Blue Jays Discussion: Blue Jays fire manager Montoyo, Schneider takes over

[Canada4Gold]

This is the logical thing to do. Moreno is likely the better option for a contending team both offensively and defensively than Collins. I assume they'll just plug him into the Jansen role. Catches 3 of every 5 days. Probably doesn't DH(but it would be cool if he did that for a day too). Kirk probably does 2/5 catching, 2/5 DHing. Unless he's tearing the cover off the ball I think he likely he goes back down when Jansen is ready. Sub .800 OPS, 2 month only in AAA. Not a ton of power yet. Catcher. There's more for him to learn down there. But 2-3 weeks of playing games in the majors can't hurt.

 

[Canada4Gold]

April 1 - The White Sox optioned him to their AAA team in Charlotte (That's option #1), activating his last option year. He would be traded to the Jays 2 days later and came across to the MLB roster.
April 4 - Optioned to Buffalo (#2). He would be recalled on April 7
May 23 - Optioned (#3). He was recalled the other day.

So even if they send him down right away that's only option #4 and they would still have one more shot to bring him up and send him down risk-free before being on their last chance to bring him up at which point he would be subject to waivers.

I'm not 100% sure but I don't believe the Jays optioned him immediately after trading for him. He was a AAA roster player then and thus automatically went onto the Jays AAA roster using the option the White Sox did. They then recalled him as you said. I would think he's only burned 2 of the 5 options this year

 

[BertCorbeau]

The AL has 7 teams at .500 or better and 4 of them are in the East.

I hate this place.

 

[BertCorbeau]

Crazy stat #2 … the Angels have lost 14 games in a row and are still somehow 2nd in their division

 

[Morgs]

Kirk has been lights out offensively and terrific defensively and I don't love the idea of giving him fewer reps at the plate or behind the plate to break in a rookie catcher when this team needs to win games.

Didn't they also use up Zack Collins' last option by calling him up 2 days ago? The timing around all of this seems weird.

I get wanting to see young players hit MLB and make their debut - it's interesting and exciting. But this seems a little premature to me, and out of character for how Shatkins have run this team. We'll see how it plays out, I guess.

We saw Kirk struggle with being the every day catcher though. Since Jano's been back and taking back some of the work behind the plate he's been on fire. You gotta keep that going by giving him rest behind the plate as the DH.

No issues giving Moreno the Jansen role, but what do we do when Jano gets back? Feels weird for this FO to call up a guy just to have him go back down almost regardless of how he does.

 

[dredeye]

I think this tells us Jansen will be out for a little while. That’s why he’s up. It’s fixing the break he had before if I remember hearing that right. Where he had a bolt in to fix it last time. I think they mostly just need to replace that. But healing from that won’t be 10 days. I think we’ll see Moreno for around a month in my eyes at least. Unless he really struggles

 

[Discoverer]

I'm not 100% sure but I don't believe the Jays optioned him immediately after trading for him. He was a AAA roster player then and thus automatically went onto the Jays AAA roster using the option the White Sox did. They then recalled him as you said. I would think he's only burned 2 of the 5 options this year

I also thought I remembered reading that there was some kind of exemption during April or while rosters were expanded or something where options wouldn't count against the 5 option limit.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Excited to see Moreno this weekend!

 

[Puckstuff]

We saw Kirk struggle with being the every day catcher though. Since Jano's been back and taking back some of the work behind the plate he's been on fire. You gotta keep that going by giving him rest behind the plate as the DH.

No issues giving Moreno the Jansen role, but what do we do when Jano gets back? Feels weird for this FO to call up a guy just to have him go back down almost regardless of how he does.

This whole situation is unprecedented. Having 3 catchers this good and promising on one team is remarkable.

 

[The Nemesis]

I'm not 100% sure but I don't believe the Jays optioned him immediately after trading for him. He was a AAA roster player then and thus automatically went onto the Jays AAA roster using the option the White Sox did. They then recalled him as you said. I would think he's only burned 2 of the 5 options this year

I'm just going by the transaction listing on his MLB.com player page. It says:

Apr 1: White Sox optioned him to Charlotte (AAA)
Apr 3: Blue Jays trade Reese McGuire to White Sox for Zack Collins
Apr 4: Blue Jays option him to Buffalo (AAA)

I feel like if there was no optioning involved it would've said something like "Blue Jays assign him to Buffalo" But of course Discoverer's point below potentially causes issues with that too.

I also thought I remembered reading that there was some kind of exemption during April or while rosters were expanded or something where options wouldn't count against the 5 option limit.

I don't remember hearing that (though it's entirely possible that I simply heard it and forgot or never saw the piece that made this clear.) and a quick google search for "mlb april option exempt" turned up nothing related to the new optioning rules (and everything related to vaccination rules and the rule 5 draft).

So I dunno.

I guess the final standing is that Collins could have as few as 2 opportunities to send him down waiver-free and as many as 4. Regardless they aren't at the point yet where they have to risk losing him if they send him right back down.

