General 2019 Blue Jays Discussion Thread

[Ex Player]

BTW what nationality do you guys think the name Waguespack is???

It aint no last name I ever heard of.

 

It sounds Eastern European for some reason

[Laika]

BTW what nationality do you guys think the name Waguespack is???

It aint no last name I ever heard of.

 

It sounds Eastern European for some reason

 

Probably an Americanization of a name like Wagenspach, so German or some s*** 200+ years ago.

[Abomination]

BTW what nationality do you guys think the name Waguespack is???

It aint no last name I ever heard of.

 

It sounds Eastern European for some reason

 

I'm kind of thinking Polish or German.

[Grant77]

BTW what nationality do you guys think the name Waguespack is???

It aint no last name I ever heard of.

 

It sounds Eastern European for some reason

 

A quick google search seems to indicate that the name is French and/or German, from the Rhine region.

[Angrioter]

Devers 22

6'

237

 

 

Vladdy 20

6'1"

200

 

what?

[Slade]

Devers 22

6'

237

 

 

Vladdy 20

6'1"

200

 

what?

 

Vlad 200? Where are you getting those numbers? He is listed at 250lbs.

[Krylian]

Vlad 200? Where are you getting those numbers? He is listed at 250lbs.

 

He was listed at 200 when he signed at 16 I think.

[Bobthe4th]

Bo starting his career on fire, pretty much like we though Vlad would. Bo is already worth more WAR!

 

Those two are going to be epic for us next year after going through the usual rookie up and downs.

[THANOS]

Bo starting his career on fire, pretty much like we though Vlad would. Bo is already worth more WAR!

 

Those two are going to be epic for us next year after going through the usual rookie up and downs.

 

Bo will most likely be a higher WAR player if he hits like the talent he is, mainly because of the position he plays.

 

Bo playing a below avg to avg SS is worth much more WAR than a below avg to avg 3B (though Vlad looks to be well below avg). Vlad's hitting would have to be ridiculous to produce 6+ WAR seasons consistently, which I could see Bo doing, optimistically.

[Barkerfan23]

"we could easily conceivably, go through an off-season where we do nothing but add pitching. And what we would pitching too is a pretty good start. "

 

Atkins on baseball central.

[Bobthe4th]

Bo will most likely be a higher WAR player if he hits like the talent he is, mainly because of the position he plays.

 

Bo playing a below avg to avg SS is worth much more WAR than a below avg to avg 3B (though Vlad looks to be well below avg). Vlad's hitting would have to be ridiculous to produce 6+ WAR seasons consistently, which I could see Bo doing, optimistically.

 

That is optimistic, there’s a reason Vlad was considered one of the most hyped prospects ever. Still if either come close to that we’ll be in a great position!

 

FWIW 4 of the top 10 WAR leaders last year were 3B and that doesn’t even include Donaldson, Bryant or Arenado.

[Barkerfan23]

Barker: "where do you see Derek Fisher fitting in"

 

Ross Atkins: "Its hard to find someone like Derek Fisher. We are elated to adding him, projects from our scout to be an average centre fielder, above average run tool, potentially plus on the corners. He has raw power and elite plate discipline????????, hasn't had the opportunity. We were very fortunate to add him. We will see what he becomes, but there is tremendous upside."

[BTS]

"we could easily conceivably, go through an off-season where we do nothing but add pitching. And what we would pitching too is a pretty good start. "

 

Atkins on baseball central.

 

 

I wish he'd have more awareness of how insane this kind of comment will sound to the average fan. Their position player core next year is Gurriel, Biggio, Vlad, Bichette, and Jansen. That's 5 guys who are likely to be good players. They're also tied to Grichuk, and have an option on Galvis, but talking like he shouldn't be actively looking to add bats is completely tone deaf.

 

It's the same story with the pitching. The staff right now is one elite reliever (Giles), a few back end starters (Thornton, Shoemaker's corpse, Borucki if his arm is still attached to his body come April), and bunch of trash. That's not a pretty good start, it's a complete tire fire.

 

He's like the fantasy baseball owner who brags about his roster every spring and always misses the playoffs. You'd think he would have learned last August when he was gushing about how it would be really hard to upgrade the 25-man roster.

[Barkerfan23]

"one of the hardest things to acquire is AAA pitching, others may call that controllable pitching. You wont acquire that from a team that is looking to contend and looking for pitching. We have that now in Anthony Kay, Merryweather, Murphy, Pearson, Zeuch, and SWR. Now we have upper level AAA pitching with Major league trait pitching

 

I will our fans could see the confidence and cohesion and leadership happening in our club house. It will pay dividends"

 

Ross Atkins

[glory]

The Braves free agent signings have been excellent value (Donaldson, McCann, Keuchel). They extended Acuna and Albies to franchise-changing surplus contracts. They have a better farm system than Toronto (largely inherited), and they have a first-place team at the MLB level that wasn't constructed by selling high-value prospects (Anthopoulos' biggest criticism in Toronto).

