Laika

I fully support the bumping of any and all of the threads from this era Certain posters deserve to be tarred and feathered forever based on how they treaded Ross around 2023/2024

I don't think he has committed. I just mean he COULD. It wouldn't be shocking to him do it once. He's as Canadian as Freddie Freeman.

Canada WBC roster taking shape. I saw these players confirmed: Otto Lopez Bo Naylor Josh Naylor Owen Caissie The issue will again be the pitching. If they can't get most of Soroka, Brash, Taillon, Pivetta, Quantrill, Tong, Cade Smith, and Sabrowski and Romano to pitch, it will be rough. Joulien, O'Neill, Denzel Clarke, Toro, Tyler Black, are other active Canadian position players so the offense and defense might be okay. Obviously Freeman and Vlad are there - no idea what their intentions are. I'm probably missing a few guys.

I know nothing about Spencer Miles but he pitched in the AFL and this does not feel like a "get him on the IL so he can rehab all year" thing. This seems more like a "let's see him in spring he might be a bullpen weapon now" thing Touches 98/99 with a cutter/slider in the low 90s which he doesn't even seem to consider his second best pitch right now 12 Ks, 1 BB, no HR in 8.2 AFL innings I am looking at these pitch grades below and thinking about just scrapping his 4 seamer altogether, and telling him to pitch backwards out of relief. Like Braydon Fisher, with a much better fastball shape (sinker) so he can throw it 33% of the time but it's mostly cutters and curveballs coming at hitters and messing them up. https://www.mlb.com/news/giants-prospect-spencer-miles-makes-arizona-fall-league-debut https://aroundthefoghorn.com/hard-throwing-sf-giants-pitching-prospect-sets-high-expectations-after-promising-afl-campaign-01kawgchxrzt

Agreed but at least with Schwarber you have elite bat speed, elite eye, pull tendencies, and back to back 3.3+ WAR seasons (leading to a 3 win projection) Alonso has slightly worse projections because he hasn't been quite as good recently. His bat is a couple of mph slower. Doesn't have that elite eye, chases more, and relies a bit more on batted balls falling in. Goes oppo maybe too much. I'm not as comfortable with his offensive game - lots of components that could fall off a bit.

Jays pick Spencer Miles Pinango was not picked unless I missed it

Santander 2022 to 2024: 2.3, 2.5, 3.2 WAR Alonso: 2023 to 2025: 2.8, 2.1, 3.6 WAR $155M over 5 years to a 31 year old "DH" is hilarious. The Os are a garbage org

nice Pete

The Mets need to be disenfranchised what an embarrassment of an organization

Good for Pete - he got his money.

I guess what he is saying is he just thinks Pinango will struggle in MLB Even if he ends up on a team that has a brutal DH/LF projection, he is competing against guys like Endy Rogriguez, Mickey Moniak, Heriberto Hernandez, Jhostnyxon Garcia, Griffin Conine, Adrian Del Castillo, Miguel Vargas, Jordan Beck, Jack Suwinski. I kind of agree that the most likely path is probably a) he gets selected, and b) he puts up negative WAR for a month and is returned

Some insight into why Y Pinango may have been left exposed. Jays sure have a type, lol.

Nah, I don't agree. This is a once-in-a-career chance for a mega contract

Right. Those playoffs where Ernie started 18 of 18 games and hit .411

Ernie JUST played in 157 games and then set postseason records Maybe it's not 650 PA but he should approach 600 again if he doesn't get hurt The list of "ifs" that need to happen in order for the Blue Jays to have a roster structure wherein it makes sense to limit Ernie's playing is pretty long. A handful of these things need to happen: Infielder signed or traded for (Bo, Marte) Santander hitting well AND Springer healthy (Santander in OF) AND Barger hitting well (Barger pushed to 3rd) Gimenez hitting RHP well, at least Davis Schneider hitting well Nathan Lukes chugging along just like 2025 Ernie not performing quite like 2025

It's also conceivable that no team wanted to go 5 years on a reliever this offseason. Maybe he was only getting 3 and 4 year offers.

I am thinking he just chose the Dodgers... maybe it was the highest AAV he had on the table and he's doing some sort of "bet on myself" thing thinking he can just do this again in 3 years

this is weird did Edwin Diaz just snap accept this because he "wants to win"?

have to imagine it's a huge contract for Diaz to sign on Dec 9th

Organization also wasted how much money on Ryan Howard?

I know he hits a lot of homers and just had an elite season but 5/$150 for Schwarber at his age is f***ing lunacy He barely projects to be worth that AAV in year one

Thank you for price enforcing, Pittsburgh Edwin Diaz to LAD! Everything is happening!!!!

Yeah. Players and teams are not always honest with injuries. Also, sometimes injuries present with no pain. Like, mechanical breakdown or weakening of the strings but nothing pops and it doesn't hurt yet. And maybe injury isn't even the right word. Early decline could be. Velocity almost always just goes down from age 20 on. Some guys lose it at 24, some hang onto it into their 30s for some reason. He lost a tick of velo at age 25 and it was pretty catastrophic for him, just based on his pre-decline stuff which was fringe. Going from 94 to 93 in the year 2024 is brutal. I think 85 mph is the typical rule of thumb for "good vs bad" sliders in the modern era, so he was already below that line in the sand and playing with fire.

Everyone is thinking about who to trade Jose Berrios to, but the other side of these stories being written is that it could be a massive wakeup call for him. Yeah he was a sad boy about not being on the roster and he probably left the team because of literal depression... okay, get the message, you aren't good enough, do you want to be sad about it or do you want to get good? His Stuff+ has gone from 108 to 89 from 2020 to 2025. He got shelled in 2022, and if you look at xERA and FIP he also got shelled in 2024 and 2025. Everyone could see that he was no longer a top end guy, those problems were just masked by eating innings + getting lucky or having a good defense. You wonder what the internal conversations were like. Did he think he was fine in 2024 and 2023 because he kept the ERA down at 3.62 and made 64 starts? Were the Jays trying to get him to change in the offseasons? There has not been much in terms of strategic or mechanical changes, as far as I can see or remember. He upped his sinker usage a bit in the last few years. His changeup has never improved, despite being in the changeup loving Blue Jays org. His breaking ball has declined by advanced metrics and I don't know what he has ever done to try and modernize it. The sad part about focusing on being an innings-eater SP is that it takes about one season of looking crummy for you to be out of baseball. See Marcus Stroman. Is there a version of Jose Berrios that is a) more effective and b) no longer cares about 32 starts and 180 inning seasons? Change the mix up, do the velo work, try to miss bats more often, willingly take on more injury risk? I dunno. Can he get in the lab and do that?