John_Havok

Yup. It won't be long before its "just pitch him here, and he'll ground it to here about 60% of the time, foul it off someitmes or might get a seeing eye weak hit to there maybe but who cares... Oh, and don't worry about middle-middle either, he can't hurt you." Good solid base of tools and can still be a 4th OF on most teams that gets strategically deployed but as a major league starter he needs to make some improvements this offseason in the lab. He should certainly invest some training time into bunting too as that could prevent defenses from being able to deploy in their favour a decent amount of time.

For Vlad it's very much mechanical and seems to be (at least to me) nagging injury related. It definitely can be fixed IF he a) acknowledges there is a problem, b) lets someone show him what the problem is and c) lets someone show him how to fix it. The pride factor is probably very strong with him too as a guy who's always been successful doing things his own way and he truly may not yet be capable of acknowledging the real problem.

I can almost buy Schneider's reasoning for not dropping Vlad in the lineup... but how about just to 5th before all the other garbage slap hitters?

to quote the mouthbreathers here regarding pitching injuries: "Must be a problem with the trainers"

What could have been without that toe injury this season... it really killed him.

The way I simplify it in my head is this: xwOBA (and other x stats) says what would most likely have happened on average to a ball hit that hard at that launch angle. It's commonly criticized limitation is that it doesn't take spray angle into account, but when you look at babip alongside it... you can basically put the picture together. Right now Bateman is getting very lucky with ground balls finding holes that aren't hit that particularly well. The next obvious question from people that don't like that it doesn't take spray angle into account is actually quite simple. Defensive players are allowed to move where they setup defensively (within limits) and therefore using spray angle introduces defense to the equation, which is not a constant.

Even not using xwOBA... use babip. Sure, it takes like 800 batted balls for babip to stabilize but you're never going to see a guy run it at .421 for that long. He's a slap hitter than will likely run a babip that's higher than normal due to his footspeed, but we're talking about a guy with an ISO of .068 which is right in line with his projections. His fallback is supposed to be a good eye at the plate and takes a bunch of walks. Well, that works in the minors where there are semi-wild arms in every team's starting 5 or 6 and bullpen. His MLB 5.1% BB rate is so much lower than his minor league career average BB rate of around 17.5%. K rate is 21% up here so far and career 16% in the minors. The 5% jump in K rate makes total sense as it happens to virtually every hitter coming up. But a massive drop in walk rate means his batting eye skill probably isn't going to translate since MLB pitchers see a noodle bat and realize they don't have to waste pitches outside the zone and he can't hurt them. His closest comparable right now is Chandler Simpson, except Simpson is another tier faster, strikes out less than half as much and squares up more baseballs. Simpson's babip is .335 (this is probably slightly higher than Bateman's would be right now) and is better than Bateman as a base stealer and overall baserunner, but Bateman is definitely better defensively. So... to get all they can out of Bateman, they have 2 options. Lean into the slappy slap slap and try to get more solidly hit balls to find holes at roughly .330 babip and teach him how to steal bases better so they have Chandler Simpson with elite CF D... or try to get him some pop.

All true. Sucked as a play-by-play guy and his voice actually drove me crazy, not to mention his "old guy yelling at clouds" routine about anything other than batting average, but back in the day as a colour commentator he was very very good and really excelled as the 3rd guy in the booth in the playoffs for US networks

Yeah, I don't think they'll be making room on the 40 man for new guys. Need to fit Mantiply in too at some point as his rehab is pretty much done unless they just keep him down the full 30 days they can and he's on the 60 day IL Taillon too, except he's just on the 15 day Josh Smith is in rehab games... 15 day.

Wild game in Vancouver last night... Canadians went up 8-0 after the 2nd and were up 13 - 4 after 4, but had to walk off Spokane in the 10th to win 15-14. Bottom of the 10th started off with a throwing error from Spokane's 2b which allowed the ghost runner to score and the hitter to get to 2b. Sac bunt to get him to 3rd, then a weak grounder that the runner on 3rd couldnt advance on. Then Spokane's pitcher balked in the winning run with 2 outs. Barriera's debut outing did not go so well, came out of the pen and threw 1.1 IP, gave up 3 hits, 3 BB, struck out 2 and gave up 5 ERs. Worth noting Dameurys Pena's (the 3rd guy we got in the Hoffman trade) has been on fire since joining the Canadians with 6 hits (2 doubles) and a walk against only 1 K in the 3 games since arriving.

Yeah, and we all know how thats going to go with the playoff and NY bias. It's not that Schlittler isn't deserving, but he's clearly not deserving of the likely landslide win he will get unless he completely Schlitts the bed or Cease throws 3 perfect games in a row. This should be near 50/50 1st place votes and it'll probably end up being 80/20

Maybe... but its hard to say without him standing next to someone else that isnt crouched. Pure violence in that swing though. I like it

Sale threw a pitch 100.1 mph last night and another at 99.6 37 years old.... Why does it feel like Sale is underrated somehow even though he's a slam dunk HOF

