A hitless Biggio is struggling to find playing time, seemingly slotting in behind both Collins and Tapia (unless he's hurt and I just don't know it).

I have always said that Zach Collins is clearly an amazing major leaguer who should be playing every day. (don't check, just trust me on that).

He will obviously cool off but it's amazing how cartoonishly bad his ABs looked in that first game compared to since that game. Even though that was a terrible pitch from Eovaldi, that was a good AB to get that far.

One of the interesting things about Collins is he was awesome in AAA as a 24 YO in 2019 and then had a total of around 390 PAs in four years since. Not saying he's going to get to be a star or anything, it's just hard to develop and adjust to the majors when you never get abs.

Well, this is only the second week of April, but Smoak showed that anything is possible.

He worked a full count and as the leading hitter of the inning, I was expecting Eovaldi to come straight at him and he did, although with a 90mph offering.

"I'm a Star Trek guy....yeah. I'm a Trekkie."

-Pat Tabler

This is astounding to me. Tabby I take back all the carping I've said about your broadcast.

Funny, I was around in those days and I missed that poll.

Saturday, June 11th - Worchester vs. Buffalo - Star Wars night for the Bisons

Featuring the only uniforms in professional baseball officially sanctioned by Lucasfilm, as per WBEN 930.

That (the third strike on Arroyo) looked to me like the first missed call by the home plate umpire tonight, and even that was understandable - it was headed right for the corner and broke away at the very end.

Good job by Kikuchi to battle through the fourth after Bichette’s error on the JD Martinez ground ball. He did get a bit lucky when his outside FB to Arroyo was called strike three (with runners on second and third with one out).

Kikuchi doesn't seem to have a lot of FB command so far, but that slider or cutter or whatever is not fooling anyone.

Pretty good start for Kikuchi. I like that he finished strong, capably getting the last three outs against the top of the Boston lineup. He could easily have unraveled after the error and single in the fourth, but he didn’t give in. Nice fielding on multiple plays, too.

Wasn't expecting him to come back out, that was a nice last inning. Made me eat my words re: the slider.

On hearing that Cole walked five in less than two innings, Shulman immediately wondered how cold it was in Detroit.

Even colder than Fenway, as it turns out (43 F there, 47 in Boston.)

Bichette error may cost the Jays this game.

Bichette having a really hard time this season. Bad start on offense. Terrible fielding game tonight. The pickoff in... was it vs NY?

Question about guerrero zone % is it a real strike zone or from all the blown calls from terrible umpiring?

Bo’s d has looked good this year but his hitting is so frustrating, why would anyone ever throw him a pitch in the zone because he swings at everything anyway, also, Vlad gets screwed basically every game by umps it seems.

grumble grumble... strike zone... broken record...

Angel Hernandez tomorrow? Wonderful.

With two right handed bats on the IL, the Jays bench skews too lefty. The only bats on the bench are lefties Biggio, Zimmer, Katoh, and right handed Heineman.

With Tapia and Collins facing a left handed pitcher, Charlie has really no options. Or no strong options. Ideally you would have a right handed bat on the bench instead of Katoh.

It is odd given all the talk in spring about the Jays being too right handed.

Are there approximate timelines for Jansen and Teo’s return?

When was the last time Kirk hit a ball hard? Like at all. It feels like every AB is a soft FO or a medium hit ground ball.

Tapia looks uncomfortable in the outfield, has no arm, stands practically outside of the batter's box, and doesn't run out ground balls to go along with his .200 OBP. Biggio doesn't have a hit this year and he still has a .294 OBP. Play Cavan or Zimmer and send Tapia to the bench where he belongs.

Zimmer's looked even more lost than Tapia at the plate.

There’s always Conforto.

It's not clear whether Conforto has been vaccinated. Being unjabbed would rule him out as a potential Jay.

Maybe too LH by headcount, not nearly LH enough by quality.

Biggio's due to go on a hot streak since I just dropped him from my fantasy team (OBP not AVG, obviously).

