Laika

I'm surprised at the dollars Nola has looked on the precipice of decline for the last year or two

Not really. Cimber was really good and then he lost it. That's pretty typical with relievers especially ones that rely on funk/deception

yes have to agree there even for hitters, just a weird place to have a career and terrible org/coaches

JDM 1 year deal Garver 3 year deal?

He used to yell at the other team and grab his nuts and stuff. Also his daddy went out for a smoke and never came back and went to prison and stuff. So JD grew up hard. But he's still f***ing ten ply and made of toilet paper.

JD is not tough, lol. Dude misses half the season every year with a calf ache.

Dunno how you guys could want JD after seeing him play a bit in 2023. If dumpster diving for a 3B stop gap I'd honestly rather have Jean Segura or IKF or someone like that

lmao horrible landing spot for Quantrill well, I guess he'll take MLB Colorado over AAA anywhere

I'd think Espinal is a trade candidate if Toronto doesn't want to tender him.

Soroka and Lopez both have limited control left and will cost $3M+ in arb so with Atlanta's MLB depth they were probably considering non tendering them both. Almost no value. Shuster and Shewmake have cheap control but their numbers are not great. They are name brand prospects in a bad system. They don't project well. Bummer is a reliever with a few years left of getting expensive control on a horrible team. Great trade for White Sox to be honest. Understandable trade for Atlanta but I bet AA is frustrated he could not make better use of these assets. He traded them all at rock bottom values in a roster crunch context. Kind of a late night, capitulation dynasty baseball trade lol. f*** it I'm sick of negotiating fine

You are dumb and ugly

I wonder if there is a way around it. Ohtani would have Rogers stock, not Blue Jays shares. Yeah that's indirect ownership and indirect financial interest in the earnings but they could give him some type of Special Shares that don't get dividends or whatever. And escrow them until he is retired - vested special shares.

Agree with your assessment The Yankees did not exactly position themselves to be the Ohtani favourites since they are kind of bogged down with long/massive contracts already. The Mets, who f***ing knows. All their new owner spending flopped horribly so they might be gunshy. The Dodgers have very clearly been maintaining roster and payroll flexibility for a year+ so they can sign this guy. They have to be like, 70% favourites. So you have the Dodgers up top and then a glut of teams including Toronto that could swoop in and overpay him to steal him from LA. That would include NYM, NYY, TOR, SFG, HOU, SEA, BOS, TEX. I mean, really anybody. Some of the smaller market teams could even make a case to increase payroll and extend for him. Baltimore, lmao. Imagine. They could do it. Baltimore.

I agree that the interest is probably genuine Some other team will simply have more money to offer though If Toronto offered $600M, one of New York teams or the Dodgers would match or top it.

I dunno. It's not a big deal. Why should the initial times be assumed ideal and set in stone? Why not tinker and find the best balance? Maybe 20 seconds was just too long to the point that it did not have the desired effect.

I think some team will trade for him. It's not that much $$$ and his results were good for long enough (2020-2022) that some might think he is a DIPS overperformer. 2023 looked like full regression. But, 99 innings. If he sucks in 2024 then yeah he was just getting lucky in 2020-2022. One last try for Cal. I think for Toronto specifically he would be a nice addition. Kind of like adding another Manoah... lottery ticket SP5. Will only be 29. Has decent velo, I wonder if a repertoire change could work. He is a kitchen sink pitcher with 6 pitches but the stuff grades are all over the place. Fourseamer 19.1% 80 Cutter 24.1% 101 Splitter 13% 115 Sinker 23.7% 84 Change 9.1% 86 Curveball 10.9% 102 So, bad fastballs but the cutter is okay. I guess he's already throwing about as many cutters as he can. Hard to do like, 35% cutters. Similar to Bassitt except Bassitt has an extra command level AND a better sinker. 92 stuff+ sinker is a lot different than 84.

Two interesting DFAs today Josh Staumont and Cal Quantrill

Probably? But I don't know. They are different things. VAA is responsible for some portion of the results that people in recent years have been attributing entirely to high spin 4 seamers. VAA will be increased by FB velocity, pitcher height, and pitcher release point. I would ASSUME that VAA does correlate with spin because the pitchers from a strategy perspective would be trying to maximize both, if they pitch like that. Basically, you can have a great VAA and succeed even with middling spin. Or amazing spin but get hit if your VAA really sucks.

it's one of those things that people don't really understand if your farm system is any good at all then you need to be trading players from it constantly because you can't keep them all

Personal decisions by him for sure

Stroman could have been an Ace but decided to be a #3 instead.

Man, this was 2021 Vlad. He SLUGGED 1.178 on pitches middle-up (not OPS.... SLG). .634 in-up, and .733 away-up and SLUGGED .688 on pitches middle-above, i.e. above the zone but centred over the plate I dunno what happened, he has lost it. Kind of came into the league pounding the low pitch with a hole up, then fixed it in 2021, then lost the fix and also now cannot touch anything low and away at all. Blargh.

You don't need intent to KILL for manslaughter to stick. It can just be intent to hurt or whatever. In Canada if this guy was charged like this, the Crown would probably need to prove something like.... intent to commit an ASSAULT. Which would probably mean intent to do some violent act that is outside of the common practices of the sport. Something like that.

The broad trend the last 2 years has been shaping sliders. That normally means a sweeper but some guys are doing that tight gyro slider. The broad trend that started like, eight? years ago was the high rising FB.... so yeah it's very possible the cutting edge teams don't care much about this anymore. Who knows. It still seems pretty f***ing powerful though. So many MLB hitters are just USELESS against a good high fastball. It's such a deadly pitch. That makes much more sense if VAA is just on the four seamer. Totally tracks for Kikuchi and the entire bullpen. Bassitt would only be like 10% 4 seamers but maybe they are shaped nice. Berrios was more sinkers than 4 seamers in 2023, I think, that was one change he made.

Yes Well, it's not really counter anymore as most orgs want pitchers to have fastballs that do not drop But traditionally teams chased pitchers with a steep angle. Hitters basically all have uppercut swings, or at least a slight uppercut. The swing plane and the dropping pitch angle then tunnel or run together, so the hitters make more contact. If a pitch can come in more level than the hitters swing, you will get more whiffs. But it's not as simple as VAA = good because it is pitch and player specific. A sinkerballer doesn't want to chase VAA. VAA is great if you are throwing 4 seamers and particularly up in the zone (but pitchers with elite VAA can literally get whiffs down the middle on 4 seamers). A team could have ideal VAA on all their pitchers but if 1/3 of them are sinker ballers ideal VAA does not mean higher VAA. So team level rankings aren't necessarily that informative. It just tells you the type of pitchers Toronto likes. Well, that and their effectiveness. I am kind of surprised they would be absolute tops in it. The rotation doesn't strike me as one that would lead the league in VAA. Isn't Gausman's fastball shape kind of mediocre? The pen is definitely all these kids of guys though. Except for maybe Mayza?