Olerud363

Just to be clear here... All I am saying is that no one, no projection system, no person, no anything has any idea how to evaluate Vlad and Bichette They are that rare. No one has ever done this kind of thing as a Blue Jays prospect... Wells, Snider, Delgado, were close... but they didn't do what Vlad and Bichette did as teenagers. It's logical to assume they won't both be hall of famers... because the chances of anyone becoming a hall of famer is low. However no one can really put a ceiling on them.... because they are doing things extremely rare. They may disappoint because a lot of things disappoint, at the time people need to acknowledge they are rare birds that will be difficult to evaluate.

??? Why??? He's way ahead of both of them... So is Bichette. Miguel was mediocre in the minors... but was awesome because 18 year olds just being in full season is awesome. Vlad at 18 did what Pujols did at 20... Pujols at 20 tore up the midwest league, then had a good month in Florida State. Vlad did the same at 18. This is so stupid. No one can say he is closer to Cabrerra, as a prospect he is clearly more like Pujols, I guess you can regress him to Cabrerra.... Here is where they are as prospects Cabrerra is here -----> Pujols is here (ahead of Cabrerra) ------------> Bichette is here (ahead of both) ----------------> VLAD IS AHEAD OF ALL OF THEM. Now you can say most players don't just become the greatest ever, so you have to regress them a bit to Cabrerra level.

Please let us know the last time you saw him pitch... The last time I saw him pitch he looked alright. It was a game against Cleveland in the playoffs, and if I recall right he was cruising along looking good, but maybe Joe left him in too long, and he got beat up in the 6th or 7th. I have the YES Network (Yankees Entertainment and Sports) in my cable package, I also am only a couple of hours away from Yankee Stadium. So I've seen CC on TV and live several times. I am not a trained scout. Here are my observations. 1. He is very fat, but pitches OK. That's just my scouting observation. I also read about him in the tabloids (for sale in gas stations and other stores around here), they sometimes have him on the cover. Apparently he went to rehab at the end of 2015, which could explain subpar 14 (knee injury might explain that too) and 15 (drunk as a skunk). But in 16 and 17, presumably sober, he was actually decent. I believe the Jays would want him to solidify their rotation and based on real and stats scouting think he will be a decent 4th or 5th.

If I jumped in the air, and this board saw me off the ground for one small moment they'd think I could fly. You could not find a more similar player to Adrian Beltre after 2009 as Longo after 2017. They are the same. Longoria probably won't recover to have a great 30s, because most players don't. However just keep in mind Adrian Beltre had a four year run (with Seattle) where he looked like he was fading too. Longoria 2017 and Adrian Beltre 2009 could not be more similar

I'm not looking for guys high in BA rankings, but about prospects, who have done what Bichette has done, at age 18-20. (I don't want to cherry pick too much, for example, if I said 19 and below, I'd eliminate Wells, who had his amazing season at 20) Travis Snider - Good rookie ball seasons and tore up low a as a 19 year old Carlos Delgado - Good rookie low a and tore up Dunedin as a 19 turning 20 year old Vernon Wells - Good rookie low a and tore up three levels as a 20 year old In Blue Jays history we can add Vlad, and Bo to that list, The other players you listed are completely different in terms of performance Phelps - did not start hitting until 21, and even then had bad k/bb Lopez - Had solid 19 year old season, but not spectacular, struggled at 20 Green - No power as a 19 year old (1 homer) or 20 year old (4), started hitting at 21 Stewart - Hit good for a 19 year old, but not great. Those guys all have a completely different statistical profiles than Bichette.

Ceilings are mostly for fun. Take a few guys who a minor league player is most similar too, take the best of that lot and that's the ceiling. It's the absolute best outcome for a player at stage x. How unique are Bo and Vlad?? How many players have the Jays had in their history that have reached aproximately that level?? Travis Snider, Vernon Wells, Carlos Delgado who am I missing? High school draft picks, international signings who had great seasons young (18-20). How often do guys like that come along, even at the prospect level??

