Blue Jays GDT: 2023 v13 | **WILDCARD SERIES GAME 2** Wed, Oct 4 | @ Min | 4:30pm ET/1:30pm PT | Berrios vs Gray

[dredeye]

Unless someone in the media directly asks them straight up "Who made the call to pull Berrios?" And keep asking them if they dodged the question then this press conference is going to be a colossal waste of time.

If they don’t ask or he doesn’t answer it’ll tell you everything you need to know

 

[GreytWun]

But it isn't even 60 RBI. Once you adjust for injuries it's maybe 20 or 30, in exchange for a massive defensive improvement.

People were hoping for 95 wins and they finished with 89 and made the playoffs. Defense was the best in baseball, pitching was #7 FIP/#2 ERA, and the hitters were #9 in OPS+ but had the weird RISP thing happen. f*** me, people are spoiled. The Mets are a clusterf***. This was a 'mildly disappointing regular season'.

I would be firing Atkins right now, but not for the moves he made. I'd be firing him because I think that pitching decision in Game 2 was an absolute disaster and it pretty clearly falls on him, and I don't think you can move forward with trust from players/coaches in management after a f***up that bad. It made the whole team look like a laughingstock and a disjointed mess.



Not to the same extent. Both had ~500 PA while Kiermaier had 200 and Belt 250.

That is still missed time not included in your calculation...

Unless someone in the media directly asks them straight up "Who made the call to pull Berrios?" And keep asking them if they dodged the question then this press conference is going to be a colossal waste of time.

They are probably just going to say "It was a group decision"

 

[capfit9]

That is still missed time not included in your calculation...



They are probably just going to say "It was a group decision"

Who leads the group ? Who is accountable for the group ? Whoever that is needs to be gone. Hmmmmm…. Atkins

 

[Kurtz]

If you fire management every time you have a slightly disappointing 89-win playoff season, you'll have an absolute disaster of an organization. Not everything goes right every year. 4 teams in baseball had more than 92 wins.

The pitching would have been even better without the Manoah implosion. Being healthy obviously helped (although health might be connected to their process and the players they've targeted) but outside of Kikuchi and Mayza there aren't really any career years there so I don't think you could say they overachieved. They were good, legitimately.

The problem is the Berrios decision. It's undermined fan confidence and looking at the reactions of coaches/players it's undermined internal confidence as well, and someone's head has to roll for creating that mess.

And I'm just going to keep LOLing at calling an 89-win MLB season a clusterf***. It sounds completely disengaged from reality. Again, look at the Mets. That's a clusterf***. You sound like Mrs. Lovejoy.

This isn't Highlander... there doesn't have to be only one clusterf*** team in a given year. I would say that Mets, Yankees, Angels, Padres all unequivocally had worse seasons than we did, but ours was a monumental disappointment as well.

This team was a torture to watch this year. This is the fewest Jays games I've ever watched in a season - and I grew up watching a team that went 20 years without making the playoffs. And the overall fan sentiment that I've observed has also been more negative than I can remember (including the Bonifacio year, where at least there was excitement during that long win streak).

Clusterf*** is debatable, but this was a very bad year for us. And that's not even getting into Manoah's turn from our future franchise pitcher to a fat useless malcontent or us trading a possible franchise catcher for Kevin Pillar 2.0.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Blue Jays' Biggest Questions with Ben Nicholson-Smith | JD Bunkis Podcast

October 6, 2023

JD Bunkis is joined by Sportsnet's Ben Nicholson-Smith to attribute the Blue Jays' shortcomings and discuss Toronto's free agency turnover, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., routes to improve the roster, impact of the hitting coach, and other potential changes.

 

[Lightsol]

Merrifield talked about the decision being 'taken out of the manager's hands' and Schneider talked about 'needing to trust the team you work with'.

I don't think he phoned the dugout and told Schneider to take Berrios out - it would have been done in a planning meeting with management/coaches/numbers guys - but he is the guy responsible for a decision-making process that forced the manager to make an absolutely f***ing awful move.

It was probably the Sabremetrics department calling down and saying that something they saw suggested it would be bad to leave Berrios in any longer.

 

[mikeyz]

That is still missed time not included in your calculation...



They are probably just going to say "It was a group decision"

That will be acceptable for me. Then that means it was Shapiro and Atkins that made the call.

 

[Squiffy]

That will be acceptable for me. Then that means it was Shapiro and Atkins that made the call.

I mean there is no secret here. Analytics pre-determined the move and trumped common sense. It was dumb, unable to adapt to situational circumstances, stupidly rigid, and just unforgivable.

Since the onset of don't go through the order the third time, I've seen lots of examples of "I can't believe you are pulling him just because", but never worse, situation considered.

I am still dumbfounded. Roy Halladay, rip, is rolling in his grave somewhere, where the hell do you take out a guy dealing?

 

[TheMadHatTrick]

That’s ok. Just slide Varsho to CF and find a good hitting LF.

Where do we find a decent hitting CF then?

 

[Cloned]

At this point I think given the fan sentiment, management has to make a huge splash in the offseason.

Something like signing Ohtani.

 

[Hellcat]

I mean there is no secret here. Analytics pre-determined the move and trumped common sense. It was dumb, unable to adapt to situational circumstances, stupidly rigid, and just unforgivable.

