Laika

yeah it's a 3D batted ball distribution problem a lot of his scorched balls are pulled grounders 2024 data he has five batted balls of 100+mph and LA of 10 degrees or more thirteen batted balls of 100+mph and 9 degrees or less launch angle the amount of hard as f*** groundballs just confuses xwOBA I think. they aren't as likely to be hits as the machine thinks.

Optioning Pearson is revolting Cabrera has an option...

It's against the board rules to talk about handicaps!!! I golf once a year. Probably 20+ but I bet I could get it down to like 10 or something if I golfed more often.

Jim is just showing a poor understanding of statistics here. Peak Tiger would be like... a full standard deviation or more of rarity above this current version of Scheffler. It's like having a group of people with IQs of 98, 100, 105, 109, 112, 115, 120, 123, 130, and 169. It would not be correct to say that the guy with 130 is almost as smart as the guy with the 169. Sort of like comparing a 3 sigma event with a 4 or 5 sigma event. Something like that. You could think about it in terms of how often you see these kinds of players. There have been a number of others over the last few decades who are very comparable to this version of SS. Like peak Vijay Singh. Tiger is more of a once-every-100-years athlete. Study more

Atkins "inherited" so little from AA and we are now at the point in time where it is completely fair to look back at the 2016 to 2023 period and judge the state of the organization when AA left, because all of those players who were in the org at the time of the handoff are now through their MLB player control or approaching final arb year. At the MLB level there were so few tradeable assets: Donaldson, but he f***ed his trade value by being a vegan Osuna, but we all know what he did Stroman Hutchison Sanchez They rode Sanchez into the ground. You can critique the Stroman trade but then would also have to give them huge credit for spinning Hutch into Liriano into Teoscar, right. I may have missed one or two assets, relievers and such. Virtually everybody else on the roster between 2015 and 2016 was worthless because bad or expensive veteran. And then on the farm, the prospect lists looked like s***. The only possible 50 FV prospects were baby Vlad, Alford, SRF, Conner Greene, maybe Tellez? Borucki and Jansen were in the system, as was Romano. It looked very bad. Very gross. Guys like DJ Davis, Justin Maese, Max Pentecost were in the top 10s. It was completely valid for Atkins and Shapiro to throw up in their mouths a bit and then prioritize total system repopulation in their subsequent drafts (successful or not...) The rose coloured glasses way of looking at Atkins is that he was able to rebuild from that ^ situation remarkably quickly. Gurriel, Teoscar, Kirk, Bichette, Biggio were all early Atkins signings or picks. Debate can be had about how much "AA people" were involved in those picks or signings. RA really only inherited Guerrero and Jansen and Romano as far as contributors from the good Atkins teams go. And Romano, not even sure he counts since he left and returned in the R5 process. So yeah. Basically only inherited Vlad and Jansen. And in hindsight should have traded Vlad years ago. All things considered one has to see this is a pretty successful rebuild. A couple bad years then playoffs again, repeatedly, in spite of your franchise player sucking most of the time?

And then Bo... does it kind of feel like he is not being aggressive enough? He normally rocks a 20% K rate. Right now he has the worst hard hit % and barrel % of his career, along with the highest contact rate. He looks like IKF out there. Tons of weak ass contact. Bo needs to take bigger hacks?

LMAO I just noticed that Vlad has the highest hard hit % of his career, highest LD% of his career, and a .394 xwOBA vs .311 wOBA He just defies explanation at this point. His Fangraphs page is a black hole of riddles and disappointment. As bad as he looks in specific PAs and in the clutch, he still has a good K rate this year and a v good walk rate and we have seen several 105mph+ screaming grounders right at infielders in the last week or so.

.600 BABIP baby

Jackson Merrill on the other hand appears to be a stud .386 xwOBA, making lots of contact while walking and the metrics even like his defense in CF so far

Jackson Holliday = Jarred Kelenic?

I'd give KK a few more weeks before writing him off. If you look at 2023 I bet he had at least one month in the middle of the year that was horrible, like sub 50 wRC+ bad.

tied for 3rd!

Yeah, lots of those ERs come from junk pitchers or junk innings in blowouts. Parsons, 6 ER White, 6 ER Espino, 4 ER And then Bowden Francis has 14 ER and an 11.81 ERA but a 3.72 xFIP and a 12.66 K/9.... he's been super unlucky on homers. Only concern in the rotation is Gausman. I feel fine with the SP5 slot, between Y Rod and Francis I think it will be solid going forward. Only concern in the bullpen is Mayza. If Cabrera sucks, he sucks, he has been close to replacement level across his career. I guess Swanson and Romano carry injury concern.

Love watching this team pitch and catch I tell you what

Black holes at RF, SS, 1B, C, CF, and LF unless Davis is out there

Well First play Varsho gets near it it looks like he grew up in this LF First play Schneider had he almost ended up a paraplegic

Is Bo trying to sewer the season? Wants to be traded?

Is Bo trying to sewer the season? Wants to be traded?

Okay so what would.you do? Sit there and smell Vlad's farts all season then miss the playoffs?

what is the logic in not starting Jansen lmao

Don't forget the A Rod - Howie Clark fiasco

They should probably send a message and make Springer, Bo, Vlad, Kirk all hit 6-7-8-9 for a series.

The 2B/3B mob is working beautifully, stay the course and change nothing for now. IKF: 0.5 WAR, .351 wOBA, plus D Biggio: 0.4 WAR, .374 wOBA Schneider: 0.2 WAR, .371 wOBA Clement: 0.2 WAR, .265 average with good D We have already seen Schneider in LF being used as a way to cut into the playing time of Varsho and KK. So, the mob works and Schneider is getting some extra playing time at the expense of the s***** LHB. Toronto's biggest issues are quite obviously Vlad, Bo, and Kirk. I guess Gausman too. Those four need to wake the f*** up holy s***.

Holy f***ing s*** that is legit. 85 mph slider with no horizontal movement and sharp drop, that is what some guys are calling a "Deathball" now. What is the FB like?

It's still nice to see a settled-in veteran like Berrios evolve. Looks like he has upped his two-seamer usage significantly this year. That's why you see the GB% much higher than ever. Probably picked up the pitch from Bassitt, or realized through Bassitt the modern ways that a two-seamer can be sneaky good. It's really the first major pitch mix development of Berrios' career. He has also added a cutter this year. Only thrown in 12 times, but maybe it's good enough to surprise people once or twice a game and get some weak contact.