Toronto Blue Jays

[bondon]

He's been doing that his entire tenure in Toronto. It just gets annoying to fans when he's not jacking bombs in an elimination game.

Actually, it was always annoying to fans. It's just not tolerable when he's not jacking bombs.

The bat flip thing was honestly so overblown, and the definition of salt. If you watch enough baseball, you see guys flipping bats regularly after big homeruns. It was just because it was in a high-profile game, and meant a lot to a franchise that had suffered from inept management for almost 2 decades. Oh and also because Bautista isn't white.

But the constant blabbing about umpires in the press, that shit has and will be annoying as ****. He has a fantastic hitter's eye, and he knows the strike zone well. He lays off of a lot of borderline pitches that a lot of guys would have otherwise chased. That being said, he needs to get it through that thick skull of his that when he chooses to take that many borderline pitches, he is taking a risk that it's going to be called a strike now and then, and he can't whine like a baby every time he doesn't get a call go his way. This series is a perfect indication. I don't know how closely people were watching these games, but Saunders took some absolutely brutal calls in this series, especially on balls on the "outside corner" of the plate. But he put his head down, didn't react, and he finished the series with 6 hits in 14 ABs. Just play the ****ing game.

Anyway, there's no doubt that Bautista is one of the greatest players that this franchise ever had. He was one of the cornerstones that helped put this ball club back on the map in the MLB, and for that I'll always be grateful. I do think it is very important for people to remember that. For all of his faults he did play hard for the team that, at the time had very little motivation to do so. But the blabbering I could have definitely done without.

[Axeman33]

If Bautista has played his last game for the Jays, he will probably end up in the NL. I can't think of too many teams in the AL he hasn't pissed off at one point or another and would want to sign him LOL!

[bondon]

LOL as if someone is gonna pay him to play a daily position.

[Eskimo Brother]

LOL as if someone is gonna pay him to play a daily position.

That's what I was thinking too. No one is going to want him in the NL playing a position all the time. His best bet is maybe somewhere like Seattle or Houston.

[bondon]

I could see it working out if a team can mold him into a slugging everyday 1B. With some practice I could see it working. But it would take a serious amount of learning.

[2014olympicgold]

Toronto will Qualify Offer Bautista (if they don’t and he signs elsewhere Toronto doesn’t get a 1^st round pick), and he’ll accept the offer. At 17.2mill/1yr, it’s a lot of money (4.2mill pay raise) and Toronto can say they kept a face of the franchise. If he leaves it’ll be for less but longer term.

The Jays can afford both EE and JB if EE signs at 100mill/5yrs, but that’s all they’ll be able to do. With Dickey+Thole gone, the Jays open up 13mill right there, and with JB getting 17.2mill, and EE getting 20mill, they actually come out 3mill in savings. Feldman, Benoit, Navarro, Floyd, Barney, Grilli and Saunders are likely gone (or resign cheap) so there’s even more money saved.

I’m not saying it’ll be smart to sign JB, but I they have to QO him, and I think he accepts it. EE is a mystery I think. I rather sign Melancon, Walker, EE for 37-40mill and let JB walk

[rataylor22]

I didn't like the Dickey trade from the time they made it.

It seems pretty clear/obvious that I was talking about Bautista.

[hockeyrobot]

I really hope they add at least 1 FA bullpen arm this year instead of just having some randoms come to camp and put a mish mash together.

[JagrBomb]

i went to the last two games.

jays are terrible if they aren't hitting homers. way too predictable, we lost because the indians have more guys that can hit.

as much as i like martin he's useless batting, and his catching was pretty subpar too. i'd rather see navarro who can actually hit a baseball without getting out or double play.

bautista was pretty much useless after the wild card game. let him go and have someone else overpay.

i'd like eddie back too but if he leaves then we need to retool. indians were 10 times faster than us, they would always make it to 1st preventing a double play, but same situation for us and eddie/martin etc are still half way to first giving them the easy 2 outs.

i'd rather we suffer the next 2-3 years than keep bautista/eddie with no chance of making it past the alcs. zero excuse why we shouldn't have won last night. we had the pitching advantage this series even without the injury.

