Maybe we need to bring Ng over to get rid of Mattingly here too. :)

Well, that would make a lot of people here happy as that'd be the end of the Shapirio/Atkins era - she'd demand to have full control after the Miami mess. Remember, she spent a LOT of time with the Dodgers (starting in 2001) and that is a place you want to raid just like the Rays are. She was with the Yankees in 98-2000 as assistant GM too - also a very good learning place (3 WS titles in her 3 years). If I was Rogers and I was wanting to do a major shift in the front office she'd be on the short list.

Now, what to expect in these final 3 games? Berríos goes for win #17 today, Rodriguez tries to earn his slot for 2025 on Saturday (his 1-7 record is worse than he has pitched, but the Jays 75 pitch limit has kept the W's away), Bassitt tries to have a good finish on Sunday. No 200 IP, no 20 wins, no 200 K's on the list for these guys.

Pen? Unless the Jays win all 3 in tight fashion Green won't get to 20 saves (at 17 right now). Can't see anything worth noting there. Well, Swanson is at 9 holds so 10 is in reach but I doubt anyone cares.

Offense? Vlad could win the batting title but needs a killer weekend while Witt has a weak one. 200 hits though he just needs 3 more. Springer sitting at 19 for doubles and home runs, I'm sure he'd like 1 more of each. Horwitz, Kirk, & Schneider both at 19 doubles, 20 would be a nice round number to reach. Barger needs 3 HR to reach 10 as a rookie. Vlad 2 runs scored from a 100 run season. Lukes just shy of 300 on the season at 294 - a good weekend would get him to 300 which would look good on his resume, on the other end Barger is at 200 for avg, Schneider 195 safe to say both want a good weekend to get over the Mendoza line. Vlad at 398 for OBP, so damn close to a 400 OBP. Springer at 301 OBP (ugh). Really not a lot to look at here outside of Vlad. A few nice things to watch for but I suspect #1/2 will be Vlad getting 200 hits and Vlad fighting for the batting title - I expect the 200 but not to get the batting title.

Well, that would make a lot of people here happy as that'd be the end of the Shapirio/Atkins era - she'd demand to have full control after the Miami mess. Remember, she spent a LOT of time with the Dodgers (starting in 2001) and that is a place you want to raid just like the Rays are. She was with the Yankees in 98-2000 as assistant GM too - also a very good learning place (3 WS titles in her 3 years). If I was Rogers and I was wanting to do a major shift in the front office she'd be on the short list.

Is this supposed to be a joke? Kim Ng is going to be to be your big move to make people happy about canning Shapiro LOL? Her big contributions to the Yankees/Dodgers was primarily on the front of handling arbitration cases and contracts, yet you make it sound like she was secretly building their teams. Not even close. She interviewed for ~5-6 GM jobs before the Marlins, and didn't get a single one. Her time in Miami was largely unimpressive - hence them bringing in someone above her. They won 84 games in a fluke season last year (something like a -50 run differential, and crazy high percentage of winning 1-run games). No, Kim Ng is not an upgrade to Shapiro. The fact that she sat in the room for 20 years with the Dodgers doesn't make her an upgrade.

We should have a look at Brett de Geus against his last team.
He hasn't had success at the MLB level but the stuff is interesting.

He was drafted by the Dodgers in 2017.Then he was picked by Texas in the rule 5 when he was 23.
He was then picked off waivers by Arizona in June, still as a rule 5.
He was released by Arizona after a bad year at AA.
Signed with KC. Had a 2.80 ERA in AA but bombed in AAA and released.
Signed with Seattle, same story. Picked on waivers by the Marlins, good AAA in a small sample.
Not so good in Miami in 7 games.

He mostly throws a 96mph sinker that tops at 98mph.
His second pitch is a knuckle curve at 85mph.
He has a cutter at 90mph and splitter at 88mph.

The sinkers look good. The curve has little lateral movement.
It looks like half of his cutters didn't cut at all.
The splitters probably move too much to stay in the strike zone.

Her big contributions to the Yankees/Dodgers was primarily on the front of handling arbitration cases and contracts.. The fact that she sat in the room for 20 years with the Dodgers doesn't make her an upgrade.

Absent some sort of secret inside information no one has reported, this sounds like misogynistic garbage suggesting she was either handling paperwork or just there as a token. I really have no idea how good she was at her job, and neither do you, but Assistant General Manager is more than just sitting in the room.

She interviewed for ~5-6 GM jobs before the Marlins, and didn't get a single one.

I am absolutely shocked that an Asian-American woman would have a hard time getting one of the top jobs in an otherwise exclusively male field.