While you're at it, could you drop Tapia from your fantasy team also.

Bo's throwing is a real issue, especially on routine plays. On the tough ones he is surprisingly accurate. He's actually been picked off twice this year already, and he swings at almost everything. Almost want to start a pool on when Bo finally takes walk number one this season. Will he take one before May? I kinda doubt it. I know he'll start hitting at some point, but I don't like watching free swingers.

Kirk isn't hitting anything hard at all, despite this season probably being the most consistent playing time he's ever had in the Majors. I'm not really worried, but he's not doing himself any favors for more at bats when Jansen returns.

On the positive side, Kikuchi giving up just 1 run over 5 innings is nice progress, and the bullpen continues to be great.

Zack Collins is making me look pretty foolish for wanting him in AAA, gotta love that.

Tapia looks even crappier than I expected. Calling him replacement level when they traded for him might turn out to be overly generous. Please play Biggio or Zimmer.

Zack Collins turning into something would be a nice surprise, though a .545 BABIP might be a *tad* unsustainable. As far as Tapia, this is who he is. Eventually he will run into some BABIP luck to bring the average up, but ultimately he is a poor hitter and shouldn't be doing much other than pinch running on a contending team. If they insist on not playing Biggio, then putting Zimmer in CF and Springer in RF at least improves the team defensively. The organization must have soured on Biggio if he can't get playing time over Tapia/Zimmer. He doesn't grade out particularly well defensively in the OF, but he'd still likely be a net improvement over the other options.

They have 3 right handed position players on the reserve list.
Leo Jimenez is in Vancouver and it would probably be foolish to start his clock.
Otto Lopez has disappeared on the 7-IL soon after being cut from the Majors camp.
That only leaves Gabriel Moreno who missed most of camp and has only played in 4 games in AAA.

If you have 2 lefties and can't pinch hit for them in late innings, it would make sense to separate them by more than 1 batter, to create more platoon advantages.

All things equal, I will take Zimmer's defense over Tapia's bat.

Dexter Fowler could help, whenever he is fit.

<br>Zimmer's looked even more lost than Tapia at the plate.<br>

Offhand I'm guessing he had less time in camp to get ready?
Tapia is worse than I hoped/expected. That arm is not playable in right. I'd rather have Gurriel there.
I'm hoping this is manager playing with shiny new toy syndrome to see what he can do. With the lack of options it's a good time (also because of scheduling this could have repercussions on the whole season its a terrible time). I'd also rather see Zimmer playing for defense and/ or Biggio at this point.
There's at least one potential call-up in AAA so if he's not toast, I'd swap Tapia out when possible. At least that gives a L/R platoon of 4/5 OF when Hernandez is back.

According to BaseRuns, the best teams in baseball (in order) so far have been NYM, LAD, CLE, COL, SF, STL and ATL.  This is without any adjustment for strength of schedule (and the NL has a strong edge in interleague play).  The early signs are of a significant transfer in talent from AL to NL.  We'll see if that continues.  In fairness, it should be noted that the worst team in either league is Cincinnati with Texas and Washington following behind (ahead?).

They may be playing Zimmer, Tapia (and Collins) more vs Biggio to decide who to keep after May 1.

With 5guys hitting weakly- now 6 with Espinal- and an unused bench guy, the lineup is looking pretty poor right now. Their RISP is dreadful, and if not for HR’s they’d be sub 500. They don’t seem to like Aprils.

Still early, but it looks like the debates about Vlad or Bo when it comes to who should be extended first with a mega contract is sorting itself out. Wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to see the question shifted to “who deserves more, Bo or Teo?”

This obviously doesn't mean much, but it wasn't that long ago that Zimmer was a very highly-rated prospect. Some names from the 2017 MLB Top 100 Prospects list:

#22 Zimmer
#34 Guerrero Jr
#46 Judge
#64 Reid-Foley
#70 Alford
#83 Fisher
#90 Tapia
#94 Urena
#100 Chapman

Well, that was at the height of the CHC prospect hype machine...some of us noted at the time that there was unjustified hype going on.

