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The 2014 Toronto Blue Jays Thread

bustaheims said:
Potvin29 said:
His ERA+ stood out to me with Oakland - 100, pretty much league average.  Already 29 too.

Yeah, though, I'm not really much of a fan of ERA+. I think it measures the wrong things - it's basically ERA adjusted for park factors, and I don't believe ERA is the best way to judge a pitcher's performance. I prefer stats like WHIP, FIP, BB/9, etc. His WHIP of 0.96 is excellent, and his FIP of 3.64 is pretty good - in line with guys like Buerhle, Sonny Gray, James Shields, etc. His walk rates is impressive and his K rate is pretty good. His xFIP of 3.18 is also very good and shows he's been a little unlucky in terms of allowing home runs this season (his 13.1% HR/FB is well above league average and is something that can fluctuate significantly from season to season), while his BABIP is good for 3rd in the AL for starters who have pitched at least 80 innings. Overall, he's been very good for the A's, he's just not getting the results.

Thanks for that - I had just taken a quick glance at B-ref and read an article touching on his trade to Oakland.  That provides much better context.
 
pmrules said:
hmmm...3.5 games now.  Not enough time...but this is some fun baseball in September.  GO JAYS GO!

Their schedule makes it even more difficult. After the series against the Rays, their season finishes off with 3 against the Orioles in Baltimore, 4 against the Yankees in NYC, then back home for 4 against Seattle and another 3 against the Orioles. If they're going to get in, they're going to have to go through some tough teams and stadiums they've struggled in recently.
 
bustaheims said:
pmrules said:
hmmm...3.5 games now.  Not enough time...but this is some fun baseball in September.  GO JAYS GO!

Their schedule makes it even more difficult. After the series against the Rays, their season finishes off with 3 against the Orioles in Baltimore, 4 against the Yankees in NYC, then back home for 4 against Seattle and another 3 against the Orioles. If they're going to get in, they're going to have to go through some tough teams and stadiums they've struggled in recently.

Yup, but there are a lot of things coming together right now that make this team look pretty dangerous.  The SP's have been mostly excellent, reducing the amount of time the sketchy bullpen has had to pitch - plus some rest for those guys is a good thing, the expanded bullpen has added some really good young arms, and the Pillar/Gose duo out in the field and at the bottom of the order has brought a jolt of speed and small ball ability that hasn't been there until now.  Goins at 2B seems to solidify the infield defense, as long as Gibbons keeps him as the go-to and stops pulling him late in the game for Kawasaki, and Bautista is hitting absolutely everything. 

Just feels like a lot of holes in this team suddenly seem to be filled and everything is coming together.
 
If EE and Bautista get hot at the same time down the stretch, they should be able to make it in. We need the EE that hit 16 homers in a month (or whatever it was).
 
Corn Flake said:
the Pillar/Gose duo out in the field and at the bottom of the order has brought a jolt of speed and small ball ability that hasn't been there until now. 

Speaking of which, I hope I never have to watch Gose attempt to bunt again in my life.
 
bustaheims said:
pmrules said:
hmmm...3.5 games now.  Not enough time...but this is some fun baseball in September.  GO JAYS GO!

Their schedule makes it even more difficult. After the series against the Rays, their season finishes off with 3 against the Orioles in Baltimore, 4 against the Yankees in NYC, then back home for 4 against Seattle and another 3 against the Orioles. If they're going to get in, they're going to have to go through some tough teams and stadiums they've struggled in recently.

Yeah, the recent stretch has been fun to watch and everything but it probably shouldn't be ignored that it's been against teams that are a combined 50 games or so below .500
 
It's very unlikely the Jays make the post-season, but if they do, they'll be one of the hottest teams in the league peaking at the right time. Unlike some other teams... (cough)... Oakland... (cough)
 
I'm disappointed they kept Pillar down as long as they did.  He deserved a demotion (or at least a decent benching) for his temper tantrum, but he spent two months in the minors hitting extremely well while Rasmus and Gose were providing pretty mediocre play.  When the Jays offense went completely dry, they probably could have used his bat.

3.5 games is still a bigger deficit than it seems.  It's probably going to take 90 wins to get a wildcard spot this year and that would require the Jays going 14-3 over their last 17 games.  They play Baltimore 6 times.  They play the Yankees 4 times (IN NEW YORK).  They face wild-card rival Seattle 4 times.

The Jays are 10-3 over their last 13 games but are also coming off a 4-12 stretch with thrilling series losses to the Astros, White Sox, Red Sox and Rays.  They also lost a series against Seattle and Baltimore.

Tampa is the weakest opponent the Jays have in their remaining stretch and that is a team they struggle against. 
 
