2025 World Series - Toronto Blue Jays vs Los Angeles Dodgers

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Does this run hide the fact that it's still a poorly constructed team for the 5th highest payroll? Is it a 'lucky' run? Or have the scouts got it right all along?

If they win the World Series, can they just tear up Vladdy's extension

Vladdy has proven that he is the player we all expected him to be.

Barger and Yesavage have emerged as stars.

Kirk has emerged as an elite catcher (I thought he was the wrong C to keep, but clearly I was totally wrong)

Sign Bo, get another bat, and that's a pretty good core to build around.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

For Jays fans this reminds me of the Flames 2004 cup run. A huge Game 5 win on the road in the Finals with a chance to win it all at home in Game 6. Except the Jays have Game 7 at home as well.

Go Jays, win it all tomorrow.

Had the exact same thought.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I think what's happening is a much larger phenomenon in the game of baseball than simply the Jays going on a 'lucky' run. This year's Blue Jays team represents the shift of the pendulum back towards more traditional fundamental baseball (Sound fundamental defense, situational hitting, putting the ball in play rather than binary outcome ABs like strike out or hit an XBH) that the recent rule changes like banning the shift and enlarging the bases were intending to stimulate. Rob Manfred gets a lot of flack publicly from the purists, but I believe he saved baseball by introducing the pitch clock, banning the shift, enlarging the bases, and introducing ABS system next year.

This shift in the game is new and as such I believe roster construction is going to majorly adapt in this era. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers still have a foot in the past era where their roster approach is still trying to buy enough 'runs in the aggregate' to make the playoffs and 'on average' win the most games. That approach can help ensure you have enough wins over 162 contests to get into the playoffs but can also be exposed in 'win now' postseason games when teams like the Jays put the ball in play and force players like Jazz Chisholm to field the ball in parts of the diamond he doesn't belong but is there because his bat contributes sufficient WAR to make the runs equation go around (another example of this was Varsho's triple last night with Teoscar's misadventure in Right Field). You can also see it in Dave Roberts managing approach. It took him to Game 5 to change his lineup despite being offensively challenged in 3 of the previous 4 games. The Dodgers are mostly sitting back and waiting for the law of averages to come around for their offense consisting of 'Superior WAR players' rather than change any approach. Sure guys like Betts, Freeman, Smith, Hernandez, Muncy over long time periods are going to get their hits, but you can't turn it on like a faucet.

If the Jays can close out this Series they can do more than just add the organizations 3rd WS banner to the rafters, they can ursher in a new era of baseball.

100%

The Jays are expediting the transition, but don't forget the Brewers - very similar team. I LOVE fundamental baseball, and I love small-ball. If this is indeed a shift back to that type of baseball, I could not be happier. It is so much better to watch good small-ball and putting pressure on the other team, and having to paly good defense, then to have everyone standing around, waiting for the next home run.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

For Jays fans this reminds me of the Flames 2004 cup run. A huge Game 5 win on the road in the Finals with a chance to win it all at home in Game 6. Except the Jays have Game 7 at home as well.

Go Jays, win it all tomorrow.

This always had Warriors vs Raptors vibes more to me. Right down to the talk of Dodgers being a dynasty and best collection of talent in history, just like that GSW team.

Raptors were up 3-2 in that series and won in 6.

Also split the first two games at home, only for Raptors to win 2 games on the road.

Hopefully that's the more relevant comparison and not the 04 one. Please just finish it in 6.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by flamingred89

Just catching wind of Snell's post game comments. What a butthurt turd. Basically insinuating that the Jays were "ambushing" his pitches and calling them lucky. Like they're just supposed to sit their and take a couple strikes because he's Blake Snell? Sure. Scoring 11 runs against you in 2 games is luck. What a clown.

I didn't read it as whining. He said they ambushed his fastball - which is exactly what they did. And what hitters often do, and are expected to do. It's just a baseball term. And he acknowledged that they should be doing that.

[HitterD]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Still there were many posts only a year ago lamenting the loss of offense and power. Read the doom and gloom of the 2024 season thread. Giving up Teoscar and Lourdis for small ball and defense. 74 wins wasn't promissing but what a turn around this year as the team simply does not strikeout.

And what changed, hiring Popkins as the hitting coach. What a turnaround under his coaching

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Overall, i think yo're right, baseball is headed in a different direction.
Look at the Cincinnati Reds.

