Jays get Josh Donaldson for Lawrie, Graveman, Nolin and Barreto

[Laika]

2009

The Good: Smoak easily projects as an impact hitter in the middle of a lineup. He has the approach of a big leaguer, as well as a quick, fluid swing with massive leverage that should allow him to hit for average and power from both sides of the plate. He's a very good defensive first baseman who rarely makes errors, and features a nice throwing arm.

Perfect World Projection: A third-slot hitter in the lineup of a championship-level team.

Glass Half Empty: Perhaps he'll hit fifth? Let's face it, he's going to hit.

2010

The Good: Smoak projects as a middle-of-the-order run producer who can score and drive in 100 runs annually. He has the best plate discipline in the organization, and among the best in baseball, with plus raw power from both sides. He has good instincts for the game and is a solid to plus defender at first.

Perfect World Projection: The same as before: a switch-hitting Justin Morneau.

 

#scouts

[Boxcar]

Mariners tho

[reedjohnsonfan]

Every time I've seen Smoak play it's like he's swinging a pool noodle.

 

You're going based on look. His bat speed isn't very good for a big guy IMO, I wish we could have stats on that. Look at Bautista, Vlad Guerrero, Josh Hamilton (even these days), etc... he's nowhere near elite power hitter level.

[Spanky99]

You're going based on look. His bat speed isn't very good for a big guy IMO, I wish we could have stats on that. Look at Bautista, Vlad Guerrero, Josh Hamilton (even these days), etc... he's nowhere near elite power hitter level.

 

S'up?

[Stangstag]

No he doesn't you're making that up. He's a big guy, it ends there.

 

Almost every homerun video i've watched of Smoak ended with the baseball deep in the outfield seats. I'm not looking at advanced stats, just going by eye. I could be wrong but he looks like he has crazy power.

[Orgfiller]

Almost every homerun video i've watched of Smoak ended with the baseball deep in the outfield seats. I'm not looking at advanced stats, just going by eye. I could be wrong but he looks like he has crazy power.

 

I think he's somewhere in between RJF and your posts, he doesn't have massive power but he doesn't lack bat speed either.

 

When he gets a hold of one his swing is beautiful:

http://m.mlb.com/video/v33222891/laasea-smoak-belts-a-solo-homer-to-right-field/?c_id=mlb

http://m.mlb.com/video/v32829793/tbsea-smoak-hits-a-tworun-shot-to-leftcenter/?c_id=mlb

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=32573383&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_longest_drives

http://m.mlb.com/video/v31739303/sealaa-smoak-crushes-threerun-shot-in-ninth/?c_id=mlb

[Ehjays]

I have hope for Smoak. He has some things going for him, pedigree, good plate discipline. I really wouldn't be surprised to see him turn his career around in Toronto.

 

I agree, I'm looking forward to see what he can do and remember we got him on the cheap (1 million)

[flafson]

He seems to have an insane amount of coverage with his bat. My guess is, he may have a problem when pitchers are going in on him.

[Jimcanuck]

so smoak gonna hit HR beauties like rasmus?

 

just did fangraphs comparison - the OBP/age is almost identical between the two

 

very possible smoak > rasmus at the plate in Rogers Centre

[Atothe]

I think a lot hinges on what they do to upgrade the offence at 2B. If they leave it as is the 8 hole is pretty weak regardless of what internal option they use ie: Izzy/Muni/Goins (hopefully Travis emerges as a threat at the plate). If buy some miracle they decide to sign Lowrie it could go a long way to improving the quality of pitches Smoak gets.

 

Having Saunders,Lowrie,Smoak,Pompey hitting 6,7,8,9 is probably better for Smoak than Saunders,Smoak,Izzy,Pompey. Pitchers won't be as worried about walking Smoak to get to Izzy as they would be to get to Pompey and turning the lineup over.

 

Another scenario I could see developing is moving Donaldson and/or Martin down in the order agaist righties. Saunders,Donaldson,Smoak,2B with Pompey hitting second.(something like that).

 

what does similarities between Smoak and Rasmus have to do with the second base position?