That being said I don't mind having a legit defensive OF like Zimmer on the roster.

For me the issue is still that they went into this contending season without a full starting lineup of legit bats - even though they had the easiest slot to fill available for them to use (DH) and publicly stated they had plenty of payroll room.

As for Bo....he's of course already much better than Brett Lawrie was with way less attitudenal concerns but I still some worrying parallels there.

Scorecard is up for the game,  and I don't think it makes sense to me. The 8th inning calls aren't on there, but those 2 to Vlad and the one to Gurriel were badly outside and should've been hugely impactful because of leverage in a late and close game. Also they were bad calls.
I really don't think robo umps would be worse right now. It has just been really bad. That doesn't mean thr Jays didn't lose this game, but there was way too much help from umps.

After May 1 first, they lose 2 pitchers. They keep 13 position players.

It looks like Vlad losing an AB because of an early call several inches off is worth less than let say Tapia striking out on a marginal call with the bases loaded. 

Late in the game, Vlad and Gurriel got some bad calls and they were the 2 hottest hitter left.

Very encouraged by Kikuchi's outing.
It looks like he was trying to hit the corners and missed badly on the first 8 pitches.
Chapman talked to him and he did very well after that.
Kikuchi seems very comfortable against lefties but tentative against right handed bats.

Leaving aside the fact that I think its clear that Tapia is the 5th best OF option right now and should be getting playing time accordingly (although I accept that the difference Zimmer and Tapia may be marginal), I wish Charlie would tailor his usage of Zimmer and Tapia, in particular, to the circumstances a bit more. In Boston, OF defence is both unusual in LF and important in CF and RF - it begs for using your premium defender (Zimmer) for much if not all of the series over Tapia. I accepts its marginal benefit and a small thing, but for the Jays this year marginal may be important in the long run. This team is playing to win now.

"I'm hoping this is manager playing with shiny new toy syndrome"

Montoyo was given 3 shiny new Dollarama toys. Collins may turn out to be OK, but time will tell. I remember the old saying about 500 AB's to really make a proper judgement.

Of all batters with at least 10 PA's this season, Biggio's max EV of 98.6 is 4th percentile.

Guerriel has made some nice plays so far.

Yankees have announced that all their players are now vaccinated

I think Boone was a bit tentative on that, but we'll see.

Biggio ought to be given regular ABs until he proves he can no longer get on base at an above average rate. It would be a real shame if, a bit like Tellez last year, he isn’t afforded a proper opportunity.

Biggio 1B
Vlad DH
Tapia LF
Collins out of the lineup against Pivetta.

Still early, but it looks like the debates about Vlad or Bo when it comes to who should be extended first with a mega contract is sorting itself out. Wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to see the question shifted to “who deserves more, Bo or Teo?”
Am I imagining it, or was there a report on MLBTR or similar that Bo turned down a longer-term extension recently? Or was that retracted? If so, he isn't exactly winning by "betting on himself" so far.. BRef has him at -0.1 WAR so far (vs. 0.8 for Vlad). Obviously, that will improve.. Just hoping it's soon!

The old Toronto invisible comma. It's the fifth time someone has fallen for it this week.

I posted a few times over the winter arguing that the Jays should pursue Seiya Suzuki. Not many people favoured that idea, but he has been incredible so far (1.1 fWAR, about double that of Vladdy). Sure would be nice to have him in the middle of the order instead of Tapia. I guess people got the left-handed bat they wanted so badly...

greenfrog - if you look back you'd see I was constantly saying the Jays should chase him down, but when the contract got close to $100 mil I was 'hrm'. A great signing for the Cubs, but dang he'd have been nice in RF right now, with Hernandez as the DH more often than not - might have kept him healthy and we'd have a stronger team right now by a lot. Ah well. I also wanted the Jays to sign Ha-Seong Kim who has all his value via defense at SS/3B but a 73 OPS+ in 1 season and a bit.

Grichuk was already a groundballer, with a runner on 1st. He managed 17 GIDP's last year in 545 PA's. Only players who did that in fewer PA's were speedsters Josh Donaldson and Miggy Cabrera.

I'm sure you're saying he had a lot of DP situations last year. Probably, but in 2019, the year we lost 95 games, he had 20 GIDP's.

Perfect. 

wRC+ from 19 to 72 with one swing.

Terrible decision by the Sox CF but that was still nice base running by Kirk.

Unspectacularly solid start from Berrios tonight. It's nice to see some more 96 and 97 MPH fastballs sprinkled in.

It would be nice if Richards came out for the ninth.

If only. Thornton, Kay, and Borucki are all starving for work, but it will probably be Merryweather or Cimber.

Merryweather it is.  Richards had thrown 12 pitches and had good stuff.  We'll see if Merryweather does.

Congratulations to Anthony Gose for his 1st big league win.

You think Bo had some bad D yesterday? Tim Anderson had 3 of the 4 White Sox errors committed before the Sox retired a batter in the 2nd inning. The recipient of that awful D was Dallas Keuchel who was terrible himself - 1 IP, 10 hits, 10 runs, 8 earned.

Credit should be given where it is due - I thought the home plate umpire had a good game tonight. I don’t know who that impostor pretending to be Angel Hernandez was, but hats off to him.

Tomorrow's potential lineup is not what was envisioned a few weeks ago. Man plans, baseball laughs.

Bichette
Guerrero
Gurriel
Collins
Chapman
Tapia
Espinal
Biggio
Zimmer

At least Gausman is on the bump. Get well soon, George.

Not only was Angel Hernandez pretty good, but the Jays hitter gave him a lot of undeserved abuse.

Unsurprisingly, the ball has not been carrying in the cold weather.  League xwOBA is .330 and league wOBA is .307 (historically xwOBA and wOBA have been within a point or two of each other almost every year).  The prime beneficiary on the Blue Jays has been Jordan Romano, with an xwOBA of .343 and a wOBA of .162.  He's been pitching to contact much more this year so far, but it looks to me like he will need to revert to last year's pattern as the weather warms. The player who has suffered from the conditions is Santiago Espinal with an xwOBA of .392 and a wOBA of .267.  The only thing he needs to do is occasionally slap the ball to right to keep the defences honest.  He can do that. 

Correction: historically, wOBA has never been more than a point or two less than xwOBA over a season.  There were years when wOBA was considerably higher than xwOBA. 

Fangraphs has decided to move from UZR to Statcast data for measuring defence for WAR purposes, citing the increase in shifting and the improved accuracy of Statcast in this context. 

Mike see they able to crunch that statcast data into a convenient usable single number?

If Springer is injured, but not IL bound, the Jays are potentially effectively going to play tomorrow with a one-man bench of Kirk, who needs the day off, given his reluctance to use Heineman and Katoh.

I joke, but beyond Katoh pinch-running for Collins and Heineman (maybe, if Charlie thinks he really needs to rest Kirk) coming into catch in the 8th or 9th inning, is there another scenario in which either of them gets off the bench?

Statcast is only for the range component. Arm and double play conversion components of UZR will continue to be used, because statcast doesn't measure that.

It seems like they were weary of using Collins but since he's been good offensively and looked fine in his first outing, he gets the next start. Heineman might get a start against a lefty but he's not a pinch hitting option.

The thing that limits Katoh is Espinal's hot start even though he's come down a lot since.
And then there's Biggio who hasn't had a lot of opportunities.
Ironically, a right handed bat would be more useful now.

Martinez is out today.
Devers is the DH, Dalbec at 3B.
Cora is going with 4 left bats, adding Travis Shaw at 1B.
I don't think Gaus is a platoon guy. 

I defended Atkins in 2019 when the team was not interested in even trying to be "not bad". Tulo, Martin and K Morales were playing for other teams and being plaid by the Jays. Whatever the plan was it probably worked because the Jays are a good team now.

2022 is the 1st season that the FO expects the team to contend IMO. Serious injuries will affect this aspiration. The bench/depth changes have me concerned.