The Reds this year were the first team in MLB history to have:

no qualifying batter hit .270
no batter hit 25 homers
no pitcher win 15 games
no pitcher notch 200 strikeouts

and make the playoffs

Reds might be an extreme outlier, but highlight the point that now with 3 Wild Card spots per league, teams who get 87+ wins basically are playoff teams. It's easier to make the playoffs, but harder to win in the playoffs now that there's 4 playoff rounds. Before you needed to ensure you won 95+ games to simply be in the playoffs so going all in on regular season roster approaches was the best approach for overall success. For teams who can afford talent in the top 25% of the league consistently it now deprioritizes roster strategies based on mean reversion over 162 games and shifts to in-game management and tuning the roster for those situational capabilities and flexibilities. This isn't death of Moneyball but rather an evolution away from making every roster decision devolve into a framework of buying runs / WAR.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by HitterD

And what changed, hiring Popkins as the hitting coach. What a turnaround under his coaching

Also, some patience - things don't always gel right away. Players, and teams, have good years and bad years (Springer being a poster boy for that).

[Scornfire]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

This always had Warriors vs Raptors vibes more to me. Right down to the talk of Dodgers being a dynasty and best collection of talent in history, just like that GSW team.

Raptors were up 3-2 in that series and won in 6.

Also split the first two games at home, only for Raptors to win 2 games on the road.

Hopefully that's the more relevant comparison and not the 04 one. Please just finish it in 6.

Flames also won in 6 tbf

It was in

[EN FUEGO]

Originally Posted by Scornfire

Flames also won in 6 tbf

It was in

It absolutely was TBQH.

[Roof-Daddy]

This team has been very good for a while now. Ross rebuilt it well. They have multiple 90+ win seasons in the toughest division in baseball and have been to the playoffs 4 out of 6 seasons since coming out of the rebuild.

It's funny to see people talk about this team like it came out of nowhere because they won 74 games last year and finished last in the AL east, but the truth is that the 74 win team was the outlier, not this team. The amount of players that underperformed their projections last year was insane.

Well, they ALL bounced back plus they found some more solid depth with guys like Ernie, Barger, Lukes and Giminez.

I really believe that a GM's job is to build a team that is good enough to get into the playoffs multiple times over a several year span, and at some point that team will hopefully catch lightening in a bottle and go on a run. All the teams in the playoffs are good teams, and sometimes the best team doesn't win, and you need some luck along the way to win a championship in addition to being good. Luckily this year they got in again and so many players have gotten hot at the right time, especially Vlad.

And even more good news is that they are setup to keep this success going for many more years as long as the players don't regress all at the same time again.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

This team has been very good for a while now. Ross rebuilt it well. They have multiple 90+ win seasons in the toughest division in baseball and have been to the playoffs 4 out of 6 seasons since coming out of the rebuild.

It's funny to see people talk about this team like it came out of nowhere because they won 74 games last year and finished last in the AL east, but the truth is that the 74 win team was the outlier, not this team. The amount of players that underperformed their projections last year was insane.

Well, they ALL bounced back plus they found some more solid depth with guys like Ernie, Barger, Lukes and Giminez.

I really believe that a GM's job is to build a team that is good enough to get into the playoffs multiple times over a several year span, and at some point that team will hopefully catch lightening in a bottle and go on a run. All the teams in the playoffs are good teams, and sometimes the best team doesn't win, and you need some luck along the way to win a championship in addition to being good. Luckily this year they got in again and so many players have gotten hot at the right time, especially Vlad.

And even more good news is that they are setup to keep this success going for many more years as long as the players don't regress all at the same time again.

The additions of Yesavage and Bieber were also key. Without those 2 guys, this run doesn't happen.

[kipperiggy]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

And with an offseason coming up where there are a plethora of starting pitching free agents and the fact that our rotation will have a few gaps - this bodes really, really well for attracting the top talent.

We have the money to spend and a winning team with a very positive environment. Really the ideal scenario

Please tell me Trey is signed for a long, long time.

[Jiggy_12]

The Jays posted this photo back at the start of the playoffs.

Pretty cool that Gausman has the ball tomorrow

https://twitter.com/user/status/1983736847844200928

[Jiggy_12]

Originally Posted by kipperiggy

Please tell me Trey is signed for a long, long time.

They’ve got his rights until 2031 I believe

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

https://twitter.com/user/status/1983751940543803805

Trey’s list of stats and records is truly unprecedented.

I’m sure I’ll come nowhere close to capturing them all:
- World Series record for strikeouts for a rookie in a single game

- Trey Yesavage struck out all nine batters in the Dodgers starting lineup, becoming the third pitcher in World Series history to strike out each batter in a starting lineup, joining Randy Johnson in Game 2 of the 2001 World Series and Bob Gibson in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series

- Game 5: 23 swings & misses for Trey Yesavage. That’s the most by a pitcher in a World Series game under pitch tracking (2008)

- 12 strikeouts, No walks. That’s the most strikeouts by a pitcher in a World Series game with no walks

- 10+ strikeouts in first 5 innings of a World Series game: Tonight Trey Yesavage & 1963 G1 Sandy Koufax

- most strikeouts by a blue jays pitcher in a single post season (39). Next closest David Price with 25


It’s honestly crazy.

