Stray Thoughts... - Just win, baby...

On playoff odds, seasons being over or not, RISP, Davis Schneider, Cavan Biggio, catching depth, Vladdy, Tiedemann, Orelvis, Ohtani, Chris Colabello, the stupid Yankees, and more!

The most number of wins the Blue Jays can finish the season with is 95. The most wins one of either the Texas Rangers or Seattle Mariners can get to is 90.

That, really, is all you need to know about where the Blue Jays’ playoff chances are at following a wild weekend, plus a pretty good Monday of scoreboard watching. Well, that and the fact that Texas holds the tiebreaker over the Jays, and Seattle almost certainly will as well, so the cushion that’s suddenly appeared is actually four games and not five.

With all three teams having just 12 games left, that’s a pretty good place to be. Even factoring that the Jays will only face the Yankees and the Rays from here on out.

Eight wins in 12 games against the Yankees and Rays no doubt feels like a lot to ask, and no one who has watched this team all season could possibly believe that they’ll make it easy on themselves—or us—but it’s the other teams in the race that have a much tighter needle to thread. For the three AL West teams to all make the playoffs they’ll have to play as perfectly as they can against teams outside of the race, then not beat up on each other too much.

Any deviation from this opens the door even wider for a Jays team that may not have to do all that much better than just avoiding a repeat of their worst 12-game stretch of the season—a 3-9 ebb in May when they immediately followed a, uh, nervy and possibly undeserved sweep (of Atlanta) with a brutal run against… er… AL East opponents. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Here are some stray thoughts—”Quickly”-style (mostly)—as the Jays head into yet another massive series…

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I’ll be honest here, friends. This site keeps the lights on for me, but it isn’t a cash cow. And I could live a lot more comfortably than I do right now if I was willing to put some of my work behind a paywall and push a bunch readers who are on the fence into becoming paid subscribers. But, the thing is, I know that times are tough for a lot of people and I really don’t want to become inaccessible to anyone. So, if you can afford it, and you value what I do and aren’t already a paid subscriber, I’d ask that you consider upgrading your free membership to a paid one. Thanks. — Stoeten

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Victory LARP

Look, I’m wrong enough often enough that it’s never a good idea for me to even think about gloating when I actually do somehow get things right. And I think it would be especially misguided to do so when we’re coming off a weekend of mind-bendingly positive results that went well beyond “predictably unpredictable,” and still have hardly sealed anything for these 2023 Toronto Blue Jays. Acting like they’re in now would be no better than acting like it was over at any one of the multitude of points that Jays fans tried to declare that the season was or would be over. They’re not. It wasn’t.

But… well… I guess it wasn’t over, huh? And perhaps there is some kind of lesson in here about, I don’t know, trying to enjoy the sport a little more sometimes? I mean, it’s not like most of that Jays-induced misery was necessarily wrong, it’s just weird to me that this still somehow has a chance to turn out to be a pretty special season for the team and yet a lot of people’s memories of it are going to be like, “Oh yeah, that one made me absolutely miserable pretty much every day for like six whole months.”

Yes, we noticed.

That’s fandom, I suppose. Human nature. I know it will never change. But that doesn’t mean I’m ever going to stop stumping for fans to try to have a little more goddamn perspective on things.

Related:

Quickly…

• The Jays ranked fifth in August and are second here in September by batting average with runners in scoring position, by the way.

• You indeed cannot predict baseball.

• Sticking with Nick, and with Davis Schneider, in his latest for Yahoo he looks at the mini-trough the mustachioed one has been in for his last five game—0-for his last 20, reaching base only via an error and a HBP—and tries to decipher what's up. He finds that pitchers have been challenging Schneider more of late, in response to his patient approach, and throwing him more offspeed stuff (which he's struggled with both in the majors and minors). I would certainly be the first to bring up that we're talking a tiny sample size here, but there are some interesting decisions to be made—I'll leave you to click Nick's piece to see what they are—if Schneider stops looking like the guy with the hot hand.

• Pitcher List also takes a look at Schneider, albeit from a fantasy perspective, and tells readers to stick with him—at least for this year.