[Orgfiller]

I think a lot hinges on what they do to upgrade the offence at 2B. If they leave it as is the 8 hole is pretty weak regardless of what internal option they use ie: Izzy/Muni/Goins (hopefully Travis emerges as a threat at the plate). If buy some miracle they decide to sign Lowrie it could go a long way to improving the quality of pitches Smoak gets.

 

Having Saunders,Lowrie,Smoak,Pompey hitting 6,7,8,9 is probably better for Smoak than Saunders,Smoak,Izzy,Pompey. Pitchers won't be as worried about walking Smoak to get to Izzy as they would be to get to Pompey and turning the lineup over.

 

Another scenario I could see developing is moving Donaldson and/or Martin down in the order agaist righties. Saunders,Donaldson,Smoak,2B with Pompey hitting second.(something like that).

I strongly disagree with the last part, you want your best hitters coming up to the plate as much as possible, moving them down in the order prevents the team from maximizing his PA.

[burlingtonbandit]

Still a lot of offseason left but Blue Jays Banter wonders if we are a better team now than in September.

 

http://www.bluejaysplus.com/blue-jays-offense-better/#sthash.4aWYJsn4.dpbs

 

While the idea was great this article could have been written much better. Would of been better had he just used projections and estimated PA to come up with how good the lineup will be this year compared to last year. Saying one position is upgraded vs another position being a downgrade is a really flawed strategy since upgrades and downgrades can mean different amounts of value.

[Angrioter]

Bump

 

 

Bringer of Rain is good as s***

[CrackerJack]

looking forward to seeing Donaldson at the hot corner for at least 150 games this season ... when we got less than 40 full games out of Lawrie at 3rd base last year.

[HERPDERP]

I still enjoying reading the first 5 pages of this thread

[King]

Including donaldson's salary, not a fan of this.

 

facepalm

[Sammy225]

I remember being in Mexico for the honeymoon when this happened and i was wearing my jays at in the pool and some New York idiot came up to me and started saying we have the best third baseman in the league. Just looked at him with a puzzled look and.... What? Great part of the trip lol....

[Angrioter]

I remember being in Mexico for the honeymoon when this happened and i was wearing my jays at in the pool and some New York idiot came up to me and started saying we have the best third baseman in the league. Just looked at him with a puzzled look and.... What? Great part of the trip lol....

 

I remember two year ago when I tweeted to a Yankee fan "f*** you bro, now we have a best SS than yours"

 

He answer me the next day, after Reyes injury at Kansas "Short period of time. Your team always sux"

[kcjaysfan]

Kansas

 

The Royals play in Missouri, not Kansas.

[TheHurl]

The Royals play in Missouri, not Kansas.

 

Kansas...Missouri. Dominican...Mexican. It's all the same

[kcjaysfan]

Kansas...Missouri. Dominican...Mexican. It's all the same

 

Bitch, I will cut you.

[TheHurl]

ESPN INsider article by former Mariners AGM Tony Blengino. Sorry the charts don't cut and paste correctly.

 

 

It's that time of year when media members of all stripes make their preseason predictions for both individual and team honors. It's pretty safe to say that Mike Trout is the presumptive favorite to take home the 2015 AL MVP trophy because, well, he's Mike Trout. But since it's no fun to pick the favorite -- and also because there are some red (or at least orange) flags in Trout's portfolio entering the season -- I'm picking a different horse. That would be the Toronto Blue Jays' prized offseason acquisition, third baseman Josh Donaldson.

 

Normally, when one makes a relatively unorthodox MVP pick, a fairly significant boost in performance is assumed. With Donaldson, that really isn't the case. In fact, I'd submit that all he really needs to do is bring nearly the same exact form he showed in Oakland last season north and east to Toronto and let his new environs and some fairly predictable statistical regression do the rest.

 

By most standards, Donaldson was a classic late bloomer, not earning his first major league at-bat until age 24, and not establishing himself as a full-time, full-season regular until age 27. There aren't many star-caliber big league players who fully arrive that late.

