GT: OPENING SERIES 2024 - TORONTO BLUE JAYS @ TAMPA BAY RAYS - THURS MARCH 28 (4:10pm EST) to SUN MARCH 31

[JaysRule15]

Guys it's fine to have a difference of opinions without resorting to personal attacks or name-calling.

With Jansen and Kirk, I don't think catcher will be a hole. But I didnt like re-signing KK and keeping Varsho in LF. Would've been a better approach to move Varsho in CF and hope his bat can get close to matching his glove, while finding a better hitter for LF. KK and Varsho together isn't ideal for the offense at all.

[Mehar]

Guys it's fine to have a difference of opinions without resorting to personal attacks or name-calling.

With Jansen and Kirk, I don't think catcher will be a hole. But I didnt like re-signing KK and keeping Varsho in LF. Would've been a better approach to move Varsho in CF and hope his bat can get close to matching his glove, while finding a better hitter for LF. KK and Varsho together isn't ideal for the offense at all.

That was one of the points I was trying to make, after being derailed by ridiculous takes how Moreno is a bum and an overrated defensive fraud who sucks (after Moreno was Number 1 in Defensive War in all of MLB, and won the Gold Glove as a 23 year old Rookie). All the defensive and offensive numbers point out how Moreno was a much better Catcher than Kirk in 2023.

Regardless, the point I was making was related to the bigger picture how this front office has flawed constructing this team and maximizing the value of their assets (including a premium prospect like Moreno who was traded away with 6 years of team control left). To maximize the value of Varsho, he had to be in CF everyday in 2024. You then needed to complement him with a solid bat in LF (a guy like Gurriel as a free agent) who is now making the same 10 million as Kiermaier in 2024, was the guy I wanted back on this team as a free agent.

Gurriel has been one of the hottest hitters in MLB to start the year off. This organization then brings back KK instead, and then spends 15 million over two years on IKF, which made no sense at all since he is a below average hitter. The combined money of IKF and Justin Turner for 2024, was around what Teoscar Hernandez signed for with the Dodgers. He would have been the guy at DH this team should have brought back on a 1 year deal along with Gurriel, especially when Teoscar had mentioned early in the off-season that he was interested in coming back to Toronto. Rogers Ownership has put up the money (7th highest payroll in MLB with a Luxury Tax payroll of 247 million, two million shy of World Champs Texas), but the front office has not delivered in many aspects in year 9 of their tenure (especially with their bottom tier farm system and signings over the years).

[Raps in 4]

Jays are paying the price for poor drafting in recent years. Even prospects that were drafted early but traded haven't done much elsewhere. The best Jays seasons were built on a foundation of young prospects.

That's been Shapiro's MO his whole career. Only an idiot owner like Ed would have hired him.

[Raps in 4]

Who would have thought not changing the hitting coach and not bringing in any hitters would result in a team that can't hit, again?

[Lateral Quicks]

There's not one aspect of baseball that the overrated fraud Moreno is better at than Kirk. Not a single one. Time to stop being hung up over a guy who would literally be the 3rd best catcher on the roster had he stayed around.

The guy who put up 4.3 bWAR in 111 games in his rookie year is an overrated fraud? If he keeps hitting, there's a good chance he'll be in the conversation for best catcher of his generation. Love Jano and Kirk, but would definitely have preferred to keep Moreno over each of those guys.

[Lateral Quicks]

https://www.fangraphs.com/projections?pos=c&stats=bat&type=thebat

You might want to check out where the projections rank these guys in WAR coming into this year (Kirk 6th, Jansen 15th, and Moreno 35th). The guy sucks man. He's a no-hit defensive specialist without any power. Time to move on from this bum already instead of harping on him ever thread as if he's actually good and some kind of upgrade on what they already have.

You might want to compare current Moreno to 2nd year Kirk. Different stage in their development / careers

What would be the point of doing that? Current Kirk against current Moreno is the only thing that matters for this team and current Kirk is miles better than the guy.

That may not be the case five years from now, but we won't know about whether Moreno actually develops an offensive game for a while.

The guy is almost batting .300 on his young career so far, and managed a 104 OPS+ in his first full season. That's very good production from a catcher. Even if never adds any more power than what he showed last year, added to his elite defense that's perennial all-star production from the catcher position.

[Madvillainy2004]

There's not one aspect of baseball that the overrated fraud Moreno is better at than Kirk. Not a single one. Time to stop being hung up over a guy who would literally be the 3rd best catcher on the roster had he stayed around.

The guy who put up 4.3 bWAR in 111 games in his rookie year is an overrated fraud? If he keeps hitting, there's a good chance he'll be in the conversation for best catcher of his generation. Love Jano and Kirk, but would definitely have preferred to keep Moreno over each of those guys.

I don't wanna derail this any further but I have to say bWAR for catchers is extremely noisy, Morenos biggest boost to his WAR was pitcher ERA which is so volatile it really shouldn't even be part of the calculation at all. I mean seriously look through some year to year for this part of the calculation and theres no pattern. BWAR doesn't even include framing (which moreno isnt good at). Fwar is much much better for catchers and Kirk/Moreno is a wash last year.

The actual conversation about last years team should be about Vlad having less fWAR than Davis Schiender and our 24 year old allstar pitcher being the worst player at his position in baseball.

