Marcus Stroman won't stop tweeting; 2019 Vlad Guerrero Jr/Blue Jays thread

Fucking Pete Walker got a DUI last night. Along with doing like double the speed limit.
Fucking selfish asshole. He’s worked all kids of magic with our staff, past and present and now he fucking risks his job because he’s too fucking unless to call an Uber?!

OK what's the new thread named, cuz we need a new one

2022 Toronto Blue Jays - Chappy Bird Friends

not that though X^D

why did they take berrios out, i don't have sound on

Because of all the base runners.

This has been quite the game so far!

love the opening day bullpen game, very 2020s

Jays came back from down 7, Raptors came back from down 24.

raptors? it's like i don't even know you

I'm very indiscriminate in my bandwagonism--Leafs too right now.

(tbf i don't actually know you and also please carry on! auston matthews is awesome)

Oh Clem - I found all the fridge magnate calendars I had told you about! From 2006 (calendar has pics from the Burnett and Ryan signings lol) to 2014 with a couple years missing and then a Reds calendar too somehow.

Great--would still love to get them in a trade, will message you.

Those were two fine games, despite the starters not doing so great

pic.twitter.com/rjlw3z5J9o

— No Context Blue Jays (@No_Context_Jays) April 9, 2022

AL Cy Young obviously just a formality this year...Don't think I appreciated how really good Manoah was last year--should have finished much higher than 8th for ROY (maybe fourth).

bleacher report had his as their darkhorse Cy winner!!

This should have been obvious, but it made me laugh anyway: start to google "Vladimir," and auto-correct fills in Putin first, Vladdy second. Sorry, famous Russian writer, your time has passed.

VLAD

what a game

Before the game today, Buck Martinez announced he had cancer (didn't specify what kind) and would be off the broadcasts for a while.

I placed a $100 bet today online that Manoah would win the Cy Young. The payout would be $1,600...If I had any nerve, I would have bet $1,000, but I don't and I didn't.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/blue-jays-broadcaster-buck-martinez-leaving-tv-booth-following-cancer-diagnosis-1.5864738

Ya, sad news about Buck. Wishing him the best, and also your $100 bet!! (I love Alek, but if I had to bet on a young arm winning the Cy, I’d go with McClanahan)

… tho Manoah will get more innings and more shots at QS

The odds were so good; it's probably close to unheard of to get 16-1 on a guy who was actually picked by a name publication to win (was it Bleacher Report?).

I may have posted about this before, but I've been amazed at times by Buck's ability to call a play or an outcome in advance and have it turn out exactly as he predicted (and not make a big deal of it afterwards). I know he's got the usual array of flaws, but I think he does have a good understanding of the game.

Sad news about Buck.

Does anybody know what were the preseason odds on Ray winning the CY last year? I'm trying to get some perspective on this 16-1 number for Manoah.

Ya, bleacher report was the “publication”!

My guess is the odds on Ray winning were much longer than that. The difference to me, though, is that Ray kind of came out of the blue; he was coming off a season where he only pitched 50 innings (injury? can't remember) and had been traded to a new league. He had a very good 2017, but that was three years ago. Manoah was excellent in 2021, and might have won ROY with more innings--he feels like a legitimate candidate, whereas I don't know if anyone was talking up Ray last spring. Here are the current odds from one site:

https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/mlb/cy-young-odds/

This is the first time I've paid attention to this, so it's just intuition and guess work--wasn't even on my radar until I heard those odds the radio yesterday, and my brother-in-law knew how to place the bet.

Found their 2021 Cy Young chart:

https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/mlb/2021-cy-young-odds/

If I'm reading it correctly, Ray isn't even listed till midway through the season.

Duh--if you hover your cursor over the 2021 graph, you can get the odds on a given day. So on July 28, Robbie Ray was +4750, almost three times the +1600 I got with Manoah. Going back to his game logs for 2021, Ray's record as of July 27 (he started against the Red Sox on July 28):

8-5, 3.12, 112.1 IP, 91 hits, 142 K, 27 BB

Cole's record on July 27:

10-5, 2.74, 125 IP, 95 hits, 166 K, 26 BB

Cole has a definite edge, but that seems reasonably close--betting $100 at that point and getting a potential 47-1 payoff definitely a better bet than what I just made. (I can't remember who else was contending at that point...I never took Ohtani that serious as a Cy Young contender because of his IP.) But betting Ray in mid-April, no matter what the odds, I think I made the better bet. Ray the rest of the way in 2021:

5-2, 2.44, 81 IP, 59 hits, 106 K, 25 BB

My first-ever post about a tag, I think: the one that Chapman just made was brilliant.

is a new golden era for blue jays fans? team seems like they could be in the WS, and also a ton of fun players!

sorry for typos there, but you get the gist

It’s ok. We’re all very excited.

I know things even out, but today's loss was bad--they should have scored more than one in the top of the 10th.

i was a little disappointed at the end there, but i had to remember: I'd already kind of written off the game before the comeback, they still took the series and Romano's save streak was fucking epic.

I was skeptical of Gausman before the season, just because he was a guy who seemed to come out of nowhere at the age of 30. I see now he had a couple of pretty good season with the Orioles. Anyway, he's looked really impressive. Everything's down around the knees. Still hasn't walked a batter over 24.2 innings.

he's looked amazing so far. have to say better than i expected.

God I love Manoah starts.

Was down there today--no Vlad, but very exciting.

I was glad they sent him out for the seventh. First of all, he just doesn't seem like a six-inning starter: he's a horse, very much in the Clemens mode. I also have a proprietary interest because of the bet I made. Snell won a Cy pitching six-innings, but almost all winners, I think, even recent ones, pitch deeper into games than that.

Weird to see the Jays on the wrong end of their Pythagorean projection. The 2015 (underperformed by 9 games), 2016 (2 games), and 2021 (8 games) teams--last two playoff teams, plus last year's near-miss--were all better than their records. With the 2015 and 2021 teams, it was like you were waiting around all season for them to catch up with their run differential. This year's team is now 8-2 in one-run games and 14-8 overall, even though they've scored and given up 89.

We're either due to win some blowouts or lose some close ones.

Or both. I feel like we’re due for both. Hopefully more blowouts.

Gausman (finished for the day) is up to 31.1 walkless innings--they had a graphic up showing that he's getting close to longest stretch to start a season for the past decade or so.

More:

In 31 2/3 innings this season, Gausman has yet to allow a single walk or home run. This puts him in extremely rare company, joining only Cy Young as the only starters in the World Series era (since 1903) to begin a season with five consecutive outings of no walks and no home runs allowed (minimum 20 innings total).

Posnanski post today:

When the Blue Jays signed the 31-year-old Gausman, they seemed to be taking a pretty big chance. Gausman had once been a mega-prospect with the Baltimore Orioles, but even the most casual of baseball fans know that being a mega-pitching-prospect with the Baltimore Orioles is not unlike being the Spinal Tap drummer.

...or like being dubbed "Infrastructure Week"; that would have worked too.

Ric Parnell, our drummer in This is Spinal Tap, passed away today. No one ever rocked harder.

— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer) May 2, 2022

Bad timing by Joe, bad timing by me.

Two great starts wasted--disappointing.

(I was thinking about a situation where, late September, it's Manoah and Gausman battling for the Cy Young, and the Jays are in a close pennant race...I might have to root for the Jays winning 10-9 whenever Gausman starts.)

Gausman gave up a walk today--get rid of him.

And the team has yet to bounce back from that walk

Damn you, Pythagoras--damn you to hell!