Stray Thoughts... - Off (one of) the Schneid(s)

On an ugly loss, an uglier loss, John Schneider's job-worthiness, a puzzling call-up, waiver fever, a surprisingly long Atkins Speaks! section that could have been its own post, and more!

The Blue Jays won on Monday night, yet still managed to find a way to get people mad at them by Tuesday afternoon. Then on Tuesday night they lost in maybe as stupid a fashion as they had all year. Or at least since Sunday.

Davis Schneider was great, underlining how much this team may have cost themselves by having him play so sparingly for much of the month.

John Schneider lost the plot for the second time in three games, ushering his team to its doom once again.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. singled in the first, but his 1-for-5 with three ground ball outs left, as his performances have done all season, far too much to be desired, and was again utterly emblematic of this team’s failure to pull through in the clutch.

It seemed like a breaking point for a lot of fans. Or at least a point to pretend to break, even if most of them were back hanging off of every pitch as the Jays rallied in the ninth before once again getting nothing from a bases loaded, no out situation.

Or… OK, technically they got one run, from that spot in the ninth. But it felt like it might as well have been nothing. The 5-4 loss, their fifth in seven games, took them to three games back in the AL wild card race. They woke up here on Wednesday at 3.5 back.

Hard as it is to believe, there are still plenty of opportunities left to right this ship—Patrick Corbin taking to the hill for the Nationals in this afternoon’s series finale, a trip to Colorado and then Oakland starting this weekend, four games with the free-falling Texas Rangers still upcoming, and a bunch of dates with the white-flag-waving Yankees—but with each dumb loss the team makes the task ahead that much harder.

I take the view that baseball is a funny sport, never quite as it seems, and will do plenty on its own to break our hearts without anyone having to invent things like they need to win X number of games over this upcoming stretch or that’s it! Just because it hasn’t happened to this point there remains no reason their offence couldn’t look completely different over the next month than it has in the last four. But… well… there are no extra points available for clinging too tightly to false hope, just like there aren’t any for throwing in the towel too soon. Pick your poison, I guess.

Here are some stray thoughts…

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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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Fire Schneider?

Here's a string of tweets that I fired off back on Sunday, after the Jays turned a Danny Jansen double to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game into a runner-on-first, one-out situation by incredibly stupidly asking Cavan Biggio to bunt. (As I suspect you already know, they would go on the lose the game 10-7).

Angry tweeting like this is not usually the best idea, but I’m going to stand behind these ones. A lot of fans have a tendency to let layer upon and layer of disgust at a manager’s choices slowly build up to the point where they end up walking around constantly outraged at some buffoonish caricature of a man. I already think he’s a moron, now here’s another thing I don’t like, so he’s definitely a moron. And next time I’ll be even more sure.

The bulk of this snowball gets inevitably made up of ire about decisions that—if you actually sit down and think them through—were reasonably justifiable, if not necessarily the ones that we ourselves would have made. Other times they’re calls made through a “collaborative process,” not even in the manager’s hands, or based partly on information that we simply don’t have.

It is stupid to hate the manager, in other words. But it would be just as dumb to use that fact as a means to ignore it when he does things that cost his team crucial games.

Letting Alejandro Kirk run for himself in the bottom of the eighth inning on Tuesday, down by two, with the newly arrived Mason McCoy—a guy basically exclusively here to pinch run and play defence at shortstop—stapled to the bench was truly galaxy brained stuff. Instead of having a runner that might actually be able to score on a medium depth flyball and having a real shortstop in the field the following inning, Schneider opted to leave in one of the bottom ten runners in the league by sprint speed (out of 536 players!), then ask Cavan Biggio to play a position he’s spent all of two innings at since he arrived at Notre Dame way back in 2014.

Asked about it after the game, Schneider conceded that they'd have used a pinch runner had they only been down by one, but not down by two. Later during his brief media session, Richard Griffin delightfully circled back to that comment. Here's the exchange:

GRIFF: John, would that always be the way that you handle the pinch runner, is that it has to be the tying run? Because that DH spot wasn't coming up again, and McCoy was there.

