Meet The Baby Blue Jays: Dasan Brown has all the tools to become a traditional leadoff hitter

Welcome to Meet The Baby Blue Jays, a series in which I’ll profile a handful of lesser-known young prospects in the Blue Jays’ system.  

When the Blue Jays selected the Dasan Brown in the third round of the 2019 MLB June Amateur Draft, they knew they were getting a player with a ton of upside and plenty of room to round out his game.

Brown’s power isn’t anything to write home about, but his contact-first approach combined with his natural speed on the base paths and ability to read balls right off the bat while on defence makes him an extremely intriguing prospect.
“I didn’t work on getting fast, it was a natural thing for me,” Brown said last April. “But I did run track in high school and learned the proper running form, so that helped my speed. Right now I do a lot of leg work — keeping mobility in my legs is the biggest thing for me because when you’re not playing as much and you’re putting on more weight, the muscle can add tightness to your body. So I’m working on staying loose and not overworking, but making sure I’m …

Read More

Author: David Quadrelli / Blue Jays Nation

Justin Holl for Norris? – Rate that Leafs game

Justin Holl for Norris? – Rate that Leafs game

The Maple Leafs’ two game series against the Edmonton Oilers comes to a close and we saw a lot from both clubs. One, Connor McDavid likes scoring against his hometown team. Two, Justin Holl enjoys defending McDavid, and is very good at it.
And three, the Leafs win tonight’s game 4-2. It wasn’t the best game by Toronto, but they got the job done while missing Auston Matthews. They didn’t take many penalties, Frederik Andersen played well and lastly — Adam Brooks scored his first-career NHL goal.
The Toronto Maple Leafs win and life is good. I hope you enjoy the video!

Read More

Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation

3 Maple Leafs score their first goal of the season – Rate that Leafs game

So, the Toronto Maple Leafs close out a two-game series with the Ottawa Senators going 1-1. This game was a lot better for a team who came into the nation’s capital last night and played horrible.
Tonight, players were flying and it was a much better performance. The only bad news is that Nick Robertson will likely miss “some time” due to a knee injury, which Sheldon Keefe said after the game.
Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Joe Thornton all scored their first goals of the season. Jack Campbell had an incredible performance and even thought he could do better, like he usually says. Overall though, this looked like a complete game with the Maple Leafs not allowing the Senators back into it late.
I’ll say that it was a little rough around the edges, but overall, a much better game than the first one against Ottawa.

Read More

Author: Nick Barden / The Leafs Nation

Waiver Wildness: Corey Perry, Luke Schenn, Jujhar Kharia, OH MY!

We’re starting a new series where we analyze the players placed on waivers around the league to see if there are any the Leafs should try and claim. We will also tell the likelihood Toronto might actually try and snag said player for free. 
In addition to the five players the Leafs placed on waivers this afternoon, well over 100 other players in the NHL had the same fate. A lot of the moves appear to be in preparation for setting up the taxi squad and lowering the roster sizes with the start of the 2021 season fast approaching, meaning we might be seeing more players placed on waivers soon.
Given that there were so many players on the waiver wire, there were bound to be a few intriguing players up for grabs. Let’s take a look at five of them and see which ones the Leafs should try and go after.
Corey Perry
Leading up to the start of the 2020 free agent frenzy, a lot of Leafs fans were hoping the team would try to snag up the 35-year-old winger. Instead, they outbid the Montreal Canadiens to sign Wayne Simmonds to a one-year deal. The Habs went on to …

Read More

Author: Michael Mazzei / The Leafs Nation

The Beginner’s Guide to the 2020-21 Toronto Maple Leafs: The Offense

Hello, and welcome back to my Beginner’s Guide series for this year’s Toronto Maple Leafs. If you missed it, I introduced the series on Friday talking about the team in general, but now we get to talk a bit more about the players themselves. Today we’ll be focusing on the offensive side of the ice, so I’ll provide you with some expectations for our offense and our power play, as well as the forwards. Let’s get right to it.
The offense
Part of what has made the Leafs a consistent playoff team over the last few years is their skilled and speedy forwards. That starts at the top with our main core of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander (and Morgan Rielly on the back end being an offensive minded player as well), and in the past few years has also trickled down on the depth charts as well.
Because of a need to move out money to improve our defense, that isn’t as much of the case this year. While we still have a pretty good bottom two lines, there are a lot more question marks this season than in …

Read More

Author: Scott Maxwell / The Leafs Nation

Ken Rosenthal gives updates on Francisco Lindor, Tomoyuki Sugano, and Jake Odorizzi

If Jon Morosi’s comments bummed you out, maybe this series of updates from Ken Rosenthal over at The Athletic will make you feel a little bit better about the Blue Jays’ off-season. Well, one of these updates might.

