Ok, I'll bite. Is the trivia answer Ted Williams?

Pitching is often better than hitting early on.
April is a lot like Spring Training.

The bullpen was great last year but got tired over the hump.
It's great that the only dead weight on the 40 roster is Luciano.
Would be nice if that guy could be a decent starter down the line.
What matters is that they have lots of guys who can be called up.
Castro has looked really good. It's puzzling that Detroit gave up on him.
It looks like he has graduated from MLB pipeline. Weird.
At the end of last year he was graded with a 60 fastball and a 55 slider.
He said the Tigers wanted him to throw a curve. What?

Matz throws strikes and has 4 decent pitches.
I think it's just a matter of mixing them.
Somehow Phillies must have had a read on him last year.
His sinker has been one of MLB's top 10 best pitches.
I'm not sure if that part will hold true all year.

Ray is impressive in his own right.

I'm hoping Pearson comes up and throws hard.
Somehow he was sitting mid 90s last year and throwing a lot of offspeed stuff.
That's not his strength. He needs to power his way through weak hitters.
Just like Manoah was doing earlier.

Biggio is at third so we can have Semien's range in the middle.
He doesn't need to be great there. It's called the hot corner for a reason.

I have no idea about Jansen, but I know it's still April.
I sure hope his line looks better by mid-May.

When they signed Springer, many expected them to trade Grichuk.
Thankfully, they haven't, but now the playing time will have to be earned.
Some DH time will go to the outfield and Biggio will have to stay away from there.
Gurriel might ride the pine a lot more than I expected a month ago.
Technically, Hernandez and Gurriel have options. I would have liked Teoscar to rehab properly.

This has been a fun team this year so far. Kids are showing skills, new guys doing solid work. No one really blowing it horribly outside of Biggio's defense at 3B, Jansen's 'hitting' (if you can call a -38 OPS+ hitting), and Tellez' 43 OPS+. Zeuch really didn't have it, Roark has done OK in the pen.

Really, there are 2 big issues - Biggio on defense and Tellez. You can't be a DH/1B who has a sub 50 OPS+. I love Tellez but at this point a demotion has to be considered.

Tellez started the year 0 for 21. Since then, he's been of the Jays best hitter.
He was 2 for 4 in his last game.

Gurriel is still struggling. Hernandez was in a funk when he went down.
At most, you sit Tellez against lefties.

What to do with Danny Jansen? I agree he has been somewhat unlucky but he has a ways to go to just be a league average hitting catcher. I am still on the fence on Kirk's defense against a running team. We will see. Catching seemed to be a position of strength for the Jays before the season, now not so much. Speaking of pre-season strengths.....

At the start of the season it seemed like the Jays had a lot of depth at starting pitcher. But injuries to Stripling, Pearson, Zeuch and Hatch, added to Roark's poor play, have eliminated the depth. The Jays are lucky to have all these off days for last week and this week. But soon they will need five starters again, next Tuesday to be precise. The only starters on the 40 man who are not starting or injured are Anthony Kay and Elvis Luciano. I think Luciano is probably not ready so its just Kay. The other option is Trent Thornton but it Montoyo pulls him after just eight hitters he will never get built up.

Those injured starters better get healthy soon.

Overall it’s a pretty positive sign that the team is hanging around 500 given 9 pitchers on the DL, two of their four best hitters on the sidelines, a challenged left side of the infield and the lower half of the lineup in a funk. Not to mention a few odd moves by the manager. They are finding a way to win, especially against tough division rivals, and they might just go on a nice run as the DL starts to empty. Springer and Hernandez may not only contribute in a big way, but take some pressure off some of the struggling hitters.

The FO and Walker have really done a nice job over the last several years piecing together an effective bullpen with rebound candidates, taxicabs and graduating rookies. It’s definitely one of their strengths. Finding and developing good young defensive players, on the other hand, seems to have been a real challenge for them.

Hope Pearson is back within 2 weeks. With under 25 games played we are well positioned in the standings. 84 ABs is the most with Semien and Bichette having that. The young core getting to about 300 ABs will contribute to their development because it is necessary experience.

