KingKat

Well I.Q. the actual test is ******** anyways. Says more about what kind of culture you grew up in than what your actual intelectual capacity is. I certainly believe that someone who would scrore poorly on a I.Q. test might actually be very smart and that inteligence would manifest itself in other ways like being really good at processing and applying the information gleaned from an atbat.

So is baseball I.Q. just a polite way of dancing around whether or not a player is dumb? It's funny cause I thought it meant your baseball instincts but it seems like it's more like your actual intelectual capacity.

Then what the hell is baseball IQ then?

His baseball IQ is off the charts though. Most scouts didn't think he could play 3B at all and he took to it like a duck to water despite basically just running on pure instincts.

I'd rather bring back Valencia to be honest.

Yeah sorry to press you so hard. I just find it frustrating. If it's necessary to throw the stat out the window every now and then because it just doesn't make sense then what is the stat even worth? What's the underlying issue here? If the issue is merely that Lawrie had some horrible luck on defense this year and isn't a true talent -16 fielder? If that's the case that's fine. Maybe that's what meant by "noise". Information that is accurate but not really meaningful in a larger context. That's not really what I think of when I see the word noise but I think that's how you've described it in the past so we might just be talking through each other at this point. When I think of noise though, I think of is as non-information. A measure with no real accuracy. That's different from a small sample size issue.

Well what's reasonable then? What's a reasonable amount of defensive decline? It there a cap on just how bad a defensive season can be compared to precedent? I don't think there is. What's a reasonable amount to chalk up to noise? The whole thing?

Seems like an awful lot of noise.

It's so pathetic that nothing has been done about this despite an entire off-season to fix it. I don't love the Hendriks trade but at least the Jays realized the wisdom in cashing in an asset that you're going to under-utilize anyways. You can't have Casey wasting Johnson again. Casey needed to go or failing that Johnson should have been moved for a pick or something.

930.2 innings at 3B, 361 at 2B. Exactly the same UZR/150 of -15.8 at both positions suggesting he was equally bad. For comparison, he had +14.9 at 3B (403) in his last Toronto and a merely -0.1 at 2B (193 innings). Just seems like he got really bad at everything really fast. It's funny too because it didn't exactly feel like the Jays were selling high on him when they traded him.

Holy hell! What happened here? http://www.bluejaysmessageboard.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1359&d=1448545855

Hague was an excellent use of a 40 man roster spot but you're right that it's not worth crying over. It's not like the Jays could offer him the kind of job security he will have overseas.

This blows my mind... In the good old days, though, nobody worked the Rule 5 like Pat Gillick and your Toronto Blue Jays. It started with Willie Upshaw, picked in 1977 off the roster of Gillick’s old team, the Ne York Yankees. Upshaw would eventually become the first Blue Jay ever to drive in 100 runs in a season (103 in 1983) and was the first baseman on the Blue Jays’ first division winner in 1985. Another Rule 5er was a big part of that ’85 team as well, and he’s still the only Blue Jay ever to win the American League MVP award. George Bell was taken from the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980. Under Gillick, the Blue Jays also used the Rule 5 draft to select Kelly Gruber and Manny Lee -- the left side of the infield on the Blue Jays’ first World Series championship team -- as well as helpful pieces like Jims Acker and Gott. http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-have-rich-history-with-rule-5-draft/ This is an insane run. Probably the best in the history of the Rule 5: 1980 George Bell 1981 Jim Gott 1982 Jim Acker 1983 Kelly Gruber 1984 Manny Lee, Lou Thornton

Blue Jays did it in the eighties at one point. Edit: Manny Lee and Lou Thornton in 1984

Offensively Taylor Davis looks a significant upgrade over Jimenez or Thole. Not sure what the word is on his catching but assuming it's not JPA level bad, this would be a good pick. I'd probably just give him Jimenez' roster spot outright and save some spots for more pitching.

How would that have worked out?

Yeah he was dfa'd so no real leverage to get a return.

IIRC, the perception is worse than the reality. The Blue Jays actually have accountants that go through this with free agents and explain to them how it's not worse than most U.S. places. You only save money by signing in certain states (I'm thinking probably Florida and Arizona).

Got to love those low ceiling college pitchers that you can just rush to the majors. (BTW, he's a Dodger now)

There's a name I hadn't heard in awhile. Pitched a lot innings for the Twins in 2012 and 2013 and then fell off the map. Pitch to contact guy. Not terribly exciting but I suppose he could make an emergency start in a pinch.

He said in the original article that he left Allard "unranked". That didn't imply he was ranked and found inferior to the other prospects. He basically gave him an incomplete and yes that was in part because of how his injury history clouds his outlook. He also says in this latest piece that there wasn't a lot of info on Riley. He won't defend the choice to leave him off now but it was a perfectly defensible choice too. I suppose he could have put a note like you said but whatever, people are just being babies if you ask me.

Pitching from the stretch when he threw a changeup, Price would take an extra deep breath, one where you could see his shoulders shrug, and he would hold his set a beat longer. Price does this all the time. We've all seen that shoulder shrug deep breath thing. I'm really surprised that there's a pattern to it.

I admit, I screwed up leaving Riley off the list. There isn’t a ton of great information on him after the draft, but his talent is too high to be left out, and I can’t even give a reason why I did that. My mistake. Though I didn’t write on the 2015 draft, he was one of my favorites to follow as the draft happened. He says there was no good reason to leave him off but his reason is right there in the explanation. Insufficient data. He's not going to come out and say that he caved to an Internet lynch mob but that's clearly what he did.

He didn't forget Allard and Riley. He left them unranked because of insufficient data and he still had a write-up on Allard where he explained his rationale for leaving him off and gave him a scouting report. I thought that approach was fine and perfectly defensible. Now he's doing what everything else does and slotting the new draftees in his list.

You said he'd be just a normal guy if it wasn't for his daughters. He was a huge celebrity in his day.