Blue Jays, Randal Grichuk agree on five-year, $52-million extension

[Dr. Dinger]

He's been > 2 war in 3 of his 4 full seasons, and was really only a CF in one of them. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him average 2.5 WAR a year for the contract, although that's certainly not a given.

 

For his career he's 2.9 WAR per 600 PAs. He just needs to stay healthy and he could put up 10+ WAR quite easily over this contract.

[Dr. Dinger]

Dinger is on a roll ITT.

 

I wish I'd thought of that front-loading stuff during the pod last night, I would have sounded so smort.

[glory]

Your rephrasing still misses the point. There are different ways to create runs and focusing on just one component misses the forest for the trees. My oak tree may be skinny while my pine tree may be thick, while yours are equally girthy. However, if we both produce the same quantity of O2, then it makes no difference.

 

If you want to say "THIS TEAM NEEDS TO CREATE MORE RUNS!"... or more O2, then I agree with you. However focusing on OBP or BB rate specifically is to incorrectly frame the problem.

 

If you look at the top 30 players in wRC+ in 2018, it took me to the 24th ranked player (Baez) to find someone with a BB% below 9%, and he had a BABIP close to .350.

 

If you focus just on players who had a 120 wRC+ or above (54 players total), the players who had BB%'s at or below 7% (pretty much Grichuk's ceiling to this point) were Baez (4.5), Andujar (4.1), Gennett (6.6), Piscotty (6.9), and Cron (6.6).

 

WHat you are saying is not wrong, a 120 wrc+ is a 120 wrc+ regardless of how it happens, but look at the probability of Grichuk being one of those players (or better) with his BB%. It is a detriment to his game.

 

That's not meant to be a dig at Grichuk, he's not even close to one of the team's issues right now, but you're fooling yourself if you think a lineup full of players who walk at 5% clip is not going to lead to middling offensive performance overall. It's hard to be good offensively with that type of walk rate.

[Krylian]

I wish I'd thought of that front-loading stuff during the pod last night, I would have sounded so smort.

 

Nicely done

[Carlos Danger]

They should, and do, value holistic offensive stats like wOBA or wRC+, which factor in both the ability to get on base and hit for power, among other skills. There's no reason why they should focus specifically on OBP. If a guy slashes .366/.526 or .393/.496 but his wRC+ is 135 either way, it makes no difference whether he's more on-base oriented or power oriented. Given the same number of PAs he will create the same number of runs. It could very well be that this front office finds that OBP>SLG guys are paid more per RC than SLG>OBP guys, so they lean towards the latter strictly as a means of creating value.

 

I don't agree with this unless it is in vacuum. As far a a team concept I would rather have my guy in this case with a higher OBP then power. The above example only accounts for runs this player creates. If we have guys like Vlad and Bichette on the Horizon, I want players on base for them to hit with for power rather then a guy who gets on base less but gets more doubles etc.

[Dr. Dinger]

That's not meant to be a dig at Grichuk, he's not even close to one of the team's issues right now, but you're fooling yourself if you think a lineup full of players who walk at 5% clip is not going to lead to middling offensive performance overall. It's hard to be good offensively with that type of walk rate.

 

It sounds like your problem is that this lineup doesn't have enough offensive stars, but you think the problem is that Grichuk isn't an offensive star. Nobody, including the front office, thinks Grichuk is going to be the best hitter on a competitive team.

[Dr. Dinger]

I don't agree with this unless it is in vacuum. As far a a team concept I would rather have my guy in this case with a higher OBP then power. The above example only accounts for runs this player creates. If we have guys like Vlad and Bichette on the Horizon, I want players on base for them to hit with for power rather then a guy who gets on base less but gets more doubles etc.

 

I want players who get on base a ton AND hit for a ton of power! Let's get more of those.

[Ray]

Lots of blanket statements in this thread for a team where the average age position player age is 26.6. The vast majority of players don't even really figure it out until ages 26-28. Smoak himself didn't really figure it out till 30.

 

It's unfair to label guys like Teoscar as what they are just yet imo. Teoscar may never have a .350 OBP, but if his ceiling is a .320 OBP with a .500 SLG, that's still really good. Again, he's still only 26. Not entirely uncommon for players to keep improving.

[Laika]

If you look at the top 30 players in wRC+ in 2018, it took me to the 24th ranked player (Baez) to find someone with a BB% below 9%, and he had a BABIP close to .350.

 

If you focus just on players who had a 120 wRC+ or above (54 players total), the players who had BB%'s at or below 7% (pretty much Grichuk's ceiling to this point) were Baez (4.5), Andujar (4.1), Gennett (6.6), Piscotty (6.9), and Cron (6.6).

