Thursday Bantering: Vlad and other stuff

There have’t been enough wins this season, so we should celebrate the ones we get. Last night’s win was fun in a lot of ways. The most fun was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. coming to bat at the big moment and hitting the big home run. When we talked about Vlad as a prospect and imagined what it would be like having him in the lineup, this was what we were waiting to see.

Vlad hit a very good pitch:

He hit the ball 109.9 mph and it went 434 feet.

And yesterday was the start of the Teoscar Hernandez reign as center fielder. So far this year we’ve had Randal Grichuk (40 games), Jonathan Davis (17 games), Kevin Pillar (4 games), Socrates Brito (4 games), Anthony Alford (1 game) and now Teoscar.

Teoscar had a heck of a game yesterday. He made the plays in CF, he used his speed on the bases and he hit the ball. Earlier in the season, every time Teoscar got on base Buck and Pat would talk about how fast he is and that he could steal anytime now. But he rarely did. Last year he had 5 steals, and 5 times caught. Not the success rate you would want. Yesterday he stole a base. He also:

• Hustled to get a double.
• Raced home from second on a single.
• And went to 3rd on throw after a double and caused an error.

If he played like this earlier in the season he wouldn’t have been sent to Buffalo. I’m not sure about him in CF but maybe he’ll take it as a challenge and take charge out there. And at bat. What I’m hoping is that they leave him out there for (at least) a couple of months. Stop this try one guy for a week and he doesn’t hit, so go on the to the next guy thing. I’ve always thought that fans are supposed to be impatient but team management should be patient. Make a choice and stay with it.

I am worried that if he makes an error we’ll wake up the next day and Anthony Alford will be our new center fielder.

Speaking of center fielders, the front office must have really hated Randal Grichuk’s defense in center. FanGraphs has him at a -6.1 UZR/150, but the front office must have felt it was even worse than that.

When you announce someone as your center fielder going forward and a couple of weeks later you change your mind it is not a sign of conviction in your beliefs.

Jim Callis at mlb.com ranked the seven teams he thought had the best draft hauls and the Blue Jays are fifth on his list. About the Jays he said:

The next three teams on our list deserve extra credit because they didn’t have the benefit of any extra picks. West Virginia right-hander Alek Manoah (first) is a physical beast who can blow hitters away with a mid-90s fastball and a power slider. Florida high school right-hander Kendall Williams (second) has a deep repertoire and a very projectable 6-foot-6 frame. Toronto used its next nine selections on position players, including athletic Canadian prep outfielder Dasan Brown (third) and three collegians with intriguing power potential for their positions: Creighton outfielder Will Robertson (fourth), Virginia shortstop Tanner Morris (fifth) and Vanderbilt catcher Philip Clarke (ninth).

Tonight is Pride Night at the ballpark and the roof will be open. Someone must keep stats on this, but it seems like June 6th is late for the first time to have the roof open. I wonder what was the latest date to have the roof open in Rogers history? (Editor’s note: tied with 2001 as the latest ever, as per @mattomic on Twitter)

With the draft over, the next big day on the baseball calendar is the trade deadline. This year the July 31st deadline is a real deadline. They aren’t allowing waiver deals in August anymore, which will be interesting.

We have a handful of players who will likely be trade targets for other teams:

• Marcus Stroman: If they trade him we better get a great haul. I’d be happy to extend him.
• Aaron Sanchez: I personally think he doesn’t have all that much trade value. I’d likely keep him, because I think he had more potential than trade value.
• Ken Giles: I would think he’s the most likely to go.
• Justin Smoak: The team could decide to keep him. He’s been pretty steady. We maybe should keep a veteran around. And I’m still not 100% sold on Rowdy Tellez. I’m hopeful he’ll turn out to be good, but who knows.

I still have people on twitter telling me how terrible it is that we gave up on Tulo. Did you know that he homered against us in spring training? I guess, for some that’s the last moment they noticed him.

This could be the greatest play of all time: