you really don't need to even make this kind of announcement, guys. just go ahead and treat him like a normal reliever. don't stress about it.



Keegan Matheson
@KeeganMatheson
28m
News: Jeff Hoffman is out as the #BlueJays’ closer.
They’ll go with a closer by committee for now while Hoffman works on things in lower-leverage spots.

I think you make that announcement so every post-game scrum isn't dominated by questions about whether Hoffman is still the closer.

Lenyn Sosa is the DH tonight & hitting 5th. I don't understand.

weird for sure. man they hate Davis.

A possibility with Sosa is that they picked him up to see if he could make adjustments and improve, and they need to give him some run before deciding he's improved and worth rostering or to cut bait. But even that hypothesis seems pretty mysterious to me.

It's bizarre because Sosa isn't some guy with untapped potential, he swings at everything so if everything does go well, he'll hit some hrs and have like a 100 WRC+. He also isn't very good defensively. There just isn't a lot there to be intrigued by that I can see. Schneider has some problems with velocity but he's a better player in pretty much every facet of the game.

Plausible best lineup using past 1 calendar year stats:


1. DH Springer 570pa, .385obp, 158wrc+, 5.0war650
2. LF Schneider 248pa, .359obp, 128wrc+, 3.9war650
3. 1B Guerrero 677pa, .388obp, 142wrc+, 4.2war650
4. CF Varsho 355pa, .296obp, 121wrc+, 4.9war650
5. C Alejandro 456pa, .355obp, 122wrc+, 6.6war650
6. 3B Barger 509pa, .301obp, 106wrc+, 2.8war650
7. SS Clement 628pa, .320obp, 104wrc+, 3.5war650
8. RF Lukes 456pa, .318obp, 100wrc+, 2.6war650
9. 2B Sosa 516pa, .286obp, 98wrc+, 1.5war650

B. UT Sanchez 549pa, .302obp, 94wrc+, 1.3war650
B. OF Straw 292pa, .316obp, 93wrc+, 1.6war650
B. IF Gimenez 359pa, .291obp, 79wrc+, 2.5war650
B. C Heineman 184pa, .318obp, 84wrc+, 4.2war650

X. UT Jimenez 26pa, .462obp, 152wrc+, 2.5war650
X. OF Santander 119pa, .277obp, 61wrc+, -2.7war650
X. IF Okamoto 97pa, .289obp, 78wrc+, 0.0war650
X. C Valenzuela 32pa, .188obp, 21wrc+, 0.0war650




using fangraphs combined Depth Chart projections:

1. DH Springer 447pa, .338obp, 116wrc+, 2.2war650pa
2. RF Lukes 316pa, .334obp, 105wrc+, 2.5war650
3. 1B Guerrero 578pa, .385obp, 146wrc+, 4.5war650
4. LF Sanchez 364pa, .317obp, 105wrc+, 2.0war650
5. C Alejandro 307pa, .348obp, 115wrc+, 6.1war650
6. CF Varsho 507pa, .295obp, 101wrc+, 2.8war650
7. 3B Okamoto 483pa, .324obp, 111wrc+, 2.8war650
8. SS Gimenez 519pa, .315obp, 96wrc+, 3.1war650
9. 2B Clement 531pa, .311obp, 97wrc+, 2.7war650

B. UT Barger 340pa, .312obp, 104wrc+, 1.9war650
B. OF Straw 155pa, .300obp, 76wrc+, 0.8war650
B. IF Schneider 250pa, .339obp, 106wrc+, 2.9war650
B. C Heineman 180pa, .305obp, 78wrc+, 2.5war650

X. UT Jimenez 36pa, .308obp, 93wrc+, 0.0war650
X. OF Santander 24pa, .308obp, 102wrc+, 0.0war650
X. IF Sosa 149pa, .281obp, 88wrc+, 0.4war650
X. C Valenzueal 76pa, .271obp, 67wrc+, 1.7war650

Even if the point was to play him and "see what they have and whether improvements can be made", the idea of DH'ing him and batting him 5th is absurd. As I said the other night, I was sort of sad when he hit the key sacrifice fly as it guaranteed him an extended run of playing time.

Sosa is hitting .278. Eloy is hitting .409.
Sosa has 4 RBI and Eloy has 3.

The GM decides who's on the roster, but it's the manager who makes the lineup.

Sosa is 4 for 6 against Williams. That could be it.

That is certainly it. He's 4 for 6, including a 2B and two HR. 

That's Williams struggling on those days not Sosa hitting him well.

mad max might have come to the end.

When Yesavage and Berrios are back, will Max be dumped?

No guarantees that those guys will be an improvement.

Lukes injured now. Man, this team is cursed right now.

Max: 5gms, 3.5ip/gm, 13.2k%, 7.9b%, 222era-, 181fip-, 136xfip-


not great!

"No guarantees that those guys will be an improvement."

You don't think they can do better than a 9.00+ ERA???

wait max is still in the game?

em...coach, what are you doing.

On the bright side, this kind of power from Sanchez and Okamoto is really good to see. Two bombs.

Ugh. Wonder if Max needs IL time. Guy is a bulldog who won't ever take a break if he can avoid it, but clearly he has nothing right now. Absolutely nothing. Put him on the IL, call up Yesavage. Maybe with a break his arm will get back to good shape.

Scherzer could just be done. Anyway they can't keep rolling him out there like this.

Aging often shows up as increased variance. Max may be at that point... it looked a bit like that last year too.

Max Scherzer as a Jay has always looked a bit like Mays as a Met to me, but given the state of the team, it is entertaining enough to see those small glimpses of what he was in the not to distant past.

If we're going to watch a .500 team this year then I'd rather see Max work than a Corbin-type (but he's been decent). It is entertainment after all.

That said, the offense, when it gives 2024 vibes, is less entertaining than Max going to work and struggling; we've seen that movie too recently and it is not a classic.

Miles has looked great most outings.

I love seeing this. Good teams fight back, even if they ultimately lose the game.

yep, great fight tonight.

Reasonable choice to PH Eloy, but leaving the LHB Heinemann in to face Smith would also have been defensible.

Lots of positives to the game. Jays just can't let Scherzer start again.

I thought it would have made more sense to leave Heineman in of they wanted to bunt them over, which would have been my approach.

I agree Katie. Jimenez is also not very good and is very slow so was a great DP candidate. Feels like Schenider had told Jimenez he was PH and then didn't want to change even if circumstances did.

Last year Heineman’s line drive lands fair, this year foul.

I like the Blue Jays 2026 roster, but the injuries (Ponce, Kirk, Springer, Barger, Lukes, the other rehabbing SPs) have been brutal. 10-15 is a disappointing start, but we’ll see where the team ends up after 162.

I wish Schneider had been a little quicker with the hook in the 3rd. Scherzer was clearly out of gas with 2 runners on already and like 75-80 pitches in less than 3 innings. Those two extra runs (where I would have brought in a reliever - ok, not guaranteed, of course) were the difference in the game. 

At this point, shut Max down for a bit and let Corbin loose. Isn't "ride the hot hand" like the motto of our team? Max is stone cold right now and might be tied with Hoffman at -0.6 bWAR for the two worst performances on the team so far this season after this game. Or so I thought. Then I saw that Little is at -1.2 bWAR in 3.2 IP. Wow, that's really, really bad. These 3 guys could be -2.5 WAR already and it's only April. That's insane. 

I wonder if the manager was hoping that some of Max's problem was trying to get K number 3500 so he was hoping he could get that this outing to have some silver lining and no pressure in the next outing, but yeah, sucks to give up more runs and then deliver enough offense that those runs definitely counted.

There are always a few games a year where the tale of the tape (or in this case, the statcast) tells a different story, and this was one of them. Gimenez had a lucky double, but on the whole, the Jays got snakebit. Statcast has the Guardians on a .208 xBA, the Jays a .290, so the Jays "earned" about three hits more than the Guardians. But the Guardians popped more home runs? Yes, but using the HRs/park metric the Jays had a total of 71/60 while the Guardians lagged at exactly two, 60/60. All three of the Guardians barrelled hits went over the fence, while the Jays had seven barrels - four found gloves.

Looks like the Yankees are starting to separate themselves from the pack in the AL. They have the best record in the league (17-9) by several games, and Cole should be returning to the rotation soon.

Ben Rice has the second-highest WAR (1.5) and the second-highest wRC+ (219) in MLB. Guess Rice was actually good after all.

