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I joined the Baseball Prospectus Toronto team in 2016 and stayed on with Baseball Prospectus until 2021, catching the Blue Jays at the tail end of their most fun (I hope the 2023 squad makes me eat those words). What started out as delivering the basics like series previews and game recaps led to full features built on both analysis and opinion. Eventually, the editorial staff at BPT trusted me enough to hand over media credentials. That means that I shared an elevator ride and press box buffet meal with your favorite writers and broadcasters. Real Hollywood stuff. Were those meals the highlight of the experience? Impossible to say.

Featured Articles

Some of my favorite features, ranging from in-person interviews to statistical deep dives to editorials with a little levity sprinkled in to stay sane while the team was losing a ton. My credentials came as the Blue Jays retooled after a multi-year run at the World Series, which meant many younger players were competing for time and eager to stake their claim to lineup spots. Watching the old core fade was sad, but talking with the next group about their journey was a terrific opportunity -- even if it didn't work out for every player I spoke with. I'm happy to report that I encountered no jerks along the way.

Baseball Prospectus •

Prospectus Feature: How to Catch a Record 39 Pitchers

The 2019 season saw a record number of pitchers take the mound. That shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise given the recent emphasis on bullpen production and the fact that nearly half the league was basically intent on punting the year before it even began, forgoing wins to pursue years of control and hitting the bargain bin for value deals, potential trade chips and reclamation projects. Count the Blue Jays among such teams.

Toronto went through a healthy amount of roster churn, especially

Devon Travis Staying Healthy Amidst Ups and Downs

NEW YORK — Not much has gone right for the Blue Jays this season. They’ve gotten precious little from their supposed best players which is a real twisting of the knife given that the team spent its offseason putting together some quality depth. As good as those depth players may be, they just can’t replace top-level talent and tend to falter when they’re overexposed. And when almost all of your depth is overexposed, you end up out of the wild card race by the middle of July.

Surprisingly Devon
Baseball Prospectus •

How BABIP Explains the Blue Jays Terrible Hitting

Despite the presumed potency of their lineup, the Blue Jays have exasperated plenty of people this season. Whether it’s real or imagined, there’s a general and dispiriting lack of surprise out there when they fail to cash in runs in big situations. Lately, there’s been some silly discussion about a perceived need to “manufacture” runs borne of frustration as the Jays continue their Sisyphean endeavors to simply get to the .500 mark. There’s nothing wrong with moving runners over and picking up R

Bonus Quotes

Not every interview became a full article, but that doesn't mean that there wasn't some good stuff coming out of those conversations. What kind of person would I be if I willingly kept John Gibbons quotes about bunting under wraps? Or if I didn't ask Curtis Granderson about professional wrestling? Perish the thought.

"I do know one thing I would love to see is the improv talking, it’s taken over the amount of time and it hasn’t been as… good. I’ve been trying to introduce some people to it and RAW would be on, ‘like yeah let’s watch RAW.‘ And they’re talking again! They’re talking again."

-Curtis Granderson, on the state of professional wrestling in 2018

"Oh yeah, yeah. Nobody knows it but we do."

-John Gibbons, when asked if the Blue Jays have a bunt sign

"Well you gotta look at the makeup of your team. If you got those little pissant guys where that’s what they do…"

-John Gibbons, when asked whether he's anti-bunt or not

"And they got a worse record than we got, so what’s the issue here?"

-John Gibbons,  after being informed that the Texas Rangers led the league in bunts at the time

More Top Articles

Another collection of BP articles, including interviews, draft recaps, analysis and opinion pieces.

Jonathan Davis and Dwight Smith Jr.: Making the Most of Limited Opportunity

NEW YORK – Even if the games have been completely meaningless from a competition standpoint, September baseball has been a breath of fresh air for the Blue Jays.