[LLJ]

There is no accountability throughout this organization

After that flaccid / limp offensive season last year, Guillermo is still here.

After that who-pulled-Berrios blame-game between John Schneider and Ross Atkins, no one got fired.

This is not a serious organization

After last year's playoffs and the whole debacle surrounding it and the sad offseason, I don't really have any expectations anymore for this organization.

[DelAbbot]

Jays are paying the price for poor drafting in recent years. Even prospects that were drafted early but traded haven't done much elsewhere. The best Jays seasons were built on a foundation of young prospects.

That's been Shapiro's MO his whole career. Only an idiot owner like Ed would have hired him.

And to think Rogers fired Alex Anthopoulos who is not only a top 5 GM but a local boy.

I was such a big fan of AA. I legit cried when he left.

[DelAbbot]

There is no accountability throughout this organization

After that flaccid / limp offensive season last year, Guillermo is still here.

After that who-pulled-Berrios blame-game between John Schneider and Ross Atkins, no one got fired.

This is not a serious organization

After last year's playoffs and the whole debacle surrounding it and the sad offseason, I don't really have any expectations anymore for this organization.

Even the Raptors media pressured Masai about his stupid moves, but no one in Blue Jays media is calling Atkins out for doing jack sht about this underperforming team.

[Ranger One]

This entire season is based around the HOPE that several guys have better hitting years. Imagine being a front office executive in a billion dollar organization and THIS is what you pitch to your investors (owner, fans, media etc). This team is arguably worse offensively than last year yet we're supposed to be optimistic based on hopes and dreams and fairy dust?

Given how this year has started injury wise, i have serious doubts this is even a playoff team, let alone an ALCS champion or world series contender. Shatkins have completely and utterly bungled this so called "competitive era" despite being gifted the two most talented hitters the jays have seen in the past 20 years. This competitive window is closing very fast, if they dont win anything in the next two years, we are looking at another 10 years of bottom feeding, non competitive seasons on the horizon because there is no way in hell Bo and Vlad are staying in this dumpster fire of an organization ran by the most incompetent FO in the past 20 years.

[Ranger One]

Good god Varsho is trash. Seeing absolutely ZERO differences between his approach and swing compared to last year. Where is all the
"hard work" he put in all offseason? Still wailing at the high fastball with zero chance at hitting it.

[Madvillainy2004]

Great at bat from Kirk battling back from 0-2

[Randle McMurphy]

Clement's contact abilities aren't as helpful when there is a runner on 1st.

[Randle McMurphy]

You might want to compare current Moreno to 2nd year Kirk. Different stage in their development / careers

What would be the point of doing that? Current Kirk against current Moreno is the only thing that matters for this team and current Kirk is miles better than the guy.

That may not be the case five years from now, but we won't know about whether Moreno actually develops an offensive game for a while.

The guy is almost batting .300 on his young career so far, and managed a 104 OPS+ in his first full season. That's very good production from a catcher. Even if never adds any more power than what he showed last year, added to his elite defense that's perennial all-star production from the catcher position.

Kirk is the better player right now by a fair margin.

[Randle McMurphy]

There's not one aspect of baseball that the overrated fraud Moreno is better at than Kirk. Not a single one. Time to stop being hung up over a guy who would literally be the 3rd best catcher on the roster had he stayed around.

The guy who put up 4.3 bWAR in 111 games in his rookie year is an overrated fraud?

If people falsely think he's better than Kirk and Jansen (he's not) and keep bringing him up 2 years post-trade in threads that have nothing to do with him because of it?

Yes, absolutely.

[JaysRule15]

At least Gausman's stuff looks good.

[Cyrus]

Why is varsho hitting 4th? Might as well put ikf or kk 4th then if it's for lefty batter. This can't be what the advance stats say

Shesh it's like they want to expose and make him fail?

[Cyrus]

There's not one aspect of baseball that the overrated fraud Moreno is better at than Kirk. Not a single one. Time to stop being hung up over a guy who would literally be the 3rd best catcher on the roster had he stayed around.

The guy who put up 4.3 bWAR in 111 games in his rookie year is an overrated fraud?

If people falsely think he's better than Kirk and Jansen (he's not) and keep bringing him up 2 years post-trade in threads that have nothing to do with him because of it?

Yes, absolutely.

Jansen? Let's see if he's can even play a season at this point he's catcher version of Travis, always injuried, waiting for him to put ax season together and about to get paid.

Let's pay him well for half season each year, cause that's all we were gonna get.

For a team who will have issues keeping its core together, it totally makes sense to have oft injuried, catcher who will need to get paid like the other parts of the core at the same time

[Randle McMurphy]

The guy who put up 4.3 bWAR in 111 games in his rookie year is an overrated fraud?

If people falsely think he's better than Kirk and Jansen (he's not) and keep bringing him up 2 years post-trade in threads that have nothing to do with him because of it?

Yes, absolutely.

Jansen? Let's see if he's can even play a season at this point he's catcher version of Travis, always injuried, waiting for him to put ax season together and about to get paid.

Let's pay him well for half season each year, cause that's all we were gonna get

Jays won't be paying him, that's for sure. That's why it is good to have a top 5-10 catcher in baseball already on the team in Kirk.