Olerud363.354

Are any of these guys fast? The world series where we lose by an inch in game 7 at homeplate won't happen again, but close and extra inning games in playoffs likely will.

Not like Scherzer and Bassitt are taking 1 year 10 million for friendship, or Bo taking the qualifying offer. He can still pitch OK but not at previous level and seems to need a lot of rest... some of that might be normal coming off of TJ but maybe something else too. Maybe didn't want to do physicals this year, heading for something like the Hoffman situation where he might not pass a couple of physicals and go like 3/60 (not pass physical), 2 36 (not pass physical) and have to settle for 2 - 30 or something (like Hoffman kept getting slightly worse contracts as he failed physicals). So just took the option, and be a once a week pitcher work with Jays staff to get healthy,

I don't know anything about him other than stats scouting his numbers. First player I think of when looking at his numbers is Nick Swisher.

Apparently Rosie D. of Toronto Star voted for Voight... why? Why do any of these people vote for 87 win negative run differential manager that benefited from a crazy Tigers slump?

And losing to the Dodgers the way they did is better than losing 4-1 in a ho-hum World Series. Practically speaking the 2 extra games in Toronto and insane TV rating probably made 5 million over a 5 game boring World Series. Also made it appear as Toronto was about as good as LA...

Kwan and Nathan Lukes were pretty close 2025 in fWAR per plate appearance. Kwan doesn't hit lefties too well, so despite the fact he is not platooned maybe he should be? Like Davis Schneider might be better against lefties. Kwan - a bit better hitter, a bit better defensively, 3 years younger Lukes - a bit cheaper, more of an unknown. Lukes/Schnedier - better than Kwan?

ooohhh... sorry. Like the Ohtani thing Clase's 2024 ALCS numbers are a bit scary. Not saying I personally think he blew the ALCS, or that Ohtani is a degenerate gambler who sent his innocent translator to jail... just that many other people do think both of that now...

Brendan Little's career homerun rate per 9 is twice that of Clase's. Outside of the 2024 playoffs the most homeruns Clase has give up in a season is 4. Brendan Little gave up 7 in 39 innings in 2024. 2 in the 2025 regular season. 2 in the playoffs. We can perhaps consider it was gambling related. However maybe the more likely explanation is that Little isn't as good as his 2025 homerun rate, and Little has bad control, became afraid of walks, so this made it more likely for him to have meatball misses. Plus Little so far has no associations with Gamblers. Clase has a many more innings of low homer baseball before the 2024 playoffs. Clase doesn't have control problems. Clase has an association with Gamblers. So basically given all that there is more reason to wonder about Clase's 3 homers in 7 innings in the 2024 playoffs than Little's 2 homers in 2025.

Give me a break. If Little had Clase's regular season numbers and was already indicted for some minor gambling thing I would suspect him yes. Reasons not to suspect Brendan Little of crime: 1. Was already slumping leading up to playoffs. 2. Not indicted for minor gambling crime.

Yes crime. Serious crime. 2022 he had a 0.00 ERA in the playoffs. 2024 he had a 0.65 ERA I think in regular season. 2024 he had like a 10.00 ERA in the playoffs. Minor crime - I will throw a low pitch so my friend can make 1000 on his Parlay then I will strike out the side. Major crime - I will blow the ALCS so the mafia can make 9.8 million. Casual Fan like Olerud363.354 - I look at the baseball reference (bad site compared to fangraphs) and see big ERA by Clase in 2024 playoffs but not 2022. I wonder if major crime occurred? Will ask the expert posters on Blue Jays Centre (formerly Blue Jays message board) what they think.

Clase. 2024. Untouchable in regular season. Awful in playoffs. Any signal there?

Clemens had 10.7 fWAR (11 bWAR) with Jays in 1997, then around 8 in 1998. Then he was traded for fWAR pennies on the dollar. Gord Ash man. Did that twice with Shawn Green too. Tried to replace the player, not the value. People should keep expectations for Yesavage in check. It would be great if he stays healthy and becomes a good 3. If he's more that's great too. Pitching fWAR is interesting because pitchers aren't pitching as much as they used two. Clemens got his 10+ fWAR in 264 innings. Yesavage might be 2/3 of that next year. The best pitchers in baseball might be 2/3 of that. So if position players are still doing full workloads, but Pitchers are doing 2/3 what they used to how to evaluate that? The best pitchers 180 innings of 5-6 fWAR might all be in leverage (because every game they keep the team in it), while Fernando Tatis has some fWAR in not leverage.

If Roberts managed the Jays they probably would have won that series... not saying he is a great manager just the right guy for the circumstance of the series. For example one thing he did was save the defensive subs for the most critical circumstance. Did not sub Pages in until after Kirk got hit in game 7. With that philosophy Jays likely win game 3. With optimal lineup construction they likely win game 7. Not trying to argue Roberts is a great manager. His decisions just worked out for the circumstances of the series, and I think same philosophy would have worked out for the Jays.... Like wait longer for defensive subs and pinch running they win game 3.

So was Nathan Lukes. Same numbers regular season and World Series. I'm not trying to be a jerk to Lukes at all, and appreciate what he did for us this year. Bringing Yamamoto out for game 7 was a gutsy call, should get credit for that. That is part of my point. Every single other time Vlad hit second he slumped, but he was great game 4 and 5 of World Series hitting second. He did more in 2 games hitting second in LA, then he had for 20 game stretches in his mid-season hitting second runs. At that point there was no reason to not keep him there. Because of the butterfly effect you can't exactly reconstruct the game with Vlad hitting 2nd instead of Lucas/Schneider/Straw (if you did and everyone did the same thing, Jays win). Nevertheless second spot was 0 for 6 getting on base that game.

