A very rare blue Jay blowout win. It’s a beautiful thing. Wish it happened much more
Blue Jays GDT: 2023 v7 | Sat, Jul 29 | vs LAA | 3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT | Detmers vs Manoah
- Thread starter The Nemesis
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Schneider/Walker pretty clearly don't trust him at all and it can only be a matter of time before he's DFA'ed.
Jimmy Firecracker
Backcheck, Forecheck, Paycheque.
Lmao AppleTV loses out on an Ohtani game. Good, get f***ed. Can’t believe we have to deal with that shit.
MK78
Registered User
- Apr 8, 2023
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Him pitching, you mean? He'll still hit, I would assume?
But yeah, f00k AppleTV baseball garbage. never gonna give them a dime.
Jimmy Firecracker
Backcheck, Forecheck, Paycheque.
Yeah, there's no way he makes it through Ryu and Green coming back. They need two roster spots AND two spots on the 40-man... he's the weakest link on the active roster and doesn't have options.
HuGort
Registered User
Good we getting a lot of mileage out of Jay Jackson
Suntouchable13
Registered User
Chad Green will be a huge add down the stretch. A totally fresh high leverage arm. Swanson, Green, Richards, Mayza, Pearson, Jackson, that's a solid deep pen. I do wonder are they going to start using Green in high leverage right away, or ease him in?
MK78
Registered User
- Apr 8, 2023
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Coming off a TJ though, who knows how he'll be. Same with Ryu. He's younger than Ryu though, so hopefully he'll be serviceable.
Seath The Scaleless
Paledrake
Generally, I'd be happy with a .500 record for a tough road trip. But all 3 losses were painful as they had a 2+ run lead late in each game. The good news is that the offense came alive during this trip.
The Blue Jays have scouts who understand analytics (basic understanding should be a requirement for any position in a baseball front office). They are the ones that make the roster. They are balancing contract requirements, control, scouting reports, and in the case of buying low, they are looking for the element that can potentially be modified to turn a buy-low into a stud (sometimes telling guys not to throw certain pitches, sometimes telling them to focus on changing which fastball they throw more, and sometimes just overhauling the rates of each pitch a guy throws).
Our analytics department provides information to the coaching staff to use for planning and adjustments. Montoyo used to explain a lot of his reliever decisions and it would always include the specific stat that triggered his decision. The biggest difference between the two manager's bullpens is actually that Schneider has a better bullpen. Charlie's decisions were based on the guys he had, but the Mitch White problem from two nights ago is based on the same logic as the decisions that people didn't like from Charlie (having Romano, Mayza, Garcia, Swanson, Richards sugar coats bullpen performance nicely)
It is also analytics that cause Kirk to pinch hit in a DP situation. The "stats" say he's a good guy, but small sample size stats that ignore his ground ball rate aren't spectacularly helpful. The thing about Montoyo/Schneider is that you absolutely can win a World Series with that type of manager, but you need the depth to be spectacular to make the decisions easier.
One thing that needs to change IMO, is that Toronto needs a better 26th man. Having Luplow up to have a 69 wRC+ playing almost exclusively against lefties is stupid. At that point, Lukes was more valuable.
In a perfect world, we trade a middle infielder, acquire a legitimate 4th OF (I'd be down for Teo if the price was right) keeping in mind that the 4th OF isn't getting 4th OF time, he's just the 4th guy rotating through 3 spots and I'd try to get a younger guy some reps in the IF (I'm a huge fan of Clement being here, but I think he needs to start once a week minimum now that the wear of the season has started).
We can have 13 pitchers:
Gausman
Berrios
Bassitt
Kikuchi
Manoah
Ryu
Green
Garcia
Mayza
Swanson
Richards
Romano
so that would leave 1 spot and at this point, I would rather see if Jay Jackson might be that 7th guy.
The wish list in terms of arms is a basically a Chad Green type with options. Using the A's as an example, a guy like Freddy Tarnok could fit (somebody who isn't a top prospect, who might not be a starter long term, but who could potentially be a bulk reliever).
There are two points here that I completely disagree with.
1. I don't think anyone is ignoring the double play risk, but when you weigh that risk against the advantages in that situation, I don't see how you could come to any conclusion other than Kirk over Varsho being the right decision. You have a LHP who dominates lefties and is garbage against righties and you get to choose between a left-handed batter who struggles against lefties and a right-handed batter who hits well against them... even factoring in a double play risk, that's such an easy decision to make. The result sucks, but using Kirk there significantly increased their chances of scoring a run.
2. The only thing the team needs from the 26th man is someone who can hit lefties, so Luplow absolutely should be on the roster ahead of Lukes. I completely agree that they need to upgrade that roster spot (and I would argue that it should be Clement right now, anyway, and I'm still frustrated that they didn't address it in the offseason), but at least Luplow fits as a guy who plays a couple times a week against lefties. Lukes's strengths are redundant because the only time you need him (to take Varsho/Kiermaier/Belt's spot against LHP) is the time you least want to use him.
Analytics doesn't tend to treat double plays as being worse than other negative outcomes
Edit: Adding on to this, I don't care if Kirk is a better hitter. A guy like Espinal would have a better chance of cashing in one run because he doesn't strike out a lot and he doesn't hit into a lot of DP.
As for the 2nd, Lukes at least is a good fielder and runner. I don't like either playing regularly (for the reason you stated for Lukes and because he has struggled vs lefties for Luplow).
CabanaBoy5
Registered User
It is incomprehensible how we devoted fans of the team cannot periodically watch these games thanks to the deal with Apple Tv. We watch most of the games, support the sponsors of the broadcasts, and cannot sit down on a Friday night and watch the broadcast with friends. It's extortion to expect us to pay for Apple TV when Sportsnet already has the rights.
MLS is also doing this and quite frankly thanks to so many broadcasts being on Apple and the pathetic state of the team, Toronto FC has become irrelevant to me and my circle of friends. Truly sad.
MLS is also doing this and quite frankly thanks to so many broadcasts being on Apple and the pathetic state of the team, Toronto FC has become irrelevant to me and my circle of friends. Truly sad.
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Eyedea
The Legend Continues
A better hitter should always be preferred in a hitting situation. Choosing Espinal (another groundball hitter with less power) to pinch hit over Kirk is not a better example of utilizing analytics. I’d argue aside from upgrading on Luplow (and no I don’t think Lukes is an upgrade), Espinal is the next one out too.
In total agreement there.
Luplow just does not look like an MLB-capable hitter while Clement I don't think had a non-competitive AB in his whole time up here and is putting up a Tony Gwynn statline in Buffalo. To me Clement looks like a legit MLB player and I honestly think he's probably better than Espinal right now with the way Espinal has looked for the last calendar year. I think they're missing some free money laying on the ground by not having him on the roster.
And yes, he's not a natural OF but he's played there a bit and I don't think he'd be that much of a downgrade from Luplow there.
I'd be slightly surprised if Seattle sells at the deadline. They're playing better lately and are only a few games out of the playoffs, same as the Angels who just added.
HuGort
Registered User
Eyedea
The Legend Continues
There’s enough of a logjam in the minors now that they need to move on from Espinal. I understand with Biggio playing better of late there’s less ABs to go around but having a Goins bat on the bench isn’t providing anything of value. Ride the hot hand of Clement or go out and grab an Edman to bolster the bench and hitting vs lefties. I like Espinal but I don’t think he’s going to be able to figure it out here. He needs PAs which we cannot afford to give him.
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