SCHNEIDER: Yeah, that's kind of the way we're looking at it. You know, you pinch hit Varsh there, you're looking to do damage to try to take the lead and clip a homer. You know, you never know. The game goes a lot of different ways to where crazy shit happens and you get into the 11th inning and that spot comes up and you want Kirky at the plate. So, yeah. Kind of a general rule of thumb. Yeah, for sure. You know, the odds of a medium depth flyball with an average-throwing outfielder and Kirky at third was probably last on my bingo card. 

Not sure what’s worse here, not accounting for the extremely common occurrence of a flyball too shallow to score one of the slowest runners in the sport, or being down 5-3 in the eighth inning and for some reason worrying most about not having your DH in the 11th. Possibly connected if the game is just coming too fast for this guy’s brain to operate at this level! Either way, come the fuck on bro.

And somehow Sunday’s bunt was even worse.

Your concept of a fireable offence may vary, but for me incredibly little else of what Schneider has done as the Blue Jays’ skipper has risen to that level. Those two calls have made me a whole lot more sympathetic to the cranks who are desperate to see him gone though.

They called up who?

Speaking of opinions I became more sympathetic to over the course of Tuesday’s game: the people dumbfounded by the decision to call up Mason McCoy!

To recap:

When Bo Bichette exited the game in the sixth inning on Sunday after an awkward swing and a ginger jog down to first base on a groundout, the first thing on every Blue Jays fan's mind was surely the knee injury that kept him out for 19 days earlier this month, and which he had only just been back from for little more than a week. It was somewhat relieving when we learned that this wasn't a recurrence of that knee tendonitis, but rather a different issue altogether: "quad tightness." Even more relieving was the fact that, even though Matt Chapman—who also exited Sunday's game early—was very quickly moved to the IL on Monday, Bo remained active, even if he wasn't in the starting lineup that night.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday, even though the Jays are calling Bo's injury mild and suggesting that they're hopeful both he and Chapman will only be out for the minimum (for position players) of 10 days, he was also sent to the IL.

There's never a good time for your two best players by fWAR to be on the shelf, and with the Jays fighting for their playoff lives they obviously can't take any opponent lightly. But they could be in a whole lot tougher spot, considering they're up against the 61-71 Nationals this week, then travel to face the 38-94 A's for a weekend set in Oakland, and then visit the 49-82 Rockies in Denver. It just means that, even more than before, it’s time for everybody else to step up. All hands on deck. Pick your cliché. Etc., etc.

And then, to help in this all-important cause, the Jays go an add Mason McCoy—a 28-year-old slashing .192/.298/.274 over 21 games since arriving from Seattle for Trent Thornton—to an infield group that already contained Santiago Espinal and Ernie Clement.

A lot of people were not only surprised but angry that it wasn't someone with a higher pedigree getting the call. Orelvis Martinez and Addison Barger were right there.

Well, a contrarian like myself would have said—and did say—at the time, McCoy is just here to pinch run and play some defence (irony!), so they probably don't want to bring up Martinez and Barger just to similarly sit on the bench. Plus, Davis Schneider has had a hard enough time getting into games, so no one could expect those guys to play much if they did get the call. Also, Martinez has only been in Buffalo for, like, a month. And Barger can't come off the 40-man once you put him on there, whereas McCoy can get flushed the second Bo returns and Chad Green needs a spot. (UPDATE: Not sure why I didn’t think Barger was on the 40-man. Carry on…!)

Said contrarian would have been correct about the Jays being reluctant to use McCoy, but I’m not sure he would have realized just how unbelievably reluctant. And if McCoy can’t be trusted in that precise, tailor-made situation in the eighth inning Tuesday night, what on earth is he even doing here?

It’s maybe about time that this club tried to catch a little more lightning in a bottle, no?

(Aside: I saw someone out there banging on as though this is surely about Barger’s service clock. Because, you know, what other reason would a team have for not calling up a player with a .807 OPS in a minor league where the average OPS is .801? Lol. Remember when I said above that it’s stupid how fans will build up a buffoonish caricature of the manager in their heads to get mad at? That applies to the GM too.)

