Jose Berrios tosses five innings in return from WBC, Daulton Varsho hits his first homer of spring, and more as the Blue Jays beat the O’s 2-1

I’m not going to lie, it’s incredibly difficult to go from last night’s World Baseball Classic finale back to following along with Grapefruit League games. Just one more week to go!

The Blue Jays sent what might be their Opening Day lineup to the field in Dunedin on Wednesday and beat the Orioles by a score of 2-1. Let’s go through the noteworthy things from the game…
Things worth mentioning…

Jose Berrios returned to the mound for his first start since the disastrous inning he tossed for Peurto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. Berrios getting lit up by Venezuela generated some panic among those who follow the Blue Jays but Pete Walker wasn’t overly concerned about it, saying on Blair and Barker “I didn’t get to watch it live, so at first I was a bit concerned, but after I replayed the entire game I wasn’t concerned. The pitch selection and sequencing was nothing like what we’ve been working on all winter.”
Berrios went five innings against the Orioles and allowed one earned run on six hits and one walk while striking out five. It’s also worth pointing out that this was much like how a lot of his “good” starts went last season, as Berrios would look dominant at times but also had a lot of loud contact resulting in outs because of the play of the defence behind him.

José Berríos got up to 77 pi …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Joey Votto on the Blue Jays would be perfect

It’s all about perspective.

On Monday morning, The Athletic’s Jim Bowden tweeted out that the plan is for Canadian first baseman Joey Votto to retire as a Cincinnati Red, unless…

Nick Krall #Reds GM told us their plan is for Joey Votto to finish his career as a Red. However, if the Reds are out of it at the trade deadline and Votto came to them and asked if they would trade him home to Toronto #BlueJays..he said he would consider under those circumstances
— Jim Bowden⚾️🏈 (@JimBowdenGM) March 20, 2023

The most interesting part of this tweet is that Votto would consider being traded to his hometown Blue Jays if the Reds are out of the playoff race. We’ll go over this more in the contract section, but keep this in mind.
In terms of fit, you may be saying “well Brennan, the Jays don’t need another first baseman, they have Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Brandon Belt to back him up.” While that is true it’s all a matter of perspective.
Let’s dive into the numbers, his contract, and how I think he fits.
How good is future Hall of Famer Joey Votto in 2023:
I don’t think it’s unfair to say that out of any current players in the league, Votto may be one of the only locks to make the Hall of Fame. For his career, he has slashed .297/.412/.513 in 8504 plate appearances and has accumulated 57.9 fWAR in his 16-year career. For first basemen since 1900 with 5000+ plate appearances, Votto’s 57.9 fWAR ranks 26th overall, beating out 2023 Hall of Fame inductee Fred McGriff.
However, what about recent times? At the end of the day, Votto is in the twilight of his career, so it’s unlikely that he puts up a considerable amount more.
Last season, he slashed .205/.319/.370 with 11 homers in 376 plate appearances. It’s worth noting that his season was derailed by i …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Whit Merrifield hit his first home run of spring training, Bowden Francis pitched well, and more as the Blue Jays beat the Yankees 5-2

It’s always a good day when the Blue Jays beat the Yankees.

On Saturday afternoon, the Jays beat the Yankees in impressive fashion. Let’s look at the standouts, as well as some other things worth mentioning.
Blue Jays Nation’s player of the game: Whit Merrifield
Merrifield had a productive game on Saturday afternoon, hitting his first spring training home run and driving another insurance run in his next at bat.
The battle for second base continues to brew, with Merrifield’s slash line sitting at .360/.393/.640. This is better than Santiago Espinal’s slash line (.324/378/.500) and Cavan Biggio’s slash line (.270/.341/.351).
I have no idea who will be the starting second baseman, but this battle is fun.

Raking WHIT the bat 💪@WhitMerrifield is hitting .333 this spring! pic.twitter.com/gpHWrfjXoG
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) March 18, 2023

Things worth mentioning:
Bowden Francis looks damn good, doesn’t he? On Saturday afternoon, he pitched three innings, gave up three hits, two runs, and walked a batter. However, he also struck out a game-high five, generating a game-high nine whiffs. His role is yet to be determined, but I think there’s a good chance he will start the season as a starter with Buffalo.

