Olerud363

His at bats and approach are terrible though. Constantly watching 0-0 or 2-0 meatballs, then swings at garbage off the plate.

 

Its part mental, part swing. And all kinds of f***ed up

That he hits so well with such an awful approach just shows you the talent.

Vlad hits the ball as hard Aaron Judge but strikes out half as much **. The number of hard hit balls he puts in play is generational. Just at the wrong angles.

** you could argue that striking out half as much as Aaron Judge is not a good thing because he is swinging at too many pitches he can't get in the air.

I don't know. He hits the ball hard. He is Pujols. He is the same as Pujols except ground ball percentage 10% higher and I assume launch angle non-optimal for other hits.

 

Like if you shifted his launch angle everything would be fine. He'd win the triple crown.

 

It's the old joke but it is true

 

1. 109 mph -1 degrees double play

2. 111 mph 10 degrees line out right field

3. 109 mph 28 degrees fly out center field (bad spin)

4. 110 mph 22 degrees line drive single off center field fence

 

1/4 with a single

 

You raise the launch angle 5 degrees and fix the spin thing it is 4/4 with 2 homers and a double

Ernie Clement

1. 93 mph -1 degrees fielder choice

2. 95 mph 11 degrees (pulled) double down left field line

3. 91 mph 40 degrees pop-fly short center (out)

4. 97 mph 32 degrees homerun left field (371 feet pulled into bullpen)

2/4 with a homer and a double.

If you took one of the all-time hitters like Miggy or Pujols and made him play his entire career with a fungo bat, he would probably look a lot like Vlad

I don't know. He hits the ball hard. He is Pujols. He is the same as Pujols except ground ball percentage 10% higher and I assume launch angle non-optimal for other hits.

Like if you shifted his launch angle everything would be fine. He'd win the triple crown.

It's the old joke but it is true

1. 109 mph -1 degrees double play

2. 111 mph 10 degrees line out right field

3. 109 mph 28 degrees fly out center field (bad spin)

4. 110 mph 22 degrees line drive single off center field fence

1/4 with a single

You raise the launch angle 5 degrees and fix the spin thing it is 4/4 with 2 homers and a double

Little off topic but has there been a more disappointing team over a 15 year span than the Angels.... ever?

Unfortunately Trout and Ohtani never actually overlapped as elite full time players. By the time Ohtani was elite (2021) Trout was getting injured.

The closest they came was 2022 when they totaled 15 WAR. The 2022 Angels scored 610 runs https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAA/2022.shtml

I was trying to figure out that is even possible when you have two great hitters and Taylor Ward also had a great year. Those three were basically an elite 1-2-3.

I guess somehow the rest of the team was sub-replacement. Several guys put up like .260 on base percentages.

I guess the Angels of that era were a 60 win team with two 10 WAR talent players, one injured half the time, so that = a 75 win team.

What did St. Louis do to Jordan Walker? 85 wRC+ in AAA? Did they ruin him?

Not even god knows what any individual player will do year to year. Did St. Louise ruin Jordan Walker? Did Jordan Walker ruin Jordan Walker? Did an injury ruin Jordan Walker? Did god ruin Jordan Walker?

No idea.

I think the reason you see this 'ruined' narrative around the Jays though, is just the multiple sort of ruined players. Like if God is doing it randomly some should go up and some should go down, but when they all go down together it seems strange.

Maybe god hates Blue Jays fans. Maybe there is one or two terrible human beings that are Blue Jays fans, and god hates them so is punishing them.

Maybe Mattingly gave them all batting tips that only work if it's 1985 and you have 99.999th percentile hand eye coordination.

Who knows. (I assume you were giving a little passive aggressive jab at the 'blue jays ruined everyone' narrative... thus why the long rambling reply).

Depends what you think of Orelvis Martinez and Justin Turner going forward.

 

I mean offense wouldn't be fixed but a bit better.

 

95% of the problem is major league development. If Jays had normal aging curves everything would be fine.

Imagine a world where Vlad/Bo/Kirk peaked at average age 26-28 instead of 23. Imagine they improved upon their age 22/23 performance like normal players.

Vlad would hit .320 50 homers. Bo would hit .320 30 homers. Kirk would hit .300 20 homers and be an on base machine.

Those numbers sound like video games but would be just a little improvement over where they were at 22-23

Even imagine they hit their average projections as they were at the beginning of 2022. I think that puts Vlad at .300 with high 30s homers. Bo at .300 with 25 homers. Kirk at .285 with good on base and line drive power.

I mean it is an insane crazy kick in the nuts what has happened to these 3.

This from a guy who doesn't even know what the word "fixed" means.

 

The Dodgers could literally hand Teo over to the Jays right now for free and their pitiful offense would still not be "fixed".

Depends what you think of Orelvis Martinez and Justin Turner going forward.

I mean offense wouldn't be fixed but a bit better.

95% of the problem is major league development. If Jays had normal aging curves everything would be fine.

Power: Teoscar Hernandez, Shoeih Ohtnai, Aaron Judge, Kyle Tucker, Gunnar Henderson

 

No power: Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, George Springer, Alejandra Kirk, Kevin Keimaier.

 

The 5 on the second list together have about as many homeruns as Teoscar and less than each other individual on the first list.

Correction. The 5 on the second list have 19 homers which is more than Teoscar (17). The point is still valid though.

Power: Teoscar Hernandez, Shoeih Ohtnai, Aaron Judge, Kyle Tucker, Gunnar Henderson

No power: Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, George Springer, Alejandra Kirk, Kevin Keimaier.

The 5 on the second list together have about as many homeruns as Teoscar and less than each other individual on the first list.

Moreno and Kirk. Also brothers from a different mother. They are the same. Kirk is fatter. Kirk walks more.

They both hit .230 with 'no power bro'

Reed Johnson and Frank Catalanotto were an awesome LF platoon. Both of them put together some nice years here and were fun to watch!

The 2006 Blue Jays are hilarious. Cat hit .300. Reed Johnson hit .319. Shea 'the ship is sinking' Hillenbrand hit .300 before getting released for negative attitude. The team hit .284 .348 .460.

They inexplicably scored 100 runs less then they should have given their underlying stats. 100 f***ING RUNS gone into the f***ing twilight zone. 100!!!!!

The 2015 Blue Jays scored 891 runs with worse on base and slugging. Now relative to league 2015 Jays were better. However what I am saying is this.

How the f*** do 100 runs just go missing?

2006 Jays had same batting average and on base as 2006 Twins. And same runs scored.

However Jays had 50 more homers and 75 more doubles. What in f***ing f*** sakes? 125 more extra base hits should have to 100 more runs.... they had the stats of a 900 run team, but the runs went missing.

Reed Johnson hit .320. Could run the bases. The guys behind him hit homers. Cat hit .300 got on the bases. Wells and Glauss were healthy and slugging. How the f*** could they not score runs??

I blame John McDonald. Glauss played short stop a few games and should have played there the entire season. Then Shea, and Hinske could have stayed and destroyed John McDonalds .220 .250 .290 line or whatever it was. John Mcdonald probably ruined every ralley. Guy was popular.

Yeah I think PEDs hitting their peak effectiveness is the bigger factor. For example Chris Davis and adderall and 2013. Then you see the degradation factor of the drug no longer working or perhaps how he became reliant on them and his stats fell off a cliff.

I think the cheating scandal and the Adderall situations are a big clue. I vaguely remember hearing Aaron Hill had some exceptions for some concussion meds 2009 and rumor is had to go off them, which if true explains some things. Chris Davis is a great example.

If stealing signs electronically and Adderall are effective, then teams will search for legal (or illegal but not yet catchable) ways to get the same effect.

Factor out randomness? Randomness is just a term we use as a placeholder because we don't know all the variables in any particular situation. As you yourself have noted, there are far too many variables for any model to be complete. Hence we live in a world of probabilities.

Factor out randomness meaning identify patterns that can't be explained by randomness. Is there more correlation month to month then expected?