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Quickly…

• It's hard to be notably cynical if you're a major league organization these days, but dang it, I think the Los Angeles Angels (and a few other teams) may have pulled it off on Tuesday. With their go-for-it moves at the trade deadline blowing up in their faces, Mike Trout on the shelf, and Shohei Ohtani unable to pitch, GM Perry Minasian threw in the towel and placed several real big league players on waivers. The reason? Because players need to be on a new club's roster by September 1 in order to be eligible for the playoffs, and because the claiming team will be on the hook for the remaining salary any player is owed. The Angels will get 1/6th of the salary of each claimed player off of their books, which—unless no one is claimed—will almost certainly take them down below the luxury tax threshold for the season. Integrity of the competition be damned!

• Pitchers being placed on waivers by various teams include Lucas Giolito, Matt Moore, Reynaldo López, Dominic Leone, Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevinger, and José Cisnero.

• More of interest to the Jays, the following position players also find themselves available: Randal Grichuk, Hunter Renfroe, and Harrison Bader.

• Claims will be awarded to the worst claiming team based on 2023 winning percentage, which theoretically puts the Jays (.541) in a position to potentially capitalize here. However, they're at the mercy of what a bunch of NL “contenders” want to do. Miami (.500) is three games back on the last NL wild card spot, and between them and the Jays we have: Cincinnati (.507), Arizona (.519), the Giants (.523) and the Cubs (.530). Teams can bid on as many players as they want, but they have to assume every contract/salary of the players they do take, so it's not impossible someone slips through.

• Bader has been awful at the plate for the last two years, but plays elite outfield defence and is great on the bases. Renfroe is a right-handed bat with 18 home runs in a down year, but had 31 and 29 in 2021 and 2022 respectively (with wRC+ marks of 113 and 123). Grichuk looked very good in Colorado to start the year but has been awful since arriving in L.A. and is certainly someone the organization knows and likes. Couldn’t hurt!

• FanGraphs has a nice little explainer on this stuff.

• Why yes, that certainly is something!

Atkins Speaks! (Again!)

Once again Jays GM Ross Atkins was out there doing some media on Tuesday, showing up on the Fan 590’s Blair and Barker to talk about whatever was going on with this team before that night’s loss finally—temporarily?—broke everyone’s spirit.

Here’s what he had to say…

Would you have any interest in adding some of those Angels guys off of waivers?

On that front we will obviously be doing the work. Anything we can do to make our team better we want to do. I think, collectively, that's a good group of players. We'll make sure we are prepared to make the right recommendations to ownership. And, like I said, any way we can make our major league team better, we're always working to do so.

I'm not sure if there's anything terribly noteworthy in the thing about passing recommendations to ownership, but I certainly can't let it pass without comment. We all obviously know that ownership has involvement in the financial components of decisions, and I don't think it's surprising that a conversation would be needed before adding salary given that we've already passed the point where you'd expect that to happen. But one-sixth of Renfroe's salary is just a shade under $2 million, with Grichuk's at $1.5 million, and Bader at $780,000. Not nothing, but not a ton in terms of an MLB payroll.

It would generate some real questions in this market if one of these guys went unclaimed, but there's plenty of room for cover because of the nature of the process. We took a shot and put in a bid for the guy we felt was the most likely to help us and not be claimed, but he did, and it wouldn't have made sense to put a bid in for two players in case we won both.

Not sure that will pass the smell test if it happens, but—as always—it's probably best to wait and see how this plays out before getting mad about it.

What's the timeline for Bo Bichette looking like?

Similar to how John (Schneider) had messaged it in the scrum earlier: as he was coming back felt an aggravation there, and it slowly increased. And we just want to make sure that we get it completely out of there, as we're very hopeful to be playing longer than the regular season, and the impact of that—not wanting it to be something that lingers. So, hopefully it is something that is only the 10-day period, but we will be very cautious in ensuring that when he does come back he's 100%.

There was a point not very long ago where, whenever anybody was out there raging about certain lineup choices—guys getting scheduled days off when they offence could have really used them, etc.—one was able to point to the job that the Jays' High Performance department has done keeping everyone healthy this season. Not so much anymore! Though obviously this, Matt Chapman's finger injury, and the back spasms keeping Brandon Belt out of Tuesday's game (and Wednesday's starting lineup) are maybe more freakish than preventable. Still, these Blue Jays sure wasted a lot of time not producing when they were as healthy as any team in the league, didn't they?