Atkins did a great job providing depth.

Who is the person with the longest tenure spending his entire career with one team as a player, and then managing just one team (a different one) his entire coaching career?

The name that came to mind was Mike Scioscia given his long term with the Angels as a manager.

Although I wasn't confident that Scioscia only played for the Dodgers, as most of his playing career was before my time. I remember Scioscia as a Dodger from the Simpsons softball team ringer episode. As well, I remember buying packs of blue Donruss baseball cards at Kmart in the early 90s and owning Mike Scioscia's 1989 or 1990 All-star card.

BBRef says Scioscia played 13 years for the Dodgers and spent 19 years as the Angels' manager.

Atkins did a great job providing depth

I saw a little reported headline on the weekend that the Jays signed Christian Colon and Dilson Herrera to minor league deals as depth.

While the Jays have decent position versatility in the infield on the MLB roster between Semien and Biggio and Panik and Vlad and Espinal, they don't have many upper level infield prospects ready to step in the near future unless you think either Groshans or Austin Martin can pull an Alejandro Kirk.

Stripling and Roark never really looked like assets.
I was hoping Murphy would have had a good year.
Merryweather looked great for a bit.
As long as you have Roark and Milone on the staff, they'll have to eat some innings here and there.
Pearson should be getting close.

The priority has been to keep Thorton to once through the lineup and the pen has been able to take care of the rest.
They have Travis Bergen and Jeremy Beasly who could pitch an inning or two and swing back to the taxi squad.
However, Hernandez is still on the Covid-list and will retake a 40 roster spot when he comes out.
Kay has had only the one bad start against KC.

"Ballplayers often take tremendous delight in making me look like an idiot."

Happened to me with Kyle Gibson a few weeks back. Last year 5.35/5.39 ERA/FIP. 1st start this year retired only 1 batter giving up 5 ER to the Royals

I called him the Rangers Tanner Roark prior top his start vs the Jays. Since then 27 IP, 2 ER over 4 starts including 6 scoreless against us.

Jano's current 0 fer streak is at 31 and a certain overcompensated Oriole will probably start cheering it on once it makes the ESPN ticker. The DH rule specifically says that it has to be used for the pitcher and I don't mean to pile on, but Ray, Matz, and Ryu all have a better career triple slash than Jano has put up so far this year. Instead of trying to turn a bunch of young guys into Johnny Bag-of-gloves, I wonder if the right move in the off season was just leaving everyone, new and improved Vlad included, where they were and signing Realmuto instead of Springer. Still bullish on this team once it gets back to full health.

Huh. Hadn't noticed Scottt - Tellez 0-21 to start, 36 PA since hit 306/306/444 with 0 BB 5 SO (pace for under 100 Ks in a full season). Of course, that 0-21 with a HBP and BB still sucks. The power needs to show up as to be a success as a 1B/DH he needs to hit for at least a 120 OPS+. I'm cheering him on and hope he succeeds but right now I'm at a loss as to how the Jays keep him on the roster. Unless they cut the pen down to 8 or something.

Right now the focus in on defense and pitching, but it's going to be interesting to see what the catching prospects do in the system.

Adams had a decent line in AA, 32 BB, 107 K, 11 HR good for a .788 OPS.
Moreno had a balanced line in A ball, batting .280 with 12 HR for a .822 OPS.
I would not be surprised if Clarke could work his way into a left handed hitting backup.

Jano's current 0 fer streak is at 31

I noticed that Dan and Buck didn't mention Jansen's current O-fer until a passing reference midway through his 3rd or 4th AB.

It made me wonder if they deliberately weren't bringing it up at any opportunity due to empathy for his years long offensive struggles and the fact that he universally seems to be a hard-worker and well-liked.

It could just be confirmation bias, but I don't feel like Rowdy Tellez got the same kid gloves treatment when he was O-fer to start the season and I was reminded at the start of each PA.

That's the one!

I'm humbled and surprised that my first instinct was correct.

You would assume that there should have been more long-serving one team players and managers in the Reserve Clause era.

