Laika

Yeah Crochet is a tougher trade to make. Flaherty and Kikuchi could be the #1 and #2 in some order Even a guy like Scherzer, there are big performance and health questions Kikuchi is the clearest "hired gun" on the market IMO Teams will like that he can be a pen lefty sometimes in a deep playoff run as well

Yeah absolutely, expectations for RT are way down. It would be wild to think he has top of the rotation upside anymore. I think the most anybody can reasonably hope for would be an SP4 and not one that eats innings. Or a closer. He might ultimately have a higher ceiling but even if it works out that ceiling is years away. He would probably break into the league as a 1 WAR pitcher who can throw 100 innings and then ideally improve from then on. Sort of like the Kikuchi experience?

Really sad tbh

I believe he went 5 IP at least once in the AFL at the end of 2023. 5 IP 80 pitches. It was the Kyle Harrison development plan, basically. The old school idea is that guys need to carry a SP workload in the minors so that you know they can do it in the majors. But modern sports science might disagree and say that puts players into unnecessary injury risk? I dunno. Think about outside examples. If you are training for a marathon you don't actually go out and run marathons on the weekend. In fact, most marathon training plans have you never run that full distance until race day. Applying the same logic to baseball and SP development... if a guy in the minors can stay mostly healthy and give you 70+ pitches and 4 IP in AA for 20 starts, or whatever, then that might be enough information to just deploy him as a normal MLB starter. I dunno!

Flaherty and Kikuchi are simple deals. Rentals. Appeal to every buyer. All of the non-rentals like Crochet, Eflin, Fedde are harder to sell because the buyer side of the market is smaller. Not everybody wants to pay more prospect capital for a controllable starter. Cleveland for example probably wants to pay as little as possible for a 2024 rotation upgrade - they will prefer Kikuchi or Flaherty. I am sure there are other such cases.

second time this season that Bo has done this - talked to out of town reporters about playing there or getting traded generally. the sheer arrogance of it while the dude has a .596 OPS

Honestly the lost development time is a bigger concern for both. Whether it's mono and gonorrhea or old fashioned TJS, sucks to see prospects like this lose entire seasons of their prime and completely set back their development.

Not all players have their K rates increase in a predictable and linear way Some guys go 26% in A ball, 26% in AA, then 30% in MLB and they can stick if they have enough power Some go 20% in A ball, 25% in AA, then 35% in MLB and they can't stick You are right, it depends on the HOW of the strikeouts He's not a star but he did have 3.6 WAR last year - look at Nolan Jones for example. If Nimmala makes it it probably looks something like that climb. 36.6% in rookie ball at 18 with no homers. 25% in A ball at 20 with .186 ISO 26% in A+ at 21 and 30% in AA at 21 with some power 30% in AAA at 23 with power in 2021 2023, 29.7% in MLB with .245 ISO

horrendous f***ing system

Extreme pull and flyball rates, but with a better contact rate and way more max power... It would be like some amalgamation of Jose Ramirez and Kyle Schwarber Can think of it like Schwarber with a touch more power and a lot more AVG because half of the K rate. Or think of it like Jose Ramirez with more homers, more raw power. I don't really think Varsho's issue can be characterized as a simple launch angle problem. It's really a total "s***** hitter" problem. So many bad swings.

So the Nate Pearson story was something like this: Pre 2019 - top 100 prospect, consensus 2019 - 100 IP great numbers Pre 2020 - top 20 prospect, consensus 2020 - COVID season, delayed start, 18 innings, then flexor strain 2021 - core injury ruins his season, just 45 innings between MLB and AAA and most of the MLB innings are in relief. sports hernia surgery resulted. 2022 - mono and lat strain, just 15.1 innings all in the minors 2023 - no longer a starter. good numbers in AAA in 40 innings but too many walks. replacement level 20 innings in MLB but okay K-BB and good stuff. 2024 - slight improvements as an MLB reliever, still looks like a potential setup man or closer with continued development but he's 28 in two months and into arbitration. Not really much of an asset anymore unless he comes a dominant RP. So far the RT story is: 2022 - great numbers 78 innings 19 years old pre-2023 - consensus top 40 prospect 2023 - 44 innings, good numbers but shoulder and biceps injuries take lots of time from him pre-2024 - consensus top 40 prospect 2024 - hamstring injury, elbow injury (nerve inflammation), elbow injury now again, only 17 innings and likely another mostly lost season like 2023. he turns 22 in a month. I guess the perspective on RT is that he has a good amount of time before we should write him off. He is 22 in a month. His age 22 season will be 2025 Nate Pearson's age 22 season was in fact his breakout 2019. So Tiedemann is way ahead of Pearson's timeline, at least. Age is a major factor in his favour.

There are more than you think. Likely getting sold: Flaherty, Crochet, Kikuchi, Fedde Might get sold: Scherzer, Snell, Severino, Eovaldi, Montas, Montgomery And then a dozen other obviously worse pitchers who could get sold Of course, salary and talent make Kikuchi better than most of those names but not all of them. The Jays may not actually get a haul since there could be some viable alternatives.

talking about yourself?

Yeah it got pretty f***ing dark after the WS years 55 wins in 1995 just two years removed from winning it all, gross

been a while 2019 they were bad bad but there were no expectations and it was Vlad/Bo rookie year which was fun 2012 they were bad but they did have post-breakout JB and breakout season EE along with the hyped Brett Lawrie and some younger SP everyone was excited for going forward 2009, bad but Doc pitched 239 innings so that was fun 2004, bad they were pretty brutal and Doc was banged up all year, no fun. Also Delgado's swan song that must have been depressing as f***. 2004 I guess.

I know the Giants are mediocre at best but I do think that Kikuchi pitching into the 8th inning and shoving 13 strikeouts with no walks down the throats of an NL West team on July 10th is a big deal, as far as his trade deadline marketability goes.

Tim Mayza minor league deal with the YANKEES Tim is as sick of the Blue Jays as they are of him, I guess

Olerud is our senile philosopher king He's like a poet or retired academic with just a tiny little dash of dementia or maybe just that lack of social awareness than affects certain old people Frenchsoup was just a straight up schizophrenic who probably snuck out of the institution in a laundry hamper

we need to Cancel Bo Bichette!

He's worth a look in Toronto have you f***ing seen our shortstop's numbers? Have you seen him try to play defense?

lmao wtf apparently he is also an actual defender too. like, infielder. shortstop? https://www.wvgazettemail.com/sports/charleston_dirty_birds/atlantic-league-baseball-shortstop-cancel-doing-it-all-for-dirty-birds/article_75820d48-e40a-5664-9bbd-bdf3a0923bf5.html

Braves OF is pretty gross with Acuna done for the year. Duvall - Kelenic - Rosario. Their worst contracts are probably Sean Murphy and Matt Olson Nothing really short term and bad to assume

Springer is on a huge heater 1.2 fWAR now in 343 PA his xwOBA of .339 is now better than last year he has positive defense by OAA and DRS and passable D by UZR he projects for 1.1 to 1.3 WAR rest of season very likeable veteran, good glue guy and clubhouse guy I wonder if they can move that contract after all... not the whole thing but most of it? maybe Jays eat $20M or something and get a prospect back

Yes I think trying to coach up sweet spot% or launch angle is way too hard. It's basically trying to coach up HIT TOOL. Certain guys may be able to deploy tricks to change their launch angle, or fix their mechanics, or alter their swing plane a bit. But many (most) these days won't be able to meaningfully change it intentionally because they won't have the barrel control to do it. A lot of the famous examples of guys increasing their LA and pulling the ball more for homers are really, in a fundamental way, examples of players who were already pretty good hitters (in a basic sense - HIT TOOL) before making the changes. Justin Turner - was hitting for average and making contact before his tweaks so the barrel control was already there. Jose Bautista - had good PD stats before the changes and obviously had a good hit tool in hindsight. There has been some semblance of the Blue Jays trying to take guys with "good hit tools" and coach up power. Clement, Horwitz, all the minor leaguers like Roden and Jimemez who don't have good raw power grades. Kirk. But the Jays are probably 5+ years behind the eight ball, yet again, because other teams are already looking at things more specific and granular than "hit tool" as MikeM says they are looking at VBAs and stuff. This might be why the Jays have a certain collection of organization guys with "good hit tools" but there has been a general failure to coach up or develop any power. They have the general idea right but are getting lapped or outcompeted on the specific implementation of it. Hit Tool - old school scouting concept, define it how you want. some would say bat control. some would like at K% but that's very indirect. Launch Angle - objective, measurable but not necessarily that helpful in all circumstances. THIS IS AN OUTPUT. Sweet Spot% - objective, measurable. THIS IS AN OUTPUT. Hard hit% - objective, measurable. THIS IS AN OUTPUT. Barrels etc (some combo of hard hit and sweet spot or LA) - objective, measurable. THIS IS AN OUTPUT. VBA - measurable, THIS IS AN INPUT. Bat speed - measurable, THIS IS AN INPUT. Biomechanics - measurable, THIS IS AN INPUT OF THE INPUTS!!! What do the Jays look at? What do the best teams look at? To be ahead of the game you need to find the significant INPUTS. If you look at outputs you are probably lagging.

Have to agree with jb Correa++ could be a decent dynasty trade for Bo but it depends on the ++ I'd still want a good prospect to hedge