Alford is the biggest wild card you could find in terms of prospects. His ceiling is pretty high. Ceiling is best possible outcome in best seasons. I would say Bo has the highest ceiling, followed closely by Vlad and Alford is not that far behind. He also has a much greater chance of being nothing, or being injured. He's a wild card because of late start and injuries. Vlad probably has the best chances of reaching his ceiling. Ceiling is the best a prospect could do, based on what the very best outcomes for similar prospects have been. Before I get flamed, I'm not saying Bo is going to be Mike Trout. His Ceiling is Mike Trout, because he plays a key defensive position, potentially a plus base runner and is putting up the best hitting numbers in the minors. If you do that, you have a high ceiling.. .doesn't mean he'll reach it. He probably has a higher ceiling then Vlad, because if everything goes absolute right, he can put up 3 WAR in defense and baserunning, while a good outcome for Vlad is to be neutral in defense and baserunning. Bo - best similar prospect is Mike Trout Vlad - best similar prospect is Albert Pujuls Alford - best similar prospect is Lorenzo Cain None of these are likely to reach their ceilings. No prospect is. Bo has the highest ceiling, because there is a chance he could contribute defensively at second or third, or even short. Vlad's ceiling is the Albert Pujols path, best hitter in baseball, and good enough at first, or passable at third so he's neutral, or only slightly negative defensively. Alford's ceiling is Lorenzo Cain kind of guy.

I have some very good trades to propose to you. Your discussion of Eloy Jiminez has peaked my interest. He seems very good, and would fit in with Vlad Jr. and Bo's timeline (2020+)... so I would like to trade for Jiminez. I totally realize that the White Sox value Jiminez very highly, however, what if you could have the opportunity to accelerate your timeline and keep your future intact?? Jiminez would require a lot. I know math very well, I went to University of Waterloo, which is practically Canada's MIT. So let's do the Math. Troy Tulowitzki - Steamer has him at 2.2 WAR next year... however he only hits 18 homers... add 5 homers and better health and that is 4 WAR Steve Pearce - Steamer has him at 1.3 WAR, but add 5 homers and he is at 2.5 or so - check the math 2.5 WAR Richard Urena - Steamer has him at 0.0. Steamer has difficulty projecting young players. I think you can add 5 homers this year, and as he matures 10 homers, on top of decent switch hitting and defence - I would project him 4 WAR going forward. Keep in mind Steamer isn't projecting his power quite right, and if we add 10 homers you have the next Didi Gregarious. Dalton Pompey - Steamer has him at 0.0, but his concussion is messing it all up. Add 15 homers (without the concussion) and you have another 4 WAR player. Check the math So I propose Tulo, Pearce, Urena, and Pompey for Jiminez. This instantly makes the White Sox a contender next year (using the Steamer with "homer bonus" analysis) + makes them better in the future, with two young players (Pompey and Urena) that Steamer is under-rating (because of injuries, and the fact that Urena's homers are probably underestimated). Jays are giving up a lot, but Trade make sense for their 2020 timeline, where they now have a complete middle of the order in Vlad, Bichette and Jiminez (2,3,4)

Your overvaluing your own players. A one for one Eloy for Bichette, or Eloy for Guerrero could happen if each organization had different needs or for some reason valued one player more than the other. Are you serious that you think the Jays would trade Bichette and Guerrero for Eloy?? If so, no offense, but what the hell is wrong with you?? Eloy, Vlad, and Bichette* are roughly equal. You don't trade 2 for 1 of equal things. (*Bichette right now is the lowest ranked, and most think he'll be top 20... but those rankings aren't necessarily god's truth, or how organizations view the players, Bichette (my understanding) has been dinged a bit for a hitch in his swing, the scouts didn't like. So far it hasn't been a problem).

In retrospect you can always cherry pick what didn't work out, or wasn't needed, but that information is obvious only in retrospect. When making forward moves, you will never be able to identify exactly what an individual player will do. The goal is to maximize expected wins, while minimizing downside risk. So say sometime in the future, the Jays are 5 behind mid season and decide to go for it, should they say to their analytics team... "We are but 5 behind, and have the chance to acquire 2 seriously great players and some minor pieces, we calculate, based on the quality of our current team, the quality of our rival, and the greatness of the players we will acquire that this move gives us an excellent change of winning the pennant... however we want to perfect the trade.. so please immediately calculate the following..." 1. What will the final win total of our rival be?? If it is 92 we need all the wins we can get, but if it is only 88 we don't need as many wins. So please let us know the exact total so we can optimize the trades. 2. Which of the two great players will slump?? Let us know so we only trade for the great player we need. Such exactness is only possible in retrospect.

