Olerud363

And not grounding out on a slider low and away before getting a better pitch to drive.

Varsho's 2022, was exactly the same as Teos 2019 at the same age. So really Varsho was set up to replace Teo... it didn't exactly happen though with Varsho slumping Point is they set it up to have redundancy 1. Varsho could have replaced Teo 2. Belt could have replaced Teo 3. A minor leaguer like Barger or someone could have taken a big step forward \ It turned out 2 was what happened, and 3 might have happened too (or has happened with small sample size), so if 2 didn't happen Schneider or Horwitz would have been called up earlier. Option 1. (Varsho) didn't happen, really hoping he can recover from this weird season. Others have (see some of Alex Rios' bad seasons, followed by normal seasons for example).

Gabriel Moreno (2023 version) vs Alejandro Kirk (2023 version) (approximate numbers from glancing at fangraphs this morning, some small errors likely) Homeruns - Moreno 7-6 fWARs - Kirk 1.8 to 1.3 Slugging - Moreno .420 to .360 On base - Kirk .340 to .320 Defense - Kirk 10 fangraphs defense to 7 or something Height - Moreno 5'9"" to 5'7": ??? Fatness - Kirk 260 pounds to 175 or something Board thinks he looks like an Athlete - Moreno Yes to Kirk No Past performance (pre-2023) - Kirk has 1 all star season, this season is a down year but he has shown better, Moreno doesn't have much of a past Future performance (post-2023) - Moreno the athlete will hit .300, contend for batting titles, and bring joy to his fanbase, Kirk will go to the Mexican minor leagues or the old country buffet Commentary - despite the potential future divergence of the two, they are pretty much the same this year with Kirk rated higher on fangraphs.

I'm pretty sure I heard them say that they believe that some players have a hard time getting good jumps when playing on the opposite side of the field. So for some reason since Biggio has a tonne of experience at second, they think he gets better jumps in right. Not sure that theory totally makes sense, as they switch Merrifield left to second... Maybe it is just a Biggio thing.

I made the Gary Shefield comparison before his big 2021 season, and age 24 he is still kind of tracking Shefield Shefield had the exact same type season at age 24, mediocre power, mediocre walks, historically bad defense, 0.6 WAR coming off of a 6 WAR season https://www.fangraphs.com/players/gary-sheffield/114/stats?position=OF So what happened next? Shefield's walk rate exploded and his defense went from the worst ever to acceptably bad. Vlad needs to make the same progression. Maybe he will.

While perhaps somewhere I said 'release him 15 minutes after today's game' in a moment of frustration I don't think I ever seriously thought Guerrero was getting released after this season, not sure why people are accusing me of that. What I have said is quite logical If his counting stats in 2024 are high, but WAR low, and arbitration salary high what do you do in 2025? Most people are at least acknowledging it's a fair question. No one (including myself) say release him this November LTBF wants to sign him to a 12 year 380 million dollar contract though.

Do you know what the park factor is for lefties in New Hampshire? You can't just discount every single left handed hitter no matter what. Roden has only played 16 games in New Hampshire hitting .300 with 3 homers. He's played 20 games on the road in the Eastern league hitting .360 with 3 homers. He hit better on the road than in Vancouver in the North West league. This year he is hitting about .325 .440 .480 between the two leagues. He's stolen 20+ bases. He's walked more than he has struck out. He's played about 50 games in right and 50 games in left but none in center. Nothing about his numbers is a product of his 16 games in New Hampshire. He has the best minor league on base percentage of any Blue Jays prospect ever. You don't believe me? Than tell me who has the best minor league on base percentage of any Blue Jays prospect ever? Fred McGriff, Carlos Delgado, Vladimir Guerrero Jr?

It's gonna suck when he does what Bellinger is doing this year, or what John Olerud did in 1998.... We all know it's going to happen just not here.

The people missing that the Orioles are a historically special organization have missed Samuel Basallo. Just another Orioles prospect. 5th ranked in their farm system. Except he just turned 19, made A+ before his birthday, so this is considered his year 18 season and he is exactly right where Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was and ahead of Carlos Delgado. Delgado comparison is relevant though because he is also a huge catcher, but Orioles are smart enough to have him playing first at 18, instead of starting it at 23 (after he misses 2 years). What is happening here is unprecedented. Jackson Holliday could be coming up with a Delgado/Guerrero level prospect. Likely Jackson comes up first than Basallo becomes the 1 overall. So basically they will have like 5 years of holding the 1st overall prospect.

Well. He had a 121 wRC+ in double a, and now 108 in triple a at the age of 21 and in a small sample size is getting past the .200 average problem.

He is the same age as his comparables (offensively) were when they got started. Lyle Overbay, Matt Carpenter. Now that he is playing in a bat-s*** crazy offensive environment (due to auto-umps not bandboxes) you can compare his numbers to Lyle Overbay in the PCL at age 25. They are the same pretty much.

Nice Win against the greatest franchise in baseball history.

And note that for the Orioles it was Westburg that got the big hit... Basically the Os equivalent of Schneider except he plays more.

With Seattle hot that will put them 4 games back of wild card. Time to end it and congratulate the great franchises, Seattle, Baltimore, Texas for doing a good job. The Vlad Guerrero/Bo Bichette Blue Jays will likely win 0 playoff games, never win a division title and insanely never spend a day in 1st place after April 10th or something... And you idiot are complaining that Angelos isn't going to sign the young (which is just posturing and not even relevant for 4 years anyway, and also Toronto didn't sign Bo and Vlad (not that we'd want to sign Vlad).

