Olerud363.354

Where do you want to seat him? Just pay yourself. Get him good seats for 10 grand, you get the money back if no game 6. Then you have set up a win-win. LA wins next two you can laugh and be relieved you aren't out 10 grand. Jays win a game it sucks but we get baseball in Toronto Friday night. Of course that just means we get to watch a Yamamato shut out Friday or something. So I guess we have to buy tickets we can't afford for game 6 and 7. Dodgers probably still win in 7, everyone is bankrupt, but even losing in 7 after the 18 inning game would make the season the most epic in history.

I think with the Ohtani thing Reynolds is in my head. Harold Reynolds. On MLB network he says we woke up Ohtani with the pick-off. Not the chant. It was a weird thing. But I watched it at like 6:30 yesterday and laughed. As if Lauer "woke-up" Ohtani with a pick-off attempt. I thought Harold Reynolds is an idiot. Players don't fall a sleep. Ohtani as a hitter is halfway between Judge and Schwarber. Can get him out with a good game plan. Just as you can get Judge out. Judge struck out with bases loaded. Judge sometimes hit harmless singles before Bellinger strike-outs. Then Ohtani goes 9 for 9 in on base with 12 total bases. Harold was right. He was asleep and now he is a wake and quite literally Reynolds said it was the pick-off attempt.... not the chant.

Harold Reynolds really got into my head. On MLB network went on a 20 minute rant about how we woke up Ohtani with the pick-off in the 9th Friday night. That combined with the chants "We don't need you" just has the weird 'we insulted their honor' vibe, though Ohtani said it was a great chant. Ohtani - "That was great chant. However now we kill you. We respect your chant. A clever chant, but we still have to kill you."

Well I was (so far) wrong about Orioles so perhaps wrong about this... I took a long break from this message board partly because people just take things too seriously. It's a message board. Sometimes there is dark humor in how things work out. People don't have to take every post so seriously. This is where everyone should follow Grant's example. For like almost 20 years I think he answers almost every post with his own thoughts, instead of criticizing others. Rarely does Grant insult me when I call him a cherry picking moron, instead he usually just bring up counter-points as to why Seattle is so bad. How I really feel is that logically Ohtani should be tired so can't see him dominating tonight. I felt that way after game 4 of the 2016 ALCS too. Different scenario but I think they had an unknown lefty pitching game 5, and I thought obviously Jays could lose, but they aren't going to lose with the unknown going 4 scoreless and Miller going 2 scoreless again. That is what happened every game of the series but it just is not going to happen again. But it did. Ohtani is tired. Jays could lose. They could lose 9-6 in a tired bullpen battle. They could win 11-4. But realistically it's just not going to be another Ohtani love-fest with him being super-human coming back after the 18 inning game.... but the world has a dark sense of humor part of me thinks it will be that.

At some point you just have to accept that the world has a sense of humor. Jays try to sign Ohtani... think they have him... no Dodgers. Jays try to sign Sasaki and get cute with international money thing end up with Straw. No Sasaki. Jays still somehow on top of World on October 24th. Chant 'We don't need you'. to Ohtani Maybe they did need him. Sasaki vs Straw dream matchup but goes Sasaki's way. Logically I think Ohtani will be tired as hell tonight, 11-4 Jays. 'World has a sense humor' part of me thinks 6-1 Dodgers with Ohtani going 7 and Jays fans exposed to Ohtani love fest.

6-1 Dodgers 7th Clement - first pitch soft fly to right filed IKF - strike-out swinging Giminez - strike out swinging Joe Davis - On base 9 times last night. 12 ks today. AND on base 3 more times. That is 12 ks 12 on base in the last 2 games. John Smoltz - the guy is just not human. Dodgers fans dancing, laughing, pure joy. Blue Jays Message Board Sad. Blue Jays fans sad. Dodgers fans paid $1050 USD for upper deck but worth it. $1050 USD dollars to experience pure Joy Blue Jays Message Board - some paid $2300 Canadian to see Jonahs Brothers from 500 level and experience sadness (unless lucky enough to choose game 1 instead). Blue Jays happy - Snell won't screw up again and realize that no game 6 so get their $2300 back. So relieved.

