Around Baseball 2023

[Stangstag]

Reds are indicating that Jonathan India is available for trade and are looking for a young SPer in return. India has 4 years of control remaining. I know this would never happen, but just for fun, would you deal Manoah for India, given we're going to need a starting 2nd baseman moving forward?

 

Manoah's obviously fallen off a cliff, but India's doesn't exactly look like the rising star he did as a rookie and has been a below average hitter now for 850+ PA's.

 

100% with no second thoughts. No way the Reds would

[metafour]

I was just meaning to create some conversation for entertainment purposes. Although I would consider moving Manoah in this type of trade if you felt that fat f*** had a low probability of returning to his previous form. Trade him while he still has value. The Reds may be doing the same thing with India...

 

I understand what you are doing, but I don't quite get the logic. How is this trading Manoah while he "still has value"? Keep in mind that both Berrios and Kikuchi were negative pitchers last season, and they are both positive this season and a large part of why this team is still competitive. Pitchers I feel are much easier to correct than hitters. In this case, you are talking about a 25 year old who has already had elite performance at this level and was spotless in the minors (which is why he breezed through so fast). You would actually be dumping him absurdly quickly, and in this hypothetical I don't think you're even doing it for much reward (India).

[AMS528]

It would be crazy to trade a pitcher who is one season removed from from a top 5 Cy Young finish. Why trade him when he's at literally the lowest value now. You're much better off holding on, and trying to get him to figure things out and get back to his level.

 

If we traded Berrios last year at his lowest value, ate money to get out of his contract, that would have been dumb, because one year later he's back to being a very valuable starting pitcher. And he looked bad last year. Maybe Manoah isn't going to make it back, but you've gotta take the chance that he is going to return to form, cause it's way harder to find a durable #2 pitcher than it is to find a maybe 2 WAR 2B. Like Whit Merrifield is already doing that for us.

[metafour]

100% with no second thoughts. No way the Reds would

 

You're high lmao. Whoopity doo a ~100 wRC+ 2B with below average defense. There is nothing overly interesting about India's Statcast data either. This isn't a guy who hits the ball incredibly hard or flashes elite traits. Manoah was a Cy Young finalist just a year ago and in his rookie season was also on pace for 3+ WAR over a full season's worth of starts. He actually not only has a higher peak to date, but he's also been very good for longer (almost two seasons vs. just one for India), and he's younger to boot as well.

 

What's the major difference between India and Biggio?

[jaysblue]

Chris Carpenter memories popping up now

[Stangstag]

You're high lmao. Whoopity doo a ~100 wRC+ 2B with below average defense. There is nothing overly interesting about India's Statcast data either. This isn't a guy who hits the ball incredibly hard or flashes elite traits. Manoah was a Cy Young finalist just a year ago and in his rookie season was also on pace for 3+ WAR over a full season's worth of starts. He actually not only has a higher peak to date, but he's also been very good for longer (almost two seasons vs. just one for India), and he's younger to boot as well.

 

What's the major difference between India and Biggio?

 

India is hot

[jaysblue]

100% with no second thoughts. No way the Reds would

 

Yeah doubt Reds would take on Manoah as a project in a playoff race. I would likely do the deal with no seconds thoughts as well.

[Brownie19]

I understand what you are doing, but I don't quite get the logic. How is this trading Manoah while he "still has value"? Keep in mind that both Berrios and Kikuchi were negative pitchers last season, and they are both positive this season and a large part of why this team is still competitive. Pitchers I feel are much easier to correct than hitters. In this case, you are talking about a 25 year old who has already had elite performance at this level and was spotless in the minors (which is why he breezed through so fast). You would actually be dumping him absurdly quickly, and in this hypothetical I don't think you're even doing it for much reward (India).

 

Again - it's just conversation as this trade isn't happening. But lots of pitchers simply fall off a cliff and never come back. Aaron Sanchez (7th in Cy Young voting one year) and Ricky Romero come to mind for Toronto. Obviously you'd like to shoot higher in your return than India. I agree his peripherals don't suggest a ton of upside (although this year they are a lot close to 2021 than 2022, which is good), but he was the ROY in 2021 and the 5th overall pick in 2018. He as a pedigree.

 

I'm not sure it's true that it's easier to fix pitchers than hitters. I could be though. I just thought it was interesting as Merrifield is a FA after this year, Espy/Biggio suck and while we have guys like Barger/Orelvis/Schneider coming along - we also need to replace our 3rd baseman after this season and well, it's highly possible that 2 of those 3 will be useless (and a possibility all of them aren't ML starters).

