Blue Jays acquire Daulton Varsho for Moreno and Gurriel

[Stangstag]

Does it relate to Trea Turner? I'm interested also and will send an offer

 

Yes. And sure send away, can’t promise you i will move him though. Not gonna sell low if offers are based on his 2023 stats

[Stangstag]

If you have a choice between a fatty and a supreme athlete, never take the fatty. It's just that simple lol.

 

Ok now apply that thought to potential trade partners

[Stangstag]

Kirk compares super-favorably to Yadier Molina and Russel Martin, as does Moreno. Both Molina and Martin went up and down a bit.

 

It's weird to me that everyone assume Kirk will keep on going down, and Moreno up, even though they are currently at the same point hitting wise, with Kirk having a better previous track record and k/bb.

 

Why would Moreno have upside and not Kirk? Obesity I guess. People don't like the look of Kirk. If he looked different everyone would love him with the same stats. Not totally discounting that though. A lot of pudgy players have been successful for a long career... but flat out obese players?

 

On the other hand if Kirk pulled a Prince Fielder and made it to early 30s before his neck unscrewed from his fat body that would give him 8 or 9 good years ahead.

 

Yepp

[deanmike]

Kirk compares super-favorably to Yadier Molina and Russel Martin, as does Moreno. Both Molina and Martin went up and down a bit.

 

It's weird to me that everyone assume Kirk will keep on going down, and Moreno up, even though they are currently at the same point hitting wise, with Kirk having a better previous track record and k/bb.

 

Why would Moreno have upside and not Kirk? Obesity I guess. People don't like the look of Kirk. If he looked different everyone would love him with the same stats. Not totally discounting that though. A lot of pudgy players have been successful for a long career... but flat out obese players?

 

On the other hand if Kirk pulled a Prince Fielder and made it to early 30s before his neck unscrewed from his fat body that would give him 8 or 9 good years ahead.

 

Pretty sure I read somewhere that Kirk is basically the most obese player in MLB history (when comparing weight relative to height). Him being 5'8" plus how obese he is really sets him apart.

[Jonn]

If Kirk doesn’t commit to the body he will be out of the league before his 30th birthday.

[Jimcanuck]

Pretty sure I read somewhere that Kirk is basically the most obese player in MLB history (when comparing weight relative to height). Him being 5'8" plus how obese he is really sets him apart.

 

I find this hard to believe. He isn't close to Big Panda level of obese.

 

edit - you are right

[L54]

If Kirk doesn’t commit to the body he will be out of the league before his 30th birthday.

 

Luckily for the Jays they won’t have to worry about him then

[hanton]

The power is just too much for any team to handle

[Sorrow]

Moreno had a season around what Jansen and Kirk put up by fWAR and since bWAR doesn’t account for framing I don’t use it for catchers. Where I was surprised is WARp where Moreno was a 0.3 win player because of bad defence in baseball prospectus eyes. It’s going to be interesting to watch over the next few years because he could end up being a player that the eye test likes but the information we get through sabrmetics paints a bleak picture.

 

For context Kirk put up 3.2 warp and Jansen 1.8.

[max silver]

Moreno had a season around what Jansen and Kirk put up by fWAR and since bWAR doesn’t account for framing I don’t use it for catchers. Where I was surprised is WARp where Moreno was a 0.3 win player because of bad defence in baseball prospectus eyes. It’s going to be interesting to watch over the next few years because he could end up being a player that the eye test likes but the information we get through sabrmetics paints a bleak picture.

 

For context Kirk put up 3.2 warp and Jansen 1.8.

 

Baseball Reference's numbers for Moreno in particular need to be taken with a massive grain of salt. It doesn't include framing but instead directly incorporates catchers ERA into it's calculations. I have a very hard time believing that it is possible in any fashion to break down a catchers ERA component into some sort of meaningful run saving component. There's simply no way to quantify pitch calling without being able to know what the result would have been if a different pitch had been called.

 

By simultaneously ignoring Moreno's framing deficiencies and assigning Moreno the highest catcher ERA component in all of MLB it paints a much different picture than would otherwise be presented. If I am understanding this correctly, Moreno is essentially being credited with 24 DRS by Baseball Prospectus because he isn't penalized for substandard framing. If you add framing back into the equation, he still has an MLB leading 20 DRS behind the plate. Take away the bogus catcher ERA adjustment and this drops by over 50% to 9 DRS. This has a dramatic effect on his overall rWAR for the season, as by adding back in the DRS framing component and removing the voodoo catcher ERA adjustment you are left with about 1.16 DWAR vs the 3.1 he was credited with. This drops the overall season bWAR value from the impressive 4.3 to a much more pedestrian 2.36.

