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https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/video/vlad-jrs-big-fall-league-debut/c-2515279583?tid=7617858

A shortstop hitting 25 HR in 129 games at age-appropriate levels in the minors is nuts. Kevin Smith had a fantastic season. Some guy named Jazz Chisholm with the Diamondbacks was the only minor league shortstop to match that total. After them Fernando Tatis Jr. and Carter Kieboom tied at 16. You have to go back to Javier Baez's 37 in 2013 to find a higher number than Kevin Smith's 25.

Sounds like the kind of guy AA will be nagging the Rockies about all offseason. "Pls respond" texts abound!

With the Dodgers up 11-0 on the Giants, the Blue Jays will pick 10th next year in the draft.

The 10 teams with the 10 best records in baseball made the playoffs.

It would really be nice to still have Poetl on that second unit. Can't complain with the trade, though.

Chris Sale throwing 89mph tonight.

Go Brewers

wpa?

Not that I can find. I believe the metric is called Davenport Fielding Runs but I can't find any specifics. I think it was originally from back around 2004 when he worked for Baseaball Prospectus but I'm not sure if the methodology has been updated since then. I think it might not have been released publicly.

Clay Davenport publishes all kinds of advanced stats for the majors and minor leagues so, for whatever it might be worth, I took a look at some of defensive runs above average he calculates. I have no idea what method he uses to get these numbers. Here's the link: http://claydavenport.com/stats/webpages/2018/2018pageTORrealALL.shtml The site is a nightmare to navigate. The defense numbers are on the far right of the table. I believe the format "13-3B -1 12-2B 2" translates into "13 games started at 3B, 1 run below average. 12 games started at 2B, 2 runs above average. There are tables for the different teams (MLB down to Bluefield). Notable numbers: Vlad Jr was +4 at both AA and AAA. For some reason I'm just a bit skeptical of him being a +8 defender at 3B but it's certainly encouraging to see positive numbers. Alford +1 Jansen -5 (Buffalo) Pompey -2 RF, -2 LF Tellez -1 Roemon Fields +7 CF, +5 RF (I included him only because of the high numbers and proximity to MLB) Biggio +6 2B, 0 3B Pentecost +5 C Harold Ramirez -5 RF, -1 LF Bo Bichette -1 SS, -1 2B Kevin Smith (Dunedin) +8 SS, +2 2B Kevin Smith (Lansing) +3 SS, 0 3B Warmoth +3 SS, +2 2B Ryan Noda +1 1B, +2 LF Chavez Young, +2 RF, +14 CF Samad Taylor +7 2B Otto Lopez -1 3B, +2 2B Griffin Conine +12 RF Cal Stevenson +10 LF, +3 CF Jordan Groshans 0 SS, 0 3B (only 11 starts at Bluefield, though) Note that I only included Kevin Smith and Vlad's numbers from different leagues. There were other guys who split time between leagues but I didn't bother adding them. There really wasn't much in the way of significant mid-season promotions outside of Smith and Vladdy Cal Stevenson and Chavez Young might be more intriguing than we think. Kevin Smith top 60 prospect? Again, I don't know what value these numbers have but they're fun to look at.

Not that it would count but there was a Mexican League player with 34 HR and 21 SB. Or was there? I only bring this up because I was looking through Fangraphs after reading your post and saw something weird. In this table that aggregates across all minor leagues, Arismendy Alcantara shows up with the above numbers: https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=10711&position=2B/OF However, when I go to his Fangraphs player page he is only credited with 14 HR and 13 SB: https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=10711&position=2B/OF To make things even more confusing Baseball Reference shows 18 HR and 15 SB: https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=alcant003ari Looking at milb.com makes things slightly clearer. It shows his 2018.1 season with 11 HR, 9 SB and his 2018.2 season with 7 HR, 6 SB. These add up to the Baseball Reference numbers: http://www.milb.com/player/index.jsp?sid=milb&player_id=570489#/career/R/hitting/2018.2/MINORS I didn't know what 2018.1 and 2018.2 meant. The Mexican League wikipedia page didn't provide any answers. It simply states "Teams play 114 games each season. Five teams in each division advance to a four-round postseason tournament that culminates in the Serie del Rey, a best-of-seven championship series between the two division champions." I went one one of the team websites and found the schedule page. It does look as though the season is split in 2: http://www.leones.mx/calendario I went back to Fangraphs and got even more confused, as when I looked at the leaderboards for just the Mexican League, he was showing up with 30 HR and 21 SB. I have no idea where Fangraphs got the only 4 HR they were showing earlier: https://www.fangraphs.com/minorleaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=31&qual=0&type=0&season=2018&team=0&players=0&sort=10,d I thought some of the postseason games were getting counted in some places but not others, yet the MiLB page shows no postseason 2018 numbers for him. I hit a bit of a breakthrough when looking at the league lists on BR. Notice that there are Spring and Autumn leagues beginning in 2018. Arismendy Alcantara doesn't show up in the Spring League on BR (https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/leader.cgi?type=bat&id=4c4fdbdd) but he shows with 7 HR in the Autumn League (https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/leader.cgi?type=bat&id=51bf55cf) TLDR: The Mexican League split into Spring and Autumn seasons starting in 2018 and all the statistics websites seem to have not updated their methods for scraping the data and everything is a mess. I assume the 34 HR and 21 SB totals from Fangraphs are from both regulars seasons and both post seasons all combined but I'm not going to go through individual boxscores to confirm that. I give up.

Pour one out for the realest manager in the big leagues.

Stanton's 504 foot HR in 2016 was the previous record in the Statcast era (if Story's sticks at 505). Those are the only 500+ bombs.

Yeah, his issues with passed balls have been well documented. I just said "acute yips" because it seemed like he got in his own head in that inning after the first two.

Gary Sanchez seems to have developed an acute case of the yips. 4 passed balls in the inning (well one was scored a wild pitch but it was definitely catchable)

Probably not. Matt Wieters missed a full calendar year. I guess he could probably DH sooner.

Maybe Ohtani should become an OF/RP hybird?

I was just including seasons with the Blue Jays. Otherwise, JPA (0.9 in 24 games in 2015), Snider (Pirates), and Thames would all show up again. There might be some other obscure ones too. To get my list I had only went through Blue Jays seasons on Fangraphs. I notice you didn't list Hech but remembered Marisnick!

Boxy might have some fun with this page: https://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/baseball-player-name-pronunciation-guide.shtml

Wow, I hadn't been paying much attention to his name when checking the minor league boxscores. He's had a great season for Vancouver. Getting strikeouts, showing good control and getting groundballs. And he only turned 20 in June.

I was a bit bored so I was going over just how terrible the Blue Jays have been at drafting and developing position players. Excluding Kevin Pillar, the best season by WAR for a homegrown position player who entered the system from 2005-2018 is Ryan Goins' 1.3 win season in 2015. That's followed by: Travis Snider with 1.2 WAR in 2010 JP Arencibia 1.2 WAR in 2012 Eric Thames 0.6 WAR in 2011 Danny Jansen 0.6 WAR in 2018 JPA had a 0.6 WAR season in 2011 And that is followed by.... Moises Sierra with 0.4 WAR in 35 games in 2013! That's right. Moises Sierra has the 7th best season for homegrown position players not named Kevin Pillar who entered the system since 2005.

Noisy hands like Lawrie. BUST!

Quite the boxscore for Dunedin.

That doesn't include his outing today. But he doesn't throw a 2-seam fastball. I just looked at Gameday and Pitch F/X classified everything as a 4-seam fastball.