Here’s Bowden Francis (@Bowdenpoint0)’s strikeout and whiff edit.
Very good fastball today, as it had a 43 whiff percentage (9 whiffs on 21 swings).
Could be a starter to look out for this season.#BlueJays pic.twitter.com/WVOwV8GRel
— Brennan Delaney (@Brennan_L_D) March 18, 2023

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s knee is doing better. He hit his third home run of the spring in only 21 plate appearances. That home run tied him with George Springer for the most, but the latter has 36 …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

The Honour Roll: Final grades for the whole trade season

It’s final over. The trade season and all the rumours and speculation finished until the 10 minutes after the Leafs (hopefully long) playoff run is over. Exhale. It’s time to talk about hockey.
Before we get all the way back to the business of watching games, we need to grade the work of Kyle Dubas. It seems like there are two sets of grades that need to happen, the ones now based entirely on the optics of the transaction, and the ones that will come later with the benefit of hindsight of whether or not everyone did what they were supposed to do. We’ll see if we remember to do that. For now, here are the final thoughts on the Leafs trade deadline.
Colin Hunter: A-
Taken as a whole, Kyle Dubas’ “trade deadline” – being the moves he made from Ryan O’Reilly / Noel Acciari onwards – was great.
While you can analyze each trade individually, the current roster as a unit feels much stronger. While in my ideal world the team would have added one more scoring forward, the forward group overall has become much more versatile, and the bottom six seems to now have an identity – which it has lacked this season. Defensively, depth has certainly b …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Leafs Rumours: Last call for trades

Leafs Rumours: Last call for trades

It’s deadline day. Rumours are somewhat pointless at this stage as everything will go down in a matter of hours, but nevertheless, we’ve got to start somewhere and here’s what is out there in the grand scheme of Leafs rumours…

Connecting dots on #Leafs cap after McCabe/Lafferty trade:
1. Either Toronto is not planning to activate Matt Murray until the playoffs.2. Or Toronto is now moving one of Kerfoot / Engvall / Holl before the deadline.
Seems to be some smoke recently with Kerfoot and #Canucks.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) February 27, 2023

Kerfoot remains one of the most likely Leafs to be on the move, especially if the Leafs are looking to do something big. Frank’s rumour predates the Schenn trade, so maybe the smoke around the Canucks wasn’t related to Kerfoot at all.
There still could be something around the Canucks, if they’d rather have Kerfoot’s one year cap hit of $3.5M and are willing to eat a bit of Garland’s contract to make a swap there.
As for Kerfoot, he’s not a completely undesirable option for playoff bound teams, his prorated $775k salary is easy for sellers to take on if there is a worry about actual dollars being paid, but there is a complication when it comes to Alex having a 10 team no trade list.
I continue to believe it is far more likely that David Kampf would be the odd man out as Kerfoot is a more versatile option for the Leafs.
Justin Holl lands on Chris Johnston’s trade bo …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Pontus Holmberg’s “world class” play, Max Ellis’ climb up the lineup, and more: Marlies Weekly

Leafs Rumours: Last call for trades

Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing at the moment for the Toronto Marlies.
The team played two games this week — both in Toronto on Monday and Saturday — winning them both. Each game, whether it was against the Utica Comets or Laval Rocket, were very close.
Their first game of the week, against Utica, was a hard-fought 3-1 win at Scotiabank Arena. Defenceman Matt Hellickson scored his first of the season, while both Max Ellis and Bobby McMann continued to ride their hot hand, also scoring.
Keith Petruzzelli, who’s only played three full games since their last Scotiabank Arena matinee (on Boxing Day), stopped 33 of 34 shots, improving to 12-5-0 on the season with a .904 save percentage.
After Monday’s matchup, Toronto had a couple of days off before gearing up for another big game later in the week. That game — against Laval — was just as tough, or maybe even tougher than the one against Utica.
Graham Slaggert was the first player to get the Marlies on the board, courtesy of some nice work from himself and the rest of the fourth line (Marc Johnstone and Zach Solow). It seems as though whoever plays alongside Slaggert and Johnstone fits immediately.
Laval would get on the board eight minutes into the seco …

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Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation

The 2023 Blue Jays, Position by Position: Toronto’s catching tandem could be the best in baseball

It’s not a stretch to say that the Blue Jays have one of the best, if not the best, catching tandems in the league.

When we last looked at the backstop in the last Position by Position article, it seemed a remote possibility that the Jays could roll with three catchers.
However, on December 23rd, 2022, the Jays traded their top prospect Gabriel Moreno (and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.) for Daulton Varsho. In yesterday’s article, we looked at Daulton Varsho the outfielder, but he is also a catcher. That seems like a good place to start.
Daulton Varsho:
I went into larger detail about what Varsho could do with the bat, so let’s just focus on his defence behind the plate.
While Varsho is a fantastic defender in the outfield, behind the plate is a different story.
Catcher Defensive Adjustment is a statistic created by Baseball Prospectus, focusing on framing, blocking, and throwing. 0 is average, while a gold glove calibre defender has a CDA of around 10. In the case of Varsho, he had a -1.5 CDA with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2022.