Edited October 22, 2023 by max silver

[Marew]

Yea we should just disregard the stats we don’t like/understand and we can make any player look worse. Jesus Christ

[BTS]

Yea we should just disregard the stats we don’t like/understand and we can make any player look worse. Jesus Christ

 

Nothing in his post indicated a lack of understanding

[Marew]

Nobody has said WAR is perfect but some people are really reaching to discredit him. I hope he turns out to be a bust too.

[max silver]

Yea we should just disregard the stats we don’t like/understand and we can make any player look worse. Jesus Christ

 

I understand the various defensive metrics just fine thank you very much. On the other hand I can't help it if you are not smart enough to understand my previous post.

 

Baseball Reference's defensive system is so slanted in Moreno's favor that it may as well have been set up by Gabriel Moreno himself. That particular system has massive flaws in that become glaringly apparent as soon as you start to break down their methodology. It's entirely possible to quantify the value of catcher framing in this day and age, and there are multiple systems which do so. These are all in agreement that Moreno is a substandard framer, ranging from nearly worst in baseball from Baseball Prospectus (2nd worst framing rate among regular catchers) , to really bad by DRS (27th out of 38 catchers with minimum 500 innings caught) and bad by Statcast (26th out of 41 catchers with minimum 500 innings caught).

 

At the same time more than half of Moreno's accumulated DRS is due to their catchers ERA adjustment. This is because pitchers on his team had a lower ERA with him behind the plate vs the other catchers that were employed by the Diamondbacks. Moreno caught approximately 60% of the innings for the Diamondbacks. I'm calling straight up ******** to assign 11 DRS to Moreno because his pitchers had a higher ERA in the 40% of the team's innings that other catchers caught. I went back 6 years in Fangraphs to check the leaders in this stat over this time frame. Moreno ranks 4th among catchers with a minimum of 1000 innings caught based on a single season of play. This is a statistic that may as well be random as that would have just as much actual meaning.

[hanton]

I understand the various defensive metrics just fine thank you very much. On the other hand I can't help it if you are not smart enough to understand my previous post.

 

Baseball Reference's defensive system is so slanted in Moreno's favor that it may as well have been set up by Gabriel Moreno himself. That particular system has massive flaws in that become glaringly apparent as soon as you start to break down their methodology. It's entirely possible to quantify the value of catcher framing in this day and age, and there are multiple systems which do so. These are all in agreement that Moreno is a substandard framer, ranging from nearly worst in baseball from Baseball Prospectus (2nd worst framing rate among regular catchers) , to really bad by DRS (27th out of 38 catchers with minimum 500 innings caught) and bad by Statcast (26th out of 41 catchers with minimum 500 innings caught).

 

At the same time more than half of Moreno's accumulated DRS is due to their catchers ERA adjustment. This is because pitchers on his team had a lower ERA with him behind the plate vs the other catchers that were employed by the Diamondbacks. Moreno caught approximately 60% of the innings for the Diamondbacks. I'm calling straight up ******** to assign 11 DRS to Moreno because his pitchers had a higher ERA in the 40% of the team's innings that other catchers caught. I went back 6 years in Fangraphs to check the leaders in this stat over this time frame. Moreno ranks 4th among catchers with a minimum of 1000 innings caught based on a single season of play. This is a statistic that may as well be random as that would have just as much actual meaning.

 

 

I hesitate to dig deep into these numbers (and trust you have) but.....doesn't catcher era include more than just the pitcher era? there's adjustments based on the quality of the of the pitching staff plus maybe some other variables ?

 

from the Fielding Bible

How do you measure Adjusted Earned Runs Saved?

 

Much more than simple Catcher ERA, Adjusted Earned Runs Saved accounts for the quality of the pitching staff the catcher works with. There are still many other variables in play and some noise in the results, so we regress the final data to a more reasonable scale.

[connorp]

I hesitate to dig deep into these numbers (and trust you have) but.....doesn't catcher era include more than just the pitcher era? there's adjustments based on the quality of the of the pitching staff plus maybe some other variables ?

