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| literally Vladdy . . . |
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| . . . literally stealing literal third |
Bo singled in Vladdy's double in the top of the first, Danny Jansen blooped in Téo and Tapia in the top of the ninth, and, in between, Kevin Gausman struck out ten whilst walking one and allowing but one slight hit in eight nearly-perfect innings. And that's all you need! It's just that simple! And yet none of these small things, each of them excellent (some indeed bordered on the exquisite), was the story of this day, of this Trade Deadline Day. Our dreams of acquiring either Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani dashed (. . . for now), the Blue Jays instead made a number of nice little moves, each of them bolstering. I have seen many expressions of disappointment with these acquisitions, but that isn't how I feel about them at all, and not just because I am a merry fellow (I will not deny that is a factor though): there were no moves available to the Blue Jays that would put them in a position to make up a dozen games over the final sixty and overtake the Yankees for the AL East title and a first-round playoff bye (honestly, you could get both Soto and Ohtani and not gain a dozen games [that's a lot!] over sixty [that's not many!] on this year's Yankees), and so what are our actual goals here? They are: i) to get in, as anyone who makes it in has a reasonable chance of advancing, and ii) if at all possible, to be in one of the two higher wild card positions so as to host all three first-round games rather than to be on the road for them (finishing in the final spot of course offers the consolation of those road games occurring in the ballpark of the AL Central winner but we have spoken of this many times previously and I do not wish to belabour the point [think about it though]). The Blue Jays have the third-best record in the American League, and if they can sustain that, their playoff positioning will be just grand. All of the Blue Jays' moves were about low-key consolidating their present position by improving areas of concern, and there is no doubt the Blue Jays got better (I know I don't need to ask you to go look at the FanGraphs rest-of-season ZiPS projections right now if you doubt this . . . but I will). That they did not get as "all-in, everybody-in-the-system-including-Moreno-must-go" about it as talk radiosts (and their online counterparts) would have preferred does not concern me even a little. There has been a good deal of talk about the difference between "a playoff contender" and "a World Series contender," but this is a demonstrably fake distinction -- like, it can be an idea or a feeling that you have, but it is not supported by the things that have happened (in the past [where everything that has happened happened]). The top teams going into the playoffs are somewhat rarely the teams that end up in the World Series (let alone win it). It just doesn't (or at least we can say "hasn't") worked that way (maybe it will start; the Dodgers have spent a number of years now wishing that it would, I bet). The best way to go about winning a World Series is to be in the little tournament they have right before, and the best way to do that is to win around ninety games as many seasons as you can. One can have all manner of preferences about how to go about achieving that aim (that's what makes this all so interesting!), but that is the aim: a bunch of ninety win seasons; that's what teams mean when they say they want "sustainable success" or to be "a perennial contender" or something like that. Or rather, if the aim is winning the World Series (and it is pretty sweet to do, as I recall), the most reliable means of attaining that goal -- especially given the way that happens now, with a slightly bigger little tournament than before -- is to be in that tournament as often as possible, because the results of that tournament are sufficiently random that the winners are likely to be a non-best team way more often than you might expect, because of how baseball is deeply weird, and way more competitive than it usually feels, with tiny little margins (they are tiny) that can flip results (most improbably!) in these short series.
If I may continue to denounce things I saw, briefly: there has been a good deal of focus on how the Blue Jays are lacking "swing and miss" in their bullpen, and that they need "another left-handed bat" in the lineup. To the first: outs are outs, man, and if you look at the bullpen "K" rate of recent World Series winners (or even not so recent, go to town [to stats town]), you will not find evidence to support the idea that this is an especially important aspect of winning teams (nor will you find evidence to support the oft-repeated idea that pitching is what wins championships: World Series winners are not infrequently at or around league-average). And to the matter of needing another left-handed bat: the thing that you want a left-handed bat is to hit right-handed pitching, right? Is this what you mean, guys I am remembering and minding? So what you actually need is not necessarily a left-handed bat (there are weird splits, there are reverse splits; there are all kinds of splits) but strong performance against right-handed pitching. Well the Blue Jays totally have that already, and also, who are you benching to make that happen? Weirdly, the Blue Jays have actually underperformed against left-handed pitching, particularly soft-tossing left-handed pitching, so far this season. A left-handed bat is unlikely to help that, unless they've got pretty weird splits, which is the thing I am begging everyone to look at. And yet not everyone will, and I am upset about it. I am not saying that everyone who wants to post specific baseball roster complaints on the internet should be required to have either listened to about ten years of FanGraphs Audio or simmed at least twenty seasons of Baseball Mogul or Out of the Park Baseball, but, crucially, I am also not not saying that.
Here's who we got, by the way: Anthony Bass, Zach Pop, a Marlin to be named later, Mitch White, Alex de Jesus, Whit Merrifield
At the cost of: Jordan Groshans, Nick Frasso, Moises Britto, Samad Taylor, Max Castillo
The most hilarious of these acquisitions, obviously, is Whit Merrifield, a useful player whose poor season to date is marked mainly by how he said he would not get vaccinated as a Kansas City Royal, but might consider it if he got traded to a good team. I applaud Ross Atkins for doing the work of public health and helping encourage the vaccine hesitant.
Anyway, the trade deadline was too much with us, late and soon (getting and spending, we lay waste our powers), and honestly I am glad it is behind us (we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!). In light of all that, it must have been especially nice for everybody to have a big team party just before in the combined backyards of José Berríos and George Springer (they're neighbours!). And how fortuitous for Blue Jays Floppy Hat Day to have occurred mere days before.
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| each look a poem |
KS
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