Laika

Schneider has a feast or famine season but ends up hitting enough homers and playing good enough defense for 3 WAR. Pundits start to place Dan Uggla comps on him. He's the locked in starting 2B for most of the year. Alek Manoah is pretty awful again but not as wild as 2023 so he eats enough innings to be worth 1.3 WAR

I have been a big supporter of Alek Manoah all offseason so I am very happy to hear that Toronto had no real plans of selling low on him Look for him to be a strong SP3 this year for a good Blue Jays team

ITT we whine about "bullpen development" even though the team has a good MLB bullpen at reasonable cost, and there are a good number of interesting relievers in the minors. That's OFF LIMITS. Feel free to whine about the right things like: - failure to develop any elite hitting prospects in the last few years - failure to develop enough SP depth - Ross's press conferences - John Schneider's tomato face

Ah man that sucks. Relievers like, never get injured or anything.

Imagine characterizing a catching combo of Kirk and Jansen as "gross" on offense. LMAO

But they have produced them Mayza and Romano have become elite relievers while under the tutelage and guidance of Shatkins

I don't think this matters. - Their trades for relief help have all been good, save for the Hicks deal which is a wait and see. - The total cost of the bullpen in 2024 will only be like $30M so it's not like they have any sandbag contracts or huge contracts. Zero long term commits. - They have developed and used some good relievers like Romano and Mayza, they just didn't draft them. - They have drafted some good relievers or likely good relievers, they just traded some (Frasso, Winckowski) - They have drafted many promising RP prospects that are filling in the AA and AAA levels right now. We saw Danner for a cup of coffee last year. Connor Cooke in particular looks like a possible closer. - They would not have been prioritizing developing relievers from 2016 through like, 2019 - From the 2019 through the 2023 drafts, many pitching prospects who could be good relievers are still in the organization - If the pen is good and not subject to expensive long term FA commitments, does it even matter? - There are tons of MLB teams that habitually stock their bullpen through waiver claims and little trades. See TBR, SEA for example.

High end projection = 3.6 ERA and 0.2 fWAR Low end projection = 4.5 ERA and negative fWAR Anything outside of that band requires extreme luck or talent change

Yeah because his stuff was good and he projected well, and the contract worked out accordingly. See how this works? Good stuff = good projections (Yimi) Bad stuff = bad projections (Wandy) I could actually buy that Wandy is a bit of a FIP beater, but maybe by 0.30 to 0.50 runs or so. If 2023 never happened I might say a high 3.7 ERA or so would be likely. But 2023 was a stinker in a lot of ways so this contract is just shockingly awful.

It's tough to know anything The offense was bad at the group level in 2023, that's a red flag. They have had issues developing elite prospects, that's a red flag. They have had issues developing pitching of any variety and have largely been signing them, that's a red flag. There are also some green flags over the recent years of course. Like, good at identifying the right free agents to sign and stuff like that. They've done some good worth with certain pitchers, like Kikuchi. The MiLB depth is underappreciated and is finally good and there is a thick group of relievers and infielders coming.

small sample size, bro what was his ERA before 2019?

Yeah that's the joke way to ruin it there is an element of truth to it though. how else to explain the dietary problems. you can build the best sports facility and cafeteria in the world but you don't have strong enough middle managers in place to tell your 95 IQ players to not eat so f***ing much?

But that wouldn't... prove.... anything.... The Cuban is an upside play. It might work out, it might not. Wandy Peralta has parts of 8 MLB seasons under his belt and he has accrued 0.3 fWAR in his whole career. He had a 5.05 FIP in 2023 and was worth negative 0.5 wins by smart WAR. He had a below average stuff+ and location+ in both 2023 and 2022. The Padres just guaranteed him $16.5M because he had a good ERA. That is more money than he has made his entire career. He is 32.5 years old. We basically know that Wandy Peralta sucks.

Nah, Preller is an idiot and he got conned here

This seems completely unnecessary

I think Atkins is just a beta so he has trouble recruiting strong/ambitious dudes. There is likely a lack of "top men" in the org. It takes some bravado to be cutting edge. You need to have conviction, take risks, etc. My guess is Toronto is full of smart people but it probably has post-grad sports science conference vibes most of the time. They may not take enough risks, or something like that. Collecting nerds might not be enough to be elite in MLB. It might only be enough to be a top ~12 org or so. To be truly ELITE as an org you need be able to collect and hire the NERDS WITH THE BIGGEST MUSCLES. THE ALPHA NERDS.

I can't disagree much with this The Jays clearly are not excelling at some of this internal, systemic s***. You can see this in various facets. High performance at the MLB level, gameplan execution, communication, development.

I have a habit of carrying water for Mr. Ross Atkins but I would guess that they've tried a little bit more than that Vlad doesn't exactly strike me as the type of player who is receptive to hitting instruction Some even thought the Jays hitting issues last year were caused in part by having TOO MANY COOKS on the hitting side. Some of those cooks have been younger guys or nerds. They had a Rays style nerd coach.

I agree it's situational deficiency but it's not exactly about PH situations. It also includes the lineup facing those sweeper dominant RHSP.

Some people around here complain about Atkins and Shapiro an awful lot when you could attribute like, 90% of the Jays problems to Vlad Jr. Specifically Vlad Jr. That's just what happens when you have a #1 overall prospect, with generational hitting talent, and you build around them as a "franchise player", and then they end up getting worse as they get more expensive. And then they lay an egg in 2023. There is only so much a front office can do to build around a specific, important, central individual failure like that. Most of the people who are mad at Shatkins think the offense looks mediocre. Would it look mediocre if everything else was the same but Vlad was coming off of a 40 HR, MVP type season? What does 2023 look like if Vlad shows up at all? What does 2022 look like if Vlad doesn't lose 3.5 fWAR off his production? What does 2020 look like if Vlad doesn't enter the league as a disappointing, replacement level groundball machine? Vlad, Vlad, Vlad, Vlad. It's all about VLAD.

All be can hope for is some kind of unwise spending spree, like a mini Cohen season, that ends in disaster and sets them back a bit Go sign Bellinger for $200M to impress the new owner! Matt Chapman for $160M would be a good fit!

It's over.

Okay Mr. Biggio why don't you tell your skinny ass kid to hit 20 homers before you tell me he has 20 HR pop???

They are great at developing PITCHING but a lot of it graduated in 2023. Surely they will pump out some more arms but I am not seeing any ready-made bats to help them out. Most of their interest bats are not 2024 ETAs.

Okay but in reality it's 100 games at third for IKF and maybe 40 for Turner (if we are lucky) then 22 for the lackeys. They ain't paying IKF 2/$15 to be the utility man, lol.