And even if they do send him down right away to facilitate Moreno's promotion, he's almost literally a replacement level catcher. If we pro-rate his current fWAR pace to about 300 PAs (enough to get him into the top 30 catcher PAs last season) he would come out to around 0.8 fWAR which would be right at the bottom end of the top 30 by that metric but also behind a bunch of catchers who sit above that threshold on the leaderboard with far less than 300 PA. Point basically being that I wouldn't lose sleep over the potential for Collins to be waiver fodder by July or August. It's not like there won't be other catchers out there who can bridge the gap if for some unfathomable reason the worst case scenario happens (that 2 or more of the following occur: Moreno struggles and has to go back down, one of Jansen or Kirk gets hurt, one of Jansen or Kirk gets traded, or one of Jansen or Kirk pumpkins on us and starts to really suck. Though honestly that last one is probably less of a concern because even mediocre versions of those guys are serviceable backups given the wasteland that is the catcher position)

 

[phillipmike]

 

[BertCorbeau]

We saw Kirk struggle with being the every day catcher though. Since Jano's been back and taking back some of the work behind the plate he's been on fire. You gotta keep that going by giving him rest behind the plate as the DH.

No issues giving Moreno the Jansen role, but what do we do when Jano gets back? Feels weird for this FO to call up a guy just to have him go back down almost regardless of how he does.

I think it depends on how Moreno does and how long Jano is out for.

No doubt Jano and Kirk are value trade pieces, so if Moreno crushes it you might see the Jays look to make a trade.

Maybe they feel Jano isn’t due back for a month. So giving Moreno rope closer to the deadline will allow the front office to make a decision on which trade chips to leverage.

 

[weems]

Full video of Pearsons last game

 

[SDig14]

Pearson was touching 97mph. My guess is by the time he is fully back and ready he will be touching 99-100mph again. And then likely he will be a pen addition for a playoff run.

 

[hockeywiz542]

The next MLB managers on the hot seat after Joe Maddon firing

Joe Maddon has much in common with Joe Girardi, including that he now joins Girardi as the first two managers fired this season after he was let go on Tuesday.

nypost.com

Colorado ownership is known as among the majors’ most loyal, so Bud Black is not in huge peril. But follow this bouncing ball: The Blue Jays awarded Charlie Montoyo a one-year extension through next season in spring and Toronto is currently in playoff position. But if the Blue Jays were to stumble, a few executives mentioned the possibility of Black (who has strong ties to Toronto team president Mark Shapiro dating to their time in Cleveland in the 1990s) perhaps being next offseason’s Bob Melvin — Melvin left the eternally penny-pinching A’s for the talented, but underachieving Padres last offseason.

 

[Dr.Funk]

 

[Rysto]

So, I swear I’m not making this up: in today’s White Sox game, they had two outs with one man on base, they got the batter to a 1-2 count … and then Tony La Russa calls an intentional walk. Not even bounce 3 balls in the dirt and hope he swings, or three eye-height fastballs that he might chase. Nope, on a 1-2 count, we’ll just give him first base and take our chances with Matt Muncy. Muncy hits 3 run home run.

 

[Rysto]

Double post, sorry

 

[EpochLink]

Don't look now but the Boston Red Sox are now firmly in the last wild card spot.
It looks like the AL East will occupy all 3 wild card spots for the time being.

 

[Canada4Gold]

So, I swear I’m not making this up: in today’s White Sox game, they had two outs with one man on base, they got the batter to a 1-2 count … and then Tony La Russa calls an intentional walk. Not even bounce 3 balls in the dirt and hope he swings, or three eye-height fastballs that he might chase. Nope, on a 1-2 count, we’ll just give him first base and take our chances with Matt Muncy. Muncy hits 3 run home run.

I'm not making excuses for him because it's still moronic but he didn't just randomly decide to walk the guy after throwing 3 pitches. The 3rd pitch was a wild pitch that moved the guy from 1st to 2nd which leaves you with an open base. You walk him and you're not moving the lead runner. Like I said, still completely stupid, but at least there was a reason behind it. I would assume he got tunnel vision on the situation. Base open bad matchup v good matchup is a intentional walk spot or whatever and didn't consider the count.

After the game he seemed confused that it was even a spot that people might question. The count got emphasized a few times at which point he tried to justify it by saying something along the lines of do you know what Turner's numbers are with a 1-2 count against a lefty. Hint: They're decent for 2 strikes but compared to a fresh count it's pretty bad.

 

[Da Cool Rula]

Whose thr umps mentor? Angel Martinez?

 

[The Nemesis]

Whose thr umps mentor? Angel Martinez?

Funnily enough Ed Hickox has actually been an ump for longer than Angel Hernandez.

Just a year, but still.

In related news Angel Hernandez is now suing MLB alleging that systemic racism led to the league purposely altering and misrepresenting performance reviews of minority umpires in an attempt to keep them from career advancement.

Now I don't doubt that over the years there's probably been some awful cases of minority umps getting hosed by racist dickheads in power. But... Angel Hernandez is hardly the guy to be the face of that.

 

[Dr.Funk]

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

So, I swear I’m not making this up: in today’s White Sox game, they had two outs with one man on base, they got the batter to a 1-2 count … and then Tony La Russa calls an intentional walk. Not even bounce 3 balls in the dirt and hope he swings, or three eye-height fastballs that he might chase. Nope, on a 1-2 count, we’ll just give him first base and take our chances with Matt Muncy. Muncy hits 3 run home run.

A strike away from ending the inning but he wanted to reset the count and face a new batter. Just incredible decision making, which cost them the game lmao

He wanted an L vs L matchup and although he has struggled overall this year, Muncy's career splits are nearly identical

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

The Twins hit 5 HR off Cole and had a 7-3 lead but still lost the game. Great.

On a brighter note, Angels might finally win and end Boston's W streak