Also keeping Lucas second in games 6 and 7. I mentioned this before and got some grief. It's like people haven't watched the team since 2021. THERE have been several attempts to get Vlad to hit second. They go with it for a few weeks and inevitably have back-tracked several times as he just hasn't performed as well there. But... they hit him second games 4 and 5 and he was great. So it like perfect opportunity to keep him there. The second spot in the line-up screwed us in game 7. If game 7 lineup is Springer Vlad Bichette Barger Kirk Lucas Clement Varsho Jiminez Jays are world series champs. Dave Roberts probably wins the series if he managed either side. And absolutely no disrespect to Schneider at all. He is great. He values making guys comfortable and keeping them in their roles, which is how Cito won World Series. However this scenario. The 'win or lose by an inch' World Series, Dave Roberts making some adjustments won it... if he managed the Jays and fiddled with roles Jays might have won it.

They'll go that way if they can. They'll also have backup plans in case they can't.

Seems like they were open to this in the recent past. I believe they had him play 3rd 100 innings in 2024 and were open to signing Alonso. Seems like with his arm he won't be any worse at third then at first. What I mean is some guys would be worse, if they couldn't make plays because of arm strength. Not the case with Vlad. Also interesting that Miquel Cabrera moved back to third at age 29. Defense scored good enough and won 2 MVPs. They probably are thinking this. I heard a quote that there could even be a way to fit Schwarber in. My guess is they have a plan for how to accomadate every major free agent. Probably have a value for a Clemente/Giminez/Bo/Vlad infield, and a Vlad/Giminez/Clement/Naylor infield and so on. Also heard they are not married to Giminez at short. Would even consider Bo as a shortstop or others. They like him there but are open to lots of plans.

Dusty Baker started 3 years after Cito. Never made the playoffs for his first few years (albeit won 103 games as a new manager), had 3 bad seasons but still survived then was employed for 30 years getting jobs with 5 teams until finally a World Series 30 years after he started. A lot of smoke around Cito regarding handling young players, pitcher workloads, relation with media. Won't rehash it all but maybe reasons other than racism that he didn't get jobs, especially since Dusty did fine with multiple organizations.

It happened with Cito Gaston when he came back as hitting coach just 2 years after getting fired as manager. Fired late September 1997, rehired as hitting coach November 1999.

He led AL in innings so gets a bit of a boost in fWAR compared to guys who pitched a little less or some a lot less (like Snell and Glasnow). Also as close to Sonny Gray (17th) as he is to Hunter Browne (9th) on that fan graphs WAR list. You consider him at a level with 92 Guzman? Yamamoto? Not even trying to diss Gausman here. Truth is he is 1-6 in his playoff starts for us. No fault of his own some tough match ups and tough luck. Don't really consider him a true 'ace' is all. Maybe I'm wrong here.

"Billy is still trying to win the last game of the season" Such is life.... Billy maybe ended up winning the .... 14th or something last game of the season at best?

The first "Major League" movie ended when the old catcher beat out a bunt and I guess won the AL East against the Yankees.... No ALCS or World Series depicted, though maybe in the sequel? Never saw it. A classic running book, that I am sure none of you are familiar with, called "once a runner" deals with a guy Quentin Cassidy who goes through a lot of trials and turbulations and wins a big battle in the end, but it's not the Olympics... then the last paragraph reveals he won a silver at the Olympics. Such is life. People on this board would rather be the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks though I guess...

Santander, Hoffman + ? for Trout + ? Like if you use one of those trade calculators what are the + Trout owed 5 years 190 million I think. So taking away Santander + Hoffman salary gets it to 5 years 110 million or something. But what else to even it out? Does LAA want to do Trout a service and get him in contention? Does Trout want to get in contention? Is Trout too crazy a risk? Will he play 134 games ever again?

People will probably give the "you smoking crack again Olerud" thing for this one... but it was a small thing that effected the series. If Bieber is not recovering from TJ he probably goes game 3 and 7. Butterfly effect so you don't know how exactly that works, but a healthy Bieber gives a slightly better chance of winning those games (Scherzer was fine obviously, but at the same time only went 4 1/3 each time, so more stress on bullpen those games).,

It hurts but basically Jays were a good but flawed team and in the end they were not resilient to bad luck because flaws got them. 1. Their two best relievers by fWAR (Little and Fischer) were not trusted in leverage. 2. Their worst reliever by fWAR was trusted. Not saying this was wrong, just pointing out they didn't have a lights out bullpen. 3. Their 2nd starter (Bieber) was recovering from Tommy John and couldn't effectively go with 4 days rest. 4. Their 2nd and 3rd best hitters were injured and bench players ended up subbing for them in critical spots. 5. Their "ace" was a 10-11 3.50 ERA guy. Not dissing Gausman at all. But how many posters here always argue that to win in the Playoffs you need a "true" number one. LA had that. Jays had a great pitcher but not at the same level. Another thing, that isn't really a flaw, but just something that happened. Is LA hit for power late in games. Jays didn't. I think LA out-homered Jays 7-0 7th inning and later. Nit-picking all the little plays is overshadowing this. But ironically the tripes "need power to win in playoffs" and "need an ace to win in playoffs" actually factored in this time... but it should be pretty obvious that a scrappy contact hitting team without an true Ace could win too.