I read the new proposal from the owners and it's honestly pretty stupid overall. Everything they offered is contingent on a cap/floor system being agreed to They want weekly rosters where you set your 26 man roster on a Sunday or whatever and stays locked for the next 7 days (injury exceptions of course). Basically brings back the problem of a starter getting blown out early, having to use 4 or 5 arms to finish a game and setting your pen back by a few days. Even if you were carrying an extra arm, 2 games in a row like this and you're basically done for the week. This is stupid. Option limits change from 4 to 5, IL is now 1 week and two weeks rather than 10 and 15 days, 60 day IL is a 12 week IL, pitcher limit change up to 14 from 13 ... Reasoning given by MLB is "This reduced transactional frequency would help teams maintain a more consistent roster, allowing fans to build a deeper familiarity with players while also mitigating instability for players." - really just sounds like they want less transactions for some reason. Kinda hard to imagine this being "better" given the amount of injuries a team can sustain over the course of a season. I would guess though the PA might like this as it would increase the likelihood of guys reaching option limits and thus trades and new guys being added to the 40 man roster... probably a very small effect overall though. Rule 5 draft changes to allow anyone under 20 to be grabbed at the 4th draft after their signing rather than the 5th, 20 or over can be taken at the 3rd draft after their signing rather than the 4th. On the surface this seems like good idea, but I don't see how much impact it would actually have since an 18 year old high school draftee is almost never ready by the time he's 22, though college bats (depending on age) could be eligible up to 2 drafts earlier. Rule 5 is barely a needle mover in the MLB so this is largely an optics move IMO. The free agent signing period thing... also seems inconsequential to me. They basically want it to all signings have to be done in a 2-3 week window at the Winter meetings which is like Dec 1-21 (give or take) then shut down again until the 1st Monday in February. Trades would also be not allowed from Dec 21 to the first Monday in Feb but would be allowed as usual from the end of the WS moratorium until the end of the winter meetings. They say they want to build excitement on the FA signing period like in the NFL and NBA...realistically it's just about giving players and agents far less time to shop around and get more money from somewhere else as needs change in the offseason.

Yeah, that's the guy, he clarified in his post that the EV was actually 115, not 112 Don't know what "catcher who's not a catcher" means without explanation, especially from a blog writer and not a talent evaluator. Either way, 115 EV for a 5'7" potato in AA is S tier.

I searched around a bit and cannot find anything about his defensive acumen at all. Thats usually a good thing but for a forgettable underslot college pick theres not really many eyeballs on him in the prospect rankings community. HR tonight was 115 mph ev and 443 feet according to some dude on twitter

Aaron Parker - 23 y/o catcher in New Hampshire just hit his 17th HR of the year, more than doubling last year's total in Vancouver in the same # of ABs. He's listed at 5'7" and 210. Was a college savings pick in the 6th round in 2024 and signed below slot, jumped right in to Dunedin that same year, all last year at Vancouver and was pretty forgettable. Still, pushed up to AA for the start of 2026 and has been solid all season long. Had a weak April power wise but has a .500 SLG or better every month since, OPS has gone up every month. From 2025 in Vancouver to AA in 2026: Strikeout rate? up from 19.6% to 31.2% Walk rate up from 7.6% to 12.9% ISO up from .153 to .213 and SLG from .386 to .472 wRC+ from 90 to now over 120. Pretty much tracks with his pre-draft scouting report of "defined by high bat speed and raw power, generating impressive exit velocities and hard-hit rates despite a high-maintenance swing featuring a large leg kick. He showed excellent collegiate production, slashing .379/.460/.632 with 12 home runs in 2024, though scouts note he can expand the strike zone and has some contact questions. Defensive Profile: quick hands and an average arm that throws with good carry. From Baseball Prospectus a few weeks ago: A sixth-round selection in 2024 out of UC Santa Barbara, Parker is enjoying a breakout offensive season in Double-A, posting an .857 OPS through his first 47 games. There’s still some swing-and-miss concerns, with the K-rate currently north of 30%, but Parker’s ability to impact the ball and defensive ability behind the dish could earn him at-bats in Toronto in the very near future. Already profiling like a pretty solid backup even if the defense hasn't taken a step forward. Under the radar break out candidate ??

From a team starved of power, that's probably not a great idea.

Shapiro pretty much said it, without saying it. ""I’ve said this a couple of times internally, there’s only two people that I know are going to be here at the end of a contract that we sign with Vladdy and that’s Edward (Rogers) and Vladdy. So he better be involved."

Winning 9 of 10 will do that to ya. Sure would be nice to see the Jays win 4 of 5 let alone 9 in 10.

Or someone else going to the 60. Clase perhaps.

He's thrown 1 rehab outing in Buffalo. It is possible they hold him down for another one, but... this pen is gassed as f*ck so it would make some sense to just bring him up 1 appearance early as a stop gap until Sept 1

It's a lot of result oriented explanation though. He says their is a rotational problem causing him to cheat and get started early to generate the bat speed which in turn means he is chasing more but because his hand-eye is so good he makes more contact, but weaker contact. Yes... i think we can all look at the numbers and see that. What is causing the rotational issue? - That's the root cause and is not discussed here. Some sort of nagging injury to his core is a likely root cause. I would like one of these guys out there to do an actual mechanical side by side swing comparison from last year to this year and actually show the physical changes in his swing and timing.

my gut says Little is going down and Mantiply is coming up to give another available arm. As it stands now they only have 4 pitchers available unless they want to try and squeeze an inning out of Miles and/or Dallas if they need to. Arrighetti/SWR/Fisher/(Mantiply?)/Varland today. Hopefully the first two can go at least 6+ combined.

John Schneider on MLB network radio now. (11am eastern) Cant listen myself but if anyone can and post the highlites, that would be super.