 

from the Fielding Bible

How do you measure Adjusted Earned Runs Saved?

 

Much more than simple Catcher ERA, Adjusted Earned Runs Saved accounts for the quality of the pitching staff the catcher works with. There are still many other variables in play and some noise in the results, so we regress the final data to a more reasonable scale.

 

A lot of these formulas aren’t even fully available for scrutiny. “Spoon feed me” generation

[Marew]

We will just have to find out. He seems to have these intangible factors that people always talk about and is a team favourite. Maybe it will balance out next year. He does seem to get hurt a lot though. Hopefully he can get paid before he goes down hill.

[Olerud363]

If you have a choice between a fatty and a supreme athlete, never take the fatty. It's just that simple lol.

 

Kirk is a better athlete than Moreno, better hand high coordination seen in his better k/bb and better blocking and framing. Probably also a better runner if both had a race at 200 pounds. Moreno at a sleek 190 pounds and Kirk at 290, obviously Moreno is much faster.

 

Jays did choose the better athlete, with the thought probably that Kirk could get a bit fitter, lose 20 pounds, however he is losing the battle against Obesity and the Obesity is having more of an effect on his skills than they thought.

 

I know I am going on and on about this but I think it is an extremely important point and the only hope for the near term future of the franchise.

 

1. Kirk is a slightly better athlete than Moreno.

2. No one can function optimally at 300 pounds, for gods sake if Moreno was 300 he'd hit .190 and probably play 25 games at the most.

3. OK. You gotta accept Kirk is actually an amazing athlete to do what he does at his weight.

 

Now. Here is the hope. Jays hire a 50 person team, average salary (with benefits) 200k, 10 million budget... they are a combination of nutrionists, psycholagists, trainers, motivators, good cops, bad cops, expert in persuasion.. and they assign them all to get Kirk/Vlad/Manoah to come into camp fit.

 

If they suceeded that would have to be worth more than 10 million in WAR.

[max silver]

I hesitate to dig deep into these numbers (and trust you have) but.....doesn't catcher era include more than just the pitcher era? there's adjustments based on the quality of the of the pitching staff plus maybe some other variables ?

 

from the Fielding Bible

How do you measure Adjusted Earned Runs Saved?

 

Much more than simple Catcher ERA, Adjusted Earned Runs Saved accounts for the quality of the pitching staff the catcher works with. There are still many other variables in play and some noise in the results, so we regress the final data to a more reasonable scale.

 

There are far too many variables that are impossible to account for to make this particular statistic of any use. For instance, did the pitcher shake off the catcher to get the pitch he wanted to throw? Does the catcher still get credited for this if the pitcher has success? Did the pitcher miss his spot and give up hard contact? Does the catcher get penalized for this? Does this statistic account for quality of opposition? Does this statistic compare Moreno to other catchers around baseball, or is it essentially only comparing him against other catchers on his team only?

[John_Havok]

There are far too many variables that are impossible to account for to make this particular statistic of any use. For instance, did the pitcher shake off the catcher to get the pitch he wanted to throw? Does the catcher still get credited for this if the pitcher has success? Did the pitcher miss his spot and give up hard contact? Does the catcher get penalized for this? Does this statistic account for quality of opposition? Does this statistic compare Moreno to other catchers around baseball, or is it essentially only comparing him against other catchers on his team only?

 

THese questions and more with catcher ERA. It seems like a thing that "could" be real, but probably isn't as big of a thing as people think (like picking at 1B)

[keggy]

Kirk's weight is a problem, but there's hope that he can stick at C long term. Bengie and Jose Molina caught heavy innings into their late 30s. Kirk also isn't tall, which might be even more taxing for a catcher than being obese.

 

Combine the with the one knee catching fad and frequent DH days and Kirk might be okay. Losing weight will only help him.

[Olerud363]

Kirk's weight is a problem, but there's hope that he can stick at C long term. Bengie and Jose Molina caught heavy innings into their late 30s. Kirk also isn't tall, which might be even more taxing for a catcher than being obese.

 

Combine the with the one knee catching fad and frequent DH days and Kirk might be okay. Losing weight will only help him.

 

 

The anti-Kirk crew will look stupid if he manages to stay healthy... the guy has better skills and hand eye co-ordination than Moreno, and is only 24. Could pull off a run of great years, many better than 2022.