I think Katoh might get his first MLB start today. I am a bit shocked that Montoyo hasn't given him one yet, or even an AB. He played as much as anyone in the spring (14 games, 27 PA), earned a roster spot after 9 seasons in the minors, and is right now the "option guy" on a 4-man bench that can ride the Toronto-Buffalo shuttle for the season as required. Espinal has cooled off after a good start -- so today is as good as any for Katoh.

They were competing last year.
They decided to try some experience arms to fix the pen which didn't work.
Would have probably been better to stick with Payamps and try guys like Bryan Baker.
Relief arms are like horses at the races. Sometimes you get lucky with the ones with fancy names, but it's all a gamble.
Why was Roark unfixable? Is it that the Pete Walker recipe is lean on the fastball and his wasn't good enough?

It used to be the 7th RP was never actually used but was somehow necessary, then it recent years that became the 8th RP. Now teams are carrying 3 in-case-of-emergency relievers instead of building a proper bench and calling up fresh arms as they are necessary. The new rule of limiting bullpens to 8 arms after April passes is a good one, but it doesn't go far enough. If you want to increase offense you don't need to ban shifts, just cut down bullpens even further and stop allowing teams to use guys that can throw at max effort for 15 pitches every few days.

I do find the 'they are finally trying to win' idea funny. In 2020 the Jays made the playoffs, in 2021 they were 1 game out in the end. In 2019/20 offseason they signed Ryu (he was 2nd in NL Cy Young voting for 2019), in 2020/21 they signed Springer (141 OPS+ in CF for Houston). There is no question the Jays felt they were contenders from 2020 to now and have acted like it. What has killed them is a handful of poor choices (signing Tanner Roark for example), injuries (Springer last year), and bad luck (COVID forced travel). Now they are tied for 1st in the wild AL East (4 teams within 1 game of 1st, the NL West is the same with LA leading then 3 teams tied 1 game back SF/SD/Colorado).

Right now the Jays have a few issues but hopefully some will clear up on their own (Hernandez returning from the IL soon, Jansen will eventually return, Bo won't keep a 46 OPS+ all year, nor Biggio a 10). Good news is Kirk is starting to recover (95 OPS+ now) but has yet to hit for any power (0 extra base hits), Collins though won't keep that 255 OPS+ for long, but lets enjoy the ride. Berrios has just a 62 ERA+ after last nights nice battle and should see that climb a lot over time. Team OPS+ is 116, ERA+ 103. That can work.

I have to say, Boston's lineup looks more fearsome than the Jays' lineup this afternoon. (But let's just play the game anyway and see what happens.)

The history of Houck against Toronto and Gausman against Boston I think will be a factor. Kiermaier seems to feast on the Jays. TB gave the Jays fits even when TB was a last place team. I have always found these factors reliable BUT then maybe I am using some odd data to form personal strong conclusions.

The Red Sox lineup kinda sucks too today, so naturally the final score will be something like 7-6.

As long as Raimel Tapia hits 2 homers and steals 3 bases to lead the Jays to victory, I'm fine with the weirdness.

I did 8 letter wordle over lunch today.  The answer was "baseball". Is product placement in wordle a thing?

Gausman also has a ridiculously good Fip(.45) and xFip (1.68). Hopefully he will have better luck today. Boston continuing to miss JDM will help.

Our bottom 3 batters look scary. And not in a good way.

I wouldn't mind a big game from Bo and Vladdy today.

The story might be how Collins deals with Gaus.

Speaking of weird results.
Next stop Houston--where the struggling Altuve is on the IL.
OPS+ leaders: Jeremy Pena 182, Yordan Alvarez 167, Chas McCormick 135, Alex Bregman 131, Jose Siri 125, Michael Brantley 112, Aledmys Dias 64, Kyle Tucker 34, Yuli Gurriel 29, Martin Maldonado 16 
Houston is 6-6 and in 4th place.

Kay has been optioned with Saucedo recalled.

A few years ago, Cavan Biggio would have had no difficulty going the other way with a runner on 2nd and two outs.  Now, he looks like he is trying to hit the ball through the shift and it makes no sense at all to me.

This is all speculative and obviously I have no inside knowledge...

My guess is Cavan knows his time in Toronto may be coming to an end soon, and some inertia has set in. He just hasn't been the same since the end of the '20 pandemic short season, and he's been passed on the depth chart by multiple players, with more in the minors coming. You don't even see him in the dugout chumming with Bo, or even discussing the game much.

I seem to recall playing the Rays quite a bit in the last bit of '20 and the two game playoff thingy. Tampa figured out how to pitch him and the rest of the league has taken notice.

This all may have been helped along by some outside factors...perhaps the Jays had him included in deals this off-season or last off-season that never materialized, and he is disgruntled. Who knows.

Or maybe Keith Law was right all along.

Our bottom 3 batters looked good the first time through.

Some nice at bats that inning against a tough pitcher. Kudos to the ump so far too. He’s been right on so far despite 2 pitchers throwing pitches with a lot of movement. Pleasant change from the last game I watched.

Yes, and that of course. Law and others were not bullish on his long term prospects.

Gausman …despite 5SO’s in the first 3 innings, he’s only at 31 pitches. Putting on a clinic…provided I don’t jinx him.

No disrespect to Gausman, but it really looks like everyone wants to get this over with and get out of town.

<br>I feel like bad umpiring has playrd a role in breaking Biggio.

Gaus may go the distance today. This is a statement game.

That Tapia guy is really good.

Nice defense too.

On way to get assist is to play lazily most of the time.
I bet it's pretty hard to judge if a monster banger is a double when rounding first.

Infield fly single?

"On way to get assist is to play lazily most of the time."

That's also a good way to get DFA'd

Gausman is going to come out for the 9th, you think?

Might have been a mistake, as it forced Romano to pitch to Devers using a slide step (possibly leading to the walk).

Over managing

I would have left Gausman out there...

I feel like Biggio is pressing, for lack of a better explanation. He seems to be internalizing his struggles in a way that I don't think Bo or Vlad do.

Montoyo with two men on, one run scored and none outs…get someone warming up!

Arguably it should have been one or the other — leave Gausman in or let Romano start the inning with the bases empty.

Montoyo likes to use relievers too much to let a starter complete a game.

If you're going to pull Gausman at 88 pitches after a leadoff single, just let Romano start the inning clean.

Beautiful series win. 4-3 on the road vs. NYY & BOS while winning both series at home is exactly how you draw it up.

It's the top of the order with a 3 run lead.
The closer should be able to handle it even with one guy on.
The only reason not to go to Romano is to save him for the next 2 games and he's already warmed up.

Romano should have attacked Devers with high fastballs and ignored the runner.
His slider is not getting swings.
He's been strictly 9th inning, usually not facing the top hitters.

Nice play by Chapman there.

Biggio is heading home to see his dad and get some home cooking. That might wake up his bat.

Lots of managers do what Montoyo did. But I guess that's why managers get fired but fans never do.

I don't think it was a big deal either way. More a matter of personal preference/hunch. There is also the human dimension. Montoyo probably wanted to give Gausman a chance for the complete game shutout, given how efficiently he pitched. But he no doubt also wanted to limit his pitch count in a mid-April start. So he had to thread that needle.

A win in Boston with the lineup we had and a tough Boston pitcher... I'll take it, nail biting and all. Nice to Springer back quickly.

Gausman was terrific today.  I am sure Alek Manoah was taking notes.

It looks like Walker asked Gaus if he wanted to try to finish it and then repeated his answer to Montoyo.
Montoyo then went to say something to Gaus--probably that he's getting pulled if anyone reaches.

Honestly, I hate it when the other teams get easy hits because of the shift, but those are usually singles and don't seem to lead to big innings. 8-5. Can't really complain.

Also, how about Romano? Is that 30 consecutive converted saves for him? Hard to believe the Jays almost lost him for good in the Rule 5 draft.

