Laika

Looking like Votto won't even play this year. He must have broken his ankle in 47 places. Also, Vogelbach may get forced off the roster sooner than that. I think they need to release him like TOMORROW or else his full $2M is guaranteed? I am surprised he is still here when Spencer Horwitz has a pulse.

ugh biggio the only thing worse than biggio is fat biggio (dv)

Are you being obtuse on purpose or does your brain just have slow think speed? None of the platoon splits so far this year are particularly relevant to the discussion, they are all also close to meaningless in the present sample sizes. Cavan Biggio has been struggling his whole life and he is almost a 30 year old man now. It is time for him to hang them up and let someone who can bench one plate swing the bat. Outside of baseball he could still be characterized as a young man. And he has the muscle mass of a tweenager. So I am sure with his family name and pointy face, he could make a good insurance salesman or something.

Yes and he was right. Keith just didn't understand the value of literally not swinging. It turns out that simply staring at pitches go by can be worth something. Also, I bet Biggio looked better on these stats when he was younger. He used to be able to put up ISOs near .200 so he probably had more bat speed at 24/25. But he is 29 now and past his physical prime. Which was not much to see to begin with because he's a stick bug who obviously has some sort of chronic illness.

You don't get it man Personally I would swap him for Barger immediately but that's not even the point The point is just that Cavan Biggio actually can't hit. Like, he has the physical tools of a mother of three, but without the child bearing hips. 104 wRC+ vs RHP is terrible by the way, he isn't even excelling at his one job Some of the projection systems already think Barger is a better hitter Certainly Spencer Horwitz is a better hitter. Interestingly Horwitz is getting some reps at 2B and LF recently. I wonder if they want him to supplant Biggio ASAP! I bet the front office is embarrassed about how Biggio looks on this new statcast bat tracking data. It is really embarrassing. It's like a photo leaking of your front office micropenis, basically. Ross is probably flustered.

Obviously you value certainty a bit more than upside but he's completely defensible as one of the best organizational prospects if you value upside High risk but he's an 18 year old with a SS body already capable of hitting the baseball harder than half of MLB players...

Well, that's exactly the point! Biggio being on the roster and given so much rope has prevented the team from doing this. They overvalue his one skill (the ability to not swing, as weird as that sounds) and his handedness. This FO is evidently capable of profiting off of scrap heap players. Ernie Clement was a minor league signing and he's four times the ball player Cavan Biggio is. Presently they could just be playing Addison Barger over Biggio. More upside because Addison Barger can actually swing a baseball bat.

It's still antiquated because it does not have a clear and consistent definition and now we are able to finally break it down (and power) into more measurable, objective components like: 1. ability to make contact 2. capacity for power (maxEV) 3. swing speed 4. swing length 5. frequency of "squaring up" the baseball defined as "how much exit velocity did you get as a share of how much exit velocity was possible based on your swing speed and the speed of the pitch" 6. frequency of "blasting" the baseball defined as #5 but with with a swing speed minimum (similar to barrels, which are LA with an EV minimum) Like, some scouts probably have defined HIT TOOL as #1 before. Or as #1 with some eyeball scouting of swing speed/length layered in there. But scientifically we should probably consider HIT TOOL to be more like #5. There will be historical examples of guys who swing and miss too much to get classical good hit tool grades, but they square up the baseball more often than not when they do swing... they should be considered to have good hit tools, right!? And then when we combine HIT TOOL with RAW POWER we can sort of measure this through #6. Finally with bat tracking I think we may be able to measure HIT TOOL. The definition that is being measured though will not be exactly congruent with what scouts, or at least all scouts, think of as hit tool.

Of course but if he died today is he really in there? It becomes a Koufax situation. Addie Ross is actually the prime example of "short career" hall of famer. He had 9 full season then died of illness. 34 WAR. 160-97 with a 1.89 ERA. 1902-1910. But only got in I think because of certain circumstances. Koufax is the more commonly thought of short career hall of famer. 54.5 WAR, and something like 10 seasons cobbled together across 12 years played. Ohtani in MLB is: 33.9 career WAR, 3054 career PA (call it 5 seasons worth of hitting) and 86 starts (call is 3 seasons of starts). I think he might be a bit short. Until you start to could brownie points for being a unicorn. Or Japanese league stats.