I am absolutely shocked

Your winnings, sir.

I suddenly worry if an oblique reference to an 83 year old film is a little too obscure.

I thought it was some clever pun involving winni NG s

"(his 1-7 record is worse than he has pitched but the Jay's 75 pitch limit has kept the W's away)"

I'd say it's Yariel's pitching that's kept the W's away. I've watched a lot of his games and invariably he gets through the first 3 innings unscathed but by the 4th or 5th inning he starts walking people and/or the opposition starts hitting off him. I've seen very few of his games where he is still pitching well when he gets to his pitch limit, or even makes it that far. That doesn't mean I don't think he can be effective eventually, but right now he doesn't seem to have endurance.

I'm also not yet sure that Rogriguez has a way to consistently get hitters out over multiple innings.

I suddenly worry if an oblique reference to an 83 year old film is a little too obscure.

Play it again, Magpie. (Not an actual quote from the film).

Absent some sort of secret inside information no one has reported, this sounds like misogynistic garbage suggesting she was either handling paperwork or just there as a token. I really have no idea how good she was at her job, and neither do you, but Assistant General Manager is more than just sitting in the room.

The Dodgers currently have 3 "Assistant General Managers", all of whom are behind the actual GM, who himself is behind Andrew Friedman. They also have a Senior Vice President of Baseball Ops who is above the "Assistant GM's" as well. I never said that she did nothing, you are just projecting. You can Google what she was "known for": it was for her work handling arbitration cases and contract negotiations. The point being that you won't find a single article claiming that she was some secret architect behind their on-field roster, so why pretend like she is the obvious choice if one wanted to find someone from the Dodgers? I said "sitting in the room" because these front offices are massive - with ~4-5 people (all of similar "rank") operating together, and multiple execs above them. They can't all be "President" or "General Manager" worthy successors, even if they are with the mighty Dodgers.

I am absolutely shocked that an Asian-American woman would have a hard time getting one of the top jobs in an otherwise exclusively male field.

There it is! She didn't get the jobs because discrimination! If you actually read her bio, you will find that she was "taken under the wing" extremely early (and often) by multiple top-level execs, in multiple organizations. She was almost immediately identified and recognized. Have you considered that she didn't get those GM jobs, because it was simply outside her skill-set? There are 30 MLB teams, all with multiple "Assistant GM's". Of those ~60-100 "Assistant GM's", they can't all become General Managers, nor do they all have that capacity. But of course, because Kim Ng is a woman, in her case it MUST be because of that fact. She was with the Dodgers for ~10 years, interviewed for their GM position, and didn't get it. Must have been discrimination? She finally became GM with the Marlins, and the results were meh. Which actually seems to point to the PRIVILEGE she seems to receive: the fact that someone is suggesting to replace Shapiro with Kim Ng after her non-impressive Marlins tenure is wild. No offense, but I have a hard time believing that if Kim Ng was named "John Smith" and similarly just stepped down from the vaunted Miami Marlins that anyone would be suggesting that we should hire John Smith to replace Shapiro. It would never happen, so make of that what you want.

Rodriguez is getting stretched after not pitching much for several years.
The results are pretty good.
His problem is keeping the pitch count down. I'm cautiously optimistic for next year.

The Jays are 7-13 in games Yariel starts.

So still awful .350 win percentage , but not 1-7 bad.

Like John alluded to, the pitch limit and the 5-inning qualifier for starter wins make his record look worse than it really is.

But still not great.

The Marlins are the richer cousins of the Rays but the results don't reflect it.
Today's lineup features Griffin Conine and Otto Lopez.
Burger has 29 HR, but a .761 OPS.
Bride is at .782 and Edwards at .781.
The 2024 version has won only 59 games.
The pitching has taken a step back.
Luis Arreaz was traded to San Diego and Jorge Soler reached free agency.

They made the playoffs in 2020 thanks to a 31-29 record that was good enough for second place in the NL East.
It's a team that had an outfield of Yelich/Ozuna/Stanton and traded them all to go 63, 57, (31-29), 67, 69, 84! and are now back to 59.
Must be a really fun team for people who like rebuilds.

Clase taking base running tips from Vlad apparently

Very nice MLB showing by Lukes this year. Let's hope he can keep it going in 2025.

Couple of points:

If you call out Ng have some back up. It’s clear you don’t and it’s very easy to be misconstrued as misogynistic.

Greenfrog and Ducey seem to have a good pulse on what the Jays should and shouldn’t do next year regarding direction .

Lastly, Atkins sucks.

