We are in year 4 of the Shatkins era. How much time do you give them?

[Jonn]

My expectation is that they should be trying to win by 2021 at the earliest. But the way our prospects have performed so far and the team so far leaves much to be desired.

[Angrioter]

Sigo creyendo en él. 2 more years

[gruber92]

Allowing the leaking of the trading intentions this early in the season regarding Stroman,Sanchez and Smoak pretty much broke the camels back for me. Ross Atkins is an idiot period.

[Abomination]

If everything we've seen this year holds (with, I'm assuming, Jansen and Vlad turning it around), next year's team should look something like:

 

C - Jansen

1B - Smoak

2B - Biggio

3B - Vlad

SS - Galvis

CF - Grichuk

LF - ???

RF - ???

DH - Tellez

Bench - Maile, Gurriel

 

SP - Stroman

SP -

SP -

SP - Thornton

SP - Shoemaker

 

With a loaded farm, and tons of payroll space, that's a team you add to, and not with Clayton Richards and Socrates Britos. See if Bumgarner, Cole, Keuchel or Strasburg will take your money. Take a look at Puig, Ozuna, And JDM for the OF.

 

Even it's only a 0.500 team in 2020, you still have an army of prospects knocking on the door, with guys like Bichette and Pearson maybe ready to help in 2020 and waves coming after them.

 

As things stand right now, I think we'll see something like:

 

C - Jansen

1B - Smoak

2B - Bichette

3B - Guerrero

SS - Galvis

CF - ???

LF - Biggio

RF - Grichuk

DH - Tellez

Bench - Maile or McGuire, Gurriel, Alford

 

SP - Stroman

SP - ???

SP - Reid-Foley

SP - Thornton

SP - Shoemaker

 

Pen: Biagini, Luciano, Pannone, Mayza, Tice, Perez, ???

 

In late 2020 I think we'll see Murphy, Zeuch, and Pearson, two of which enter the rotation for Reid-Foley and Shoemaker (assuming Reid-Foley doesn't get his walks under control).

 

That basically leaves us wanting one big bat (preferably a good CF), and one ace or #2 SP. A second good OF bat that pushes Biggio to 2nd and Bichette to SS might be helpful too. Considering where our finances will be, that's certainly within the realm of possibilities.

[Brownie19]

Ya but you had to trade Happ for Drury/McKinney. I'm talking about all the free spots we're handing out to guys who are clearly s*** like Hanson or really old. Sogard's on a major heater but he's 33 years old. It would have been better to give that minor league invite or whatever to Iglesias/Dietrich who are 4 years younger. I just don't get the rationale there.

 

Galvis = Iglesias man. Iglesias isn't coming to TO after we sign Galvis. He went somewhere that he could start. I like Dietrich, but with Drury, Gurriel, Travis, Galvis, etc. we already have lots of guys under 30 who we're hoping take the job and run with it. The issue is we haven't hit, where as the Reds may have with Dietrich.

 

Almost every team takes flyers on those fail prospect types. It's really hard to hit on them. I bet you could analyse 10 teams and find out they missed on all their flyers just like we did. How much of it is just pure luck? A lot of it IMO.

[glory]

The point about taking flyers on players is that how many of them are actually panning out for the Jays? Smoak was already here though I'll give Atkins credit for that one since it was a contract extension, but who else? Tampa gets Yandy and he turns into something. They get Meadows and Glasnow and turn them into stars. They have a reliever carousel every year and somehow have great results with it every year. That's an organization that you can count on to be good for a while. The Jays can't spend more than the Yankees, and they clearly cannot identify/develop underutilized talent better than Tampa, so where's the competitive advantage?

 

If Thornton, Merryweather, Waguespack, Pannone, Paulino, etc, turn into good pitchers, then that would be a good sign. I have more faith in them than I do the Drury/Teoscar/McKinney's of the world, but still a bad sign that Smoak is the only one in three+ years that we acquired and turned around based on adjustment or swing changes. That's not good enough.

[Abomination]

The point about taking flyers on players is that how many of them are actually panning out for the Jays? Smoak was already here though I'll give Atkins credit for that one since it was a contract extension, but who else? Tampa gets Yandy and he turns into something. They get Meadows and Glasnow and turn them into stars. They have a reliever carousel every year and somehow have great results with it every year. That's an organization that you can count on to be good for a while. The Jays can't spend more than the Yankees, and they clearly cannot identify/develop underutilized talent better than Tampa, so where's the competitive advantage?

