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Simon Pond's avatar

I also remember remember Shultz and even Ryan Tepera being kinda good first half of ;15, although as relief pitchers do, they tended to give up some gut wrenching home runs. I remember the Jays were in Seattle about a week before the Tulo trade, and they lost of 2 of 3. Shultz gave up a go ahead bomb in the 8th on the Friday night, and the the Mariners walked off Tepera in extras after the Jays had gone ahead in the previous half inning.

The key thing you mentioned in the Springer portion thing was "they don't want to be bidding against themselves." I think that's where they're at right now, considering by all accounts, the Mets are the only other team serious about him. What else might be hurting the Jays here (and its been downplayed elsewhere, but I think it is huge factor) is where the fuck the team is playing this year due to the pandemic? If you're Springer, and you know the Jays really really want you, and are willing to overpay, why would you sign before you have some sort of clarity regarding this? You'd also want to give the Mets every opportunity to make a competitive offer since they know where they're playing. Just a thought.

As for Hendriks, I read somewhere his 2019 and 2020 were like 2002 Eric Gagne. I already said this in the other post, but please spend the fuck out of Rogers money.

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Andrew Stoeten's avatar

Good points on all of this. The hope on Springer and the "where are they playing thing" -- and I forget who I saw tweeting about this the other day, but it's not my original thought -- is maybe it's not so bad if they're in Dunedin, because it won't require moving from their spring site to somewhere else. I don't know where he resides now, but if he signs a huge deal with the Jays, he probably is going to get a Florida place, so he's either there or in Toronto. Hopefully that's not nearly as unappealing as suddenly being sent to Buffalo. And hopefully, if we ever start actually vaccinating people in this province, at some point they'll be able to be back in Toronto this year anyway. But you're right, it's a concern.

My other hope is that he doesn't want to make any more enemies in the union than being on the Astros has done, so he takes the biggest cheque in front of him. That can be a factor for a lot of guys too.

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Mike MacDougall's avatar

Jeff Francis was on the 2015 team??

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Simon Pond's avatar

A lot of mop up duty that year, I guess. The Jays scored a lot of runs, and had many scored against them, at least until July 28th, lol.

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Andrew Stoeten's avatar

He pitched 14 times (said 22 in an earlier comment, which I deleted). Entirely unbelievable to me too, but apparently true!

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Alan Simpson's avatar

Things were so dire early in 2015 that I was excited about Bo Schultz.

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Player to be Named Later's avatar

Good times :)

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Andrew Stoeten's avatar

He was good that year! I loved the story about his beer-league softball days, too. https://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/06/bo-schultz-williamsburg-brooklyn-softball-toronto-blue-jays-mlb

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Alan Simpson's avatar

He was dynamite! Great feel good story.

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