As for Bo, hopefully it's a short stint on the IL, because they need him. Something worth remembering, given all the winning percentages of NL contenders I quoted above, is that in this world of expanded playoffs, wild card teams are all flawed, all mediocre. This fight is far from over.

Any thought to bringing up Martinez or Barger, or even Spencer Horwitz, given the injury issues?

Absolutely. All of those guys. There's been so many good stories in Triple-A this year. Nathan Lukes, obviously, has been incredible for us in Triple-A, and has had an impact here in the major leagues. (Rafael) Lantigua has had an incredible year. A lot of good offensive stories in Triple-A, and a couple of them are here already in Ernie and Davis, and have had great contributions already to date. Orelvis certainly has gotten a lot of discussion already, Addison as well. They are very good players that deserve that consideration.

Look, if I were one of those fans who refused to believe that the current group of big league hitters the Jays employ have shown us exactly who they are and need to be replaced, I'd probably be begging for more consideration of these guys as well. One might say that it couldn't hurt to see them come up and get a chance, except that it definitely could hurt. The Paul DeJong thing absolutely hurt! And that's a guy with a ton of big league experience who was in the middle of a 95 wRC+ big league season at the time, whereas Barger's Triple-A wRC+ is 100.

The Davis Schneider thing—utterly delightful as it has been—is exceedingly rare. And, honestly, there was probably more justification for having him sit after he went 1-for-13 with eight strikeouts in his first five games after the Boston series than a lot of fans likely appreciate. And Ernie Clement, though he's not the sexy prospect name everybody remembers from spring training and has been following all season, has probably earned a chance just as much, frankly, as Barger has. Especially since he can actually handle shortstop in the majors.

So... yeah...

Do front offices look at soft spots in the schedule the way fans do?

I mean, you try not to get ahead of yourself, and focus on the game that day, the series that you're playing. Obviously there's work to do ahead for each series, but not well beyond that. And there's not much we can do—it's interesting to look at our schedule as it's played out, if you look at the records against the teams we've played to date we've had the hardest schedule in baseball. And that is not the case moving forward, it is much more forgiving moving forward. So we're well aware of that. At the same time, it really doesn't matter. We have to do everything we can to win tonight, and win each game as we look ahead, and be in a good position for that final series of the year.

Perhaps if some of those teams you played didn't pick up as many wins AGAINST THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS their combined record wouldn't look so strong at this point. *COUGH*

What explains your lack of consistency in approach? Bad information? Poor communication?

Well, I think, first of all, our offence has actually been OK. We haven't been third or fourth best offence in baseball that we were a year ago. I think right now in wRC+ we're around seven or eight in baseball—which is not a bad place to be, especially considering that we're one of the best defensive teams in baseball. On the run-prevention side we've been exceptional this year since the All-Star break, or even really just the second half you can make a case that we've been one of the best, or the best, defensive team in baseball.

So, the same guys that are helping us score are the same guys that helping us prevent runs, and there's always that balance. And, like I said, we're still a very good offensive team. You look up and down the lineup and on any give night you could have nine above average major league performers. Not just above average hitters, but guys that are performing above average—if you include Davis Schneider in that mix, obviously that includes Bo, and Chappy.

So there are very good players that are having solid years. And one of the things that's been interesting that gets a lot of focus is that we haven't scored as many runs. Some of that is runners in scoring position, which also gets a lot of focus. In order to struggle with runners in scoring position, you have to have lot of guys on base, which we have had. We are doing a very good job of getting hits, a very good job of getting on base. The ball's not going over the fence quite as much, and we're not doing as well as anyone would like—obviously, sure, it's frustrating when guys get left on second and third, or just on second. But they're getting there. And we have felt all year that is going to turn.

Obviously some of this is weird and Atkins-y, and the "you have to get guys on base to struggle with RISP" line is going to go over like a lead balloon, but he's not wrong. There's always going to be a disconnect between this stuff and a lot of fans, because it defies common sense that anyone could actually think a team struggling to score runs has pretty good offence, even though the under-the-hood stuff is much more trustworthy and predictive than the simple lack of success cashing runs. Same hitters, same approach, the results should be just about the same whether a teammate is standing on second or not. It doesn't need to have an explanation. There doesn't need to be some villainous staff member holding them back. It just... it can happen.