The highest WAR position player on the Blue Jays is Gimenez with 0.8.

Schlittler looks like a perennial Cy-candidate, and they have two more flame throwing starters (Lagrange and Rodriguez) ready to be called up, probably just holding them down for service time reasons at this point.

Yohendrick Pinango is in Toronto, I assume as a Lukas replacement.

The NYY were 15 - 11 same day a year ago and Ben Rice was was worth 1 WAR same time last year with a wRC+ of 172.

The Toronto Blue Jays were 13-13 and Vladdy "who's your Daddy!" Guerrero Jr had 0.4 WAR and a wRC+ of 121.

The NYM had the best record in baseball at 18-8.

You were wondering if Ben Rice was the better investment and value overall at this time. Ben Rice of course finished the season with a WAR of 3.0 and wRC+ of 133. Vlad finished with 3.9 WAR and wRC+ of 137.

Vlad gets the big contract and the consensus is that he's scratching the surface while Uncle Ben Rice is already maxed out. I'll tell you that your argument-question from a year ago is a lot more compelling today than it was last year especially when you look at those stat lines from 2025 and the difference in pay even after you factor in what Ben Rice may get when he's a free agent vs what Vladdy already got.

You could also say that in 2025 from May onwards (5/6s of the season) Vlad was worth 3.5 WAR vs Rice at 2 WAR. That's a big difference for most of the season. Ben Rice looks like a strong April hitter to me. If he continues that early trend into the rest of the season then you're looking at a much more valuable player, however, same can be said about Vladdy if he hits in the spring like he does in the summer...

Can't help feeling that Yesavage's planned return for Tues. next week is rushing the process. I hope I am wrong.

Even more questionable defense. Yipee.

Rice career wRC+ 130
Rice 2026 wRC+ 219
2026 salary: $845.8k

Vladdy career wRC+ 137
Vladdy 2026 wRC+ 134
2026 salary: $40.2m

I love Vladdy, but Rice is having a great underdog career so far. He’s only in his second full season. Sure, he’s 27, but some players bloom a bit later than most (like Bautista or Encarnacion); no need to belittle them for that fact.

dalimon, Rice had an outstanding second half last year (147 wRC+). He wasn’t just a “great April hitter.”

I'm glad they called up Pinango. Whether he plays or not remains to be seen, but I'd rather have him get PA's than Sosa or Jimenez at this point.

How on earth could they call that a hit by Varsho? That was an easy GB and likely inning ending DP.

When Springer went on the IL I posted that I had only one thing to say - "give Davis Schneider some run"

Schneider is 1 for 18 since.

What do I know?

At least yankees glazing is better than red sox glazing i guess.

Closing is hard I guess. Great win. Win the series tomorrow.Okamoto being good is fixing a lot of the offense right now. Still hard to believe they are going back to Scherzer next week but what do I know.

"Not so easy, is it?"

-Jeff Hoffman

Just to be clear that's not a real quote of course. But I'll bet he was thinking something like that watching from the pen today.

That why you don't force anyone to be the capital C Closer.

Good win anyways tho.

Red Sox

Jeff Passan@JeffPassan

The Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora, hitting coach Peter Fatse, bench coach Rámon Vazquez and game-planning coach Jason Varitek, sources tell ESPN.

While the Red Sox won today, they are 10-17 and in last in the American League East. Massive change is coming in Boston.

Jeff Passan@JeffPassan

Third-base coach Kyle Hudson was also let go by Boston, sources tell ESPN.

Less than a month into the season, the Red Sox are almost fully overhauling their coaching staff. Alex Cora is out with nearly two years remaining on his deal. Wholesale changes have come to Boston.

Jesus. Red Sox basically just fired everyone except the pitching coach.

Boston coming to Toronto on Monday.
Should be interesting.

Wow, wonder what triggered that in Boston? I mean, yeah, they are playing poorly but not nightmare level. 5 pitchers on the IL, 2 hitters. The team has an 82 OPS+, 94 ERA+. It is a mess but dumping the coaching staff won't change that. Unless they have some great coaching staff ready to step in (very unlikely) this is likely to a total mess. Let's hope the Jays take full advantage.

