Laika

You have to comp him to all those 1B (and Matt Olson) as well as some of the younger "stars" that hit FA at like 26/27 like Harper. It's a really interesting case. His market could really fall anywhere on that spectrum. Wide range. A team would be insane to guarantee him anything close to 10/$300 though

Vlad fWAR vs bWAR career 2019, 0.3 vs. 2.1 2020, 0.3 vs. 0.6 2021, 6.3 vs. 6.7 2022, 3.4 vs. 4.0 2023, 1.3 vs. 2.0 2024, 2.0 vs. 2.5 total, 13.6 vs. 17.8 difference is all defense and baserunning. fangraphs has his defense and baserunning at like -100 runs career (minus ten wins) and baseball reference is not as brutal on him for those things just an illustration of how little differences in the models matter in the BR model he looks more like a 4+ win 1B who had a down year in 2023 in the Fangraphs model he looks more like a 3 win 1B who has downside that is sub replacement level sort of matters a lot; 3 win players are readily available but 4 win players are basically all stars and not readily available (scarcity)

Harper had a f***ing 9 WAR season in the bag though. And more pedigree than Vlad. And no he was not a presumed DH. Just assumed to be a lazy RF at that point.

Did not look like anything but a clean catch live

Dude nuked any chance at a trade with his commentary "“This is it, 2024 is it for me,” Kiermaier said today. “This next week will be very interesting (in terms of a potential trade). But this will be my last year playing. I’m going to give it my all the rest of the year regardless of what situation I’m in. But my body is talking to me now more than ever.”"

Do this and put him in LF I have already emailed Ross with these ideas My friend's cousin's dog walker's husband's niece's best friend's therapist's ex-common law partner's step-son goes to the same pickle ball court as Shapiro's kids so I have connections

Brett Wallace was a plus sized athleisurewear model the last I checked his instagram Travis Darno still plays baseball somewhere, I can't remember where. Europe or something. Kyle Drabek is reportedly still alive

You can look at his LA by time period on Fangraphs though season: 6.5 degrees season up to May 31: 5.9 degrees (11.6% barrel rate) June 1 to present: 7.3 degrees (14.3% barrel rate) just July: 12.2 degrees, 17.6% barrel rate

Step 1 sign him in his current form (3 WAR fat 1B) for 10/$200 Step 2 make him a LF, this instantly turns him into a 4 WAR funny LF (he will be no worse than Davis Schneider, his arm is better, and he sucks at 1B anyway) Step 3 solve the offensive riddle that he is so he is 140+ wRC+ forever profit, ez this guy will end his career as a Manny Ramirez type, universally beloved, and go into Cooperstown with a Blue Jay hat because of this process.

They can command big bonuses but they still fail at an incredibly high rate - much much higher than the Rule 4 draft, even on the high school pick side Just go look at the top bonuses from basically any year. 2016: Kevin Maitan, 4.25M Luis Almanzar, 4M Lazarito Armenteros, 3M Alfredo Rodriguez, 7M Yasel Antuna, 3.9M Abraham Gutierrez, 3.5M 2019 Robert Puason, 5.1M Bayron Lora, 4.2M Erick Pena, 3.8M 2022 Yoelqui Céspedes, OF, Cuba – White Sox ($2,050,000) # More » Oscar Colas, LHP/OF, Cuba -- TBD Wilman Diaz, SS, Venezuela – Dodgers ($2,697,500) # More » Carlos Colmenarez, SS, Venezuela – Rays ($3,000,000) # More » Armando Cruz, SS, Dominican Republic – Nationals ($3,900,000) # More » Cristian Hernandez, SS, Dominican Republic – Cubs ($3,000,000) More » Pedro Leon, OF, Cuba – Astros ($4,000,000) # More » Jesus Galiz, C, Venezuela – Dodgers ($812,500) # More » Rickardo Perez, C, Venezuela – Phillies ($1,000,000) More » Yiddi Cappe, SS, Cuba – Marlins ($3,500,000) # More » Go look up any given year. The league collectively goes like 3/30 on players that get $1M or more and maybe 2/10 on guys who get $2M or more. Possibly not even a success rate that high. So it's not some travesty that Bonnilla sucks or some big whiff. I mean yeah it's a whiff but he had a 90% chance of never making it anyway.

Messina might be a dude Saw tweets that said sitting 94-96 (2500+ RPM), touching 98mph, & a wipeout slider peaking at 89 MPH (2900+).

Davis Schneider 50th percentile sprint speed 42nd percentile arm strength OAA: -1 (40th percentile) UZR/150: -5.9 Vlad 47th percentile sprint speed 78th percentile arm strength OAA: ??? UZR: ??? I can't see why he would be any worse or much worse than Davis Schneider. And I can't see why he would be worse than he is at 1B according to OAA.

Okay I love this idea so much tbh. Vlad in LF would be a dream come true. I think he has the personality for it too. He would be diving everywhere and he has the sprint speed to recover on some bad reads. The arm would be a wild card. Can someone pass this idea along to Ross?