One more thing:

Magpie the reference was clear and better than any obscure baseball trivia question. Just LOVELY, apt and on point. Classic film, liner an end to a film.

I see we've reached the "let's give tryouts to random strangers who walked through the door" part of the season.

I don't think Ng's gender and racial identity did her any favours. I do think most GMs are hired because a) they've been with an organization that is widely admired, or b) someone already knew them and liked them. Ng spent most of her career with the Dodgers or the MLB office, neither of which would have helped her very much. The Dodgers are a very successful organization, but team owners admire people from Tampa much more than LA. (They win more than they lose, and they do it cheap.) What finally came through for Ng was the personal connection. She was hired by Derek Jeter, who knew her from her brief term with the Yankees.

Calling people misogynistic because they disagree with you, absent evidence, is misogynistic.

You know, in that, you are cheapening the charge.

Pirates win! Texas winniNg.

Ohtani is up to 54 HR and 57 SB. Hits like an MVP, hits home runs like a HOF slugger, pitches like a Cy Young calibre starting pitcher, steals bases with evident ease (he's been caught stealing 4 times this year). There may never be another player like him.

For the record, Babe Ruth topped out at 17 SB in a season. His career SB:CS totals were 123:116.

I have no strong feelings towards Ng one way or another.

The thought that came to my mind though was that she had the misfortune of being groomed for a long time towards being a top baseball executive, only to have the baseball FO culture shift to seemingly hiring not-even-middle-aged-yet Paul DePodesta clones.

Didn't expect this much discussion on Ng - just seeing Miami got me thinking about her and figuring if the Jays go hunting she'd be a solid candidate - experience in 2 very successful front offices, generally seen as well liked and respected in MLB. Being a non-white female would also put a new face on the franchise if they felt visible change was needed at the top. My feeling is no change is coming, and to be honest I think the current Shapiro/Atkins team can do a quick rebuild. pooks137 brought up another interesting name in Paul DePodesta - he was the hot young gun years ago but as Dodgers GM didn't see a lot of success (2004-2005 won division in '04 lost in first round, 4th in 2005 with 91 losses with lots of ex-Jays [Jeff Kent, César Izturis, Jayson Werth, José Cruz Jr, Giovanni Carrara] - the Jays connection was more a 'huh what do you know' when I looked the team up). He got a few other jobs in MLB but never again a GM or president job. Since 2016 has been the chief strategy officer for the Cleveland Browns of the NFL.

Lots of candidates if the Jays choose to go a new direction, but no one is a lock to work out. Changing GM's always makes me nervous as you could end up in a deep hole with the wrong one (just ask the White Sox who hired Chris Getz before this season).

As to the Jays for 2024 - just draft position left now. Jays 7th worst, 1 game behind the Pirates, can't catch the Rangers (Rangers won 1 more than the Jays in 2023, Jays can only tie them with 2 wins and Rangers losing the last 2) or anyone else in either direction. So the Jays will draft 7th or 8th after round 1, 5th or 6th overall unless the lottery helps or screws them. 2 Jay losses or 2 Pirate wins, or both go 1-1 and the Jays get the 7th slot, anything else and the Jays are 8th worst. Pirates have the tie break (2023 record of 76-86 vs Jays 89-73). Dream is to win the lottery and get the #1 overall pick for the first time in franchise history (it'd be Ethan Holliday unless he gets hurt badly or does something really stupid or has insane demands). Oh yeah, also hoping Vlad gets at least 1 more hit, and ideally gets very hot to win the batting title - just 6 points away from Witt, but also just 1 point ahead of Judge. FYI: Ohtani just 5 points shy of a triple crown in the NL. He has the HR, RBI, R, slugging, and OPS titles all locked up, and leads OBP by 6. He won't win the SB title (2nd to Elly De La Cruz who has 65, 2nd in walks too with 80 to Schwarber's 104). Sheesh what an insane year he has had. Yeah, it'd have been fun to have him here but he is just too much fun to watch anywhere - so thankful the Yankees didn't get him.

If the Blue Jays want to replace their GM and/or president, they should hire the best and most talented person for the position. That doesn't necessarily mean the person with the most conventionally recognized credentials or the person who has logged the most time in a front office.

Otto Lopez finding success in Miami does not really surprise me, but Griffin Conine? Good for you man. I never thought he’d make it to the bigs with all those Ks

Don't know anything about Ng but Shapiro or Atkins would have been out of jobs long time ago if they were asian females.

We’re about to find out if America is ready to elect a black and south Asian woman as President. It’s pretty much the equivalent of the late innings of a WS game 7 now. Crunch time.