Fun looking at good old Sons of Sam Horn as most are happy it seems, but boy are they in for a shock when the new coaches just do what the old ones did. Guessing Cora told the GM he was going to start managing his own way and screw what they told him to do and that got him fired.

They fired all the coaches, so I don't think it's due to Something Cora said.

I thought they had a brutal off-season.
Yeah, Contreras is looking good at first with a 760 OPS.

Bregman has a .736 OPS. Caleb Durbin, 452. IKF, .412.
They have too many outfielders.
Anthony has a .686 OPS. Abreu, 844. Yoshida, 719, Rafaela, .642. Duran, .558.

I think that's getting swept by the Yankees at home that got Henry upset.

Red sox a victim of their own overhype.

I think Breslow has actually done fine. Still fantastically positioned long-term and getting out of that Devers contract was fantastic. They have a ton of young talent in majors and high minors. At some point though, they need to be willing to spend on a big free agent.

I don't think they're actually underperforming.
Duran was struggling last year.
Anthony has 400 career PAs.
Story, Durbin, Rafaela and Mayer are below average bats.

Crochet has been horrible and Bello hasn't been great.
The pen is very average.

The payroll is down to 196M.
Baltimore's is up to 165M.

Sosa at 1B against a RHP. Is there a chance that Schneider is confused about which Sosa the Jays acquired?

Sosa is at 1B, hitting 6th.
Pinango in LF, hitting 7th.
Schneider at 2B, hitting 8th.
Valenzuela hitting 9th.

Gimenez gets another day off against a right handed pitcher.

If I was a Red Sox fan, I'd be happy to see them jettison Cora. Even leaving aside the sign stealing scandal, which is an automatic mark against him, Cora is reportedly a pretty poor in-game manager and there were reports the clubhouse was not good. He didn't handle the Devers situation well last year. There are also suggestions his relationship with young players was not great. He's not responsible for their terrible start, but he didn't help.

I think Breslow has done some things well and mishandled other moves, but Cora wasn't his guy. If I was a Red Sox fan, I'd rather have Breslow appoint his guy rather than feel hamstrung by his predecessor's manager. Chad Tracy is reportedly one of the more promising major league managing prospects and has relationships with a number of their young players from their time in the minor leagues. The odd thing here is obviously that Breslow basically purged everyone who wasn't one of his hires.

The radio announcers have been impressed with Okamoto's defence today. Has it looked as good as they've made it sound?

In Hoffman’s outing today he faced four left handed batters and of his 24 pitches he threw only 2 splitters. This won’t be accidental. Presumably it’s to encourage him to throw strikes.

wasn't paying too close attention to his D today but Okamoto has made enough good plays out there when i've watched to make me think he'll probably end up about average defensively there in the end.

I can think of two good plays - both more expected good than amazing good - a ball hit hard to his left that he got to and then the throw he made from knees across the diamond. Both sort of plays that an average 3b might make 4/5 times rather than exceptional plays. But better than a bad thirdbaseman. The HR to center were completely crushed by him though.

Cora wasn't liked by the Red Sox fans.
Fans often dislike managers even when they win. 
Boston won today but Duran went 0-4 and Anthony went 0-3. At least they used all their good relievers. 

The 9-18 Mets just lost 3-1 to Colorado and are behind 3-0 in their second game.
Here's another team who had an awful winter. 
Moving guys around just for the fun of it.

Walks wasn't really the problem.
Lefties were hitting .310 against Hoffman and righties .350.
He had 5 walks against lefties but 2 were intentional.
He also had 16 Ks against lefties. That's not a bad ratio.

This past offseason... 2026 fWAR in brackets

• Jays added 19 guys: Cease (1.2), Okamoto (0.4), Ponce (0.1), Sanchez (0.2), Rogers (0.2), Miles (0.1), and a batch of minor leaguers. = 2.2 fWAR so far
• Jays lost 14 guys: Bichette (-0.1), Bassitt (-0.2), Loperfido (0.2), Dominguez (-0.1), France (0.3), IKF (0.1), Bruihl (-0.3), Schultz (-0.1), Sandlin (-0.1) = -0.3

Not bad. Net of +2.5 of new vs keeping who they had. Who'd have thought by April 26th the best ex-Jay from last year (by fWAR) would be Ty France - heck at any point of 2026 that it would've been him? I was surprised he got a ML deal.

