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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

Not sure if Blair was deep into the cocktails last night or not but:

SNJeffBlair

John Farrell returning to manage the Blue Jays would be spectacular.

Farrell in ’19: He’s Tanned, Rested and Ready!

Y’all think I’m joking about Farrell …. Heh heh heh ...
There was another "MLB insider" named Marly Rivera who also floated this idea as a a possibility on TSN radio.

Apparently Farrell's first job in MLB was working for Shapiro as Cleveland's "director of player development" for five years. So, that'd check the two most important boxes for any Shapiro hire---he has a personal relationship with Shapiro and used to work for him in Cleveland.

It'd also fit with Shapiro being completely out-of-touch and tone-deaf when it comes to the fans in this market.
 
as many predicted


@ShiDavidi

Roberto Osuna agrees to peace bond for one year, Crown to withdraw assault charge
 
@ShiDavidi

Crown says complainant has a three-year-old with Roberto Osuna, is currently in Mexico, wants to continue coparenting with him and didn’t want to testify.
 
Gibby officially not returning next season despite being under contract.

I assume Pillar, Sanchez and Stroman are next in line to go. Gotta think they want to dump Martin and Tulo somehow as well.

The calculated destruction of the Anthopolous era continues.

I assume Shatkins wants(ed) all these people gone from day 1.

Encarnacion
Price
Bautista
Donaldson
Estrada
Osuna
Lowe
Pillar
Stroman
Sanchez
Loup
Martin
Tulo
Gibby

They've wanted a clean slate from day 1. In Shatkins mind 2015 and 2016 inconveniently got in the way.
 
To be fair, a lot of those guys have sucked. I don't think anyone's crying over letting Estrada, Lowe, or Tulo be gone or almost gone from the team. Encarnacion has looked pretty bad this year too, and while Price is enjoying a bounce-back season, still not sure I'd want him back for the remaining years on the deal.

I'm sure Shatkins have loved the extra revenues from the last few years with the playoff runs, but the real hard work does have to start now. Ticket sales were down this year, and they'll be down even more next year with the team basically saying out of the gate that there's no chance. How they manage and handle that will be interesting.
 
I would not even think of moving Stro or Sanchez without giving them a chance to return to form next season. Their value has dropped far too much.
 
To be fair, a lot of those guys have sucked. I don't think anyone's crying over letting Estrada, Lowe, or Tulo be gone or almost gone from the team. Encarnacion has looked pretty bad this year too, and while Price is enjoying a bounce-back season, still not sure I'd want him back for the remaining years on the deal.

I'm sure Shatkins have loved the extra revenues from the last few years with the playoff runs, but the real hard work does have to start now. Ticket sales were down this year, and they'll be down even more next year with the team basically saying out of the gate that there's no chance. How they manage and handle that will be interesting.

They need to address the pitching in a significant way. It doesn't look like we can count on Sanchez to be a full time starter. Does he get moved to the pen? If so do we move Giles? We probably should anyway. Do we even trust Sanchez in the pen? It might be able to save his career. Stroman was off this year. With the attitude and lack of production this season i wouldn't be surprised to see him move. Happ needed to be moved and got moved at the right time. Estrada was a bad. 4 pitchers right there that cost us the season.

If we are to pencil in Stroman, Sanchez, Borucki into the rotation we're still missing 2 guys. Even though at this point it seems as though we should be penciling in a guy to take over for Sanchez when he inevitably goes to the DL. I think Stroman can bounce back. Always been a fan of his but if we can get good value for him i'd move him. The rotation just has too many question marks.

I'm ok with what they are doing with the position players. Need to see what you have in some of the guys. Tulo and Martin should be moved.
 
To be fair, a lot of those guys have sucked. I don't think anyone's crying over letting Estrada, Lowe, or Tulo be gone or almost gone from the team. Encarnacion has looked pretty bad this year too, and while Price is enjoying a bounce-back season, still not sure I'd want him back for the remaining years on the deal.

I'm sure Shatkins have loved the extra revenues from the last few years with the playoff runs, but the real hard work does have to start now. Ticket sales were down this year, and they'll be down even more next year with the team basically saying out of the gate that there's no chance. How they manage and handle that will be interesting.

Edwin is a 2 WAR player right now and is trending up. The Jays don't have a 2 WAR player on their roster.

Edwins "bad season" is 31 homeruns and 101 RBI and an OPS around .830 at seasons end. They lost him for nothing and is a better hitter than anyone we currently got.

Price is gonna finish top 10 in Cy Young voting this season.

Donladson was lost for nothing and will return to form next season.

Sanchez, Pillar and Stroman are next on their list forsure.

Shatkins had no interest winning with AA's players and you know it. Not sure why you defend these clowns.

They've spent 80 million on 2-3WAR. That's pathetic and not a real attempt to supplement the old core.

FYI - never said anyone was crying. The list is the list.
 
They need to address the pitching in a significant way. It doesn't look like we can count on Sanchez to be a full time starter. Does he get moved to the pen? If so do we move Giles? We probably should anyway. Do we even trust Sanchez in the pen? It might be able to save his career. Stroman was off this year. With the attitude and lack of production this season i wouldn't be surprised to see him move. Happ needed to be moved and got moved at the right time. Estrada was a bad. 4 pitchers right there that cost us the season.

If we are to pencil in Stroman, Sanchez, Borucki into the rotation we're still missing 2 guys. Even though at this point it seems as though we should be penciling in a guy to take over for Sanchez when he inevitably goes to the DL. I think Stroman can bounce back. Always been a fan of his but if we can get good value for him i'd move him. The rotation just has too many question marks.

I'm ok with what they are doing with the position players. Need to see what you have in some of the guys. Tulo and Martin should be moved.

What have they done with the position players? Vladdy and Jensen are both AA guys. So are Davis and Alford in the OF. Sean Reid Foley and Bouruki are both AA guys.

I like Gurriel, but he's gonna be 26 in 2019 and can't seem to stay healthy.

Shatkins has Bichette.

Shatkins has been in charge for nearly 4 years. They've made no stamp on this team. I give them one or two more years. 6 years is long enough to sit around with your thumb in your ass.
 
I could see them go with Stroman, Sanchez, Borucki, Gaviglio, Panone/SRF as the basis of the rotation, although would certainly love to add 1-2 vets there as that rotation could look mighty ugly if/when injury hits Stroman/Sanchez. From the recent coverage, my guess is Estrada is gone for good, but it wouldn't shock me to see then try to bring Happ back if he doesn't get great offers from elsewhere.

In terms of a rebuilding rotation, the only flaw with the above is whether that's stretching guys beyond their limits. Ideally, those back-end guys probably all need a little more time in AAA, or at least need to have the option to shuffle them down to AAA for a month or two if things go sideways.

Jansen I don't think should go down to AAA, which means he'll need ABs at the bigs, although we probably don't need to force him into a starter's role quite yet. If he can get around 100 games behind the plate, I think that would be a solid goal for next year. What that means in terms of keeping Martin around as the backup to play 60-70 games only, or you eat his money and move him and go with Jansen-Maile with McGuire getting the bulk of the playing time in AAA , either option is good for me. Kind of depends whether Martin would rather play out his last year as a backup, or whether someone else is willing to give him more ABs. He's a sunk cost in terms of money, so if we ate literally the entirety of his deal, he could actually bring back a prospect with some value.

Tulo is a bit tougher to handle. He has no value at all right now, but until Bichette is ready, I don't think there's anyone who I'm desperate to give SS ABs to. Of course, even if he came out and had a great first half, you're still going to have to eat his entire contract to get anything back for, so I might be fine with simply cutting him loose. Another option would be using his money to facilitate another deal. Not sure which team might need a platoon SS and who has a ton of dead money on someone else's deal, but if we could get back someone younger and who maybe has a chance to better rebuild value, I'd definitely be up for that.
 
