Olerud363

You are totally right. It's doubtful his arb salary would double. I am guessing they ask for a bit more than Soto last year. Maybe they just ask for 32 million to get the highest award ever. Or maybe 35 if they think Vlad's .330 35 100 is way more glamorous to arb deciders than Soto's .275 35 100 would have been.

This is why he might now get close to 40 million in arb (I said 35 before but people probably think that is reasonable now, so the 'unreasonable' is 40) I'm not saying he's worth that, just that arb is like casual stats city and going into it with like a batting title or near batting title, and a .330 35 100 classical statline will be worth some dough. Also almost no question in free agency he will ask for what Soto gets... the 'difference' between them, both the real difference and the 'casual' stats difference has narrowed the last couple months. If Vlad is good next year he could be going into free agency 'looking' as good as Soto. Soto - best hitter in baseball by all advanced Metrics and good enough defensive player and baserunner. Lots of fWAR on a consistent basis. Guerrero - 1 year batting average 40 points higher than best hitter in baseball (Soto), 4 time all star, homerun derby champion, more hard hit balls than anyone in the game, 99.99999th percentile high end performance... sure for a few months at a time he was ground ball city but that is behind him... and he can play third don't listen to those d-stats. Not saying at all that I think Vlad is as good as Soto, but it doesn't matter what I think, or you think, or the Jays think, or 27 of the 30 teams think, it matters what his agents can convince a couple of teams to bid.

Probably happened a lot with 40 man rosters... especially the day after a good team clinched a playoff spot. Second game of a October double header in Baltimore 2015... Dalton played opening day so it wasn't completely different. Dalton Pompey CF Cliff Pennington LF Ryan Goins SS Ezequiel Carrera RF Chris Colabello DH Matt Hague 1B Josh Thole C Munenori Kawasaki 3B Darwin Barney 2B Jonathan Diaz SS-LF

Of course! So stupid! Forgot about him because of the fertility issues. In all seriousness a shame he didn't get to play 90 games in the majors this year. it would have been interesting to see how his minor league numbers translated vs. how the older line drive contact oriented hitters are translating. I guess we already have Schneider, Clement, Barger, Horwitz, Wagner, Jiminez and Loperfido to look at (in low sample size) how various minor league hitters are translating from Buffalo. Still Orelvis is probably the most extreme low average, high exit-v, high power, high fly ball rate guy of them all... Intuitively I think he might take a less of a hit on the average than other guys, a combination of being younger, and minor league infielders are already catching his pop-ups (where other guys may take more of a hit with major league defenses)

Nimalla close to breaking Carlos Delgado teenage hr record for Blue Jays? Delgado did it at "19" in 1991 but was 18 for half the season. Very close to Nimalla's age. Is 18 the Blue Jays teenage hr record? Or am I forgetting someone? Wells, Delgado, Vlad, Bo -- I am sure they routinely hit 115 mph missiles at some poor guy that wasn't ever getting out of Florida -- but never big homerun totals.

So what bucket do you put him in? Do you put him in a bucket with Trevor Story? Or with Travis Snider? Or Jared Kelenick? Or all 3 are in his bucket? If you want to get enough sample size to make a valid bucket you need 3 types 1. Stars 2. Guys like Travis Snider and Kelenik who made it but not really were that great. 3. Guys who repeated double A a couple times and work at a car dealership now (who no one even remembers at all) OK. That isn't really valid either because you can't start with the outcomes, you need to identify the groups based on some stat centered around Nimalla so Nimalla is average of the group, and do a database search for last 25 years of minor league players, list them. However if you aren't going to database search, just start with outcomes but try to think of different ones, like Star/Scrub/Car dealership worker, so you get a fair assessment.

Howritz wRC+ this year is already better than anything Lyle Overbay or Frank Catalanotto did with Toronto. Which seems crazy. Giving he's hitting .260. If a guy like Horwitz or Wagner could hit .300 and keep walk rate, doubles, and 'neutral' defense intact they'd be a key piece.. not saying they can hit .300 given the batting trends in the league, just if they could there's the route for them being a difference maker.