 

If Thornton, Merryweather, Waguespack, Pannone, Paulino, etc, turn into good pitchers, then that would be a good sign. I have more faith in them than I do the Drury/Teoscar/McKinney's of the world, but still a bad sign that Smoak is the only one in three+ years that we acquired and turned around based on adjustment or swing changes. That's not good enough.

 

Meadows and Glasnow aren't/weren't reclamation projects, they were both top end prospects. Most reclamation projects don't work out. For every Edwin / Jose / Smoak there's probably 50 guys who are exactly what everyone thought they were. Drury is they one project who could potentially break out like those guys did imo.

[Carlos Danger]

https://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/threads/8950-Blue-Jays-acquire-OF-Sócrates-Brito-from-the-Padres/page4?highlight=Brito

 

This is the Brito acquisition thread. It’s interesting because a) it’s almost entirely good posters, and there are almost no complaints about his acquisition. And there shouldn’t have been. He was free, and a toolsy guy with success at AAA.

 

I hate it when I bring the class average down and make BTS preface statements with "almost". I will work to raise the curve...

[Grant77]

I said 2021 because we need to see how their drafted players perform before writing off their regime. I like a lot of the prospects that they selected and I am excited to see them debut.

 

That being said, their major league asset management has been very poor and disappointing. To say anything else would be a fallacy. We've traded away some very valuable assets and the best players on the team remain holdovers like Smoak, Sanchez, and Stroman.

 

Almost all of the players and prospects brought in via trade have flopped, especially on offense, with Grichuk being the lone exception. They are going to have to show an ability to identify hitting talent if we want to move forward into contention. I'm dismayed by the lack of talented young hitters in the organization.

[glory]

Meadows and Glasnow aren't/weren't reclamation projects, they were both top end prospects. Most reclamation projects don't work out. For every Edwin / Jose / Smoak there's probably 50 guys who are exactly what everyone thought they were. Drury is they one project who could potentially break out like those guys did imo.

 

They weren't reclamation projects, but they were players who the Pirates were either not utilizing properly or gave up on. Meadows looked like a bust from 2016-18, and Glasnow was being used out of the pen by the Pirates. Those weren't Brito types of rec projects, but still players who the Rays acquired and turned into much better players. The Jays need to start doing this.

 

If Paulino was a Ray, he'd be pretty damn good right now in whichever role they had him in. I'm almost sure of that.

[Carlos Danger]

To clarify.. If you pick year 5 - 2020... You are talking about making the decision at the end of the 2020 season (October 2020) or prior?

[Brownie19]

They weren't reclamation projects, but they were players who the Pirates were either not utilizing properly or gave up on. Meadows looked like a bust from 2016-18, and Glasnow was being used out of the pen by the Pirates. Those weren't Brito types of rec projects, but still players who the Rays acquired and turned into much better players. The Jays need to start doing this.

 

If Paulino was a Ray, he'd be pretty damn good right now in whichever role they had him in. I'm almost sure of that.

 

da fuk? Tampa had to give up an #1/#2 type starter on a VERY team friendly deal to acquire those 'reclamation' projects.

[Ray]

They weren't reclamation projects, but they were players who the Pirates were either not utilizing properly or gave up on. Meadows looked like a bust from 2016-18, and Glasnow was being used out of the pen by the Pirates. Those weren't Brito types of rec projects, but still players who the Rays acquired and turned into much better players. The Jays need to start doing this.

 

If Paulino was a Ray, he'd be pretty damn good right now in whichever role they had him in. I'm almost sure of that.

 

Yeah that Austin Meadows sure was such a bust for the Pirates. He only put up a .800 OPS in 50 games with them.

[Carlos Danger]

As things stand right now, I think we'll see something like:

 

C - Jansen

1B - Smoak

2B - Bichette

3B - Guerrero

SS - Galvis

CF - ???

LF - Biggio

RF - Grichuk

DH - Tellez

Bench - Maile or McGuire, Gurriel, Alford

 

SP - Stroman

SP - ???

SP - Reid-Foley

SP - Thornton

SP - Shoemaker

 

Pen: Biagini, Luciano, Pannone, Mayza, Tice, Perez, ???

 

In late 2020 I think we'll see Murphy, Zeuch, and Pearson, two of which enter the rotation for Reid-Foley and Shoemaker (assuming Reid-Foley doesn't get his walks under control).

