Five Blue Jays are nominated for Silver Slugger awards

The Toronto Blue Jays have five Silver Slugger nominees, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien, Teoscar Hernandez and Loudres Gurriel Jr. There are two locks, two maybes and one unlikely player. Let’s run through their stats.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr:
Vlad finished the season with a slash line of .311/.401/1.002 and added 48 homers and 111 RBIs. I don’t need to tell you how good he was, just that he’ll likely win it. He is up against Yuli Gurriel and Matt Olson. They are great players, but the aren’t Vlad Jr.
Marcus Semien:
Another lock for the Silver Slugger, Marcus Semien had the best season for a second baseman ever. In fact, it was one of the best seasons from a middle infielder in the history of the MLB. I wrote about this here…
A brief recap: Semien posted a .265/.344/.873 slash line with 45 home runs, the most ever for a second baseman. Without a doubt in my mind, Marcus Semien is the Silver Slugger winner for second base as Jose3 Altuve, DJ LeMahieu and Jorge Polanco don’t stand a chance.
Also, expect him to get nominated for a gold glove award as well.
Teoscar Hernandez:
Remember when we …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Six years later, Alex Anthopolous has a team in the World Series

Shortly before I started writing for Blue Jays Nation, I finished my diploma in Management and Entrepreneurship. While this program was not my primary interest, I did learn a lot about sustainability in business. Even our beloved Toronto Blue Jays are a business, meaning that sustainable practices must be implemented.

Back in July, I wrote an article titled “Building a Sustainable Contender” where I dove into how the Front Office turned an old, overpaid team into a contender in four years. This was done by savvy international free agent signings as well as trading pending free agents at the deadline to build up prospect capital.
However, there are other methods of team building, such as trading for key assets at the trade deadline, such as former Blue Jays General Manager Alex Anthopoulos did at the 2021 deadline. This obviously paid off for Anthopoulos and the Atlanta Braves as they are in the World Series
Alex Anthopoulous’ 2015 trades:
Alex Anthopoulos made moves in 2015. He made a fantastic move to acquire soon-to-be AL MVP Josh Donaldson (30), he traded Jose Reyes and other minor league prospects for Troy Tulowitzki (31) and traded the rest of the farm for David Price (30). Not just that, he also …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Dan Shulman predicts Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien will leave and that the Blue Jays will try to trade for Jose Ramirez

The Blue Jays have the likely American League Cy Young winner along with a guy who’s going to finish towards the top of Most Valuable Player voting headed to free agency at the same time.

Can they re-sign both of them? If they could only pick one, which would it be, Robbie Ray or Marcus Semien? Dan Shulman’s guess? It’s going to be neither of them.
Shulman appeared on the Baseball Tonight podcast with Buster Olney on Monday and he spoke about the Blue Jays’ upcoming off-season (the segment starts at about 43 minutes). He figures that the Blue Jays have the financial ability to sign both players, but it would impede their ability to make improvements elsewhere…
OLNEY: Before you go, I wanted to ask you about the Blue Jays. Give me the lay of the land on Marcus Semien and Robbie Ray, who are both hitting the free agent market and what the chances are the Blue Jays keep one or both of these guys.
SHULMAN: The fanbase by in large wants both of these guys re-signed, and how could you not with the kinds of seasons they had? I think they financially could re-sign both …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Mark Shapiro expects payroll to continue to rise despite Blue Jays lagging behind in revenue

The Blue Jays have a big winter ahead of them.

After coming up just short of reaching the playoffs with a 91-71 record, Toronto heads into the off-season with a pair of key contributors, Robbie Ray and Marcus Semien, set to hit free agency.
Mark Shapiro gave an end-of-season press conference on Monday in which he offered some optimism for fans when it comes to how the team is going to operate over the winter. While Shapiro and Co. don’t yet have a payroll figure for the 2022 season, the Blue Jays President and CEO believes that ownership will continue the trend of increasing spending…
“The choreography of our off-season leaves our final payroll meeting with ownership still about one month away, so while I’d like to think I’m making those decisions unilaterally, I’m certainly not. We’ve got to make our proposal.
But every indication I’ve received, and I think every indication that we’ve been shown, which is the demonstration of consistent and strong support, along with us fulfilling our end of the bargain, which is demonstrating that the team continues to improve and we continue to perform on the field. That leads me …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

The Blue Jays won but so did the Red Sox and Yankees

The Blue Jays did their job, kicking the ever-loving piss out of the Baltimore Orioles, but, unfortunately, life isn’t fair, so the season is over.

Things were looking good for a hot second, as the Nationals held a 5-1 lead over the Red Sox, and the Rays and Yankees were locked at 0-0. At this time, the Blue Jays were looking like they were going to tag the O’s for like 100 runs and at least one of Boston or New York would lose.
But, again, life isn’t fair and baseball is designed to not just break your heart, but to rip your heart out and crush it right in front of your eyes.
The Red Sox rallied with a three-run seventh inning to tie the game at 5-5. Meanwhile, the Yankees walked off the Rays with an Aaron Judge single in the bottom of the ninth. With that, New York clinched a wild-card spot, and then the Red Sox went ahead 7-5 on a Rafael Devers homer.
So, that’s that! Boston and New York will square off in the Wild Card game on Wednesday and we’ll watch from a distance and think “what if?”
It …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

News and Notes: Matthews skates, some new lines, and a timeline for the Leafs cuts

News and Notes: Matthews skates, some new lines, and a timeline for the Leafs cuts

Understandably most Toronto sports eyes on the Blue Jays today and because of that there might not be a lot of interest in what’s going on in Leafs camp today. That’s fine. It’s hard to keep up interest in training camp and the preseason when nothing else is happening and today with a full day of meaningful baseball games that will decide the postseason fate of the Jays probably means the Leafs take a backseat.
That said…

Auston Matthews has departed practice early
Seney now taking reps between Ritchie-Marner
Gogolev with Gusev-Abramov
Leafs remaining pre-season games: Monday, Tuesday and Saturday
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 3, 2021

Auston Matthews participating in the contract drills and staying out with the Leafs longer is encouraging. The fact that the Leafs are saying that it has happened ahead of schedule is also something you’d love to see.

