Well, the Dodgers are trying to do their part to find the next Louis Varland. They have acquired Seth Halvorsen from the Rockies.

From the other thread with reference to Petriello's X post saying "stars gotta star."

The FO should have expected Springer to fall back to earth and also should have expected Vlad to fall back if he didn't have enough protection or elite bat like Bo hitting around him.

The FO should have traded for a bat after failing to add Tucker and Bo and they definitely should have traded for a bat after learning Santander was injured and they most definitely should have traded for a bat when they learned Barger was injured and absolutely they should trade for a bat now that...wait, no they've lost their chance now.

Plausible Best Lineups using....


This year's stats only:

1. 2B Clement 387pa, .320obp, 108wrc+, 2.2war650
2. RF Lukes 227pa, .339obp, 109wrc+, 2.9war650
3. 3B Okamoto 395pa, .314obp, 114wrc+, 3.5war650
4. LF Sanchez 234pa, .316obp, 108wrc+, 0.3war650
5. C Valenzuela 191pa, .316obp, 105wrc+, 5.8war650
6. 1B Guerrero 399pa, .346obp, 99wrc+, 1.6war650
7. DH Pinango 160pa, .313obp, 103wrc+, 0.0war650
8. CF Varsho 318pa, .305obp, 92wrc+, 2.0war650
9. SS Gimenez 318pa, .275obp, 76wrc+, 3.1war650

B. UT Springer 301pa, .302obp, 93wrc+, 0.0war650
B. OF Straw 169pa, .281obp, 70wrc+, 0.4war650
B. IF Schneider 118pa, .282obp, 68wrc+, -2.2war650
B. C Alejandro 107pa, .290obp, 65wrc+, 2.4war650

X. UT Jimenez 35pa, .343obp, 83wrc+, -1.9war650
X. OF Clase 25pa, .360obp, 153wrc+, 5.2war650
X. IF Urias 32pa, .344obp, 140wrc+, 6.1war650
X. C MacIver ---

X. UT Keys 35pa, .200obp, 32wrc+, -3.7war650
X. OF Barger 28pa, .214obp, 0wrc+, 0.0war650
X. IF Sosa 117pa, .207obp, 30wrc+, -4.4war650
X. IF McAdoo 25pa, .160obp, 13wrc+, -5.2war650





Past 1 Calendar Year Stats

1. LF Springer 527pa, .365obp, 142wrc+, 3.8war650
2. 1B Guerrero 661pa, .359obp, 119wrc+, 2.9war650
3. 3B Okamoto 395pa, .314obp, 114wrc+, 3.5war650
4. CF Varsho 489pa, .307obp, 107wrc+, 3.6war650
5. DH Valenzuela 191pa, .316obp, 105wrc+, 5.8war650
6. SS Clement 629pa, .312obp, 104wrc+, 2.8war650
7. 2B Schneider 252pa, .331obp, 101wrc+, 1.3war650
8. RF Lukes 445pa, .308obp, 100wrc+, 2.3war650
9. C Alejandro 290pa, .310obp, 96wrc+, 4.7war650

B. UT Sanchez 435pa, .299obp, 93wrc+, 0.2war650
B. OF Straw 279pa, .309obp, 92wrc+, 3.0war650
B. UT Barger 260pa, .277obp, 78wrc+, 1.0war650
B. IF Gimenez 449pa, .271obp, 70wrc+, 2.2war650

B. UT Sosa 358pa, .269obp, 83wrc+, 0.2war650
B. OF Pinango 160pa, .313obp, 103wrc+, 0.0war650
B. IF Urias 103pa, .311obp, 83wrc+, 0.6war650
B. C MacIver 59pa, .220obp, 21wrc+, -3.3war650

X. UT Jimenez 35pa, .343obp, 83wrc+, -1.9war659
X. OF Clase 25pa, .360obp, 153wrc+, 5.2war650
X. IF McAdoo 25pa, .160obp, 13wrc+, -5.2war650
X. UT Santander 12pa, .250obp, 17wrc+, -5.4war650




Fangraphs Combined Depth Charts Projections

1. DH Springer 196pa, .332obp, 113wrc+, 2.0war650
2. 1B Guerrero 267pa, .373obp, 136wrc+, 3.9war650
3. 3B Okamoto 242pa, .321obp, 113wrc+, 3.2war650
4. RF Lukes 180pa, .335obp, 107wrc+, 2.5war650
5. C Alejandro 155pa, .343obp, 110wrc+, 5.9war650
6. LF Sanchez 158pa, .315obp, 107wrc+, 2.1war650
7. 2B Clement 240pa, .311obp, 99wrc+, 2.7war650
8. CF Varsho 229pa, .297obp, 99wrc+, 2.8war650
9. SS Gimenez 229pa, .305obp, 91wrc+, 2.8war650

B. UT Barger 49pa, .312obp, 105wrc+, 1.3war650
B. OF Straw 60pa, .296obp, 74wrc+, 1.1war650
B. IF Schneider 19pa, .325obp, 102wrc+, 3.4war650
B. C Valenzuela 113pa, .385obp, 80wrc+, 2.3war650

X. UT Pinango 41pa, .299obp, 88wrc+, 0.0war650
X. OF Clase 63pa, .294obp, 85wrc+, 1.0war650
X. IF Urias 46pa, .323obp, 100wrc+, 2.8war650
X. C MacIver 2pa, .279obp, 73wrc+, 0.0war650

X. IF McAdoo 8pa, .288obp, 85wrc+, 0.0war650
X. IF Sosa 54pa, .274obp, 83wrc+, 0.0war650
X. UT Keys 74pa, .289obp, 82wrc+, 0.0war650

Those starters in the "best" lie up offer up 21.4 WAR over 650 ABs...

that Petriello' comment strikes me as significant hindisght.