The first obvious answer is yes. If Vladimir Guerrero Junior hits 11 homers in April, 7 in May, and 9 in June we might say he's got a great chance of hitting 10 more in July. If he hits 2, 4 and 1 the first three months 'no power bro', he'll be lucky to hit 2 in July.

This is probably not random... or is it? If Vladimir Guerrero Junior is the only baseball player in existence you say there is no chance that happens by random chance, something changed. However if there are over 1000 major league players a year, and 130 years of baseball lots of s*** will happen randomly.

So identify what is random, and what has a cause. We not know the cause but first identify if something is real.

Agreed. A 1st baseman that can’t hit HRs is a major problem in the AL East.

Spencer Horwitz projection .280 .370 .410 14 homers 77 rbis

Vladimir Guerrero Jr projection .280 .370 .410 14 homers 77 rbis

Brothers from a different mother. hashtag 'no power bro'

together they could hit 30 homers if they both played 150 games. Maybe we will see it in 2026.

It's pretty ironic that we're talking about how all our old hitters suck and there are very few old guys in baseball who hit well these days....and one of the old dudes who's actually hitting is Kevin Pillar....who never hit much his whole career.

I bring this up time to time, but in the early 90s Bill James simulated thousands of baseball seasons for players. It was the first time anything like that had been done. Wade Boggs results were interesting.

A few thousand Wade Boggs hit as high as .400 but as low as .250 indicating that the real Wade Boggs 1992 could have been fluke.

Say you have a process that results in a 'positive' 3 times out of 10. Then you draw 500 of them. Then you do 10000 500 sample trials.

What is the highest and lowest number of positives you can expect to get? The variation is pretty high.

So the question is, in real baseball, a few hundred mlb players a year with significant playing time, many years, there will be natural variation producing outliers.

Are the number of outlier seasons, good and bad, more than expected by statistics considering aging curves?

Almost certainly yes. A lot of it probably caused injury.

If you could factor out the randomness and injury is there another level of unexpected variation caused by an unknown factor?

The unknown factor could be cheating (PEDs, sign stealing) or legal enhancement (legal nutrition/sleep hacks, good hitting tips, tells on pitchers) ?

It is these unknown factors, whether they exist and which teams and players are taking advantage of them that is the great mystery to us casual fans.

TB had to be cheating last year. Too many guys were hitting well above their weight, including f***ing TAYLOR WALLS

 

Makes me wonder if the Orioles are cheating… their entire lineup is pretty much best possible outcomes

What is cheating though? Hack the pitchcom ? PEDs ?

What is legal means of enhancing outcomes ? Advanced AI video analysis to find 'tells' ? Massive Psycho-sematic video cage work ? Advanced mechanics lab ? Nutrition and sleep optimization including right time to take legal alertness aids like redbull ?

Barger, Orelvis Martinez, and Roden are probably upgrades on Springer, Turner and Kiermaier...

 

Just based on how Horwitz and Schneider are translating...

I think the three of those combined might hit .230, but with a bit of power and on base, which would them above the other three hitting .210 combined with no power.

We need offensive upgrades in about 3 lineup spots in order to be good enough

Barger, Orelvis Martinez, and Roden are probably upgrades on Springer, Turner and Kiermaier...

Just based on how Horwitz and Schneider are translating...

Since hitting strategies are proprietary impossible to know as fans what is going on, but something has been going on since the cheating scandal. Just logic.

 

If we assume the cheating was very helpful then we assume knowing what pitch is coming is helpful.

 

So how you do legally figure out what's coming? Not with 100% certainty but with a better certainty than random.

 

It's just corporate warfare. Teams have all these labs and proprietary pitching and hitting strategies and it works until it doesn't... (the other teams figure out what you are doing).

 

Look at TBR first few months of last year, and since. Something happened. I remember when TBR hit .300 .400 .500 for like a month a few people 'hinted' that they knew what was up... and it was something, but now it's not.

So the short version is we don't know what is going on, well at least if you do your probably under NDA so can't say, but some strategic hitting lab s*** is going on and the Jays are very bad it... we know that much.

