The Toronto Blue Jays/MLB Thread.

[Demographic Shift]

I'm not so sure it's all about management as I think ownership has a lot to do with it, too. This management team was brought in after the 2015 season and it was crystal clear that they did not like not only the major league roster but everything about how the team was run. Then, instead of having the courage of their convictions, they were afraid of rocking the boat and Rogers was afraid of losing money by re-booting the team. Then, instead of biting the bullet in 2017, the pressure to get fans in the seats and in front of tvs led to the decision to run back a shell of a roster for the better part of two seasons.

One of the results of that decision back in 2016 was, as you note, that basically that entire roster of vets was ultimately lost for no return but it also delayed a rebuild by two full seasons while they spun their wheels. Ultimately, I think ownership was behind most of these decisions - Rogers has never wanted to be bad and never wanted to spend enough to be good.

In fairness, I think you have to management five years. The problem the current guys have is that they largely squandered three of them....

Yeah Shapiro is a hammer and all he sees are nails. Rogers brought him in to do what he does best. Shave cost and build a low cost farm system that one day will yield a contender. Its a reasonable plan if you have a guy who can sell that vision. Problem for Mark is that he isn't forthcoming with that and exacerbates this by exuding the waft of being a world class prick from every pore of his body.

It gets better.

Combine that smarmy personality quirk with the timing of kicking out home town guy Alex Anthopolous after he gave the fan base a three year wave of really good exciting playoff baseball to suplant it with the crap thats on display last year . this year and likely for a few more years to come.

Rogers is a really good content company that provides decent wireless services. They are however a revolving door of management types that totally and completely fails to understand their market and customers. They thought the Shatbot would be good where in the cold light of day Shapiro is perceived as small town cheap in a big market town.

Rogers is to stupid to insult.

[slaw]

Again, you can take this all the way back to Ed Rogers' incompetent handling of trying to replace Beeston the year before, which left the team with little option other than Shapiro, who wanted back into the player personnel side of things after having been pushed upstairs in Cleveland. The whole thing was completely mishandled. Look, there was a reason the old man told the board to pick Nadir Mohamed over his kid: he knew Edward couldn't do the job.

For Raps fans, we dodged a bullet. Ed and Melinda wanted all of Teachers' stake in MLSE but Mohamed never wanted to do the deal at all (he thought it was off course), got cold feet, and cut a deal with Cope instead to mitigate risk. Thank god.

[Bendit]

Again, you can take this all the way back to Ed Rogers' incompetent handling of trying to replace Beeston the year before, which left the team with little option other than Shapiro, who wanted back into the player personnel side of things after having been pushed upstairs in Cleveland. The whole thing was completely mishandled. Look, there was a reason the old man told the board to pick Nadir Mohamed over his kid: he knew Edward couldn't do the job.

For Raps fans, we dodged a bullet. Ed and Melinda wanted all of Teachers' stake in MLSE but Mohamed never wanted to do the deal at all (he thought it was off course), got cold feet, and cut a deal with Cope instead to mitigate risk. Thank god.

What was the timeline here? If it was after the rights deal with the NHL I can see why.

[Bendit]

Any opinions on the Stroman trade? Seems to me that the Yanks & Astros did not want to part with their studs.

[slaw]

What was the timeline here? If it was after the rights deal with the NHL I can see why.

MLSE purchase was before the NHL deal....

[slaw]

Any opinions on the Stroman trade? Seems to me that the Yanks & Astros did not want to part with their studs.

Consensus seems to be the return was underwhelming. In a vacuum, it's a bit hard to say until the rest of the deadline deals are done, so we know what the market is for pitching (prospect capital is way more highly valued than even a couple years ago so it's hard to compare historically). Even so, a lottery ticket and a potential back of the rotation starter seems a little light for a 28-year old who is arguable a top 10 pitcher. My only comment would be that when the usual Rogers shills are out and about spouting nonsense (Stroman isn't that good you know!!!) you know the organization doesn't love the trade.

