Is this the year for the Leafs to overpay, Sandin vs. Liljegren and a tip of the hat to a legend: Leaflets

Is this the year for the Leafs to overpay, Sandin vs. Liljegren and a tip of the hat to a legend: Leaflets

It’s Saturday morning and we’re hours away from the Leafs vs. Habs. It feels good. It feels like the these two teams are never good at the same time, but that also hasn’t stopped the Habs from knocking off the Leafs before so it’s not a game to be taken for granted. If the Leafs can beat up on just one lottery team, this is the one they should commit to.
Now here are the stray thoughts rattling around in my head…
It’s time for the Leafs to go all-in (but in a smart way)
On the Leafs Morning Take yesterday, Nick Alberga was discussing possible Leafs trade targets with Frank Seravalli. One of the players that was swiftly dismissed in the conversation was Bo Horvat. Then not a minute later it was mentioned that Boston could be a possible landing spot for Horvat. The belief is that the price on Horvat is more than the Leafs are willing to pay, but at the same time, the Bruins would be willing to pay it. So let’s break that down.
The Bruins find themselves in a situation where their prospect pool is even more drained than the Leafs. They have a very similar draft pick situation, and their salary cap situation is even more …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

The Blue Jays drop series finale with an ugly 7-2 loss to the Guardians

The Toronto Blue Jays got in the win column Saturday afternoon, but they made a swift U-turn back in the loss column with a 7-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday afternoon.
 
It was certainly not the prettiest of starts for Kevin Gausman, who came into this game not allowing a run in each of his last two outings. Gausman dealt with traffic on the base paths all day, which showed in his final line. Gausman went 4 and 2/3 innings, allowing nine hits, five earned runs, one walk, and striking out five.
While his performance may not look very good on paper, Cleveland didn’t have their way by dominating with home runs and ringing doubles. All year, Gausman has dealt with a fairly low ERA, but an unusually high BABIP. For the non-advanced metric crowd, that stands for “Batting Average on Balls In Play”, meaning that when opponents are hitting the ball, it’s finding ground for a base hit rather than turning into an out. Today, Gausman’s bad luck with batted balls continued.
In the top of the 1st, Gausman allowed a solo HR to Amed Rosario that went 422 feet to center field. That home run had nothing to do with bad luck, it was simply Gausman leaving a 96 mph fastball …

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Author: Evan Stack / Blue Jays Nation