Laika

*critically think It's a big assumption and you're giving them a lot of credit that they don't really deserve. Offering Bickford slot money and getting spurned isn't really "punting the pick". Ask AA/Parker if they punted the pick, and they would tell you no. They would say that they had every intention of signing Bickford. You're not even entertaining the most likely case. On another note, a prospect right now objectively carries more value than an equal prospect a year from now. You can't just say that "11 in a deeper draft is better than 10 in this draft". That's a shallow analysis. Even if the kid in 2014 is better than Bickford, that doesn't necessarily mean that waiting a year to get him was the right move. He would need to be better by some uncertain amount that is hard to quantify. And looking beyond Bickford, rumours are right now that Toronto might not get Brentz and/or Tellez. It's entirely possible that the Jays right now end up spending like, 2 million total on this years draft, bagging Clinton Hollon at #47 as their best drafted prospect. That would be a disaster and a half.

I'm just soooooooooooo happy for Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve. From high school teacher to MLB ALL STAR!!!! What a story! Yay steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevie

All things considered, Kovie is probably doing NJ a massive favour though.

How does one even rise to the upper ranks of an MLB front office without being a critical thinker? The Blue Jays FO is fundamentally flawed. They didn't pass the first checkpoint - hire smart people.

You know the All Star game is kind of broken when a team that's under .500 and in 5th place is getting represented by not one, but TWO pop-up, non-closing relief pitchers. Josh Donaldson has been a stud all year. Evan Longoria isn't going. You need a relief pitcher? Why not Greg f***ing Holland, who has been destroying worlds all year. Sigh.

- Would prefer the 11th round pick in next year's class - Take a guy who wants a ton of money - Offer him near slot but make him feel unwanted - Doesn't look like you punted the pick - Get a better prospect next year - It's not completely transparent The team that's been gaming the draft (or at least trying to) for several years now would definitely do it, if they thought they were on to something.

77 million on the table.... I wonder how much the KHL / the Russian mob is offering him

It's entirely possible that they just looked at the two draft classes and decided that they'd prefer the 11th pick next year. I wouldn't really give them that much credit though. Who knows. 11 + 20ish + supplemental for JJ = neato! Although at this point, JJ might just accept a qualifying offer. And the Jays would probably just overdraft 3 high school arms with those picks anyway.

You can still keep him. Probably not the best route for his development chances though, unfortunately.

Jamie f***ing Campbell could do a better job.

Don't look now, but the Adam Lind dead cat bounce is very probably over. The guy has TWO walks since June 9th. I wish that was a joke. So much for seeing the ball well. The Cibia has 7 walks in that span. At this point, he's basically just Adam Lind from the last 3 years + some BABIP luck (.349). As for Cecil, he was a s*** starter so they moved him to the pen, as they should have. Any sane person expected him to carry value as a reliever.

The draft was bad for Toronto no matter what happens with Bickford.... they hardly drafted any plus baseball names.

Yeah, the whole point of popping Bickford so early should be to open up a pool of money to sign a couple of guys like Brentz and Tellez. As if something like ~2 million isn't enough for Phil f***ing Bickford, who really wasn't even on the radar at #10. He was a kid that most thought would fall to the supplemental round.

Linear weights exist. Approximate values: 1B: 0.90 BB: 0.70 HR: 2.00 Something like that... Yes, a base hit is better than a walk. Yes, 0-1 with 3 BB is (most often) a better night than 1-4 with a HR. There is a big difference between the "AVG" skill and the "OBP" skill though. It's not as simple as "a hit is better, therefore OBP is overrated". In the modern game, it is fully possible to OBP well over .400, that is to say, not get out over 40% of the time. It is virtually impossible to do this via base hits alone, over any sizable sample. Players that want to maximize their offensive impact NEED to walk as much as possible. And players that want to be more consistent producers also need to walk as much as possible. Putting the ball in play makes your production subject to a lot of luck - batting average can be volatile, and swing up and down violently based on BABIP. If you walk 14% of the time, like Votto or Bautista, then you can still be a stud even when your average sinks to the mid .200's (usually). Walk 4% of the time like Adam Jones or Erick Aybar, and even when you hit .280+, you're barely an above average player (usually). When it comes to Bonifacio and Kawasaki, walk rate is the difference between being a useful bench player (Kawasaki: .212 with no pop and 11.7 walk rate = .280 wOBA, positive WAR) and a piece of s*** (Bonifacio: .206 with 3.9% walk rate and no pop = .239 wOBA, negative WAR). Now you have been enlightened. Go forth and preach the gospel of OBP.

Yeah. With lots of guys that aren't big names, they don't add them until after they've played a game.

I wonder if you could get a full one run ERA swing, for both guys, by transplanting these two pitchers onto the other guy's team: Guy we've been talking about Other guy edit - nvm it doesn't even look like a HR/FB thing between the 2. Does SafeCo even help pitchers that much anymore? What are the new park factors like there?

It's not so much that trading Lawrie was a mistake, I just think you probably could've got a more solid pitcher. Better or at least more reliable. You paid a lot for a sizable portion of ERA and BABIP.

I'd turn into a whiny jaded ******* too if 90% of my callers/commenters didn't even understand how pitcher wins get handed out.

Trade was Apr 23 Iwakuma was a stud for 8 of 9 starts between then and his recent stretch of gas cans. In May: 2.53 ERA, .265 OBPa, 4.63 K/BB. Then his first 2 June starts were 8 and 7 shutout innings. While he was doing that, Werth got hurt and missed basically all of May. Then his June wOBA was .366 and his July so far is .422. Still pretty much up in the air. ~4.00 FIP SP for a 34 year old injury prone CF eligible with across the board upside seems fair though.

Is crossing leagues Kosher? Probably not.

I'm just happy to see the Werth trade finally swing my way at least an inch or two. A 30 day ~7 ERA combined with a .~950 OPS for Werth will do that.

Oh god, I didn't even know it was this bad. Hisashi since BTS traded Lawrie for him: 29 IP 22 ER 10 HR 33 Hits 4+ ER in every single start

Meanwhile, on the Hisashi Iwakuma front....

DFA half the team. Studs and Duds doesn't get you there in baseball.

centrepiece