The All-Star and Draft Grab Bag!
On All-Star festivities, more Charlie fallout, top draft pick Brandon Berriera, the rest of the draft, why Juan Soto ain't coming to Toronto, Vlad vs. Arash, the WBC, Rob Manfred's balls, and more!
OK, so the Jays’ managerial switcheroo really threw me for a loop there over the last little bit, meaning I’ve got a whole lot for us to catch up on today.
The (interesting part of the) draft has happened! The home run derby has happened! Tons of Juan Soto trade speculation has happened! And more!
So let’s round it all up…
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The All-Star Game
• I won’t claim to be a huge All-Star game guy, but it’s always nice to see players get recognized and how much it means to them. Jays fans got an up close glimpse of that a couple of times this week, when the club released videos of the surprise announcements they made to Santiago Espinal and Jordan Romano — both late additions to the AL All-Star squad.
• It will be quite a night for a pair of Blue Jays battery-mates, it turns out:
• OK, so maybe there end up being a ton of All-Stars these days. Ken Rosenthal got weird about it on Twitter this week and counted 80 this year, which represents more than 10% of the league. Thing is, we all see enough of those Baseball Savant rankings to know that being in the 90th percentile or above is pretty special. So kudos to all six of the Jays’ representatives — the five pictured above, plus George Springer. Hell, I might even tune in for a bit!
• Speaking of Springer, he has played in 82 of the Blue Jays' 93 games so far, which maybe feels higher than you would have expected. He's played the outfield in 78 of those games too, which definitely feels higher. Ahh, but here’s the rub: he's started a game in the outfield just 57 times — only about 60% of all of the team’s games played so far. That feels exactly right. It also feels like something I’d hope will change a bit down the stretch! It was always clear that a measure of caution would be needed when it comes to Springer's health, but this feels a touch heavy-handed, doesn't it?
More Charlie fallout
• Something I found interesting about the clips of Espinal and Romano mentioned above was the fact that, while we’ve long seen plenty of behind the scenes stuff from the great Alykhan Ravjiani and the Jays’ social team, I’m not sure I recall a ton that actually took place in the clubhouse during what was supposed to be a team meeting. This could entirely be down to my faulty memory, or simply the fact that there’s really no reason but announcements like that to stage something in the clubhouse, but I’d be lying if I said my brain hadn’t noticed how quickly we’d been given a couple of glimpses into the inner sanctum here in the John Schneider era. A purposeful contrast perhaps?
• Speaking of the Jays’ managerial situation and contrasts, reader Evan May made what I thought was a pretty astute observation in the comments on my recent post about the club’s decision — that something was different from the kinds of post-firing stories one normally sees.
“It may be just the way the stories were written,” he says, “but one thing that has been notable by its absence to me was the usually stock quote from a player saying ‘This is on us not doing our jobs well enough, we let the manager down.’ Maybe that was just too boring a thing for anyone to put in their piece, but it's hard not to conclude from what is out there that it was not a happy ship.”
• We don’t even necessarily have to read between the lines on this, as my friend and former colleague, Kaitlyn McGrath of the Athletic, got a player to anonymously address some of this exact stuff. “When you’re 1-9, you’re looking for someone to come in and either kick you in the ass or pump you up, just something, some guidance,” the player told her. "And you could have it as players, for sure, and we did, but you really do need it coming from the top and that just wasn’t happening.”
• As for the notion that the players maybe aren’t taking as much accountability for this as you’d expect, here’s something else the player told Kaitlyn. ““You have to look at yourself as players, too. If we were playing better, this wouldn’t have been as much of an issue, but we weren’t, so you’re looking for leadership and a lot of us felt like it wasn’t really there.”
Yikes.
• What do we make of it all? Well, these are competitive guys and I’m sure aren’t immune to the same kinds of instincts fans have — that a proper leader isn’t a guy who is too sunny, too soft, too quiet, too afraid to push back at higher-ups. I’m not sure that’s true, but if they feel they need more of a guy they want to go to war with, who am I to tell them they don’t? I do certainly wonder, as I did in my piece, if Charlie was simply caught between being the nurturing cog he was paid to be — and had been since he arrived here — and the kind of voice the team felt they needed, and didn’t know what to do. I’m not sure he was wrong that suddenly turning into more of that rah-rah leader wouldn’t have come off as panicky, either.