Potvin29 said:
L K said:
Tampa is the weakest opponent the Jays have in their remaining stretch and that is a team they struggle against.

10-6 this season against them though, and facing them at a good time I think.

The sweep last time in TB was a good omen.  They have at least shaken the thinking they can't in in the Trop.
 
Corn Flake said:
Potvin29 said:
L K said:
Tampa is the weakest opponent the Jays have in their remaining stretch and that is a team they struggle against.

10-6 this season against them though, and facing them at a good time I think.

The sweep last time in TB was a good omen.  They have at least shaken the thinking they can't in in the Trop.

They also just shut down Drew Smyly for the season.  He was scheduled to face the Jays tomorrow.
 
Nik the Trik said:
bustaheims said:
pmrules said:
hmmm...3.5 games now.  Not enough time...but this is some fun baseball in September.  GO JAYS GO!

Their schedule makes it even more difficult. After the series against the Rays, their season finishes off with 3 against the Orioles in Baltimore, 4 against the Yankees in NYC, then back home for 4 against Seattle and another 3 against the Orioles. If they're going to get in, they're going to have to go through some tough teams and stadiums they've struggled in recently.

Yeah, the recent stretch has been fun to watch and everything but it probably shouldn't be ignored that it's been against teams that are a combined 50 games or so below .500

I think that evens out the losing 2/3 against Boston last weekend and 3/4 from Houston a month ago.

When we finish ~1-3 games out of the playoffs, I think we will point to many games this season where "we should have won".
 
This team does this all the time. They go on nice runs in September when the games are close to meaningless and they are playing teams that are mostly comprised of September call-ups.

If KC makes the playoffs this year Toronto will be the team with the longest playoff drought in the MLB. Pretty sad.

 
Potvin29 said:
Corn Flake said:
Potvin29 said:
L K said:
Tampa is the weakest opponent the Jays have in their remaining stretch and that is a team they struggle against.

10-6 this season against them though, and facing them at a good time I think.

The sweep last time in TB was a good omen.  They have at least shaken the thinking they can't in in the Trop.

They also just shut down Drew Smyly for the season.  He was scheduled to face the Jays tomorrow.

Mind you Nate Karns is a pretty decent prospect pitcher they will be facing.  He's not Drew Smyly but he had a pretty dominant end to his year in the minors.  He strikes out a tonne of guys too and that can be a problem with the Jays if they start chasing home runs against a rookie pitcher.
 
bustaheims said:
pmrules said:
hmmm...3.5 games now.  Not enough time...but this is some fun baseball in September.  GO JAYS GO!

Their schedule makes it even more difficult. After the series against the Rays, their season finishes off with 3 against the Orioles in Baltimore, 4 against the Yankees in NYC, then back home for 4 against Seattle and another 3 against the Orioles. If they're going to get in, they're going to have to go through some tough teams and stadiums they've struggled in recently.

Hopefully they're in it going into that last series with Baltimore.  Dan Shulman made the point that the Orioles could be resting key players in that series so maybe there would be an opening there.
 
Potvin29 said:
Hopefully they're in it going into that last series with Baltimore.  Dan Shulman made the point that the Orioles could be resting key players in that series so maybe there would be an opening there.

They just lost Chris Davis for the next 25 games, so, that might impact things there.
 
bustaheims said:
Potvin29 said:
Hopefully they're in it going into that last series with Baltimore.  Dan Shulman made the point that the Orioles could be resting key players in that series so maybe there would be an opening there.

They just lost Chris Davis for the next 25 games, so, that might impact things there.

I kind of feel bad for the guy in this one.  He got a medical exemption for Adderall last year.  He didn't file for an exemption this year and gets suspended for the same medication he was allowed to take last year.  Now, ignoring my personal dislike of the overdiagnosis of ADD/ADHD; it seems like this is more of a mild misunderstanding type of situation. 

And credit to Chris Davis, he's not doing one of those stupid "it wasn't me" defenses like a lot of people seem to use.  He owned up to the problem and accepted the suspension.
 
L K said:
Potvin29 said:
Corn Flake said:
Potvin29 said:
L K said:
Tampa is the weakest opponent the Jays have in their remaining stretch and that is a team they struggle against.

10-6 this season against them though, and facing them at a good time I think.

The sweep last time in TB was a good omen.  They have at least shaken the thinking they can't in in the Trop.

They also just shut down Drew Smyly for the season.  He was scheduled to face the Jays tomorrow.

Mind you Nate Karns is a pretty decent prospect pitcher they will be facing.  He's not Drew Smyly but he had a pretty dominant end to his year in the minors.  He strikes out a tonne of guys too and that can be a problem with the Jays if they start chasing home runs against a rookie pitcher.

And there you go.
 

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