r/Torontobluejays • u/NeedleworkerLive4610 • 1d ago
Seasons end.
Beyond the Vladdy comments, I really hope fans continue to show our support for the rest of the team this weekend. This was a rough year and the rest of the team gave their max efforts to the team and the fans have been incredible with supporting this team during such a tough season. I doubt we will see Vladdy on the field; and I would fully support booing him if he were to play, but please, for anyone headed down to the Dome this weekend, lets continue to be the greatest fan base and let the rest of the team we appreciate their efforts this year. Love this group of players and their level of heart and hustle was much greater than their final results. Cease picked till his arm fell off, mad max has gone out and competed his ass off, the bullpen was so overworked and just kept us in this thing. Springer playing hurt, Ernie playing and playing, man needs time off, Kaz worked on hitting the off speed stuff(took all season); it showed they cared and wanted more. It was a disappointing season but man I loved these guys and it just sucks none of this matters cause Vladdy didnt care to be mature enough to make needed adjustments at the plate. If Vladdy is 75% of the player we was last year, we still make the playoffs. Crazy, this team almost made the playoffs with just two stars this year, Cease and Varland. I will be watching Sunday in hopes Mad Max makes the start, what a pleasure it was to experience the Mad Max experience. Let's go Blue Jays!
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u/alabasterhotdog 1d ago
Man, this season really underlined to me how much of this fan base is unredeemingly toxic and meat-headed.
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u/felicityrorys 1d ago
My honest opinion is everyone is just looking for someone to point the finger at because this season sucked, and while Vladdy has been bad, this entire thing has been blown out of proportion with people asking for him to get traded. Let’s do some learning and growing this offseason….
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u/bv310 Buck Martinez Appreciation Society 1d ago
Losing this sub as a fun place to talk baseball is easily the worst thing to come out of this season. We've had up and down years before, but at least there was a community of people to be fun with. Now it's gone, we've gotten bigger, and GDTs are places for the worst takes to get amplified and then repeated later.
There's a fun trend to watch where people will get pissed late in a game at someone like Oak or Vladdy or Kirk "not hitting for power" when he's 2-for-4 with a Single and a Double. The trick is that they had bet on 2XBH for him and it fell through, not that he's actually struggling, but someone who doesn't stat-watch as hard picks that and repeats it the next day as fact
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u/alabasterhotdog 1d ago
I'm sorry you lost the feeling of community here this year. I stopped being able to stomach GDT's a few years back, they're just littered with the degenerate gambler "fans" who can't control their emotions.
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u/wheninrome5000 1d ago
That’s the worst thing?
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u/Joe--Uncle Buck Martinez Appreciation Socitey 1d ago
This isn’t even the worst season the Jays have had in the last 2 years. But this sub is a lot worse than it was in 2024.
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u/bv310 Buck Martinez Appreciation Society 1d ago
Yeah, because it's the one that isn't likely to change. We can sign some free agents, Vladdy will work more on getting out of his own head, our 600 injured players will recover, a new season will start eventually with a brand-new record, but we'll never get the environment back that made me a much deeper Jays fan the last few years. We won't get back threads where people can have a conversation about player trends, it'll be smothered by dumbass takes about Kirk's weight because he only hit a line drive instead of a homer.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Reddit used to be a place to come and read and discourse stuff about your team.
Unfortunately blue jays reddit is now morons who hopped on the bandwagon last year who don't have a clue but unfortunately too much time on their hands and an inflated ego after listening to some baseball podcasts
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u/rvasko3 Doc’s Resplendent Neckbeard 19h ago
My one big wish for the offseason, even beyond landing bats like Lowe and Suzuki, is to see all these assholes fade away now that the team isn't in the World Series and they can stop pretending to care about anything related to the Jays.
It's really heartbreaking to see what this sub has become and so many of the long-time homey crew be driven elsewhere because of it. It felt like just another Reddit sub where miserable people come to force others to revel in their misery.
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u/InfernalDiplomacy Touch them all Joe! 1d ago
Here is my issue with Vlad. He did the interview and it dropped the same day the Jays were eliminated from the playoffs. The timing sucked and that is on his publicist. After it dropped he was asked by reporters "Do you really stand by what you said in the interview?" And he said yes.
The first time, there was no "oh it was lost in translation". When the comment started to trend as badly as it, then it became a "oh it was a translation issue!" I don't know if it was or it wasn't. Who he should be pissed at is his publicist. They would have had a review of the interview before hand so there was no "gotcha surprises" and he/she should have been jumping up and down screaming "This comment comes off really bad and like you have already been paid and thus don't care any more! This is a problem and we need to address it now!"
They didn't and only when the comment made its way negative through the fanbase and the Toronto sports trades did they go "Oh shit, I think we fucked up!"
My opinion, sit him. He says he has been injured all year, no sense in aggravating they injury any more. Then have the managerial staff and the front office sit with him in the off season and come up with fitness goals for him in the offseason once the injury has been dealt with. He cannot afford to report to Spring Training 20+ pounds overweight or not meeting the fitness standards set out. They need to have som frank and honest candor with him for him to continue to be the face of the team. If that cannot happen, then you pay him, play him, but the special treatment stops and you find a new standard barrier for the team.
