This Is What We Were Afraid Of With The Blue Jays…

This Is What We Were Afraid Of With The Blue Jays…

[Music] Hello everybody and welcome back to Blue Jays today where we always got something to say about the Toronto Blue Jays. I’m your host Adam P and I’m your host Nicholas Playalog and folks uh what we were afraid of is happening right now. The Toronto Blue Jays, they are stumbling big time, especially when it comes to that bullpen. And the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, they are hot on our tail and honestly getting hot as the season goes on. This is not where we wanted to be on September 2nd. And I can promise you that Adam and I are not thrilled to be making this video. But we’re going to dive into some of the stats right now that just genuinely need to get better if this team is serious about making a deep run. Before we get into it, I encourage you guys to hit that like, smash that subscribe button, and then if you have the option, please hit that new hype button as well because it helps smaller creators grow. Flashing over to the standings, everybody. Here we are 79 and 59. But right behind us is the New York Yankees 2 and 1/2 games back. And then the Boston Red Sox also 2 and 1/2 games back. So both of them are chomping at the bit. Both of them are seven and three in their last 10. Throwback to like a couple weeks ago, Adam, when it was, you know, five, six games that we were up in this division. Yeah. Yeah. But we were we had a very comfortable lead and as you can see after a couple weeks it quickly diminishes, man. And it’s all because I don’t I don’t think I don’t think it’s a secret out there. It’s the bullpen, man. Like it it’s actually scary and frightening how bad the bullpen has gotten lately. It feels like it just flipped on a dime and and now all of a sudden, you know, when we have a dramatic comeback yesterday in the ninth inning, you go and you get a couple of homers, you’re up by two. Yeah. Yeah. You don’t have Sir Anthony and yeah, you don’t have Jeff Hoffman, but you bring in the be next best guy, Tommy Nance, and he blows it and Tommy Little blows it and it’s like this is so dramatic and so flipped over and turned over than what we’re used to. It’s causing us to lose a lot of ground in the standings and and it’s and it’s very concerning that we still got a month left of baseball and we got to try to hold on to a two and a half game lead. Yeah. And and I think too like what is the most concerning to me about all of this is that like it just it happened without any warning at all. It’s not like there were warning signs. Like they went out and they got bullpen guys at the deadline and we were like, “All right, sweet. Done and dusted. That problem solved.” Not at all. Since the deadline, this bullpen has been atrocious. And of course, this is off of the back of what was a just a a tough tough game to watch yesterday, guys. Uh they blew it up in the ninth. This is after uh Bo Bashette had a 4 for4 game. Literally put the offense, put the team on his back and the bullpen just completely blew it. Now Hoffman and and you know Ben Nicholson Smith goes on to talk about it here. But Hoffman, Sir Anthony Dominguez, and Louis Varland, they were all unavailable on Monday. So that’s why you saw Tommy Nance come out in the ninth. and then following him it was Brendan Little and everyone was losing their minds like oh my gosh why did we why did we put these guys in here it was because these three individuals were not available but what’s even maybe I guess more concerning about all of that is that the one person who we were kind of starting to trust right now was Tommy Nance and then we saw what he did when he finally got the chance I mean I mean let’s be honest like if we’re at this point in the season where and don’t get me wrong Nance has been great before yesterday’s outing If we’re at the point in the season where we’re banking on Tommy Nance, we’re not in a good place. This guy was not even like on the roster earlier this year and and now we’re we’re banking on him to come out and close games when Sir Anthony and Jeff Hoffman are available. Like of course he’s going to have a blowup and of course it happens yesterday. So yeah, it’s tough it’s tough place to be. Exactly. Now one individual who a lot of Toronto Blue Jays fans are they’re getting on him hard and I understand why it’s Mr. Brendan Little. Since the All-Star break, it has been rough, folks. Prior to the All-Star break, the guy was a stud. He had an opponent OPS of 539 and a ERA just over two. Since then, though, he’s got an ERA of 6.91. The opponent OPS is over 800. That is not where you want it to be, especially for an individual who we were considering to be a high leverage bullpen guy for us prior to the All-Star break. I mean, the stats were indicating that that’s who he was, but since the All-Star break, that just hasn’t been the case. And when you look over at his