Bigger issue is that in the Jays' context this was their last chance to capitalize on moving out assets from the 2015-2016 roster. Taking that group as a whole, the return has been miserable in terms of personnel and costly financially in terms of paying players to no longer play for them. Looking ahead, with Vlad/Bichette/Biggio/Gurriel/Jansen up now the minors look a lot more mediocre and they have absolutely no pitching depth that's anywhere near major league ready. No idea how they plan on competing in 2 years unless they open up the bank and, even then, it's not that easy in the AL East.

[KeonClark]

Why trade Stroman for scraps? He wanted to be here, he was under team control, and he would have still been a good front of the rotation pitcher when the kids are ready.

I understand the trading of Donaldson, Tulo, Bautista, etc...but Stro? So basically anybody they would have to pay is shown the door.

[Bendit]

Why trade Stroman for scraps? He wanted to be here, he was under team control, and he would have still been a good front of the rotation pitcher when the kids are ready.

I understand the trading of Donaldson, Tulo, Bautista, etc...but Stro? So basically anybody they would have to pay is shown the door.

Admittedly I have not been following BJ events too closely of late (actually since AA left/let go).

Not entirely sure that Stroman wanted to stay here under the current regime ... the last couple of arb hearings did not go well. The other issue is his free agency after next season. It would probably command around 25 mill./per. I think their calc is he is not worth that with the rebuild still occurring/timing or that he would leave for nothing. I agree the return does not seem much to cheer about. I miss AA... sigh... who is doing quite well with the Braves.

[slaw]

Why trade Stroman for scraps? He wanted to be here, he was under team control, and he would have still been a good front of the rotation pitcher when the kids are ready.

I understand the trading of Donaldson, Tulo, Bautista, etc...but Stro? So basically anybody they would have to pay is shown the door.

Rogers wants to be Oakland or TB: teams run on the cheap that can still compete. Problem is, Rogers hired a second rate management team to do the job as opposed to the first rate teams in this other places.

Stroman an was a good pitcher on a bad team and was about to get expensive so he had to go, which happens but the incompetence of this leadership group exacerbates every issue.

[Bendit]

What a terrible dump of Sanchez & Biagini contracts ...both for a minor league outfielder they do not need? Couldn't get a pitching prospect?

Check the first couple lines in Atkins wiki page ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Atkins_(baseball)

[suspenders]

I want to dislike Atkins and Shapiro a lot more, but I can't help but look at the Cleveland team they built up and keep wondering - will that be us eventually?

That being said, the Sanchez / Biagini trade made zero sense. I get the Stroman trade, however.

[slaw]

I've raised an eyebrow at a lot of the moves of this front office but most of them have been explicable in one way or another. This Sanchez/Biagini is downright baffling. So let's try to make sense of it.

Jays have shown an affinity for post-hype/underperforming prospects (McKinney, Hernandez, Brito, Drury) and guys who have power but struggle with contact rate. Fisher, Derek to the courtesy phone, please. Now, that may or may not be a good strategy but does the Jays track record suggest that it is a good strategy and that they know how to employ to maximum effectiveness? Look at the names above.

They've also shown they want pitching depth, so, for example, the Stroman trade makes some sense even if the return seems light - at least they got two arms. So now, they've traded two MLB pitchers for...… an outfielder? When they already have Gurriel, Grichuk, Hernandez, McKinney, Alford..... well, you know what they say, "you can never have enough..... outfielding?".

Okay, so we're 0 for 2. But they Jays also love cheap, controllable players, right? In fact, Atkins big selling point on the deadline was how many years of control Toronto gained. Great! Except, they had Sanchez for one more year, Biagini for 3 and Fisher is..... out of options? Oh. Okay. So he needs to be on the 25-man next season. Right.

[KeonClark]

I've raised an eyebrow at a lot of the moves of this front office but most of them have been explicable in one way or another. This Sanchez/Biagini is downright baffling. So let's try to make sense of it.