Orioles get one of their young (non-obese) fit players to second. Chances they will score ? 100%. Impossible they will go 0/2 with runner in scoring position.

Tonight Orioles 1/1 - Jays 0/3 with 2 double plays (albeit bad luck on the second). What will it be for the rest of the game? Luck should even out eventually right?

With Seattle hot that will put them 4 games back of wild card. Time to end it and congratulate the great franchises, Seattle, Baltimore, Texas for doing a good job. The Vlad Guerrero/Bo Bichette Blue Jays will likely win 0 playoff games, never win a division title and insanely never spend a day in 1st place after April 10th or something... And you idiot are complaining that Angelos isn't going to sign the young (which is just posturing and not even relevant for 4 years anyway, and also Toronto didn't sign Bo and Vlad (not that we'd want to sign Vlad).

The greatest franchise ever **, with the best GM ever, with a 1/1 generational pitching prospect who has become unhittable vs. the always disapointing Blue Jays And I have heard a few of you start claiming Angelos isn't going to pay long term for any of these guys... as if that is even a concern with all the important players having 5+ years of control, and the most important, greatest player ever having 7 (well 6.9) years of control left (or 6 + getting them an extra pick). However by the time they need to worry about this (4 years from now) they will have had 3 years in a row of 3 million attendance (100 wins and division titles tend to do this) and lots of money... right now what Angelos is saying is just a little negotiating in public to try and maybe get some of the boys to sign under-valued contracts (on this note they should learn from the 3rd greatest GM ever (after Elias and Branch Rickey) Alex Anthopoulus. Elias has his high performance team preparing the buffet (all healthy food) the legal amphetamines (naps, coffee and red bull taken at the right time) so the Orioles will be prime and ready, while 5 minutes before the game the Jays are eating Doritos and tweeting with Dave Hudgens about how unfair it is that Trump has 4 criminal trials ongoing and Biden has none. So all that said, and with Kikuchi due for a bad game this will probably be a rough one, over by the 2nd and 7-1 Orioles win, but that is pretty good given the vast differences in the quality of these franchises.

Eventually there will be a game the Jays lose because Vlad or Bo or Springer pulls a 400 foot fly ball to left, out of 29/30 parks and Gunner Henderson or even worse Adam Frazier or somebody hit's a 338 foot fly ball to right that just goes over. That's what the park is designed to do. Hasn't happened yet but it will, hopefully not this week. But probably this week. Yeah. Probably tonight. Keep that in mind for your homerun contest. Varsh, Belt are good bets... though I guess Bo could go oppo. Did last year I think.

Can Davis Schneider hit the 100 mph Grayson Rodriquez will throw at him? Don't know. Biggio can't either but he's gonna just stand there until he gets a floppy breaking pitch and then loop it 341 feet over the right field wall. Pretty conflicted about this one. On one hand Biggio only has to pull a ball 340 feet to right for a homer, but Schneider would have to pull it about 430. On the other hand if neither can catch up to Rodriquez anyway, Biggio's 340 foot oppo pop fly to left will be an out by 100 feet, but Scheider's 340 foot oppo pop fly will be a homer. Yeah. I hate these f***ing bastard Orioles rigging their stupid park.

Grayson is one of the hardest throwing pitchers in baseball. I believe he's averaging close to 100 on his fastball and may be the hardest throwing starter (it's actually 97, just looked it up). I believe he was another former top 5 overall prospect and at one time was the best pitching prospect in baseball, was lights out in the minors, and lights out since returning to MLB except for (as others have mentioned) relievers letting his runs in (Fuji let like 2 in on hbp against the Jays). Not sure this is going to go that great tonight. Obviously similar nice things can be said about Kikuchi, who is also lights out in the last 6 weeks, and has much better overall numbers (this year) than Grayson.

I think he means like why post scores when people can go to the box scores to see what is happening... I have access to all the internet sites but only look at this one, so appreciate that people post the scores so I can see that the Mariners have won again for the 19th time in 23 days.

What a terrible off day. A lot of the members are pretty weak psychologically including myself. The Blue Jays not making the playoffs combined with the failure of Vladimir Guerrero Jr has put me and others in a very deep depression. Seeing the great franchises, Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, and Texas Rangers among other sell playoff tickets for playoff game that will actually happen makes many of us shed a tear as we know the end has come and anybody buying Blue Jays playoff tickets (if they even bother to sell them) will have to figure out how to get the god-damn refunds. So basically we are too depressed to check the scores as we know it will only be bad, Seattle wins every day and never loses... we come on this great message board in hopes to have the news broken to us gently by the kind friendly people that post here. Congratulations to the Seattle Mariners for making the 2023 playoffs and for keeping your franchise player, Julio Rodriquez, at a very nice playing weight and signing him to a 20 year contract, you Seattle fans have 20 years of joy ahead.

Mariners, Astros and Rangers all play tonight. At the beginning of the night it was 1/8 they'd win... but of course they'll alll win. Someone might as well make money off this s***. Did anybody bet on all of Mariners, Astros and Rangers to win?

Special update in WAR (fWAR) standing among some players. Davis Schneider 0.6 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 0.5 Cavan Biggio 0.2 Spencer Horwitz 0.0