 

That basically leaves us wanting one big bat (preferably a good CF), and one ace or #2 SP. A second good OF bat that pushes Biggio to 2nd and Bichette to SS might be helpful too. Considering where our finances will be, that's certainly within the realm of possibilities.

 

To both of you, where the F! is Borucki?? You guys have SRF in there and a question mark but not Borucki? WTF??

[Spanky99]

da fuk? Tampa had to give up an #1/#2 type starter on a VERY team friendly deal to acquire those 'reclamation' projects.

 

Yeah that Austin Meadows sure was such a bust for the Pirates. He only put up a .800 OPS in 50 games with them.

 

Yeah, I don't get that take one bit.

[glory]

da fuk? Tampa had to give up an #1/#2 type starter on a VERY team friendly deal to acquire those 'reclamation' projects.

 

Dude the first thing I said in the post you were quoting is that they were not reclamation projects, so why is reclamation in quotations? I clearly said they were players who the Rays acquired who became better after they were acquired. That's a sign of an org with a strong player development structure. The Jays don't have that.

Edited May 8, 2019 by glory

[glory]

Yeah that Austin Meadows sure was such a bust for the Pirates. He only put up a .800 OPS in 50 games with them.

 

I meant bust relative to what he was expected to be, but I'll concede that was too harsh of a word. Maybe not hitting as well as expected would have sufficed.

 

2017 (AAA): 312 PA, 85 wRC+, 7.7 BB%

2018 (AAA): 179 PA, 100 wRC+, 5.0 BB%

2018 (MLB): 191 PA, 110 wRC+, 5.2 BB%

------Gets traded-------

2018 (AAA): 106 PA, 223 wRC+, 7.5 BB%

2019 (MLB): 83 PA, 189 wRC+, 9.6 BB%

 

Good prospect, but immediately goes to the Rays and becomes ten times better than what he was showing before. There is a trend there. Would he have gotten there anyway had he stayed with the Pirates? Maybe, but I'm just going by what actually happened. It was like a switch turned on immediately after stepping into a Rays facility.

 

If you want to argue that the Jays have never acquired players of that caliber, fine. They could have acquired Yandy Diaz and turned him around, right? Ji-Man Choi was in like 5 different orgs before Tampa got him and he immediately became a good big leaguer. I could go on and on, and I f***ing hate the Rays so hyping them up like this makes me ill. Almost all of TOR's pick ups have flopped. In some cases badly. Making matters worse is that almost all of them suck on defence so they are not even maximizing that aspect of value.

 

The Jays have not shown the ability to take players, whether highly rated or otherwise, and turning them into good MLB'ers. Smoak is the exception in over 3 years. So far their main strength is getting cheapo relievers and turning them into good RP's, which is fine, but not exactly franchise altering.

 

The player development side for this team needs work. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wearing blinders. I like Shatkins and I see this as a major issue. Let's see what they get back for Stroman, Giles, etc, and see how those players develop.

Edited May 8, 2019 by glory

[WryNGinger]

My decision on whether Shapiro/Atkins get my vote of confidence will be heavily swayed by what they do leading up to the trade deadline this year. They need more back from the assets they have than they got last year. (I mean value wise relative to what they could have gotten) If they make prudent decisions and come away with solid rebuild pieces then I will trust them a lot more.

[Ray]

I meant bust relative to what he was expected to be, but I'll concede that was too harsh of a word. Maybe not hitting as well as expected would have sufficed.

 

2017 (AAA): 312 PA, 85 wRC+, 7.7 BB%

2018 (AAA): 179 PA, 100 wRC+, 5.0 BB%

2018 (MLB): 191 PA, 110 wRC+, 5.2 BB%

------Gets traded-------

2018 (AAA): 106 PA, 223 wRC+, 7.5 BB%

2019 (MLB): 83 PA, 189 wRC+, 9.6 BB%

 

Good prospect, but immediately goes to the Rays and becomes ten times better than what he was showing before. There is a trend there.

 

If you want to argue that the Jays have never acquired players of that caliber, fine. They could have acquired Yandy Diaz and turned him around, right? Ji-Man Choi was in like 5 different orgs before Tampa got him and he immediately became a good big leaguer. I could go on and on, and I f***ing hate the Rays so hyping them up like this makes me ill.