 

So yeah, Atlanta's front office is superior to Toronto's at all aspects of baseball except possibly drafting.

 

List of AA moves with big league implications..

 

2018

Kemp (1.6 WAR) to LA for Culberson (1.0 WAR), Gonzalez (N/A), Kazmir (N/A), McCarthy (0.2 WAR)

Signed Danny Santana (0.1)

Traded for Preston Tucker (0.0 WAR)

Signed Peter Bourjos (-0.1 WAR)

Signed Ryan Flaherty (-0.4 WAR)

Signed Jose Bautista (-0.1 WAR)

Traded international bonus money for Jonny Venters (0.2 WAR)

Traded for Adam Duvall (-0.5 WAR)

Traded international bonus money for Brad Brach (0.3 WAR)

Traded for Kevin Gausman (0.8 WAR, 10 starts)

 

That was his entire contribution to the 2018 Braves playoff team that won 90 games. Shatkins (or ShaCava) did more to help the 2016 Jays make the playoffs from a pure value standpoint of players they acquired/signed.

 

2019

Signed Josh Donaldson (3.3 WAR) ---> good move

Signed Brian McCann (1.0 WAR)

Signed Nick Markakis (0.2 WAR)

Signed Josh Tomlin (0.0 WAR, 59.1 IP)

Traded for Anthony Swarszak (0.1 WAR, 24 IP)

Signed Dallas Keuchel (0.4 WAR, 4.75 FIP, 56 IP)

Then his trade deadline moves that only have a week of sample size

 

If you prefer AA to Atkins, that is one thing. But if you say AA helped the Braves the last two years over practically anyone else who could have walked into that situation? Get the F out of here.

 

I'll give you the extensions. Smart moves by AA, even though taking advantage of dirt poor kids trying to support their families is not something I'd be too cool with, but hey it's not my life.

[BTS]

A lot of his philosophy sounds very Rays-ish. Just as many 40-45 FV guys that the 40 man can hold, all with 7 years of control (obviously omitting the projected stars that both teams have, of which we might only have one or two).

 

Sanchez/Stroman just don't fit the timeline because they're late 20's UFAs. I think we all get that. But Atkins probably knew that as soon as he took the job. You can just look at the Spotrac page four years ago, and figure that out. Selling them is not a problem but it's a sell low.

 

It's hard to know what it actually takes in this division because the Yankees make more effective small market moves than we do. So you need stars and you need depth. It hurts when you lose Urshela to the Yankees and he's pacing as a 4 win player with multiple years. Or the Yankees pick up Tauchman who nuked the PCL year after year and predictably he's producing. Is he not what Atkins thinks Fisher is, just without the acquisition cost?

 

A+ philosophy but not enough execution so far IMO.

 

I think the philosophy overall is sound, but I wouldn't call it A+ at this point until they display that they're actually willing to pay star money to star players. We're not going to out-Rays the Rays, but we have the advantage of being able to throw some pretty serious cash around if we want to, and that should bridge the gap if the FO is mostly competent.

 

I'm bothered by the fact that they apparently didn't even offer Stroman an extension. The Rays absolutely trade Stroman if they're in our shoes, but do they trade Stroman in our shoes if they have the resources to take payroll to $150M? There are valid reason for letting Stro go (empirical evidence that he's at high risk of ageing poorly, unreasonable contract demands etc...), but that decision could also have been influenced by reasons that would be concerning (Stro was mean to Atkins, Atkins has a Jimcanuck philosophy to team building and never really considered keeping the 28-year old on FA money).

[glory]

I think the philosophy is good but the trading is bad. Everything else, for the most part, has been fine. Drafting, int'l signings, roster management. The free agents are hit or miss (Morales being the main miss) but you'll have bad FA signings here and there. Smoak extension was good foresight, Grichuk extension remains to be seen.

 

I'll give them a slight pass for the bad timing in trades since it could have been an ownership call, but the trade returns definitely pushed the potential timeline back a bit. Maybe not that far back, but still a setback. If they started selling at the 2017 deadline or even pre-2018 off season, that small window of time could have changed the level of talent significantly (ex. Flaherty instead of Merryweather, etc).

[Barkerfan23]

I've s*** on Atkins so much. The interview felt like he was saying trust me I know what I'm doing

[DigitalRock]

Bo will most likely be a higher WAR player if he hits like the talent he is, mainly because of the position he plays.

 

Bo playing a below avg to avg SS is worth much more WAR than a below avg to avg 3B (though Vlad looks to be well below avg). Vlad's hitting would have to be ridiculous to produce 6+ WAR seasons consistently, which I could see Bo doing, optimistically.