[jaysblue]

Again - it's just conversation as this trade isn't happening. But lots of pitchers simply fall off a cliff and never come back. Aaron Sanchez (7th in Cy Young voting one year) and Ricky Romero come to mind for Toronto. Obviously you'd like to shoot higher in your return than India. I agree his peripherals don't suggest a ton of upside (although this year they are a lot close to 2021 than 2022, which is good), but he was the ROY in 2021 and the 5th overall pick in 2018. He as a pedigree.

 

I'm not sure it's true that it's easier to fix pitchers than hitters. I could be though. I just thought it was interesting as Merrifield is a FA after this year, Espy/Biggio suck and while we have guys like Barger/Orelvis/Schneider coming along - we also need to replace our 3rd baseman after this season and well, it's highly possible that 2 of those 3 will be useless (and a possibility all of them aren't ML starters).

 

Agree with everything you said.

 

We've seen young pitchers crash and burn before. Sanchez definitely comes to mind, Romero does as well.

 

Jays will need to shore up their infield for next season with Merrifield and Chapman both FAs. India solves the 2B solution for the next 4 years. And like you said, he does have some pedigree.

[glory]

Trading Manoah now would be selling way low, and he’s still cheap enough to be a reclamation project next season. If someone values him like pre-2023 Manoah then you absolutely move him in a deal like that, but otherwise I’d hold and hope he bounces back next season.

 

I actually think Tim Anderson is right up Atkins’ alley as far as pickups. Massive buy low due to horrendous 2023 so far and has a team option for 2024 so he’s controllable beyond this season. Whether it makes sense for the 2023 team is another story, but wouldn’t shock me if that’s where they go. There’s talk on Twitter that apparently Morosi mentioned the Jays having interest in Anderson (no idea if that’s true as I didn’t see it) but seems like the type of deal Atkins would make.

[BTS]

Trading Manoah now would be selling way low, and he’s still cheap enough to be a reclamation project next season. If someone values him like pre-2023 Manoah then you absolutely move him in a deal like that, but otherwise I’d hold and hope he bounces back next season.

 

I actually think Tim Anderson is right up Atkins’ alley as far as pickups. Massive buy low due to horrendous 2023 so far and has a team option for 2024 so he’s controllable beyond this season. Whether it makes sense for the 2023 team is another story, but wouldn’t shock me if that’s where they go. There’s talk on Twitter that apparently Morosi mentioned the Jays having interest in Anderson (no idea if that’s true as I didn’t see it) but seems like the type of deal Atkins would make.

 

Yeah, he seems to like going after distressed assets and trying to squeeze value out of them. Especially vets struggling after long track records of success. Robbie Ray, Whit Merrifield, Justin Smoak, Brandon Belt, And Marcus Semien all fit this MO to some extent.

[Stangstag]

Yeah, he seems to like going after distressed assets and trying to squeeze value out of them. Especially vets struggling after long track records of success. Robbie Ray, Whit Merrifield, Justin Smoak, Brandon Belt, And Marcus Semien all fit this MO to some extent.

 

Bellinger fit the bill too

[metafour]

Again - it's just conversation as this trade isn't happening. But lots of pitchers simply fall off a cliff and never come back. Aaron Sanchez (7th in Cy Young voting one year) and Ricky Romero come to mind for Toronto. Obviously you'd like to shoot higher in your return than India. I agree his peripherals don't suggest a ton of upside (although this year they are a lot close to 2021 than 2022, which is good), but he was the ROY in 2021 and the 5th overall pick in 2018. He as a pedigree.

 

Sanchez and Romero are both guys who had massive command problems all throughout the minors. With Sanchez, it was very clear: he was able to harness his arm-strength for one full seasons, and that was his 3.5 WAR season. The year prior to that season he was a 5.95 K/9 to 4.29 BB/9 pitcher, and the season immediately after he posted 6.00 K/9 to 5.00 BB/9 - both of those are horrible. Again, he was a ~5+ BB/9 all throughout the minors. So his ~1.5 seasons of good pitching are a complete outlier to the massive track-record of piss-poor pitching he had.

 

Romero was much of the same, as he looked like a total bust in the minors (he was essentially written off entirely, that's how underwhelming he was). He was able to salvage himself for a few seasons at the MLB level, but his underlying peripherals were never amazing even when he was good.

