if the blue jays are like kind of like jimmy mcgill dragging a duffel bag of cash through the desert then anthony santander is kinda like a warm jar of piss...
So glad to be wrong about them signing Santander. I really didn't think they'd get any of the available hitters to come here. Who cares about the money and the tax. It's not our money. We've got another bat.
> And I’m not a lineup protection guy at all—Vladdy did just fine in 2024 with so little behind him—nor am I an RBI guy. But just think of the number of games over the last two seasons that would have been meaningfully changed by having someone who hits the ball over the fence so often in that spot.
This is the thing about offence vs defence - offence adds non-linearly, whereas defence adds linearly. Each improvement to the lineup makes all the rest of the lineup better - more likely to be hitting with someone on base, more likely to be driving in runs, more likely to have big innings, more likely to hit 2+ run homers, more likely to wear our the other team's good pitchers early and get into their softer pitching, and so on.
I'm wary of saying Atkins et al didn't know that when they pivoted to a defence-first team, but it kind of seems overlooked, or underestimated. As the lineup improves, runs per game tends to infinity. As the defence improves, runs allowed per game tends to zero. One of these things is not like the other lol.
holy shitballs they did it, this offseason might be salvaged after all
if the blue jays are like kind of like jimmy mcgill dragging a duffel bag of cash through the desert then anthony santander is kinda like a warm jar of piss...
which is to say, thank god!
I give this signing four out of five pelvic thrusts. Now, keep ‘er going.
So glad to be wrong about them signing Santander. I really didn't think they'd get any of the available hitters to come here. Who cares about the money and the tax. It's not our money. We've got another bat.
> And I’m not a lineup protection guy at all—Vladdy did just fine in 2024 with so little behind him—nor am I an RBI guy. But just think of the number of games over the last two seasons that would have been meaningfully changed by having someone who hits the ball over the fence so often in that spot.
This is the thing about offence vs defence - offence adds non-linearly, whereas defence adds linearly. Each improvement to the lineup makes all the rest of the lineup better - more likely to be hitting with someone on base, more likely to be driving in runs, more likely to have big innings, more likely to hit 2+ run homers, more likely to wear our the other team's good pitchers early and get into their softer pitching, and so on.
I'm wary of saying Atkins et al didn't know that when they pivoted to a defence-first team, but it kind of seems overlooked, or underestimated. As the lineup improves, runs per game tends to infinity. As the defence improves, runs allowed per game tends to zero. One of these things is not like the other lol.