 

I don't know about that... Vlads hit tool and power is rare.... I love Bo but slow down.

[BTS]

I think any FO has to spend the money if they have it. You are just using money to acquire assets that can be used to do other things if you want. I can't believe that Shatkins would be averse to spending money, it's just a question of whether it's available.

 

I would sign Wheeler this year, personally. Greinke just got a f***ing haul and he's 36 years old and making more than Wheeler would cost. It's a free asset. I would love to see a signing like that regardless of the timeline.

 

I want to hear about the Jays in heavy on Gerrit Cole. He might have no interest in coming here, and there’s no getting around that if it’s the case, but Toronto is absolutely the kind of market that should be willing to throw 200M at a legit ace. This is the best pitcher to hit the market since Scherzer.

[z3r0s]

I tend to agree. We have 4-5 pitchers covered. We have a few pitchers would 'could' pitch at the top of a rotation if things work out. But having a legit ace at the top is probably the only way we get 'competitive' in any kind of near time-frame. Would be nice to see them grab a top flight pitcher and someone who could reliably pitch as at least a #3.

[Sorrow]

BTS I think they legitimately approached Stroman's agent and asked for a ballpark figure, got something like 15M + season and they don't value Stroman at that and just walked right away.

[glory]

Anyone else find it absurd that the Jays are using the DH spot to move guys around so that Freddy Galvis can play everyday? I know I can't put anything past Montoyost, but Smoak/Galvis should either be on other teams or used way more sparingly.

[Barkerfan23]

I tend to agree. We have 4-5 pitchers covered. We have a few pitchers would 'could' pitch at the top of a rotation if things work out. But having a legit ace at the top is probably the only way we get 'competitive' in any kind of near time-frame. Would be nice to see them grab a top flight pitcher and someone who could reliably pitch as at least a #3.

 

Atkins said he expects some guys to overperform at the MLB level, Their analytics show that at least one or two guys could evolve into more than what they currently are.

[Abomination]

BTS I think they legitimately approached Stroman's agent and asked for a ballpark figure, got something like 15M + season and they don't value Stroman at that and just walked right away.

 

If Stroman was only asking for that, they should have taken it before the agent could reconsider no matter how much he pissed the front office off. That's under 5M / WAR. I suspect Stroman's camp was probably asking in the 22M - 25M range.

[Brownie19]

Barker: "where do you see Derek Fisher fitting in"

 

Ross Atkins: "Its hard to find someone like Derek Fisher. We are elated to adding him, projects from our scout to be an average centre fielder, above average run tool, potentially plus on the corners. He has raw power and elite plate discipline????????, hasn't had the opportunity. We were very fortunate to add him. We will see what he becomes, but there is tremendous upside."

 

I'll assume Ross didn't ask this in the form of a question and you're simply adding that. He's posted 14 BB% in AAA the past 2 years and a 16.5 BB% in is only year in AA. I guess I'd question the use of the word 'elite' - but that's subjective. Plus his EV is 3rd in the MLB this year.

 

The reality is, he has A LOT of similar traits that Grichuk has...but he comes with significantly better plate discipline.

[Dick_Pole]

Anyone else find it absurd that the Jays are using the DH spot to move guys around so that Freddy Galvis can play everyday? I know I can't put anything past Montoyost, but Smoak/Galvis should either be on other teams or used way more sparingly.

 

No. If the goal is to reduce rookie workloads, then this is exactly how it should be done. I'm fine with this.

[saskjayfan]

I'll assume Ross didn't ask this in the form of a question and you're simply adding that. He's posted 14 BB% in AAA the past 2 years and a 16.5 BB% in is only year in AA. I guess I'd question the use of the word 'elite' - but that's subjective. Plus his EV is 3rd in the MLB this year.

 

The reality is, he has A LOT of similar traits that Grichuk has...but he comes with significantly better plate discipline.

 

Girchuk was showing power at the big league level at 23. Derek Fisher is 25 and hasn't exactly excelled at the big league level until now and has PCL stats the last 3 years. I will give you he has significantly better plate discipline than Grichuk, but pretty much everyone does.

[gruber92]

Atkins said he expects some guys to overperform at the MLB level, Their analytics show that at least one or two guys could evolve into more than what they currently are.

 

Only an irresponsible GM would bank on something like this. I think spending on a legit #1 or 2 along with a proven durable #3-4 would do this team a world of good in so many ways. The investment would be well worth it.

[gruber92]

No. If the goal is to reduce rookie workloads, then this is exactly how it should be done. I'm fine with this.

 

Rookie workloads for position players is some made up stupid s*** that some moron came up with. A positional playing rookie literally doesn't need much time off at all, maybe once/twice a month on top of scheduled days off.