Thursday Bantering: Jays Stuff

Happy off-day.

Glad that the Jays are bringing up Gabriel Moreno. I did understand bringing up Zack Collins yesterday. There wasn’t time to bring him up to speed on the pitching staff. Calling him up now, he has a free day to chat with the pitchers and chat with the coaches.

The questions are:

• Who leaves to make room for Moreno?

I imagine Andrew Vasquez will end up on the IL after turning his ankle last night. Maybe the team can make do with one less pitcher until Tim Mayza’s ready to go. MLB is going to limit teams to 13 pitchers soon enough anyway, might as well learn to deal with it now. I’m ok with 3 catchers for now, which would make it easier for Kirk to DH when he’s not catching.

• How much does Moreno catch?

If he’s up, he must catch the lion’s share of the games. 3 or 4 games a week. There is no value in having him up in Toronto unless he’s going to catch a lot.

• What happens when Danny Jansen comes off the IL?

There is a good question. It will depend on how Moreno does. If he proves he deserves to be here, they would have to look to trade one of the catchers. If it were me, I’d look to trade Jansen just because he is the oldest of the three. They don’t have to rush to trade anyone. Having three catchers where any of the three could be a good DH isn’t that bad a problem, but Jansen could be used to add an arm to the pitching staff.

The All-Star Ballot is out.

Which Jays deserve to be on the team?

Alejandro Kirk for sure. George Springer. Vladimir Guerrero is second in the AL in home runs among first basemen (and the leader is Anthony Rizzo, who is hitting .209.

We can’t vote for pitchers, but Kevin Gausman and Alek Manoah deserve to go. And Jordan Romano.

And on the borderline, I’d love to see Santiago Espinal go, but there are a few second basemen have good seasons. I’d vote for him, but there are a few deserving players. And Bo Bichette is in among a handful of shortstops that could go. Xander Bogarerts and Tim Anderson are deserving too.

Top 10 Jays’ hitters in bWAR:

And pitchers: