Stoeten
@stoeten
Baseball and things.
ICYMI, I dug into the blog archives to tell the crazy story of the Blue Jays in early 2007. It's 13,000 words of Ricciardi-era chaos feat. Gibbers and Griffins, the Beej, Frank the Tank, Wednesdays with JP, the great Roy Halladay & more! They're not lies if we know the truth...
"The Blue Jays have no chance." OK, wow it must have really sucked to be the Red Sox and Orioles until, like, a week ago then. (Hint: True.)
From the piece: look at how beautifully Louis Varland is commanding everything (bottom) as compared to last season (top)
From the post: If Yesavage pitches on normal rest after today he'd go on the 8th, 13th, and 18th. With the off days and how the Jays are now lined up, if they just roll with four starters beginning with Lauer on Sunday, the next day they'd need a 5th starter is... the 18th.
His curve generated more swing-and-miss last year than any pitch from any pitcher but one—in case you’re wondering why the Jays have given him so much rope
Interesting perhaps only to me: the Jays have announced an upcoming media conference with Okamoto and “his attorney” Scott Boras. Not a usual desciptor. Something to do with the posting system I’d guess?
Writing was on the wall that his spot was going to be in peril as a non-optionable guy who was way down the bullpen pecking order. Velo drop from 96.9 (Jun) to 94.7 (Aug) scary. Not surprised there wasn’t trade interest, but a little surprised they did it now. $11m still owed.
Outstanding. Was absolutely insane to have a scheduled off-day on the Friday for a team that plays under a dome!
They haven't been this team in the playoffs so far, but I need the regular season version of the Jays who were comically better versus splitters than any other team to show up against Yamamoto tonight. Get Trajekting boys!
League average wOBA this season was .313, and in the postseason it's down to .300. In 16 playoff games the Blue Jays have produced a wOBA of .347 or better against their opponent's starter 11 times.
Since May 1st, including the playoffs, the Blue Jays have the highest wOBA in baseball and it's not particularly close.
Ed Sprague one of the random headshots on Baseball Reference today? Jays in six.
100% true re: missed opportunities, unfortunately “can’t expect to win if you only score two” kinda goes out the window when you get six outs from winning 2-1 and do something insane. Hoffman (the correct move) would have been just as potentially bad but 6000x more defensible.
And now five more games in a row before a day off. Won the game but that ridiculous home run call will have knock-on effects for days.
Bo's second opinion was positive but has ruled him out for the regular season. I think he gets back in time for the playoffs. I also think he's very possibly played his last game at short for the Blue Jays. Even if he re-signs this winter, it's going to be tough dislodging Giménez considering...
Mentioned in my piece last night that Randal Grichuk had a Grade I sprain in 2018 and missed just about exactly a month. Obviously everybody’s injury and recovery will be different but with the urgency of the playoffs if this at all similar it feels like he should be back. ALDS starts Oct 4th.
Springer was 87th of 134 qualified hitters by wRC+ in 2023, 108th of 129 last season, and slightly below average (99) over that entire 1,300 PA span. This season he's up to 162, ranking third behind only Judge and Ohtani. You're goddamn right he's the Comeback Player of the Year.
Savour it, because next year we see'll way fewer intra-division series in September. Last five series next year: TOR: BAL, DET, TEX, BAL, CIN NYY: NYM, MIN, ARI, TBR, BAL BOS: KCR, TEX, TBR, CLE, CHC
Thanks so much for brininging that to my attention. Possible to get a screenshot? And is it possible you’ve got a different currency set on your end? Because it all looks fine for me. (Pardon the dusty monitor)
Re: Springer DHing lately, as they were just mentioning on the broadcast… It’s been a lot worse than it’s felt!
Dog sitting last summer… grabbing something from the car… dog jumped in as soon as I opened the door… had a few beverages so I told her we could only go to the end of the driveway… got to the road and had to wait for a car to pass before turning around… said out loud “Is that the Google Maps car?”