 

WHat you are saying is not wrong, a 120 wrc+ is a 120 wrc+ regardless of how it happens, but look at the probability of Grichuk being one of those players (or better) with his BB%. It is a detriment to his game.

 

That's not meant to be a dig at Grichuk, he's not even close to one of the team's issues right now, but you're fooling yourself if you think a lineup full of players who walk at 5% clip is not going to lead to middling offensive performance overall. It's hard to be good offensively with that type of walk rate.

 

Obviously players that walk are good, players that hit for power are good, and players that do both are doubly good.

 

Toronto was and is in the market of trying to acquire low-cost players with upside. In the modern game of baseball, one way to use fancy stats to sift for gold is to acquire undervalued players with nice exit velocity stats. The theory is that with some adjustments (launch angle, etc.) raw exit velo can be channeled into offensive production.

 

It's possible to teach a powerful hitter to be more patient. With experience they can learn to lay off outside pitches. Or, as they become more establishes pitchers will pitch around their power more.

 

It's very hard to teach a low power hitter to hit for more power. High BB% players are very much not a market inefficiency anymore; every team knows that outs are bad. There really is not a viable rebuild strategy in the modern game of baseball that involves going out and acquiring players that like walks. It's just not an efficient metric to focus on. There aren't much gains there.

 

It's kind of a chicken and egg thing. Sometimes, a nice batted ball profile can indicate that a player has the ability to develop into a good hitter who also might have a nice plate discipline profile. Sometimes players with nice batted ball profiles are available for cheap because their approach, or luck, etc. has lead to poor production. It's less likely that players with nice plate discipline profiles will be available for cheap because a) they might already be good or they probably have highly regarded hit tools. It also might not follow, at least not as often, that nice plate discipline profiles will indicate that a player has the ability to develop into a powerful hitter (although this has happened historically, you could probably find examples).

 

Regardless, a lot of the bats that Toronto is developing seem to be capable of taking walks so I don't think this really matters as far as Toronto is concerned. You're basically just pointing at 3 or 4 players on the current big league team who happen to hack away (Grichuk, Teoscar, Gurriel...).

[P2F]

Lots of blanket statements in this thread for a team where the average age position player age is 26.6. The vast majority of players don't even really figure it out until ages 26-28. Smoak himself didn't really figure it out till 30.

 

It's unfair to label guys like Teoscar as what they are just yet imo. Teoscar may never have a .350 OBP, but if his ceiling is a .320 OBP with a .500 SLG, that's still really good. Again, he's still only 26. Not entirely uncommon for players to keep improving.

 

Not really a direct response to you, but your post prompted this thought.

 

This season is probably the most important of the rebuild. The FO wants to determine which of the young roster players can contribute positively around Vlad (and probably Bo), so allowing the wheat to separate from the chaff this season will give Atkins a much clearer picture going forward regarding the roster makeup. Determining this will allow him to see team strengths and weaknesses, which, presumably, he would use to his advantage via FA and trades when it's truly time to go in.

[Bobthe4th]

The good part of the deal is the front loading. I just don't agree with the "if he's a 1 WAR player in years 3, 4, and 5 then he's playing up to the contract". 1 War outfielders have zero value in today's market. This contract is basically the Jays trying to buy low on Grichuk hoping he improves from here on out, kind of like Smoak. If it works then they'll look great, but if it doesn't, then yeah, a 1-2 war outfielder making $9m isn't bad, but not good either.

 

I want the Jays to start valuing Obp. Thankfully many of the prospects coming up have good on base skills (Vlad, Bo, Jansen, Tellez, Biggio) because I'm not sure how many more hackers who don't walk I can take on one roster.

 

[Brownie19]

Not really a direct response to you, but your post prompted this thought.

 

This season is probably the most important of the rebuild. The FO wants to determine which of the young roster players can contribute positively around Vlad (and probably Bo), so allowing the wheat to separate from the chaff this season will give Atkins a much clearer picture going forward regarding the roster makeup. Determining this will allow him to see team strengths and weaknesses, which, presumably, he would use to his advantage via FA and trades when it's truly time to go in.

 

Agreed. I think the team is evaluating the following positions and looking for cream to rise to the top:

 

2nd - Gurriel, Drury, Biggio (or have they move on from him at the pivot?)...need 1

DH - Teo, Tellez...need 1

OF - Teo, McKinney, Alford, Biggio...need 1, preferably 2

SP - Thornton, SRF, Merryweather, Pannone, Borucki....need 2

 

If they can get that, insert Vlad at 1st, Bo at SS, with Jansen at C and Grichuk in CF they'll be in good shape offensively. Maybe you can add a 3rd baseman (like Moose) if Vlad eats his way to 1st on the cheap via free agency and things are looking up. 2019 is like this massive audition for a lot of players.

[Dr. Dinger]

 

Jon Heyman is a VERY stupid man. Not for this, just in general.

[Jimcanuck]

Agreed. I think the team is evaluating the following positions and looking for cream to rise to the top:

 

2nd - Gurriel, Drury, Biggio (or have they move on from him at the pivot?)...need 1

DH - Teo, Tellez...need 1

OF - Teo, McKinney, Alford, Biggio...need 1, preferably 2

SP - Thornton, SRF, Merryweather, Pannone, Borucki....need 2

 

If they can get that, insert Vlad at 1st, Bo at SS, with Jansen at C and Grichuk in CF they'll be in good shape offensively. Maybe you can add a 3rd baseman (like Moose) if Vlad eats his way to 1st on the cheap via free agency and things are looking up. 2019 is like this massive audition for a lot of players.

 

Agreed, plus possibly develop a surplus of young MLB players ie. valuable trade chips.

[glory]

I never said Grichuk is a bad player. He’s a good player. But has a very risky skill set offensively because while the power is real, the walk rate is consistently bad. If he improves on that and maintains the power then you have a damn good player but right now that’s not certain.

 

My beef is mostly with people saying that if he stays a 1-2 War player that’s it’s not a big deal. Those types of players aren’t as valued in today’s game. He has the potential to improve though, and I think that’s the main reasoning behind this. They think he’s better than he’s shown.

[Terminator]

Has there been any word from the FO on whether Grichuk is definitely the guy in CF? It's a bit of a shrewd move to give him this extension, right after dealing Pillar, and then be like, "Oh by the way you're our CF now" and then watch his WAR potentially go up just from the position change.

 

That's not how WAR works.

[BlueRocky]

I never said Grichuk is a bad player. He’s a good player. But has a very risky skill set offensively because while the power is real, the walk rate is consistently bad. If he improves on that and maintains the power then you have a damn good player but right now that’s not certain.

 

My beef is mostly with people saying that if he stays a 1-2 War player that’s it’s not a big deal. Those types of players aren’t as valued in today’s game. He has the potential to improve though, and I think that’s the main reasoning behind this. They think he’s better than he’s shown.

 

We're not paying him elite money though, we're only paying him ~10M a year.

You're paying Grichuk 10M a year and asking him to double his walk rate to 10%, keep his K% 25%, hit 30 HRs, keep his ISO over .200, get 80+ RBIs..

Those stats are asking for Justin Upton which is getting paid 106M / 5 year contract. We're paying him half that much and Grichuk is younger by 4 years (27 vs 31 yrs old).

 

I'm not saying he's a 1 WAR player, I'm saying all he has to do is get 6 WAR over 5 years span to justify his 52 million, which does not seem that difficult for a guy entering his prime, especially if he can play a half-decent center field and stay healthy.

 

The non-risky offensive skill set you're looking for will never accept a measly 52M/5 Year contract, especially not at the age of 27.

[Olerud363]

That's not how WAR works.

 

It should be. If he is a good defensive center fielder he should have a higher war in center than in right. If he is a bad defensive outfielder his war should be less in center. WeÂ’ve had this conversation before but if war doesnÂ’t change when position changes why would it matter where you played anybody??

 

If you hypothetically had Kendrys Morales and Kevin keimier in the outfield would it matter which one played left and which one center?? It would surprise me if it didnÂ’t.

 

Unless my intuition is totally off on this and there are just as many difficult plays in left field as in center.

[Laika]

It should be. If he is a good defensive center fielder he should have a higher war in center than in right. If he is a bad defensive outfielder his war should be less in center. WeÂ’ve had this conversation before but if war doesnÂ’t change when position changes why would it matter where you played anybody??

 

If you hypothetically had Kendrys Morales and Kevin keimier in the outfield would it matter which one played left and which one center?? It would surprise me if it didnÂ’t.

 

Unless my intuition is totally off on this and there are just as many difficult plays in left field as in center.

 

The positional adjustments are based on data from actual players switching positions, not absurdities like Kendrys Morales playing CF.

 

Of course it matters where players play; specific players often have a best position. In real life, players also don't typically slide from DH to SS or CF. The positional adjustment scale assumes a neutral CF will be a +10 RF. Sometimes, for player specific reasons, a +10 RF might be a +5 CF; this player would benefit a bit from a positional change to CF.

 

But making the assumption that a specific player is special and has characteristics that trump the adjustment scale is often a trap. Defensive metrics take a long time to stabilize, so be wary of working from past data without heavy regression.

[Olerud363]

The positional adjustments are based on data from actual players switching positions, not absurdities like Kendrys Morales playing CF.

 

Of course it matters where players play; specific players often have a best position. In real life, players also don't typically slide from DH to SS or CF. The positional adjustment scale assumes a neutral CF will be a +10 RF. Sometimes, for player specific reasons, a +10 RF might be a +5 CF; this player would benefit a bit from a positional change to CF.