[hockeyrobot]

i'd rather we suffer the next 2-3 years than keep bautista/eddie with no chance of making it past the alcs. zero excuse why we shouldn't have won last night. we had the pitching advantage this series even without the injury.

While I agree in some ways I think they definitely had a chance of winning this series. If you told me before the series that in Game 3 the Indians would have to use their bullpen for the majority of the game and in Game 5 it would be a guy who is starting his second game....I would have bet a lot of money on the Jays. Obviously things didn;t work out and yes a lot of that has to do with their hitting mentality (ie swing for the fence instead of contact)....but to say they had no chance.....the Jays pitching was GREAT. Cleveland was marginally better than Toronto at the plate and that cost the Jays

[Godin]

I really hope they add at least 1 FA bullpen arm this year instead of just having some randoms come to camp and put a mish mash together.

Definitely. Not that it guarantees anything but it will give the team some confidence in their bullpen.

[hockeyrobot]

I don't know if it's Gibby or the hitting coach, but someone needs to take some heat for the lack of professional at-bats.

I can understand getting shut down by good pitching - it happens. But the most frustrating part was the lack of contact. Cut down the swing, put the ball in play... good things will eventually happen.

Seriously....I don't understand it. It's like the players are plying a video game trying to jack the ball every time....especially guys like Pillar and Martin. It makes me think they're really stupid because they clearly don't get it. But yes I suspect some kind of adjustment with their hitting coaches.

[2014olympicgold]

It’s not like they weren’t hitting the ball hard guys. How many flyouts to the tracks were there in the last 3 games? The double play balls were a lot of , “Oh sick a ball between SS and 2B! oh wait they had a slight shift on”. The Indians interior D was ridiculous. They were always in the right spot and their range took away some singles.

Jays destroyed Texas, and the Indians were well prepared for shutting down offenses. It’s not like BSox lit the Indians up. Indians beat Toronto, Toronto got out played. Good pitching has always hurt the Jays offense and they clobber mistakes, Indians made none.

The whole, “they should have hit for contact” excuse is always weird to me. The Jays played 166 games prior to this one hitting the ball hard to the outfield. All of a sudden they’re supposed to try for contact? It’s like the Dallas Stars getting to the playoffs outscoring teams and all of a sudden you expect them to “Out Defense” a team. You live and die by your style of play, and the Jays are built to outscore your by homeruns. It would be like asking the Indians to never steal after caught stealing a base. That style of play got them to the ALCS, why abandon it all of a sudden?

[bondon]

Said it before and will say it again. Gibby is the right guy for the job. Manager really doesn't do a whole lot on MLB teams. They just need someone to maintain the clubhouse IMO, which is exactly what he brings. I think his bullpen management issues are overblown personally.

Look, the bottom line is that if you want to look for somewhere to point a finger, you really can't point them at anyone aside from the guy that everyone in this city treats like a god, which is AA. He assembled a fantastic roster full of exciting players. But guess what, he assembled a slugging lineup. The same lineup that everyone has loved to watch for the past two years, and what people don't complain about 90% of the year except for when shit hits the fan. When you roster a high-risk high-reward offense like the Jays have, you're eventually going to hit a power outage. You just hope that it doesn't come at the wrong time. Unfortunately this year, it did (April, September, this past week). You live by the sword, you die by the sword.

I'm honestly kind of getting exhausted with how people are always looking for blame. The fact is the lineup played out as it was designed to. It just didn't work out. I still quite frankly believe that on paper this is one of the top teams in the league and had potential to win it all, but as with everything else, timing is everything.

[hockeyrobot]

I just mean not every hitter should be swinging for the fence.