I don't feel like Rowdy Tellez got the same kid gloves treatment when he was O-fer to start the season

Tellez has precisely one job: hit. Jansen has a whole pile of duties that make up his job.

Even with the early season results I don't agree with signing Realmuto over Springer. We have a ton of C prospects in this system. We have Jansen, Kirk, Moreno, Adams heck even McGuire I think is quite serviceable.

Who do we have for CF in the system? Martin? Well sure he has the physical tools but he's never even played the position before this year. He was a SS in college. Then we have Dasan Brown and that's about it. I think Springer is the better bat and will age better as well. I just hope he works more on staying healthy.

Martin was not a SS in college:

2018: 1B 18 games, LF 15 games, CF 13 games, 3B 9 games, SS 2 games.
2019: 3B 52 games, 2B 13 games, 1B 4 games.
2020: CF 12 games, 3B 4 games.

Ok well he was drafted as a SS then which is odd. Still not exactly sold on him as a CF without more reps. I guess he looked decent enough in spring training but I still think CF filled more of an immediate need for us than C.

Even though he fell to the Jays out of nowhere, the Jays scouts had been in contact with him and he told them he wanted to play short. It's the same thing with Groshans. Expect both to play some shortstop this summer.

That's the one!

Ted Williams was my first thought as well. Forgot about Scioscia. I think it's probably more unusual for managers to only work for one team than players (unless they're really lousy at either job.) Managers get to be managers a lot longer than anyone gets to be a player.

I know at least one of the hitters who played for Ted Williams swore by him (Mike Epstein), but yeah - some of the others wanted to swear at him. But Ted loved to teach hitting, and he was pretty good at it. (You'd expect him to say "Just do what I did" but evidently not.)

Well, hitting was his thing. I don't know if he thought much about anything else in his life. Except fishing, maybe.

FWIW, Goldstein was asked about Martin in his chat today and felt his eventual position will be CF.

Colorado has fired GM Bridich. Eephus nailed the org in his preview last month. Atkins has had some FA missteps but nothing like this, from The Athletic:

"In more than six years running the team, the Rockies GM has committed more than $300 million in salary to 19 free agents on major-league deals. Those 19 free agents have collectively accounted for -3.4 fWAR while with the Rockies"

Sadly for Rockies fans, Manfort the owner was and will continue to be a large part of the problem as well.

Oh, I got another!

Mike Scioscia, Ted Williams... and Walter Alston!

Not much of a major league playing career, I grant you.

Well, Ted Williams didn't have much of a managing career. 4 years, fewer wins each year. Over 500 only in his first season. Final manager for the Washington Senators, first for the Texas Rangers (team moved during his managing career).

Scioscia on the other hand 2 time All-Star, 2 WS wins as a player, 1 WS title as a manager. Williams was one of the best hitters ever, if not the best but as a manager he was not noteworthy at all.

Ex-HOF players don't work out as great managers it seems. Paul Molitor well under 500 as a manager, Ryne Sandberg had 3 years and sub 500 all 3, Phil Niekro never managed in the majors but did manage a women's barnstorming team (Colorado Silver Bullets) which I don't think ever had a 500 record playing against men.

HOF'ers are super-talented players automatically but that skill at playing doesn't make them able to pass that to kids on their teams.

Don't know much about Williams' managerial career, but it also seemed his teams had fewer good players each year. His final season, the 2 best players were Mike Paul and Rich Hand. Never heard of those guys. When I checked, no wonder - neither ended up with 4 WAR for their entire careers.

Many, many Hall of Fame players have gone to be very successful managers. (Many of them while they were still playing, of course.) But certainly, not lately. I believe the last HoF player to manage a World Series winner was Bob Lemon and that was more than 40 years ago. (This is assuming Joe Torre is in the Hall as a manager. I think Torre had a pretty good case as a player, but the voters sure didn't think so.)

"Sadly for Rockies fans, Manfort the owner was and will continue to be a large part of the problem as well."

Aother owner who doesn't dish out 150+ million per year like Steinbrenner...what a bum! This owner is not likeable but he spent to a record level, I dont think he is part of the problem.