 

But making the assumption that a specific player is special and has characteristics that trump the adjustment scale is often a trap. Defensive metrics take a long time to stabilize, so be wary of working from past data without heavy regression.

 

If a system doesn't measure absurdities right it can be improved. If the system isn't reflective of real life decisions it can be improved. I'm also not saying that any specific player is special and would trump the scale.

 

What I am saying is this. If a good defensive player gets more opportunities to make plays and make difficult plays their WAR should go up. Just as if a good offensive players WAR will go up if they get more at bats. A bad defensive players WAR should go down if they move to a more difficult position.

 

Let's say hypothetically center fielders get the opportunity for 500 plays a year, and right fielders 300 plays (those numbers are roughly based on Kevin Pillar and Jose Bautista's 2015 defensive statistics). Pillar converts fly balls to outs at 80%, Bautista at 70% and an average outfielder at 75

 

a) Pillar 400 outs +25, Bautista 210 outs -15

Bautista 350 outs -25, Pillar 240 outs +15

 

Shouldn't Pillar's WAR be higher in center than right?? Shouldn't Bautista be lower in center than right??

 

(this model is just a toy model obviously, I reealize the real model is much more complicated. However any model should reflect reality, if a team would win more games with a different defensive configuration the model should reflect that).

[EastCoaster]

This is good deal for the Blue Jays an upgrade over Pillar in CF well within their budget on what their market will allow. Remember the Blue Jays aren't the Red Sox, Yankees or Dodgers this administration team learn their craft in Cleveland a small market team. Don't expect to see 20 or 30 mil per contract here they've got burned more than on one occasion they're paying 20 mil for Tulo to play in NY against the Blue Jays in the same division. Depending if he can stay on the field back to DL for now.

[Laika]

What I am saying is this. If a good defensive player gets more opportunities to make plays and make difficult plays their WAR should go up. Just as if a good offensive players WAR will go up if they get more at bats. A bad defensive players WAR should go down if they move to a more difficult position.

 

That's literally what the positional adjustment does, Olerud. If a player moves to a more difficult position they get a positional adjustment - a bonus - applied to their WAR calculations as a credit for manning a more difficult position. There is an implicit assumption that they are able to man that more difficult position.

 

Their WAR will only fail to go up if their defensive talent at the new/harder position is worse than their defensive talent at the old/easier position to an extent that is exactly equal to the positional adjustment. Which is, in most instances, actually the case.

 

But talent is compared to the average player at the position, so if a player simply cannot handle the position (imagine Bautista in CF, or Vlad at SS, or whatever) they will be a lot worse there than the positional adjustment will assume and their WAR would in fact go down (which kind of proves your general point).

[Ray]

I like the deal more as the days go by. Front loaded, Grichuk, has a high floor as it is, and he technically doesn't have to improve that much to actually be really good. Cut his K-rate a couple percent, improve his walk-rate a couple percent, and you could be looking at a 4-5 WAR player with his defense and speed. Otherwise, paying a 2 WAR player $28M for 3 free agents years is not really a big deal.

[connorp]

Bump lol

[wilko]

Bump lol

 

What's wrong with you?

[connorp]

What's wrong with you?

 

Twisted sense of humor? Idk

[Laika]

I am not in love with it. Serious flaws in the offensive profile.

 

Meh.

 

wow

[John_Havok]

wow

 

yer a jenius

[Ray]

Definitely a contract that has aged poorly. At the time, I saw the case for it, but Randal has trended the opposite direction.

 

Not like it’s an albatross or anything. 2 more years left at $9M per. Could probably move him if we eat some of it, but our CF depth beyond Springer would be severely compromised. At least Grichuk has filled in adequately for Springer on defense.

[glory]

Yeah this actually seems a bit excessive to me. I think Grichuk has potential to be better than he has shown so far, but I wouldn't have dropped $50m on him before he comes close to reaching it. He has a 5% bb rate and a career OBP below .300 and even last year didn't show any signs of deviating from that skill set. Not sure this is a smart move, but I said the same thing about the Smoakster, so prove me wrong again Atkins.

 

The good part of the deal is the front loading. I just don't agree with the "if he's a 1 WAR player in years 3, 4, and 5 then he's playing up to the contract". 1 War outfielders have zero value in today's market. This contract is basically the Jays trying to buy low on Grichuk hoping he improves from here on out, kind of like Smoak. If it works then they'll look great, but if it doesn't, then yeah, a 1-2 war outfielder making $9m isn't bad, but not good either.

 

Thank goodness 2019 me did not like this deal. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I knew that I showed any type of enthusiasm for this signing at the time.