21 Comments

Just to keep the vibes rolling, who should the Blue Jays fire first?

1. Schneider

2. Atkins

3. Shapiro

4. Montoya

5. Various and sundry hitting/pitching coaches

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Another rough start for Manoah…

Do you think there are conditioning issues there that are being exacerbated by the pitch clock?

Do you - gulp - demote him, to work any mechanical issues or conditioning issues, or is he better off working with Pete Walker?

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How would you grade the blue jays performance thus far?

1. Acceptable

2. Unacceptable

3. F minus

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Hey, this is probably included in a ton of other questions, but what to do with the bench? Espi and Cavan are having terrible offensive seasons, and I would be surprised if Cavan has produced positive WAR. I understand that Lopez and others on the farm aren’t lighting the world on fire, but is there a point where almost anyone buy him might be worth a shot? I would love to see Biggio be successful but I’d there a point that it’s just enough is enough? Also, when do the Jays look elsewhere for a stronger bench (better backup IFs, a more reliable 4th OF)?

Cheers,

Landon

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Basestealing:

Am I misremembering how often people slid over bases (and therefore got tagged out) in the past? Seems this is happening a greater percentage of the time this year, but maybe it is just there is so much more basestealing, that you just see it more often, enough that you pay attention. I would have thought the larger bases would make it less likely that you would slide over. Are the new bases harder to grab onto? Of course, being many years out of practice at the skill could be a factor, too. :) What about those sliding gloves? Protection from cleats is a good thing, but maybe they are making it harder to grab onto the bag?

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Happy May, Stoet! If you were the jays GM for the next six weeks, and Shapiro tells you to get anyone you think this team needs at the trade deadline and for any cost, who are you getting and what are you giving up to get them? (You may choose more than one player to get). Keep up the great work. Always a treat when I see you pop up in my inbox! - SD

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On the Fan recently they were discussing the possibility of a six-man rotation with Mitch White healthy, as apparently the Jays’ starters pitch better with extra rest; there may also be conditioning concerns with Manoah (especially with the pitch clock). I was wondering if that’s something that could work, but I was thinking more so of a six-man rotation once Ryu is ready to return. What are your thoughts on that possibility?

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In 2021, Bichette stole 25 bases, and I thought that with the base size and rule changes this year, he could be a dark horse candidate for a 30/30 season. I think he has just one steal so far this year - is there any indication as to why he isn’t trying to steal more frequently? I know he has Vladdy up after him, but with the number of ground balls Vlad hits, I wonder if moving up that 90 feet could be helpful (keeping out of double plays for example).

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Just a quick follow up to my last question that I meant to include. While the cupboards are bare in the minors how do we improve what seems to be an absolutely god awful bench? Or, does sustainable mean sustained not very goodness?

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Hi Andrew: Love to hear your views on everything and am interested to hear what you think. I have two questions:

1. A couple of weeks into this slide and a nagging thought has been coming more and more to the forefront of my brain. Vlad Jr. has been hyped beyond belief and sold to us as a transcendent franchise player. The thing is, of course understanding he is still young, he has only really performed at that kind of level during one season mostly played in minor league parks. The larger sample size indicates that he is merely a very good player. When is the last time Vlad came up with BIG hits and BIG rbi on a consistent basis? Has the talent been evaluated incorrectly?

2. The front office, Mark Shapiro in particular, promised us a SUSTAINABLE championship level club ala the Dodgers. Unless I'm missing something, the minor league cupboards are bare, over the next three years we are going to lose (probably) Chapman, Bo, Vlad etc etc. Do you see a way to a sustainable model or is that just a pipe dream and Ross Atkins needs to go?

Thanks and keep up the great work!!

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founding

With Gurriel Jr going on a 15 game hit streak at precisely the same time Varsho has gone ice cold at the plate the Varsho trade is taking on a life of its own. There is obviously sound logic behind improving the teams DRS by taking a hit their overall OPS, as this seemed to be the guiding force behind the trade. While Varsho was not exactly tearing the cover off the ball in Arizona he definitely had a respectable 109 OPS+ and 27 bombs last year. The hope likely was that he would continue to continue to improve his bat. I guess I am wondering: did management overestimate Varsho's ability at the plate and did they move out too much offensive production in hopes of shoring up their defensive game? Is this a blip being magnified by Gurriels performance combined with the Jays pissing away divisional match ups? Or is this just Varsho? A guy who strikes out around 25% of the time, can hit some bombs, has an elite glove but most importantly was a left handed bat that Atkins desperately wanted as his team was right handed heavy? Or did we just trade two pretty good players for Randal Grichuk 2.0?

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So glad you are doing this. We can say 'it's early' and 'we're too good a team to underperform' etc. etc. and make a ton of rational excuses, but I don't think we can sugercoat the bottom line - we can't afford to keep playing like this and have many more extended losing streaks if we want to make the playoffs. Not when the rest of the AL East is so seemingly good.

I think the particular angst the fan base is feeling is that we (well some of us) have put a lot of faith in the Front Offices' process and goal of building a sustained winner. Well, we are now firmly in our competitive window period and have good success the last 3 years, but nothing really to show for it. Significant changes were made this year to really get us over that 'hump' so with the early struggles

there's that niggling feeling of 'What if it all doesn't work out?' Then what? There's no immediate help in the minors. Our depth is shocking. We've developed one home-grown starter in 7 years. Do we really need to start being critical of the Front Office? Maybe they and the team just aren't as good as we think we are - and that's both scary and depressing.

Nothing a 13 game winning streak won't fix though...

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founding

Hey Andrew.

Non-baseball question. I'm SIGNIFICANTLY older than you are and you, unknowingly, have been my tech guide. I searched the new-fangled-to-me internet to find Jays news and found Drunk Jays Fans (and Tao, and Drew, fuck Parkes). I tried to figure out how to get notifications when you posted. I subscribed to the Athletic when they scooped you up. I established my only social media account to follow you (and others; don't want to sound too creepy)on Twitter . I'm a paid subscriber to BatFlip. My question:

When Elon's Twitter devolves further into a Nazi hell-hole, where next?

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When do we celebrate Biggio's DFA?

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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.

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founding

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

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