What has become very uncommon is for Hall of Fame players to stay in the game as coaches or managers. Over the last 50 years, players of that quality have generally made enough money that they don't need the job, and the aggravation that goes with it. They definitely don't need the airports and the hotel rooms. They'd much rather show up in Florida or Arizona for a few weeks every spring, and work with the kids for a while. That can be fun, and some of them were quite good at it. Ted Williams did it for the Red Sox for decades after his ill-fated stab at managing.

The Manfort problem isn't spending - the $300 million over 6 years for FA's should have made that quite clear. His issue is, as one executive put it "He thinks he's Theo Epstein".

Imagine Rogers ponying up a huge payroll, but thinking they know baseball and them telling Shapiro and Atkins who to sign or not sign? Good owners let the baseball people make the baseball decisions. Angelos with Chris Davis, Moreno with Albert Pujols were the driving force in those signings and unsurprisingly, neither ended up well.

Corbin Burnes is pitching tonight and is currently at 43 K and 0 BB to start his season. He has long ago broken the record for a SP (35). Next up, Kenley Jansen's record of 51 K before his first walk.

No walks tonight, but he is being outpitched here.

With Rowdy one of the few left-handed bats available, and a power one at that, I'd think he will have every opportunity to stay on the roster. I hope so, anyway.

There isn't one owner who has full controlling interest of a team that doesn't do that. Atlanta, LA Dodgers, Rogers...sure these are huge conglomerate companies where nobody can decide something by themself. Every "one person owner" likes to make some calls themselves.

Jeter in Miami
Steinbrenner's in NY
LeBron James now in Boston
Stu Sternberg in TB
Ilich family in Detroit
Cleveland owners


Etc etc.. If it's a family or individual owned team and they don't spend any money on the team then nobody says anything (see Cleveland and TB). If you spend $300 million and you want to have a say then it makes you a bad owner apparently. The idea that someone will put their own earnings into an investment and not have a say in it is imaginary.

Pleasant game to watch in the battle for the basement.

Baltimore takes the first game 4-2.
Bad umping behind the plate.
Horrible AB by Odor. Strikes out with the bases loaded and a pitcher who couldn't find the strike zone.
Bad call for the 3rd out in the 8th, Judge tagged at third.
Boone took too long to challenged the call, the third run which had already crossed the plate was disallowed and Boone got tossed.

Rays lost to As too. Question on the Yankees though. Why are they batting Odor cleanup? This makes no sense.

Left bat. Got a big hit in the last series.

A long way to go but it's nice to see the Yankees in the basement.

Fun seeing the Yankees scuffle early on. We know they will be in the race at the end so every loss now makes it just that much harder for them later. Odor being anywhere near the top of the lineup is a damning thing - that guy has a peak OPS of 750 in the past 5 seasons, just 593 this year. Gotta figure the fans in NY are going bonkers over this mess. Yankees are scoring 3.50 runs per game, just ahead of the Mets, Washington, and Detroit (3.00 to be in the basement). Jays aren't doing great at 3.95 per game but our average hitter is 3 years younger than the Yankees (26.3 vs 29.5) so more hope of rebounding. Boston leads the AL with 5.17 runs per game. Tampa is at 4.48.

This article is subscription only, but it's quite clear that ownership and management is the problem in Colorado. As mentioned above, it's not just that they have no idea what they're doing, it's that they also think they know what they're doing.

https://theathletic.com/2467223/2021/03/22/communication-failures-poor-decisions-and-messy-breakups-how-it-all-went-wrong-for-the-colorado-rockies/

Yeah, all owners have some say. Even Rogers nixed Shapiro's sell-off attempt after 2017. Owners set budgets and cause GM's to make trades such as Jeter group forcing the Stanton contract sell-off and cost-cutting rebuild.

The degrees matter as does the amount of owner input on the actual baseball decisions. Manfort seems to be involved more in these than other owners. You may think that's fine and I'm not going to say you shouldn't, but from the Athletic article and other sources, industry people don't seem to see it that way.

