2023 Toronto Blue Jays Season Thread

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

The issue isn’t will the Jays be “fine” - it’s can they compete for a World Series

This team is built to win now , and isn’t showing the improvement that was expected / consistency towards become a true contender

They are a good team . But can they become a great team ? The offence isn’t inspiring a lot of belief for me right now

Yet they are much better than they were a year ago....that is improvement which you state they havent shown but in reality, absolutely have.

With ANY talk about world series stuff, it will always always come down to pitching. Are they good enough in that area? No. Not with Manoah out walking in the wilderness right now.

And again they have to shore up the pen either internally with White or someone else (unlikely) or via trade. I think the latter option is very likely but as usual they just have to keep it steady til the end of July when all the sellers are obvious and it becomes a free-for-all as to who gets who.

Manoah getting his command back, an add in the pen and a better option for a hitter than Biggio/Espinal/Lukes.....then yes i think they can contend quite well.

[Kasi]

Looks like someone listened. Lineup today is:

Springer
Bo
Vlad
Belt
Chapman
Jansen
Varsho
Espinal
KK

[puffnstuff]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

Moreno hitting .313 and Lourdes .309 so far this season. Varsho's defense is nice but frack me you need to score runs too.

I wish they had kept Moreno and sent Kirk instead

[Party Elephant]

Originally Posted by Kasi

Looks like someone listened. Lineup today is:

Springer
Bo
Vlad
Belt
Chapman
Jansen
Varsho
Espinal
KK

Important to note that Jansen is catching Manoah, as he has been exclusively caught by Kirk previously.

[Kasi]

Yeah that’s interesting too. I think both Kirk and Manoah haven’t taken baseball as their top priority this last year. Kirk understandably had a kid in preseason and Manoah according to reports has gone all in on media stuff to the point of where the Jays are asking him to back off and focus on his game. (Apparently he does multiple radio shows, is always doing some press or media things during off days, etc.)

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I wish they had kept Moreno and sent Kirk instead

I don't. I think they had the luxury of three catchers at the time but each catcher had a major drawback at the time, but also significant pluses. They should have kept all three and played out the year seeing who would be their future guy. I imagine Moreno and Kirk would've been it. Kirk's gotten bigger and it seems things just aren't coordinating the same way. That's unfortunate.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Moreno is an athlete behind the plate. He doesn’t have Kirk’s power but he has the contact ability that Kirk does.

To me, Kirk just isn’t built to be a long term MLB player. He plays an unbelievably physical position (for baseball) and his joints and bones are under tremendous pressure. His career isn’t sustainable as it stands. I’m certainly not going to shame him for his body but he’s a 24 year old playing in a 35 year old body.

Coming off an all star season, they had the chance to sell high on Kirk and they completely whiffed on it. It’s piss poor asset management, in my opinion.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Hang on now, Varsho was not a "project" like Gurriel.

He had 4.7 fWAR last season and 2.3 fWAR the season before that. Those were his first two full seasons in MLB.

Gurriel had 6 years in the league and had never gone higher than 1.8 fWAR.

Based on D primarily. His strikeouts and average has never been impressive. I'm not against the guy. I just thought they gave too much up. Gurriel was oft injured, had a weak arm, etc., so I understand why they wanted to move away from him but Varsho was purely brought in for his defence and his potential LHB combined with the banning of the shift. I think they gambled and so far it hasn't paid off.


For the same reason I was also not happy after the first season with Chapman's bat, or the signing of Kiermeier. I've been wrong with both who've killed it on the offence.

[bluejays]

@ Ben, quotes isn't working but I agree to some degree. I fully expected him to come in in the same condition as last year. Last year he was their most disciplined hitter by far, and that was something that just could've have been replaced. I assumed just based on that alone, it was a great tone to set and was exactly what they needed, physical limitations be damned. It puts such a strain on opposing pitchers to throw strikes that he was someone who should have been kept. How this off-season he didn't take his conditioning a priority is a little bit of a question. He still has really good upside if he can keep his conditioning in order. Good eye, disciplined hitters as we're seeing, are super hard to find. He was well worth the gamble, but it is disappointing he hasn't done the same as last season.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I like Kirk’s elite plate awareness. That is something that you just can’t teach.

However, I think you can get 10-12 good years out of Moreno and maybe 3 out of Kirk (we may have used up one of them already). With Moreno, the Jays could take a big load off of Jansen’s shoulders because Moreno can easily play half of the games behind the plate and I don’t think Kirk can. Another benefit is you could even consider playing Moreno at other positions due to his athleticism.

[ben voyonsdonc]

On another note, at the plate, Varsho is a left handed Matt Chapman. He is going to be a guy who is all or nothing. We are going to have to embrace that reality. I don’t like seeing him bunched with Kiermaier as it makes the lineup unbalanced. I think he should be hitting sixth.

My lineup would be:

Bo
Vlad
Chapman
Springer
Kirk
Varsho
Merrifield
Jansen/Espinal
Kiermaier

[ben voyonsdonc]

I like the idea of breaking the lineup into triads and have a “lead off” hitter for each triad. Bo, Springer, and Merrifield would be the lead off for each of those groups.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by ben voyonsdonc

I like Kirk’s elite plate awareness. That is something that you just can’t teach.

However, I think you can get 10-12 good years out of Moreno and maybe 3 out of Kirk (we may have used up one of them already). With Moreno, the Jays could take a big load off of Jansen’s shoulders because Moreno can easily play half of the games behind the plate and I don’t think Kirk can. Another benefit is you could even consider playing Moreno at other positions due to his athleticism.

Yeah, I didn't consider Kirk's longevity. I honestly figured he could only get healthier much like Vlad did. Jansen to me is like Gurriel. Injured often, but I also wanted to see more from him because he turned it on later in the season. Moreno obviously had high potential, and some cited questions of his power as justification for the deal. To me I still can't believe leadership was so quick to deal quantity/quality of prospect capital in a few deals. I'm sure a few teams were after Dalton, but surely our package was far and away the best - doubt there were suckers out there who came close.

[Kasi]

I wonder if Manoah is hurt. Just looking at this box score now in the first batter here and he’s wild again and pumping in some 91mph four seamers. That’s a joke for someone his size.

[Hockey]

Favourable calls go Manoah's way and gets the K. Probably should've been a walk

[Underdog]

Finally they give Manoah a good play caller in Jansen behind the plate. Let's see if it helps...

[ben voyonsdonc]

Vlad fouls off a middle middle pitch…

[flames_fan_down_under]

I still don't quite understand why Manoah has just lost it. He was absolutely dialed last year. I really wonder what changed?

[Kasi]

Some mix of pitch clock, offseason preparation, mental approach I’d guess. It’s hard at times for me to root for him tbh. Like he’s an ass on the field but I guess he’s ours. If he was on a divisional rival I’d put him at the top of most disliked players for sure. He just has a lot of antics on the field I don’t much care for. And I’m not one of those old school respect the game and have no fun guys. But really there is no need to cuss out opponents on striking them out in some irrelevant mid season game.

[ben voyonsdonc]

I really believe that his mechanics are poor and it’s now gotten into his head. I’m guessing that he has never not been completely dominant and now he’s dealing with adversity…it’s hard to do that in the big leagues.