Sheldon Keefe today on Auston Matthews: “He did a lot more today than we were expecting. He wanted to keep going, he felt good. He shot the puck a lot harder, I thought, today. It was the first time I saw him really leaning into one-timers.”
— Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) October 3, 2021

The fact that Nick Ritchie …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

It all comes down to Game 162

The Blue Jays need to win on Sunday.

I mean, we’ve known all along that Toronto needs to pull off a sweep against the Baltimore Orioles this weekend in order to make the playoffs, but, now it’s a literal must-win situation. No matter what New York, Boston, or Seattle does, the Blue Jays will be out of the picture with a loss on Sunday.
The Blue Jays have done their job thus far. They squeezed out a needlessly stressful win on Friday night and then they handed out a shit-kicking on Saturday afternoon to put their record at 90-71 on the season. The Yankees have dropped both of their games against the Rays and the Red Sox have won both of their games against the Nationals, so they sit at 91-70 each.
Tomorrow we have…
Hyun Jin Ryu vs Bruce Zimmermann. We haven’t seen Zimmermann yet this season but he has a 4.66 ERA over the course of 13 outings and his peripherals (7.8 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 5.22 FIP) are even worse than what his boxcars indicate. The Blue Jays should hit this guy, and they might need to because we have no idea what to expect from Ryu. After a stint …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

The Blue Jays signed Robinson Cano’s 17-year-old brother, Gregory Cano

The Blue Jays are sticking with the bloodlines trend, but, this time it’s with the younger brother of a very good player.

According to Hector Gomez, a well-connected reporter from the Dominican Republic, the Blue Jays have signed Gregory Cano, the 17-year-old brother of former New York Yankee All-Star Robinson Cano. For those who forgot about him, Robinson Cano is currently serving a full-season suspension for testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug stanozolol.

Blue Jays sign 17 -year- old prospect 3B Gregory Cano for a $350,000 bonus. He’s the younger brother of Robinson Cano, per @AimeRivas. pic.twitter.com/YtiZpEGT3h
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) September 30, 2021

There isn’t much info out there about the young Cano, save for who his family member are, the fact he plays third base, and that this deal reportedly features a $350,000 signing bonus (for context, Vladdy’s signing bonus was $3,900,000 back in 2015).
Gregory Cano is also the sun of Jose Cano, a well-respected coach in the Dominican. Jose Cano spent 10 years in the minor league systems of the Yankees, Braves, and Astros and appeared in six big league games with Houston in 1989 and, most recently, he was on the coaching staff for the Dominican team that …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Jacob Barnes, who cleared waivers earlier this season, is back with the Blue Jays

On June 19th, the Blue Jays traded 24-year-old Troy Miller for relief pitcher Jacob Barnes. On July 26th, he was DFA’ed. Let’s be real, we all thought he’d never pitch another inning for the Blue Jays. Below is the article I wrote about this trade…

What were his Blue Jays stats? Is a 6.00 ERA in 9 IP good? I would say no, but when you look at peripherals, you can see that he wasn’t actually that in his short time for the Jays.  While his BB/9 was high (6), he had a K/9 of 13. Most surprising to me however is the fact he had a 4.05 FIP and 4.17 xFIP, so not nearly as bad as one would think.
Fast forward to September 29th, guess who’s back, back again? Jakey is back, back again.
If you think about early season Blue Jays relievers, Dolis, Chatwood or maybe even Jersey Beasley comes to mind. Yet, Jacob Barnes got the call up to the majors. That begs the question, how did he do in Buffalo?
Pretty darn good. He’s pitched 14.1 innings since the demotion. In that time, he’s allowed one earned run for a 0.63 ERA. As for his peripherals, …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Minor League Review: The Florida Complex League

While I absolutely love the Toronto Blue Jays, I’ve always been interested in the sustainability of a sports team. One championship isn’t enough, give me six in a span of ten years. In baseball, sustainability comes from an organization’s ability to scout. The Blue Jays have been able to do just that.

In a series of five articles, I’ll be covering prospects from all the minor league affiliates of the Toronto Blue Jays, including the summer league teams, which is the topic of this article. I will be using both MLB Pipeline and Baseball America’s list of top prospects, however, a lot of the players mentioned in these articles will not be ranked. With that being said, I believe these are prospects that Blue Jays fans should keep an eye on.
Unlike every other article in this series, this article will cover both the “embryo” Blue Jays in Florida as well as the Dominican Republic.
Florida Complex League’s top prospects:
Starting with the Florida Complex League Blue Jays, let’s look at the players on Pipeline’s top 30 that played for their rookie team in Florida.
Estiven Machado:
18-year-old Estiven Machado is the Blue …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation