Submit your questions for this week's mail bag!
Let's talk out just what on earth is happening with the Blue Jays, shall we?
I honestly don’t know what to say about the turn the Blue Jays’ season has taken over the last week, beyond, like, “they’re a very good team going through an awful stretch at a time so inopportune that could ultimately prove seriously costly when all is said and done.” But I do know what I don’t want to say.
I don’t want to say nothing could possibly be wrong here. I don’t want to scold anyone for being completely understandably frustrated. I don’t want to write some grand, flowery piece where I construct a bunch of straw men only so I can knock down their arguments.
But I’ve got to do something! My job, after all, and the thing many people very generously support me in doing, is to comment on the club and the conversation surrounding it. And I think the best, and simplest, way to do that is with a dialogue. What the hell is going on with this team? What do you think? What needs to change? What do you want to know about how I see it? Would you say it's time to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
And so, here we are. It’s mail bag time!
Leave me your best thoughts and questions in the comments on this post and I’ll answer them in the next couple of days — hopefully, at some point, following a Blue Jays win.
Of course, as always, comments are only open to paid subscribers — and I’d love for you to choose that option if you’re not already doing so, as reader support is the only way I make a living, and keeps all my work free to read for everyone else. Please don’t make me start paywalling things!
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Ok, we're far enough away (I think) to begin to wonder how much the minor league parks helped Vlad out in his almost MVP year. He's still a great player but do you think he ever gets back to that level or is he more of what we saw last year given that we have a good sample size now?
Also, Tabby seems like a great guy but the broadcasts have improved a ton this year with Buck/Joe as analyst. No more "he's a baseball player" type of stuff, prove me wrong DJF! Steve
One question (and I'm only half kidding here), is the book on pitching the Blue Jays out? By teams saying "how to get the Blue Jays out? Put them on base!"
But by digging deeper, are other teams' advanced scouts looking at Blue Jays hitters and see that the book to pitch them with RISP is to pitch up and in because they will chase? Because from the eye test it seems with runners on this last week they would often take swings that are too big, and swings that often seem to lead to a double play, a jam pop up, or a strikeout, at least until they show that they can lay off those borderline pitches, as I know they have before. One of the reasons the lineup seemed deeper in April was because more hitters were being more selective and were able to lay off more of those pitches.