I could see them go with Stroman, Sanchez, Borucki, Gaviglio, Panone/SRF as the basis of the rotation, although would certainly love to add 1-2 vets there as that rotation could look mighty ugly if/when injury hits Stroman/Sanchez. From the recent coverage, my guess is Estrada is gone for good, but it wouldn't shock me to see then try to bring Happ back if he doesn't get great offers from elsewhere.

In terms of a rebuilding rotation, the only flaw with the above is whether that's stretching guys beyond their limits. Ideally, those back-end guys probably all need a little more time in AAA, or at least need to have the option to shuffle them down to AAA for a month or two if things go sideways.

Jansen I don't think should go down to AAA, which means he'll need ABs at the bigs, although we probably don't need to force him into a starter's role quite yet. If he can get around 100 games behind the plate, I think that would be a solid goal for next year. What that means in terms of keeping Martin around as the backup to play 60-70 games only, or you eat his money and move him and go with Jansen-Maile with McGuire getting the bulk of the playing time in AAA , either option is good for me. Kind of depends whether Martin would rather play out his last year as a backup, or whether someone else is willing to give him more ABs. He's a sunk cost in terms of money, so if we ate literally the entirety of his deal, he could actually bring back a prospect with some value.

Tulo is a bit tougher to handle. He has no value at all right now, but until Bichette is ready, I don't think there's anyone who I'm desperate to give SS ABs to. Of course, even if he came out and had a great first half, you're still going to have to eat his entire contract to get anything back for, so I might be fine with simply cutting him loose. Another option would be using his money to facilitate another deal. Not sure which team might need a platoon SS and who has a ton of dead money on someone else's deal, but if we could get back someone younger and who maybe has a chance to better rebuild value, I'd definitely be up for that.

The Jays won't even talk to Happ. Shatkins has already confirmed that no major Free Agents will be acquired this offseason. Happ has moved himself into that category.

The 2018/2019 offseason is being heralded as the best Free Agent class ever. However, Shatkins wants no part of it.

Everything these guys do and say is a massive piss off.
 
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I see Gaviglio as ideally more of AAA ace and emergency guy.

Given where the rotation is going to be, we might be in emergency territory.

But he's a guy where especially if we have a lost season, I'd love to see how he handles a full year. He's been at .6-.8 WAR this year depending on which source you use in about 2/3 of a full season, so if he can keep that up, could potentially push it to being like a 1.5 WAR guy, which is fine as a #4/#5 guy. He's certainly earned a rotation spot for next year, but obviously you have to be careful since guys like him flame out all the time so you need a backup option.

SRF and Panone both have very little time at AAA, so they're probably both better served by starting the season there, and then getting a callup May/June/July. Borucki's in a similar spot - still only half a season of AAA under his belt, but has been effective in his MLB stint to this point.

The big question for management and the scouts is whether all of these guys are better served by getting MLB starts, or if we should keep them in the farm to develop. They should in theory all be up to the majors at some point next year, so ideally we probably want to bring in someone to start the year for us who we can possibly flip at the deadline. Don't want to throw the kids to the wolves without a backup in case they struggle, but on the other hand we don't want to bring in a progress stopper in case if they should be getting MLB reps earlier rather than later.
 
Vladdy Jr. is the Jays version of Manny Machado. He will not be a Blue Jay when he is 26 years old.

Shatkins has publicly said that they don't plan on trying to contend until 2021. That means the Vaddy Jr. window is only 3 years.

Think about that and try not to get pissed off.
 
Shi Davidi
@ShiDavidi
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17m
Ross Atkins says John Gibbons "will not be returning as our manager." #BlueJays
Shi Davidi
Shi Davidi
@ShiDavidi
·
17m
John Gibbons: "We kept that secret pretty good, didn't we?"

lol Gibby
 
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