Another Canadian Icon Traded - The 2015 Toronto Blue Jays Thread

Is it just me, or does Bautista seem to be in a weird place right now?

I think he's been playing hurt all season, but even at 75% he's still really good. The offense is so great that I'm fine if he settles into the Joe Carter role (low-BA with power, not good enough to carry the team but always a threat).

So Valencia's gone and Kawasaki's here (and starting today)? I seem to be the rare person who's not enamored of Kawasaki. I take it he's their sole backup infielder, otherwise I don't get that.

I'm not sure why Buerhle came out after only 89 pitches, I guess Gibbons felt obligated to use all his new toys right away.

Then again, contending teams with real bullpens should be able to turn leads over to the 'pen in the 8th, and Lowe had only given up one homer all season. I guess we're still not that kind of team.

I don't like him - this new guy.

Geez, when I ducked out it was 5-1 Jays.

If we had time machines it would be cool to travel back one year and say that we saw Tulo pinch hit for the Jays in the 9th inning of a game against the AL champion Royals.

We lost today, but the game (and the series) felt genuinely important.

Definitely feels vintage. 1) Last night, after they won, I picked up a pizza and there was a table of five guys in their 20s sitting in the restaurant. For the first time in forever I felt like saying, "Hey, Jays came back tonight." 2) I just sat in a parked car listening to the bottom of the ninth. Again, first time in forever.

Put this one down to the law of averages--Toronto had one three in a row, KC had lost three in a row.

Just so I'm not second-guessing: don't press your luck--Dickey's been great, put someone else in for the 8th.

Daniel Norris and the Tigers are leading the Orioles 6-1 and the 7th, and the guy we traded for Norris is sitting against the best team in the AL on his normal start day.

I guess I shouldn't complain because Dickey is pitching well and we're winning.

Either the greatest or the worst baseball name ever: Cheslor Cuthbert.

Wild! Pathetic umpiring.

i was at a thing and didn't catch any of the game – was it really that bad?!

So I'm reading the post game tweets and Volquez sounds like a wretched human being. Pretty much admitted to throwing at Donaldson. Why the fuck were the umps asleep at the wheel for all of this?!

It was that bad. The first-inning warning was questionable, in terms of what it sets in motion; not following through on subsequent HBP/close-calls with Donaldson and Tulowitzki was worse; ejecting Sanchez was preposterous.

what was the deal with throwing at Donaldson intentionally anyways? he had hit well so far this series so, they decide to bean him and then throw at his head? wtf?!

Yeah, it was bad. Gibbons getting tossed also made no sense -- the Royals were throwing at his guys after both benches had already been warned, what was he supposed to do? Talk about blaming the messenger.

The Jays are now running nine games behind their Pythagorean record (54-52 vs. 63-43). Their run differential is 561-455. How does that happen?

1) As they said many times on-air this weekend, they're 11-23 in one-run games.
2) Looking at all those green and red bars on Baseball Reference, they've lost one game this year by more than six runs (12-3 to Tampa in April). They've won ten such games.
3) Baseball Reference counts a blowout as 5+ runs. They're 22-6 in blowouts.

Oakland is running 10 games behind their Pythagorean. I'm guessing it's really rare to have two such teams like this in the same year.

did they Jays do this last year too? can some teams just be more prone to have a better pythagorean record without an expectation of a correction?

The record of a 14+-game differential ('93 Mets) seems to be out of reach. There's a list (compiled in 2007) of the biggest differentials here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3APythagorean_expectation

Teams that under- and over-performed are mixed together there. Teams with winning records near the top of the list are made up exclusively of teams that over-performed. If I'm reading correctly--the numbers are in a jumble--the Jays have a chance to be the worst under-performing winning team ever; right now it's the '70 Cubs, who won 84 games and should have won 94 (806 runs scored, 679 given up). Or we may start winning one-run games, or we may start losing some blowouts. I think I'd like to start winning one-run games and leave the Pythagorean record to the Cubs.

(xpost) Just barely--they won 83, Greek math says they should have won 85.

Patheticer and patheticer.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-sanchez-gibbons-suspended-by-mlb/

(I did wonder about Gibbons showing up on the field in the middle of the brawl--suspected that was a problem.)