[kipperiggy]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

For Jays fans this reminds me of the Flames 2004 cup run. A huge Game 5 win on the road in the Finals with a chance to win it all at home in Game 6. Except the Jays have Game 7 at home as well.

Go Jays, win it all tomorrow.

Kipper = Yesavage - huge contributor to our success comes out of nowhere
Iggy = Vladdy - star player takes it to another level in the playoffs

I'm sure there's more?!

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

I think what's happening is a much larger phenomenon in the game of baseball than simply the Jays going on a 'lucky' run. This year's Blue Jays team represents the shift of the pendulum back towards more traditional fundamental baseball (Sound fundamental defense, situational hitting, putting the ball in play rather than binary outcome ABs like strike out or hit an XBH) that the recent rule changes like banning the shift and enlarging the bases were intending to stimulate. Rob Manfred gets a lot of flack publicly from the purists, but I believe he saved baseball by introducing the pitch clock, banning the shift, enlarging the bases, and introducing ABS system next year.

This shift in the game is new and as such I believe roster construction is going to majorly adapt in this era. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers still have a foot in the past era where their roster approach is still trying to buy enough 'runs in the aggregate' to make the playoffs and 'on average' win the most games. That approach can help ensure you have enough wins over 162 contests to get into the playoffs but can also be exposed in 'win now' postseason games when teams like the Jays put the ball in play and force players like Jazz Chisholm to field the ball in parts of the diamond he doesn't belong but is there because his bat contributes sufficient WAR to make the runs equation go around (another example of this was Varsho's triple last night with Teoscar's misadventure in Right Field). You can also see it in Dave Roberts managing approach. It took him to Game 5 to change his lineup despite being offensively challenged in 3 of the previous 4 games. The Dodgers are mostly sitting back and waiting for the law of averages to come around for their offense consisting of 'Superior WAR players' rather than change any approach. Sure guys like Betts, Freeman, Smith, Hernandez, Muncy over long time periods are going to get their hits, but you can't turn it on like a faucet.

If the Jays can close out this Series they can do more than just add the organizations 3rd WS banner to the rafters, they can ursher in a new era of baseball.

That was a very catchable ball in right, or at minimum keep it in front of you so its just a double (and Varsho doesn't score on a double there I don't think).

I bet Barger catches that. Sure is too bad the Dodgers don't have a Barger...

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I lol'd

https://thestarphoenix.com/feature/l...skatoon-rioted

Thirty-two years ago, Toronto won the World Series — and then Saskatoon rioted

A Globe and Mail story in the aftermath of the Oct. 23 victory talked about how well-behaved fans in Toronto were. The headline read: ‘Jubilant fans party peacefully in Jays’ honour.’ Further down in the article, the reporter noted: “The celebration, however, was not so peaceful in Saskatoon.”

It was North America’s only baseball-inspired riot that night. It involved an estimated 4,000 people — most of them youths and young adults — along with $200,000 in property damage, tear gas, billy clubs, smashed windows, 14 arrests.

“Once it started, one thing led to another thing, led to another thing,” van Meenen says. “And by the time it was done, everybody was looking at each other like, ‘What the heck just happened?’

“A lot of debris was being thrown at you — rocks, bottles, bricks, chunks of lumber coming out of the crowd,” Dave Haye, a Saskatoon police inspector who found himself in the midst of the mob that night, told the SP in a 2011 retrospective story.

Spoiler!

There's even links to a previous retrospective on the brutality and savagery of Saskatoonians that night.

https://thestarphoenix.com/news/loca...-lost-its-mind

On October 23, 1993, the Toronto Blue Jays repeated as World Series champions.

Thousands of people in Saskatoon flooded Eighth Street to celebrate, but jubilation turned to chaos when some in the crowd began vandalizing businesses and attacking police. The riot act was read, police deployed tear gas, 14 people were arrested and the Jays didn’t return to the playoffs for another 22 years.

Coleman: I got real lucky. Some friends of mine were pepper sprayed. It was chaos. … You have drinking and probably some kids doing drugs. Partying and the mob mentality – like Lord of the Flies.

Loehr: We were walking and there was some idiot jumping on the hoods of these cars (at dealerships on Eighth Street) and somebody came out and they had like an orange vest, like a security thing, and he started throttling this kid. We knew things were getting out of hand. I remember some of the places were locking their doors in anticipation of, I don’t know, maybe looting.

Spoiler!

[kipperiggy]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I lol'd

https://thestarphoenix.com/feature/l...skatoon-rioted

Thirty-two years ago, Toronto won the World Series — and then Saskatoon rioted

Spoiler!

There's even links to a previous retrospective on the brutality and savagery of Saskatoonians that night.

https://thestarphoenix.com/news/loca...-lost-its-mind

Spoiler!

LOL my curling teammate was just telling the story of picking up her two daughters from the scene.