Laika

They should be trading guys like Biggio and Espinal ANYWAY in my opinion and relying on Clement and (insert name here). The current situation is kind of awkward. I really dislike Espinal as a player now. That he fumbled a ball in his first spring training chance at 2B was poetic.

Yeah I was not trying to imply that Yimi + Espinal would be enough payroll to clear It was just an illustration that clearing just those two would already be a loss of 1+ wins for only $8M in savings, so it would be hard at this point to clear payroll space for Chapman in a way that would make the team obviously better all things considered The only way to do it is clean out 3 or 4 roster players to save a bunch of money, as you said, and then be able to replace them with league minimum guys who are almost as productive as Garcia, Espinal, Biggio, Richards. That is a tall task! Whatever you or anyone thinks of those guys, they all have their MLB merits. They are all proven talents (in some ways). Garcia should be good for 0.5 wins, Richards for above replacement level value, Espinal and Biggio for positive war from the bench spots

LOL that guy held his own Bauer f***ing sucks eh.

I dunno why this matters so much to people. I understand the narrative, but Chapman has literally never been a below average hitter. Every season is 101 wRC+ or more. There would be other reasons that teams don't want to give him Boras money. Tough to think of a 31 year old's defense as money in the bank. That's probably the meat and potatoes of it. I would guess, actually, that some teams have more confidence in his bat than his D over the next few seasons! Exhibit A, his age. Exhibit B, his OAA and UZR/150 in Toronto were just good, and not actually elite. His DRS in 2023 was elite, but not in 2022.

put me in, coach he's leading off here, maybe he wanted to hit

Schneider coming in as a defensive replacement for Espinal on Feb 26th is.... odd.

He must not have amazing acceleration His sprint speed, 70th percentile, is not as high as you'd expect for an elite CFer

Him and IKF are actually easy to compare because the D is probably a wash Just need to look at cost and batting / baserunning IKF's best year he was -11 runs combined in batting + baserunning Chapman's 2023 he was about +9 So that's a 20 run swing. Two wins. And IKF could conceivably be worse (he has been). Chapman could be better (he has been). Or it could work the other way (possible, given their ages and certain other things). We never know. Now subtract who you think Toronto needs to trade to fit him into the budget... trading Yimi + Espinal saves $8.5M but might be a 1.2 win downgrade or so.

Bichette 112 mph single lol

Yeah I want to see Schneider getting most of the 2B reps

He's not really playing 3B anymore so it doesn't seem likely

Good point but I think teams were/are turned off by the shape of his season and probably a little confused by the drop in pull% He went from 47% pull rate to under 40% Is that a sign of bat speed slowing down? Would love to see him just return to a high 40s% pull rate and 25+ dingers Similar to Bellinger as just a generally confusing player. Jordan Montgomery is also kind of confusing as his underlying talent measurements don't line up with recent production and the playoff narrative. Snell is just the classic really good pitcher with some injury history and episodic walk problems. Not really confusing.

Agree that Atkins fumbled Had to let the offseason play out first but these contracts in the last few weeks have made the conclusion somewhat clear I think when they gave KK $10M they probably assumed guys like Duvall and Pham would get close to that, at least $6M or $7M, and they thought KK was far more valuable based on defense and projections. Well, those guys might sign for $1.5M at this point. Probably could have bought a Pham + Eddie Rosario platoon in LF for less than $10M total. $18M for IKF and KK. Take the more generous of the available projections and they project for like 450 PA each and 3 to 3.5 WAR total. They aren't a BETTER team if they replace those two guys with bottom of the barrel options right now, but they are a cheaper team that is likely close in projected total WAR, and of course they could have more money to incentivize a Chapman pillow contract right now which is the whole point. The only saving grace here would be good years from KK and IKF. If IKF's defense is as good as the team thinks and he does anything with the stick he's a 2+ win player and you'd prefer him for $7.5M to the aging Chapman at 3x the AAV. This entire season rides on Falaffle tbh. 2024 is his year. The whole country is on his shoulders.

Yeah who watched Cooke pitch Need scouting report

Nah I'd say he lost a little bit of weight Still fat af tho

Mitch White throwing 98

It will definitely sting if Chapman signs for $22M or so and it's not with Toronto Well, it will sting until IKF has more WAR than him

Hilarious lineup

That's a best case scenario for Bellinger fantasy owners isn't it No pressure of a big deal in a new place.

Wow, has market was non-existent

Not really worried, except for the fact that he looked that bad several times in the regular season last year The one splitter he threw was nice though, haha

These guys like Bregman and Altuve are more about barrel control and having the ability to pull fly balls at will Bellinger might have become such a player but his career long strikeout issues make one skeptical of him having that level of hit tool / barrel control

Jim, he used to hit it almost 113 mph and hard over 40% of the time He has IKF maxEV and hard hit rates now Cody Bellinger is not redefining wOBA or xwOBA

MaxEV, dude

94, good breaking ball Looks like a relief prospect