Gibbons makes sense. I guess Sanchez does, in a technical sense. But there are more or less doubling down on the bullshit joke officiating.

I'm not big on conspiracy, but the radio guy pointed out something a little unseemly today: the umpire responsible for all this is the brother of Randy Wolf, who has been stuck in Buffalo all year with a 7-1/2.48 record. Would seem to be a conflict of interest.

I thought that was weird. But not sure how that would make him biased against the Jays tbh

It doesn't seem out of the question, as the Jays shuttle guys back and forth from Buffalo, and then acquire another reliever at the deadline, that he'd be angry that his brother--who's pitching really well this year--has not gotten a call-up. (Not that I disagree with the club; Randy Wolf will turn 39 in a couple of weeks.)

I looked him up online, and the league doesn't allow him to call balls and strikes when his brother's pitching (but didn't say he can't work the bases). I'd broaden that to anything involving any game with his brother's organization.

Estrada's been so key this year. The last few years, whenever I'd enviously look at the rotations of playoff teams, they seemed to always have a third or fourth starter who was flying completely under the radar. Estrada is that guy.

ya – never would have expected the performance we've gotten out of him.

stroman threw off a mound today (!), tentatively scheduled to begin a rehab assignment aug. 21

might make it into the pen for late Sept.

Man, I hope he makes it back. Drew Hutchinson is conspicuously on some other page right now. How long can you carry a starter with an almost-6.00 ERA?

sounds like there's no real chance of him starting.

while of course you trade away prospects to bolster a contender, maybe not quite to this extent of depletion

Did the Jays cross that line this year? Eleven pitchers in a week. Anyway, I know this is the Tigers thread.

hard to say! norris seems like maybe a lot to give up for a rental of price, but it's hard to argue with the tulo acquisition. (what a nightmare for hoffman, like eddie butler and jon gray before him, learning he now has to pitch in places like albuquerque and denver.) and tbh a lot of norris' buzz has been about 'wacky lefty bro' rather than experience.

all prospect rankings are suspect, but the tigers currently have no one in mlb.com's top 100. the jays still have pompey, who has had a nice second half, and vlad jr. at least, and they have young pitching in sanchez and stroman. for every prospect who turns into syndergaard (so far) there are half a dozen who wind up as kyle drabek. russell martin's contract will eventually probably be a drag, but they don't have aging failing stars like miggy and v-mart for decades to come. plus they're secretly a big-market team and there's a lot to be said for generating some excitement after missing the playoffs for 20 years. you too could be the royals!

Man, I hope he makes it back. Drew Hutchinson is conspicuously on some other page right now. How long can you carry a starter with an almost-6.00 ERA?
--clemenza

as long as your run differential is above 100

side note: the loonie is collapsing

LaTroy Hawkins has now recorded a save against all 30 teams, cool stat

might make it into the pen for late Sept.

But too late to be eligible for the playoffs? (yeah, maybe let's make the playoffs first and then worry about it)

apparently it's cool because he is on the dl.

this series went very well.

Toronto's first ever four game sweep of the Twins?

Things are going so well now, I know nobody's going to change anything. But: would it just be too weird/complicated/unworkable to give the 5th start in the cycle to Hutchinson at home and Sanchez on the road? Can't Lowe or Hawkins be the set-up guy on the road? That'd be five or six starts left for each of them.

Hutchinson's road ERA is 9.00.

If they were to switch places, I would think it would be permanent so it doesn't mess with their respective regimens by bouncing them back and forth.
To me, it's more likely that Hutchison just kinda sucks than any significant psychological issue with pitching on the road or whatever

Gregg Zaun's keys to victory this weekend: "Pitch well, swing the bats like you're capable, catch the ball."

Joe Schultz himself couldn't have said it any better.

I don't have a lot of faith in Bautista right now; he's probably still hurting, and when you mix in normal decline, he's pretty iffy in the three spot.

That was me, eight days ago. Bautista since: .294/.333/.706, 4 HR, 9 RBI.

Any other Blue Jays you don't have much faith in you'd care to list?!

Justin Smoak!

Ha!

Bautista faking out Ellsbury was beautiful.

I'm totally fine with the blue jays just destroying everybody in the division, with the red sox being basically eliminated if not mathematically so

also, yea, smoak, jesus christ