Expect Springer to regress? Literally everyone in the game. Of course they did.

Expect Vlad to? Literally no one I saw looked at the post-season and the WBC and said "there's a guy who will probably get worse"

Protection? That is what Kaz is for and so far he's almost the only one that's mostly played his part (apart from being streaky)

Santander? Barger? Trade? How many significant middle of the order bats gets traded in April and May? It basically never happens.

Speaking of Kaz and streaks:

4/1-4/17 - .143/.208/.163/.371 (they went 3-10)
4/18 - 5/8 - .309/.405/.691/1.096 (10-9)
5/9 - 5/26 - .138/.203/.190/.393 (8-8)
5/27 - 6/26 - .305/.385/.642/1.027 (13-14)
6/27 - 7/19 - .167/.254/.333/.587 (7-9)

Doesn't seem to be a strong relationship between his slumps and team loses which is not the outcome I expected. The end points are arbitrary in that I just look for when the direction changed. Still, he's been a hitter of extremes so far.

Hindsight? Some of us were pounding the table in here all offseason that this lineup was a bat short unless Vladdy could be close to his playoff version.

I think the fangraphs projections in my post there still tell the same story as the start of the year - it should have been expected to be a solid above average lineup, but definitely at least a big bat short of elite.

Scherzer to start for Buffalo on Wednesday.

Jesus Sanchez will likely be in a minor league game on Thursday.

Agree with Ugly and others. Lineup certainly could have used another bat but looked good enough to compete going into the season. Yes, Springer was going to regress but he had a 166 WRc+ last year so a regression to 130 would still be very valuable. Nobody expected Vlad to be this bad. Or Kirk. Or Barger to be hurt all year.

I think the hope after last year was thst Springer wouldnt fall back to 2024 (or even 2023) nunbers. But his season so far is pretty sinilar to 2024. If his minor hit streak continues it could look better than 2023. But by how much and will it be too late. Was that realistic? Dunno. But surely possible. Really it just exposes the lqck of depth

Speaking of bad offenses, check out the Rays lineup tonight. How are they so good? I know they will probably dink, dunk, and steal their way into a series win, but they have 3 good hitters and the rest kinda stink. Mullins got hot for a bit but has turned back into a pumpkin the last few weeks. The Jays really need to pitch around Caminero, and they should be bunting towards him frequently.

"Hindsight?"

In the context of the specific points I was replying to.

Almost every team could use another big bat, that's basically a baseball truism. But adding one works within the context of the market. What other bat that fits on their team was available (or even is available now, at the deadline) that they just simply neglected to pursue? Maybe one could argue they should have outbid the M's for Donovan? I'm not sure that the "get a big bat" argument would have been settled by that.

In any case, last winter the glaring need on offense was an IF to replace Bo.

They signed one. The only other place that looked potentially problematic was LF and if it's, say, January and Tucker is off the table (which, we see how that's going) then the question is "who can we get that will be worth benching Santander?"

Until they began to see injuries there wasn't an obvious urgency to do that. Hindsight, among other things, involves pretending that you knew that Santander was going to AGAIN miss basically the whole year.

No one knew that.
(and I'm not even a huge fan of the guy)

Okamoto is a mistake hitter. He's not an elite bat like Bo can be. If Vlad goes on a tear and finishes the year at over .850 wRC+ and 30HR he would still have had a terrible season. A successful team needs hitters that show up more than half or 1/3rd of the time.

should have expected Vlad to fall back if he didn't have enough protection or elite bat like Bo hitting around him.

This overlooks Vlad's excellent 2024, when Bo was awful and/or injured for the entire season, and none of the supporting crew of Springer, Varsho, or Justin Turner could offer much "protection." 
Also, Bo has not been an elite bat in 2026, so the Jays could have paid him a billion dollars to re-sign and still be in exactly the same spot.

Before the seson, my optimistic take went like this:

Vlad and George should be a wash. If Vlad hits something like George did in '25 (.309/.399/.560/.959) which is also very much like his '24, then George could regress to something similar to what Vlad did in '25 (.292/.381/.467/.848) then they would sort of cancel out and Springer regressing wouldn't be a hole.

Of course, neither did that.

Vladdy and Springer are the headliners but the wheels have come off literally every aspect of this team. The optimistic pre season take on this team was that it could be an elite run prevention team and average to above average offensive team. Neither of those have panned out. The Jays are currently 16th in runs scored against per game and falling.

