Series Thread... Aug 22nd to 26th Angels @ Blue Jays... Go Jays Go!

[max silver]

More importantly than needing to dissect his season into chunks - slumps and hot streaks are just natural parts of the game - is that his expected results based on quality of contact has him looking like he should be closer to a 120 wRC+ bat. As a comparable to justify me pulling this number out of my ass, Horwitz has a .342 wOBA which translates into a 124 wRC+, Kirk is sitting at a .338 xwOBA on the season. If his brutally poor luck this season had translated into performance, we'd be looking at Kirk's season very favourably and feel extremely comfortable with him being our #1 option behind the dish next season. I mean, we still should be, but it would help to look at his raw line and see some prettier numbers.

 

The team is full of players who have underlying statistics that support better than the production they've contributed this season. This applies to all of Bo, Springer and Kirk who have drastically underperformed compared to their expected stats.

 

I don't know specifically when Kirk turned around his quality of contact as I haven't dug that directly into the numbers, but you can search his expected stats using Statcast search. Using the same dates I've referenced Kirk produced an xwOBA/wOBA split of .161/.235 for the first two weeks, compared to .361/.320 since then.

[Omar]

[Omar]

Night off for Vladdy

[hanton]

big time play by Berroa

[John_Havok]

Bassitt out there showing everyone part of the unfixable problems

[hanton]

run support; in order Gausman, Berrios, Bassitt

[Omar]

Fido with the big hr to tie it.

[Omar]

B2B jacks for the walkoff!!!!

 

[Spanky99]

B2B Jacks to win it, sweet!

[HomeRunHomer]

back to back jacks for the win!

[o2cui2i]

HOLY f***!!! what a walk off double smashes! Some of the young guys look pretty good. great come back!

[o2cui2i]

Fido with the big hr to tie it.

 

his catch against the wall early in the game was nice as well.

[The_DH]

Now that was an ending!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Eat My Shatkins]

Is Cabrera figuring it out, or is it just me?

[G-Snarls]

Holy s*** what a great ending

[o2cui2i]

Holy s*** what a great ending

 

we have been on the other end of a bunch of those this year. nice to be doing to someone else

[Joltin Joe]

Good finish to the game. Young bats bring energy to team. Compared to older players like Turner or KK

[Joltin Joe]

His numbers are very similar to Russel Martin's first few years, and Russell also had a couple of years in his mid 20s where something was bothering him and he was powerless.

 

Martin's WAR was higher because he was getting insane defense scores (Kirk's are very good, better than Varsho per game, but not as good as Martin's). I wonder how much of that is just the other catchers getting better at framing, so the amount above average for a good framer is less than it used to be.

 

Kind of funny but Russell sort of switched to more of a 20 homer .230 guy with a higher k rate after really struggling as a low power contact hitter (except for one Random season with Pittsburgh where he returned to being an on base machine).

 

According to fangraphs I think Kirk is one of the top 3 defensive players in the game, per game. All 3 are catchers though so maybe the system rewards catchers disproportionally.

Rather see him as backup

[glory]

Loperfido now has a 103 wRC+ and 0.3 WAR in 62 PA since the trade. I haven’t been paying much attention as I was on vacation this past week but he must be on some sort of heater because dude was striking out practically every time he had a bat in his hand a few weeks ago. Would be nice if he developed into something.

[saskjayfan]

Loperfido now has a 103 wRC+ and 0.3 WAR in 62 PA since the trade. I haven’t been paying much attention as I was on vacation this past week but he must be on some sort of heater because dude was striking out practically every time he had a bat in his hand a few weeks ago. Would be nice if he developed into something.

 

Definitely a different vibe to the team. A bunch of young kids playing having fun. I'm not sure who if any of them will work out long term but it's refreshing to see the energy.

[jaysblue]

Loperfido now has a 103 wRC+ and 0.3 WAR in 62 PA since the trade. I haven’t been paying much attention as I was on vacation this past week but he must be on some sort of heater because dude was striking out practically every time he had a bat in his hand a few weeks ago. Would be nice if he developed into something.

 

Yeah he has nice tools. Would be sweet if he could turn into something for the Jays!

[spats]

Definitely a different vibe to the team. A bunch of young kids playing having fun. I'm not sure who if any of them will work out long term but it's refreshing to see the energy.

 

Yes. This team is now fun to watch, win or lose. The future looks a little brighter.

[Laika]

Barger and Loperfido crushed those pitches

[Jonn]

Francis shoving again early.

 

3K’s in a first.

[The_DH]

I'm really starting to like Francis. The 3K's all looked intimidating.

[G-Snarls]

I'm fine with

 

Good pitching

Good offense

Acceptable defense

 

For 2025 and onward

 

Don't want anorher team loaded with defense first players who can't hit their weight

[Masterbather]

Yes. This team is now fun to watch, win or lose. The future looks a little brighter.

Definitely more fun to watch, also not sure if any of them will stick but definitely more fun to watch except for the bullpen. That's painful.

[Masterbather]

I'm sure everyone's looking at that pitch count.

[hanton]

Interesting how both telecasts treated the Fulmer / Loperfido interaction, or maybe not so interesting they treated it as homers

[Brownie19]

How about Bowden Francis? Unreal.