John_Havok

100% agree. There's just no excuse for that. What's the extra cost... 2 hotel rooms for all the away games of the season. That's what like.... 0.0000001% of the team's travel budget?

The cost on Bregman would be significant for sure, but he would be an amazing get. I'd caution though that the rumours of his "availability" are probably way overblown. The rumours got started by some talking head saying that Houston is "listening on Bregman" simply because he's going into the last year of his current deal. Not exactly a hot take, given that every team in baseball listens on virtually every player on their roster at some point between the end of a season and the start of the next one.

Another way the Jays are ahead of the Yankees. The Jays have been saving #18 since 2019.

There's also the strong possibility that Cashman is just following orders from the Steinbrenners on whom to sign and being told just to get it done. It's hard to argue with his overall body of work when you consider under his reign since 1998 they've only missed the playoffs 5 times, won the WS 4 times, lost the WS twice and won the division 14 times including a run of 9 straight and 12 out of 15 seasons. That's the optimists view of him though. The "What have you done for me lately" view would be... since their East division win in 2012, in the 11 seasons since then they've only won it twice and missed the playoffs 4 times. They've only made the ALCS three times and lost every time to Houston. Granted, there's a lot of teams in baseball that would love to have that track record as their "down" cycle. They have 2 massive contracts with Stanton(4 more years @32 per) and Rodon(5 more years @ 27 per) that are absolute boat anchors. So between Judge, Stanton and Rodon, they're paying 100 million dollars each year whilst praying to get 200 games out of Judge/Stanton and god knows what out of Rodon. DJL's re-signing has proved to be bad, even if his costs are not prohibitive. He went from a guy appearing 3rd and 4th on MVP ballots to being forgettably league average. The Donaldson fiasco just the latest. I can see the arguments against his last few seasons, but there's very few GMs in baseball with Cashman's success.

There isn’t a GM dumb enough to trade a guaranteed stud like Carroll for a catcher. Not even Preller would do that.

Oh yeah, sooooo many variables that would need to be broken down. Internally I'm sure teams have done this kind of work.

Worried? Not really, not to the level that I would be if they all had big injury histories.

Makes sense, he's clearly too young for the Cards rotation.

My guess would be it would depend on the count. If its a favourable pitcher count they could "waste" a pitch out or two. Probably some weird combo of that, plus who the pitcher is, catcher is etc.

Winter meetings are going to be very interesting to say the least. That when Yamamoto and his entourage will be in the US talking with interested teams.

So much better, I know.

Yeah, once a guy is in the kind of territory that he's in... 13 years 625 million from Detroit ... vs 13 years 600 million from say the Dodgers. Would a guy really go to Detroit just for the extra 2 million per season?

Also some numbers on how steals were impacted with the # of disengagements: 0 disengagements - 1.4% attempt // 9.6 ft lead at first move // 77.7% advance rate 1 disengagement - 5.3% attempt // 10.4 ft lead at first move // 79.4% advance rate 2 disengagements - 10.4% attempt // 11.1 ft lead at first move // 79.0% advance rate

I'd be floored if Ohtani considered Detroit for even a millisecond over other markets. I'd also be floored to see Detroit be even close to offering the kind of money it would take to sign him. That said, they certainly have the payroll space to do it. They're only projected at just over 70 million for 2024 and have spent big in the past.

Not sure if anyone has been checking this at all but Baseball Savant now has a leader board for Pitcher Running Game, basically to "express the skill of pitchers at preventing base runners from advancing on the bases, via steal attempts or pickoffs/balks." Jays pitchers in 2023 Kikuchi was the best at +4 runs Richards was +3 Berrios +2 Ryu was +1 Garcia was 0 Swanson -1 Bassitt -3 Manoah -4 Gausman -6 Best in baseball was Dylan Cease at +10 https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/pitcher-running-game?game_type=Regular&n=q&pitch_hand=all&runner_moved=All&prior_pk=All&season_end=2023&season_start=2023&sortColumn=simple_prevented_on_running_attr&sortDirection=desc&split=no&team=&type=Pit&with_team_only=1&expanded=0 How this works: Each steal opportunity (currently runners at 1B only) is assigned a probability of being successful or not based on several inputs about the situation, most notably the speed of the runner. “Lead distance gained” expresses the distance gained by the runner between the pitcher’s first move and the release of the pitch. How to read it: Pitcher Base Advances Prevented is the difference between advances allowed (vs. avg) and outs created (vs. avg). Pitcher Stealing Runs is a translation of that to a run value, where an advance allowed is -.2, an out created is +.45, and opportunities where a runner did not attempt to run are given a sliding scale based on the situation. To be qualified a pitcher must have at least one stolen base opportunity per team game. A stolen base opportunity is defined as a pitcher thrown with a runner on first (and no other runners on).

I can't see any potential pitfalls at all.

Cardinals 1-5 rotation now by age for the 2024 season. Gray - 34 Lynn - 37 Mikolas - 35 Gibson - 36 Matz - 33

Yup, Bally Sports North going tits up is going to hit them hard.

I don't think Rogers has any brand footprint in Japan at all does it? I don't know much about wireless carriers over there.

I disagree on the assumption that Moreno has figured out the power aspect using half a season of data... though I concede that the assumption I made of Kirk re-discovering his earlier power is also based on the same half a season, so... could probably call that a wash. Is recency bias more in play with Moreno simply due to age, unfatness and the chance that he "figures it all out?" Kirk isn't exactly ancient either, I'd say the chances of either one of them figuring out the power is roughly equal. I would agree Moreno has more raw pop, but maybe like 55 vs a 50 for Kirk? Not a huge gap. I'd probably put 40 grades on their game power. Their HRs/PA will probably be pretty close going forward. Kirk is currently 1 HR every 38 PAs, Moreno is 1 HR for every 56 in regular season, 1 HR for 45 PAs including the postseason, though SSS caveats apply. 2023 seasons standing alone, Kirk was 1 HR every 53 PA, Moreno (including playoffs) 1 HR every 41 PAs. Still not quite to Kirk's career average. I suppose the overall feeling is which side gets more weight, recent results for Moreno vs early results for Kirk. Kirks earlier career power also came at an earlier age then Moreno, 21/22 age seasons for Kirk vs age 23 season for Moreno. I also make a bit of an assumption on Kirk that he will put some effort in the weight loss and become a less s***** runner over the next few seasons before his knees give out like all catchers' knees do and put him right back at the floor he is at now.

Well, Kirk has already shown he can hit for power in MLB in the past (admittedly it was maybe half a season), he just hasn't more recently, so you would expect it could return IF he can make the needed adjustments. Moreno hasnt demonstrated the upside of power that Kirk has yet. Overall it's probably a moot point as neither of them profile to have power as a calling card going forward, but If I had to bet on which guy would hit 15 or more HR over a season a couple of times before they were 30, it would be Kirk. Neither guy runs the bases well, which is odd to see for Moreno since he's a far better athlete than Kirk. Kirk has the better framing, Moreno has a better arm/pop time (difference of 0.08 seconds so... not massive but it's there). Both are excellent blockers, Kirk gets a bit of an edge there though for body of work There's likely not enough between the two guys that you'd think one would drastically outperform the other in terms of total fWAR if both guys have similar playing time. And interestingly... Baseball savant has the catcher throwing metrics broken down into 5 different aspects... avg footspeed of base stealer, avg number of feet from 2b when the ball crosses the plate, total pop time, then transfer time and avg arm velo in MPH. Very cool to go through

Yeah, and everything said in the post made sense. all 3 catchers had value, all 3 had concerns attached due to injury history or lack of power. Tried catcher A, then B, then they took C. Despite the results from a team perspective, I'd still do that trade. Varsho just had like a 15th percentile outcome with the bat in 2023, that's not really something you expect to happen and still managed to be incredibly useful on the basepaths and defense. Even a return to league average with the bat and he's everything the Jays need for the next 3 seasons in CF. I'd give up a young limp noodle bat catcher with very debateable defense and 1 year of LGJ for that profile anytime.

Winning the Central is like a gold medal at the Special Olympics. Sure you won, but.....

If Vlad puts up the numbers the Jays want, he’ll get the number he wants.

All very interesting info. Would love to sign both Ohtani and YY…that would free up a trade of Kikuchi to fill another area of need while keeping Manoah and Tiedeman as the next guys up when injury hits. Signing a #5 in this market to a 1 year deal would be easy as hell after that. Weird to hear them moving on from both Barger and Orelvis as a possible 3B, but that would definitely explain their interest in bringing Chappy back or getting Candaleiro. Roden needs HR power. I hope he develops it because it’s still not showing up in results yet. Regarding the Bo and Vlad situation…yep. That’s just so typical Blue Jays. They one they want won’t sign, the one that wants to sign isn’t what they want. Manoah situation makes far more sense now.