Man,Sanchez has been tough to watch the last two plus seasons.

How can they not challenge that call? He was very clearly off the bag when he over slid, and Biggio had the glove on him the whole time. Directly cost them 2 runs. I know the runs don't matter much now, but they've got to get this kind of thing figured out. Not the first time this year they've failed to challenge an obvious bad call.

Vlad just has a bruise, no fracture.

Right now the Yankees looks desperate for pitching, but I don't like them as a trade partner.
I don't see the Rays and the Twins as team that are likely to trade their prospects.
Other contenders in the leagues are Houston, Boston, Cleveland and Texas.
Maybe Oakland and the Angels but they would need to go on a tear.

On the other side, the forever rebuilding Padres, who are flush with prospects, are below .500 and 13 games out of first place. They'll probably be selling.

That leaves the Braves, the Phillies, the Brewers, the Cubs, the Dodgers, the Rockies and the Diamondbacks.

Sanchez has lost a lot a value, if not all.
I'd prefer to extend Stroman, but I don't know if he wants to stay.

Kingham added to the roster, Pannone optioned.

The only way Sanchez will ever have trade value is if they put him in the bullpen. That's likely his spot long-term, it's just a matter of whether the Jays do it or his next team does. I get the feeling the Jays want to put Phelps in the closer role once Giles is traded, but they might be better off doing it with Sanchez. He's not a big league starter, and 2016 is literally the only good season he's ever had as a SP since he was drafted. The Jays are short on SP's so they probably won't make the move now, but they should at some point.

Injury Updates:

Borucki and Waguespack have progressed to live BP. Wags should throw 2 innings for Buffalo tomorrow.

Merryweather should pitch in game next week.

Pompey might get game action next week.

Vladdy is out of today's lineup,he hand is still sore.

Kingham seems to top at 93. He's lost 2-3 mph to his TJ surgery.
HIs best pitch used to be his changeup , but with the loss of velocity, there's not enough differentiation now.
The Pirates are known as a 2-seamer, slider club and he used to have a good one.
He wasn't commanding anything today. It might be  fixable. He threw a 1 hitter in his first game last year.

He's a big project.

No one has mentioned Edwin Encarnacion being traded to the Yankees. It looks like they're going to try to club other teams to death once Stanton and Judge get back, which appears to be soon. It's going to hurt to see EE walking the parrot in pinstripes. I'd say Kendrys Morales will be DFA'd soon as well.

The EE trade was brought up in the Orioles thread.

The Yankees mostly need pitching, but other GMs might have been asking about Frazier.
Now that Hicks is back, they can move Gardner off centerfield. They still have Tauchman and Maybin and Stanton and Judge could be back any time.

Pitching always wins playoff series, especially when one team has it and the other doesn't.

Thanks, Scottt. I missed that the Orioles thread was still going, and I usually read everything.

It's feast or famine. All you can eat today.

3 position players finished off their teams blowout losses today. In addition to Tyler White in the Jays game, Sean Rodriguez pitched the final inning for Philly and Caleb Joseph got the last out for Zona.

ESPN on the Dodgers bullpen, and bullpens in general. Found this part interesting:

"Relievers hate nothing more than to throw off a bullpen mound with the intention of getting into a game and be told to sit back down only to oftentimes stand up, stretch and start throwing again, ramping up the intensity in earnest. Many equate the act to an appearance, but it isn't accounted for in any meaningful way.

The Dodgers know how often their own pitchers warm up, but they're clueless about the rest of the league. The 29 other teams face the same predicament."

And this is supposition, but food for thought:

"And even when relievers are not making official appearances, the tendency to let situations dictate usage -- as opposed to assigning specific roles -- is probably leading to their warming up more often than they used to."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26989473/why-relief-pitchers-hard-figure-out

I've felt for awhile the best use of a pen is to do something like tandem starters. Starters go 5-7 innings depending. Have a plan on first guy in who starts to stretch out in the 5th, depending on how the starter is doing, then gets serious in the 6th or between the 5/6th if the pitcher is about ready to come out. Have a followup guy start to get ready once reliever #1 is in the game. Continue like that with 1 inning per guy the plan, or up to 3 innings if early. Have 4 planned per game, but generally use 3. Let them know the plan so they can mentally prep. Always have a scrub/AAAA guy ready to do long outings for when the starter is knocked out in the 1st or 2nd. That guy you can screw up and he'll be happy as otherwise he'd be in the minors.

That would work for a 2 day rotation of pen guys. Group A Monday, group B Tuesday, back to A on Wednesday. And so on. If someone isn't used on their day due to a starter having it or the team sucking hard that day (IE: closer allowed to rest) then you try to get those who weren't used in as priority the next rotation. On the nightmare extra inning days you make full use of the scrub spot and anyone who wasn't used their last time. Warn pitchers to expect that so again, they are mentally prepared. Might be overkill on planning, but would probably reduce arm stress on the pitchers. In the old days they'd warm up a lot and often pitch 2/3 innings but also were a lot less effective and injured a lot.

Interesting way to use the pen John N. Great creative thinking.

I remember a lot of pitchers over the history of the Jays but also forgot many. Checking the stats to see if J Key was able to pitch 200+ innings in a year. 1987 36 starts, 261 IP and ERA 2.76. 4 man rotation in those days.

The info on Key destroyed any point I may have been trying to make. J Morris pitched 266 innings 34 starts ERA 3.38.

I picked 1987 randomly. But I don't think it was random. A hidden memory of a horrible last week of the season. I checked mid way into my post. So 2019 is not the worst thing any more for me.

More research for this post. Henke was used as a closer. 91 IP and 94 IP were the 2 years that he pitched a lot. D Ward was the setup man 100+ IP 5 years in a row.

Sorry I don't have any good points to make. I looked at stats for 1987 and 1988. The pitching staff was used much too differently than today. No LOOGYs. Those were good pitching staffs but smaller and they got rode very hard.

At this point I think MLB has tweaked the distribution of innings to the starts and relievers to near "optimal", because the ERAs for starters and relievers have converged (0.09 different in the AL in favour of relievers, 0.27 in the NL in favour of starters). The advantage of lesser pitchers (bullpen) getting to go max effort for 1 inning at a time has been offset by the advantage of better pitchers letting it air out because they don't throw so many pitches or innings.

Having starters and relievers with the same results is where the game should end up, if the innings are being properly allocated between the two, I think. I don't think there's much to be gained at this point by looking at different usage patterns, but if any Jays team should give it a try a few times a week, it's the 2019 Jays and their 2 decent starters (sit down, Sanchez, Thorton is the 2nd guy so far).

Feel sorry for Sanchez. He dominated in 2016 with his 2 seamer. Then MLB changes the ball, both causing him blister issues and causing batters to change their swing paths which become ideally suited to hitting 2 seamers.

The slightly raised seams do seem to have doomed Sanchez's fingers, but his utter inability to stop walking people is the real culprit for his lousy numbers. I guess these might be related, but who knows?

Take 2 walks/9 off his current line (to match 2016), and make those outs instead, and 2019 Sanchez looks a lot like Stroman. There's simply no such thing as a high walk, low strikeout, above average pitcher. Among ERA qualifiers, Sanchez is now dead last in walks (Darvish passed him), and 54th out of 81 in K/9. 4th worst ERA and 7th worst FIP. 2019 Sanchez is one of the worst 5-10 starters in baseball who's been getting starts all year.

Has Stroman's twitter account always featured him in the Team USA jersey?

Guessing Sanchez had to change his grip because of the blisters, but yeah that's just a guess.

Anyone not see Kenley Jansen's intentional balk Friday?

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-intentional-balk/

And statcast is now tracking outfield jumps - Reaction/Burst/Route.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/jump?year=2019&min=q

MLB Trade Rumours has the Jays with the 3rd and 4th biggest trade deadline chips in Stroman and Smoak.

Giles is not on the list because he is on the IL. Freddy Galvis is at #32. Sanchex, Hudson, and Biagini are on the 'watch' list.

Phelps activated for tonight, Shafer optioned.

Has Stroman's twitter account always featured him in the Team USA jersey?

Yes, since that World Baseball Classic anyway.

Montoyo should have taken an empty suitcase to the mound for Jackson when he pulled him.

I don't see why Galvis is on the list and not Sogard.
He's played so well and he's on a 1 year deal without options.

I'd call up Paulino and dump Jackson. Borucki should be back this month as well.

Paulino is not yet sufficiently stretched out. Need to be a bit more patient.

I think PeterG's point is legit. Paulino is not ML ready and 2 starts back from 5 weeks on the IL. Atkins is very careful about protecting his prospects.

But E Jackson is hurting the pen. Atkins will do something.