Blue Jays GDT: (2020 v5) ALWC Gm 2: (8) Tor @ (1) TB| Wed, Sept 30 | 4:00pm ET/1:00pm PT | Ryu vs Glasnow

[The Nemesis]

It's playoff time!

Round 1 is a best-of-3 series vs the AL #1 seed Tampa Bay Rays. All 3 games are happening at Tropicana Field with Tampa Bay as the home team. The current schedule is:

Game 1: Tuesday, 5pm ET/ 2pm PT - Matt Shoemaker vs Blake Snell
Game 2: Wednesday, 4pm ET/ 1pm PT - Hyun-Jin Ryu vs Tyler Glasnow
Game 3: Thursday, time TBD (If necessary) - Taijuan Walker vs Charlie Morton


The specific lineup for the series hasnot been announced yet, but the Jays do have their 40-man playoff player pool selected. This group had to be named so that players involved would enter a more stringent quarantine from now on, and are only allowed to be in their hotels or at the ballpark

(I broke it up into rough positional groups):

Pitchers
Chase Anderson
Robbie Ray
Tanner Roark
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Matt Shoemaker
Taijuan Walker

Anthony Bass
Ryan Borucki
AJ Cole
Rafael Dolis
Wilmer Font
Thomas Hatch
Anthony Kay
Julian Merryweather
Patrick Murphy
Thomas Pannone
Nate Pearson
Sean Reid-Foley
Jordan Romano
Ross Stripling
Shun Yamaguchi
TJ Zeuch

Infielders/Catchers
Danny Jansen
Caleb Joseph
Alejandro Kirk
Reese McGuire

Vladimir Guerrero Jr
Rowdy Tellez

Cavan Biggio
Jonathan Villar
Joe Panik

Bo Bichette
Santiago Espinal

Travis Shaw
Brandon Drury

Outfielders
Jonathan Davis
Randal Grichuk
Lourdes Gurriel Jr
Teoscar Hernandez
Josh Palacios

From this list the Jays will select 28 players to comprise the active roster for the playoff series. They can, if they wish, change the makeup of the 28-man active roster by swapping in players from this 40-man pool between playoff series (if they advance) but they cannot add anyone to the pool from here on out. If a player isn't on this list they will not play in the playoffs no matter how far the Jays go. Some of the players (Tellez & Merryweather for example) are already injured and may not be available for the first series, in which case they will only be able to be added to the active roster if the Jays advance.

Several more players (Pannone, Drury, Joseph, and Palacios) are not on the 40-man regular roster (not the same thing as the 40-man playoff player pool) at the moment and would have to be added to the 40-man standard roster in order to then be placed on the 28-man playoff active roster. At the moment the team has 1 open 40-man spot thanks to Ken Giles being on the IL.


I almost forgot, there aren't playoff avatars, but I do still have the regular season set:

Spoiler: 2020 Jays avatars

Relief Pitchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Variants

류현진
(Ryu Hyun-Jin - Korean Nameplate ver.)

山口 俊
(Yamaguchi Shun - Japanese Nameplate ver.)

Click to read more...

 

[xxOCZMSxx]

Let’s go Blue Jays
*clap* *clap*
*clap* *clap* *clap*
Let’s go Blue Jays

 

[phillipmike]

Ranking every playoff team's lineup, pitching

Blue Jays Ranking;
Lineup: 9th
Rotation: 13th
Bullpen: 14th
Bench: 14th

AL Wild Card Series Preview: Toronto Blue Jays vs. Tampa Bay Rays

In Game 1, the Jays look likely to send Hyun Jin Ryu to the mound. He’s the team’s best starter, and he was brilliant this year; his 2.69 ERA and 3.01 FIP ranked ninth and 12th, respectively, among qualified starters. As a left-handed starter, however, he’s always somewhat at the mercy of the opposition lineup; jam enough right-handed batters in there, and he’ll be at a small disadvantage relative to his normal form due to natural platoon splits.

They dont know Montoyo.

Because this is a three-game series, the Blue Jays stand a fair chance of pulling off an upset. Our playoff odds see them winning roughly 40% of the time, with others slightly more sanguine. The human brain isn’t particularly good at distinguishing a 40% chance from a 50% chance, so this probably feels like a tossup.

But it isn’t. The Rays are the better team. If the Blue Jays pull off an upset, they’ll do so despite facing an incredibly difficult gauntlet of pitching. They’re decided underdogs. They aren’t big enough underdogs for my taste — the brevity of the series ensures that — but they are all the same. Should they win, they’ll have pulled something unlikely off, something unexpected. That makes the fact that it could happen — and it could totally happen! — all the more exciting.

Presenting the Low-Seed Playoff Dark Horses

Toronto Blue Jays

Player	Pitches per PA	O-Swing%	Z-Contact%	Barrel%
Cavan Biggio	4.20	16.4%	83.6%	5.1%
Bo Bichette	3.72	45.4%	91.4%	11.7%
Teoscar Hernández	4.06	34.3%	76.9%	17.8%
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	3.75	27.8%	84.0%	8.3%
Randal Grichuk	3.70	37.1%	84.2%	11.4%
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.	3.67	36.0%	84.2%	10.8%
Joe Panik	3.77	21.7%	90.5%	1.2%
Danny Jansen	3.88	25.1%	84.6%	8.8%
Travis Shaw	3.90	27.6%	79.4%	8.2%
Jonathan Villar	3.91	37.0%	81.0%	1.6%
Jonathan Davis*	4.01	32.0%	75.6%	12.5%
Rowdy Tellez	3.47	37.3%	89.3%	8.4%
MLB Average	3.96	31.0%	84.0%	6.4%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]
[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Toronto’s young lineup hits with power and I think they’d have a marginal second round advantage because of the Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk catching combo, as the lack of Division Series off days could mean every team’s backup catcher will have to play once or twice. Jonathan Davis has played well recently and he and Rowdy Tellez, should Tellez return from injury, would give the Jays two situational impact pieces for late in games.

