Toronto lost its home game to the Cincinnati Reds 3-6 on the 20th (Korea Standard Time). It remains in fifth place in the AL East with 58 wins and 67 losses (winning percentage .464). It has been out of the rankings since early June, and has become a "seller" ahead of the trade deadline at the end of July.
Starting pitcher Yusei Kikuchi (Houston Astros), reliever Yusei Kikuchi (Seattle Mariners), reliever Lee Mi Garcia (Seattle Cubs), Nate Pearson (Chicago Cubs), Trevor Richards (Minnesota Twins), catcher Danny Jansen (Boston Red Sox), infielder Justin Turner (Seattle), outfielder Kevin Kiermaier (LA Dodgers), and utility Isaiah Kiner Palepa (Pittsburgh Pirates) have been sold.
He has been performing fairly well in August with eight wins, eight losses, and a 50% win rate, but his chances of playing in fall baseball have disappeared as he has lifted his spirits early on. He is also lagging behind the Tampa Bay Rays (62-61-loss winning rate of .504), which are ranked fourth in the district, by a gap of five games. He is most likely to rank last in the district for the first time in 11 years since his 74-88 winning rate of .473 in 2013. Toronto, which advanced to the third postseason for four years between 2020 and 2023, is backpedaling completely.
In this situation, the team's veteran starter Bashit also criticized the club head-on. On the baseball podcast "The Chris Rose Rotation" on the 20th, Bashit pointed out the Toronot team's move to not actively participate after failing to recruit Ohtani last winter.
"We tried to get Ohtani for 700 million dollars, but we couldn't. It was a reality. If it didn't work, we should have got another elite player," Bassett said. "We need three to four superstars in baseball today. Look at the really good teams. There should be three to four superstars, not one superstar. This is the essence of baseball right now. No matter how outstanding a player is, one to two such players in the lineup cannot perform well. It's impossible."
Ohtani signed a 10-year contract worth 700 million dollars with the Dodgers last winter, the highest in the history of professional sports. Toronto also made a proposal close to that, but Ohtani's choice was the Dodgers, which had other MVP superstars such as Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. For Ohtani, who wanted a team that could win the championship, the Dodgers was a much more attractive option than Toronto.
After missing Ohtani, Toronto recruited Cuban pitcher Yariel Rodriguez (five-year, 32 million dollars), veteran infielder Turner (one-year, 13 million dollars), and utility Kiner-Palepa (two-year, 15 million dollars), but they did not have the capacity to significantly change their team's performance. Yamamoto also sought after Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but gave up when the price of his team's pitcher increased significantly. Yamamoto signed with the Dodgers, which will mark the highest price ever for a 12-year, 325 million dollars for a Major League pitcher.
Referring to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is under intensive checks, Bathit said, "We need more reinforcement of our batters to protect Guerrero, and the pitching staff needs to be much better. We lost the entire bullpen last year," pointing out the failure to strengthen our pitching capabilities after the failed recruitment of Ohtani.토토사이트 추천
On the reason for his team's sluggish performance, Bassett said, "There are so many things to talk about. We can talk about things that our team can't do for 45 minutes. But I don't think it's best for the organization to talk about such things publicly," adding that there are many internal problems.
As his comments made headlines, SportsNet Canadian media also heard additional comments from him. "It's not to criticize the club. Ohtani clearly chose a great team, and he had no other choice. I can't say we didn't have great ambitions at our front desk. They chased the best player possible," he said.
Since his Major League debut with the Chicago White Sox in 2014, right-hander Bassett has played for the Oakland Athletics and the New York Mets since last year. His career performance in the 10 seasons has been 71 wins and 54 losses with a 3.60 strikeout and 991 ERA in 194 games (181 starts and 1,076 ⅓ innings). He was also named an All-Star once in 2021 when he was with the Oakland Athletics.
After finishing the 2022 season, he came to Toronto as a three-year, 63 million-dollar FA contract. Last year, in his first season of the contract, he pitched 200 innings in his career-high 33 games, and became the AL's most wins with 16 wins and 8 losses and a 3.60 strikeouts. This season, he has struggled in 25 games (139 innings) with 9 wins and 12 losses with a 4.34 strikeout and 134 strikeouts, leaving only one win to win in double-digit wins for the fourth consecutive year.