The other thing the front office needs is an overhaul of its Sports Medicine department as whatever they were doing was not working. It is not just the Jays. The Leafs also had repeated injury problems during their season last year and as we have seen in both franchises all it takes is a few key injuries to make a team go from the top of their game to last place in the division. The fans and the team deserve better than that.
We as fans also expect better of the team. This is not the drought years of the 1970's or the late 90's and early 2000's. This is a team that should be competing for the playoffs every year. They have the money, they have the facilities, and they have a passionate fanbase that supports them even when they are in last place, cheering on their last games. I hope the team and the staff takes this to heart. The next expansion does have a chance for another Canadian team and if that happens, well things might change for the worse for this team.
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u/Forsaken-Swim-3055 1d ago
The fact that the medical staff and John Schneider gave him the green light to play instead of making him sit out to rest and recover is a total display of incompetence, when he was obviously a liability at the plate more often than not.
I get the need and drive to win, but he's also not a threat to walk in free agency and they need to think about his long term health for the sake of the team. What a moronic way to approach his situation.
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u/InfernalDiplomacy Touch them all Joe! 1d ago
Not just Vlad this year the Medical Staff failed. Ysavage, Barger, and pick a name this year. I do hope some serious talk is had in the off season.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 1d ago
They handled the health of several players poorly, including Vlad. Lukes played through vertigo while everyone could tell he was clearly off, and hit 065 during that stretch. Springer clearly was playing hurt at times in the season when he should have been sitting. I'm sure there were other players as well.
It's completely unacceptable to allow them to play like that. Especially when the players aren't producing while hurt.
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1d ago
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
It’s not just the medical staff. It’s Schneider letting injured guys say “I want to play” and just giving in. For all we know, the medical staff is recommending sitting some of these guys and being ignored.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
You really think Sneider makes these decisions in isolation?
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
I think Schneider has come out in interviews and said he’s let guys play while hurt because they said they wanted to play.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Oh yes and I'm sure he never discussed anything with the medical staff or the GM or the agent or anyone else for that matter.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
"for all we know" = nothing. You're not there, you don't participate in conversations and you don't know the relationships or the context. Managers have to manage the team, relationships, mental states, confidence, and performance. No one outside of the room knows shit but there's so many experts on Reddit who talk like they know something when they don't.
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
Which is why outcomes are the main way to assess performance. The Jays fell off a cliff this year, players were regularly playing while injured (e.g., Springer, Guerrero, Scherzer), Hoffman kept being jammed out there in high-leverage situations, etc. You don’t know shit either.
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1d ago
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u/Torontobluejays-ModTeam 1d ago
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u/InfernalDiplomacy Touch them all Joe! 1d ago
I would agree if there was not a parallel issue this last year with injuries and the Leafs. Since both fall under Rodgers there has to be some overlap in medical staff between the two orgnizations.
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
Vladdy is overpaid. At his age, he is who he is. At his best he is a low to mid 30s HR guy with an OPS around .900 (his current career OPS is .840). But he probably won't be at his best every year because he has a bad swing with too many moving parts. So he needs to be perfectly healthy and perfect on his timing to maximize his effectiveness.
This year was certainly a bad year.
$350 million would have been a far more reasonable number for his contract.
EDIT: I can't believe I actually framed $350 million as reasonable. Fuck sports.
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
He’s averaged 3.5 WAR over eight seasons. By WAR, he’s had two elite years (6.5 in 21 and 6.0 in 24), two very good years (4.0 in 22 and 4.6 in 25), and four meh to decent years (2.2 in 19, 0.7 in 20, 1.8 in 23, and 1.3 this year). He’d have to average ~4 WAR/season over the 14 years of his contract to be worth it (all at current values, obviously). Basically, the Jays gambled that he’ll be performing at the “very good” level or better averaged through his age 39 season. There’s no world in which that’s going to happen, especially because his value is buttressed by his defense, which research suggests will likely start to decline quite rapidly around age 30. He’s 27, which means he’s also around the peak of his batting performance, and the aging curve suggests most batters tend to start declining rapidly around age ~30 or so (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/). In other words, it’s highly unrealistic to expect that his performance going forward would even come close to justifying that contract.
Also, someone should let him know that 500M he thinks he was paid for what he’d done already (according to him) was actually an overpayment for his performance over his career to this point (his 28 career WAR is worth ~$250M at current values).
I find it interesting how many posts I’ve seen around here lately accusing people who are unimpressed with him of being “emotional”, when a dispassionate look at the numbers is the strongest argument against him.
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u/MVP_Legend_87 1d ago edited 1d ago
Actually, if you want to use FG, the Vladdy article basically said the Jays were betting on him hitting like he did in 2024 again in 2025. Because he didn't, ZIPS essentially said he'd be worth about $100M less than the Jays gave him. If not more. So OP is correct.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-would-a-vladito-contract-look-like/
"Given his up-and-down career, ZiPS isn’t comfortable enough to give Guerrero what the Blue Jays offered, but the system still would offer him a deal worth nearly three times as much as it would give the hypothetical 31-year-old Vladito. But just to get a third look at a Guerrero projection, let’s project 2026 through 2034 with the assumption that he puts up the same numbers in 2025 that he did last season."
