John_Havok

I'm sure internally they have these numbers already, because if they don't they'd be morons, but yeah. Seeing trends of certain age groups of players will be great. Like does mean bat speed increase from say 20-24? then level out for a few years through age 30? when does it start to decline? By how much per season? And once there are enough baselines established and general decline trends found... are there different swing patterns or stances that maybe have a better natural resistance to those declines? Maybe not that you would change people's swings but you could identify players that have them naturally and target them preferentially or something. I dunno, the possibilities with these kinds of things are nearly endless.

Bat speed still 52nd percentile, 71.9 mph avg, down from 62nd percentile and 72.7 mph avg in 2023. Though there's nothing to compare with from previous seasons to see how far that may have declined from where it was in 2022 or 2021...the inference is fairly obvious.

Exactly. And for all the value the Rogers would squeeze out of him marketing-wise as the face of the franchise this year and in the next few, the second his on-field starts to wane, so does his marketing value. Right now it looks like Rogers is willing to get close enough to his demands that they feel he is worth it but... any higher and it's a massive gamble. Like you said, even as soon as 3 seasons from now, Vlad could be on his way to replacement level value on the field. It's one thing to sign your 25 year old 7 fWAR stud, know he's gonna be likely 6+ for the next 6ish years, and then deal with the inevitable 5.5-5-4.5-4-3-2-2-1.5-1 type of slide over the last 8...Vlad is looking like maybe he might be 4-5 fWAR at best over his next 3 seasons, with his downward trajectory starting sooner, and be more "off-a-cliff" rather than "slow decline".

If Varsho isn't ready amd they don't want to DH him, you definitely wouldn't stick a 25 year old with 5 total games of CF experience out there. If anything you'd throw Springer back in CF and Roden in RF or something. Or..just let the kid DH. No need to force him into one the most important defensive positions on the diamond.

My guess is it got removed because people were abusing it and just constant thumbs-down on any posts from certain people

Its interesting, 2 years ago the Jays couldn't find playable left handed hitters anywhere. Now they have at least 3 regulars in Taters, Giminez and Varsho, and 3 possible strong side options in Barger, Wagner and Roden, without clear paths to playing time for all of them. Granted, it's entirely probable 2 of the 3 will suck, and the 3rd winds up being a decent platoon option only, but... gotta figure it out somehow Clement has certainly earned his place initially but even his playing time is going to go south with Giminez in their at 2b. Basically it's Clement at 3b against any lefties, with Schneider maybe being 2b if they choose to sit Gimenez, though his career splits are virtually neutral. Against RHP...Barger/Wagner at 3b, Giminez at 2b, with Schneider as the PH, followed by Clement going in defensively. Roden's path to any playing time initially looks like LH DH. I find it unlikely the starting day lineup has Roden in the OF even if Varsho can't go by then. They'd probably keep Taters and Springer in LF/RF and Berroa or Lukes manning CF temporarily. Oh and then there's that Loperfido guy...make that 4 semi-regular LHH

Makes sense. Trying his foot at pitching would be pretty dumb.

I'm thinking pre-porky Cecil Fielder

Francis Little

Hard to tell without a side by side

So basically, he has carpal tunnel syndrome or, maybe more likely pronator syndrome. Kinesiology classes coming in clutch.

He does to an extent, but it's just because he doesn't care how much he spends when its on a guy he wants. He only cares about the money when it's not a true "Cohen target" like Alonso. He wanted Soto, he made sure he got him. Ohtani chose where he wanted to go, otherwise there's no doubt in my mind Cohen would have offered him more money. Cohen does what he does to just make sure only the biggest fish can compete with him and even the big fish don't even bother trying.

Even 25 each from Bo and Varsho along with 35 from Vlad and Santander... Kirk could hit around 15, Springer could still get 15-20. The real wildcards are the combo of Barger, Schneider, Wagner etc...Clement could feasibly run into 10...

Really feels like the obvious solution is to trade one of the Buffalo boys for a reliever. It just makes sense.

Some of this I agree with, but there's also a lot of guys in the minors that could hold their own at the majors too.

We already know Vlad is dumb. If the leak is seen as dumb, chances are it came from Vlad. To me it doesn't really matter where the leak came from, the fact is Vlad was asking for a premium FA price tag that vastly overvalues his contributions on the field, when he wasn't a free agent and there was only 1 bidder. If he has a monster season and ends up getting 500m in FA, so be it, there's no reason to hand it to him prior to that though.

The Jays don't really have a true cleanup hitter right now if Santander is hitting 3rd. Springer will likely get the chance for the first couple weeks and if he sucks and the underlying metrics are bad, they'll have to move him. Against certain RHP Gimenez leading off makes some sense, which would put Bo in cleanup, which isn't terrible, but it would be really nice if a guy like Varsho could dial in that power stroke more often, or Barger. Having Gimenez, Vlad, Santander, Bo, Varsho/Barger against RHP would be a handful to deal with.

They probably cared that 4.4 fwar was his only good season, and didn't even come close to that total combined over the entire remainder of his career.

With his baserunning and D, the type of offensive season he'd have to have to hit 8 fWAR would be mind-blowing. What would it take like... 200 wRC+ give or take a few points?

Unless he looks truly awful he's likely gonna play. The issue they need to be cool with is moving his ass down the lineup instead of keeping him in the top 4.

Gonna need to tweek catchers defensive metrics when ABS comes in. Framing won't go away, but trying to quantify correct and incorrect challenges will certainly have a value

Sure, but you also really wouldn't look at Roden as a cleanup hitter either. Orelvis being a killer would be ideal there though

it's 21 PAs boys, just relax. HIs AAA numbers last year are far more important than these. Even if he doesn't break camp with the team, he's going to get his chance at some point. Other guys are also going off in ST so far that would be in the exact same position as Roden and they can't all be the 26th man and DH. That said, he's raking right now and it's great to see. A consistent launch angle increase of only a few degrees and he's the type of found money that most contending teams seem to find in their contending year out of nowhere.

Either of those two numbers could be palatable from the team's perspective depending on total length, AAV and possible deferrals. In a vacuum without knowing any of the details, Bo for 200.

Scherzer throwing sinkers now?