 

The main difference again is that both of those were guys who were outright bad for long stretches in the minors, which made their MLB "resurgence" much more suspicious as there was no track record to believe they would be any good. Manoah didn't throw much in the minors, but he completely dominated. Then he came up and dominated in the MLB for ~300 straight innings. His collapse came out of nowhere, and if you actually look at it, it seems very likely tied to the rule change about pace of play. He worked very slowly last season, and he came in fatter than ever. So an already slow pitcher comes in out of shape and he's forced to pitch at a considerably faster pace. Sure, maybe he just sucks out of nowhere all of a sudden, but this is a guy who had no command/control issues who is now walking 6.35 per 9. It's very likely that he just can't handle this pace of play, as opposed to he just somehow forgot how to pitch. Now I guess you could make the case that maybe he'll just never recuperate because he inherently has to work slowly to be any good, but it seems pretty silly to conclude that after 16 starts you need to fire him off into the sun when his entire track-record prior that that was elite.

 

Jonathan India had some pedigree, but don't forget that he was an under-slot pick at #5. He was rated much closer to #10 in his draft class than he was to #5. So not really any different from Manoah's pedigree. The Fangraphs writeup on India was that he had no plus tools but could be a solid regular....after his ROY season he has basically become that: a guy who hits a bit with ok or worse defense.

 

I just thought it was interesting as Merrifield is a FA after this year, Espy/Biggio suck.

 

I guess part of my confusion here is that you know that Biggio/Espinal suck, but apart from some prospect pedigree, what makes India that much different? Biggio was a 2.7 WAR player his first season (not much unlike India) and Espinal has been a ~2 WAR player the last two seasons before he started sucking this season. Sure India is better, but he's not even that clear an upgrade to justify the cost of trading a young pitcher who was a Cy Young finalist for him. Merrifield is better than India and they got him for two low-end prospects.

[Orgfiller]

Bellinger fit the bill too

 

The interest definitely, the price he ended up going for didn’t however.

[Jonn]

I would be a fan of a Jonathan India pick up. More in there for sure

[hanton]

German

 

6 innings pitched

9 K's

3 home runs

6 earned runs

 

what a line

[BTS]

German

 

6 innings pitched

9 K's

3 home runs

6 earned runs

 

what a line

 

Kirby's was even weirder: 4IP, 9K, 1BB and 5 ER

[hanton]

Kirby's was even weirder: 4IP, 9K, 1BB and 5 ER

 

LOL I was just going to post that, yea so strange

[Jonn]

 

Love this.

[Spanky__99]

These guys in Texas are going to brawl.

 

Benches cleared, nothing doing right now though.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Spanky99

[hanton]

Garcia with a 457' no doubter grand slam, benches and dugouts clear....nothing. This is only the bottom of the 5th

[Spanky__99]

Garcia with a 457' no doubter grand slam, benches and dugouts clear....nothing. This is only the bottom of the 5th

 

It started way before that. Alvarez first AB off the IL plunked, Semien gets plunked, Semien's next AB goes yard and jaws Valdez down the 3rd base line, Maldonado and Semien exchanged words, nothing came of it. Next batter Valdez goes up and in on a wild pitch, more jawing, lol.

 

Next inning the slam and Maldonado barks again as they're getting annihilated, benches clear, umps eject Semien and Maldonado. I didn't get the Semien ejection, but it's certainly tense. Oh, Semien tried to get at Maldonado I see now.

[hanton]

It started way before that. Alvarez first AB off the IL plunked, Semien gets plunked, Semien's next AB goes yard and jaws Valdez down the 3rd base line, Maldonado and Semien exchanged words, nothing came of it. Next inning the slam and Maldonado barks again as they're getting annihilated, benches clear, umps eject Semien and Maldonado. I didn't get the Semien ejection, but it's certainly tense.

 

wow. Yea I missed all that. I can see why the Astros would be upset at Alvarez getting plunked

[Spanky__99]

wow. Yea I missed all that. I can see why the Astros would be upset at Alvarez getting plunked

 

Yeah, and they Plunked Semien right away... beef tonight, lol.

[L54]

I wish they would tell the bullpens to stay put instead of jogging in to do absolutely nothing

[Brownie19]

It's awesome to see Yelich back near the top of the WAR leaderboard.

[Brownie19]

What a signing Ha-Seong Kim has turned out to be. I remember that most on this board were hoping the Jays would sign him.

[jaysblue]

What a signing Ha-Seong Kim has turned out to be. I remember that most on this board were hoping the Jays would sign him.

 

Wonder if he could be a trade candidate at the deadline? Padres are going nowhere.

[Jonn]

What a signing Ha-Seong Kim has turned out to be. I remember that most on this board were hoping the Jays would sign him.

 

It took him some time to figure it out. Not to be really unexpected. But he is about as good as anyone could have possibly hoped for.

[G-Snarls]

Ryan Tepara released

 

He washed up now?