But while Hyun Jin Ryu has been more consistently good than every other pitcher in the top table, the pitching thins out pretty quickly after that, and the bullpen has dealt with a compromising number of injuries. Even with all of those long relievers and Nate Pearson and Jordan Romano back, the mid-season losses of Julian Merryweather, Trent Thornton, Ken Giles and others leave Toronto thin behind a rotation that is prone to meltdowns. Ryu could steal a game in the Wild Card Series and, simply because of that the Jays are an early threat, but I don’t think they’re deep enough to be considered one in the Division Series, at least compared to other clubs here.

 

[Cloned]

So uh...MLB app has our Game 1 starter as Shoemaker.

 

[xxOCZMSxx]

So uh...MLB app has our Game 1 starter as Shoemaker.

It really wouldn’t surprise me to see ryu in game two. This FO has the balls to try stupid, I mean, brave things.

 

[Cloned]

Confirmed



Not starting Walker in one of the first two games is ridiculous IMO.

Remember when people said Montoyo might cost this team an actual playoff win even this year? Might actually happen.

I stand prepared to eat crow if we win...and I hope I do.

 

[xxOCZMSxx]

Confirmed



Not starting Walker in one of the first two games is ridiculous IMO.

Remember when people said Montoyo might cost this team an actual playoff win even this year? Might actually happen.

As much as I detest Charlie, this clearly comes from above.

 

[Cloned]

As much as I detest Charlie, this clearly comes from above.

Hard to say. Although it’s actually somewhat worse if he’s not able to have control over his lineup.

 

[xxOCZMSxx]

Hard to say. Although it’s actually somewhat worse if he’s not able to have control over his lineup.

I’ve heard multiple media people make these assertions. Charlie is told what lineup to play depending on internal analytics. In game decisions are his, but I’m sure they’re tainted by the FO opinion as well. Charlie is a puppet to analytics

 

[Cloned]

I’ve heard multiple media people make these assertions. Charlie is told what lineup to play depending on internal analytics. In game decisions are his, but I’m sure they’re tainted by the FO opinion as well. Charlie is a puppet to analytics

It’s probably a group decision.

I know Walker doesn’t have great splits against lefties, but the guy has a sub 2 ERA since being traded here.

Oh well, guess time will tell whether it was the right move.

 

[phillipmike]

Wander getting some valuable experience from the bench.

 

[xxOCZMSxx]

 

[aingefan]

Teo 6th.

Hmmm.

Kirk DH’ing.....ballsy.

I like Charlie’s kill em with kindness approach.

 

[The Iceman]

It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to choose Walker over the Shoe-Ray combo. I guess our front office is lacking some of this. So we are starting a guy that has thrown 3 innings in the last month and a guy with close to the worst WHIP in MLB.

And why Janssen and Kirk? Do we really need Danny and his sub .200BA.

AND in any world where Randall Grish is a more valuable hitter than Teoscar hitting him 3rd over 6th. GIVE ME A BREAK

 

[Suntouchable13]

It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to choose Walker over the Shoe-Ray combo. I guess our front office is lacking some of this. So we are starting a guy that has thrown 3 innings in the last month and a guy with close to the worst WHIP in MLB.

And why Janssen and Kirk? Do we really need Danny and his sub .200BA.

AND in any world where Randall Grish is a more valuable hitter than Teoscar hitting him 3rd over 6th. GIVE ME A BREAK

I wonder what kind of fancy schmancy stats tell you to hit your mvp hitter 6th. I just don't get it with this management/front office. Seems all this is just overthinking.

 

[Marshy]

I wonder what kind of fancy schmancy stats tell you to hit your mvp hitter 6th. I just don't get it with this management/front office. Seems all this is just overthinking.

I reserve the right to agree with them if we win convincingly today

 

[Cloned]

Of course they would go with Tsutsugo at lead off. f***.

 

[Cloned]

The Astros-Twins game is tense as hell, and I'm not even a fan of either team.

 

[downer ending]

In a twist, I think we win today, Ryu takes the L tomorrow and then we get hammered in game 3

 

[Cloned]

In a twist, I think we win today, Ryu takes the L tomorrow and then we get hammered in game 3

Username checks out.

 

[Canada4Gold]

3-2 win prediction, lets go

 

[stickty111]

Whats with the war of the worlds sound effects?

 

[Anthrax442]

Lets go, boys!

 

[TootooTrain]

Typical game vs rays. Theres the bleeder/bloop. Time for a blast.

 

[The Nemesis]

Typical game vs rays. Theres the bleeder/bloop. Time for a blast.

It'll be a blast up into the one catwalk that counts as HR territory just to add to the Rays/Trop f***ery