Offseason Roster Thread (2020-2021)

[Jays24]

From@_bkuh_

 

The Blue Jays have spent $184.5M in free agency since Marcus Stroman said the front office would never build around this team.

 

 

I actually like Stroman but damn that's awesome lol.

[Jays24]

Springer (w/ signing bonus), Ray, Yates, Chatwood, and Semien comes out to $66.5m added in 2021, not counting incentives. They'll likely want to save some payroll for mid season moves as well. I'm not expecting much more. Maybe one SP (Paxton fits the Semien/Yates/Ray mold of buy low one year deals) and then some smaller depth moves.

 

I'm still half expecting a trade for a SP rather than another free agent

 

There's no way we don't have 1 significant starter to the mix. It won't be an Ace, which this team still needs in the long run but I expect one of Paxton/Odorizzi/Walker.

[Scion]

He's been comfortably elite the last 3 years. There are no defensive concerns.

 

Statcast's OAA aren't as high on him, but I more meant that there is always some uncertainty when a player goes from one extreme defensive rating to another.

[Jays24]

Statcast's OAA aren't as high on him, but I more meant that there is always some uncertainty when a player goes from one extreme defensive rating to another.

 

That was at SS, which he wont be playing here aside from a backup role. Even in the worst case, he should be elite defensively at 2B.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Jays24

[Key22]

Sign Bauer, Paxton, and Walker.

 

Pearson becomes Verlander

 

Problem solved. Legit WS contender. It's only money. Increase the Internet bill $2 a month.

[Krylian]

Sign Bauer, Paxton, and Walker.

 

Pearson becomes Verlander

 

Problem solved. Legit WS contender. It's only money. Increase the Internet bill $2 a month.

 

I have no problem with this. Make it $3 a month. I have Bell.

[Jays24]

Shapiro: 'Heavy lifting is done' for Blue Jays after busy offseason

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2100874

 

Hope this doesn't mean we're not getting a SP...

[Spanky99]

Shapiro: 'Heavy lifting is done' for Blue Jays after busy offseason

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2100874

 

Hope this doesn't mean we're not getting a SP...

 

The Sky Is Falling!!!!

[Terminator]

Shapiro: 'Heavy lifting is done' for Blue Jays after busy offseason

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2100874

 

Hope this doesn't mean we're not getting a SP...

 

From the article:

The Blue Jays' 26-man Opening Day payroll sits at $125.5 million after they handed out a combined $184.5 million to Springer, Semien, Yates, Chatwood, and Robbie Ray, according to Cots Baseball Contracts.

 

That paragraph almost brings a tear to my eye.

[Terminator]

[Deadpool]

I think Shoemaker on a minor league deal is very appealing to me... And honestly, at this point it's what he may have to settle for.

[Ray]

Shapiro: 'Heavy lifting is done' for Blue Jays after busy offseason

https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2100874

 

Hope this doesn't mean we're not getting a SP...

 

I'd be shocked if they didn't add a starter. Probably just means we're out on Bauer, but I'm guessing we're still in on Odorizzi, Paxton, Walker etc. Trades could still happen too.

 

Kinda wished we got Gausman for the 3 years $40M we offered. He really looked like he figured something out in San Francisco. And his stuff is disgusting.

[Ray]

Time to fleece Colorado for German Marquez

[Terminator]

You think those two alphas consider mid-rotation SPs as "heavy lifting"?

 

They pull that s*** off in their sleep.

 

Yep. They know they need more starting pitching. No way they go all this way to build a contender and not finish it off without adding more starting pitching depth.

[glory]

You think those two alphas consider mid-rotation SPs as "heavy lifting"?

 

They pull that s*** off in their sleep.

 

Yeah this front office just added Springer, Semien, and Yates. That's shopping in the elite aisle. I don't think there's much left for an expensive SP (Bauer), but I would assume one of Paxton/Odorizzi and/or a trade is what they are looking at.

[Laika]

A component I’d like to see used more often in roster building - seeking out of touch front offices for trade talks. Too bad there aren’t many Jack Z, Dave Stewart types anymore.

 

I'm sure every competent front office tries to pick the stupid teams' pockets continuously.

 

The Rockies suck but I'm not sure that they suck at trading... most of their problems are bad free agent signings, bad drafts, bad development, bad roster management.

 

I mean they poached Marquez from the Rays, right.

[Carlos Danger]

The Pirates made it known that Chad Kuhl is officially available. We should be in on him as a relatively cheap acquisition with high upside. IMO he has higher upside then Matz and we just went and got him. He had TJ the previous season and 2020 was getting back in form. There are some good underlying metrics and he is young and controllable..

[G-Snarls]

Angels Not Expected To Pursue Trevor Bauer

 

January 27th, 2021 at 11:04pm CST • By Jeff Todd

 

Though they’ve been linked in the past, at least speculatively, the Angels are evidently foregoing pursuit of top free agent starter Trevor Bauer. Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times reports that the Los Angeles organization just doesn’t see itself as a match.

 

The report doesn’t formally stamp out the possibility of a deal with Bauer, but it comes just shy of doing so. Torres pegs the odds of the sides lining up at “practically zero.”

 

This development makes for a bit of a surprise given the Halos’ need for a top starter and Bauer’s ties to Southern California. One might’ve expected some effort to land the high-grade hurler, at least to a certain point in the bidding.

 

Interestingly, it doesn’t appear to be a situation where the market has simply moved past the team’s valuation of the player. Money is a factor, to be sure. Torres indicates that the Halos’ budget likely doesn’t have anywhere near the space needed to fit Bauer — at least, barring the authorization of a pocketbook expansion by owner Arte Moreno.

 

Cash is generally king, but it may not be the dispositive factor here. Torres cites the presence of Mickey Callaway as a major roadblock. Callaway’s relationship with Bauer is, she writes, “believed to be eroded beyond repair” from the grating time the pair spent with the Indians organization.

[G-Snarls]

Do it, Atkins/Shapiro

 

F'n do it

[Laika]

The Pirates made it known that Chad Kuhl is officially available. We should be in on him as a relatively cheap acquisition with high upside. IMO he has higher upside then Matz and we just went and got him. He had TJ the previous season and 2020 was getting back in form. There are some good underlying metrics and he is young and controllable..

 

Are you related to Chad Kuhl? I don't get the obsession. He seems to objectively be a boring, low upside SP #5 who might even be more productive in the bullpen.

 

I can't see any argument for him having more upside than Matz. Matz nuked the minors and has shown flashes of run prevention, strikeout ability, and strike throwing in the majors. Kuhl was a low K minor leaguer who grunts his way to an okay ERA with s***** K/BB ratio, on the strength of a good slider and a mediocre FB with two seam movement. He looks like a reliever who has been asked to start out of necessity and is making it work.

[Carlos Danger]

Are you related to Chad Kuhl? I don't get the obsession. He seems to objectively be a boring, low upside SP #5 who might even be more productive in the bullpen.

 

I can't see any argument for him having more upside than Matz. Matz nuked the minors and has shown flashes of run prevention, strikeout ability, and strike throwing in the majors. Kuhl was a low K minor leaguer who grunts his way to an okay ERA with s***** K/BB ratio, on the strength of a good slider and a mediocre FB with two seam movement. He looks like a reliever who has been asked to start out of necessity and is making it work.

 

Kuhl’s below-average secondaries kept him from prospect relevance. Well, does a .216 xwOBA slider and a .197 xwOBA curveball sound below-average to you? If you’re not sure, from 2017-2018 Kuhl’s curveball ranked 11th best in xwOBA among starters, and his slider ranked 9th, sandwiched right between Sonny Gray and Luis Severino.

 

 

 

This graph depicts every pitcher who threw at least 1,000 breaking balls from 2017 to 2018, with xwOBA of said pitches in the x-axis and pitch usage on the y-axis. As you can see from the other names I highlighted, Kuhl’s breaking balls measure up to some of the best pitchers in all of baseball, as he posted a better xwOBA on his slider/curveball than guys like Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, and Jacob deGrom. This isn’t a coincidence or luck either; both of Kuhl’s breaking balls grew into elite pitches. His curveball has elite spin-rate, averaging the 16th highest mark in 2018, as well as above-average movement in both directions.

 

His slider also possesses above-average spin and movement, which while not as high as his curveball, are very impressive for its 88.3 MPH average velocity. Eye test will also confirm that both of these pitches are truly above-average pitches, despite what scouts and the Pirates’ themselves thought about him as a prospect. Kuhl had a curveball coming out of college, but the Pirates pushed him to drop it in favor of a slider when he was in the minors. He didn’t pick it back up again until 2017.

 

The reason I used pitch usage as my y-axis is to show what the big issue with Chad Kuhl is. Despite having a combined xwOBA of .211, Kuhl only threw his breaking balls for 29.5% of his pitches. Of the pitchers with better breaking balls than Kuhl, only Charlie Morton, Corey Kluber, Blake Snell, and Ivan Nova used them less than him. This is especially concerning when you consider the fact that Kuhl throws both a slider and a curveball, while a large percentage of the pitchers on this chart mainly throw one or the other. It’s worth noting that a few guys in a similar position on the chart to Kuhl, such as Paxton, Morton, and Kluber, have a low percentage of breaking balls because they have a pitch which statcast identifies as a cutter, even though it acts more like a slider (although Paxton and Morton didn’t have significant usage on this pitch).

 

If you include his Cutter, Kluber’s percentage of breaking balls would jump to 51.6%. That just leaves the other three. Morton and Snell can be explained fairly simply by the fact that they all have plus fastballs, as do most guys with elite breaking balls but low usage, so they don’t need to rely on their breaking balls as much. It’s also worth noting that, like almost every pitcher close in proximity on the chart to Kuhl, Morton increased his percentage significantly in 2019. From 2017-2018, Morton used his curveball and cutter for 37.7% of his pitches. In 2019, that number rose from 47.7%, as he used his curveball especially significantly more, and he had the best season of his career by far. That just leaves Ivan Nova, and to explain that one, all I need to do is tell you to check what team Nova played for from 2017-2018, and the issue starts to become pretty clear.

 

Going back to the fact that most guys with elite breaking balls and low usage have elite fastballs, or at the very least above-average, let’s talk about Chad Kuhl’s fastball.

 

 

 

So the first thing that stands out (other than the mess in this middle of the graph. That’s Snell, Clevinger, and Strasburg by the way) is just how bad Chad Kuhl’s fastballs were over this period. Despite elite velocity, Kuhl’s .404 xwOBA on these pitches was 3rd worst in the majors over this period, ahead of only Matt Moore and James Shields.

 

The other obvious thing about this graph is that good pitchers tend to have good fastballs. The only highlighted pitcher with an xwOBA on fastballs over .350 was Patrick Corbin, which is easily explained by his breaking ball percentage of 44.1%. (39.5% slider). This is a pretty simple concept that seems to elude many MLB organizations; pitchers should throw their best pitches more often. I personally think pitchers could throw secondary pitches 100% of the time if their secondaries are good enough and their fastball is that bad, but I won’t try to push those radical beliefs on you guys.

 

The reason that even guys with fastballs this bad throw them a lot comes down to being able to throw strikes. The concern when raising secondaries is always that BB% will rise, which is true, but if K% rises enough as well, then it’s a worthwhile move because strikeouts are worth much more in the positive direction than walks are in the negative direction. Contrary to popular belief, adding 10 points to your K%+ while also adding 10 points to your BB%+ would actually be a huge improvement for a pitcher. The key here is finding a balance, which Chad Kuhl clearly hasn’t done, and something that the Pirates barely tried to do under Ray Searage.

 

The natural question here would be “how good can a pitcher be with a really bad fastball?”. Well in this sample size alone, there’s a pretty good answer, and his name is Carlos Carrasco. Of all pitchers who threw 2,500 fastballs from 2017 to 2018, Carrasco ranked sixth-worst in xwOBA at .393, just three spots ahead of Kuhl himself. Over the same time period, Carrasco posted 10.4 fWAR (7th highest in baseball) to go along with a 3.04 FIP across 386.2 IP. In the same sample, Patrick Corbin ranked 25th worst in fastball xwOBA at .364, and it got even worse in 2019. That didn’t keep Corbin from accumulating 13.9 fWAR over the last three years (7th highest in baseball). Marcus Stroman and Luis Castillo ranked 20th and 16th worst in fastball xwOBA over the same period, but still managed to put up 4.8 fWAR and 4.0 fWAR respectively. I think you get the point.

 

Do I think Chad Kuhl can be as good as these guys? Actually, yes. Yes I do.

 

 

* I can't figure out how to make the graphs larger on this board... Someone able to help?

[Jays24]

Do it, Atkins/Shapiro

 

F'n do it

 

Pretty sure he's going to the Mets. They just saved 5.2 mill from the trade with us. I'd expect that signing to get announced any day now.

[G-Snarls]

Pretty sure he's going to the Mets. They just saved 5.2 mill from the trade with us. I'd expect that signing to get announced any day now.

 

I think you're right

[Krylian]

Pretty sure he's going to the Mets. They just saved 5.2 mill from the trade with us. I'd expect that signing to get announced any day now.

 

I tend to agree with this.

[G-Snarls]

[Jimcanuck]

Pretty sure he's going to the Mets. They just saved 5.2 mill from the trade with us. I'd expect that signing to get announced any day now.

 

3D chess by Shatkins keeping Bauer off the AL rivals.

[Laika]

stuff

 

This is not a good analysis. Anectodal reasoning is so tempting but it's just not very persuasive in baseball - there are hundreds of active pitchers and thousands of historic pitchers, you can find examples for every mold. I don't care that a couple of SPs succeed with s***** fastballs, or just one dominant offspeed pitch. Kuhl's odds of pulling it off are extremely low, just like every other pitcher in history with a mediocre fastball and a plus breaking ball - the vast majority of those guys are relievers. I mean you could argue that Kuhl is already performing beyond expectations by being an above replacement level starter.

 

Look, in 2020 he tried it. FB% plummeted to just 44%; he was throwing offspeed stuff over half the time. The result was the worst walk rate of his career, worst HR rate, and therefore his worst FIP.

[Jays24]

3D chess by Shatkins keeping Bauer off the AL rivals.

 

Hey, if he ain't coming here... I'm all for helping a national league team get him. Now that is if we don't play them in the world series.

 

Oh and the stroman angle. His team does get better for next season but it also makes it much harder for the Mets to retain him lol.

[mellowgold]

Pretty sure he's going to the Mets. They just saved 5.2 mill from the trade with us. I'd expect that signing to get announced any day now.

 

DeGrom

Bauer

Stroman

Thor

Carrasco

 

Jesus.

 

And yes, Jesus might be sixth in that rotation.

[Jays24]

DeGrom

Bauer

Stroman

Thor

Carrasco

 

Jesus.

 

And yes, Jesus might be sixth in that rotation.

 

That's an unreal rotation. Their number 5 is better than our number 2 for the upcoming season lol.