JTP: Trade Value, Defensive Spirals & the Baseball Spy

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Blue Jays Talk 1h 39m 6 speakers 4 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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What are the Blue Jays' recent results and how did they fall to 10 games under .500?

Blake Murphy 0:20
More of the same for the Toronto Blue Jays down at Rogers Center. They drop another one to the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-2. It was a little different in that they led and, well, they didn't get a 12 spot. hung on them at least but just no sense of ability to put any runs on the board even with a 1-0 early lead didn't feel like enough the Rays managed to chip their way back into it Braden Fisher and Spencer Miles combined to allow one in the second and then Jeff Hoffman allowed three unearned ones a little later on a Dalton Varshow error in center field leading to a bigger inning there not that Jeff Hoffman you know covered himself in glory in that outing or anything like that but the error allowed that to swell and get away from them.
Blake Murphy 1:09
And then as has been the case for a couple of weeks now, four runs was too many for the Toronto Blue Jays to come back from. They are the only team in baseball averaging fewer than four runs per game. Since getting back to 500 a couple weeks ago, they have a sub 600 OPS as a team. I know Taylor Walls has been annoying in this series. He is not that good. And you look at his career stat line, That's where the Blue Jays are at as an entire offense over the last 24 games. A sub-600 OPS. It's ugly. It is... Week and a half out from the deadline, and while our first guest today, I'm sure, would love to be sitting here with me like we did last year and in 2023 and 2022 and 2021, going through the spreadsheet of, hey, this reliever could be available and meets criteria X, Y, and Z, or this righty bench bat.
Blake Murphy 2:02
Instead, we will be probably over the next week and a half taking inventory of who the Blue Jays could sell at the trade deadline because they are 10 games under 500, six and a half back of a wild card spot. The playoff odds down to 7%. Let's see how our pal Ben Nicholson Smith of Sports Setup at the Letters is feeling about it. BNS, how we doing, buddy?
Ben Nicholson-Smith 2:21
Blake, doing well. As you said, this is not a good time for the Toronto Blue Jays, but happy to discuss it, happy to be on with you talking baseball, so hope you're doing well, too.
Blake Murphy 2:32
Yeah, I'm good, other than the two and a half hours a day where the ball gets rolled in, you know? It's the... Yeah. I have to ask you, this is... more of a personal slash professional question. So the next couple of weeks will be a lot of fun, especially for guys like us who are kind of transaction sickos. You know, we want the, we like the winter meetings. We like having the spreadsheets out with prior trade deadlines for information or potential acquisition targets or whatever. And then quickly from that, it will turn to the fantasy baseball trade deadline. Which of those is more stressful for you? Like obviously there's a work component and both of them are fun, but which one is like, which one are you fretting more or like worried about more as it's happening?
Ben Nicholson-Smith 3:14
I would say that my real job is 99% of the stress. And maybe there's a, yeah, I mean, ultimately one's a game and one's my job. So yeah, the upcoming week or 10 days when it comes to the writing that goes into that, the prep that goes into that, the... Just the unpredictability of when things might happen. It is stressful. Of course, welcome that stress. Of course, that's, you know, to be expected and something I'm well familiar with at this point, having covered a lot of different trade deadlines. But that is yes, that is the real stress.
Blake Murphy 3:47
So you have covered a lot of different trade deadlines and some of them have been. Buyer trade deadline. Some of them have been seller trade deadlines. You had a good piece at Sportsnet.ca earlier this week looking at a couple different paths. And pretty much whatever path you come up with, you can find an example of the Blue Jays having done it because this front office has done a couple different directions at the deadline here. And they've always been active. Even a week ago, Ben, we maybe could have sat here and debated what the direction could be. Does it necessitate a hybrid approach because you're not all the way out of it?

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