The first thing up is Cleveland’s pursuit of trading away their best player, Francisco Lindor.
Lindor, of course, has been a major name linked to the Blue Jays all off-season and even before that. The All-Star shortstop is set to become an unrestricted free agent after the 2021 season and there’s absolutely zero doubt that Cleveland isn’t going to re-sign him.
There’s also an obvious connection between Lindor and the Blue Jays, as Mark Shapiro was in Cleveland when he was drafted with the No. 8 overall draft pick back in 2011. Lindor himself has even said that he would be interested in being a Blue Jay. So, all in all, despite the fact the Jays already have Bo Bichette at short, this seems like a match.
Anyway, Rosenthal reports today that Cleveland is having a hell of a time finding the right trade for their star player. He says that a combination of fewer teams than usual being interested …

Read More

Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Transaction Season Is Upon Us! Corey Kluber, Brad Hand, Roberto Osuna, and more!

The World Series has been awarded so you know what that means? It’s Transaction Season, baby.

This is certainly going to be an interesting off-season and virtually all of the teams around Major League Baseball are feeling the squeeze of operating the 2020 season without fans in the seats. It seems as though fewer teams than usual are going to be interested in adding to their team payroll so we’ll likely a team-friendly free-agent market this winter.
Just one day into the off-season and we’ve already seen some surprising names headed to free agency. I’ll round up some of the players that could interest the Blue Jays…

Rangers have not made official announcement on RHP Corey Kluber but the plan is to not exercise his option and possibly re-sign him to a lesser deal.
— TR Sullivan (@Sullivan_Ranger) October 28, 2020

The Corey Kluber era in Texas could be over after just one inning.
Last winter, the Rangers acquired the former Cy Young winner from Cleveland as a salary dump reclamation project. Kluber was coming off an injury-riddled 2019 season in which he posted a 5.80 ERA over just seven starts.
Kluber wasn’t able to bounce back in Texas. He …

Read More

Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Rob Manfred wants to maintain an expanded playoff field

The 2020 World Series just kicked off.

It’s the Los Angeles Dodgers, the best team in baseball who posted an insane 43-17 record during the regular season, taking on the Tampa Bay Rays, the second-best team in baseball who went 40-20 during the regular season.
No. 1 vs. No. 1. That’s exactly what Rob Manfred needed to validate the existence of an expanded playoff field. Had this featured two clunky, random teams, like the Marlins and Blue Jays, who really had no business making the playoffs in a normal season, there would surely have been some outrage over the legitimacy of this World Series.
But here we are. Baseball added an extra round to generate some buzz and, when it was all said and done, the two best teams still came out on top.
Ahead of Game 1 in Arlington, Manfred spoke about Major League Baseball’s 60-game season and what’s next for the league. One thing he mentioned was how the expanded playoff field was a success and that it’s something he would like to continue.
“I like the idea of, and I’m choosing my words carefully here, an expanded playoff format,” Manfred said. “I don’t think …

Read More

Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

With the 15th overall pick, the Leafs are proud to select… Jacob Perreault?

With a new addition to TheLeafsNation’s series on potential player options with the Leafs 15th overall pick, in this piece we’ll take a look at Jacob Perreault of the Sarnia Sting. Before we go on, don’t forget to check out the other draft profiles in this series:
With the 15th overall pick, the Leafs are proud to select…Connor Zary?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Dawson Mercer?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Jake Sanderson?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Seth Jarvis?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Dylan Holloway?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Yaroslav Askarov?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Rodion Amirov?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Jack Quinn?
With the 15th overall pick the Leafs are proud to select… Braden Schneider?
 
While Perreault may not be NHL ready right off the bat, his offensive skills give him a fighting chance. In the 2020 draft class Jacob Perreault is one of the best offensive wingers available. …

Read More

Author: Marsha Joseph / The Leafs Nation

Setting Sights on a 2 to 1 Play-in Series Lead

The 2020 play-in round series between the Blue Jackets and the Maple Leafs continues tonight with Game 3. The play-in series’ are just five-game series, so the winner of tonight’s game puts themselves one win away from the true 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Story lines going into this game are aplenty, as is usually the case in a competitive series like this one has been.
Primarily on most fans’ minds will be the effects of the injury to Jake Muzzin and how the lines will have to change because of his absence. Some will seek revenge against the prime mover of the collision that caused the injury, Pierre-Luc Dubois. Some will seek to get revenge by burying the Blue Jackets behind a 2-1 series lead. Some inevitably just want to watch the blue-and-white win a “playoff series” for the first time since 2003.
Another story line has been the epic goaltending/defensive battle between Frederik Andersen and the Leafs, and Jonas Korpisalo and the Blue Jackets. Each goaltender has a shutout in this series, and both have save percentages above 95%, which is ridiculously good. Both teams have had a game where they absolutely drowned any offensive hopes of …

Read More

Author: Ryan Hobart / The Leafs Nation