OT: The Toronto Blue Jays
- Thread starter PlayerToBeNamedLater
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Pwner
Well-known member
So "Games Played" is the new "Rounds Won". Cool.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Rounds won, games won, any tangible playoff success would be fine, sure.
Why is making the wild card a measure of success worth talking about? I mean, in our division we finished 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th over those 4 seasons you referenced. That's not a significant amount of regular season success. We've won 0 playoff games over that stretch, so clearly there was no playoff success either. If the measure of success you seem to think is important is buying yourself a chip and a chair for the playoffs by making the wildcard, surely the only way to appropriately measure if that was successful is by looking at what was done with that chip and a chair, no?
Stop carrying water for a loser front office. It was a loser front office in Cleveland, and it's been a loser front office here. It's peak was building a 3rd place team that couldn't win a single playoff game.
Total wins over the years you mentioned
Tampa: 324
NYY: 306
Toronto: 304
Boston: 272
Baltimore: 261
Lowered motherfucking expectations.
manny
Well-known member
I remembered that the 2020 playoffs were expanded to 16 teams because of the short season, but had forgotten that before permanently instituting expanded playoffs a few years ago, they actually went back to the previous system in 2021.
So the Jays “made the playoffs” in 2020 as the 8th seed in the AL, with a 32-28 record and negative run differential.
Missed the playoffs under the previous system in 2021.
Made the expanded playoffs as the 4th seed in 2022, and the 6th seed in 2023.
Swept every time. So, that seems… not very good.
Let’s look at the Jays position under JP Ricciardi, for example:
2002: 8th in the AL (makes the COVID playoffs)
2003: 6th in the AL (makes the post-2021 expanded playoffs)
2004: 12th (almost, but not quite as bad as 2019)
2005: 8th (another COVID season success story!)
2006: 7th in the AL (but second in the AL East)
2007: 7th again.
2008: 6th (we made it!)
2009: 10th. FIRED! WHAT!?!? But he makes the playoffs almost every year!
Now imagine Ricciardi had a top- 5 in MLB payroll.
That’s how low the bar is for these losers.
So the Jays “made the playoffs” in 2020 as the 8th seed in the AL, with a 32-28 record and negative run differential.
Missed the playoffs under the previous system in 2021.
Made the expanded playoffs as the 4th seed in 2022, and the 6th seed in 2023.
Swept every time. So, that seems… not very good.
Let’s look at the Jays position under JP Ricciardi, for example:
2002: 8th in the AL (makes the COVID playoffs)
2003: 6th in the AL (makes the post-2021 expanded playoffs)
2004: 12th (almost, but not quite as bad as 2019)
2005: 8th (another COVID season success story!)
2006: 7th in the AL (but second in the AL East)
2007: 7th again.
2008: 6th (we made it!)
2009: 10th. FIRED! WHAT!?!? But he makes the playoffs almost every year!
Now imagine Ricciardi had a top- 5 in MLB payroll.
That’s how low the bar is for these losers.
Pwner
Well-known member
So 2 games short of the great NYY. 20 games short of Tampa BUT Boston is 32 games behind us. Looks like they competed with the best in the division.
I made an allusion to fans of other teams arguing that the Leafs suck because they don't win playoff rounds. This is the same logic.
I am trying to remember if any team since 2020 that made the "play-in"/ wild card games went on to play in the World Series that year......
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MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
3rd place, yeah. We look a lot closer to NYY when we omit last year of course (it goes from 2 games short to 22 games short) Better than a Boston team that was in a retool era after they won a title and made another deep run, and Baltimore during a tear down and rebuild that has produced a very young 100 win team fucking loaded with stud talent.
I never said anything about "suck". But to pretend that we've been truly competitive is crazy, we just haven't. The right parallel to the Leafs here would be if the Leafs snuck into 8th 3 out of 4 years and got blown out in the playoffs each time.
So no, this isn't the same. I mean, if we want to play that game, the Leafs are 15-17 in playoff games over that same time period with a series win. So however disappointing a playoff performance they've put forward, the Jays front office would sacrifice their favourite goat on live television to have the Leafs playoff success over the same 4 years.
I am trying to remember if any team since 2020 that made the "play-in"/ wild card games went on to play in the World Series that year......
Texas, sure. But they were an elite offensive team (led the AL in most major offensive categories) with a great run differential that didn't fully show up in their regular season record (96-66 Pythagorean record) and won 90 games despite their elite ace's elbow falling apart at the beginning the season. They added Scherzer and Montgomery at the deadline to give them a plus rotation for the stretch run and it worked out.
I'm good with following that blueprint.
Pwner
Well-known member
Also, The Diamondbacks that year too. And when the Braves won their World Series they had the worst winning percentage of any team in the NL that made the playoffs.
Basically, once you get in anything can happen.
And saying that the Jays suck, have you been reading this thread?
mbow30
Spudmeister Supreme
The fact that the jays being a fringe playoff team coincided with Boston and new York have both going through relative down stretches is a massive mark against tweedle Dee and tweedle dum, not a sign of a job well done. “We have been just as mediocre as Boston and New York” isn’t a good thing lol
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Well, they were a 74 win team last year and sure look like a .500 team this year on paper. That kind of sucks.
No one said that they "sucked" in the years that you're talking about, even I was calling them an 85-90 win team in those years and that the goal was to just be good enough to make it into the last week of the season playing meaningful baseball still.
I disagree though with the "get in and anything can happen" bit though. I think you're falling for full seasonW/L record being the final arbiter on team quality at the start of the playoffs.
The Braves team you mentioned had a Pyth W/L of 94-67 on the season and added a bunch of guys at the deadline who were huge for them in the playoffs (Eddie Rosario had a 1.073 OPS ffs and Soler had a .943 in the playoffs). From the deadline on, they played at a 101 win pace.
So run differential suggested that they were better than their W/L record and then they made multiple solid additions at the deadline that looks like it turned them into an elite team for a few months.
There's an argument that the 2021 Jays could have been one of those teams (91 wins, but 99 win pyth...funny, the one team in that 4 year run that didn't make the wild card)) but our obvious weakness (shit bullpen) wasn't aggressively addressed and costs us too many wins earlier in the year to catch up with a late season heater (108 win pace from Sept 1 onward). But the teams that did make the playoffs were pretty meh playoff teams by run diff standards and didn't do much to improve at the deadlines to make themselves more or a threat either. Just boring, missionary position "competing".
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Also been clowned on by Tampa fucking Bay with their poverty budget and the Orioles blast past us with a real rebuild full of potentially elite young talent.
Pwner
Well-known member
If the argument was that Shatkins had a good 10-year run (not as good as we hoped) and ultimately fell short, then now is the time for someone else to try their luck. I could get behind that.
This sentiment that Shatkins is the worst thing since AIDS and has debased the Jays brand so much that they are an industry pariah is disingenuous at best and MAGA at worst.
This sentiment that Shatkins is the worst thing since AIDS and has debased the Jays brand so much that they are an industry pariah is disingenuous at best and MAGA at worst.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
I mean, it's pretty clear that he's done a shit job here. A very incomplete rebuild lead to a low ceiling team not capable of truly competing and overall produced mediocre results when measured against the rest of the AL over it's "peak". Despite spending a truck load of money on the whole thing, our best players were never locked in long term and are on the verge of free agency, looking to be done with the organization after this upcoming season, on a team that looks hard capped somewhere around 85 wins while having an, at best, below average farm system to rely on for a rebuild.
Oh, and they beclowned themselves in free agency very publicly a bunch of times over the last few years and have turned themselves into a meme, not just with jays fans, but league wide if you follow such things.
Aids might be a little harsh, but herpes I don't think would be far off.
UWHabs
Well-known member
Yeah, I mean it could be a lot worse. See the Jays record before 2015, or look at Oakland (I mean Sacramento), Colorado, etc...
But to be able to run like a top-5 payroll team and have... this to show for it, while the team was supposed to be in a competitive atmosphere and building a team to succeed, is just a failure.
You could excuse it if they had to go through a rebuild. Or if we were like Boston where you have a down stretch but you now have like 2 of the top 10 prospects in baseball on the cusp of the show.
But the team is basically a .500 team. Their generational talent is a free agent after the season who the team couldn't commit to and is going to walk away. Most of the other top talent on the team is on the wrong side of 30. And the team's top prospects barely crack the top 100 (87/88 on MLB Pipeline, 66/82/102 on Fangraphs). Barring a miracle, the next 10 years look to be far, far worse than the last 10 years have been.
leafman101
Well-known member
worm
Well-known member
MBJGA