The second half of the season has seen a number of encouraging debuts: from Ryan Borucki, Sean Reid-Foley and Thomas Pannone all taking turns through the rotation, to Danny Jansen and Reese McGuire behind the plate. And, of course, there’s been the incredible hot start from Rowdy Tellez, who took the league by storm with his doubles ba

Luke Maile Hoping to Finish Career Year on Strong Note

NEW YORK – The Blue Jays haven’t given fans much to get excited about this season. Entering the year needing a ton of breaks to stay in the playoff hunt, pretty much everything went wrong. The team has received precious little from its four or five supposed “best” players, with J.A. Happ being the lone standout of that group before his trade to the Yankees.

One other exception is Luke Maile, who has very quietly put together a career season. Though most fans will remember his clutch hits and ho

Sean Reid-Foley Will Keep Competing

NEW YORK – Sean Reid-Foley is part of the youth movement that’s giving Blue Jays fans a reason to tune in down the stretch of a disappointing season. He’s one of the team’s best pitching prospects, and he has arrived appropriately adorned with a blue jay tattoo on his right forearm. (There’s also a cardinal, as those are his grandmother’s two favorite birds that she spots outside her house.)

Coming off a successful major league debut against the Royals with a line that read five innings, six hi

Billy McKinney is Looking Forward to The Next Chapter of his Career

NEW YORK – Billy McKinney made his MLB debut on March 30, 2018 at the Rogers Centre. On March 31, he crashed into the left field wall and sprained the AC joint in his left shoulder. It would be his last taste of the big leagues until Saturday afternoon.

Fittingly, McKinney made his Blue Jays debut in New York, batting leadoff against his former team on a sunny Saturday where the Yankees honored their 1998 championship team. His placement atop the lineup card that day surprised him “a little bit
Baseball Prospectus •

TRADE: Blue Jays Trade RP Seunghwan Oh to Rockies for Prospects

The Blue Jays made a trade during the ninth inning of Tuesday’s game against the Twins, sending reliever Seunghwan Oh to the Rockies for first base prospect Chad Spanberger, Outfielder Forrest Wall, and a Player to be Named Later. Not included, despite earlier reports is first base prospect Sean Bouchard.

Oh, a 36-year-old right-hander, pitched to a 2.68 ERA in 47.0 innings with the Blue Jays, posting a 10.53 K/9 and just a 1.91 BB/9 in a resurgent campaign. The veteran notched a 4.2 WAR in his

MLB Draft: Rounds 3-5 Recap

The Blue Jays entered the second day of the 2018 MLB draft after taking a hard-hitting third baseman and the son of a former big-leaguer on Monday night. The early portions of Tuesday saw the team focused on pitching before pivoting to a catching prospect that has flown under the radar. The team has already gone over slot to ensure that one of their picks, a highly rated but potentially difficult-to-sign player, will be a member of the organization.


Measuring 6’5″ and weighing 220 lbs, Kloffe

Kendrys Morales: An All-Time Unlikely Base Stealer

No matter how poorly a season goes, there’s always something fun to take away. It could take the form of a memorable play, a guy coming out of nowhere to play his way into the future plans or the arrival of some promising young talent, among other things. The point being, there’s a whole lot that can happen over 162 games of baseball – even when things feel at their worst, there’s always something unique or entertaining to file away in the memory bank.

Even if this slog of a season (the Blue Ja
Baseball Prospectus •

Unpacking Early Blue Jays Hot Stove Rumours

While the offseason has given us pretty much nothing but non-stories and pure speculation to talk about (even amongst the league’s newsbreakers), that doesn’t mean that the hot stove is completely off. The Jays have a few obvious spots to fill headed into free agency and there are already a handful of players that the team has been connected to. There are all kinds of rumors at this point in the baseball calendar with agents and players angling for massive contracts and teams playing coy on who
Baseball Prospectus •

5 Things That Went Right for the Blue Jays in 2017

The Blue Jays’ season will come to an end in just under a week. It’s a disappointment considering the performances put on by the 2015 and 2016 versions of this team, with many key contributors from both of those groups still on board for this slog of a season.

