Olerud363

He hits well there and is through age 25 very similar to Manny Ramirez if you adjust for era (wRC+ similar). Seems like someone the Red Sox would want to get to repeat the Manny Ramirez experience, and seems Vlad would love to team up with Devers. So can see it happening.

lol. 2. Soto 3. Guerrero 4. Devers It will happen. Unlimited Joy in Boston, unlimited pain in Tortonto. And they will give up no prospects for Soto/Vlad just money. At least we can rub it in to Grant.

If you had a 10 pitcher limit on the active roster it would solve everything. They would have to go longer, so pace themselves and their would be more contact and offense. More position players. More platoons. A bit more offense from that.

If the mods want to save the world from Fascism they need to bring back the political thread. How many young men, who could have been saved with the wise wisdom of Jim Canuck and other intellectuals on the board were lost ? Young men need to be exposed to left wing ideas from real men (not from weirdos with purple hair). Instead of FDR or Bob Rae like father figures (which the board could have provided) all the young men had to turn to was Elon Musk's twitter, a hive of conspiracies and right wing nonsense. Bring back politics so the young men have good people to learn from.

This seems predictable. Interesting to see what the Red Sox do in terms of free agents and trades. My entire life as a baseball fan since 1988 Red Sox have never been down for long. Seems like as soon as they look like a 'bad' franchise they win 95 and a World Series the next year.

Just also noticed that Vlad beat Yordan Alvarez by a few places in MVP voting even though they were equal this year. Life time Yordan I think has the highest wRC+ of any active player even higher than Aaron Judge. Yordan is very under-rated, Vladdy very over-rated (despite good 2021 and 24) Yordan misses 30 games a year so no 40 homer and only 1 100 rbi season, Vlad plays every single game and gets better counting stats... It's just unfortunate but I feel no matter what level he plays at Vlad will always be over-rated in a sense, even his good seasons, 160 games great triple crown stats will be over-rated in the industry (like 5.5 WAR seasons, that are viewed better than that). Seems like won't be a long term Jay because the organization is going to be too logical about a good but over-rated player as compared to his agents.

Through age 25 Thomas's top 3 fWAR were 7.2, 7.1 and 6.3, and Soto's are 8.1, 6.8, and 6.0, with another potential 7-8 WAR season wiped out by Covid. Frank Thomas's career wRC+ is 154 (including his 30s), Soto's is 158. A lot of guys have their peaks 26 through 31. Would be interesting to add in Ramirez, Sheffield, Cabrera and others into a comparison group. I think when normalized to league norms even Vlad compares well to Ramirez, Sheffield and Cabrera through age 25... because the league hit's .240 .300 .390 now that is hard to see.... Vlad's agents a) Soto is the greatest of the greatest and better than Thomas at same age and projects better 25-33. Vlad is right with Soto in almost all stats and has more raw power, hit tool, and more hard hit balls in play.

Some of this is just sequencing of the good seasons. Soto/Thomas/Pujols have all hit .320 with massive power and great eye. All have hit .250 with 25 homers... Pujols and Thomas look great because their good seasons were sequenced consecutively. Not saying this is all random, but maybe just a bit random.. We won't know for 15 years, but could turn out when looking back on it, Soto has just as many great seasons as Pujols and Thomas, and just as many lesser seasons, but just hit some lesser ones earlier....

NOT POLITICAL - Baseball related as commentary on societal trends that will lead to sad days for Blue Jays.... (also I did not start this conversation... just do believe that the opposite of what DP thinks could happen). What will happen is Soto signs the big deal with someone else... Vlad Jr. has to be traded and the feminists, white men for Hillary, communists and Justin Trudeau lovers will get Spencer Horwitz Jersey's. Baseball is not important to many considering what is happening in the world. The number one goal of Canadian Society right now is to re-elect Justin Trudeau to show everyone that we Canadians believe in Science, believe in order, believe in the establishment, believe in love, NOT POLITICAL - Baseball related commentary as these societal trends, the effort to re-elect Justin Trudeau and save Western society will be the focus of this country... we will cheer our second tier, 72 win, 1.4 million in attendance baseball team if we have time, but there is a larger fight! (Not my opinon that this is right, I think Jays should go super capitalist and run a 500 million dollar payroll made possible by tax breaks from Pierre Polievre, and give him free political adds behind homeplate) but do not shoot me, just pointing out what will probably happen instead and why).

Obviously the best scenario is a new ballpark downtown, since the godamn Olympic Stadium is on top of the subway, and the subway will collapse if they collapse it, the Stadium is here to stay, renovate similar to Toronto and get going.... new outfield, new lower bowl, no roof, nice light.

It's insane. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-22/montreal-balks-at-a-nearly-billion-dollar-olympic-stadium-renovation Apparently a new roof is estimated at 800 million, and demolishing it is 2 billion. Honestly the only solution is to get it ready for baseball this April any way possible. It needs a billion in maintenance costs anyway. God damn it you idiots. What the hell is wrong with you all? f***ing guys get stuck in space and the government can't rescue them? Elon Musk has to go get them? Elon Musk can fire a rocket and reverse fire it back to the launching pad? But the rest of us can't do s***. Grow the f*** up all of you. Stop listening to the ********. Here are the f***ing facts of reality. 1. Toronto renovated the Rogers center over 2 winters. Something similar could be done for the god damn Olympic Stadium. Do an outfield and lower bowl reconstruction just like Toronto. 2. Take the god-damn roof off completely. It went the first 7 year without a roof. f*** the roof. 3. Number 1. can't be done this winter obviously too late, but just do an emergency renovation to get it ready for baseball in April You are all worthless. You are all idiots. There is zero reason great thinks can't be done, other than the establishment wants to keep the people tamed. In 1920 Ballparks were built over a Winter as they burned down pretty regularly. In 1960s a man went to the moon. IN 2024 we can't fix a roof for a billion!!!!

low brow - baseball team, sunshine, happiness, common man, beer, ball game, a long drive to deep left field, the Expos, friends, high brow - architect, gloom, design, new-age, weird building, 400 million for the designer alone, loneliness, emptiness I assume you are not joking and that it really has been designated a historical site. Just reflects that as a society we are happy to support a 'historical' building for hundreds of millions, which benefits no one, but also happy to destroy baseball, which could have been preserved for the same costs. Of course the honorable human beings on this site know better... but there is just weird people out there who will waste tax payers money on a roof for an empty stadium, but would never build a new stadium for the same costs (and I mean starting from 2000 the costs put into big-O could easilly have financed payments on bonds to build Labatt's park.)

They are apparently redoing the roof and it will take until 2028. 1. No idea if the stadium can be open during roof repair. 2. No idea why they are having a 4 year roof repair project for stadium with no tenant. What a insane thing. Over the year they have put like billions with a 'B' into that thing. Like how much have they put in since 2000 when the government refused to really help build a new stadium. Like honestly. f***. How can I anybody have faith in any government anywhere. It's criminal. The arrogance. The mean-ness. The cruelty. "We are the government. We are honesty. We are love. We are kindness. We are superior. We are intellectual. It is 2000 and we will not be helping build a nice $300 million dollar stadium for the baseball. It is bad the baseball and not something the kind, loving, liberal government should fund. We are honesty. We are your superiors." Also "We are the government. From 2000 to 2028 we will end up putting more money into tenantless Olympic stadium than a bond program started in 1999 would have cost for new Stadium. There will be no baseball, no Expos, no summer nights drinking Molson and watching the game. Only cold empty Olympic Stadium (with new roof). Obey us serfs. We are wise and loving and caring."

No matter what you think of Nimmala there is no way that he is 1.5 years away, which is what Bo and Vlad were this time in 2017. This is why I was so over-the-top about Nimmala/Bonilla ... going into the season there was a lot of hope that they'd come quickly. Within a month that hope was gone and they were just another set of high k prospects that have a shot (at least Nimmala does) but probably aren't coming quick. The k-rates of Nimmala/Bonilla changed the outlook of the franchise.

But the issues facing land developers are common between all of them. The bottom 25% will still probably have their jobs at risk. This is like saying the MLB got hit with a global pandemic just a few years ago, so nobodies job should be at risk. The bottom 25% should always have their jobs at risk no matter what the environment. The issue with this management group is whether or not they are really SOTA (state-of-the-art) or phonies. I've worked in biotech for 20+ years, and believe me you can make a nice living being a phony, and no one will ever know unless you get too big or have a catastrophic failure (ie Elizabeth Holmes Theranos). So Shapiro honestly gives off this vibe that he's a corporate phony. It may not be true, but others have said something like 'Shapiro and Atkins aren't real nerds'. So I guess the question is are Shapiro and Atkins really technically compentent in 2024 state-of-the-art baseball science? And it is a science now. Can rogers board recognize if they are? Can Blue Jays message board recognize if they are? No to the former, Yes to the latter.

