Laika

holy f***

They haven't made a good transaction in years. Every trade sucks. Every signing sucks.

And the projection systems seem to all agree. STEAMER - .307 wOBA ZiPS - .309 wOBA OOPSY - .312 wOBA I think coming into his age 28 season all of these would still be projecting some positive growth but from 2026 on the opposite will be true. Pulled flyballs are kind of the best thing you can do if you have any power whatsoever. OOPSY is some new system that uses bat speed and other fancy new s***. For all of Varsho's flaws, he does have bat speed. #3 on the team behind Vlad and Barger. It does help him make contact sometimes even when he is fooled (which is why his plate discipline stats are a bit better than he "looks" as a hitter) and of course it helps him murder a baseball once a week.

Yeah but they can just sign new ones. The total MLB budget for IFAs is not changing, so it's just musical chairs for the most part.

It is hard to imagine that there is anything else there at this point. It does not seem like he has the physical hitting tools to be better on offense. He might be able to squeeze a few more wOBA points out of his skillset with minor changes... maybe. But hitting just looks "hard" for him all the time. A lot of his walks come from being passive and getting lucky, for example, and not really from having a good eye (IMO). A lot of people are mad he isn't as good or better than he was in Arizona but with his swiss cheese swing and mediocre eye, I wonder if we should just be happy that he's a league average (ish) hitter still?

Pete Walker! Maybe they flew in Daulton Varsho and he put on a little show shagging flyballs

don't think I have ever seen a ZiPS projection that bad for a team every single spot on the team ranges from atrocious to below average, other than where Luis Robert stands

Sasaki just milking LAD/SDP for free dinners and stuff before signing in Toronto

Good point. I guess there might be other ways to "exert leverage" like negotiate for certain conditions or special treatment. But I am sure every team would basically do whatever this guy asks for off the field.

Roki is racist?

biggest tits

Use me, Sasaki!

I dunno man. Langford and Wood already project very well. I dunno!!!

Fangraphs has their P at 13 WAR which is 11th in the AL! Position players are like #5 in the AL though. Of course that's a defense heavy position players WAR...

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/01/anthony-santander-jack-flaherty-reportedly-open-to-short-term-offers.html

Older players are far less likely to regress to the mean and improve, statistically. He's not the worst signing in the world at some amount of money I just don't really see the point given the projections of guys like Roden and Wagner and Schneider.

Dude he's like 38 and was just about replacement level last year and projects to be replacement level He MIGHT bounce back but I'd honestly just sign Justin Turner again if he are bringing in a crusty veteran

True in theory but Vogelbach projected similarly last year and was much cheaper and he was still a roadblock in front of Horwitz for too long.

Problem with JDM is he sucks. I think I'd rather just play Davis Schneider or whatever.

Okay but there's no such thing as the "budget on the pitching side" Just one budget bro

Pete Alonso

Trollosi was first!

Dude soft-ruined his career with a few weird choices. He could have been a power pitcher with tons of whiffs but intentionally became a groundball pitch-to-contact guy. This made his numbers boring and probably kept his upside down.

Yes. Honestly Springer is just part of the glut of guys who COULD be league average but probably won't be. Toronto has so many of them. Chucky Macadooooo has better 80th and 20th percentile projections than George, per ZiPS! Batters – 80th/20th Percentiles Player 80th BA 80th OBP 80th SLG 80th OPS+ 80th WAR 20th BA 20th OBP 20th SLG 20th OPS+ 20th WAR Vladimir Guerrero Jr. .317 .399 .554 165 5.5 .267 .348 .455 127 2.5 Andrés Giménez .293 .353 .438 123 5.1 .242 .302 .359 88 2.5 Alejandro Kirk .293 .367 .430 126 4.0 .234 .309 .333 86 2.0 Bo Bichette .309 .353 .482 133 4.1 .257 .299 .387 92 1.4 Daulton Varsho .246 .320 .475 121 3.8 .200 .272 .372 83 1.3 Will Wagner .298 .376 .435 129 3.0 .240 .318 .346 89 0.9 Davis Schneider .242 .343 .470 125 3.1 .191 .292 .355 86 0.8 Addison Barger .268 .338 .460 123 2.8 .220 .288 .364 85 0.6 Leo Jiménez .257 .357 .404 114 2.5 .207 .311 .320 80 0.8 Charles McAdoo .268 .331 .443 117 2.8 .217 .284 .348 80 0.6 Michael Stefanic .304 .380 .394 120 2.4 .249 .327 .325 88 0.8 Alan Roden .280 .362 .432 124 2.7 .229 .312 .343 87 0.4 Ernie Clement .287 .317 .441 112 2.5 .229 .257 .348 70 0.4 George Springer .268 .341 .442 119 2.7 .213 .290 .348 83 0.3 Jonatan Clase .242 .315 .412 102 2.5 .194 .267 .320 68 0.3 Nathan Lukes .300 .355 .436 123 2.2 .236 .298 .344 82 0.4 Joey Loperfido .257 .325 .453 119 2.5 .204 .271 .353 77 0.1

Also, ZiPS hates Clement.