GT: Blue Jays (2-3) @ Astros (1-4) / 3 game series - Monday April 1 @ 8pm to Wed April 3

[Randle McMurphy]

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History.

[Michael Bradley]

This has to be one of the most unlikeable teams in the league. They collectively have no personality, so they are boring as hell to watch, and then the "hit everything on the ground and/or never pull anything" offensive strategy is absolutely aggravating to watch. I thought surviving 2023 was hard, but this looks like a continuation of that except now they are intentionally benching young players with actual upside in order to play guys like IKF, Biggio, and Kiermaier.

If I thought there was any chance that Shapiro fires Atkins, then I'd almost be rooting for the team to have a train wreck season just to move on to a new front office, but I don't see that happening even in a worst case scenario.

If they made no changes after 8-1 and the PR Berrios disaster, I can’t imagine the scenario that would lead to FO changes.

Yup. Only thing that might lead to change is Shapiro leaving (contract runs out after 2025). I have no real issues with Shapiro in his role, but if him leaving means a new front office, then I'll probably take it at this point.

[Lateral Quicks]

Shameful. This front office doesn't understand that there is a human element to baseball. You can tell from the players' body language that they know they're not being put in a position to succeed. From terrible coaching to lesser players getting starts over young promising players, it has to hurt the mood/attitude, and like it or not that impacts performance.

Why wasn't Guillermo fired years ago? Seriously, his resume is terrible - how the heck did he get the job in the first place? They desperately need to hire a hitting coach that knows what he's doing. Just about every hitter is underperforming - the Guillermo Effect, as I call it.

Moves that need to be made soon if we hope to salvage the season;

- Schneider is handed the full-time LF job. Give him 150 PAs and see what happens. Varsho is your full-time CF, and KK is your 4th OF.

- IKF takes the Espinal role and goes to the bench. Clement and Biggio handle 2B and 3B, and hopefully reinforcements force their way onto the team from Buffalo by mid-season.

- Guillermo finally gets canned.

- John Schneider grows a spine and starts calling the shots. The FO won't fire him so soon into the season, and losing thanks to these analytics people isn't doing his career any favours anyways.

The regular lineup should be:

Bichette
Guerrero Jr.
Turner
Schneider
Kirk
Biggio
Springer
Clement
Varsho

That's a whole lot better than what the analytics braintrust is putting out there now... it's still probably not good enough to make the playoffs unless Vlad starts hitting as advertised, but it gives them a fighting chance. They can't possibly be serious with KK, IKF, and Varsho as one third of the everyday lineup.

[Randle McMurphy]

It’s like the Jays are running a thought experiment about how bound to process and projection in the aggregate an organization can be over actual results. For as enlightened as they think their approach is, it takes an incredible rigidity of thought to reach this point. I’ve truly never seen anything like these guys in all my years watching sports. You can say baseball has been trending this way for decades with its inclination toward analytics but I still can’t imagine any other organization in MLB dictating a Berrios pull in that spot or benching Davis Schneider on a struggling offensive team after a game winning HR off one of the best pitchers in baseball. They are truly one of a kind and they don’t even see it. Disgusting.

[Brinbe]

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So good it had to be posted twice. Historically inept.

[Asianiac_24]

I just wonder what analytics tells this organization to play the no power, no hitting KK/IKF/Biggio over Davis Schneider as everyday players, or putting Varsho as the clean up hitter. There is no metric in which Varsho should be hitting 4th on this lineup. The 2024 and 2023 Blue Jays are legitimately an eye sore, even when they win the games are boring. They win 2-1 or 1-0. At least when we had Semien/MVP Vlad/Bo, or the glory 2015 Jays with JD/Jose/Edwin/Tulo, even if the pitching sucked, we always felt like there was a chance we could win. Now if we are down 2-0 or 3-0, it feels insurmountable.

[Potential]

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The amount of times I've posted these sportsnet stats here over the last 172 games this season with a new record broken in the history books of the disgraceful offensive performances is just sad

[Raps in 4]

I just wonder what analytics tells this organization to play the no power, no hitting KK/IKF/Biggio over Davis Schneider as everyday players, or putting Varsho as the clean up hitter. There is no metric in which Varsho should be hitting 4th on this lineup. The 2024 and 2023 Blue Jays are legitimately an eye sore, even when they win the games are boring. They win 2-1 or 1-0. At least when we had Semien/MVP Vlad/Bo, or the glory 2015 Jays with JD/Jose/Edwin/Tulo, even if the pitching sucked, we always felt like there was a chance we could win. Now if we are down 2-0 or 3-0, it feels insurmountable.

This team is making fans turn on analytics, but the FO is actually doing the exact opposite of what the analytics are telling them to do. They have zero idea how to interpret the data.

[PowerPlant1]

Shameful. This front office doesn't understand that there is a human element to baseball. You can tell from the players' body language that they know they're not being put in a position to succeed. From terrible coaching to lesser players getting starts over young promising players, it has to hurt the mood/attitude, and like it or not that impacts performance.

Why wasn't Guillermo fired years ago? Seriously, his resume is terrible - how the heck did he get the job in the first place? They desperately need to hire a hitting coach that knows what he's doing. Just about every hitter is underperforming - the Guillermo Effect, as I call it.

Moves that need to be made soon if we hope to salvage the season;

- Schneider is handed the full-time LF job. Give him 150 PAs and see what happens. Varsho is your full-time CF, and KK is your 4th OF.

- IKF takes the Espinal role and goes to the bench. Clement and Biggio handle 2B and 3B, and hopefully reinforcements force their way onto the team from Buffalo by mid-season.

- Guillermo finally gets canned.

- John Schneider grows a spine and starts calling the shots. The FO won't fire him so soon into the season, and losing thanks to these analytics people isn't doing his career any favours anyways.

The regular lineup should be:

Bichette
Guerrero Jr.
Turner
Schneider
Kirk
Biggio
Springer
Clement
Varsho

That's a whole lot better than what the analytics braintrust is putting out there now... it's still probably not good enough to make the playoffs unless Vlad starts hitting as advertised, but it gives them a fighting chance. They can't possibly be serious with KK, IKF, and Varsho as one third of the everyday lineup.

Not enough of a lineup change for me even if it is way better with the IKF demotion. Varsho nor Biggio should have an everyday spot. I'd sooner see Lukes or Roden than Varsho. I'd sooner see Lantigua, Barger or Martinez over Biggio. These so called regulars need to be sent a message in addition to a complete overhaul of the offensive coaching. Nor should Springer play everyday as he can split time with KK for all I care. I don't care about his bloated contract.

if I could bench Kirk, I'd do it too but Jansen is injured.

[LLJ]

The definition of insanity is...

[LLJ]

Welp at least were not the Raptors? :\ I got nothing.
Maybe some miracle & we'll score some runs next inning...

The Jays would be lucky to be where the Raptors are despite the big wigs at Rogers disagreeing.

Yeah, another few months of this (or maybe now already) and I'm already wishing the Jays were tanking instead. Instead we might be stuck with this stump of a tree for who knows how many years.

[Madvillainy2004]

It is really hilarious every time the FO does these like "4D chess/data tells us this" moves it back fires more than my pessimistic *** could've predicted. It's pretty poetic that we had 1 hit in the 18 innings Davis didn't play cause he would've be JUST so overmatched by Javier and some journeyman 5th starter lmao.

[bluerap23]

I know it is shocking, but if you continue to let your offence get worse, it will get worse. Having no hitting in the second half of the lineup has this strange affect on the first half of the lineup.

[Randle McMurphy]

It is really hilarious every time the FO does these like "4D chess/data tells us this" moves it back fires more than my pessimistic *** could've predicted. It's pretty poetic that we had 1 hit in the 18 innings Davis didn't play cause he would've be JUST so overmatched by Javier and some journeyman 5th starter lmao.

I like how they sent the manager out there yesterday to tell the media that Davis has issues as a hitter (high heat) that would allegedly limit him against Javier and that Davis understood that and therefore understood his benching. I've never seen anything like that kind of discourse publicly around a prospect on a professional baseball team, but I've also never seen anything like this FO either.

[Lateral Quicks]

It is really hilarious every time the FO does these like "4D chess/data tells us this" moves it back fires more than my pessimistic *** could've predicted. It's pretty poetic that we had 1 hit in the 18 innings Davis didn't play cause he would've be JUST so overmatched by Javier and some journeyman 5th starter lmao.

I like how they sent the manager out there yesterday to tell the media that Davis has issues as a hitter (high heat) that would allegedly limit him against Javier and that Davis understood that and therefore understood his benching. I've never seen anything like that kind of discourse publicly around a prospect on a professional baseball team, but I've also never seen anything like this FO either.

Agreed. I've thought for a while now that John Schneider is far too forthcoming in divulging team strategy/opining on players. Keep the answers short and sweet and move on.

I'd hate to be in Davis' shoes right now. I just hope he totally freezes out Guillermo. Maybe he has and that's why he can still hit. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the reason for his slump last season was due to input from Guillermo.

[SharoneWright]

The team publicly exposed Davis' "weakness with the high fastball" even last year - they/he openly talked about it. And again this year. It's an inexplicable strategy from a team that flipped out when Kirk dropped his catcher's game card and Kiermaier took it back to the Rays' dugout....

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Among the office equipment the Toronto Blue Jays travel with is a paper shredder, and every document they print off with any sort of data is run through it before ending up in a trash bin.

That’s not a new practice, as different coaching staffs have been doing it for about a decade now. A newer habit for one of the team’s pitchers is to double-check that all info cards have been removed from his hats before they get packed up, lest someone find one of the cheat sheets and feed it to a rival front office.

Such is the degree of caution, bordering on paranoia, big-league clubs have around their proprietary information and it helps explain, in part, why the Blue Jays are so upset that Kevin Kiermaier grabbed the catcher’s card jarred loose during a play at the plate Monday.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-rays-data-card-scandal-new-case-study-sportsmanship-mlb/

Benching Davis is a bizarro signal to everyone. To Davis. To the fans. To the players. You're telling me your blind? That you don't care? That there's no reward/incentive for performance? That you're intransigent even with new information? That you are willing to demoralize a guy? w.t.f.

[Randle McMurphy]

The team publicly exposed Davis' "weakness with the high fastball" even last year - they/he openly talked about it. And again this year. It's an inexplicable strategy from a team that flipped out when Kirk dropped his catcher's game card and Kiermaier took it back to the Rays' dugout....

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Among the office equipment the Toronto Blue Jays travel with is a paper shredder, and every document they print off with any sort of data is run through it before ending up in a trash bin.

That’s not a new practice, as different coaching staffs have been doing it for about a decade now. A newer habit for one of the team’s pitchers is to double-check that all info cards have been removed from his hats before they get packed up, lest someone find one of the cheat sheets and feed it to a rival front office.

Such is the degree of caution, bordering on paranoia, big-league clubs have around their proprietary information and it helps explain, in part, why the Blue Jays are so upset that Kevin Kiermaier grabbed the catcher’s card jarred loose during a play at the plate Monday.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-rays-data-card-scandal-new-case-study-sportsmanship-mlb/

Benching Davis is a bizarro signal to everyone. To Davis. To the fans. To the players. You're telling me your blind? That you don't care? That there's no reward/incentive for performance? That you're intransigent even with new information? That you are willing to demoralize a guy? w.t.f.

They can't see the forest for the trees, which is emblematic of their entire organizational approach.

[Michael Bradley]

It is really hilarious every time the FO does these like "4D chess/data tells us this" moves it back fires more than my pessimistic *** could've predicted. It's pretty poetic that we had 1 hit in the 18 innings Davis didn't play cause he would've be JUST so overmatched by Javier and some journeyman 5th starter lmao.

I like how they sent the manager out there yesterday to tell the media that Davis has issues as a hitter (high heat) that would allegedly limit him against Javier and that Davis understood that and therefore understood his benching. I've never seen anything like that kind of discourse publicly around a prospect on a professional baseball team, but I've also never seen anything like this FO either.

Agreed. I've thought for a while now that John Schneider is far too forthcoming in divulging team strategy/opining on players. Keep the answers short and sweet and move on.

I'd hate to be in Davis' shoes right now. I just hope he totally freezes out Guillermo. Maybe he has and that's why he can still hit. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the reason for his slump last season was due to input from Guillermo.

Davis is definitely freezing out Jays hitting coaches because he's pulling and barreling the baseball, and hitting everything in the air when he makes contact. You'll know he was brainwashed by the current Blue Jays coaching staff if he suddenly starts making a lot more contact but they are ground balls gingerly hit to the opposite field. Sadly, if he started doing the latter, he might actually play more on this team.

[WuTang_OG]

schneider is a puppet manager. clear as day the orders come from up top

[Quattro]

Positive regression. It's early. Positive regression, it's early. Positive regression. It's early.......