If we're going to catch the Yankees and Red Sox, there's no better time to start than now.

No, just go 35-5. That will make everyone take notice.

The Rays are just 10.5 games behind Seattle and are hotter than the Yankees.
I mean, they need to do something to finance that new ballpark, no?

I was joking just the other day that the Jays just need to win 40 games in a row to get back in it. Every game is winnable right? Probably would get them to 2nd wild card status? The AL is insanely top-heavy this year, thanks in part to teams like Toronto being bad instead of OK of course. 

just wanted to say how much I love that pic, JBrumfield!

Toronto is a10 Pick if the season ended yesterday and if they stay miserable, it might improve. If the Jays can get hot and stay hot, Playoffs is the answer. Or just muddle in the middle.

Nice to see Pillar ignore Rivera's stop and score without a throw.
Rivera must be pretty good at some things, but sending or stopping runners isn't one of those things.

Smoak now with a 125 wrc+. He is quietly having a decent season.

Along the lines of SK's trade package idea.

Deadline Packages

Pkg 1: Happ + Clippard + Solarte
Pkg 2: Estrada + Oh + Granderson
Pkg 3: Garcia + Axford + Morales

(pkg 3 not serious)

Sounds like the Yankees are interested in Happ, but not offering anything worthwhile at this point.
Cubs might be in the pictures. Lots of NL teams could use him really.

Indians have lost Chisenhall and could be a destination for Granderson, but they still have a huge lead in their division. Wouldn't be much coming back.

Memo to Atl/Phil - you're having breakout seasons, now imagine your team with a superb TOR guy for the next few seasons not just a rental - please contact Shapkins asap - you could be drinking champagne in October and a contract extension come December.

This song goes through my head as I read the board.

It would be more interesting for someone to have a go at a take on the path to a. 2nd WC team in 2019. I think a decent cse could be made, starting with Donaldson accepting a QO...

There were numerous cases made to have a go at the 2017 & 2018 WC

I believe that it was 85bluejay that said basically the window closed at the end of 2016. To trade Donaldson and 1 other star. I cannot remember who the star was. So 85bluejay nailed it. Shapiro too nailed it when he said he wanted to start a rebuild earlier.


I am all for stating cases for potential 2WC for 2019.


I would like to see a younger team and no expensive FA additions. Aim for 88 wins.

I can see a path to WC contention next year, with a rotation led by Stroman, Sanchez, Borucki, and SRF (I think they would need to add one more quality SP), and a lineup that (by June) includes Guerrero Jr., Bichette, and Jansen.

Yeah,, Zimmerman made the same argument for not going rebuild. It just sucks when best realistic case scenario is 2nd WC.

Interesting (and fairly short) read with Craig Counsell doing the talking.


https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-managers-perspective-craig-counsell-on-probabilities-and-the-big-picture/

In Stroman's 4 starts since coming off the DL he has a 3.04 era in 24 innings with a 6.08 K/9, 2.66 BB/9 and a crazy 68.6 GB%. He certainly seems to have righted the ship.

My hope is that he finishes the year strong. MLB.com has his rest of year projection as a cumulative 4.82 ERA if he can keep up a 3.99 era for 13 more starts.

I don't think an extension will come easy with Stroman and with the risk of shoulder injuries to ground ball pitchers I think I would gauge Stroman's trade value once he has established himself again.

Thanks for the Counsell link, hypobole.  He sounds like he would fit in well with Shapiro in terms of philosophy. 

I still say that if we're not extending guys like stroman, then we might as well just pack it in as a franchise.

"I'm getting a kick out of Borucki ang Gaviglio this year."

Absolutely,as are most fans - and if we had gotten for example Soto & Flaherty last year, I would be getting a kick out of watching them also especially knowing the Jays has 6 more years of control and the rebuilding is going great - hopefully, next year we can get excited about maybe Sixto Sanchez/Luiz Gohara/Ian Anderson - maybe teaming up with Pearson by 2020 along with those exciting positional prospects.