Things never got off the ground and a nightmare start was exacerbated by a rash of injuries at key spots that asked far too much of players who were either ill equipped or unprepared to take on big responsibilities. Try as they might, the

Aaron Sanchez’s Latest Blister Woes Are a Fitting Unofficial End to the Season

Aaron Sanchez had a rough Wednesday evening at Fenway Park. The 25-year-old pitched well below the standard we’ve come to expect, leaving the game after surrendering five runs in four innings while allowing six hits and five walks in the process. Despite the mediocre performance, it seemed curious that John Gibbons pulled his starter after only 79 pitches. No matter the extent of the drubbing, you’d think that Sanchez would stick around to help out the beleaguered bullpen, fresh off a 15-inning
Baseball Prospectus •

MLB Draft: Blue Jays Select 2B Cullen Large with the 159th Pick

After selecting catcher Riley Adams and shortstop Kevin Smith in the third and fourth rounds, the Blue Jays continued their work during the second day of the draft by selecting William and Mary second baseman, Cullen Large, with their fifth round selection, 159th overall.

A 6-foot, 175 pound sophomore, Large is sporting 45 runs, six homers, 39 RBI and a slash line of .338/.419/.517 while also boasting a .978 fielding percentage through 56 games in 2017. The switch hitting second baseman was nam
Baseball Prospectus •

The Blue Jays Are Gaining Confidence in their Middle Relievers

Most of the conversation that’s surrounded the Blue Jays to this point has been about all the things that have gone wrong. The high profile injuries, the lackluster depth among starting pitchers, the lackluster depth at catcher, the poor start that’s rendered the rest of the season an uphill climb, overall offensive woes and so on and so forth. That’s not to say that those stories have been unfair – this season has been slow to get off the ground and any playoff hopes are counting on a nice litt

Saying Goodbye to an Unexpected Era

I was about a month old when the Blue Jays last won the World Series. It’s been mostly downhill since.

Cursed with the burden of rooting for Toronto’s teams while growing up around New York and spending my college years in Boston, it’s been two decades of watching everyone else and their teams celebrate various stupid championships. It hasn’t been ideal, and I have the Frank Thomas jersey in my closet to prove it.

Technically the Jays have reached the summit in my lifetime. I obviously have no
Baseball Prospectus •

ALDS Game 3 Recap: Blue Jays 7, Rangers 6; Tonight We Feast

Aaron Sanchez was on the mound for Toronto. Colby Lewis for Texas. It wasn’t supposed to be a fair fight.

Yet, it took extra innings for the Blue Jays to dispatch the Rangers in the third and final game of the ALDS. There were some tense moments and high drama but the Blue Jays worked around Sanchez’s struggles and handed things over to the big bats, who combined to score the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. The Toronto Blue Jays are going to the ALCS. The Texas Rangers are going home.

Ezequiel Carrera: King of the Wall-Scrapers?

Ezequiel Carrera is currently in his sixth Major League season. He has 931 career plate appearances; 834 at bats. He has 10 home runs. Five of those have come this year; none bigger than Monday night’s solo shot to the leftmost point of left field. It hung in the air, dragged those extra inches over the wall, by either the cumulative willpower of the entire Rogers Centre, or the collective gust created by the entire 100 Level inhaling simultaneously. Either way, it cleared the wall and the Jays
Baseball Prospectus •

Recap: Blue Jays 3, Twins 2; Biagini Grants Wish and Saves Win

On Star Wars night at Target Field, this wasn’t the Blue Jays offense you were looking for. Despite a reshuffled lineup that featured Jose Bautista leading off, the Blue Jays struggled to score and had to work hard to capitalize on another great start from Marco Estrada. They finally received some timely hits and were able to earn a victory, defeating the Twins in 11 innings.

This game was certainly a pitcher’s duel, as Ervin Santana and Marco Estrada both completed 8.0 innings of two run ball.

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