Plenty of people understand all this too, yet remain exasperated by this miserable bunch of losers. Which... fair enough!

Atkins continued.

As it relates to approach, and our players' plan on any given night. Even when you drill down on that, it looks very similar to the individuals, and the team, in years past, in controlling what they can control. What they're swinging at, when they're swinging at certain pitchers, all looks very consistent with years in the past. And we're still driving the ball, our exit velos are there, everything we can see from swing speed is there. Obviously I'm not running from the fact that we're not scoring as much, and we do spend a ton of time on that, and we do challenge ourselves on what is the most effective message, what is the most effect communication? And we have to be adjustable, we have to be agile there.

This team had a 119 wRC+ with RISP last year. Incredibly weird sport. Not as driven by personal failings as a lot of people like to believe. Just… ugh.

Do you wish you had focussed more on landing one more impactful bat?

Well, I think Brandon Belt has been that. Kevin Kiermaier has been an above average major league offensive player, as well as an elite defender. So, no, that's not something that I've retroactively looked at. It's hard to look at a roster construction that has George Springer, and Vladdy, and Bo, and Daulton Varsho, and Jano, Kirky. Obviously, Bo, Whit, I can keep going. Brandon Belt, Matt Chapman. It's hard to look at a roster with the depth of—Cavan Biggio, Espinal—and think, OK we need to add to that component. Because in order to do it, you have to subtract.

We feel good about this team, we still feel very good about the way it's constructed and built. Not to say I'm resting on 'We're fine and everything will just work itself out,' but the team that is in place is a good one. And the individuals, we feel very good about. We feel good about their work, and we feel good about the—in many ways—the results that they can control, we feel good about. It's the results, oftentimes, that they can't control as much, that haven't gone our way. Having said that, we have to do everything in our power to reverse that momentum and make sure that we are scoring enough to win.

Might I suggest not bunting ever, and not letting Kirk run for himself in big spots late in games?

Something Atkins doesn't quite say here, but that I think he's getting at in the first part, and that everybody knows—and has found as frustrating as anything about this whole dumb season—is that this team absolutely should be better. The hitters themselves, if you really need to point fingers, are the ones to blame for where this team is at.

Is there a mechanical thing that you think Vladdy could tweak that could unlock all the talent that's in there and we've seen so little of this year compared to 2021?

It's so interesting with Vladdy, if you think about where he is in his career, what he's already accomplished, how good he's been. Even just how good he is right now. Our expectations are set at such an astronomical level, and he is still performing at an above major league average level.

I feel, I think the whole team, I think the whole league feels that—if they're the opposing team, they don't want to see him coming to the plate, and we can't wait to see him coming up every night, because of the bat speed. Because of the swing decisions, too. Like, some of the things I was talking about, if you look at his strikeouts and walks and just how often he's putting the ball in play. And so often times in the game, balls are hit hard at guys. And he does have a tendency to put the ball on the ground some, which I think becomes magnified when you have so many guys on base and they're able to turn it into an out at second, and sometimes a double play.

But the things that he can control are all so consistent and so sound. And I just remain so impressed by what he's been able to handle thus far, and how he answers the bell every day. And just how hard he comes to work every single day. He never gets down on himself. And there's no one that wants it more than any human being on the planet than for him to be the hero on any given night. And the way he's handled that thus far has been remarkable.

So, one thing mechanically? No. He's such a rhythm hitter, Kevin, as you know, and his rhythm, that is such a hard thing to nitpick. You will see from time to time that the rhythm isn't quite as in sync, but there's nothing that you can say: this is the reason for that, or the reason that's happening. He has a very aggressive swing but it's not like he gets really big or really long, it's really consistent. So, he's going to be a great player. He's going to be a great player for a long time. I hope that he's a great player for the next two months. He already has been a very solid one for us this year.

Man, I'd love to hear what the organization really thinks about this stuff! Some of it here is fair enough, I suppose. But, like, he's "performing at an above major league average level"? You know that's different for a first baseman, right? I know you know that, Ross!

There are 25 qualified first basemen in the league this year according to FanGraphs. By wRC+ he ranks 13th. By fWAR he's 21st.

I still have all the time in the world for Vlad, because guys just don't have the ability to strike the ball as hard as he does while simultaneously avoiding strikeouts incredibly well and taking a good share of walks. Like the Jays offence as a whole, plenty of great ingredients are there to make him easily a whole lot better than we've seen. It just hasn't happened. The same thing happened with Bo last year, it can be very easy to forget. 

Is there a concern about too many voices being in Vlad's head about how to pull out of this?

That's such a long discussion, right? There's so many layers to that. So, if you're just talking about the first aspect of it, of too many voices. Vladdy's had that his whole life. His entire life he has had people telling him how special he is, how talented he is, and then opinions and ideas on things he can do to be even better. Or when things aren't going to the astronomically high level that people expect of him. And I don't think that's any higher right now, it's just magnified and talked about when, you know, when we're not scoring as many runs and he's in the middle of our lineup. But that is not something that we're concerned about.

And then, taking a step further into that discussion and thinking about influences like Edwin Encarnación, Victor Martinez, even Wilton, his dad. They all experienced that. They all experienced people coming to them. Every player experiences that.

Does he experience that at a higher level? Sure. Because so many people just love to watch him play, and not identify with but just really appreciate how fun it is, and how special it is to watch him hit. And what excitement he brings to the game. So, yes, he does get more of that. But the guys that are talking to him have also experienced it on some level and understand how to navigate those conversations.

And then on the aspect of keeping things simple, and just hit the fastball, however you alluded to it. Yeah, absolutely. That's what everyone is trying to do all the time, and one of the ways that you do that is distilling information and making it simple in your messaging. And we work very hard to ensure that's happening, to make sure that we are consistent. But Vladdy is elite that way. He is elite at distilling it, he is very smart, and he's very disciplined, and he keeps his approach and plan, as I say, simple. It only gets simple if you do the work. And he does the work.

Really interesting stuff, well said, aaaaaand I can't help but wonder if they're buttering him up this much because they want to keep him happy and in their plans or if they're concealing their own frustrations. He's too good to be this bad!

Do you have an approach for finding pitchers with any sort of specific characteristic when you're putting together your bullpen?

I love talking about relief pitchers and the bullpen. Every year I'm in this role, and in this job, and in this game, I feel so fortunate. But every day, and ever week, and every year, I am more and more in awe of major league baseball players, and just what special professionals (they are). How hard they have to work, how adaptable and adjustable, how tough they have to be. The level of perseverance. 

And relief pitchers, it's such an interesting demographic because of how they're compensated, how they're used, how they're deployed, based on their performance. How hot and cold streaks can impact them. And how that magnifies the importance of consistency.

So, for us, one of the strongest levers in making a decision on an acquisition of a reliever is dependability and reliability. Guys that are really consistent with their routines, and have a pure focus and a joy for their routine and their process to get ready every day. We make sure that we do the work on that front, because we feel like it really pays off in the end. 

There's stuff everywhere, right? And there's stuff that turns into swing-and-miss sometimes with one click. But it can go away with one click. It's remarkable, I wish fans could have a lens into Jordan Romano and Timmy Mayza's routine on a daily basis, which never wavers. And it doesn't end until an hour after the game. And those are the things that we're really looking for as we look to complement this 'pen. And we're cognizant of that, and want to make sure that they're coming into that environment, welcomed into it, and respect it as they come into it, because they have those routines and that work ethic.

OK, now get this all sorted on the hitting side please!!

Lastly, will there be changes if the team misses the playoffs, and how worried are you about your own job?

I mean, listen, we're always trying to get better regardless. Even if we win the World Series, we're going to be thinking about how we can make improvements. So, that's just how we operate and how we exist. And, similarly, on my job. If I'm worried about my job then I'm not doing my job. We ask our players to come in and control what they can control, and focus on what they can focus on to be the best either contributing player, or everyday player. And it's the same way I go about my job everyday. What can I do improve this organization and team, and how am I going to win tonight.

With Mark Shapiro calling the shots, and understanding that there's not a ton more a GM can do than put together a top 10 offence with top five run prevention, I'd bet that Ross isn't going anywhere this winter. I'm usually wrong about this stuff though, so maybe a bunch of you will get your wish!

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