Just checked the Jays schedule VS the NL. Finished in Aug. Uneven schedule. 6 Atlanta, 4 Washington, Miami and 3 NYM and Phils. Total 20.

The minor league season will start soon. With boxscores we can see who is starting and relieving. Will also see pitch count. I think but not sure that every Monday is a travel day with every series 6 games.

Name me one singular owner that is adored by his team's fans, in baseball. The likeliest is Steve Cohen who has been on the job for less than a year and had to remove himself from Twitter because of death threats.

There isn't a single one-person owner that has media championing them. They are easy targets to label as "rich people treating baseball as a toy or investment." If the media could circle one name from the larger ownership groups then they would also paint them in a bad light I am sure. Good luck going after the Braves and Liberty Media group. Right now things are great in Atlanta, but a few years ago there was no more Ted Turner just the new ownership which you need to go through 9,000 different doors to figure out who owns what and who makes the calls.

I was amazed Bridich wasn't fired the moment he approached ownership to get approval for the 1B Ian Desmond signing. That one still makes me shake my head and laugh.

You can count on one hand the consistently successful teams year in and year out, like the Cardinals, Yankees, As, Red Sox, Dodgers etc. Then you have teams in long windows of contention like the Nationals, Astros and Braves...mostly assisted by generational talents coming up through last place inspired draft picks.

I think I'd rather have an owner like Contort who will roll the dice every few years instead of a Stu Sternberg who plays the Rays.

The problem in Colorado was the GM, Bridich, the previous management (Odowd) and the environment. Tulo's contract was atrocious, even for the best SS at the time. That's on Odowd. If the owner forces a bad contact, GM should work around it like Cashman routinely does in the big Apple.

Any GM would struggle to keep the pitching numbers down in COL. Bridich convinced Contort to invest in past their prime pitchers who struggled in Coors Field. At least they tried. I can't believe people are complaining about signing like McGee and Arenado. Same people who were complaining they needed more pitching in Free agency and to retain their stars.

The biggest issue is bad contracts to players like Desmond. I doubt ownership went out of the way to demand Desmand be acquired. The other issue is bad trades. Both of these are on the GM.

My words are contorted. Contort = Montfort.

BlackBerry for the win again :(.

Also: AL West turned into cowboy version of the AL East recently when almost half your games are against the Dodgers and Padres.


Daniel

Great call dalimon5 about AL West vs NL West. LAD & SD and maybe SF if they are real will hurt the AL West's chances at the AL WCs. Which is a big relief for me.

Presumably, the Yankees have extra Mets games, the Nats should have extra Orioles games, the Rays extra Marlins games. Boston-Philly? That leaves the Jays with extra Braves games.

Often, it's all about dodging the good pitchers.
Springer starts the season against Scherzer?

Tellez is 1-3 against him.
Panik is hitting .190 with 1 HR in 21 AB.
Bichette, Kirk and Semien have never faced him.
Biggio 0 for 2. Grichuk 0 for 9. Everybody else 0 for 3.

For consistent winning chances the Jays best stretch by far was 1983-1993 - 86+ wins every year, especially 1987-1993, always within 2 games of winning the division or won it. Can't do much better.

Yankees from 1995-2007 were within 2 or won the division every year, both times not winning were the wild card. 13 year stretch of always being there. Ignore 1995 and 2008 and you get 1994-2012 being that way. Wow. Just 1 division title since, plus 4 wild cards.

Red Sox never had a stretch like that. 2003-2009 they made the playoffs 6 of 7 years, but 11 out (sub 500) in the middle of that. Doubt their fans complained too much (2 WS titles). 3 straight division titles 2016-2018 and you've got every time in their history they made the playoffs 3 years straight. All from 2003 to 2018. With 4 WS titles, but also dead last in the AL East 3 times. Talk about a variable team.

Tampa has 3 division titles, but none in a row (3 wild cards). 2008-2013 was their glory (one year 19 back though with 84 wins) after a decade of bad last place finishes (peak was 70 wins), followed by 5 years of 13+ out at the end of each season. Not a fun ride.