 

Though he might seem to fit the profile, Donaldson isn't a classic Oakland Athletics "Moneyball"-type draft pick, either. Like the A's oft-panned pick Jeremy Brown, Donaldson was a hit-first, defense-second catcher from the SEC who was selected with a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. Unlike Brown, Donaldson was selected by the Cubs in 2007, and then traded to Oakland just over a year later in a six-player deal involving Rich Harden heading to Chicago.

 

The Cubs utilized Donaldson exclusively as a catcher, but the A's immediately explored his versatility after the deal, using Donaldson at first and third base quite a bit, and even spotting him in the outfield. The biggest post-trade development, however, was his sudden offensive surge. After batting .217/.276/.349 as a 22-year-old in low-A ball for the Cubs, Donaldson thrived after getting an immediate promotion to the high-A California League, hitting .330/.391/.564 with Stockton.

 

Each season, I compile a list of top minor league position-player prospects based on their on-base percentage and slugging percentage relative to their league and level, adjusted for age. Traditional scouting techniques are then used to adjust the list. Donaldson's 2008 post-trade performance landed him on this list for the only time in his minor league career, at No. 79. For a catcher, that would be a pretty solid offensive ranking. As a potential future corner infielder, it marked him as a player to watch, but not a future star.

 

He basically hasn't stopped hitting since that late 2008 breakout. He also has become a strong hot-corner defender and a consistent run producer despite playing his home games in a pitcher-friendly park in Oakland. It has very quietly translated into a pair of top-10 MVP voting finishes in his only two seasons as a regular (fourth in the voting in 2013, eighth last year).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

K 18.7% 101 52

BB 10.9% 140 83

POP 10.9% 135 84

FLY 28.4% 99 50

LD 17.3% 82 4

GB 43.4% 103 57

 

 

 

To get a better feel for his offensive game, and for the contextual realities affecting him in both his past and future, let's look at Donaldson's plate appearance frequency and production by ball-in-play (BIP) data for 2014. First, we look at frequency info in the corresponding table. The "REL" column presents his plate appearance frequencies on a scale, with 100 representing MLB average. The "Pct." column represents this data in percentile rank form, so for instance, his K rate is in the 52nd percentile of major league position players, higher than 51 percent of his peers.

 

First of all, his K and BB rates form a very strong base for a power hitter. His K rate is just slightly above the average of all AL regulars (in the 52nd percentile), while his BB rate ranks very high, in the 83rd percentile. This gives plenty of margin for error for shortcomings elsewhere, such as his ridiculously low line drive rate.

 

That's right, Josh Donaldson had a big 2014 despite an extremely low line drive rate, with a minuscule percentile rank of 4. Exactly three AL players with 215 batted balls had a lower line drive rate than Donaldson last season: Alex Gordon, Ian Kinsler and Gordon Beckham. Liner rates fluctuate more than those of other BIP types from season to season, so one should expect the Jays' new third-sacker, who posted a liner percentile rank of 56 in 2013, to hit a bunch more liners in 2015.

 

So there's one fairly significant reason why Donaldson's performance could be even better this season. But frequencies tell us only so much; batted-ball authority tells us even more, and it drives the production by BIP type data:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donaldson

 

AVG

 

OBP

 

SLG

 

REL Prod.

 

Adj. Prod.

 

TOR prod.

 

 

FLY .341 -- 1.081 201 275 327

LD .560 -- .840 81 121 134

GB .303 -- .330 153 134 131

ALL BIP .322 -- .575 115 139 152

ALL PA .253 .336 .453 124 144 156

 

 

 

For the purposes of this exercise, all sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies are counted as outs. The "REL Prod." column compares Donaldson's actual production allowed on each BIP type to the MLB average of 100. The "Adj. Prod." column adjusts that figure for context; it measures how he would have performed if each of his balls in play were hit in a neutral park. I've added an extra column at the right to further adjust the data as if 50 percent of his games were played in his new home park in Toronto, Rogers Centre.

 

Donaldson did plenty of damage on fly balls last season, batting .341 with a 1.081 slugging percentage on balls in the air, for a 201 actual REL PRD figure. Adjusted for context, however, he was even better. His 275 adjusted production figure ranked fourth in the AL behind Chris Carter (329), Chris Davis (321) and Jose Abreu (296). Carter and Davis lack Donaldson's contact ability and plate discipline, so that leaves him and Abreu as the elite power hitters in the AL.