"I guess that's why managers get fired but fans never do."

Except for those times when teams relocate.

Yeah, the Oakland fans are about to be fired. Under 3k at their game on Wednesday, under 4k on Tuesday, just 17,503 on opening day Monday. Yikes.

For comparison, Montreal 2002 (well on their way to moving) - opening day 34,351, next 2 games just over 4k each. Just one home game under 3k all year (in September). In 2004 (their last year) 30,112 for opening day in Montreal (they actually started in PR with under 20k) and never were sub 3600 for a game despite knowing the team was leaving. I figure the A's are destined to move very soon.

Love that we're winning with pitching and defense especially when the offense is destined to come around (injured coming back/hitting with risp etc). Just feels like the most complete team in recent memory.

Boone gave an intentional walk to Miggie who is at 2999 hits and the crowd sang "Yankees suck".

That”s hilarious Scottt. Good for Tiger fans.

I wouldn't blame Oakland's fans for the intentional destruction by management. Trade away the players + drastically increase the ticket prices + remove benefits that ticket holders used to get + talk about maybe moving away from the city? What do you expect. From a last month Mercury News article:

"“At this point, I think fans are pretty numb to it [trading away the good players],” Espinosa said. “This is how it’s been for the past two decades. But it still stings.”

Team ownership, led by John Fisher, hasn’t done anything to soften the latest blow. Fans are facing a massive increase in ticket prices. In a thread of Tweets this week, one fan wrote that his view-level tickets had gone from $399 per seat in 2019 to $888 this season. Another wrote that his two seats in Section 225 had gone from $2,950 in 2019 to $6,500 this season. A third wrote that their Section 119 seat jumped from $711 to $1,587.

The kicker at the end of most tweets? Most fans said they didn’t renew for 2022.

...

Grandrath shares the same frustration. She first became an A’s fan in the 1970s, enjoying the teams who won three World Series crowns in a row even though she was living in Chicago. She moved to Oakland in 1986 and followed the team from up close ever since, including becoming a full season ticket holder in 2010.

Grandrath already has her season tickets for 2022, but she isn’t even sure if she’ll stick around past this year because of the ticket price hike and the removal of the A’s Access benefits program season ticket holders used to get.

“I might not after this,” Grandrath said. “This might be the last straw.”"

See https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/19/as-fans-feel-recent-trades-ticket-prices-might-be-the-last-straw/ for full article.

The one thing Oakland used to have going for it was incredibly cheap tickets. If you lose that in a year when the As are a great playoff team, that might be one thing, but to lose it when they are selling off and tearing down? Seems crazy.

Boone gave an intentional walk to Miggie who is at 2999 hits and the crowd sang "Yankees suck".

And it blew up in his face, as Meadows drove in two runs with a hit to put Detroit up 3-0.

Blue Jays ticket subscribers reading that think “damn, those are some cheap seats”.

Looking at the A's on SubHub (ticket reseller) I see tickets beside the dugout for $104 US ($132 Can), behind the plate for $239 ($303 Can), with cheapest being outfield 2nd deck for $17 US ($22 Can). On a Friday night vs Texas

For the Jays on the same day (April 22nd a Friday) the cheapest are $24 for upper deck seats in the outfield (not the worst seats in the park), up to $378 for behind home plate sorta (just off to the 3B side). For beside a dugout it is goes up to $755 on a Monday vs Boston (all Canadian funds).

So apples to apples... in Canadian $
Cheapest: $22 Oakland, $24 Toronto
Behind home plate: $303 Oakland, $378 Toronto
Beside dugout: $132 Oakland, $755 Toronto (remember vs Red Sox so visitor dugout would be popular here)

So that is the ticket price difference between a team that isn't trying to win and one that is.

FYI: Yankees cheapest: $19 (standing room), behind home plate: $952, beside dugout $476 (Friday night game vs Cleveland)
In all 3 cases dugout is the visitors dugout.

