Laika

David Ortiz will haunt your dreams all winter. Amazing that your guys even made it close after all those torch jobs

No s*** he would. That's probably a lot more than he'd get on the open market. I doubt the Jays offer it though. This is the team that signed Cordero because ERA. You really think they have any confidence in JJ?

I probably need one more hit or walk...

Might also be able to win with a single HR, which could flip SLG. Or a single and double maybe.

No, you just become a Darrell. Even better.

Yeah, you have to like Ortiz' odds of at least getting a hit and a walk against Nova, or something like that. 400 wOBA. It would be a rare occurrence for him to completely blank against a righty.

Nava double gets everything a bit closer for me. Ortiz single for BTS' bench.

Sure, there's a reason for AA to offer Johnson some type of contract, but I can't think of why Josh Johnson would be so dumb as to accept it. Who takes a pillow contract in the AL East? JJ would have to have an IQ in the 70's, or the Blue Jays would have to offer many millions more than the next highest team. I just can't see it happening. Well, I'd be very surprised. And I don't really care either, JJ is a flake. Even if you buy into his fielding independent stats from this year, he's still a guy that pitched just 81 innings, 2 years after pitching just 60. I'll take one of him and Morrow in the starting 5 for the upside they have, but a rotation with both of them is doomed. DOOOOOOOOMED.

Dickey - #2/3 Johnson - won't be back Morrow - #3 Buehrle - #4 Happ - #6 Hutchison - #4/5 McGowan - RP Redmond - #5 Drabek - #4/5 Nolin - #5 Rogers - #6 Stroman - #3/4 Depth is fine for next year. Big need for above average starters though. Even just a couple of solid #3 types maybe.

I always used to think Breaking Bad was slightly overrated, but this season has changed everything for me.

Watch NYY/BOS game or watch Breaking Bad? Tough decisions.

Yeah, if Belt gets on again then you'll have no choice. If Belt doesn't then it's a hard decision... would suck to start Papi and watch him not get on base while Cano and Nava go 2/8 with a walk and lead me to victory. Would also suck to not start Papi and watch him get on 3 or 4 times while my guys flip the category. Of course I have no choice but to start them since I can still flip HR and Hits and SLG with some big games from them.

Tough call on whether or not to start Ortiz. You have the slim OBP lead, if you start him and he goes 0 fer, or 1 for 4 or whatever, that could be the end of the line for the True Cards.

+ he's a character vet and a PED buy low. It really makes too much sense to happen. AA will think it's fishy for being so obvious, then he'll sign Brayan Pena or something.

I guess I don't have holds as an out anymore. Jennings out + Zobrist homer here would be huge.

I just need to flip 1 cat. You have Ortiz tonight + 1 more PA from Andrus and Jennings, and I have Nava/Cano tonight + 2 or 3 more PA from Belt. I need some some clutch production from my #1 pick.

That was saying more about his team than yours. Tough draw for you.

Butt ---> Couch

Same would go for Nolasco. I wonder how much money he'll get... great career year but 4.33 career ERA while pitching in the NL in massive stadiums his whole career.

Cano Ellsbury McCann Choo Pence? Burnett Kuroda Granderson?? Santana?? Lincecum maybe?? Beltran isn't a sure thing to get an offer. Off chance that some guys like Morales or Infante get offers too. I don't think the Rangers can get comp for Garza so no point in them making him an offer.

Realmin crushes torontofan (as expected). Kats has an 8-4 lead on Darth Vader, but almost everything is close. Nail biter. Arroyo for Kats vs. Parker / Pedro Hernandez for Vader. Like, 10 categories could flip. Who has this tiebreaker? Dinger vs. FTD also a big nail biter. Who has this tiebreaker? I need some help against Chief Norman... throwing some s*** against the wall with Tyler Cloyd and Tom Koehler, hoping to flip K's and W's by brute force. I have the tiebreaker.

It takes ~500+ PA's for something like OPS to become somewhat stable. There's a massive opportunity cost to giving players like Ryan Goins a starting gig and 500 PA in a season to find out if they can hit. It's not a good practice, and it's not something that the Jays have to or should do.

That's a funny, confounding way to frame a pretty simple question. Straightforward question: Can Ryan Goins hit in the big leagues? Logical stance: No. He wasn't even a league average hitter in AAA, at 25 years old! Illogical stance: Yes. I believe in the Goins. 60 AB doesn't prove that Goins can't hit, but every day where Ryan Goins struggles to hit big league pitching is still an affirmation of the logical stance in some respect. We already know that he very probably can't hit at all. The burden of proof here is on the least likely scenario, the one I've called illogical.

You're right, it is. For example: - Some of his offensive profile "inputs", like K and BB%, are far from discouraging. - He'll almost certainly get a chance to play out his peak years in the big leagues. - The tools are existent etc. You said "ideal" but that word isn't appropriate. The general trajectory is what you think he won't follow. I dunno. We have thousands of players to put into our sample and help build our general truths. Yeah, most specific players don't improve gracefully to 27 and then decline slowly. Some of them do wildly different things, like peak at 35 or peak at 23.... but can we really look at specific players and try to outsmart what we know as general truths? Is that a helpful way to approach the game or would it get us into trouble more than it would help us? I have no idea, it's baseball philosophy. I would have to ask what your "couple reasons" are for why you think Lawrie isn't going to make positive improvements. It's not like he has massive holes in his swing, a big K%, an aversion to walks, an inability to juice baseballs, or an inability to hit a certain handedness or pitching. I'm not sure what troubling characteristics you think he has. I just see a guy who's hit tool is better than his gameplan right now, so he swings at a lot of pitches he should spit on, and unfortunately puts them into play weakly. But that seems like a problem that experience would help a lot.

That's a valid point if we have no idea what kind of player he is, but we do have a pretty good idea that he can't hit much at all. The burden of proof is completely on the people who think he can hit.