• Meanwhile, Cavan Biggio could also be viewed as a hot hand guy at this point, but his hand really has nothing to do with it. He's been performing since around mid-June and now finds himself in the four-hole. Cavan has slashed .276/.389/.403 (127 wRC+) since the 21st of that month, so it's safe to say he's really come on after starting nice and slow. Over that span he ranks 69th in baseball by wRC+. Apparently made quite a big change around then.

• Interesting pre-game note here from MLB.com's Keegan Matheson, who tells us that catcher Jamie Ritchie is on the taxi squad and with the Jays, even though there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with current duo Alejandro Kirk and Tyler Heineman. The Jays, according to manager John Schneider, are just being "ultra prepared" and having him sit in on meetings. Can't hurt for him to know the pitching staff a little better just in case he's drawn into the lineup at some point. The Bisons' season ends on Sunday, and this does seem like a better use of an extra catcher's time.

• Sticking with Keegan, his latest for MLB.com takes a look at the Jays' Roberto Clemente Award nominee, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In addition to reminding us that Vlad's performance the last few days has finally got fans thinking positively about his on-field exploits, the piece tells us more than we've known previously about some of his off-field work, as he speaks in it about the VG27 Foundation, which last December distributed full holiday meal kits to 1,000 needy families in his native Dominican Republic—and other ways he's giving back to communities where he grew up. It's a tradition that he's followed from his father and many others in his family who have long done charity work in the D.R. Nice stuff!

• And before we get too far from the Bisons, some interesting for them here on Tuesday, as it was announced that top Jays prospect Ricky Tiedemann will be promoted to Triple-A and making his Bisons debut during the club's final homestand this week. There had been conflicting reports out there as to whether this would happen, but is now all official-like. Tiedemann's last start for New Hampshire was not his best, interrupting a string of really good ones by allowing three runs on three hits and three walks over just two innings of work (4 strikeouts, 13 batters faced), but he's looked electric at plenty of times when he's been on the field this season.

• According to a report over the weekend from Scott Mitchell of TSN, Tiedemann will be adding much-needed innings to his total for the season by pitching in the Arizona Fall League after the minor league season is complete. Per Mitchell he'll be joined by Dasan Brown, and Scott notes that CJ Van Eyk, Trent Palmer, and Dahian Santos are also guys who could use innings and potentially end up in the desert. Interesting group! Though Tiedemann is clearly the headliner.

• Also worth noting here that Buffalo’s Orelvis Martinez was named last week’s International League player of the month. Over 65 plate appearances in the month of September so far, Martinez is slashing .300/.364/.650, so... yeah. That'll do it. He'll be an intriguing option for the Blue Jays next season—provided the win-now club doesn't look to move him in trade for someone who better lines up with their current core. Will be a fascinating winter in that regard, because I just don't think a team with championship aspiration is going to be able to rely as much as soon on the Schneider/Biggio/Martinez/Horwitz/Barger as a lot of fans would likely prefer, but clearly there's talent there.

• Last winter the Blue Jays went all-in on defence, and outfield defence in particular. The latest from SI’s Mitch Bannon looks at whether it was ultimately worth it, given the steep offensive price they seem to have paid.

• Interesting long-form tweet from former Blue Jay Chris Colabello over the weekend, who continues to stand by the story—in detail—that he’s always told about the positive PED test that has so tarnished his legacy and basically ended his MLB career. He makes some compelling-seeming arguments (I didn’t read all that closely, I’ll admit), and suggests a documentary on the subject. A cynic would probably wonder why he struggled to hit as well as he had previously afterwards. And the “believe people when they say they’re falsely accused” thing struck me as not a great catch-all closing line. But food for thought nonetheless.

• Lastly, the Angels have announced, via Shohei Ohtani’s agent, that the greatest player in the world has undergone elbow surgery, and that the expectation from his doctor and his camp is that he’ll be able to resume both pitching and hitting again in 2025. He won’t pitch in 2024. The most interesting free agency ever just got weirder.

• Oh, right, one more thing: BEAT THE STUPID YANKEES YOU JERKS. MAKE THIS EASY ON YOURSELVES.

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