Since the onset of don't go through the order the third time, I've seen lots of examples of "I can't believe you are pulling him just because", but never worse, situation considered.

I am still dumbfounded. Roy Halladay, rip, is rolling in his grave somewhere, where the hell do you take out a guy dealing?

Yep.

I'm not a Berrios fan but damn that guy was electric only to get pulled for a lesser talent. Those that rely too much on the eye test or too much on the Analytics department are not putting their tools to the best use. You should use AI to confirm your thought process, you shouldn't let AI determine your thought process.

Out of curiosity does anyone have stats for Kikuchi with runners on base?

 

[Hellcat]

At this point I think given the fan sentiment, management has to make a huge splash in the offseason.

Something like signing Ohtani.

Ohtani will never come to Toronto. I get your sentiment about the big splash but that guy will never come here.

• I hope they dont rest on their laurels and think OK we got a great pitching staff, forget about them, we can just concentrate on the hitters. If I could I would continue to add to the SP/RP, I'd love to see a legit 1A stud SP that pushes Gausman into #2.
• Seriously consider trading Vlad, only if the return is fair.
• Let Chappy walk.
• Figure out what we have in Davis Schneider, is he a legit MLB hitter or was he just hot for a month-ish? .404 OBP, 1.007 OPS, BA on pitch types: Fastball .286, Breaking .294, Off speed was below Mendoza line.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Rosie DiManno: The Blue Jays have broken faith with their players and fans. Mark Shapiro must go

Nothing happens on or off the field without the approval of the president/CEO/de facto GM. After another wild-card debacle, all roads lead to the top.

www.thestar.com

I don’t know who to blame for the debacle that was the last Blue Jays game of 2023. But I do know who must wear the sackcloth and ashes: Mark Shapiro.

Nothing happens on this club — from the roster composition to the analytics fanaticism, from the macro culture to the granular details — without the approval, the imprimatur, of the president, CEO and de facto general manager.

Which is why he needs to both give a forensic accounting of what transpired in Game 2 of the wild-card series and own it. Come out of the shadows, take it on the chin.

Buffeted in his boardroom, Shapiro rarely grants press conferences, unless he’s bragging about the $300-million, bells-and-whistles renovation of the Rogers Centre or the splashy player development complex in Dunedin. Typically his conversations with reporters are on the sly, planted leaks to acolytes on the Rogers payroll, literally. Eight days after the Jays came a cropper, dumped by Minnesota in the most cringe-inducing fashion — a new low in backfiring strategic engineering — Shapiro will address baseball hacks on Thursday.

But pushed out first to feed the rabid media horde is Shapiro’s sock puppet, general manager Ross Atkins. Let Atkins take the brunt of the blows while the outrage is still fresh. That’s what patsies are for.

On the Saturday morning of a long weekend, Atkins will assume the position, doubtless yet again to issue a tortuous spate of blather signifying nothing, elucidating nothing, illuminating nothing. And maybe Atkins ultimately hangs the horns on manager John Schneider for the uninspired series sweep by Minnesota — next sap up. Though, don’t get me a wrong, a skipper without a shred of baseball integrity doesn’t deserve the job. He’s expendable, as was Charlie Montoyo before him.

But this time it’s different. This time, the organization has broken faith with its fan base, perhaps irreparably. Even more crucially, this time the organization has broken faith with its players. In their own way, cautiously, many of them indicated as much in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s elimination, admitted their confusion over the jaw-dropping removal of starter José Berríos in the fourth inning of a scoreless game he’d been pitching masterfully. Although only one, far as I can tell, didn’t hedge his words. “I hated it, frankly,” Whit Merrifield told Mitch Bannon from SI.com. “It’s not what cost us the game, but it’s the kind of baseball decisions that are taking away from managers and baseball, at this stage of the game.”

Of course, it’s easier to speak truth to power when you’re not coming back.

 

[thinkblue]

Atkins throwing Schneider under the bus it seems.

 

[Squiffy]

Atkins throwing Schneider under the bus it seems.

Yup

 

[Kurtz]

Atkins says Berrios was Schneider's call.

 

[hockeywiz542]

LIVE: Ross Atkins end-of-season news conference - TSN.ca

Watch LIVE as Toronto Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins speaks to the media following the team's elimination from the postseason.

 

[GoonieFace]

Atkins says Berrios was Schneider's call.

Because it was. Regardless of the multiple plans they had in place, it’s ultimately his call to determine whether he stayed in or not

 

[thinkblue]

Atkins confirms Schneider will be back.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

Atkins confirms Schneider will be back.

While rolling the bus over him at the same time lmao

 

[Amadeus]

Ive been steadily losing interest in this team. Whole year had a stink to it.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[trellaine201]

Ive been steadily losing interest in this team. Whole year had a stink to it.

It’s because we need different people running the team from Shapiro down. I think he is only here to see through the ball park changes then he will be gone.

 

[DuklaNation]

I'd interpret Atkins comments as his office pushed the analytics on Schneider while stating "its your choice!" but the manager is kind of screwed in that scenario. Go against their "suggestions" or follow your own strategy? The tools should be provided without bias to the employee in this situation.

 

[mikeyz]

Atkins confirms Schneider will be back.

Well that settles it. I am not watching a single game next season.