Baltimore has been within 9.5 of the division 5 times since 1995. Ouch. 30+ out 8 times including one year they finished 61 out (2018). Far from those glory days of the 1979-1983 when they were within 3 each year.

Odorizzi is on the IL with tightness in his right forearm. The Jays may have dodged a bullet when he decided to sign with the Astros.

However Springer is not well yet with his quad. Like really what the heck is he doing that he has had an injured quad for weeks? I wonder if something is up with his training regiment.

Realmuto is up to 1.1 WAR. Jansen is at -0.4 WAR. Realmuto was my #1 FA choice and at 5/$115m, he's looking good so far (despite a broken thumb in spring training).

I'm fine with Springer taking his time to make sure he's fully healthy before rejoining the team.

Training regiment? He's working out with the military?

I kid, I kid. But regiment in place of regimen is right up there with dominate instead of dominant ("a dominate performance") in the list of online typos that amuse me.

The one that I keep seeing is effect instead of affect. "It will effect his performance".

Yeah, Realmuto is off to a great start, but lord knows what he wanted from the Jays as they had chased him for awhile. Safe to say 6/$130 is the ballpark he'd have demanded given what he got from the team he wanted to be with.

Jansen/Kirk for ML minimum and eventually arbitration money is probably a better deal with the money saved going to Springer (CF was a nightmare remember - I don't trust that Grichuk will be this good all year, let alone for the next few). Jansen will hit better - he always did so I trust he hasn't forgotten how, just is having some really rotten luck early on.

"Realmuto is up to 1.1 WAR. Jansen is at -0.4 WAR. Realmuto was my #1 FA choice and at 5/$115m, he's looking good so far (despite a broken thumb in spring training)."

Randall Grichuk is right behind him at .8 WAR... it's early

Realmuto/Kirk (C) and Martin (CF) might be a better combo than Jansen/Kirk (C) and Springer (CF) over the next few years.

Remember that Realmuto is a year younger than Springer.

I’m not unhappy with the acquisition of Springer, but it will be interesting to see which player proves more valuable, both in absolute terms and in per-dollar terms.

right up there with dominate instead of dominant

My experience with younger people is that they are using the word dominate intentionally, not as a typo, and they pronounce it domin-it (unlike the verb, which they would rightfully pronounce as domin-ate). I have no idea what sent them down this path. Probably Pokemon or something.

The one that drives me crazy is using me or myself instead of I. As in John and me went to the bar. I’m stunned when a younger person actually gets it right…..Watching too many athlete interviews.

And this one isn’t age dependent… Canadians everywhere saying Zee instead of Zed…..Watching too many American shows.

(And I gave up on to vs too years ago.)

Hey Guys, I’m delighted to see several of you keeping up the venerable Box tradition of grumbling about misuse of the language. Does my old heart good. Keep it up.

Dewey

they pronounce it domin-it
I thought they were saying "dominant" but slurring the finl "n" out of existence. Are you telling me I don't understand the youth of today?

Holy smokes, as a "youth of today," I'm guessing around here that means "under 40," let me tell you that you're really derailing this thread and I don't know anybody that speaks with "Dominit" or whatever. Probably a typo.

Fact - most "youths" access web via hand held devices.

Fact - most hand held devices are typo prone

Fact - youth of today has worse teachers than older generation did

Fact - youth of today is more educated than previous generation, if you aren't seeing that then you're reading in the wrong places...

Wink

FYI that last post is from mobile phone while changing my daughter's diaper... and no, it's not directed at anyone specific. Just tiring hearing about the "plight," that the boomer generation has to deal with.

Nah us boomers don’t have any issue with the younger generation. We just poke fun at them. And my daughters give back at least as good as they get! The grand daughter’s too young to pick on but she rules the roost anyway.

Good luck with the little ones Dalimon. They really do grow up fast. Too fast.

Awesome post, thanks! My baseball watching has the sound of the sound machine now through the baby monitor...Buck Martinez and baby sound machine...it's hard to stay up when the games are late and when Dolls is on the mound, forget about it.

Ha. My son in law is going through the same thing! Enjoy the little one. Kids are awesome.