After giving up 2 homers in 70 innings, Little now 2 homers in last 2 appearances. Like maybe he should walk 2 with a couple ks and groundouts. Better then solo homerun in that scenario. Though we wouldn't of scored against Yamamoto anyway, so Little saved Bieber

If Springer injured Bo can lead off DH. Bo Lukes Guerrero Varsho Clemente Barger Kirk IKF Jiminez. Then when Straw runs for Bo you just pretend he is 9th. Move Clemente up. Keep all the guys who you don't pinch run for together so they can have a rally.

I hate vague stuff like this. Either don't say anything or say exactly what happened. Speculation is that it must have been U.S. Border control in Toronto... right? I have not flown out of Toronto to U.S. ever actually (do not live in Toronto). However have flown from Calgary to U.S. just recently and U.S. border control was done in Calgary and was no trouble at all. He is giving the impression that it was something to do with Canada, and the people who don't fly much out of Canadian airports don't understand U.S. customs operates out of Canadian air ports so whatever happened could very likely have been on the U.S. end. Teams fly out of Canada all the time without trouble, so maybe there is an active FBI investigation into one of LAs players and that raised a flag (hey if Roberts isn't going to tell us what happened, then speculation is fair game).

Could be they don't think Bieber is recovering with 4 days rest. Not sure if anybody has the stuff+ or anything for his game 7 start, but maybe Jays have some metrics that show he needs more rest right now.

Not sure I'll get anywhere with Grant but one thing I wonder is why do the LA Dodgers not get a bit of hate along the same line? They are the type of team I really hate to watch. 1. Max Muncy has less defense and less fWAR than Suarez 2. Teoscar Hernandez is a horrible defensive player and strikes out a remarkable amount 3. Shohei Ohtani strikes out as much as anyone and just hits homeruns and doesn't even play defense. Plus he is a gambler who sent his best friend to Jail and never gave back the jacket we gave his dog. 4. They struck out like 300 more times than the Jays and according to fangraphs are also bad overall on D 5. They were 6th worse in the NL with 1350 strike-outs. Not as bad as the 5th worse in the AL Seattle Mariners. So I will give you this. The LA Dodgers, they are not as bad as the historically awful Seattle Mariners, the worst team to ever reach the ALCS. But they have a couple of similar traits. So why are they such heavy favourites in the World Series if kind of "Seattle Mariners" lite?

OK. But the fact Suarez's flyballs go farther then Ernie Clement's gained them 5 runs and a win in game 5. Suarez also "saved" 2 runs diving to get a 116 mph missile in game 6 So we give +5 runs in game five. +2 in game 6 for 7. So hypothetically if -8 for the rest of the plays in the series, he's only maybe -1 over all. Not that it works like that. Just pointing out it's silly to claim these guys are costing multiple runs in a short series. Or if true because random chance had them dealing with tough plays at critical moments, that's just chance, and you could also say they "gain" multiple runs if their hitting by random chance comes through at a critical moment. Did you watch game 5? Did you see how Ernie Clement's inferior man strength cost some runs when his fly ball was caught at the top of the fence, but Suarez gained 4 runs because he was strong enough to muscle it over?

Crawford's career defense is positive on both fangraphs and baseball reference... not exactly a butcher. The 2021 Braves had negative team defense on fangraphs and 6th highest strikeouts in the NL. And the team they won the world series with (with Solar and Joc Pederson) had some bad defensive players. Back to Crawford his dWAR is positive every year on baseball reference, and his defense on fangraphs did turn negative this year, but the overall story doesn't match your narrative. Probably an average defensive short stop career wise that is showing signs of age. You take traits with some truth and are creating a deceptive narrative. For example considering park factors when evaluating their pitchers but not their hitters. Exaggerating slight trends and portraying them as historic oddities. When looking at both baseball reference Suarez and Crawford are a combined 50 WAR career on both. Interestingly bbfref likes Crawford's defense, but fangraphs likes Suarez. The overall story of two good players with pretty average defense and you are making it out like 25 WAR players are garbage... not true at all. Are they getting too old to be defensive assets on the left side of the infield? Getting close to that point and moving forward that's a reasonable argument. Just that these guys are not absolute butchers historically and have contributed positive defense to Seattle teams in the past.

There is no formula for a championship as different types of teams win. I remember at one time you'd hear on this board that you needed aces to win, Jays are winning with an 'ace' that is 10-11. Or a great bullpen to a win. Jays are winning with a closer with a 4.x ERA and little (no pun intended) behind him. But they have a great defense and contact hitting. 2021 Atlanta Braves were a high strikeout bad defense (according to WAR) team and won it all. Acuna was injured and replaced by guys Solar, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson who were 1 dimension high strike out sluggers. Yet they won the series. No formula other than enough runs / runs against to make the playoffs then get hot with a bit of luck gets you to the world series. And even more runs than runs against is not a hard and fast rule as 2023 Diamond Backs and 1987 Twins show. Just in my 37 years as a fan I've seen many different types of teams win. The weird thing about your Seattle hate is you were 100% right in 2021. They were everything you describe. Like a 75 win team that somehow won 90. But 2022-2025 they have been an 89 win team, with an 89 win expected total, very similar to Jays. Sure this year Raleigh's 60 homerun seasoned got them in. But got in 2022 with a normal Raleigh season.

They were 5th in the league in strikeouts. They were exactly league average for batting average. They were second best offense in AL normalized for park-factor. They've won the same number of games as the Jays in the 2020s. There were one swing or one good pitch away from the World Series and deservedly so. They are not an unusually weak playoff team in any respect. Especially when considering their park and league norms in the 2020s.

Love Don Mattingly. I think the reason some didn't like him is that they didn't think it was possible to build a team around hitting for average anymore. As an outsider seems like Mattingly envisioned a team hitting with his style.... which I was skeptical of working. Sort of chuckled at Mattingly, a guy who struck out 30 times in 700 PAs and hit .350 once giving hitting tips to Joey Loperfido. Like those hitting tips won't work if you don't have 99.9th percentile hand eye coordination. Seems like in the end Popkins was a great compliment to Mattingly and perhaps (just speculating as an outsider) can relate to Schneider, Barger, Loperfido, like the high k Buffalo Boys better. Mattingly's approach probably works for Clemente and Lukes (I mean works as in they get most out of their skills with the line drive contact approach, not that they are Mattingly).

George Brett was intimidating in 1985. Having his second best season 5 years after hitting .390. Don Mattingly and Ricky Henderson and were intimidating in 1985 too having all time great seasons. The Tigers were an intimidating team from 1984 to 1987. Late 80s early 90s As may have been the best of the bunch, but beating an intimidating team in one important game was nothing new. Going up 3-1 wasn't new. It was only when actually beating the As that the monkey was off the back. The moment it became possible to make the World Series was probably Maldonado's homerun in game 6 1992 ALCS to make it 6-0. Pre-Youtube a lot of moments get lost that weren't late in the game. That homerun was like Vlad's grand slam game 2 against the Yankees except bigger. Springer and Alomar completely different feelings at least from my perspective. They were the Blow Jays even still after Alomar hit the homerun. No one knew if they could close it this time and they lost the next day. After Springer homerun and Bassitt/Hoffman shut down innings series was over. Springer's moment was the closing moment, while Alomar's was a step, the most important step but a loss followed the next day and still needed Guzman, Carter, Maldonado (and an important Olerud double) to finish it 3 days later.