I used StubHub to see prices resellers are charging vs what teams charge.

Second guessing yesterday on the decision to pull Gausman. And it almost blew up, Romano was not good. One thing mentioned was the fact Romano wasn't starting a clean inning.

Is a reliever starting a clean inning truly important or is it just an old saw? Lots of relievers come in mid-inning. Tried to google it, but the only real study I found was Clemens at FG looking at starters used as relievers in the playoffs.

It might depend to some extent on the particular reliever. Some pitchers might be unfazed by a runner on first base in a close situation. Others might be more prone to distraction or they might end up modifying their delivery in a detrimental way (e.g., slide step versus full windup).

It might also depend on how close the game is. The closer the game, the less margin for error.

His fastball velocity so far is off 1.5 mph from last year. Hopefully as the weather warms up, so will his cheese. Are you able to discern any difference between his velocity at home versus his velocity on the road? 4 of his 7 appearances have been indoors, so he hasn't been overly exposed to the elements.

Gausman tied for the MLB lead with 1.0 fWAR. Has not given up a BB or HR in 18.2 innings.

But he also has a .412 BABIP. 2.89 ERA despite that poor luck is extremely impressive. The other 7 pitchers with 10+ IP and a BABIP over .400 have ERA's of 5.40. 5.68, 6.08, 6.08, 7.50, 7.59 and 7.82.

Found this at CBS fantasy:

"When it comes to velocity drops, I'm more willing to give the benefit doubt this year than normal given the shortened spring training. It's possible some guys just didn't have a chance to get fully up to speed, and I've seen some beat writers speculate that this is the point in the spring calendar where a lot of pitchers are working through dead arm as they ramp up. Add in that the weather is colder and you can definitely give guys the benefit of the doubt."

BTW, the pitcher with the greatest average FB velocity drop thus far, from 94.8 to 92.1? Robbie Ray.

Found this at CBS fantasy

Something I agree with entirely. This is effectively the middle of March as far as where the pitchers are in getting ready for the season, even if the games started counting two weeks ago.

On tickets, I used to be able to get behind home plate for about $32 in Oakland (at least for most games, maybe NYY and BOS might be more) and in the bleachers there used to be super cheap $2 tickets and hotdogs and the like. This was like ~10-15 years back so maybe some inflation in the interim, but not as much as the recent price hikes in the past 2-3 years.

SF Giants tickets were always much more expensive (once they move stadiums).

Remember that the Jays are shifting on everybody and also use 4 men outfield a lot.
I'm not sure that the effect is. Maybe more singles?

Low ERA and high BABIP might just be challenging the less dangerous hitters.
Gaus doesn't rely on ground balls and double plays. He can strike out a guy when he needs to.
Couple with low BB/HR, high BABIP is not wearisome to me.

For a closer, the save is the only stat that counts.
The only thing affected by the inherited runner is the ERA of the previous pitcher.
Romano was easy to steal on last year and he's added a step to deal with that.
You can hold the runner at first to keep the double play, but Romano is not a ground ball pitcher.
The runner at second is more problematic because he can steal signs and score on a single.
They have an alternative to signs now, but that last inning can be very noisy.

It seems to me that he lost his sweeping slider around the time they banned foreign substances.
That hasn't hurt him, but he's changed a number of things.

Springer is out of the lineup tonight.  Zimmer replaces him in center, and Tapia replaces Teoscar in right.  Collins is your DH and bats fifth. 

In the Jays 6-1 win over Boston, home plate umpire Angel Hernandez only miscalled 5 pitches out of 161 for an outstanding accuracy rate of 96.9 %. Is it possible that Mr. Hernandez has made a Danny Jansen-like improvement by also starting to wear glasses?

Is it possible that Mr. Hernandez has made a Danny Jansen-like improvement by also starting to wear glasses?

Based on Mr. Hernandez's next game behind the plate: No, it is not possible.

Cimber is not the right guy to call with runners on the bases.
Phelps is pretty good here, but wasn't available.
Ideally, Merryweather develops and can be used in that role.