Laika

Huh? Pretty sure all the damage was on his s***** fastball He was throwing 96 on those taters. That's barely an above average fastball for a RHRP.

Ben Shulman is good!

I dunno man Not like Toronto had any pitching depth to deal from

It's mostly performance These things are correlated, anyway. If Vladdy fails to demonstrate consistent maturity and work ethic, he probably won't perform, as we have seen!!!

But it's Tricky Ricky. Small hamstring issue this week, hip flexor next week, then his kinetic chain is out whack and he has an interior capsule strain in late March. See you in 2025, Rick.

LMAO f*** offf

Yeah that would be a Miggy or Pujols contract Those are reserved for GOAT slam dunk HOF hitters who never slump. And even then, the last several years of both of those deals were painful as f*** To get the Matt Olson deal, Vladdy *should* need a good 2024 followed up by a 5+ WAR platform campaign in 2025. He should get it or something close to it if he just.... performs "as projected"

Olson was very young!

Did not expect to see Barriera's name in this article Wonder if people are overreacting to his 2023. Yeah he got fat and stuff, and got hurt, but the numbers were good in his limited innings and pitchers get hurt all the time. Fat Barriera was good in his few chances on the bump...

It's just not necessarily true Think about platoon players Some players are worth more if deployed strategically (read: less)

Doesn't really matter, mate. Saving $6M doesn't get you very far when you get a replacement level player for less money.

It simply DOES NO MATTER. ALL ADDITIONS REQUIRE SUBSTRACTIONS. THIS IS THE WAY IT IS IN FEBRUARY

Ross is content to let other teams get all the good deals Remember, additions at this point will require subtractions!

it's a fact!

Tim Anderson + Gio Urshela + Amed Rosario combined 2023 fWAR = 0.1 wins Falaffle was twice as good as all three of them put together...

I can still defend IKF. I'll do anything for Ross. Here is the case for Falaffle: IKF @ 3B 1207 career innings (154 games), +19 DRS, +6.7 UZR, +22 OAA Gio @ 3B 4620 career innings (585 games), +10 DRS, +13.5 UZR (+3.9 UZR/150), -18 OAA Despite Gio Urshela being a native 3B with a good reputation, the difference in defensive talent might be massive. It could be as much as 10 runs or one full win over a complete MLB season. Keep in mind that these numbers are cumulative, so in one season of data IKF according to DRS has more defensive runs saved than Gio has done in nearly 4x the games. OAA agreeing with DRS is helpful for confidence in IKF's defense. OAA hating Urshela is interesting. Other factors: Career BsR, 0.1 for IKF and -23.4 for Gio Age: 28 y 10m for IKF vs 32 y 4m for Gio Career walk and K rates: slight edge for IKF 2023 maxEV: 106.1 for Gio, 109.6 for IKF 2023 xwOBA: .288 for Gio and .292 for IKF 2023 hard hit rate: much higher for IKF Of course, Urshela does have better 2024 projections and has hit for much more power in his career. That being said, it seems like a reasonable prospect that Gio Urshela is just completely cooked as an old, slow, fat 3B with declining defense (that OAA has never liked) and power that dried up completely in 2023. IKF on the other hand is young, agile, fertile, flexing his muscles, hitting for more power, discovering how to barrel the ball, blossoming into a divine lotus of limitless defensive prowess at his new fulltime position of third base. His upside is palpable. He's a throbbing vessel of flesh and talent, waiting to escape the soul-sucking curses of New York. He's been focusing on yanking barrels in the air all offseason and he is ready to unlock his Bregman-eqsue potential. In three months you will be thanking Ross for GETTING that second year of control.

Paying IKF $7.5M instead of $3M or whatever will have no influence on his job security But to answer the question... I kind of doubt that he keeps his job if the Jays flop this year

lmao Ross

Anderson did get a similar figure AAV to IKF, a couple million bucks is not a big differential. Could be that Rosario ends up looking like a specific weirdly low deal. There are not actually going to be that many players to even compare. If you sort the free agent infielder list by projected WAR, after Chapman, everyone projects to be a below average player and it kind of just becomes a function of internal projections and roster fit. Candelario 3/$45 is looking like a huge mistake IKF 2/$15 might be a mild overpay But, AAV for IKF is about the same as Merrifield and Merrifield has worse projections We will see what the remaining relevant comps like Urshela, Kike, and Solano get. I am sure that IKF's agent milked some extra money out of Toronto because Toronto saw him as a specifically good roster fit among a s***** free agent infielder crop. Just not sure how much extra money was milked. If he plays well that second year might actually make him an asset... we will see. Ross Atkins is an idiot.

It's like salary cap circumvention, but in the KBO

Olson is the comparable because he signed his deal after his age 27 season. Vlad would only be one year ahead of him. The other two, hard to comp because they were older. Olson also had some of his own ups and downs and some strikeout or hit tool concerns at times, but he had the benefit of being a good defender so I doubt he was ever as bad as Vlad can be at his worst.

Yikes

Spanky, it can't be as true as you think. The Leafs would be better if Matthews was actually a "two way superstar" that scored 60 goals a year He might be good at defense by possession metrics and stuff, but something must be off. There are different ways to play defense and different times that it works. Or his colleagues are just dogshit at it.

Yeah Taveras is a waste of money I actually did not know that Matthews was rating out as a 2-way player. Is that knew or a career long thing?

I dunno, I would say that the Crosby Penguins won their cups based on pure talent, wouldn't you? They were 27/30 in PIMs in 2015-2016, that's pretty soft. I know there are other measures of what we are talking about ("talent" vs. "grit")