 

Not only did Donaldson hit relatively few line drives in 2014, he was also unlucky with regard to the outcome of the liners he did hit. His 81 actual REL Prod. on liners is adjusted upward sharply to 121 for context. He just happened to line a lot of balls at people last season.

 

On all balls in play, his actual 115 REL Prod., which is decent, is adjusted upward significantly for context to 139, which is really good. Add back the K's and walks and those figures move up to 124 and 144, respectively. Simply put, the offense-suppressing impact of his home park, which included the most expansive foul territory in the major leagues, and pure random chance conspired to hold Donaldson's 2014 numbers down.

 

After hitting in a pitchers park in Oakland, Donaldson should thrive playing half his games at Rogers Centre, which is much more favorable for hitters.

Let's now look at the far right column in the table above. Each year I compile my own park factors based on batted-ball data. In 2014, Rogers Centre had the fourth-highest fly ball park factor (134.8), the third-highest line drive park factor (108.4) and the third-highest overall (114.7). It also had the fourth-highest home run park factor (127) and second-highest doubles factor (119). Rogers Centre is one of the few major league parks where a line drive can turn into a home run, especially to left and left-center field.

 

Bottom line: This park is tailor-made for Donaldson.

 

Playing half of his games in Toronto, his fly ball adjusted production swells to 327, and his overall adjusted production increases to 156. Break it all down, and here's what you get: Donaldson posted a .255/.342/.456 slash line in 2014 playing half his games in a pitchers' park. In a neutral park, based on his own personal BIP speed/angle mix, he "should" have batted .275/.355/.501. But playing half of his games in Toronto, that 2014 performance gets marked up to .283/.362/.534.

 

There are no red or even orange flags in his batted-ball mix that would be cause for caution. His fly ball and ground ball rates aren't extreme, and neither are his pull rates in the air or on the ground. In fact, he has plenty of room to selectively pull the ball more frequently in the air without having to worry about being overshifted on the ground.

 

It gets even better, though. Remember that microscopic liner rate? Well, those contextualized projections of Donaldson's 2014 true talent level that we just made were based on it. What if he were to post an AL-average 21.0 percent liner rate, with all else remaining equal? Well, then we would have a .284/.363/.511 hitter (150 adjusted production) in a neutral environment, and a .293/.371/.544 line (163 adjusted production) playing half his games in Toronto. Now that's MVP-caliber stuff right there.

 

Sure, a whole lot can go wrong on the way to an MVP award. Obviously there is the potential for injury, and who knows, maybe whatever it was about the Oakland organization that helped him become an elite bat will be greatly missed by him in his new home. It's pretty clear, however, that Donaldson brings value in all phases of the game, and was even better last season than his raw offensive numbers suggested. Put all of that ability into an ideal context, and great things could happen. MVP seasons could happen.

[Angrioter]

Donaldson MVP

[Deadpool]

Is Trout dead?

 

Read the above article...

[NorthOf49]

Is Trout dead?

Don't you recall? Trout can't hit the high fastball. #bust

[L54]

Nice read. Thanks Hurl.

[Angrioter]

Is Trout dead?

 

Read perra!!

[Spanky99]

Thanks Hurl, that read was incredibly boner inducing!

[HERPDERP]

Apparently Donaldson said on the radio that he was talking about hitting and his stance with Bautista, and those changes helped him hit a home run off a two seamer, which he hasn't done before.

[GNick49]

Kendall Graveman was hammered for six earned runs in 4 2/3 innings Saturday in a loss to the Astros.

 

Graveman gave up nine hits and struck out only one in another ugly start. He tossed 5 1/3 scoreless innings against this same Astros team on April 14, but the 24-year-old right-hander even had some issues in that outing. Graveman now has an 8.27 ERA and 2.02 WHIP in 16 1/3 frames this season. It may be time for the A's to install Jesse Chavez as their fifth starter.