Nevermind. I am wrong. These guys, Wagner, Horwitz, Barger, Jiminez, they are all very awesome and destroying the Twinkies. And they probably all are on track for 4 WAR per 162 after this game.

Is there any position players to be excited about at all in this system? Spencer Horwitz looks like he might be an OK piece. A 2 WAR 1b/2b who can be like the 8th best position player on a good team. Spencer hit .330 .450 .500 in Buffalo and translated to like .250 .340 .400 so far. SO what hope do any of these other guys have? Maybe Wagner is also a 2 WAR guy? Are there platoon partners for anybody? Too bad Davis imploded.

Nimmala's ground ball to fly ball is 0.59 Gunnar Henderson's was 0.93 during his high strike-out season Vlad's was 1.21 when he was 18 and hit "only" 13 homers. Maybe Nimmala could have some 5 WAR Joey Gallo like years but his walk rate isn't as good as Gallo's. He might end up being something like Varsho, maybe with more power, but will need good defense to go with it. Or maybe at 19 he get's some good hitting tips in Vancouver and destroys 3 league's and is knocking on the door this time next year.

Conine just got called up which is why I was reminded of him. Joey Gallo I guess is a success story for this kind of thing, had a nice 4 year run hitting like .200 with huge power, walks and good defense. When the league got a bit harder after 2021 though Gallo wasn't able to function anymore. Really sucks about the Orelvis thing... would have loved to see how his bat played in the majors, compared to the 26 year olds from Buffalo with (presumably) less raw bat speed

Sort of. Vlad was probably hitting 121 mph grounders at minor league infields... so Nimmala I doubt has better exit velocity but does have much higher launch angle, and maybe too high leading to the low average. Minor league infields suck at hard grounders but can catch popups, so the low batting average at low A could be a sign of popup+strikout problems. There will always be exceptions. And I conceded I might be wrong about this just the other day. That is one guy though. What is the trend? Just seems these kind of guys really struggle at high levels. Orelvis Martinez and Griffin Conine are both taking forever to get through the minors... I realize Conine is older and Orelvis had women's health issues, but what I mean is like maybe it takes Nimilla 5 years to get to Toronto... compared to Bo and Vlad who made the trip from Lansing to Toronto in 2 years.

Looking at month by month Towers did not have anything too spectacular in 2005. Best was like 45 innings 22 ks 2.4 ERA... so probably Josh Towers never had a 30 inning run like this... Who did? Alek Manoah probably had some pretty good 30 inning runs... of course Alek Manoah had some pretty goot 250 inning runs and that didn't last either. He's 4 years older but this run, if he finishes it off will be very similar to Halladay's 2001.

Before answering the following should be provided Stats for Josh Towers best 30 inning run in 2005 with his k-rate normalized to 2024 k rates.

They have Enrique Bradfiled Jr. who will be the greatest leadoff man ever, and Samuel Basallo, who will be the hitter Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is in the good times, but all the time. So won't be too white next year.

One thing that is funny is that I got destroyed for pointing out the Bonilla and Nimmala's low sample size numbers were meaningful because of the high k-rate and super low batting average (which could indicate way too high pop-up rate in addition to k-rate). Team science of course advocated for logic and reason. But now when it comes to Jackson Holliday they are using the exact same intuition. Everything is complicated and they aren't totally wrong. Holliday's high k-rate and low average (especially if the latter is caused by high pop-up rate) could already be meaningful. Like maybe his struggles are different than Mike Trout's early struggles... or maybe not. It's all complicated but when you use "science" and "logic" it makes much better sense... somehow. I guess? I haven't figured it out yet to be honest.

The worst case scenario, for the Orioles, is at the end of this year, their winning cycle still beats the Jays winning cycle because they at least won a division title... with the rest of history yet to come and the Orioles having no contract issues yet, a way better farm system and more payroll space.