Stroman only had four starts, and didn't show up until September 12th... I remember because he pitched the second game of the double header sweep at Yankee Stadium (saw it live), at which point the Jays already had a 3.5 game lead. That being said, he did win 4/4 games... all key games. According to fangraphs WAR Price - 2.7 Tulo - 1.4 Stroman - 0.4 Revere - 0.3 Hawkins - 0.3 Lowe - 0.1 That is about 5 wins... but whoever would of played otherwise (Norris, Reyes, Valencia) wouldn't of been 0, so maybe the trades added 3-4 wins. Jays won by 6. If they lose 4 wins, they theoretically still win the division. But of course they played the yankees head to head a lot down the stretch. So take away a key win or two against the Yankees and they don't win the division Without the trades, they probably end up playing better for the last two months, and still win the division (barely) or the wild card... but who knows, without the trades they are somewhere between 86-89 wins depending on luck. Maybe in the playoffs, maybe not. With the trades they were comfortably in the playoffs.

The manager decides playing time, possibly platoons guys, decides on hitting philosophy, supervises the coaches including the hitting coach, decides what position guys play... Also sets clubhouse rules and culture. Atleast traditionally that's what he did. In 2017, with analytics based front offices, the manager has less power. Here is a question, what if JimCanuck (a traditionalist) was manager in 2019... Ryan Goins is hitting .270 .310 .350 with eye test awesome defense but not great fangraphs defense, and Bo Bichette is hitting .320 with power in Buffalo, and the Jays are in a pennant race?? Goins ofcourse needs to play the rest of the year. Then the Jays win a pennant. The next year does Bichette get a job at short?? I know JimCanuck would "probably" find a place for Bichette... on the hand if Bichette started slow, who knows. There are plenty of times a manager loses patience with a young guy, and the Ryan Goins of the world get too much playing time.

Really?? The Red Sox seemed to have good offenses under him, get on base, and he brought along several young players and got their careers off to good starts, Betts, Bradley, Bogaerts, Benintendi, Devers. I guess my opinion of managers will always be shaped by Cito Gaston, who hated young players and on base percentage, so if a manager seems to at least tolerate young players and on base percentage, he's awesome in my book. ha ha, low standards I guess. ironically Cito almost lost his job in 1991 for the same reason Farrell did, a couple of quick exits in the playoffs, Beeston apparently wouldn't let Gillick fire him...

Josh Donaldson has been better over the last 3 years, and 5 years. And their WAR/162 was really close this year. As of a random day in 2017 I think one would have to say Josh Donaldson is a better player. A random day in 2015 or 2016, Josh Donaldson was clearly the better player. However looking ahead, Altuve is likely to be better, given he is 5 years younger, and entering his peak, Donaldson is leaving his.

Yes. The grammar leaves something to be desired. Keep in mind the target audience was just the guy who didn't want to google, I guess because he wanted to message with people, instead of just googling. So it's probably a good thing I gave him a full dose of bad grammar and some aimless rambling. In retrospect I should added some big time anger to give him the full message board experience. I wanted the message to be as realistic as possible, so Rancher could make an informed decision on whether to use google to answer his questions in the future, or to continue asking for message board answers.

Maybe he wants some commentary... By no means do I want to disturb the fine regulars (or what is left of the fine regulars) of this board with a wall of text, so please, most of you, ignore it. However Mr. Rancher must want details that google would not easily provide. So the below wall of text is for Mr. Rancher, only. He's striking out way more than he used to. In 2010 to 2016 he was about even 1-1 k-bb, with a few years with more walks than ks. This year it was 2-1. Wow. That's a drastic difference, and obviously he fell off insanely in every single aspect of the game at age 36. For comparison, Nelson Cruz was great at 36 Frank Thomas was great (but injured) at 36 and almost won an MVP at 38. David 'Big Papi' Ortiz was great until 40. Barry Bonds was great at 36 and had amazing years until 40. Dave Winfield was great at 40. And Paul Molitor was seriously great at 36. Lots of hitters were great at 36, but some fell off the face of the earth... sometimes it happens. Dale Murphy for example. Or many others. Here are some theories 1. Albert Pujols fell off in his later middle 30s too, I recall Pujols, like Bautista were jr. college guys from Dominican... maybe when they signed up for jr. college they were actually srs?? 2. Maybe they were both on something and are off it now... I don't know. Cruz is fine. That's a bad theory and I shouldn't go there. 3. Maybe it is just a thing. Guys fall off after 35, sometimes fast. Some other questions... (kind of off topic, but again, you could of googled your answer so I assume you want discussion) 1. Was Moogie Stoeten?? Where is Moogie?? Why did he disappear?? Did he come back under a new name?? 2. Is Aaron Judge better than Mickie Mantle?? That's a stupid question, because Mantle had 6 seasons under his belt at Judge's age, but people in NY seem to be asking that. Weird. 3. Ummm... I don't have anything else to say right now.

