Thursday bantering

A few bits of Blue Jays news this morning:

MLB Trade Rumours has more on our offseason and manager search.

TSN has some more information on our young posistion players transitioning to the Majors.

And Gregor Chisholm has answers to key FAQs about Blue Jays’ offseason.

Poor A’s - i felt a bit for them losing to the Sith yesterday after such a good season, but such is the Wildcard game.

Talking of Wildcard games, here is every single Wild Card game, ranked.

So, now we are down to the final 8:

NLDS

Rockies vs. Brewers

When: Game 1 Thursday, 5:07 p.m. ET, on FS1

Braves vs. Dodgers

When: Game 1 Thursday, 8:37 p.m. ET on MLB Network

ALDS

Cleveland vs. Astros

When: Game 1 Friday, 2:05 p.m., on TBS

Yankees vs. Red Sox

When: Game 1 Friday, 7:32 p.m., on TBS

Its at this point maybe we should start thinking about which player is going to be World Series MVP this year?

The Cubs must feel bad at losing such an epic game to the Rockies. Their fans must have been so optimistic. Not as over optimistic as this guy was in May:

Not only has he lived to regret those words, but he has to email his apology letter to over 2000 Brewers fans...

...but he is a man of his word!

And talking of the Rockies, here are 13 Reasons to love being a Rockies fan right now.

In other news the OriLOLes have parted ways with Buck Showalter after 8 seasons.

And in case you thought he was a miserable old sod, here are 7 of Buck’s finest moments. (Unsurprisingly, keeping Zach Britton for the save is not among them)

Baltimore have also given GM/VP Dan Duquette the heave-ho too.

And Joe Madden is returning to the Cubs for another season of endless pitching changes and minor rule arguments.

And last but not least, David Lengel asks has baseball analytics killed the art of hitting?