Vlad's crap season has nothing to do with a lack of "protection" around him. That point doesn't even make sense considering that Bo Bichette himself has been terrible for most of this season, so how exactly would he be "protecting" Vlad in the lineup this season?

"Protection" isn't even a provable phenomenon; its just some pseudo-science feelings-based theory that fans love to throw around, even though you can clearly see all across the league that its not predictive at all. The 2026 New York Mets are literally proof of this. They have Soto, Lindor, and Bichette all batting one after another, and yet Bichette and Lindor have been complete busts at the plate. Why aren't they protecting each other and creating it such that they're all hitting at elite levels? Better yet, aren't the Dodgers providing Kyle Tucker with a crap-ton of "protection" in their lineup? So why then has he been terrible this year?

Also: Okamoto has objectively been a better hitter than Bichette to date. So replacing Bichette with him clearly isn't why this team can't score any runs. That logic doesn't even compute. They actually upgraded on Bichette to date in the 2026 season. Yes, Bichette can easily right himself and finish on fire, but we're talking about the Jays offense from the start of the season till today (July 20th).

The Jays' struggles this year really are as simple as they appear: Vlad, Springer, Kirk, Varsho, and Barger have all been complete crap and/or injured for most of the season. That is 5 batters from the lineup, all of whom regressed significantly from last season. Springer's 2025 was obviously a final hurrah s0 it shouldn't be a surprise that he regressed heavily, but the rest of those guys apart from Varsho have really been much worse than anyone could have predicted. Kirk is literally hitting for a 65 wRC+ and spent a big chunk of time injured. Barger has been injured for most of the season. And Vlad coming off a dominant post-season stretch against elite pitching is having his worst season EVER. Varsho is in a contract year and he's putting up his worst season since 2023, which means its his second worst full season ever.

No, trading for one more bat would not magically fix this 2026 offense. There are too many complete holes and major regressions in the lineup.

Ernie should have had that ball and would have last year. Jays have bizarre error splits this year. Error ranks by position:
P:1
C: 6
1B:9
2B:4
SS:28
3B:6
OF:30th

Why is Straw playing against a RHP?

The Jays have scored the 2nd fewest runs in the sport. They are not a bat away.

It's a right handed pitcher who doesn't throw hard and whose best pitch is a change up.
Lefties are hitting .238 against him and righties .259.
He's given more HR from the left side but the Jays don't have  much power from the left anyway.

Okamoto is a rookie who is seeing all the pitchers for the first time.
Also, the other teams are focusing on him, even if he's hitting 5th or 7th.

Just unreal. Can’t recall a team just losing their focus and edge so dramatically from one season to the next. One star review, do not recommend. Customer service was good though.

Wish I had something actually insightful to say beyond “team stinks, I shouldn’t watch them because it just pisses me off” but it is what it is. We’re all watching the same thing.

Go Phillies I guess. Sigh.

I just turned it off and found something else to pay attention too. This is like watching a movie where the dog dies.

Every aspect of the team is bad. I generally don’t ascribe the term effort to baseball as, in many cases, trying harder makes things worse but I think teams can checkout/quit. I’ve seen quit all over this team for the past 2-3 weeks.

The two inflection points of the season were in late May when Hoffman blew a four run lead in the 9th to lose to the O’s, right after the team had a made a long climb back to .500. Then a month later another long trip back to .500 with a chance to go over and they lose another one where they had the lead late to Houston. Just unreal.

The only positive I can take is this might force the Jays to sell some. They don't want to but with this team, what choice do they have? The whole offensive side of the ball needs a massive overhaul. Vladdy, Kirk, and Okamoto aren't going anywhere but I'd like to see basically everyone else replaced. This only doesn't look like a decent team now, it doesn't look like a team that is going to contend in next few years.

Agree Glevin. Should now be obvious that changes must come.

Agreed with metafour. Adding another bat would not have dramatically changed this team's outlook, especially since the impact bats available in free agency were Tucker and Bo, both of whom are struggling this season. Vlad and Springer have been awful, Kirk and Varsho have been hurt and awful, and Barger has been hurt. Gimenez is a 70 wRC+ player. This season was never going to materialize.

I don't know what the answer is long-term, Vlad is signed until the end of time, and the team's best near ready prospect is a 1B. They need a lot of help in the system on the offensive end. I'm a Nimmala believer, but they will need more than him, especially in the upper minors. They really need to trade for a CF. If the Jays have the audacity to start Myles Straw in 2027 then might as well root for the lockout to wipe out the season.

One upside is that the Jays organization has the last part of the season to start preparing for next season. I’m interested to see how that looks.

I just think Vlad is far better when there are 2-3 bonafide hitters in the line up that the opposing pitcher has to worry about. We've heard that opposing pitchers come into the series with the clear goal of ensuring Vlad doesn't get much to hit. With Springer last year and Bichette that was harder to do because you had to navigate three solid bats 4 if you include Kirk. Okamoto is not hard for opposing pitchers to pitch to.