Laika

thehurl should be a pro scout. He called the fact that Bonifacio couldn't handle the infield before the season even started. Clearly he's a better MLB scout than whoever the Blue Jays employ. Once this fact become apparent, it was fairly obvious that Bonifacio was nothing more than a poor man's Rajai Davis (yuck!).

I have no clue. Nox probably knows. I bet they don't spend any more on their FO human capital than the rest of baseball, but they probably hire the right people and get 100x more value than any other team (just like on the field).

I didn't even know who Dr. Taylor was before your post, but +1. A bottom-up diagnosis of the Blue Jays pitching injury history would tell any empiricist that whatever medical care the team is currently getting *probably* isn't working well enough, relative to the rest of baseball. Get a new go-to Doctor guy, but on top of that, hire a savvy Kinesiologist/Physics/Biomechanics guy to analyze mechanics, diagnosis deviations from the norm in the major league talent, and suggest mechanical tweaks in the young prospect arms. I can't for the f***ing life of me understand why some sports teams will gladly give a mediocre player several millions of dollars, but remain so apprehensive to establishing a plethora of innovative off-field positions such as the above ^ at a fraction of the cost of that 'meh' athlete. The Blue Jays think Maicer Izturis is worth 10 million dollars. For that money, you could probably get almost 10 difference making PhD level nerds on 10 year contracts. And if this human capital resulted in a little more than ONE f***ING WIN ON THE FIELD (not each year - in total), they would be worth their entire 10 year cumulative salaries. ~$75k analysts in the Rays FO are probably earning that team millions upon millions of dollars in surplus value.... every. f***ing. year.

Pretty much. He'll be a Padre, Giant, or a Pirate for 2014. Only way I could see Johnson coming back is if he has some kind of weird, twisted sense of loyalty and feels like he owes the Jays something.

I can understand why someone with an audience would want to avoid a completely indicting position (such as "AA sucks" or "Fire AA/Beeston"). There's a lot of downside for someone like Stoeten to wear a position like that on their sleeve, and really, what's the upside? A few of us nerds read his s*** more often? Whoop-dee-f***ing-doo. Putting the flurry of moves back in context, anyone with half a brain realized that they were terribly inefficient moves at the time. Most wise fans were still excited though, since the team should have finally been good. And, believe in the reasons or not, there were/are some fairly legitimate sounding defenses of the moves, mostly surrounding the Blue Jays weird situation of not being able to attract free agents, and having a corporate owner that was pushing for timely success/growth.

Rogers' Trendy Futurismo Concrete Fishbowl Event Centre Dome Place

Which situation would you rather inherit? The Angels, with all of those terrible bloated contracts but also Mike fcking Fish, Or the Blue Jays, without nearly as much crippling financial commitment, and a better farm system, but also no Mike Fish or anything that could even sniff his musk.

nvm

Errrrrybody looking for pitching. Seller's market.

Fundraiser? Like a bake sale or something?

This team should have won close to ninety games. The Blue Jays have been remarkably unlucky this year. But just because the team, in this one particular season, should have won a lot of games doesn't mean that the process was good. Actually, it all kind of seems like Karmic Justice, that everything blew up in their faces after so much bad process. That's where some of the smug team bashing comes from, I suppose.

Stupid to say that they *should* have traded him when we don't even know what would be offered. Sure, they could possibly have made a profit trading Janssen. Was the right deal out there? We have no idea. This article is a great example of absolute base level blog analytics. A 50 grade point surrounded by 30 grade writing. There's no substance here.

Only guy might be Loup. Hard to say that Cecil has been overworked when he's been a SP for so long.

Surprised that you didn't become accustomed to the clueless masses years ago.

Legit! So legit!

Good thing they held onto this guy at the deadline!

More information doesn't necessarily mean better conclusions. I've always liked UZR more just because of random things I've read online, on The Book blog etc, comparing the two methods. I don't really pay any attention to DRS, ever. I think it just muddies the water, to be honest.

I'd rather watch him play than bring DRS into the fold. He looks like a fairly average SS (great tools, not amazing instincts). UZR says he's a bit below average, I could buy that. I don't really think he's a butcher.

UZR/150 2010: -5.2 2011: -3.8 2012: -3.3 2013: -16.7 (terribly small sample size + grotesquely broken ankle). Not really any numerical evidence of defensive decline, yet. He's not nearly poor enough at the position that he'd be more valuable at 2B. I don't even think it's a given that he's a better defender at 2B. He's played SS his whole f***ing life, he's probably WAY less comfortable on the other side of second, and you'd be neutering his cannon of an arm by sliding him closer to 1B. The only way it makes sense to slide him over is if you bring in a sure fire plus defensive SS. Those aren't exactly easy to acquire, unless you want to no bat variety, and then you're basically just spinning your tires and wasting energy and you might as well have left Reyes at short and found a 2B.

I don't think I've ever had a team get hit this hard by the DL train. Currently 10 on the DL counting Quentin + one DTD player + one NA that I figured would be a full time starter by now.

Sanchez: All's good; little blister "would have just gotten worse". Didn't want it to be an issue come playoffs. #BlueJays

He could also provide nothing, or worse, negative WAR, and he'd be the type of contract that you'd probably have to play full time (opportunity cost). He's been worthless or worse in 2 out of his last 5 seasons. I just really don't think he's the type of player where you can ignore the extremes and expect the mean. And I don't like his volatility in conjunction with his age. There are only so many 13M contracts that a team can fit on its payroll in any given year, no matter what team you're talking about. Rios certainly wouldn't be one of mine, but I guess Texas is kind of in dire straits with their current OF depth chart and Nelson Cruz situation.

2013 32 Chicago White Sox $12,500,000 2014 33 Chicago White Sox $12,500,000 2015 34 Chicago White Sox *$13,500,000 $13.5M Team Option, $1M Buyout, *Trade escalates 2015 option by $500k He is on ZIPS pace for 2.7 fWAR this season, more than worth his contract. If he declines "normally" then he should be worth the money next year too, but maybe just barely, depending on what $/WAR paradigm you believe in. But we might not care the most about the mean case scenario with a guy like Rios. We already *think* based on 2011 and 2009 that his skill set has significant downside (and based on other years, upside. He's a volatile player). When I look at a contract situation like Rios', I don't really see a big asset, not when we factor in the chance of a big downturn, which may or may not be exacerbated by his current age. His current age probably also bites into his upside a little bit. This is what it is, and I don't see it as a steal. Not at all. If I'm running a baseball team, I would want near guaranteed production for my 8 figure players. You get enough volatility out of your prospects and your league min young players and your pitchers. Let them boom or bust, and with the other 90% of your payroll, have the piece of mind of knowing what you're paying for.

It's just another hypothetical, will-never-happen trade, but the Brewers org is pretty desperate for good, controllable pitching. They have a pretty solid offensive core and almost no solid young pitching to complement it. *IF they had another C in the org and Lucroy was movable, something like Sanchez + other depth pitching would be appealing.

Or, unless he has a down year and writes a racial slur on his face. Then his value would instantly = nothing, apparently. Seriously though, Yunel Escobar was a similar asset in the not too distant past. It's really irritating to think that Toronto just set all that value on fire, and now TB has a ~4 win player that they got for free.