On Marcus Semien's departure, the addition of Yimi García, Gausman rumours, a whirlwind of activity around the league, the upcoming CBA fight, and more!
Bob Ritchie's analysis is a bit odd in its conclusion of Gausman's 'late bloomer' status. Ray has been the same only worse. Gausman's trajectory has been one of mostly steady progress and Ray much more up and down. While I've not logged the hours watching Gausman as Ray what I noted is how fine Ray's margin of error is. If his slider isn't nigh perfect with a late, hard bite batters can recognize it and camp on his fastball (though it is surely a wonder to behold when he's got it!).
Gausman! Phew! Wow....guess it's not that hard a sell as per my previous comment. In fact, the Front Office seems to be pretty darn good at selling Toronto. Based on some other reports, he seems to be a good person - fits right into the desired team culture model.
Love the Jay's model for team culture. Making millions of dollars to play baseball for a living should be fun, no? While I get plenty of flak for not having any interest in baseball's high- performance divas (Stroman anyone?) I never wish to see them on my favourite team no matter how good they are. Despite all the statistics baseball has a lot of intangible factors that go into creating a winning team. Charlie Montoyo excels in those areas. All the haters can get bent!
Sigh...it would have been so good to have Semien back, but I think it was fait accompli that he was going to move on. Texas is an interesting choice though. Presumably he had a ton of lucrative offers, but in terms of wanting to win a World Series....Texas? There's lots of other teams with more upside over the next 7 years (including the Jays) than Texas. But he's got his reasons.
I think one of Gausman/Ray is kind of a must, but despite getting Ryu and Springer, I still wonder how much of a hard sell it is for us to attract US born players and I wonder how much COVID is a factor. Hmmmm.
Nice to see a more balanced view on Semien Rob. It is sad how many fans turned on him and suddenly painted him as the dirt worst human to ever don a baseball uniform (spoiler: It's Ty Cobb). I was sorely tempted to post a field of crying babies gif on occasion but since I'm all about raising the bar of online discourse I refrained from such low-brow taunting.
The many comments from Berríos at the media event for his signing highlighted the serious draw Toronto has become for US players. One reason is the successful team culture plan that makes the Jays a great team to play for. The other being of course that they're now a seriously contending team. But there is a big third factor emphasized by Josê. To borrow a Stoetenism, a factor of great importance to particular *COUGH* non-white *COUGH*COUGH* players in terms of their SAFETY!
Bob Ritchie's analysis is a bit odd in its conclusion of Gausman's 'late bloomer' status. Ray has been the same only worse. Gausman's trajectory has been one of mostly steady progress and Ray much more up and down. While I've not logged the hours watching Gausman as Ray what I noted is how fine Ray's margin of error is. If his slider isn't nigh perfect with a late, hard bite batters can recognize it and camp on his fastball (though it is surely a wonder to behold when he's got it!).
Gausman! Phew! Wow....guess it's not that hard a sell as per my previous comment. In fact, the Front Office seems to be pretty darn good at selling Toronto. Based on some other reports, he seems to be a good person - fits right into the desired team culture model.
Love the Jay's model for team culture. Making millions of dollars to play baseball for a living should be fun, no? While I get plenty of flak for not having any interest in baseball's high- performance divas (Stroman anyone?) I never wish to see them on my favourite team no matter how good they are. Despite all the statistics baseball has a lot of intangible factors that go into creating a winning team. Charlie Montoyo excels in those areas. All the haters can get bent!
Sigh...it would have been so good to have Semien back, but I think it was fait accompli that he was going to move on. Texas is an interesting choice though. Presumably he had a ton of lucrative offers, but in terms of wanting to win a World Series....Texas? There's lots of other teams with more upside over the next 7 years (including the Jays) than Texas. But he's got his reasons.
I think one of Gausman/Ray is kind of a must, but despite getting Ryu and Springer, I still wonder how much of a hard sell it is for us to attract US born players and I wonder how much COVID is a factor. Hmmmm.
Nice to see a more balanced view on Semien Rob. It is sad how many fans turned on him and suddenly painted him as the dirt worst human to ever don a baseball uniform (spoiler: It's Ty Cobb). I was sorely tempted to post a field of crying babies gif on occasion but since I'm all about raising the bar of online discourse I refrained from such low-brow taunting.
The many comments from Berríos at the media event for his signing highlighted the serious draw Toronto has become for US players. One reason is the successful team culture plan that makes the Jays a great team to play for. The other being of course that they're now a seriously contending team. But there is a big third factor emphasized by Josê. To borrow a Stoetenism, a factor of great importance to particular *COUGH* non-white *COUGH*COUGH* players in terms of their SAFETY!