Olerud363

Thanks... Back to regular programming... Our fat obese ground ball hitter, with -15 or so defense, is still the 70th best rookie, 40th best position player rookie, 7th on his own team in rookie HR rate, 6th on his own team in rookie WAR, probably 15th on team in overall home run rate, and still flirting with negative fWAR.... In a year where random Minnesota twins and the Yankees injury replacements both hit 300+ team homeruns... Vladimir hit 15.... even the dissapointing rookies, like Jiminez doubled him. Biggio beat him in less games. Yordan Alvarez set the rookie record for OPS, Pete Alonso the rookie homerun record, and it's the norm, that very young players, hit the ground running, their minor league stats translating accurately, their fly balls flying into night and bringing joy to the fanbase... And we got a fat ground ball hitter who can't field the ground balls coming the other way... Oh well only 5 or 6 ground balls left this year... one got through last night, maybe another one gets through over the next couple games... hopefully things are better next year.

Those of you following fWAR and bWAR (rWar??) have probably noticed that our Hero, our obese ground ball machine, Vladimir Guerrero JR, is rated much higher on reference because his defense is about neutral. We all concluded this is ********... but... I just went to check fWar, to see if our hero managed negative WAR on the season... and WHAT THE f***??? https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=19611&position=3B It is reporting his defense is only -1.2.... somehow he gained 10 runs since the last update (I assume the defense is only updated once every few weeks, as the numbers seem stagnate for a while then jump) Vladdies rWar, and fWar now are much closer. Vladdie is now a top 5/6 2019 Toronto Blue Jay with fWar of 1.4 and rWar of 2.1. He is neutral defensively Is this a bug?? Did fangraphs just mess up?? Will Vladdie return to the -15 or so runs below average that we all love?? What in gods in name is going on?? If this was true it would change everything about our reality... every single f***ing post on this board would be complete ********. The narrative that Vladdy is a fat man that can't hit, would be Vladdy holds his own at third, and WILL HIT (Someday soon).

I just looked that up and it seems it's last years record... And Mariners won 89 last year... so unless I am overlooking something it looks like it is 5th pick.

Final chance to see Vladimir hit his 8 ground balls and 2ks this series... let's hope 2 ground balls get through so he can keep his average above .270... though I got a feeling he'll get a bit unlucky and no ground balls will get through this Series.

In context of 2019 offensive levels it's dissapointing.... He's 7th on his own team in Rookie home run rate (Tellez, Jansen, McGuire, Biggio, Bichette, McKinney)... In a world where random Twinkies and the NY Yankees quadruple a team hit 300 homeruns as a team 15 isn't impressive. I believe he's around 40th in position player Rookie fWAR, 70th when you include pitchers. It doesn't help that Torres, Soto, Alvarez, Tatis, Acuna all hit the ground running, or another (albeit older) rookie hit 50+ homers. It doesn't help that he's ending the season on a 6 week slump where he's not walking or hitting for any power.... It's like Gio Urshella got Vlad's season and Vlad got Gios... it's a good season for someone who is Gio Urshella.. not a great season for a guy who hit .380 with great power and a low k rate in the minors last year.

Looking at the stats his patience has gone out the Window in this slump... .230 .260 .290 in September, no homers, 4 walks I don't know if that's attitude or what... One thing that happened earlier this month was he kicked out of a game after a bad strike call... I think he needs to go Biggio... even if it leads to a higher k-rate... swing less, swing fierce. Take border line pitches, if the Ump goes against you deal with it. The idea is to hit 115 mphers with a bit of launch angle. So don't swing at pitches that result in the jam shots and grounders... even if it results in a called strike. I am sure the coaches are telling him this... everyone is telling him this I assume. So maybe he's a bit stubborn in making the adjustments.