But what if throwing Soto strikes makes him a .350 hitter with 75 walks... the idea is to keep Soto off the bases in front of Judge, or more generally to decrease the number of Yankees runs. So some Strategy that walks Soto less could also get him on base more if he hits for a much higher average... and if he hits for more power too the 'pitch to Soto not Judge' strategy increases total Yankees runs. Who wants to use a strategy that increases Yankees runs? Of course there are edge cases. Maybe he does get a walk off homerun he wouldn't of gotten without Judge... but his overall numbers? Not changed by Judge. He had exactly the year you'd expect given his career average performance and age.

that's the point. Soto still walked the same amount. Hitting in front of Judge did not decrease his walks. I mean you could argue that he would have walked 170 times without Judge behind him... but we don't know that for sure. He walked at about his career rate anyway. It's not like he changed into a .350 hitter with 75 walks because of Judge (more balls to hit hard).

Vlad had no one. Soto had Aaron Judge. Soto still walked twice as much. I mean this is the most extreme case you can find and both walked at their career rates... that is not true actually Soto walked like 18% with 18.8% career, and Vlad 10.0 % with 9.9% career. So OK. Maybe there is a tiny bit of signal in there. Very tiny you can use it if you like tiny non-significant signal. In reality both had good seasons by their own standards, both walked near their career rates, one with the greatest hitter since Babe Ruth and greatest protector ever, one protected by Kirk and Howritz.

No idea. I'm not saying fWAR is wrong. A couple of others are though and I assume Vlad's agents will.

Note this is what Vlad's agents will also be saying. 1. Elite hitting performance in 99.99th percentile for 5 month stretches several times (age 18, 19, 22, and 25) 2. Batted ball exit velocities are greatest in history (if measured by number of balls a year hit over 100 mph) 3. fWAR flawed and doesn't work for Vlad, gold glove 1b and capable third base. 4. Baserunning scores bad because of youthful exuberance which will be toned down going forward Not arguing whether above are valid points or not, but his agents will be making them.

lol. Yeah. No. Did not take it that anyone was taking a shot... just taking a shot at myself because I've gone from thinking Vlad might get released, to thinking he may wildly exceed contract expectations.

In terms of fWAR he was tracking with other players who got DFAd or put on waivers (Beillinger, Alex Rios) The funny thing is a year ago I was arguing that he might get DFAd and now I am arguing he is going to ask for (and possibly get) a ridiculous 500 million dollar contract from some team (if next year is a 'good' Vlad year). May seem inconsistent, but both scenarios result from Vlad being over-rated no matter what his WAR. If Vlad hits .265 25 100 and 1 WAR he is over-rated because of counting stats, exit velocities and because he is so much fun, treated more like 4 WAR player. If Vlad hits .320 30 100 and 5.5 WAR he is over-rated because of counting stats (200 hits! (almost)), exit velocities and because he is so much fun, treated more like 7 WAR player.

Nov 30 - Jays among final 5 for Soto Dec 1 - Soto visits Dunnedin (maybe?) Dec 3 - Soto hires Toronto Realtor (rumor) Dec 5 - Soto close to decision 90% chance it is Toronto Dec 5 - Toronto Offer at Ohtani level Dec 6 - (Rumor) Press conference at Rogers Center Dec 6 - noon Soto signs 12 year 680 million with Toronto (confirmed Peter Gammons) Dec 6 - confirmed ESPN, Rogers Sportsnet, TSN, Toronto Star and Time magazine. Dec 6 - confirmed by Soto's agent and Soto Dec 6 - BJMB... maybe it's real? Not yet confirmed by Blue Jays? Dec 6 - confirmed by Blue Jays (but not official press release, just Tweet from Wilner "It is as official as it can be, talked to the one person who would know" Dec 6 - OK. Press conference now? No press conference? Maybe it is too late Dec 7 wake up - Soto signs 12 year 695 with Houston Astros

Obviously for TV reasons. Now Sunday/Monday/Tuesday and potentially Thursday and Friday they are having only evening games.

A trade that never would have happened in the fangraphs era. 11 1990 WAR one way 1 the other... over the next two years though Carter/Alomar played much better and beat Fernandez McGriff about 8-6 in WAR each year. Sad that the two biggest acquisition 'moments' for a lot of us this century where the Darvish Signing (announced at 10:00 one December night by New Hampshire reporter, retracted 2 minutes later), and the Ohtani signing (announced 2 or 3 times one Friday in December, retracted soon after).