 

The Jays have not shown the ability to take players, whether highly rated or otherwise, and turning them into good MLB'ers. Smoak is the exception in over 3 years. So far their main strength is getting cheapo relievers and turning them into good RP's, which is fine, but not exactly franchise altering.

 

The player development side for this team needs work. Anyone who thinks otherwise is wearing blinders. I like Shatkins and I see this as a major issue.

 

Smoak, Grichuk, and even Aledmys Diaz are all examples. Smoak became an all-star. Grichuk is coming off a career low k-rate, and early into the season has improved plate discipline, contact, and reduced K-rate compared to when he was a Cardinal. We were able to sell high on Aledmys Diaz for a legit bottom of the rotation piece with potential.

 

On the pitching side, how about getting Ken Giles and helping him go back to his old elite self? Sam Gaviglio is quietly having a very good season with great peripherals and statcast measurements. Matt Shoemaker was having a pretty damn good start to the season.

 

There's been a fair bit of success stories that you're not pointing out. There's also been a fair bit of failure in the Rays with those type of players that you're ignoring.

[SaskJaysFan_2]

https://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/threads/8950-Blue-Jays-acquire-OF-Sócrates-Brito-from-the-Padres/page4?highlight=Brito

 

This is the Brito acquisition thread. It’s interesting because a) it’s almost entirely good posters, and there are almost no complaints about his acquisition. And there shouldn’t have been. He was free, and a toolsy guy with success at AAA.

 

Yes, totally agree. I think he is less likely to through through waivers and up in in AAA, but I would love to get him there. He could provide great org depth and if he has success in yet another stint in AAA you may become a legit MLB player with the Jays one day.

 

Right now, I call up Biggio and Gurriel, period, though. Find a way to get those guys playing 80%+ of games. Demote McKinley and Brito, and try to get them through. I am a little surprised Hansen got through. He put up decent numbers last year.

[Brownie19]

Dude the first thing I said in the post you were quoting is that they were not reclamation projects, so why is reclamation in quotations? I clearly said they were players who the Rays acquired who became better after they were acquired. That's a sign of an org with a strong player development structure. The Jays don't have that.

 

Sorry - you said that Tampa takes 'flyers' on prospects like Glasnow and Meadows. Typically trading your ace who's under team control and on a very team friendly contract for a couple of flyers isn't great idea. Obviously this is working out exceptionally well for Tampa. It was a calculated risk, but there is still a lot of luck in it.

[Boxcar]

Brantley would surely take some time from Hernandez, or McKinney or Drury/gurriel if/when they play outfield.

 

I’d take Brantley as long as I could trade him to a team at the deadline. I would guess he wouldn’t have signed with us because he knew that’s what we would do.

 

I don't really understand why this is a problem.

[Boxcar]

https://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/threads/8950-Blue-Jays-acquire-OF-Sócrates-Brito-from-the-Padres/page4?highlight=Brito

 

This is the Brito acquisition thread. It’s interesting because a) it’s almost entirely good posters, and there are almost no complaints about his acquisition. And there shouldn’t have been. He was free, and a toolsy guy with success at AAA.

 

Bob's typical narcissistic mindset that he speaks for everyone.

[Boxcar]

I said 2021 because we need to see how their drafted players perform before writing off their regime. I like a lot of the prospects that they selected and I am excited to see them debut.

 

That being said, their major league asset management has been very poor and disappointing. To say anything else would be a fallacy. We've traded away some very valuable assets and the best players on the team remain holdovers like Smoak, Sanchez, and Stroman.

 

Almost all of the players and prospects brought in via trade have flopped, especially on offense, with Grichuk being the lone exception. They are going to have to show an ability to identify hitting talent if we want to move forward into contention. I'm dismayed by the lack of talented young hitters in the organization.

 

There are a lot of talented young hitters in the organization, unless you're just talking about the big league team.

[Grant77]

There are a lot of talented young hitters in the organization, unless you're just talking about the big league team.

 

There are some promising bats from the previous regime (Vlad, Jansen, Tellez) in the big leagues and some good prospects (Bichette, Biggio, Groshans). I think it's a fairly promising young group, but we'll see.

 

What troubles me is that they've had 4 years and a ton of trade assets to supplement that group and what do we have? Almost nothing and that's extremely damning. Getting a 27 year old 2 WAR outfielder and signing him to a market value extension is their best move so far. We need more from Atkins and Shapiro if we want to have success going forward.

 

Smart aquisitions of guys like Biagini, Thornton, and Giles on the pitching side give me some hope, but the hope needs to be replaced with results pretty soon.

[Carlos Danger]

Just a small point of fact... The guys signed/selected in early December, 2015, were basically all LaCava... Estrada, Happ, Biagini.. Atkins didn't even start until the first week of December 2015. While Atkins was technically there after the 3rd.. LaCava had basically prepared the meal, put out the silverware and served it...

[glory]

Smoak, Grichuk, and even Aledmys Diaz are all examples. Smoak became an all-star. Grichuk is coming off a career low k-rate, and early into the season has improved plate discipline, contact, and reduced K-rate compared to when he was a Cardinal. We were able to sell high on Aledmys Diaz for a legit bottom of the rotation piece with potential.

 

On the pitching side, how about getting Ken Giles and helping him go back to his old elite self? Sam Gaviglio is quietly having a very good season with great peripherals and statcast measurements. Matt Shoemaker was having a pretty damn good start to the season.

 

There's been a fair bit of success stories that you're not pointing out. There's also been a fair bit of failure in the Rays with those type of players that you're ignoring.

 

Grichuk is pretty much the same dude he was in St. Louis with slightly fewer K's. Decent player, 2 WAR type, but he hasn't taken that step forward yet. If it happens, then that would be a point for the front office, but so far it looks like they made a good trade for a good player who simply maintained the level he had previously. It's not like he came to Toronto and took a step forward. That's my point. The Jays have not shown the ability to make players, hitters in particular, take a leap forward in their development aside from Smoak.

 

On top of that, they sold low on a lot of their veteran talent in order to go for a WC spot in 2017-18, so they weren't able to maximize returns there. That puts more pressure on player development to compensate for that lost opportunity.

 

Like I said, I like Shatkins, but I can't sit here and pretend that this is a well oil machine that maximizes the talents of their players. That needs to change. They can't spend like the Yankees/Red Sox, and can't do what the Rays do, so they need to be way more successful at finding the underutilized talents and having them become good under their watch.

[Olerud363]

This is the worst hitting team in team history except for perhaps 1980

 

It is only May 8th... there is a good chance they'll regresss a bit and end up a fair bit ahead of the 1980 team.

 

Interesting to look at the 1980 team

 

Ernie Whitt hit like Danny Jansen but eventually turned it around.

John Mayberry hit like Justin Smoak and was the same age.

Damasco Garcia was ridiculously bad but got better

 

** Loyld Moseby ** at the time probably the most heralded prospect in franchise history a 1/1 I believe, was 20 years old, and did what Vlad is doing... he did this for like 1500 at bats and they seem to have stuck with it. Then he got good ****

 

Garth Iorg was bad - worse than Drury - they gave him playing time for many years where he appears to be crappy then he was good in 85

 

Willie Upshaw was bad - and got worse. Vlad 1st 10 games like for 60 games in 81.. then he got good.

 

So if the question is - HOW BAD CAN A TEAM THAT EVENTUALLY BE GOOD BE?? The answer is very bad. .280 team on base percentage bad, but, at least in the case of the 1980 Blue Jays, guys that look horrible can eventually do OK and even become pretty good.

[King]

This is the worst hitting team in team history except for perhaps 1980

 

It is only May 8th... there is a good chance they'll regresss a bit and end up a fair bit ahead of the 1980 team.

 

Interesting to look at the 1980 team

 

Ernie Whitt hit like Danny Jansen but eventually turned it around.

John Mayberry hit like Justin Smoak and was the same age.

Damasco Garcia was ridiculously bad but got better

 

** Loyld Moseby ** at the time probably the most heralded prospect in franchise history a 1/1 I believe, was 20 years old, and did what Vlad is doing... he did this for like 1500 at bats and they seem to have stuck with it. Then he got good ****

 

Garth Iorg was bad - worse than Drury - they gave him playing time for many years where he appears to be crappy then he was good in 85

 

Willie Upshaw was bad - and got worse. Vlad 1st 10 games like for 60 games in 81.. then he got good.

 

So if the question is - HOW BAD CAN A TEAM THAT EVENTUALLY BE GOOD BE?? The answer is very bad. .280 team on base percentage bad, but, at least in the case of the 1980 Blue Jays, guys that look horrible can eventually do OK and even become pretty good.

 

gross

[Deadpool]

 

gross

 

The shine really came off Galvis in a hurry.