Interesting idea. It would be like Yordan Alvarez. The problem with Vlad at 1B is that he's just bad there by most of the advanced metrics. He looks okay but measures poorly. Yeah if they knew he was going to be a -10 first baseman... what's the point? Should just be a DH or a -15 LF/3B instead.

Yeah so Harper gets more money. But that doesn't mean Vlad doesn't deserve a big deal. Harper was a very bad defender leading up to his free agency and a negative baserunner. His added athleticism helps but I don't know if it creates a massive gulf. He is also now a 1B at 31. Age 20-25 wRC+ Harper, 137, 115, 197, 111, 155, 135 Vlad, 106, 110, 166, 133, 118, 140 132 wRC+ for Vlad in this sample, 21st in baseball 143 wRC+ for Harper, 9th in baseball

Yeah but Bryce went: 9.3, 2.0, 4.1, 3.2, at ages 22-25 Vlad will have gone: 6.3, 3.3, 1.3, 3.4, at ages 22-25 (guessing on 2024 final) 18.6 vs. 14.3 Higher highs and lower lowers. Harper way more general athleticism. But you do have a point. It's not all about WAR. You have to assign value to certain elite characteristics even if how those have shown up in the on-field production historically has been sporadic. Vlad is similar to Harper in a lot of ways that very few other baseball players would be... just fundamental stuff like natural physical talent, ability to hammer the ball, etc. I would not give Vlad 10/300 of course but there is probably a 10 year deal in the 200s that I would do. A lot of people point to the Matt Olson contract (8 yr, $168M) as the most that Vlad should get because it's the highest recent precedent for a star 1B under 30. But how are they an actual comp? Olson is a skills-maximizer who used to struggle with a 25% to 30% K rate. He was not a star until he turned 27, and then he figured out how to put it all together and string together some 5 WAR seasons. But now look at him at 30.... 92 wRC+, .220/.300/.389 and the power isn't there. Back to the worst version of Oakland Matt Olson. Would Vlad ever turn into a complete pumpkin like that? Actually kind of hard to imagine. Yes he could groundball his way to a bunch of middling seasons like 2023 and that would suck.

Most underrated player in baseball though Hasn't even made the All Star game since 2019. Not kidding!

Yeah it's bleak They could put together a roster that projects for a WC spot if they make some big FA moves but even then it's going to be a bit of a studs & duds roster that relies too much on guys like Horwitz, Schneider, and Yariel Rodriguez. Even if they sign f***ing Soto, Bregman, Flaherty, and Ryan Pressly or something like that that would still be: - a rotation that is hoping for bounce backs from Gausman and Berrios, relying on Y Rod, and relying on a very old Bassitt - a lineup that is relying on a bad defensive SS with an injury history coming off a nightmare season, underwhelming IKF at 2B, Varsho in CF who cannot hit, Kirk at C who cannot hit, Springer the old man in RF, and then DH that is a Horwitz/Schneider platoon or something that is just okay. - a bullpen that has f***ing nobody you can have confidence in. Just a few okay pieces at the backend but Romano might be f***ed, Pearson who knows, Green doesn't seem great anymore unfortunately. As the season goes on and on and the team continues to play like total dogshit their chances in 2025 just seem worse and worse. That should be obvious of course. If the team was actually good, fundamentally, despite the poor performance and run differential so far, they probably would have started playing better already! They don't need to do a 5 year rebuild but they probably should unload Vlad, Bo and anybody making big money and use 2025 to just see what they have with this assortment of younger roster players. Maybe Leo Jimenez is a 3 WAR SS. Maybe Spencer Horwitz is actually a stud bat. Maybe maybe maybe.

I don't think he's trying to be bad Maybe the opposite. Trying to hard to hit his way out of Toronto (pressing) to negative results. Or trying to play through injury so he remains a trade candidate, and having it backfire.

One more piece of speculation - did Bo come back from injury too early, on his own accord, because he wanted to get traded? You have to consider the possibility!

Then why is Bo doing it? Nobody said he was a genius. - playing like s*** - horrible body language - entertaining trade hypotheticals with multiple out-of-town reporters - reportedly telling friends that he would welcome a trade It all tracks and there are little objective pieces of information that support the narrative. We had Atkins on the radio being surprised about some of Bo's comments a month ago. Bo also has this general history of being a bit stubborn. Weird swing he didn't want to change. Sort of picked his team in the draft.

Bit of a different list I guess. They did "top 50 players who could be dealt" so some of the ranked players are long shots.

don't really see the point in Lux, the Jays have enough 2B types between IKF, Clement, Horwitz, Barger and Lux doesn't even project better offensively at this point Outman is more interesting but he's just a platoon OF

I don't think an offseason trade is that weird. It's a soft tissue injury so teams won't care that much about it in 2025. Some teams will still like him as a player since he will project well enough. Toronto, even if trying to compete in 2025, will have a handful of holes to fill. They may be able to piece together SS between Jimenez, IKF, and Clement. Bo is becoming a negative clubhouse presence. Sort of abandoning the team at the bottom, in various ways (performance, health, attitude).

I think this guy just made it up. I couldn't fund any new rankings. Maybe it was just some person on TV saying it.