Laika

I see we are going straight to zero on the 2025 Vibes graph

Jackson Kelenic

That's on Vlad. Should have been an easy play for the 2B.

Berrios swiftly reminding everybody that he sucks now

whiffs on breaking ball in the dirt whiffs on a hanging breaking ball middle middle $585m please!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOT THE START WE WANTED but probably the start we deserve

Vlad in his own head already Pressureeeee

Why does KK get a jumbotron tribute? lmao Yeah dude nice career for the Rays

Now that it is opening day, the Toronto Blue Jays roster seems almost perfect. Hard to see any flaws at all.

Prediction: Zach Eflin goes 2+ IP giving up 7 ER and 3 HR. He hits the 60 day IL after the game with a torn ego and goes under the knife in April for a butt deflation procedure

I approve of this lineup. Nice to see Wagner, Roden, Clement all in there. I agree with Springer in CF most of the time until Varsho is back. This boosts the offense since Roden gets in the lineup. I am sure old George can catch most of them for a couple of weeks. I don't mind Gimenez 4th. After Tony Taters homers, he's a fun "leadoff hitter" to come up. Also can "lead off" the second inning if the Jays go 0-3 to begin a game. And he can probably be an old school RBI guy put the ball in play etc. when needed. I am sure the lineup from 4th to 9th is very fluid. Great to see they are already slotting Springer 6th. Guys like Roden and Wagner can shoot up to 4th if they earn it.

Nance, Pop, and Robertson all being DFA'd in one go. Potentially could lose a lot of decent RP depth here. Of course, it's that time of year where all teams are crunched so perhaps they can just be slid down to AAA.

I'll f***ing puke if Ross/Mark/Ed give in to him

Why are the Padres the model? Are the Astros a really dumb org for letting Cole, Bregman, Correa, Springer, all walk? Loser teams are the ones who need to desperately trade players before they become free agents. Remember when Boston HAD to "manage their asset" and trade Mookie Betts before he walked and they ended up with Verdugo and Jeter Downs? lol.

Good.

Stuff+ is mostly each pitch in a vacuum. It does use the main fastball as the basis of the model and measures everybody's other stuff off of that pitch. There are other metrics that try to measure how a pitcher's entire arsenal interacts, each pitch with the others, but they are newer. It would fail to take into account a lot of things. I don't think it captures "tunneling" at all for example, so someone like Pop could have a good sinker and a nasty slider but if that slider is recognizable immediately out of the hand, hitters just won't even try to hit it and/or they can destroy any mistake sliders. Something like that probably explains Zach Pop entirely, since his career run values are positive on the sinker but negative on the 112 Stuff+ slider. Also important to note that not every pitch has a 100 as the average Stuff+. The typical Slider is a 110 pitch, so Pop's is closer to average. And his 105 sinker is actually a full standard deviation above the typical sinker, which carries a 92.5 mark. So he's more of a one pitch dude, with a boring slider, and not really a guy with two plus pitches at all. Stuff+ is pretty good at telling how good a player is in small sample sizes. Again, similar to velocity. Just think of it like a better, scientific version of scouting grades. It can be pretty dang useful in small samples but becomes less useful over time unless you are thinking about changes a certain pitcher is going through.

Cal Raleigh was going to make $5.6M this year, pre-arb agreement. Seattle could have walked him through arb for say $10M in 2026 and $15M in 2027. So they would have been out $30.6M. He is already 28. Even if he remained very good for the next three years, couldn't they have worked out some kind of deal to pay him basically the same AAV or the same total outlay, from 2028 onward? This is a catcher with a career 29% K rate and .218 AVG who is presently at the peak of the aging curve. This is his extension: $10 million signing bonus 2025 with $1M salary $11 million salary 2026: $12 million 2027: $23 million 2028 $23 million 2029 $23 million 2030 2031: $20 million vesting/player option (with $2 million buyout) I feel like there was no need for them to do this. They must be confident that despite his age and peripherals, he will remain a 4+ WAR player for a long time. Recent big money C deals for Sean Murphy and Contreras in STL don't really set a confidence-inspiring precedent.

You have to know how to use Stuff+. It's just a tool. Nance pairs decent stuff with poor command/locations. He also does not actually have a real dynamite pitch. Pop has a 106 Stuff+ as a reliever, Nance is 103 Stuff+. These are not great figures for an RP. Good but not great. Lots of ways to be bad with slightly above average stuff. I mean just use velo as the corollary. You can throw hard and suck. That doesn't mean that throwing hard is bad. In fact we know it's better to throw harder - more room for error. Stuff is the same.

I love Roden but if he's a 2 win player you take that to the bank. House money. You do need to adjust his minor league numbers a bit for age vs. level, he was always a bit old. His 140 wRC+ in AAA is also good but not like, otherwordly or something. A lot depends on defensive value. Spencer Steer is a similar non-prospect mid 20s with a good stick and two years of MLB data. He hits well and has never been over 2 WAR.

Funny to see the Yankees desperately snap up the Jays' roster cut I guess Yarbro is probably better than Carrasco

You are allowed to have an opinion but people can make fun of you if it's outlandish AND you are indignant about it. Here is an example of a mature and socially acceptable way to express your opinion: "I'm not as big of an Alejandro Kirk fan as some of you. I worry about how he will age and wonder if they needed to make this deal when he still had two years before free agency." Instead, you said that it was too soon and then insulted his body twice (while ironically being the biggest Vlad Jr. fan ever) and compared the deal to the infamous Randal Grichuk contract. Then you doubled down on the sauce and accused others of doing "mental gymnastics".

Vlad had a .678 OPS last year through the first 31 regular season games, with a 56% GB rate. So I wouldn't be worried about him even if he has a bad April. But it will be interesting to see the shape of his season.

Kirk MLB catcher rank (fWAR projected) by projection systems: Steamer 600 - 1st in MLB! ZiPS - 5th Steamer - 5th OOPSY - 6th THE BAT - 7th THE BAT X - 7th ATC - 11th Keep in mind that every projection system is giving him less PA than basically all other starting catchers, since his track record of PA is lower. That's not really his fault though, not like he has been chronically injured or anything. If you add just 10% to his ATC projection he's top 7. Add 10% to Steamer and he's top 3.

*thumbs down*