Laika

Happens on the time with fringe guys

Manoah might be a good fit for the Rockies Or the Savannah Bananas Not sure about anyone else I guess he has the body type for the Mexican League

Frasso and Manoah non tendered. I am euphoric.

Bellinger 3.0 fWAR projection by FGDC Lukes 1.6 in 107 games Schneider 0.8 WAR pro-rated to 55 games A Lukes/Schneider platoon should be about 2.4 WAR and they both cost the league minimum. So, Bellinger isn't worth the money UNLESS you are giving up on Santander in which case LMAO but I guess it makes sense by WAR and projections, because Santander blows and is cooked

I am sure Tango thought of everything Maybe there is in fact not *much* variance within a player's top 90% fastest swings, or the variance looks about the same player to player. I think it makes sense that most players are executing their quickest swings, most of the time. Even defensive hacks they are waiting then swinging fast. Probably not comparable to sprint speed measurement as there is lots of meaningless jogging in baseball

Bo does have a bit more bat speed than his avg bat speed tells you. His Fast Swing % was 42nd percentile in 2023 (vs like 22nd for his avg bat speed). The difference was less pronounced in 2025 but still there. I don't think I have ever seen "max bat speed" data. I think all of the bat tracking stuff uses the player's top 90% swings by bat speed, so they throw out all the weird junk swings at the slow end. It would be interesting to see something like... MAX BAT SPEED which ignored the 5 hardest swings (noise?) but then averages the next ten fastest swings. There are probably a handful of players who have above average bat speed ability they just choose to not swing like that most of the time.

smart front office stays smart trust the process

Freddie Freeman also has a slow bat There are exceptions to every rule

Witt hit the ball hard and had elite legs. That let him overcome not walking almost ever and having a horrible chase rate. Holliday has better plate discipline and walk rates but hits the ball like an old Ty France. They aren't really comparable. Witt was a SS demonstrating elite tools and deficiencies in things that can sometimes be improved (plate discipline). It's not an instructive comp. I don't really know how to find good 21 year old comps for Holliday because how many 21 year olds get full MLB seasons and have 25th percentile bat speed? Probably not many. What was the bat speed on Addison Russell or Nomar Mazara? Holliday has paths to being good but with 25th percentile bat speed and bad defense so far, and 25th percentile Launch Angle Sweet Spot (launch angle optimization, basically) I am not sure I like his odds. If he cuts his K % in half he could be Jeff McNeil. Is he Jake Cronenworth? These are good players. If he becomes a Launch Angle Sweet Spot savant in the offseason he could even be Jonathan Aranda. Improved defense + hitting like that and he's a star. Tough.

The Blue Jays are the Price Enforcement Champs so maybe they are after Bellinger just to make someone else pay more. Always possible.

Witt was twice as good by WAR and showed way more explosive tools Witt 2021 --> 100th percentile sprint speed and baserunning value, 75th percentile arm, 69th percentile xSLG and 65th percentile Avg Exit Velo, upper tier bat speed Holliday --> 25th percentile bat speed :( , 26th percentile arm strength :( , 5th percentile range , somehow 8th percentile baserunning against 82nd percentile sprint speed to he's a dumb baserunner All Holliday has shown is a decent approach (chase and squared up type stats). I think he could still be a 4 WAR player or something like that in some years. Lots of work to do though.

The Orioles collapse will be legendary. People will call it the Wet Fart Dynasty. 101 wins in 2023 and the best farm in baseball, no salary commitments, a core of bats, some of the strongest 5+ year projections at the team level in baseball..... and in 2 years they are a non playoff team with a bunch of flawed players, no real rotation, and a s***** farm system. Some of the core are already getting expensive or approaching FA. Nobody extended other than Basallo, a DH projected for a 107 wRC+.

Nah, you have to start to wonder if their system was just overhyped or they were succeeding with stuff at the plate that the league was always capable of adjusting to. Rutschman has collapsed. You can blame injuries but he's almost 28 and has been on a steady decline. Holliday does not look like a future star at all. He looks like a guy who might be able to scrape together some decent years but that's it. Cowser has been whiff addict even when he was good. Mayo hasn't been able to translate to the MLB yet. Mountcastle even collapsed last year. Kjerstad complete bust? Henderson and Westburg smaller steps back Some of their recent higher draft picks (Honeycutt, Bradfield) ain't working out Mullins collapsed as a player while they had him Their farm goes from pretty much #1 to like, 15th in one year. And that's after selling MLB pieces at the deadline. And that ranking is bouyed mostly by Beavers and Basallo, who will graduate soon. So their farm system going forward is heavily reliant on their 2025 draft class working out. Personally I don't even see how it's a top half farm system and I think people are just too hesitant to completely tank them in one season. You can blame a lot of it on injuries but when everyone is getting hurt can you really say it's bad luck? Maybe it's systemic and related to the kinds of training they do. IIRC they had multiple players with oblique/intercostal injuries.

If Yesavage threw 99 mph you might consider throwing a Franchise label on him now but the uncomfortable truth is that he does not have a lot of wiggle room on the velo front. It's 56th percentile now, at 22. That number tends to only go down. For comparison, that fastball velo percentile is comparable to 2021 and 2022 Jose Berrios. Definitely wait and see how he ages. And how the league ages with him and adjusts to his weird arsenal.

On paper it's such a big loss for the O's that you have to assume Grayson is broken OR there is some kind of attitude issue with him like, even if you just take Grayson Rodriguez' 2.3 Steamer Projection and assume he provides 2.3, 2.3, 2.3, and 1.8 WAR in his four remaining years of control, and goes 5-10-15M in arbitration, it's almost $70m in projected surplus value. Ward is worth maybe $13 or $14m surplus value and that's it.

Wild trade for Elias to make lol

Yeah this is like Shane Bieber basically Brewers are happy. Maybe Woodruff is worried about his own health.

Kodai Senga reportedly very available. Interesting target. 2/$28M left to him. Probably not the upside Toronto wants to chase, at this point in the offseason, but he can be pretty nasty.

Here is how horrible that trade idea even was. Clement on left of course. This is even a pessimistic view of Clement. He can turtle under the guise of "trolling" but we all know it was a serious idea Year WAR $/WAR Value Salary Surplus Value Year WAR $/WAR Value Salary Surplus Value 2026 2.2 $11,000,000.00 $24,200,000.00 $4,300,000.00 $19,900,000.00 2026 2.5 $11,000,000.00 $27,500,000.00 $17,300,000.00 $10,200,000.00 2027 1.7 $11,330,000.00 $19,261,000.00 $6,500,000.00 $12,761,000.00 2027 2 $11,330,000.00 $22,660,000.00 $21,000,000.00 $1,660,000.00 2028 1.2 $11,669,900.00 $14,003,880.00 $10,000,000.00 $4,003,880.00 5.1 $57,464,880.00 $20,800,000.00 $36,664,880.00 $50,160,000.00 $38,300,000.00 $11,860,000.00

Qualifying Offer decision day Torres, Imanaga, Gallen, and Grisham are the 4 that people think could accept the QO Personally I think they all should but I am probably out of touch. The websites predict just Torres to accept it.

It's demonstrably true though I mean what more do you want lmao. 0.4 WAR is a rounding error

The main point is that Bo might be pretty close to "market inefficiency" territory Yes, anybody is going to give Tucker more money because of the kinds of skills he has. The walks, the ability to pull the ball in the air. Those give you some confidence that he could age gracefully. But I don't know how people are justifying these $400M projections for Tucker and then saying they won't give Bo the Willy Adames deal. It just seems like some classic can't see the forest for the trees stuff going on.

Yeah I agree If Rogers is keeping the payroll flat, then the position player side of things is "fine" as it is They can add nobody and field a complete lineup. It's flimsy though, and needs depth to cover injuries or flops. In 2027 you assume Santander slides to full time DH when George leaves.

It's not even a narrative, hahaha. It's facts. They are pretty close in talent. Tucker probably gets $100M or $150M more but Bo has a shot to outperform him from here on. Tucker is at best 1 win better right now. There is an argument that Bo is actually quite underrated right now