I started following baseball in '88 and the Canseco 40/40 was a huge thing... Canseco was a legend in the late 80s early 90s, as most assumed it would be him, and not Mcguire that would challenge 60 homers in the right ballpark and a juiced ball year. Boggs got beat out in WAR by Ripken and Henderson in some of those years... I don't know exactly if it coincided with their MVPs (and too lazy to look it up right now).... Obviously the George Bell MVP, and some reliever from Detroit MVP (84) were a bit problematic. I think the other races were arguable in a The 85 MVP race is interesting... Mattingly won for 145 RBIs, but was like 8th or something in WAR. Henderson was the king that year... and Mattingly only got 145 rbis because of Henderson's 10ish on base and stolen base driven WAR... so Henderson lost himself the MVP by being the MVP. Glancing over it there was also a random Robin Yount MVP in 89 that didn't make much sense in retrospect

Kevin Pillar was a .325 .367 .470ish hitter in the minors. Alford .260 .360 .390ish with at least twice the k rate. You could argue that Pillar under-performed his minor league numbers though. So in a weird way Alford's route to success would be to become a Pillar... hold a .300 on base and close to .400 slugging with great defense and baserunning, though his average would be much lower, more walks and ks. That's his route to success... I assume the probability of that route is low.

This Alford guy is pretty fast... beats out routine ground ball... steals second easily.... crazy speed... and then... easy power... I am no scout, and have never taken courses on scouting. However here are my grades Speed - FAST (70) Power - Easy Power in an athletic frame (50) Average - Don't really know.. but his swing looks OK I'll give him 40 Arm - Not sure Defense - Not sure, but with that speed 60?? I stat-scouted his minor league numbers... a bit inconsistent but... gets on base... which I like... and he played football part time early on, so maybe he'll be a late bloomer... What do those who are passionate about the minors, and do like the top 20 or top 30 or even top 50 Jays prospect lists think??

What a frustrating night... it was nice to see him hit the fifth deck homer barely foul... but 7 balls in play, 5 on the ground, a rally killing double play in the 13th, I think what has got me going again is Eloy Jimininez... for a while Vlad and Eloy were the "struggling" rookies... I mean struggling just a bit... now Eloy has gone crazy in September. His Rookie season is similar to my hero, John Olerud's. Olerud ended up with more fwar than Vlad SR. I have to check every time to make sure that is true. Here is a question. With effort and guidance could Vlad Guerrero jr become as good of a defensive player and baserunner as John Olerud?? Either by becoming an average 3rd basemen, or a good 1st basemen?? Olerud's secret to 55 fWAR, is consistently good hitting, a couple of crazy years with batting titles, and not being too negative on basefunning and defense. Apparently he was occasionally a bit positive. Could Guerrero JR. become as good a hitter as Olerud?? If he wants to keep up the ground ball thing, he'll have to spray it around a bit more and negate the shift... once in a while little Vladdy sends one down the first base line so maybe he can do it. If he does both he'll beat his Dad in fWAR.

Negative defense leaders... Vlad is 20th in negative defensive... many of those guys have more WAR than him. Some like Freeman, Cruz, Solar all have 3-4 WAR. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=20,a Negative basefunning leaders... Include Hosmer (wow he's bad), Hosmer, Abreu, Josh Bell (worse than Vlad in both... but more games)... this is just the way it is for Players of Vlad's nature. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2019&month=0&season1=2019&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-31&sort=18,a

Why don't you shut the f*** up... you have no idea what you are talking about. Peter Alonso and Yordan Alvarez also have negative defense and baserunning, comparable to Vlad. In fact, given enough games Yordan would be way worse than Vlad in both. The difference between Vlad and the other "bat only" rookies is not defense and baserunning. Do you think this type of player majically become good on defense and baserunning and gets his 5 WAR that way?? The reason he missed expecations this year is ground ball rate. If it's fixed he'll be way better. If he magicly becomes average at defense and baserunning... well that would would be a bonus. Check out the career of any of these types of players. Cabrera, Pujols, or a notch down Prince Fielder... they are all way negative on defense and baserunning. This type of player just can't carry a 110 OPS+ and be effective. Either Vlad will fix his ground ball rate... or he won't. That will define his career.

Some of his failure has nothing to do with fatness. Unless fatness leads to groundballs. Today's game grounder, low line drive (out at second because of bone headed running), grounder If he is skinnier isn't it all the same?? Or will skinny lead to better launch angle?

2017 - Jays projected for 84.7 2018 - Jays projected for 85 2019 - Jays projected for 75 So they basicly underperformed by 30 games but are the 3rd best over performer??

How could the Jays have outperformed their projections?? I'm pretty sure they were projected to win low 80s in 2017 and 2018, and mid 70s this year, and are missing by about 5-10 games a year....

Similar to Miguel Cabrera's rookie year... but frustrating in the sense that many other rookies and young players have taken the league by storm. Ironically Shapiro and Atikins may have had a good argument for keeping him down for another month or two this year. They repeatedly said he wasn't ready, on defense and conditioning and no one believed them. I tend to not believe that there is any "magical" type that won't perform in the majors as well as his minor league numbers indicate. However if there is it's Vlad. A slow ground ball hitter wouldn't perform as well against major league defense, shifts and analytics. Broken record, but if he fixes the conditioning and launch angle he's still a star... so fix the goddamn conditioning and launch angle. Latest injury is 100% conditioning... they say it was his ribs... he looked terrible running to second then did a whale flop, 260 pounds flopping on the ribs can't be good.

One of the things Laika pointed out is that it won't matter if you put him at first. He'll still be -15 or whatever it is on defense. I think that's mostly true with the way defensive metrics work. Though the way they should work, is that Vlad would be worse and worse at defense, the harder the position because he is converting less of the hard plays. So if Vlad played SS full time he should be -25, 3b maybe -20, and first base maybe -15... because the harder the position, the fewer of hard plays he'd convert, as compared to a good defensive player. Going the other way if a great defensive infielder played 1st, third and short, their defensive value should be like 15, 20, and 25... or something... Anyway I'd say keep him at 3rd for another year. You want to see if he can move from horrible to slightly below average... if he can do that, then long term it opens up different ways of team building.

Walks Strikeouts Homeruns Sano in a dissapointing season will hit .210 with an injury 25 homers, 50 walks and 150 strikout outs in like 100 games... Guerrero in a dissapointing season will hit .265 with maybe an injury 10 homers, 40 walks and 60 strike outs in like 100 games... Vladdy!=Sano I think the case of Jayson Heyward would be much more relevant hitting wise (obviously Vladdy not as fit and athletic). Heyward was a 19 year old whiz kid who stormed through the minors with no signs of weakness, Huge guy 6'5", 240, debuted at 20, has played full time since then, mostly lowish strike out rate, but his career has been under-whelming because of mysterious htting mechanics problems and ground ball problems.

Wait... I thought McKinney was the next Justin Upton??

He's swinging at s*** any which way, inside, outside, high... so pitchers are giving him s*** because he keeps swinging at it...

What do the hitting gurus think?? Can you make him swing less?? How do you get his launch angle up?? His maximum hit velocity is as good as anyones. How do you stop him from swinging as much, not only swinging and missing, but hitting grounders on questionable pitches. Go up there. Take more pitches, take some walks, don't waste the at bat tapping an out of zone pitch to the 3rd basemen...

He had a hot streak after the homerun derby and looked like he would take off. There was a moment or two where he was close to Alvarez in counting stats, and trailing Alvarez in batting average .310 to .285 or something, and still had an outside shot at Rookie of the year if he finished hot, and Alvarez slumped... instead it went the other way, and he's had a brutal 3 week stretch of ground balls and looking bad swinging at out of zone sliders. On one hand it's just 3 weeks... on the other it's so frustrating watchin him... for a week he'll hitting 120 mph line drive singles, and 450 foot homers to center then 3 weeks of ground balls. At least he's getting the ball in the air the last few days... well except for the 9th inning last night.

Well I doubt that. His problems probably come down to ground ball rate and plate discipline. His out of zone swing percentage seems higher than most of the elite hitters (maybe like low 30s, when you'd like to see it at mid 20s)... I think the number of pitches he sees "out of zone" is as high as anyone. However to get better pitches to his he needs to stop swinging out of zone... easier said then done. I'm sure he doesn't want to hit 3 ground balls a game.

He's comparable to Miguel Cabrera at the same age, and is probably the only Blue Jays who has ever had any success at age 20. On the other hand it's just weird to see Alonso, Alvarez, Tatis, and even Bichette have a homerun rate 2 or 3 times as high... it's just kind of a bummer in this year of the homerun, Guerrero was mostly absent except for the home run contest.

What?? Why would pitchers give the other guys cookie cutter fast balls but not Vlad?? Every single one of them is getting whatever the pitcher and coaches think will beat them. How does it make sense to keep giving cookie cutter fastballs to Alonso?? Or to anyone for that matter. Every guy is getting pitched tough.