Yeah

 

Too many guys for too long for it to just be luck

Since hitting strategies are proprietary impossible to know as fans what is going on, but something has been going on since the cheating scandal. Just logic.

If we assume the cheating was very helpful then we assume knowing what pitch is coming is helpful.

So how you do legally figure out what's coming? Not with 100% certainty but with a better certainty than random.

It's just corporate warfare. Teams have all these labs and proprietary pitching and hitting strategies and it works until it doesn't... (the other teams figure out what you are doing).

Look at TBR first few months of last year, and since. Something happened. I remember when TBR hit .300 .400 .500 for like a month a few people 'hinted' that they knew what was up... and it was something, but now it's not.

Hahaha f***

 

Beast mode activated

2026

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Boston Red Sox) .344 54 141

Bo Bichette (Colorado Rockies) .377 31 151

Cavan Biggio (Los Angeles Dodger) .278 .401 .455 (Utility man of the year)

2026 Speech from Commissioner Mark Shapiro

"Baseball is a game of joy, a game of generations, as commissioner it is my great honor to present the 'story of the year' award to American League MVP Vladimir Guerrero Jr., National League MVP Bo Bichette and Utility man of the year Cavan Biggio. All three came up together in the minor leagues and grew up together as major leaguers, it is with unbelievable joy I watched the legacy trio, now spread across this great continent from sea to sea bring total Joy to the game of baseball."

"All three amazingly beat their Father's career high in fWAR. All three gave their cities thrills from April to deep into October (Colorado sure was rocking, a pleasant surprise in my first year as commissioner). There has never been anything like the legacy trio and I do proclaim, the game is healthy, the fans happy and there has never been a better time to watch baseball."

The age at free agency is the biggest factor. You take his exact WAR trend and make him a free agent at 29 or 30 and teams are not nearly as interested, it would shave years and dollars off that contract and not just a linear reduction like him getting two less years on the end it.

 

But you make him a free agent after his age 26 season and GMs start to get excited about the proposition of buying like 4 years of peak Vlad in free agency and then fixing him and it being some franchise altering move.

Mark my words. He signs with the Red Sox and stays with them until 41. Wins a triple crown, and MVP, fulfills his Pujols potential and like David Ortiz somehow defies belief and lasts until he is 41.

Becomes part of the fabric of the city, brings joy to the youth, makes old, bitter, message board posters less skeptical. Changes the vibe of the city. On buses and billboards with Jason Taytum.

He will be everything we dreamed he would be but for the Red Sox.

I might agree with connorp

 

Vlad camp is probably eyeing the Devers extension

 

What he would actually get in free agency just depends so much on the next 1.6 years though

In the good scenario where he performs as a 3 WAR guy over next 1.6 years his lifetime fWAR pattern will be pretty similar to Cody Bellingers.

However Bellinger's line is much more bizarre and erratic, even going .165 with negative WAR. But the average and pattern of WAR from 2021 to 2026 will probably be similar to Bellinger 2018-2023, big MVP year followed by becoming a 1 WAR guy for a bit then (potential for Vlad) rebound before free agency.

Watching Spencer Horwitz makes me wonder how Vlad hits like Spencer Horwitz.

Spencer Horwitz - Short left handed contact swing naturally hits line drives from line to line at the expense of power, potential 'good' season = .290 14 homers 77 rbis .385 on base

Defense - best at first but they seem to be for some reason letting him play other infield positions

Vladimir Guerrero Jr - Former Homerun champ with top 3 MLB exit velocity but otherwise broken swing, if you hit enough ground balls at 115 mph some will get through, at least being patient this year, potential good season = .290 14 homers 77 rbis .385 on base.

Defense - best at first but they seem to be for some reason letting him play other infield positions

Kind of funny. They are kind of the same guy now but different path to get there.

5 teams within 3 games of the final wc sport, Yankees beat the twins

Incredible. With the Legends once again playing like legends, the 105 win Baltimore Orioles may end up 10 games out and basically in the same situation as the 83 win negative run differential winner of WC3 (hopefully our Blue Jays).