the struggles they could face.. Sadly this year getting nothing extra (or really nothing at all so far) out of those guys.