My recollection was that everybody on this board had master kick-ass 'corporate bro' skills and made 7 figures between some not real job, crypto trading, meme stock trading, betting parlays and so on. Like I thought the average poster on this board was basically David Portnoy. Maybe I misunderstood. I remember there was like a investment thread or something on the old board and one time I was proud of my 5 figure NVIDIA trade and I considered bragging about it (humble brag and subtle) but it just seemed embarrassingly miniscule compared to the money the bros on the investment thread were making.

Not sure how many still remember the 1980s and late 90s. Again I was alive but not old enough to really absorb things. But really there were a lot of amazing games in division races and 1985 ALCS that had the Jays on the verge of the World Series. First big game I really remember was Friday night vs Baltimore, game 160 - 1989. I remember scoring a wild pitch and Moseby winning it in extras. Who remembers this game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR198709260.shtml. Unbelievable game and the Jays won 3 crazy 1 run games against Tigers in 87 before losing last 7. People need to remember that there was no wild card or ALDS, so games against division rival in last week of season were at that level. And incredibly in 1985 (Yankees), 1987 (Tigers), 1989 (Orioles) and 1990 (Red Sox) Jays had last weekend games for the division (in 1990 because of Strike they had to play an extra series after last weekend). Just putting this in context for the 'best homerun' discussion. As a fan in that generation pretty to used to dramatic late season stuff (at ALDS level) but not being able to get over the hump. Springer is arguably number 1 in terms of what it means to the franchise. Game 7. Got this generation to the World Series. Carter won a World Series, but that is after the franchise had already won one, so didn't really break new ground. Historic moment of course. To me as a fan since 1988 two biggest games are game 6 of 1992 ALCS, and game 7 2025 ALCS. Carter's homerun and Maldonado's in that game are under-rated. Maldonado's equivalent of Vlad's Grand Slam in terms of in game feeling (blew it open), but above in terms of round (got them to World Series).

They had already been up 3-1 on the Royals in 85. And ahead 3.5 games against the tigers. I watched the 85 games but wasn't really old enough to remember every detail so had to look it up. Jays had 10th and 9th inning comebacks in games 2 and 4. So already in franchise history they had been up 3-1 in a series due to dramatic late inning comeback wins. So Alomar homerun was great, but it didn't bring the franchise to a place it hadn't been before. In 92 the monkey wasn't off their back until the lead built in game 6. I remember Canady Maldonado and Carter hitting big homeruns. Monkey wasn't off the back until last out though. Springer's homerun was game 7 and did bring this generation of the franchise to a point it hadn't been before.

According the baseballreference IKF is elite defensively (not as good according to fangraphs). IKF career .260 .315 .360 or so, Schneider .217 .320 .410 or so with much higher k-rate. Plug all that in to the magic lineup computer plus strengths/weaknesses against certain pitch types and I can buy that the data says IKF. Honestly not agreeing with it, just my guess that the Jays data might support it.

What a disaster. I mean what if the automated ticket system went down for the game?

Gotta think he is instructed to let it all out for an inning or two. Would not surprise me to see them go to Spier when they reach Varsho. Though maybe they save Spier for that lane later. May be go Springer, Lukes, Vlad, Varsho, Kirk, Clement, Barger, IKF, Jiminez. Then hard to get the Spier a good lane, either has to face Vlad or Kirk and Clement,

Two of the good organizations of the 2020s having their best year of the 2020s. Not much to choose from between these teams. First game 7 in 40 years. Second game seven in Blue Jays franchise history. First in Mariners.

I always thought the game would have evolved by now such that the 'starting pitcher' role would have become gray. That there would be more guys used as Lauer was used this year. Jays had an opportunity to do that this year but kind of passed on it. Like after Bieber came up instead of just moving Lauer to the bullpen they could have done some piggy backing and had everyone gotten a little experience out of the bullpen. I guess there is a lot of resistance to this. Starters probably just hate getting out of their routine. To bad Berrios got injured. Would love to see how his stuff played out of the bullpen.