stuff right now, it’s just clear like it’s not in the zone enough, right? This knuckle curve that at the beginning of the season everybody was heralding as being one of the best pitches in baseball because it had an incredible whiff. It had an incredible chase rate. Now, all of a sudden, nobody’s whiffing, nobody’s chasing it, and it is never in the zone. And all of this has led Brandon Little to be the worst the worst qualified pitcher in all of baseball when it comes to walk rate. There he is number one or you know I guess bottom one percentile in all of baseball. He has been walking more people on average than any other person in MLB. Obviously you just cannot have that from somebody coming out of your bullpen. Yeah. And like Brandon Little stuff like it’s a very easy adjustment. Okay. Well, as you you brought up there with that knuckle curve like heat map, like if you’re going to throw it the majority of the time, I’m just not going to offer. I’ve seen at bats where where batters literally will not be swinging on 3-1. They won’t be swinging on on on on a hitter’s count. They’re going to be taking all the weight cuz they know, hey, that knuckle curve is going to come. And also too, when it is in the zone, like I could sit soft if I’m an opposing batter. I could really sit if I wanted to and look down cuz I know it’s going to be there all the time. the sinker. I don’t know if you have it up right now, but the sinker that’s in the middle of the zone or I could sit that because guess what? That’s happening half the time. So, that’s what you saw get beat up quite a lot. Like it it’s very easy to read. And then I know you have the thing about Chris Black bringing up the two facts with Toronto Blue Jays bullpen and I was saying number one, no 2025 relief corps in the in baseball throws a lower percentage of pitches in the strike zone than Toronto Blue Jays. There’s a prime example right there. You got Brandon Little contributing to that. Number two, the chase rate on pitches from the Blue Jays bullpen has been declining all year long because they know now just do not swing. If you’re getting something soft, it will not be in the zone. And inherently, that’s the problem. Now, now the question to I’m going to throw to you, Nick, is what the hell do they do? Like, cuz this is the identity of the team. This is the bullpen. What do you do one month left in the season? I I don’t know, man. And and it is really scary that it’s happening right now because there is only one month left of the season. And it just so happens that Boston and New York are starting to pick it up and you’re dealing with this problem that you know you you think is kind of a a foundational issue, right? Like the bullpen. I thought this was covered. I thought that this was established in the first half of the season as everybody’s been alluding to. This was a good pen. And throw back to last year when everybody was so concerned about this, right? In the off season, this was a big area of need that they had to go out and address because in the year prior in 2024, it was one of the worst bullpens in all of baseball. Now, back then, we didn’t care as much because everything was awful. But walking into this season, we had to see that improvement, and it was like, all right, we finally have that improvement in the first half, but in the second half, it just hasn’t been that way at all. Right? When you look over at the entirety of the bullpen in the second half, uh this is since the all-star break, folks. The bullpen has an RA of 5.61. The only team that that’s ahead of right now is the Colorado Rockies. And as I’ve said time and time again, at the very least, they have the excuse of playing in Coors Field. Okay. Well, maybe you maybe you suggest, well, what if we take Jeff Hoffman out of the closer role? What if we move some stuff around? I hear that. I mean, that’s proactive, right? We’re going to be making some changes, but it’s it’s a pick your poison thing right now because it’s not like it’s just one individual. If this was just Brendan Little who was the problem, all right, you know what? We can deal with that. But it’s all of them right now. Tommy Nance is the one individual who’s actually been pretty solid in the second half. He’s got an RA of 1.77. But I mean, Hoffman, Rodriguez, Braden Fiser, Louie Varland, Justin Brewhill, Brendan Little, these are all foundational guys in that pen who we were relying on, at least most of them we were relying on for a large part of this season. And all of a sudden, they don’t have it. And for those of you who are saying, “Well, let’s put Sir Anthony Dominguez into the closer role.” Well, when we go back over here and look at the walk rate, who’s number two? Right behind Brendan Little, who’s giving up the most walks in MLB? It’s Sir Anthony Dominguez. So, ask yourself, is that going to solve the problem to to further answer your question, Adam, I don’t know. I don’t