Center fielder who plays catcher? Catcher who plays center field?@DaultonVarsho25 is one of one. pic.twitter.com/8K7V7O3e67
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 17, 2022

In terms of Defensive Runs Saved, he isn’t any better. This past season, Varsho had a -3 DRS, which was actually an improvement from his -6 in 2021. He also saw limited time behind the plate, only catching 175 innings (down from 319 in 2021).
While Varsho can catch, it’s likely a case of if the Jays desperately need an emergency catcher. Even then, Varsho has plenty of value defensively in …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

The 2023 Blue Jays, Position by Position: A deep dive into how the team’s outfield has improved defensively

The off-season is all but done, which means that it’s time to look at the Blue Jays, position by position, once again.

Four months ago, I took a look at the bullpen, the starting rotation, the catching situation, the infield, and the outfield situation (which we’ll look at today). What has changed? Who occupies each role? That’s what the redux of the series will look to answer.
The outfield changes:
The Blue Jays outfield is the position that has seen the most significant change. The original series came out at the end of October, so at the time, here’s what it looked like for the Jays.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. – Left field
George Springer – Centre field
Teoscar Hernández – Right field
Raimel Tapia – Fourth outfielder
Jackie Bradley Jr./Bradley Zimmer – Defensive replacement outfielder
Only one player remains from this group, George Springer. Here’s the outfield heading into the 2023 season.
Daulton Varsho – Left field
Kevin Kiermaier – Centre field
George Springer – Right field
Otto López/Whit Merrifield/Cavan Biggio/Nathan Lukes – Fourth outfield
Let’s compare players in the old outfield to their replacements. It’s worth noting that it won’t be a direct replacement. Varsho was not brought in to replace Gurriel, despite playing the same position.
Teoscar Hernández out, Daulton Varsho in:
In 2022, Hernández slashed .267/.316/.491 with 25 homers in 535 plate appearances. Moreover, he had a 6.4 BB% and a 28.4 K%, leading to a 129 wRC+ and a 2.4 Fangraphs WAR (fWAR). Defensively he struggled, as he posted a -3 Defensive Runs Saved and a -5 Outs Above Average in 966.2 innings in right field.
The 2023 s …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

O’Reilly/Acciari reaction, the potential flattening of the cap and prospects worth keeping: Leaflets

It’s time for another Saturday morning round of Leaflets, everyone’s favourite column where I largely talk out of my ass hoping that a nugget of wisdom slips out along the way. wouWhen I originally wrote this on a Friday afternoon, I thought, hey, this is a pretty standard around the NHL, I’ve waited for the 5pm new drop and nothing happened, I should be able to go and watch this Oilers and Rangers game in peace. That held up for two periods and then the Leafs decided they’d give us all some news that would change a lot of the context of what originally written. So her is the hastily adapted version of Leaflets.
O’Reilly and Acciari breakdown
Here’s the thing. There are going to be a lot smarter and a lot more sober people than I am tackling this in a meaningful way. I’m hoping the fact that I’m three sheets to the wind when I write this will add a certain level of honesty you won’t get in other articles, but the analysis will surely be lacking.
So let’s start with the fact that like Kyle Dubas, I don’t like the idea of the Leafs giving up a first for a rental. The fact that it’s two …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Recency bias and the trade deadline

Recency bias and the trade deadline

It’s not often that you hear much praise for recency bias, but I’ll make the argument that coming into the trade deadline it might be one of those times you lean into it a little. After all, would you rather bring in someone who is riding a heater or someone who has significantly seen the performance fall off, and then you are crossing your fingers that they’ll come back around at the right time? I think the correct answer is you want someone who has been consistent and performing at a rate they can sustain, but alas Erik Karlsson is expensive and there is only one Timo Meier out there.
Really the hope with this exercise is less about panicking about those who have fallen off, and more about identifying players who are in the process of getting back on track to where they should be. I’d share the data table and then share a few players that stood out to me when looking at which trade targets have performed the best since January 1st.

So first of all, so explainers on the data. The data from the left up to P/60 is all situation data, after that looking at the On Ice numbers for CF, GF, and xG are all looking at 5v5. The numbers highlighted in blue are the top ten players on the list in that category.
The first thing that stands out to me are two players who are certainly finding their game of late. Brock Boeser might not be scoring goals at the rate you’d hope to see from him yet, but he is picking up points, and his 15 points in 18 games certainly illustrate that he can be a lower cost to acquire addition to the top s …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation