Laika

thank you? doesn't change the point his exit velos are not relevant. he always hits the ball hard even when he sucks.

Okay, but it's not a positive. He was an elite exit velocity guy last year and he was a replacement level player. He will always hit the ball hard. When he is playing poorly his launch angles will be off. In the second half so far his LD% is only 7.6%. It was over 21% in the first half. Interestingly, his GB% is not up. Groundballs were the problem in 2020 and 2019 but so far in the second half his nemesis is lazy pop ups and flyballs.

Not really. The bad version of Guerrero = hitting blistering groundballs all the time.

Murphy looked hopeless. His stuff just isn't that good. A bit of potential he could be a useful reliever but he needs like, an entire mechanical overhaul I think

Moreno

Puke gif

holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk

Berrios' "stuff" might compare to Lynn's but those other names would all be clearly above. And of course that means prime Scherzer/Verlander, not current versions.

Berrios' value is pretty well known, established, and projectable. He will be good for the next 1.35 seasons but not a true Ace. The value of Martin and SWR is not as easy to peg. They could bust, or be superstars. Teams will have varying evaluations too. At the time the trade was announced the cost seemed like a massive overpay for Berrios based on precedent. Martin was considered a top 20 prospect (based on offseason lists) and SWR was considered a top 50 or so prospect. That's a huge price for 1.35 seasons of a good but not elite starter. Marcus Stroman is a comparable pitcher and he was traded for substantially less. Historically teams just have not given up prospects of Martin's caliber unless they were getting back a massive star under control, or something like that. With the above in mind one of two possibilities has to be true: 1. The Blue Jays overpaid massively for Berrios. 2. The public perception of Martin and/or SWR was significantly too high. They were overvalued by fans and public prospectors, but not by MLB teams who have more info. So it's entirely fair to go looking for what is wrong with Martin at this point. It's not just about trying to justify a trade as a biased fan. It's more like trying to make sense of it all. Because if Toronto thinks Austin Martin has any reasonable chance of being Alex Bregman they are 100% not doing this trade.

I am an organizational apologist and extremely biased at all times. Here are three good things about the Grichuk contract. 1. It is a good educational event for how prudent teams approach deals. 2. It shows good process by the Blue Jays. 3. It was about more than Randal Grichuk and in hindsight has paid off. By #1, I mean to say that how Grichuk is now performing kind of shows the likely thinking of the Blue Jays at the time he was extended. Most teams would not think of these things as a simple matter of comparing the player's projection vs the cost. Rather, they think about these things via a range of outcomes. If the player really underperforms and only plays to say their 10th percentile, what does that look like? If they figure some stuff out and take off, hitting the 90th percentile of their projected outcomes, what does that look like? I think the Blue Jays obviously thought Randal Grichuk was capable of more, perhaps they thought he projected better than this or hoped he would play much better... but they probably had a sober thought that even if he were to underperform and really flatline, it would not look that bad. They would have based this on the size of his MLB sample pre-extension, his age, his ability to hit for an okay average with power even when he sucked, his ability to play decent defense. And that bottom of the barrel outcome is not playing out and it's really not that horrible. $10M each for the next two seasons for a bench quality player. The deal did not work out but it's not a sunk cost entirely and it's not the end of the world. Contrast this to the bottom of the barrel outcomes on things like the Chris Davis extension, or some of the mid-range contracts given out historically to starting pitchers (which always carry a downside risk of literally zero production) like Jordan Zimmerman, Homer Bailey. It's possible in baseball to spend $50M+ on player talent and get zero return. I guess #2 is already explained within the above. And #3 is obvious too. It helps to attract guys like Ryu and Springer, and some of the lesser FA pieces, if your team is not literally all children. As Toronto planned on cycling up their payroll they had to start somewhere. An extension for a veteran currently in the organization was a reasonable place to start. Perhaps a good signal to other players in the league that the team was committed to building around the kids coming up, committed to some level of monetary spending, etc.

So great to see Eloy actually return this year AND put up numbers right away. When he first got hurt I think the news was that he would probably miss the whole season.

Pop up ads should be gone now

Do we need to realign division? Every team in my division is better than the entire Reuben...

IMO Kevin Smith should be a 45+ FV prospect at the minimum. He might even be a 50 FV prospect which would mean backend of the top 100 territory. 45+ FV would mean more like a top 150 prospect. So he is about as valuable as some guys like: Ryan Vilade Clarke Schmidt Drew Waters Travis Swaggerty Taylor Walls Ezequiel Duran JJ Bleday Of course most of the guys with a 50FV on Fangraphs I would clearly take over Smith. I just listed a few who he might comp to. 45+ puts him over Hoglund and Hiraldo in Toronto's system. 50FV could even place him in the same spot ordinally, in the system since it has no 45+ guys per Fangraphs. Keith Law thinks he's a league average position player now if I am remember a recent comment correctly

Yeah those are good. Also hit the "top prospect" part of the profile. India is actually having a great year while Benintendi seems almost done.

I let it sit there for a while but didn't see the angle in the end. Hendricks still seems better for our league settings right now.

I think it's mostly lag. Evaluators haven't updated their info this year or have not even seen him for whatever reason. And then Baseball America completely whiffed in the above list. They misplaced him IMO.

He's still a True Cardinal, shockingly.

lmao

And if you click on this guy's tweet and read the replies, it is 1000 of the whitest knights saying they hear the N word This may be right but I’m straining to hear a “D” and can’t hear it at all. And I listened to it 20 times. The conclusion people drew while watching it in real time is fair. It sure would be nice if that guy came forward and explained himself. Who was the genius that decided the team's mascot needed a name that ends in "inger"? Don’t rush to the defense of a racist, bro As much as I'd like to plead plausible deniability I'm hearing a "N" I hear it loud and clear. Anyone who thinks it's "dinger" should get their hearing checked. if you think he’s saying dinger, you’ll hear dinger, and vice versa with the n word. As much as this does make sense, this could be the his "cover" for his "joke". Plausible deniability. I hear n word way clearer than Dinger I think you may be mistaken or perhaps are joking. Definitely not 'Dinger.' I can hear the 'N' at the beginning of the word. I can hear the hard 'G' in the middle of the word. Doesn't sound like 'ing,' sounds like 'igg.' Close your eyes and just listen. Absolutely not. That is not the fan shouting it. It doesn’t match up. Nice try though. I’m specifically listening for Dinger but I’m not hearing the “i-n-g.” I am, however, hearing the “i-g-g.” There is NO D sound! unless the D in “Dinger” is silent ! If not Stop define this BS! Bro, can't you HEAR? Rolling on the floor laughing I mean this video has sound. He's CLEARLY saying the N word. I tried giving this guy the benefit of the doubt, but upon further review, he's saying the N word. I even replayed it numerous times TRYING to hear "Dinger" & nope! 1st letter is definitely an N. This is not correct at all. The guy yelling was not sitting behind home plate and if you listen to the video again, the guy is CLEARLY not saying “Dinger” The words sound nothing alike and what he's shouting clearly doesn't start with a D Absolute f***ing psychopaths. A really good and clear-cut example of how you can just straight up see the world through your own lens, good or bad. You will quite literally hear different words and see different things based on your politics and psychology. The facts that enter your brain will be different or be perceived as different. Wild stuff. It's like the blue/gold dress thing but it's one word vs a racist word.

That was one of the comps when Martin was drafted but it seems evident at this point that Zobrist had better tools across the board.

As much as I would like to see the Red Sox just lose every game from here on, they are the weakest team of the three so we might need to hope that they take a few wins from the other guys.

The Estate of Roy Halladay essentially declared that he is 50% a Philly with Brandy Halladay's stupid Hall of Fame decision.

What are the comps for Austin Martin, anyway? Try to find some MLB players with skill sets like this: 60+ hit tool with good plate discipline below average game power weak arm average speed not an everyday player at any premium position The three positive examples I can think of are Adam Frazier, Nick Markakis without the arm and from 2009 on, and Howie Kendrick (but Kendrick was an aggressive hitter). Maybe Adam Frazier is the best one there. I guess a lot of hit tool predominant guys like Melky Cabrera could also be comparable. I think in most instances this is a skill set that will spend a lot of seasons around 2 WAR, unless he can figure out how to lift/drive the ball more or how to be a plus CF/2B.

Right, celebrating. But apparently he had done it numerous times before while playing.