Laika

Me too Revenge pinch hitting heroics?

Hosmer's deal is lighter on the backend, which kind of matters. His AAV appears to drop to $13M for these final three seasons.

They robbed Washington. The package should have several other 40 or 45 FV prospects... Edit NVM lol Gore and more makes it good haha. Should have waited.

Wow So the Padres legendary farm system is basically no more. All spent, save for Campusano and Gore.

One of the rare times quantity might make more sense than quality Nats org is a dumpster fire They could get like 8 prospects from the Padres and it would really help

Alright this is going to be a banger

Something is definitely off. He does not look like 2021 Vlad, has not all year. Observationally he is just getting eaten up by breaking balls on the outside corner. It's like every at bat starts with a slider away and he is taking borderline pitches with calls not going his way (tough luck) or whiffing on them (bad swings). But some of the called slider strikes down there are not even great pitches and a locked in good hitter like Kirk pounds them the other way consistently. I dunno. Tough data to parse. He's not hitting the oppo homers this year that's for sure. He crushed fastballs last year and is not this year. Seems like he is caught in between fastballs and breaking balls right now. Like how they are pitching him is in his head and he doesn't know whether to sit breaking ball away or keep sitting FB. When you look at his "swing/take" profile on Statcast it really seems like the primary issue is simply not doing damage on pitches in the zone. That's it. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals/swing-take?playerId=665489&playerSet=hitters&year=2021 toggle 2021 and 2022

Honestly makes sense for the O's, assuming the baby arms have stuff Lopez is vastly overrated and possibly not an elite reliever.

Yeah this is cool Sell everybody, O's

hmmm Povich has K-BB that jumps off the page, maybe he's legit legit

I did not expect him to maintain his 2021 level, let alone improve. Riley had legit contact issues, K rates approaching 30%, in the minors. And he is outhitting our generational talent 70 hit 80 power first baseman, simply because said first baseman has one very specific flaw this year with breaking balls down and away.

They just have to add him to the 40 man roster. Surely they have room on the 40 to protect Horwitz.

Make a trade. Lopez alone seems light for the arguable #1 prospect in baseball. Lopez+?

Sure he still exists. Should just be a reliever at this point though.

Riley could legitimately be dead money for 4/5 years on this contract, it takes him to 35. The age tips the risk assessment quite a bit IMO even if it's only 2 years. I don't think he's better either. Playing better this year but 2021+2022 Vlad is 8.8 fWAR and he is 9.3; it's effectively a tie. Riley also has/had some contact warts and projects worse across the board of projection systems. I don't think the Riley contract is necessarily bad, but my reference here was more to the people who didn't want to extend Vlad at all. Many were saying "he hasn't earned it" and s***, or they were not interested at all in long term deal at any conceivable dollar value. Just funny to see old friend AA lock up an older player for a decade in context. I still think they should lock Vlad up for a decade if at all possible. If anything the Riley contract could be used as a team friendly comp. I'd be ecstatic at anything close to that dollar figure and yeah I would go higher. Bo is completely separate consideration.

8:09am: The Phillies are believed to have Syndergaard “at the top of their list” as they seek rotation upgrades, tweets Jayson Stark of The Athletic. It suddenly feels like it's Syndergaard or nothing as far as SP acquisitions go

Posts like this are very head-in-the-sand. Toronto has consistently brought in high level talent over the last two years, both at the deadline and in the offseasons.

That stuff about the farm system makes sense. Toronto is not deep enough to comfortably make many of these trades. Like, the Yankees had nearly a dozen prospects in or around A+ that have decent potential so other teams want them but they are far enough away that the Yankees are not scared of trading them. Toronto has very very few of those types. When I was trying to find a comparable prospect to Hayden Wesneski, the closest I got was Jordan Groshans. By which I mean, for the Jays to get Effross hypothetically I think the Cubs would have asked for Tiedemann or Zulu or Groshans and maybe Groshans is the only one Toronto would even think of trading there. But Sem Robberse is clearly worse than Wesneski. Nobody wants to lose Tiedemann or Zulueta. But Toronto has very few prospects who are kind of like them but just a bit shittier. Like, Sem Robberse and Dahian Santos are not even close, for obvious reasons. Toronto's pitching pipeline is pretty reliant on Zulu + Tiedemann + Frasso all coming through. They kind of need to maintain them all in org for long term talent and budgetary reasons. Can't keep buying pitching.

Ross is out for his morning power walk He will return phone calls after he has his Ovaltine

Thor + Iglesias + cash For some stuff

Gore doesn't seem much better than replacement level in an 18 team league

You got offered Wander? Take

People here were telling me Vladdy is not worth a ten year extension right now Few weeks later old friend AA is giving Austin Riley guaranteed money until he's 35 Nuts

What the Orioles got in return is what makes this trade compelling for me. Johnson was the No. 58 prospect in the ZiPS Top 100 prior to the season, and both ZiPS and my colleague Eric Longehagen ranked him as Tampa’s second-best pitching prospect. Obviously, he’s a lot riskier given that he’s having Tommy John surgery, but he still represents real talent who could make an impact on the major league roster at some point, not a 27-year-old middle reliever in A-ball. And while Johnson will have to be added to the 40-man roster while he’s injured, I think he’s worth losing a spot. Baltimore also needs pitching depth in the minors, and McDermott, whom Eric recently valued as a 40 FV prospect, has real upside if his command issues can be ironed out. The Orioles got legitimate prospects for two months of an average hitter. To me, that’s worth modifying the 2022 playoff dream slightly. This is Fangraphs

Lmao no