People have short memories. Remember the Halladay deal. Roy Halladay for three guys that never amounted to much. And the Jays spun around for 4 years... until deciding to collect players like Halladay, instead of trading them. In 2010, the Jays won 85. If they kept Halladay they might of been in the 90s and won a wild card. What if we Trade JD and Tulo and Travis and Sanchez come back healthy... and they win 85? Or what if we Trade JD, and win 77 again next year, but the Wild Card is weak again?? I'm not against trading him... just I agree with Spanky. You keep in mind that you may be trading a playoff spot, so you tell everyone your keepings, and you keep him unless someone absolutely blows you away with an offer.

I remember in 2014 going a 4:00 to 7:00 game... that was crazy. It was actually an 18 inning game so It was like a 1:00 to 4:00 game and a 4:00 to 7:00 game all at once. That was back when Jose Bautista was good. He walked it off with a single to the wall, And Melky used to play for them too back then. Wow it was a few years ago. I was hungry as hell, cuz I couldn't leave my seat, cuz I might miss a walk off in the bottom of the inning, and I didn't want to miss the top of the inning because Chad Jenkins was on fire. He pitched like 8 shut out innings that day. What a boss. Anyway for the real 4:00 to 7:00 games I bet it will be a lot more relaxed and you will have time to figure it all out. It will be OK. I bet it will work out just fine.

f*** that. f***ing ********. Real teams score more runs than the other team. Holy s*** you are dumb. There is no such thing as "real teams get it done when it counts" Cubs score f***ing 100 more runs than they allow leading to f***ing 85 wins Brewers score f***ing 50 more runs than they allow leading to f***ing 80 wins It doesn't matter if they had a couple of ball crunching losses. It happens. These things even out over 162 Last year, last week of season, Jays had ball crunching loss against Yankees, and ball crunching loss against Orioles. Blown in the 9th. Monday and Thursday. Two ball-crunchers. Lost 3 games to Orioles right there. That's what separates losers from winners?? Right?? f*** that. 1 week later Edwin's hitting a homerun winning it in the 11th, and 3 wins later Jays are in the ALCS. There is talent, and performance, which leads to run-differential which leads to wins, then the playoffs are mostly (but not completely) luck.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0 Totally insane. 5 of the top 10 in WAR are corners. Upside means upside. It means everything goes right. If everything goes right for Vlad he's a great, great hitter, and slightly above average on defense. I mean why is it assumed that hitting could "develop", while defense can't?? He's 18, he might get in better shape, he might work like hell at it, we don't know yet. Hey, Pablo Sandoval was slightly above average at defense for a time http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5409&position=3B

I agree he's just getting lucky right now. I'm just saying, people make to much out of 20 point swings in batting average... let's say his true talent level is .280... he might hit .260 one year, .300 the next... He's young, he's hit 42 doubles 8 triples in aa... in his full season (159 games) worth of aa at bats. Shows some signs of hitting the ball hard.

He wasn't just dropped by the stork into double a. Urena has an entire career you can look at, he's performed better other years. A guy can hit between .250 and .300 just by luck. One of the interesting things Bill James did was simulate thousands of seasons for mlb players, guy like Wade Boggs, and Wilie Mays, randomly had .250 seasons... and wait, they randomly did that in real life too! The conclusion was that, the bad Boggs season (1992) was random. Vernon Wells had bad and good seasons, in the majors, in the minors. So Urena is a .270 .310 .400 minor league hitter. It would be unnussual if he hit exactly that every year. It goes up, it goes down, he's only 21. Kind of like Jay Bruce. Jay Bruce is bad for a couple of years and everybody assumes it's a thing, and not just normal variation.

If he had a prime like Jeff Kent's that would be on par with the best players in Blue Jays history. I assume, by that, you mean, you'd rather him take off at age 21, with the Blue Jays, rather than take his time to make it, get traded for a rental, drift around a bit, then hit his all star years with his fourth team, while in his 30s.

He is a year older. That matters a bit. He also projects to have more defensive and base running value. That should even them out a bit. Actually from what I have heard, the big knock on Bo, is still scouting opinion of his swing. An equivalent prospect, same age, same numbers, would be challenging for number one, if the scouts liked his swing,. A 19 year old short stop, with Bo's numbers would normally be top 5, Addison Russel was 3 with inferior numbers... so I am guessing the scouts don't like his swing or his defense.

Their Dunedin numbers were as close as can be?? I mean Vlad walked more, but that's Vlad, he will always walk more. Both hit .320ish, both struckout at about the same rate, both did good. This is stupid. Both were about the same.