Toronto Blue Jays 2017 regular season thread

[Inferno]

I'm done too. I still hope they can pull off a miracle but I'm sick of watching them blow games with one bad inning.

[Roof-Daddy]

The only hopes I'm clinging to:

1. This team has been a great second half team the last two seasons
2. They are finally getting healthy
3. Everybody but Smoak is underachieving this season

Here's to hoping everything clicks into place.

[calculoso]

And tonight against Verlander and the terrible Detroit pen, it is 7-1 Jays

[Resolute 14]

The only thing worse than Detroit's bullpen is the outfield grass at Comerica.

[GirlySports]

Hope the Jays can get on a run. The AL is wide open. Something amazing is that all AL teams are closer to the wildcard then all NL teams. Within 6.5 games.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Second half of the season kicks-off tonight in Detroit. Starts a 10 game road trip for the Jays.

Anyone with some second half predictions? Here are mine:

1) Smoak doesn't fall off a cliff like Saunders did last year and ends up with 40+ HR and 90+ RBI
2) No big name player will be traded at the deadline
3) Jays will finish the season with 85 wins but end up fourth in the division, missing the post-season

1) Jays don't make any significant deals until the off-season (moreso for business purposes not wanting fan support to drop off). I do see Donaldson, Bautista, Pillar all dealt for prospects in the off-season.
2) The second half of the season is just as mediocre as the first half. I don't care to extrapolate, but they nonetheless won't make the playoffs by 10 games.
3) Tulowitzki will have a marginally better second half, and will be dealt during next season's deadline.

[Sylvanfan]

Estrada looks like a guy who will get the DFA pretty soon. He has to have spot on control or he's pretty much tossing slow pitch. Montero is also awful. At one point in my life I think I could throw better than he is right now.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Every start is costing Estrada millions of dollars that he could have made in free agency. A pitcher with an 87 mph fastball without any command isn't going to garner much interest.

[Karl]

Is this just a bad year for Marco or is this him completely fallen off the cliff.

[Karl]

Or a massive market correction for his outstanding last two years.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Estrada has always relied on smoke and mirrors. It looks like the smoke has dissipated and the mirrors are broken.

[Karl]

Tulo. Come on man, that was a routine ground ball.

[Karl]

Well congrats, Montero. You FINALLY threw out someone. Gold star for you!

[ben voyonsdonc]

The biggest thing about Estrada is that he just isn't consistently hitting his spots on any of his pitches. He needs pinpoint command to be successful...he has such little margin for error with his stuff.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Bautista's defence is just a huge liability. He is slow and stiff out there.

[Karl]

Joey Bats is basically done. And Tulo and Russell are so much not the players they used to be it's terrible. That's 3 huge problems the Jays have offensively (make that offensively + defensively in the case of Jose).

[jayswin]

What's really hurting about Jays management decided to suck one more year out of this core is that almost every tradable asset is quickly losing value from last off season to the coming one.

Very frustrating.

[Karl]

C'mon Tulo. Show some semblance of what you used to be.

[transplant99]

Bad baseball team is bad.

They should trade any of the guys over 30 that they can get any sort of decent return on, and that includes Martin. Rebuilds are much different in baseball than they are in hockey, but it is time to start. Get some young guys and expedite the time it will take to get competitive again.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by jayswin

What's really hurting about Jays management decided to suck one more year out of this core is that almost every tradable asset is quickly losing value from last off season to the coming one.

Very frustrating.

You can't blame them for tying one more year with this core. It's a pity that they are bad this year and that by not selling everyone in the offseason that they probable prolonged the rebuild by a bit, but they were in the ALCS last only year. I think it's was a reasonable calculated risk. Hindsight is 20/20.