Team Science has lost it. They are cherry picking a moment where the Orioles look weak to grab a "win". Let me step that back. Team Science isn't stupid. They are savvy and good at social and work politics and know when to grab a win. Their corporate ladder climbing instincts are kicking in. So why does Team Science hate the Orioles? I think instinctually they know not to diss management, so kind of like in a work place, if some other company looked like they have awesome management you don't point it out. You stick with your guy. Then when you can you get your guy some wins.

Not sure if you are being sarcastic here... but do you think the Pirates didn't fix him? Do you think this was random or he fixed himself? (sorry if it wasn't sarcastic, seems from a few of your comments you are skeptical that coaching staffs have a lot of control over hitter outcomes)

The 70 extra walks a year are the main factor in the fWAR and wRC+ differences. I remember reading somewhere about the 'booklets' agents were making for their free agents. They were really simple and almost Trumpian in their style. I remember way back Bill James writing about arbitrations cases and how moronic they were. Maybe times have changed. However is Vlad's free contract going to be decided by wRC+ and defense metrics? Maybe if Shapiro and Atkins and other smart teams had the final decision. However is there still an owner out there who would be impressed that Vlad (.285 33 100) is the same as Soto (.285 35 100) per 162 games. AND Vlad can play 3rd which will improve his defense numbers. AND the main difference between them is 70 walks, and Vlad will likely walk more as he ages. AND Vlad has more hard hit balls than anyone in basebal?

Soto is way better, but I don't know if that difference will be reflected in the contracts they both get. Maybe it will the industry is getting smarter. I guess the danger is that it ends up being like an Edwin or Chapman thing, where Vlad's camp starts off wanting 95% of what Soto got, Jays refuse then Vlad looks elsewhere, time passes, and Vlad ends up signing with another team late for a price the Jays would have paid. Who knows. I've been wrong about a lot lately, like Nimilla, Vlad never returning to 2021 form...

It also doesn't matter what fWAR alone says (for contract). It matters how a couple of rich teams view them going forward. If he performs well next year his list of comparables through age 26 will include Cabrera and Manny Ramirez. What are the historical precedents? Two players who look very close with traditional stats, but fWAR is 2-3 high for one? Are they compensated for that difference, if the difference is mostly walks and a little defense and baserunning?

The only difference is 70 walks. Per 162 they are really close otherwise. .286 35 103 for Soto, .285 32 100 for Vlad and .282 34 107 for Devers. I think in Arb Vlad could get a crazy amount because it may not be that analytical and his comparison will be Soto after 2023 (.275 35 100) Long term deal? First thing the agents will do is put a comparison package together, illustrating Vlad and Soto are the same (except for 70 walks which they won't mention because who cares about stupid walks). What are 70 walks? Just 70 base clogging events. I'm not even trying to be funny here. Soto has had -20 defensive years, Soto has struggled with ground ball issues at times. Soto and Vlad and Devers are beautiful brothers exactly, exactly, exactly the same... Except Soto gets 135 walks a year and the other two 65.

Several posters were told they were flat-earthers for their take on Bassitt's comments.... Why not pat themselves on the back? They have worked hard to defend their reputations.

He is the same as Raphael Devers probably both as a hitter and defensive player. Devers defense rates better because he has stayed at third, but based on discussions on this esteemed board a lot of people think Vlad might be the rare player who scores better at third, because his arm is wasted at first. Vlad is probably a bit better hitter, but Fenway masks that. The fWars are comparable through age 25. So what contract did Devers get? Would Vlad be happy getting the same as Devers? Or would he demand the same crazy amount as Soto, even though Soto is a non-linear level above? (Soto is a rare bird, and the 70 extra walks a year, give 3 extra WAR a year). Problem is no one, this casual, Vlad, this board, believes 70 extra walks a year are worth 2-3 WAR. Thus if Vlad and Soto look superficially the same, and Soto get's 12 years 650 million, Vlad will want that and really he deserves whatever Devers got (10 year 300 or so?).