The Draft (Round 1)
• Speaking of competitive guys, how about that speech that the Blue Jays’ first draft pick, Brooklyn-born high school lefty Brandon Barriera, who grew up a Yankees fan, made during his first interview after being selected??? “Ding— opportunity. Dong— freedom. Ding— excellent schools. Dong— quality hospitals.”
I kid, I kid. An emotional Barriera, after a nice moment when we saw shots of his equally choked-up father, composed himself and — referring to the fact that he was selected at pick number 23 — said, “looking at those 22 teams before me, they’re gonna regret this.”
Lmao. You love to see it.
• As for what selecting Barriera means, what he’ll bring, as well as the other Jays’ choices of note, I can really only defer to the experts. On that front the team’s work seems to be fairly well regarded. Keith Law summed it up for the Athletic by saying that he "like(d) the Blue Jays' draft quite a bit, even though they took a high school arm in the first round — which historical data does not support — because 1) they did take a really, really good high school arm and 2) they backed it up with three solid position players who have a chance to stay up the middle and have reasonable floors."
• Barriera, who will spurn a commitment to powerhouse NCAA program Vanderbilt (assuming he takes the Jays’ millions), doesn’t have a ton of projection left, according to Law, but doesn’t need it.
• The challenge for Barriera will be throwing strikes, and that’s something Ross Atkins told reporters he’s willing to accept on high-upside arms like this (Barriera was the top prep lefty in the class and can touch 98 with his fastball, though generally sits lower). “We’re shooting for really high outcomes with our pitchers,” Atkins told reporters, including Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “We’re looking for more velocity, looking for more depth to their pitches and knowing that command comes potentially at an expense when you’re hunting those things.”
• You certainly don’t dislike stuff like this:
• Could Barriera, despite being a prep arm, get to the majors fairly quickly? He seems to think so.
Ricky Tiedemann
• The Blue Jays are, indeed, not afraid to bring up younger guys, as this week it was also revealed that Ricky Tiedemann, who was picked in the third round, 91st overall, last year, but has raced up prospect rankings thanks largely to an impressive velocity increase as a pro, will be moved up to Double-A when the minor league season restarts this week. (First reported by TSN’s Scott Mitchell).
• Tiedemann made just six starts at Dunedin early on this year (49 Ks in 30 IP, 1.80 ERA) before being moved up to Vancouver, who ultimately will have only had him for eight (54 Ks in 37 2/3 IP, 2.39 ERA). That is quite a rise for a third-round guy out of junior college in his first full pro season.
• I'm not sure he's anywhere near as likely as former/future teammate Yosver Zulueta to be in consideration to help the Blue Jays' bullpen down the stretch — not only is Zulueta 24 years old to Tiedemann's 19, he also will have to be added to the club's 40-man roster this winter in order to protect him from being selected in the Rule 5 draft anyway — that puts him in an incredible position to potentially help the Jays' rotation as early as some point next season. And given the way their depth has been tested so far this year — and could still ultimately fail them in a massive way — that's massive.
The Draft (the rest of it)
• As KLaw mentioned, the Jays took some pretty interesting names with their other Day One picks, as well — and as the case of Tiedemann shows us, these are names worth paying attention to.
• At 60th overall they took Josh Kasevich, a right-handed hitting shortstop from the University of Oregon. He's not an out-and-out thumper, but would appear to have excellent bat control given the fact that he not only walked more often than he struck out this season, he barely struck out at all. In 277 plate appearances he struck out just 17 time. He is a solid defender.
• KLaw's "reasonable floor" comment strikes me when reading about Kasevich's profile, but that's OK. In a really good summary for the Toronto Star, Gregor Chisholm notes that "per MLB Pipeline, Kasevich was the only player the Jays selected ahead of his ranking (No. 60 vs. No. 67). Barriera (23 vs. 15), Toman (77 vs. 35) and Doughty (78 vs. 55) were picked well below." They were more aggressive elsewhere.
• Toman is Tucker Toman, a switch-hitting high school third baseman who is committed to LSU, but seems certain to join the Jays on an over slot deal. They say he may have to eventually move to an even less valuable defensive home, but this pick is all about the well-rounded bat. A switch hitter? The Blue Jays? Yes, please.