Jays have shown an affinity for post-hype/underperforming prospects (McKinney, Hernandez, Brito, Drury) and guys who have power but struggle with contact rate. Fisher, Derek to the courtesy phone, please. Now, that may or may not be a good strategy but does the Jays track record suggest that it is a good strategy and that they know how to employ to maximum effectiveness? Look at the names above.

They've also shown they want pitching depth, so, for example, the Stroman trade makes some sense even if the return seems light - at least they got two arms. So now, they've traded two MLB pitchers for...… an outfielder? When they already have Gurriel, Grichuk, Hernandez, McKinney, Alford..... well, you know what they say, "you can never have enough..... outfielding?".

Okay, so we're 0 for 2. But they Jays also love cheap, controllable players, right? In fact, Atkins big selling point on the deadline was how many years of control Toronto gained. Great! Except, they had Sanchez for one more year, Biagini for 3 and Fisher is..... out of options? Oh. Okay. So he needs to be on the 25-man next season. Right.

Its a sad state. This is tanking to the extreme, except it doesnt pay off in the same way that Sam Hinkie in the NBA did it. Just trading anybody who is making more than a few million bucks and older than 23...I mean, eventually Bo, Vlad and Biggio will need OTHER players to play with..and some of these guys could have been those guys...I don't have a lot of faith in the team opening up the purse strings in free agency when the time comes, or winning any trades. I trusted Anthopolous to make those gutsy moves. This regime feels much different.

At least we got the Raptors

[Bendit]

I've raised an eyebrow at a lot of the moves of this front office but most of them have been explicable in one way or another. This Sanchez/Biagini is downright baffling. So let's try to make sense of it.

Jays have shown an affinity for post-hype/underperforming prospects (McKinney, Hernandez, Brito, Drury) and guys who have power but struggle with contact rate. Fisher, Derek to the courtesy phone, please. Now, that may or may not be a good strategy but does the Jays track record suggest that it is a good strategy and that they know how to employ to maximum effectiveness? Look at the names above.

They've also shown they want pitching depth, so, for example, the Stroman trade makes some sense even if the return seems light - at least they got two arms. So now, they've traded two MLB pitchers for...… an outfielder? When they already have Gurriel, Grichuk, Hernandez, McKinney, Alford..... well, you know what they say, "you can never have enough..... outfielding?".

Okay, so we're 0 for 2. But they Jays also love cheap, controllable players, right? In fact, Atkins big selling point on the deadline was how many years of control Toronto gained. Great! Except, they had Sanchez for one more year, Biagini for 3 and Fisher is..... out of options? Oh. Okay. So he needs to be on the 25-man next season. Right.

I lurk around the BlueJaysBanter site and they (posters) had a very pissed off response to this trans. for the reasons you cite. I get the feeling who ever is the frontman for the negotiations gets overmatched especially at deadlines. Walk away is a good option sometimes. Both Boston & the Yankees did not want to pull the trigger but sure they were tempted.

Not getting at least a pitching prospect is inexplicable. Houston is known for resurrecting "broken" pitchers and may well do so with Sanchez who was touted 3-4 yrs ago to be CY material until his blisters and other assorted injuries occurred. He seemed on the way back and could have raised his value at least during the rest of this season. I hear there was a position player that the Jays threw in as well!

Here is a tortured somewhat pro trade theorizing ...

http://jaysfromthecouch.com/2019/08/...isher-edition/

[Joey]

You know what ... I'll admit it ... this new team is something to be excited about ... I was so bitter about them tearing down the best team we've had in a very long time, that I took for granted just how talented our youth actually were ... Bichette is something else ... future MVP if you ask me ... honestly, I'm more excited about him than I am Vladdy, and that's a good debate to be able to have. Still don't like ShapIro or Atkins, but ya, this is a club I can get behind still - just imagine if we actually got actual pieces back on our trades now .. Lol