Boston added Sonny Gray (0.2), Ranger Suarez (0.4), Caleb Durbin (0.0), and Willson Contreras (1.0) - each projected to be 2+ fWAR guys in 2026 (all others acquired had sub 1 projections) = 1.6 fWAR. Checking a batch of the rest I was at -0.1 when I said 'screw it' (Oviedo, Coulombe, Monasterio, IKF, Gasper, Watson, Thaiss, Seigler, Samaniego, Bennett, Seth Martinez, Kahnle, Keller, Tayron Guerrero, Capra, Brendan Rodgers, Tsung-Che Cheng - many of whom are in the minors or haven't played anywhere yet with 13 more who didn't have a projection for '26 and didn't play in '25 in the majors also there). This might explain some of their problems - they did a TON of churn and got 1.5 fWAR out of it vs the 2.2 for the Jays who also are a disappointing team this year. Meanwhile their top losses were: Bregman at +0.5, Matz 0.1, May 0.4, Harrison 0.2, and a whole lot more (+1.2 from just those 4 guys). Easy to see why fans are upset. Also easy to see why the front office might be feeling the pressure there.

Hopefully the Jays can pound Boston the next few games with Suarez vs. Cease leading off (battle of FA signings). Then Tolle vs. Yesavage in a battle of the kids, then Bello vs. Scherzer to end it - HOF'er having a bad year vs a 9 ERA meh guy. Then off to Minnesota. Love how easy it is to put a story to each of the 3 games. Top FA guys, kids, and struggling vets. Let's hope for the best!

Funny, a guy many here wanted the Jays to sign a few years ago - Tommy Pham - was just released by the Mets after 14 PA. He had 1 walk and no hits. So $2 mil flushed down the toilet in NY for that. To replace him the Mets signed Austin Slater (33 OPS+ this year in 28 PA after 2 years in the 70's). Anytime I get annoyed with Jays management I just go 'thank goodness I'm not a Mets fan'.

Ex-Jay Taijuan Walker was released earlier this week by the Phillies who signed him to a 4 year deal pre-2023 and got 1.9 bWAR for $72 million. Ouch. His first year was solid 98 ERA+ in 172 IP, but years 2 and 3 worked out to 0 bWAR net and this year he was already at -0.7 when they dumped him (gave up more ER than IP).

Always interesting to look at ex-Jays and guys who we thought might end up here. Otto Lopez for example is off to a good start again - after an 0-4 today he is hitting 314/360/486.

Dang, missed that the Angels DFA'ed Jordan Romano. His first 6 games were great. 5 IP 0 H 2 BB 7 SO 4 saves. But after he has 2 blown saves in 3 IP 11 H 9 R/ER 4 BB 5 SO. Ouch. Just 1 HR though over those 5 games. Someone will give him another shot. I'd sign him to a AAA deal if he wants (Angels paying him $2 mil no matter what). But since leaving he has -2.2 bWAR 50 2/3 IP 12 saves 8.53 ERA 23 BB 59 SO. Ouch. Hopefully he gets a shot somewhere in the NL and does well.

"Hopefully he gets a shot somewhere in the NL and does well."

The Nats have nothing to lose and the Cubs have practically everyone (from the bullpen) on the IL

I don't remember much love for Tommy Pham. Maybe as a trade deadline add-on? Last year he flipped his bat and confronted Heineman after a walk. Called Barger a steroid user on X.

Okamoto has a 102 wRC+ and is slightly underperforming his xwOBA so that’s not a bad first few weeks for him all things considered. Would have been nice if he hit the ground running like Murakami has but development and adjusting to the big leagues will vary.

So, Swerzer becomes the opener for Lauer?
Berrios is getting close too.

Scherzer should have an opener for himself since he's terrible in the first inning with the Jays.

Scherzer is now on the IL with forearm tendinitis and ankle inflammation; no surprise really, and I don't expect to see him back anytime soon. Chase Lee is up and presumably tomorrow will be a bullpen day with Lauer as a bulk guy until Berrios is ready to return (maybe next Monday?). I love Max, but the team is better with other guys right now.

Tomorrow is a Yeasavage day.
Wednesday is the question mark.

Scherzer is at 3449 K.
Would still be nice to reach that at the RC.

*3499*