Olerud363

Not sure the Jays are capable of Ursheling Drury. If there is a magic procedure that gives 27 year old journey men Vladimir Guerrero JR's projections the Jays don't seem to know it. They don't even know how to give Vladimir Guerrero JR, Vladimir Guerrero JR's projections.

Manfred 2021 draft rules Top 5 Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Astros, Tampa Bay In between the first and second round there will be a "good of the game" transfer round. These transfers are used to move players who are under performing in bad organizations to good organizations. This is done for the integrity of the game, as it is unfair for hall of fame caliber talents to be hurt by a bad organization. Any young player missing his projected OPS by over 100 points is elligible to be taken in the transfer round. For example Yankees can use the transfer round to select Vladimir Guerrero JR, if Yankees can make Gio Urshella hit like Vlad was supposed to imagine what they can do for Vlad.

It's a bizarre season, but every element of "sky is falling" has arrived in the first 18 games. Fans want to believe there organization is "good" and not incompetent like the Orioles. Good organizations have the following qualities (some of which may be luck, but fans tend to assign credit to the organization for good luck). 1. Development - Players come up from the minors and meet or exceed expectations. A mixed bag, but since Guerrero is under performing it gives the impression the organization isn't developing players. In reality the Bo/Biggio/Guerrero group is probably meeting expectations, 2. Fundamentals - Good organizations have good fundamentals. This team has horrible fundamentals. 3. In game management - Not that important in my opinion, but this message board seems to love dissing Charlie about every miscue that costs 1/100 of a win... so the focus on Charlie's blunders gives more of a sky is falling feel. 4. On base percentage - Good organizations get on base... years ago bad organizations didn't even think they needed to get on base, now bad organizations know they have to get on base, but don't have the coaching, swing mechanics and pitch sequence preparations the good organizations do. 5. Health - nothing really too out of line yet, I don't think... baseball teams get injuries, when the closer and one star get injured it makes it seem there is a problem, even if there isn't. 6. Minor league development -- there is none this year... so in a normal year if the sky was falling you could look at the minors and have hope. In this small sample size of a season every piece of data so far indicates the sky is falling, even if it isn't long term. Low on base percentage, bad fundamentals, bad in game management, star player injured. Frustrating late inning losses.

Exactly what I meant. It's not about the wins so you might as well let all of Tellez, Guerrero and Teoscar get reps at bat and in the field. If you put Teoscar at DH every day and Vlad at first, Tellez doesn't get at bats and Teoscar doesn't get to play the field. No reason for that. Evaluate them the rest of the season. It may turn out you don't want both Teoscar and Tellez in every day roles for 2021, but let's figure that out.

How the f*** did this happen?? Stretching in the on deck circle?? Gurriel had 4-5 week injury stints the last two years. Each time he was on the ground like someone shot him and screaming in pain for a few minutes, and had to be helped out off the field.... Bo took an at bat after and ran the bases.. . maybe it was something minor and he did more damage ? Weird.

Since everyone else is complaining, even Buck, I should have my chance. Even though he had a homerun today Vlad still had a 66% ground ball rate and is still above 60% on the year. Even though he is hitting a .900+ OPS in August who cares. Great hitters put up 1500 OPSs in their 15 game hot streaks. On Juan Soto's current hot streak he is hitting .400 .500 .900 or so. Juan Soto is a great hitter. Great hitters don't have 66% ground ball rates. I still believe in Vlad, I think, but needs to get the ground ball rate down 15 points. That is all. Carry on with your other complaints. Oh one more thing... I don't get it. Everyone thinks Charlie Montoya is a f***ing idiot... if he is so handicapped that he can't make the right in game strategy decisions, why do you think he is smart enough to help (or hire the right hitting coach to help) the guys with subtle swing mechanics and pitch sequencing plans? If Charlie is an idiot it will show up in both game strategy and hitting development (via bad advice and/or wrong choice of hitting coach)

That's probably not going to add anymore wins, as Guerrero isn't yet a good first basemen as far as I can see. Didn't Guerrero just blow the second Florida game with a couple of errors that allowed a few unearned runs. You have to let them both play the field and rotate into DH occasionally. Let the cards fall where they may.... No need to make big changes to try and win the Corona bowl. Justin won't even let them have a Parade.

So Boston tanks a 60 game pandemic season and gets a top 3 draft pick, big time international pool money, and resets their salary cap... This is not a good thing for the 2023 Jays. Boston's brilliance as an organization knows no bounds and they are handling this season perfectly. In this moment they've gained a few games on the good Blue Jays of the next few years. The Boston last place 2020 season has literally reduced the Jays 2024 chances... Boston is beyond brilliant, beyond godly, they are far above everyone else.

Part of the problem is jealousy. The other young players are all instant Mantle. Juan Soto for example was missing in action because of Coronavirus last I checked, just re-checked to see if he is back and turns out he slammed 5 homeruns in the week since I checked to see if he was back (I swear he wasn't back last week). Bo is doing a good job of battling Fernando Tatis JR. In support of Vlad, Rowdy Tellez has to fight Juan Soto. It is complete mismatch but Rowdy has to dig deep and start hitting .290 .400 .600. Then we can say "Vlad is still grounding at 60% but look at Rowdy... who saw that coming."

Quick addendum ... I haven't checked Drury's exit velos... if I was under-estimating him and he also hits at 115 mph then I apologize for overlooking his potential. In that case give Drury love too and direct your problem solving skills to help him reach his potential.

I am sure we could reconstruct it if we had to. Going into the game his OPS was .628 and he then went 0/3. Shaw and Tellez both homered before Vlad did, so presumably he would of been behind them at that point. Projected to 150 games he'd still hit 40 doubles and 20 homers. I wonder if anybody has every done this with a 60% ground ball rate. Anyway this is not a hate thread. It is a love thread. We all love Vlad. We cannot teach Brandon Drury to consistently hit the ball at 115 MPH... but Vladdy, someday we think his ground ball rate could be below 40% and then the numbers would be mind blowing. His defense is only projected at -10 or so (small sample size).... Maybe if he learns to catch the throws and pop-ups he could put up like only -5 defense (-5 instead of -20 would be a big difference). If Brandon Drury loses 35 pounds the dude would be too scrawny, if Vlad did his defense might go neutral and WAR to 8. It's a love thread and a problem solving thread not a hate thread.

A little off topic but just to cheer everyone up I present the career rate stats of 2 guys who are not going to be sent to the Indy ball Chicago Dogs in the next week. Fernando "Generational Talent" Tatis - vs Bo "Bo Bo" Bichette .320 .388 .620 ---- .320 .365 .588

Chicago Dogs were penciling him in to the lineup tomorrow... however that homerun he just hit probably buys him a few more days. Apparently Chicago dogs are selling tickets and allowing socially distant fans to come to the games.

Exit Velocity < 100, but launch angle was very good.

I concede this is an annoying thread, but It's more the reality that is annoying than the thread. I'm rooting for Vlad as much as anyone. Everyone knew Vlad had a ground ball problem. You'd think the organization and Vlad would have done everything they could over the winter to fix it. However he comes back in 2020 an even more extreme ground ball hitter? Whatever was done to address the problem, made it worse, at least in the short term. Only 16 games, hopefully there is improvement over the next 44.

Baby steps. Let's get the elevation up just enough to see those 115 mph grounders become singles off the wall. Haven't seen one of those yet this year. This is why I mentioned that at some point he'll need to start hitting to all fields, if he can't fix the launch angle thing. Needs to spread out the defense so there's a better chance for the 115 mph grounders to get through.

Thanks for the feedback. Glad we have some high class intellectuals to monitor the board. I'm very sad you don't like my shtick but blame King, he is the one who brought up the idea of sending Vlad to Indy ball, not me.

No major update today on Vlad's potential demotion to Indy ball as there was no game. Virtual scouts have told us he was seen in Buffalo, so has not been sent to Indy ball yet. Are there any publicly accessible vantage points in Buffalo where you can see into the field?? Maybe somebody caught batting practice and can tell us whether Vladdy was hitting fly balls in batting practice or just grounders.

Yup. Maybe trying to make Vlad into a flyball hitter is a mistake, like trying to make Olerud into a pull hitter was. He needs a bit of a fix but maybe he also needs to hit the ball to the opposite field more. Looking at Olerud's batted ball data, he had a 20% line drive rate, and was almost evenly split in batted ball (around 33 for pull, center and opposite field). Maybe Vlad would be better off going for that approach line drives and ground balls to all fields, eliminate the shift, don't swing at a ball. Easier said then done, but maybe the ground balls are partly from trying to pull pitches that he should be going the other way with.

They are completely different physically but his numbers remind me a bit of a young John Olerud. Olerud was super hyped, going from brain surgery to MLB skipping the minors, people compared him to Lou Gerhig and Ted Williams before he did anything. Then he was a .270 hitter with 15 homers for his first 3 years while Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzeles, Ken Griffey jr were all generational all stars at the same age, similar to how it seems everyone else (Fernando Tatis 8 HR cough) is becoming an instance star on day 1 and age 20 (Soto, Acuna and Avarez too). Olerud's peak ended up being a .350 hitter with 50 doubles, 25 homers, 100 wallks. He did that twice. He had a bunch of other good seasons, and developed into a gold glove first basemen. Still. Tatis is making it look so easy. Even Kieth Law didn't think this would happen. He thought Vlad would hit more than Tatis but Tatis would make up for it with defense and baserunning. Tatis out OPSing Vlad 1.000 to .700 or whatever it is, is a bit painful.

I didn't see the first two at bats but the second two were awful. Ground ball out on a ball 1 centimetre off the dirt. The only reason the last at bat wasn't a ground ball out was because it bounced two feet in front of the plate so he struck out. The approach is still really bad... yes he's had an OK few games... but these are his good games and he hasn't homered or hit many fly balls. Compare to Biggio, Bichette, Moreland over the last few games. Hi arching fly balls, hard hit, chasing out fielders back, and a few over the fence. Those are good games. Maybe Indy ball it should be.

August 8th update Another pretty good night, not at Fernando Tatis JR level, as far as generational prospects go but... 1. Hard line drive that took a great play to stop 2. A grounder but not pulled into the shift, bounced away from the shift and through 3. An opposite filed bullet?? Virtual scouting is hard, but I assume Shaw got thrown out because Vlad's bullet got to the rightfielder almost instantly. Vlad didn't get an RBI but he helped with the assist. 4. A popup. Looks like it went way up. Nice change from the grounders. Verdict: Keep watching the kid. Don't send to Indy ball quite yet.

Vladimir update August 8th 2020 One of his better games, 2 walks, eye of an eagle, one ground ball special to third, and an actual line drive hit hard to right center gap. Interesting titbits - enthusiastically ran bases and chased pop-ups, neither was much of a success but he gave it a try, bouncing, floundering, full steam ahead. Recommendations: Do not send to indy league yet. Send virtual scouts to tomorrow's game to see if he can hit another line drive and maybe improve popup fielding. If so delay decision to send to Indy league a few more days.

This is hopefully a temporary problem due to low sample size. If it is not then it is a long term problem and that is not good. If the latter what do you do about it?? Every time the development question comes up half the people say development is fine because we developed Jansen (still part of the hitting problem) and Biggio... and prospects like Groshans who played 30 games the last 2 years. So we could make a change with coaching and development staff, but people don't seem to think that will make a difference. They still only have 2 choices, either develop these guys or start acquiring guys that get on base. I guess they can do a bit of both, develop everyone not named Randall, and stop acquiring Randalls, get guys that get on base, which is probably harder then trading for Randall.

Good approach tonight, do that every night without the base running mistakes and bad luck and they'll score some runs. That being said watch them score 2 runs tomorrow on solo homers and swing wildly and ground out the rest of the time.. hopefully not...