John_Havok

I kinda hope Teoscar has some sort of nagging injury that keeps him out of the lineup until Friday. That .801 OPS looks like a chicken dinner now but could be a chicken nugget by then.

It's probably something that, combined with recent free agency issues, will lead to the next work stoppage.

Players of the day: Juan Kelly, Vlad Jr, Jonathan Davis, Dalton Pompey, Danny Jansen honourable mentions: Chavez Young, Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Max Pentecost, Ryan Borucki

MIght be later than June 1, depends on the rest of the players already up this year and last... could be mid to late June too

There's room for both of them in Dunedin. Smith has been playing 3b as well as SS, and could easily play 2nd too. Alternating Warmoth and Smith at SS/2b/3b should be easy to accomplish.

I dunno. But realistically once the super 2 window passes, calling him up then vs September makes no difference to years of control. I'd love to see Jansen, Borucki and Vlad sooner rather than later.

THis is true on the surface, but when the owners collude as much as they do... owners want to make themselves richer, not 19 year old kids.

To address your first point: It's not really the dollar amount itself the owners would have an issue with, its the fact that all teams have 6 (or 7) cost controlled seasons of a prospect, with no competition or competition from others clubs, so offering someone a guaranteed salary that large would be completely unnecessary when, even if he is an all star hitter and worth a ton of money, you get the first 3 of those years at league minimum. By paying a kid that much up front, they'd be potentially changing the precedent for young player salaries, and starting to chip away at the one part of the game that is equal for all teams, those first 6-7 years of a players playing life. Once free agency hits, of course it's a free for all and while some owners may lament they fact they cannot pay 30 million per year to a player while others can, there's nothing they can do about it. Even the big spending teams don;t want to change what young guys earn, because that's how they can afford to sign multiple top tier free agents that other clubs can't. Take the cheap players away and even big market teams would see changes. To address your second point: Pitchers have inherently more risk attached to them than hitters because all pitchers get hurt. Every single one. It's really only a matter of time. Position players still get hurt, but it's not to the same degree of pitchers. Every pitcher signed to a long term deal has more risk than hitters, no matter what age the pitcher is.

Players of the Day: Andres Sotillo, Brandon Grudzielanek, Angel Perdomo, Jonathan Davis, Andrew Guillotte, Richard Urena, Roemon Fields, Lourdes Gurriel Jr, Ian Parmley Honourable mentions: Aberto Mineo, Bo Bichette, Deck McGuire

The last pitcher to throw at least five innings and notch a save in the regular season was Joaquin Benoit, who threw seven innings for the Texas Rangers against the Orioles in a September 2002 game. This was the longest at 7 innings in relief of Todd Van Poppel, who earned the win after replacing Aaron Myette who was ejected after throwing only two pitches. In all, only four times in the past 30 regular seasons has there been a save of at least five innings. The last time anyone accomplished Pruitt's feat was the 2014 World Series. San Francisco Giants ace Madison Bumgarner came out of the bullpen in Game 7 to earn the save and lift the Giants to a championship over the Kansas City Royals.

Chatwood doing his best Nuke LaLoosh impression. Is there a mascot he can throw at?

Contreras really gave it to Chatwood in that mound visit...

I'm pity the first owner should signs a prospect to 10/100 guaranteed, assuming the current system remains in place. The other 29 owners would probably want him strung up

3 IF hits deflected off the pitcher... just... what? Wish I didn't have to listen to Vasgersian take swipes at analytics every 5th sentence though, when here he is quoting exit velocity in his commentary.

And I wouldn't blame him if he didn't take it, if it was on the table, which it likely isn't. ... but it's a nice thought exercise anyways. You're right that there are no true comparables, but it would be nice to see somethung like this get done if for no other reason than to alleviate the annual arbitration ********.

Snuck into 2nd thanks to a late Gallo HR.

Hookers and blow.

Yeah but 100 million guaranteed is way too much risk for the team. It has to be mitigated. 6/40 guaranteed is double what any prospect had been guaranteed in the past. Hypothetical then, if the Jays offered 6/40 do you think Vlad turns it down or not? No options... nothing, just 6 years 40 M straight up.

Yeah, but all but 1 of those top guys are playing for teams that don't care about money and have no issues rolling the dice on elite talent and keeping them for as cheaply as possible while they are young, paying big in arbitration then picking and choosing which to keep long term. I don't see the Jays as that kind of team because of their ownership situation. I know they are one of the richest owners in the game and should have no problem paying any layer to keep them, but since the Jays are part of a publicly traded company, they won't ever be the biggest spenders and will always have a tighter fist on the payroll. Rightly or wrongly, that's how it is. They not the Rays... but they aren't the Dodgers or Yankees either. The upper end of the middle tier is where they will stay payroll wise. That's why something like a 10 year/100 deal makes more sense, they're paying more than they really need to, and the player in the 6/40 contract is getting nearly 80% of an MVPs pay guaranteed. That's pretty sweet. The other thing that both sides will be considering is the boatloads of cash the upcoming FA class will receive. It would greatly benefit the Jays to lock him up before those deals are done, as it would likely greatly benefit Vlad to wait. The cost per win is gonna go up, and players salaries across the board are going to benefit from it.

Not bad for a guy who has already reached the threshold for being an average Hall of Famer for his position... at 26. And yet Bonds peak was still better... still blows my mind to watch Trout and marvel at how amazing he is, like clearly a tier above anyone else in the game right now and everyone else for the past 40 years except for that Bonds guy.

In theory yeah, but 1 injury and it's goodbye. I know it's not as likely as with a pitching prospect, but it would still be awfully hard to turn down 6/40 guaranteed. That would still be precedent setting money. Longoria's guarantee was for 17.5... Kingery was 21.5.

Axford with a winner here....

Buck wakes up half in the bag

A 19 year old doesn't have any leverage though. When a guy like Donaldson who earned his 60 million through arbitration when his results on the field backed it up (and more) how would a 19 year old be in any position to hold out for something similar or more? I think if Shatkins offered Vlad Jr 10/100 in a framework i mentioned above he'd be in the lineup tomorrow. It would be the height of insanity for any 19 year old to turn something like that down.

Society's hypocrisy is not lost on me, which was somewhat the intent of the post