Houston and the Yankees are the only real potential 'dynasties', as Mike notes, too many bad contracts on the Sox.  With their resources, a reset might not take long, but then again, ours might not take long either, we have a ridiculous wave of position player prospects that should start arriving by the end of this season, and given the depth at different levels, looks to be sustainable past the first batch or two of graduations. 

We could easily jettison the vets, play the kids and be a much better team by the end of this year. 

How does money absorbed in trades affect the luxury tax?  For example, if Morales stays hot and we find a taker who, say, pays the rest of this season and we pay all of next, who's obligation is that next year re: the luxury tax?   With exactly two AL 1B and four DHs above 1 fWAR, that sort of deal should be possible as a pure salary dump.  At this point, the FO might actually believe that the Morales they hoped they had signed is arriving - he's never been better than he is now in the blue and white, and he's been performing at a high level for over a month now.  They may prefer to keep him this year to see if he has turned a corner, rather than absorb tons of money in a salary dump. 

Smoak has been a lot better recently, but even with his hot streak, he still is at 1 fWAR, he's slower than I am and the metrics don't love his D.  Fangraphs has his value at $8.2 this year, so he's clearly good value - but I could still see his option not getting picked up.  Look at TB DFAing Corey Dickerson earlier this year, who was worth $20.6 million per Fangraphs in 2017.

This type of player's value has cratered, with the likes of Jesus Aguilar available for free.  If the Jays can move him for something at the deadline, they absolutely should.  And Oh, with his option, is likely at a high in trade value right now and worth a legit return - more than Joe Smith most likely. 

It’s true that the Jays will need to find ways to add or secure pitching in the coming years, but it seems risky to give a lengthy extension to a pitcher who was just sidelined with shoulder issues, and given the lack of data on how well power pitchers of small stature tend to hold up over time. I would see whether he can produce a 180+ inning season next year before offering an extension, and look to balance the risk of a couple of guaranteed extension years with a couple of club option years.

If the Yankees want to do a multiplayer upgrade at the deadline, they could do a swap of prospects for Happ, Smoak, and a reliever (Oh?).

Stroman is the only young player on the team worthy of an extension, but the team has to decide what they want to do with him by this time next year. If he does not want to do an extension, then the team has to consider a trade because his value diminishes the closer he is to free agency. The Jays can't afford another Donaldson situation where they lose a star for a comp pick, especially as they get closer to Vlad's arrival.

Ugly, I think a Stroman extension would be hard because he will be coming off a tough season and he is a guy who seems likely to bet on himself rather than sign anywhere near market value. I'm not worried about how he plays, but his health moving forward being a sinkerball pitcher already showing shoulder issues.

"and if we had gotten for example Soto & Flaherty last year, I would be getting a kick out of watching them "

only if you were streaming minor league games.

There is no reason to think the Jays couldn’t have a better run differential next year than all the AL teams currently vying for the second WC spot.

Stroman's a risk, but for me the shoulder issue looks worse than it was from trying to come back too soon to try to make the start of the season. As long as he's fully recovered medically, I wouldn't try to discount him too much beyond what signing him now might allow.

I just don't know what his extension comps would be in terms of service time, age and performance. He'll currently be a FA after his age 29 season. How many more years would both sides be willing to do? A 5 year? That would put him at 32 when it expires. Then, the value they'd place on his FA years would largely dictate the overall price. And then there's always the question of options... pulling stuff out of the land of fairies and unicorns and other make-believe things, maybe 5y/$85M?

I would think Danny Duffy's 5 year 65 million dollar deal stands as a great comp for Stroman. Duffy was a year closer to free agency when he signed his deal, so this would be fair for Stroman I would think.

I don't know what a reasonable contract for Stroman would look like.  I don't agree though that it would be a disaster to lose him for a comp pick as he is entering free agency.  With luck, the club will be in good shape in 2020-21 and Stroman will be a good pitcher (and they are in need of those).  They shouldn't trade a player to "maximize value" (and it is not clear to me that Stroman will have that much value) in the face of current need while in a competitive period.  We are getting ahead of ourselves here though. 

I forgot about the Duffy extension. That actually does make some sense, though he didn't have the track record (and was under Stroman's rates for his first 2 years of arbitration, accordingly). The ages are on-par, though. It's an interesting one. Porcello was the closest I could think of (though I didn't really had a chance to ponder too much), and that deal was signed in spring training in his walk year.