 

Do players peak at 23? It's weird how people think Vlad can rebound, and even Manoah... but not Kirk.

 

It's not just the obesity. There is some very weird prejudice against Kirk because he is so short and odd looking too.

[Jonn]

The anti-Kirk crew will look stupid if he manages to stay healthy... the guy has better skills and hand eye co-ordination than Moreno, and is only 24. Could pull off a run of great years, many better than 2022.

 

Do players peak at 23? It's weird how people think Vlad can rebound, and even Manoah... but not Kirk.

 

It's not just the obesity. There is some very weird prejudice against Kirk because he is so short and odd looking too.

 

Nobody is anti Kirk. Being fat and out of shape is a choice not a defect or circumstance. It’s hard to believe in a player when they can’t even take care of themselves.

 

Zero excuse for a professional athlete to be that grossly out of shape. Plain and simple. No hidden agenda. Stop being a lazy fat piece of s*** and show up to camp in shape. It should be the bare minimum.

 

We literally had rules like this in High School sports.

[Stangstag]

Nobody is anti Kirk. Being fat and out of shape is a choice not a defect or circumstance. It’s hard to believe in a player when they can’t even take care of themselves.

 

Zero excuse for a professional athlete to be that grossly out of shape. Plain and simple. No hidden agenda. Stop being a lazy fat piece of s*** and show up to camp in shape. It should be the bare minimum.

 

We literally had rules like this in High School sports.

 

Ok then

[deanmike]

The anti-Kirk crew will look stupid if he manages to stay healthy... the guy has better skills and hand eye co-ordination than Moreno, and is only 24. Could pull off a run of great years, many better than 2022.

 

Do players peak at 23? It's weird how people think Vlad can rebound, and even Manoah... but not Kirk.

 

It's not just the obesity. There is some very weird prejudice against Kirk because he is so short and odd looking too.

 

For what it's worth, because I'm guessing you consider me part of the "anti-Kirk crew", number 1, I actually like Kirk as a catcher in general, just much less than both Moreno and Jansen because of his almost certain lack of longevity at the position due to being basically the most obese player ever to play in the MLB (when comparing weight relative to height).

 

Like I said in a previous post, valuable catchers like him do not grow on trees, unless you're the Blue Jays who had 3 valuable catchers last offseason, and chose to deal literally the most valuable one by far with the most longevity in Moreno just to quench their thirst for Varsho (who I'm still a fan of in general because valuable everyday CF like him also do not grow on trees).

 

Number 2, Kirk is definitely the most likely to rebound in 2024, ahead of both full time DH Vlad and minor leaguer Manoah. The amount of money that Vlad has burned off his future earnings (everyone used to think he was a future 500M player) has to be weighing on his mind a bit, plus it's about to get even worse for him once the rest of the baseball world realizes that Vlad is a full time DH and therefore doesn't have a defensive position anymore. Guys like Dan Szymborski who developed the ZiPS projection system have been making a good case but it hasn't reached the mainstream yet. Most still think Vlad is not just a 1B, but a gold glove 1B for some reason. I still remember the good ol days when he was supposed to be a generational 3B prospect.

 

Manoah is just too self absorbed to turn it around. If he was actually serious about turning his career around he would have reported to Buffalo like a good soldier for the organization instead of whining and making up fake injuries, I'm guessing because he just couldn't believe how much he sucks now and rationalized it in his head with denial (I can't suck, so I must be injured).

[Jonn]

Ok then

 

Anti Fat. Not Anti Kirk.

[John_Havok]

Anti Fat. Not Anti Kirk.

 

Mathematically then your still anti-kirk

 

Just saying.

 

If Anti-fat = true AND

 

Kirk = fat, then

 

Anti-kirk= true

 

This post brought to you by the Association of Pedantic Dickheads everywhere. Find a chapter near you

[Krylian]

Kirk needs to get serious and less fat.

[Jays24]

Kirk needs to get serious and less fat.

 

Ditto for Vlad and Manoah. The shape you are in as a professional athlete says a lot about you. You should at least do the bare minimum to be the best at your job. The other stuff is harder to control.

[Jimcanuck]

Ditto for Vlad and Manoah. The shape you are in as a professional athlete says a lot about you. You should at least do the bare minimum to be the best at your job. The other stuff is harder to control.

 

These guys enable each other to some extent. "Yes, I'm fat, but so are those guys"

 

Blue Jays are the beer league team of MLB