Olerud363

He is taking the most pitches in baseball I think Like VGJ adjusts and with his elite hand eye and 80 hit tool he makes millisecond adjustment and hits the crappiest pitches for grounders, but if Belt guesses wrong he swings at his guess and misses completely and lives to see another pitch (if it's not strike 3).

He was around 20 on most of the lists at the beginning of the year and is having the same kind of year as always at a higher level with a lower k-rate, that's not usually the kind of performance that gets you kicked off a list. Also level/track record/present performance is all fine for a 21 year old. Doesn't suck at all.

Well actually this time last year they were in just as tough with Baltimore and Minnesota only 1.5 games back, but both faded.

Same could be said about Seattle though... Teo and J-Rod and a couple of others could go on a tear and their pitching staff is stacked. Not really disagreeing with you, just that it's kind of a coin flip to get in at this point. Like isn't it a lot worse than last year? Pretty much the same quality of team, except the chaser team is much better. Last year the chaser team was the greatest franchise ever (Baltimore Orioles) taking their first baby steps and only 85 wins were needed for W3. This year likely to be 90. Last year they didn't need to beat Tampa Bay or Seattle, just the baby Orioles who weren't quite ready, this year they will have to beat Seattle (or Tampa Bay or Houston).

Blue Jays 523 runs Mariners (worse offense ever shittiest team ever) = 519 runs 1.5 games back of Blue Jays What will Grant do when the Mariners not only take the Blue Jays playoff spot but outscore them? Will Grant whach the Mariners do their big circle celebration late September? Teo holding hand with Julio Rodriquez as Mariner fans buy their playoff tickets, while Jays fans post on reddit as to how to get refund for $200 bucks (not to mention comitting for season tickets for the next s***** year) they spent already on games that will be played in Seattle?

I 100% agree with this. Overbay actually could not reach 4 WAR even when getting .300 with 50 doubles and some walks because his defense and baserunning were horrible. I think what people are missing about 1b defense is that it still has a lot of variation even with the penalty. The penalty just means every 1b rates as negative.... but they can range from like -20 to almost 0. Problem with Overbay and Vlad is they hit like -20 defense and -5 baserunning and it tanks their WAR by 2 or 3 wins over a guy with -2 defense and 0 base running. So they idea that Horwitz (or some line drive hitter) could put up 4 WAR with like a .300 .390 .440 season or something, would also involve not ridiculous bad defense.

Rank, name, life time WAR, games played 1. John Olerud 57 (2200) 2. Will Clark 52 (2000) 3. Keith Hernandez 59 (2000) 4. Mark Grace 44 (2200) I did the rankings before looking at WAR. Was surprised to see Keith Hernandez amass 59 WAR with 10 homers a year. I kept them the same though after because Hernandez advantage is mostly 1b defense which we are trusting the d system to work right for a guy from the 70s... top 3 are very close. Mark Grace is a level below as he had less power (like Hernandez) but played in a higher power era. You can argue for any of the top 3. I might be biased but I gave it to Olerud based on his top 3 seasons being the best (8.1, 8.1 and 5.8).

The entire pitchers won't walk him if they don't fear him is not true at all either. Right now J.P. Crawford and Pavan Smith are both in the top 20 in walk rate, just ahead of Matt Olson. Matt Carpenter is 10th in walk rate and at this point pitchers shouldn't fear him. The game has changed so there really aren't a lot of Sean Casey/Mark Grace types any more. Luis Arraez had 3 WAR at DH/1b last year, and that was with only 30 doubles and 50 walks. So a 1b hitting .300 with 40 doubles 85 walks, 9 homers, and not terrible D and defense would be 4 WAR. That's not a pipe dream. There used to be players like that. Daric Barton, Mark Grace, John Kruk, Kevin Youkilus have done 4 WAR with 9-13 homers since 1993 (when homers started increasing) before that it was probably much more common. 4 WAR at 1b hitting 9 homers isn't a pipedream. It doesn't happen often because a) Hitters that could put up a .300 .390 .440 line with decent 1b defense, tend to be more athletic so can probably handle 2b, 3b or outfield Guys like Horwitz if performing at peak level probably run into 20 homers so eliminate themselves from the 9 homer club (like John Olerud who was this type of players, would run into 20 homers when going very good). So let's say hypothetically Spencer Horwitz was a .300 hitter with 40 doubles and 80 walks... there would be 2 reasons he wouldn't get 4 WAR with 9 homers a) he's so unathletic that he'd have Vlad like D and baserunning - OK. but that has nothing to do with his power if going well enough to hit .300 Howritz (like Olerud and others) probably get's close to 20 homers.

Any reason DeJesus was not on the list?

You realize guys like Marc Grace and Keith Hernandez were a thing right? A .300 average with walks, doubles, good first base defense, and base running is 4 WAR. It's fine if you believe Spencer Horwitz won't hit .300, walk and play good 1b defense, but that is different than saying he'll fail because he doesn't have big homerun power. This is a retarded conversation. The kid is hitting .330 .450 .490 in AA, and is even stealing some bases. If that translate to .300 .400 .440 or so, which is a reasonable milb to mlb translation, and his D and baserunning isn't Vlad like that is 4 WAR. I absolutely agree that his numbers may not translate, partly because he may just be a 25 year old having a real good season, and he won't hit .330 .450 .490 even in the minors consistently.

If he hit .300 with 9 homers but doubles and walks and plays good 1b defense that's not a left handed version of 2023 Vlad. That profile can be 4 WAR. The hope is that these guys without big time power will develop into a Marc Grace, or Keith Hernandez, or Sean Casey, or Lyle Overbay or John Olerud type. Not saying they will. Maybe they come up 2 months, hit .238 and we never hear about them again... On a side note it's pretty hilarious but John Olerud in 2003 hitting .269 .372 .390 was way better than 2023 Vlad, 2 WAR John Olerud in 2004 hitting .259 .359 .374 was 0.7 WAR. Still probably better than 2023 Vlad. So hypothetically even if Horwitz hit .265 with 8 homers he could still beat 2023 Vlad if he walked and doubled more and played better defense.

Sahlen field dimensions are fairly standard. It may be that Vlad just can't perform in front of major league crowds. Numbers in minor league parks in both the minor leagues and the Covid seasons are insane. Numbers in major league parks suck. Gotta be in his head. See's the bright lights, the second deck, the MLB quality clubhouse and he becomes useless. Would probably hit amazing and be happy if they did send him to Indy ball without pressure.

Jackson Holliday = Barry Bonds at short stop = 190 career WAR Davis Schneider = Chase Utley = 71 career WAR Addison Barger = Aaron Hill = 30 career WAR Orelvis Martinez = Troy Glauss = 40 career WAR Spencer Horwitz = Sean Casey = 20 career WAR Cowser/Westburg/Kjerstad = Vladimir Guerrero Jr part II = 20 WAR combined. Total Holliday = 190 career WAR Total other 7 = 180 WAR You are right, Hoilliday will out-war the other 7

If Vladimir Guerrero JR can fail why can't Holliday? I guess because he plays short, he will have trouble getting -20 defense scores so even if he hits like grown up Vlad, and plays defense like Bo Bichette that is still a 4 WAR floor.

I wonder if something weird is going on in the minor leagues with the automated strike zone. Orioles prospects are all hitting like prime Frank Thomas, or 18 year old lightning cat Vlad. And after slow starts Jays prospects are hitting like that too. Someone mentioned even some midget guy is hitting great. 1. Early understanding of automated strike zone and advanced hitting labs make Orioles prospects crazy good. 2. Jays slower to understand all this but clue in sometime in May.

Is it hyperbole? 1. The Orioles prospects are hitting .320 .420 .550 or something as a group Holiday - .342 .465 .541, Cowser .330 .459 .537, Westburg .295 .372 .567, Kjerstad .323 .393 .597 Not hyperbole, literally true. 2. The Blue Jays 4 are hitting .320 .420 .550 since data X, if you really cherry pick X right (somewhere in May or June). Not sure if it's hyperbole. I heard Schneider was on fire since date X, and Howritz has all his homers bunched up in a few weeks raising his average a lot. Martinez had an historically slow start but got hot, and Barger is hitting a bit better. So I think if you cherry picked the right date you might be able to find in the last X weeks those 4 hit .320 .420 .550. 3. The Orioles 4 are the greatest prospect class ever, and Jackson Holliday is the best prospect ever. If hyperbole then what team had the best set of 4 prospects ever and when? Who was the greatest prospect ever. 4. The Orioles are going to win 1100 games over the next 10 years Probably Hyperbole. The greatest 10 year runs are more like 970 or something. 5. The post Bo/Vlad (or big contract Bo/Vlad) Jays will sneak into the 3rd wild card spot with the help of the medium sized 4 (Schneider/Barger/Howritz/Martinez). I could see that happening. Not hyperbole.

The gap between the Orioles top 4 (Holliday (19), Westburg (24), Cowser (23) and Kjerstad (24)) and the Jays on the cusp guys (Martinez 21, Schneider 24, Barger 23 and Horwitz 25) has narrowed, and not because the Orioles guys have stopped hitting .300 .420 .550 as a group (they continued that) but because if you choose the right date (like maybe May 11th or something) the Jays group has also hit .300 .420 .550 for like 3 months. And while it seems the Jays guys are way older the sum age is 90 for the Orioles guys and 93 for the Jays guys. The Orioles guys are 1-4 on their own team, all top 100 in baseball, with Holliday the greatest prospect ever (like Ted Williams playing short stop). The Jays guys are like scattered in their own top 20 none in the top 100 in baseball. However the Orioles guys were viewed as the greatest prospects ever since late last year and haven't moved up or down. They Jays guys were complete failures with a 0.01 chance of being a regular (Martinez), no one had ever heard of him (Schneider), and a projected powerless .260 hitter with 3 homers (Horwitz), with only Barger being viewed as a prospect (I guess he took a step back from 2022 in a way, but has developed more patience and held his own through injury, so in another way he made progress. Jays guys have moved up and are now the gritty blue collar core of unheralded guys that will battle the greatest franchise ever, with the greatest prospects ever, on track to win 1100 games over the next 10 years, and all the Jays guys can hope for is to occasionally sneak into the 3rd wild card spot and upset them in the playoffs (like teams occasionally upset the Dodgers). That outlook is way better than what it was 2.5 months ago.

It has to start evening out, but not tonight... Though come to think of it they did get 2 ground ball choppers for infield singles with RISP but no runs none the less.

This is why the Vlad thing is so f***ing frustrating. Guys go up and down. Sometimes it's up to guys themselves to figure it out, keep in shape, work on their swing in the off season, blah, blah, blah. What we have here is a guy who has a historic difference between his floor and his ceiling. And if we assume (which is reasonable) that both his floor and his ceiling are a bit worse and better than what we have seen so far we have this A player whos 1. Floor is below replacement level .250 hitter with 19 homers and -1 WAR 2. Ceiling is an improvement on 2021. If a guy can hit 48 homers and challenge for the triple crown 22 it is reasonable to put his ceiling at triple crown with 50+ homers. So we have one of the largest differences between floor and ceiling ever, and the organization should have done everything to get him closer to the ceiling... hire 20 chefs, 20 trainers, 20 line-drive swing specialist, 20 mental coaches, 20 cheer leaders... they should have done whatever it takes to keep him at 2017/2018/2021 level

He's replacement level right now, he was good last year. He's combined historically great seasons (if you include his minor league seasons) with replacement level ones, only been 'good' one year (age 23). 18 - historic great 19 - historic great, greatest minor league hitter ever, greatest Jays prospect ever 20 - replacement level 21 - replacement level 22 - historic all time great age 22 season setting age homerun record and challenging for triple crown 23 - good 24 - replacement level

lol. Continues tonight. 1/4 but no hard contact or runners cashed in. Can you bet on every at bat? Someone should just start betting against Jays when runners are in scoring position and start making a lot of money then seeing what Vegas would do? Would Vegas say .... this is a random fluke we are not changing the odds/ Or ... we are not letting people make millions betting against the Jays when runners are in scoring position.

They both might be ass-holes but huge difference between Moreno and Angelos (the son). Moreno spends a crapload and apparently has his hands in the baseball ops Angelos (the son) is I guess an ******* to his employees but other than that apparently just wants a super-team on a 60 million dollar payroll. And in fact maybe Angelos seeing what Moreno has done with all those free agents just doesn't be like that guy, and will just tell his baseball ops they aren't spending because too much risk they just blow it. I guess long term this means Orioles may be just another Tampa Bay instead of a historic super-team with a decade(s) long run. Assumption they would be a super-team is that Angelos (like his father) starts spending when the time is right, but unlike his fathers money this time the the money is spent by really smart people.

Fujinami = Hicks Again why we love the Orioles. I saw that over the weekend they gave Fujinami the 8th in a 2-0 game which I thought was crazy after he gift wrapped the Jays a win last week. However Fujinami (for the Orioles) has been as good as Hicks has for the Jays, if Hicks wildness last night had started with the bases loaded it would have been just as bad as Fujinami's. So the Orioles once again acquire the same guy as the Jays except I think they have him for a few years and didn't give up as much to get him Fujinami throws harder than Hicks btw... Saw consistent 103s the other day.

Miguel Sano vs Vladdy is very close, but Vladdy barely beats him. Miguel Sano 8.5 WAR in 680 games Vladdy 9.3 WAR in 603 games

Barger has a decent walk rate this year too, 38 walks in 56 games. It would be unusual to call up a guy hitting in the .230s in the minors though. I guess the question would be a) what is current health? (he had an elbow issue) is the .235 bad luck (ie hard hit rate and stuff) c) how is his defense ? d) is he better than Paul De Jong considering everything ?