Speaking of, if KC is a little down on the Duffy deal and wanted to save some money, I'd definitely give them a ring if I were the Jays.

only if you were streaming minor league games.

Soto yeah, Flaherty, no.

I agree, Spifficus.  Duffy would be a nice acquisition.  The club needs pitchers for the next few years anyways. 

"Soto yeah, Flaherty, no."

eh, don't he so sure - Flaherty would be the youngest jay, and the youngest Bison, without the most impressive AAA performance OR stuff.

Worse stuff than Gaviglio?

SRF has better stuff than gaviglio

It might be a shorter list to come up with major league pitchers who do have worse stuff than Gaviglio.
My first name for the list? Bartolo Colon. He has worse stuff than Gaviglio.

You know what? I just looked up their FB velo for the last month, and now I'm less confident in that statement...

Ok, Gaviglio gets swings and misses on his slider, so I'm back to thinking his stuff's better... But Big Sexy (how did I forget this was his nickname?!) has a decent changeup... This is closer than it should be.

Just for fun I looked up Danny Duffy's career to the point when he signed his extension at age 27:

106 GS
623.0 IP
7.80 K/9
3.34 BB/9
3.71 ERA
4.10 FIP

Marcus Stroman through career to date:

100 GS
623.2 IP
7.32 K/9
2.53 BB/9
3.84 ERA
3.64 FIP

I didn't think the two comparisons would be this close. You trade a tommy john for an ACL and they both even missed a year due to injury.

Wonder what the Astros would want for Ken Giles - if he stays in the minors for a bit, he'd be controllable for 3 more years.

eh....not that close...

Stroman: 100gs, 89era-, 86fip-, 82xfip-, 3.5war32
Duffy: 149gs, 94era-, 104fip-, 109xfip, 2.5war32


And I case you think fips don't matter...since then....

Duffy: 43gs, 100era-, 100fip-, 109xfip-, 2.6wzr32

Unless a reliever is elite, years of control are pretty well meaningless.

Gaviglio is Gustavo chacin. He's getting by on smoke and mirrors and you should ride it as long as you can but be fully prepared to move on.

Gaviglio is Gustavo Chacin And has an even better name for a cologne. Better hurry though!

I think Gaviglio would be a very good 3 or 4 inning guy in the pen but his shelf life as a starter may be a short one. He has earned a longer look however.

Well that was an ill timed post.

Defence didn't help him much either

Uglyone I only used stats prior to when Duffy signed his extension, which was also his age 27 year...

It seems the Yankees aren't even offering Justus Sheffield for many Machado, so we can forget about seeing him in a Jays uniform as a result of a J.A. Happ trade.

Yanks stopped bidding against themselves years ago. The days of getting a no doubt prospect from them are over.

No doubt prospects like Marty Janzen?

2 no doubt prospects that had only limited success were Travis Snider and Brett Lawrie. We have some great position prospects in the no doubt category. Most likely a couple will break our hearts.

Jay Jaffe has an interesting article on Yadier Molina's Hall of Fame case.  It's a tough one and relies quite a bit on framing and leading a team into the post-season.  When you take that into consideration, Russell Martin looks better than you would expect too. 

I personally think that St Louis would be more average in their results without Y Molina. The catching position has great value. All that defensive stuff.

Jeff Mathis vs M Napoli LAA.

Yadier's kind of the modern Bill Freehan, probably not quite as good. A helluva player, at any rate.

Jaffe's JAWS metric has 5 modern day catchers in the same general area of value and of the same general type (with a lot of their value defensive): Russell Martin, Yadier Molina, Lance Parrish, Jim Sundberg (!), and Bill Freehan.  Freehan was better than the other 4 according to the metric, but he many not have lifted his pitchers in the way that Martin and Molina have.

Mike Green, I would have thought Molina was a slam-dunk HOFer.  I've never been a Hall of Fame follower, so I'm a bit surprised to hear he's on the bubble  ... Molina is the best catcher of the past decade, Buster Posey aside, in my mind.... what am I missing?