know. And that’s the big problem because it’s not like you can just take one guy, move him over here, and then take this guy out of the lower leverage situation and everything’s fixed cuz they’re all doing poorly right now. That’s the problem. Yeah. And like people are blaming John Schneider, too. Do you think John Schneider loves this problem? Like do you think he’s got a solution? I don’t have a solution. No one has a solution because at the end of the day, like the boys have to just play better. Like that’s it. Like I I I’ve been sitting here before we were we were recording this podcast. I’m like, “Well, what is I don’t have an answer.” Like I what is the answer? The answer is they just got to play better and they got to figure it out soon because I’m getting really concerned about this season. I’m getting concerned about the AL East, especially we got the Yankees this upcoming weekend. We got the Boston the final week. I’m getting really really concerned. And the very simple truth of the matter is they need to just play better. Yeah. It’s kind of like it’s reminding me a little bit of of that big skid that the Yankees went on like a month and a half to to two months ago or so when it was like all of a sudden they just like all of them forgot how to play good fundamental baseball and everyone was like well what’s going wrong with the New York Yankees? We don’t know but you know there’s nothing we can do to fix it because they just need to play better and everyone was getting on Aaron Boone and now everyone’s getting on John Schneider. But the fact of the matter is if you’re John Schneider, I mean, I kind of agree with what it was that he did yesterday. He put Tommy Nance in, who was the one guy who was actually performing well. Then all of a sudden, he doesn’t have it. He lets two people on. So John is like, “Okay, we we we got to make a change now.” Yeah. We got to go to the lefty now. Exactly. Like we got to make a change cuz he he doesn’t have it obviously and then he brings another person in and they blow it as well. So the fact of the matter is no one in that bullpen is the answer right now. And that’s the scariest thing. You alluded to that uh AL East. As you can see right here, everybody, the Toronto Blue Jays, they are still the heavy favorites to win the AL East. And that’s that two and a half games right there that they have as as a buffer that you you’re seeing factored in here by fan graphs. But in the last, you know, couple weeks, it has been a pretty dramatic drop in odds for the Toronto Blue Jays. We’ve dropped about uh what is that math right there? close to 25% in the last uh week or so to win the American League East. And the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, they are both on the rise. It’s it’s the difference really of one bad week for us and one good week for them. And then bang, just like that, we’re no longer leading. We’re now staring down a wildcard birth, which is not something that I want to deal with, especially with the way that the bullpen’s been playing. This is not where I wanted to see the Toronto Blue Jays at this point in the season considering how good they started. I guess the one positive thing is you still have a month of baseball to figure all this out. Yeah. And there’s no time real left cuz you kind of need to win against Cincinnati. You kind of need to win against New York. Like you got to figure it out actually like right now. Like that that’s the scary reality. And and we can’t go into postseason and just start figuring out and then we’re in a wild card like who do we trust? We got to start. There’s no real identity right now in the pen. It’s all over the place. It’s up in the air. So, they kind of got to do it now. That’s scary. Or the starters go nine or the offense drops 10. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that Chris Basset yesterday is going like deep into the game to give the bullpen anything just tells you everything you need to know with how John Schneider sees this team right now. Yeah. Again, so that’s that is where we’re at right now as Toronto Blue Jays fans. We are along for the ride just as much as you are. But folks, let us know your thoughts about all this in the comments down below. $4 a month, become a YouTube member. Sh. And thank you to all of our current YouTube members. Please hit that like, smash that subscribe button. We will be live later this evening watching that second Cincinnati game. Fingers crossed it’s a bit of a different result. Yeah, guys, uh thank you so much for watching and as always, go Jays go. Go Jays go.

The Toronto Blue Jays bullpen is completely collapsing. They cannot hold onto a lead at all right now, and it is starting to become a big problem. With only a month left until playoffs, and the division lead diminishing, we discuss what the Blue Jays need to do to get out of this slump.

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