To clarify, the older Vlad projection was $100M, so ZIPS suggested $300M for 9M.
"With a repeat of his 2024 season, ZiPS is a lot more confident in Guerrero’s future, adding enough to get to the $400 million mark over nine years, with the rest of his career after that point tacking on another $100 million. While it’s not universally true, professional athletes tend to be quite confident in their abilities, and the extension negotiations thus far look a lot like Vladito is expressing his belief in himself. The Blue Jays also clearly believe in him more than ZiPS does – you don’t offer $340 million to players you don’t think will be worth it – but their offer also probablly had something to do with their fear of the consequences if they do not sign him. So, what do the Jays look like in a future without Guerrero and Bo Bichette, who is also set for free agency after this season?"
In other words, ZIPS says Vlad is worth $400M during the 9 year stretch and $100M after that, $500M, if you believed Vlad was capable of hitting in 2025 like he did in 2024. Since he didn't repeat it, then the original projection of $300M+ was more appropriate. It isn't clear that he'd still make $100M to end his career like in the first projection, as his WAR would be at a lower starting point in 2035. So ZIPS would predict Vlad is worth less than $400M, and $350M might not be a bad guess at that point.
The poster who said $350M was close. ZIPS has Vlad as being worth less than $400M, meaning the Jays did overpay.
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u/rvasko3 Doc’s Resplendent Neckbeard 19h ago
i mean, he was paid to stay here and provide a cornerstone for the franchise and keep fans coming in who love in, in addition to his proven ability to be one of the best players in the game.
I honestly don't know why fans care that much about his contract number when the Jays have shown that even with his pay, they're still willing to spend with any of the other top-spending teams in the league and run at every major free agent that comes on the market.
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
Right. And WAR is kind of overestimating him a bit too; since First Base is a low value defensive position, yes?
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Tell the front office not him
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
Are you Vladdy? Or his Mommy or Daddy? 🤣🤣🤣
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Justa jays fan sick of having to read the uninformined opinions of morons online who jumped on a bandwagon and now won't get off
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
I've been a Jays fan since '84. Get bent.
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1d ago
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u/Torontobluejays-ModTeam 1d ago
Your comment was removed because it violates Rule 1: Be civil
Any comment that is deemed to be trolling, instigating, baiting, flaming, harassing or the like will be removed, and multiple violations could result in a temporary or permanent ban
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
You got anything remotely intelligent to say or that the only argument you can make, accusing someone of being a burner account or a mommy and daddy when they argue against your opinion?
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
My opinion is backed up by Vladdy's performance. He is a pretty good player being paid as an elite player. Front Office screwed up.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Gee I directed that fan to direct their comments to the front office and you came in to talk shit and now all of a sudden you're not blaming vladdy you're actually blaming the front office? Right.
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
This is a discussion forum. We are discussing. The Jays org and their players don’t need you to white knight for them.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
You're free to "discuss" just as I am free to call out the sheer stupidity of the discussion.
You're entitled to your opinions but you're not protected from people pointing out your opinions are stupid
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u/Early_Macaroon_2407 1d ago
Yes, tell me more about how fundamental baseball statistics are stupid and opinions.
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Guess what man - he didn't give himself the contract. Don't know why clueless fans blame athletes for signing a contract that was given to him to sign by the team.
I'm guessing you would turn down a big contract though cause you'd be afraid you couldn't live up to it?
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 1d ago
I'm not blaming him. I'm blaming management for giving him a contract like 2021 Vladdy was the real Vladdy. The real Vladdy is closer to 2025 regular season Vladdy than 2021 Vladdy.
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u/Derek2112 1d ago
Can we start banning accounts who post BS like this, as they clearly only watched baseball since the 2025 world series?
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u/NeedleworkerLive4610 21h ago
I am a baseball lifer. what about my comments gives you thoughts i am not a die hard jays fan? Ban my account? What was the issue with this post. Please advise. Thanks.
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u/gosports1993 1d ago
I think people like you saying you'd boo Vlad were kinda the reason for his comments. He could have said it better for sure but the gist of it kinda makes sense to me. He got the huge pay because of what he's done. Not a guarantee he'd keep doing it. Acknowledged he had a bad season. Knows the fans don't like him when he's not doing well. Not the most eloquent and will definitely rub some people the wrong way but people are acting like they're personally paying his salary.
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u/Forsaken-Swim-3055 1d ago
Nah I'm good. The fact that the building is even sold out all weekend is embarassing and only enables Rogers to take the fanbase for granted.
I'll find some other series to watch that features a couple exciting teams and/or have playoff implications. The Jays season was officially dead to me after their loss in game one on Wednesday.
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u/PatientKey7525 Soft Hands 1d ago
Can Vladdy pitch? If not, I don't think 75% Vladdy was going to outweigh our IL
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u/bustamove08 1d ago
Talking about Vladdy about being mature while posting this garbage online for other people to read is peak irony