• I’m certainly not putting this as a comp on the young man, but you get some definite Bo Bichette vibes here, as Toman speaks about being “close with some things” but that “we really wanted to go to the Blue Jays.” Having a commitment to a strong program like LSU really gives these guys leverage — you love to see it! And you love to see the Blue Jays taking advantage.
• Speaking of LSU and third basemen, Doughty is a third baseman from LSU (though he played mostly second this spring). A right-handed hitter with an open stance, he's... a guy? I don't know!
• The Jays also drafted a bunch of guys on Day Two! Some senior relievers just to help make the money work, even. 🤷♂️
Juan Soto
• It’s obviously important for the Jays to have replenished their system a bit here because — at least according to all the latest internet chatter — they ought to be moving heaven and earth and anyone not named Vlad or Manoah in order to get Nationals slugger Juan Soto.
• Fresh off a win in Monday night’s Home Run Derby, Soto recently rejected a $440 million offer from Washington, and the team will apparently entertain offers for him. The Blue Jays are certainly a team that could use one of the greatest left-handed hitters in the game — an on-base machine with power who is under club control for two more years after this one. They could possibly even offer a package that makes the Nationals think about moving him here. That, of course, depends on how desperate the Nationals are to move Soto, what the market is, and what their timeframe will be after the trade is made.
• Frankly, I think people are going to drive themselves mad trying to figure out how to make the value work on a deal like this, and then — if it even happens — he’ll end up getting moved to the Yankees or the Dodgers for something stupid. There really isn’t much point in wasting energy on this. But if we must…
• The talk in Jays circles online seems to be about whether Bo Bichette should be offered up in a deal for Soto. I don’t see why not, though I also think that a lot of that sentiment exists because people see Bo continue to be aggressive and think "he's not developing” as opposed to "he's aggressive," and see him put up pedestrian numbers at the plate and think that’s who he now is as opposed to an ebb. It’s not impossible that Bichette could end up not being as good as we thought he was going to be, but this one feels like it’s got a lot of recency bias in it. I also think a league-average half season at the plate from a guy you can play at shortstop every day as a kind of worst-case scenario is way more valuable than some realize.
• Why would Washington want Bo, though? To burn a year or two of his trade value and then potentially have to trade him for more prospects? Because that sounds like a great way to really diminish their returns on an incredible talent. Why would they want any big league player right now, unless it’s someone with barely any service time? They’re not good this year. They’d keep Soto if they thought they were going to be good next year and the year after. Maybe they’ll be good in 2024? But if you’re only going to maybe be good in 2024, your first realistic championship shot is going to be 2025, and that’s Bo’s last year before free agency. Maybe they think they can extend him at less than Soto and are fine with that, but that’s a lot of wasted value. We’ve talked throughout the Shapiro-Atkins rebuilding project about how important it was to capitalize on Bo and Vlad’s contracts before they started making “real” money — how valuable it is to get a ton of projected WAR for a relatively little amount of money. To throw someone like that back into a rebuilding situation negates that aspect of his contract’s value.
• Unfortunately for Jays fans and their aspirations here, I think Gabriel Moreno is theoretically a much more viable centrepiece to any Soto deal. Moreno is one of the best prospects in the game. He has already shown he can have success in the upper minors, and has even touched the big leagues. Even with that being the case, he has very little service time, and could be realistically held back until the middle of next season, pushing his free agency back until after 2029. I say this is unfortunate because the Nationals acquired young catcher Keibert Ruiz, who went into this season as the number 11 prospect in the game according to Baseball America, in last summer’s Max Scherzer/Trea Turner trade with the Dodgers. Ruiz has played 73 games so far this season for the Nats.
• So that all makes it pretty tough to see the Jays getting anything done here. Could they make a three-team deal, sending Bo elsewhere for prospects and then fulfilling the Nationals’ needs that way? Sure! Why not? Could they replenish their own prospect stock by moving a corner outfielder somewhere, in order to accommodate Soto defensively? I suppose so! Do we really need to think about this any further? Not really!
Bits and bobs
• I don’t really have a ton to say about the Jays’ series against the Royals over the weekend. Obviously it wasn’t super impressive to (barely) beat up on a team that couldn’t send ten of its players across the border, but we’re also talking about a sport here where even the worst team has a pretty decent chance in every game. It’s not nothing.
• It wasn’t exactly the 13-strikeout performance he managed in his previous start, but I think it was pretty big for José Berríos to have closed out his first half going 6 1/3 innings, allowing just a pair of runs, walking only one batter, and striking out seven. Strikeouts aren’t the biggest part of his game, but his ability to get them has certainly mapped fairly well to his success this year, which is something I pointed out prior to Sunday’s game using this chart from Props.cash — player prop research made easy!
His seven strikeouts of the Royals means there will be another green column on this chart the next time he pitches — making that not only the first time he’s reached six strikeouts in three straight games this year, but the first time he’s reached that threshold in two! Hopefully — hopefully — he really has taken a step in the right direction.
• I’ll admit I chuckled a little when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. dousing Sportsnet’s Arash Madani with the Gatorate (or BioSteel, or whatever the hell it is) after Saturday’s win, and that I may have be known to groan from time to time when certain segments on my TV come off like their straight out of “Bart’s People,” but I don’t know about this one, man. If he’s not in on the joke, that’s kinda not cool, Vlad.
• That said, I was reminded after this that there may be some simmering beef between the two. Back in 2019, Arash quoted Vlad as saying that he had never worked out at the gym before, and had never lifted weights. After it caused a stir, Vlad was compelled to respond. Here's how the great John Lott described it:
“Guerrero opened a scrum today in the dugout with a statement to ‘clarify’ the situation. ‘He was misunderstood,’ interpreter Hector Lebron said. ‘No, no,’ Vlad interjected, with a retort in Spanish. Lebron then said: ‘It was written the wrong way.’”
Hmmm.
• Moving on, from the “Things You Love To See” to see file:
• Also from the “Things You Love To See” file, as well as the “Rob Manfred’s balls” file: Rob Manfred telling reporters, “I reject the premise that minor league's aren't paid a living wage.”
(You don’t love to see this because it’s true, obviously. You love it because it’s Manfred giving the dumbest, most ghoulish and out-of-touch answer possible, which can only help the cause of those on the other side. Be sure to follow @MiLBAdvocates if you’re on Twitter.)
• Lastly, just because it’s the All-Star break doesn’t mean that Nick and I will be taking one. Catch us with another live episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour on Thursday at 5 PM ET!
Be sure to get Callin and follow Blue Jays Happy Hour so that you can join us then — and on our next one, which will be at the conclusion of Sunday’s Jays game against the Red Sox! And if you’ve missed any of our recent shows, you can find us on your podcast app of choice, such as Apple, Spotify, or Google.
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re player’s taking responsibility for Montoyo firing
I can’t remember where I read it or maybe I saw it in a video clip, but Stripling said during the post game interview after his last start, the day Charlie was fired, that if they’d played better Charlie wouldn’t have been fired. I just did a quick search and couldn’t find the article but here’s a tweet of the quote.
https://twitter.com/MitchBannon/status/1547408141939269636
Not saying there hasn’t been an absence of this sort of thing. I’ll readily admit that I can’t personally comment on that part since I’ve mostly tuned out of the daily coverage. (I’m saving myself the pain of wading through that shit by subscribing to this newsletter!) But just wanted to point out that at least one player had the decency to say the obvious and take some responsibility.
Also, just to be clear, I’m not a paid member just for your shit filtration services. I really value the other stuff you do, too, like podcasting while drunk. That’s the quality content that deserves support!
I was equally surprised to see the clubhouse clip because it was the first time I'd seen something quite like that. The leadership thing is interesting. Clearly elite big-ego athletes need it too...and not just from within their own circles. The 'a lot of us' quote is telling for sure. Maybe they didn't like his bongo playing? But does it also mean that leadership has to come from the Manager and not the coaches? Schneider was a coach...is there some unwritten rule that coaches stay quiet and defer to the Manager? These are the sorts of questions I'd like to ask you and Nick, but always forgot to when I'm struggling to find the un-mute button.
Soto - some of the packages I've seen suggested (not just from the Jays) seem like waayyyyy too much. He's a great player, but geez. Still....I'm not convinced Bichette is our foundation shortstop. It would be nice to dream of Trea Turner or Bogaerts coming our way as free agents, but both are right-handed batters and both will make a stupid amount of money on long-term contracts and the words 'Javier Baez' come to mind in that regard.