How much more does Ohtani have to do to print his HOF ticket? Probably quite a bit actually. I think he either needs to get back on the mound and have a few more elite two way seasons, or he needs to be an elite hitter for like 5 more years, maybe more.

RE: Nimmala He is *basically* the youngest player in the Florida State League and he has a 78 wRC+ in the first month. Not only is that not that bad, I might go so far as to say it's even... good in a couple of ways? Sounds insane because of his K rate and AVG which are of course very poor but he does have a decent .139 ISO and has flashed actual adult man raw power. While being *basically* the youngest player in the league and a shortstop with defensive upside. I say basically because a couple guys might be some weeks or months younger than him. The FSL right now is probably comparable to short season class A from 2019 and the preceding years. NWL is the league, which was short season class A back then. Here are some guys who had bad or mediocre numbers in the NWL in 2019 or the few years before then. This is just an eyeball scan for below average hitters who are or were MLB players now: Ezequiel Tovar, 17, 80 wRC+ Marco Lucaiono, 17, 91 wRC+ Leodys Taveras, 17, 59 wRC+ Miguel Amaya, 18, 71 wRC+ Lane Thomas, 19, 80 wRC+ Osleivis Basabe, 18, 73 wRC+ Chris Morel, 19, 4 wRC+ (93 PA) Davis Schneider, 20, 49 wRC+ (49 PA) also had 96 wRC+ at 19 in Rookie Ball

Boston is no match for Florida, shots haven't even been close. Florida is better in every single way. Faster, more skilled, stronger. But my lord a few of the calls or non-calls have been ******** this series.

Like I said, brain worms. There are tons of valid things to complain about. For example: - lack of developing impact talent - lack of bat speed on the MLB roster - some of the inexplicable managing/roster decisions like continuing to lead springer off, bunting (ever), using certain relievers in bad spots, rostering Vogelbach, not DL-ing Yimi Garcia when he ended up being unavailable for 10 days...

Swear to god some of you guys have brain worms Ross could have given Teoscar away and the trade would have still made sense because he spent the money better in 2023 Teoscar was a free agent for 2024 anyway so where does this impulse come from to look at him and then look at Swanson? I guess it's basic human nature but it's an obvious fallacy. Also, Macko continues to chug innings and put up respectable numbers in AA. He might be viable SP depth in 2025.

It was basically all the same as his last start. One difference was that he simply had better command. Threw more strikes. The big difference was actually throwing the changeup. He used it 25% of the time and he got some called strikes and chase with it. It's really important because if his slider is never coming back then he has to become a wider arsenal guy. He needs this changeup. Too early to think he's good or anything but at least I can finally see a viable path to being an MLB SP. His stuff grades on the fastballs and the slider are close enough to average that it might all work if he has a 50 changeup.

It's been one month though If his numbers are this bad at the end of the minor league season then yeah some concern is warranted

Yeah but a super scout might have realized that smashing the ball into the ground isn't really a 70 hit tool It's a hard hit ball but a mishit He probably did that everywhere and hit .350 with 50% groundball rates most of the time He's more of a 50/80 hitter right now. That's raw power of course not game Probably at his peak was 60/80?

Vlad's fundamental problem is that his hit tool was overrated by one maybe even two grades as a prospect because his exit velo and bat speed were so good. You can see it in this sweet spot rate on statcast now

He's like Yandy Diaz

Well f*** me Maybe that's a turning point? Schneider is kind of beasting offensively. Vlad looks to have figured something out for sure, his AVG has rocketed up. Jansen is taking the starting C job and his bat really stretches the lineup. Ernie Clement needs to be in there more often. Two way player. Probably better than Biggio even against RHP. Springer and KK are honestly both at risk, somewhat, of losing at bats.

The hypotheticals would range from guys like Otto Lopez (who is killing it this year and projects well) to just about every viable waiver claim position player or dude traded for cash in the last few years That's the whole point. Opportunity cost. Is Biggio trash? No. But he doesn't move the needle very much at all and he has no upside because he can't hit the baseball very good and he has no tools. Best case Ontario he just walks to first base enough to worth one WAR or whatever.

He can't f***ing hit Good example of opportunity cost Over the last few years the Jays would have been much better served by trying out other players in his role. Guys with more tools, more potential for impact

Awful season Just end it

Preller basically shits good prospects so that's a valid opinion even if he's a dumbass in trades