Orgfiller

I mean he was only 92-96 in his cup of coffee with us last year but okay I guess.

His avg fastball velo has increased by 1.2 mph since last year. He didn't always throw 100.

Worked out great with Charlie Montoyo.

Tanner Roark had a significantly better track record of success than Matz and about as equal if not better than Ray. Matz was damaged goods entering 2021, Ray was inconsistent with flashes of brilliance mixed in with awful 5 BB performances. Kikuchi I'm pretty sure was well regarded coming out of Japan and had decent stretches in 2020 and 2021. The difference of Roark vs Matz entering their respective Blue Jays careers was like a 2-3 win difference.

If we could swing at the meatball breaking balls with no spin or velocity that would be great.

Probably likelihood of him achieving some WAR threshold. Like 4-5+ WAR in a season or cumulative performance over career/team control.

Why are we putting suspicious quotes around neck strain lol. Maybe he was playing kind of injured and that's why he was s*** before.

He's very white in a way that Biggio isn't.

That was a Royals hit if I've ever seen one.

He was obviously cheating on the high fastball, the slider away a bit more outside and he's a foot in front striking out badly.

Manoah is good enough honestly. I think you always leave him there.

I'm assuming either small sample in those kinds of events, or the high launch angle is throwing it off.

Wikipedia/B-Ref says yes. Whitley David Merrifield.

Drury has a higher OPS but Vlad is a better hitter by most metrics because *points to Jonah Hill* "He gets on base" In all seriousness though there's a lot of fluky performance in the Statcast numbers, Drury doesn't really hit the ball all that hard although he has been barrelling the ball often which helps. Vlad completely crushes the baseball though. Drury will likely regress closer to league average hitting both in general and especially now that he's out of the bandbox that is GABP.

Gausman just said f*** waiting for Nick Frasso I'll do this s*** right now.

I see what you're saying. Personally I value McClanahan more simply because he'd been better and projects better, and I feel like it's such a fool's errand trying to project which of the two has greater injury risk. Manoah is absolutely built and looks like he could handle starting more, but McClanahan could be Chris Sale in his 20s for all we know in terms of endurance. I feel like the additional velo (from the left side to boot) if anything just gives him the higher ceiling and both can spin some filthy breaking balls.

In a heartbeat. Manoah is excellent, McClanahan is better.

I distinctly remember Merryweather having a lights out performance at Yankee Stadium in 2021 where he struck out the side and made Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres look silly pumping 100 past them with a disgusting bugs bunny changeup.

Romano, Pearson and Merryweather have all hit triple digits. The Cards have Junior Fernandez and Jordan Hicks who routinely throw 100 but are f***ing awful, so I mean it's not like that's all there is to it.

Yeah for all the talk about us giving up on Rowdy too soon and missing that lefty bat he's basically a replacement level player. You need to do a lot more in the MLB than to just be an okay hitter with no defensive or baserunning value - in his case actually costing the team a lot of value in both aspects.

To be fair Jansen's value is probably similarly too low, unless for MLB players they update in-season as projections adjust.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/gabriel-moreno/22664/game-log?position=C&season=&gds=2022-07-13&gde=2022-07-26&type=-2 Too lazy to take a screenshot. 28 PAs, 7 H, 3 2B (no other XBH), 3:3 K/BB (10.7% for each), 1 SB, .292/.393/.417, 124 wRC+

I wonder how much it would take to acquire Victor Robles. Capable CF defender with good speed, swings an absolute pool noodle but projects well enough to be better than Zimmer. Also another Latin guy who could mesh well with the team and potentially give him the motivation to unlock his prospect tools, is only 25 and has a couple of years of control, but his value should be so diminished that you wouldn't need to pay very much for him and we know the Nats are selling. Just looked, his max exit velos aren't awful so there's at least the potential to hit the ball hard, but the majority of the time currently he might as well be tossing grounders and soft liners into the outfield himself rather than bringing a bat.

Yeah, the ironic thing is this team is actually better against RHP than LHP. Team wRC+ against righties is 116 which is third in the league, vs. lefties it's 109 which is 13th in the league. So even if we factor in some splits regression the team is probably at worst equally good against either handedness? We already often platoon guys like Biggio and Espinal or Tapia even though neither of these lefties actually have severe splits. So with that said I agree there's no real reason for us to go and pick up an ok lefty simply for the sake of them being a left handed hitter. Maybe you look for an upgrade on Zimmer in the form of a Billy Hamilton type, although even he isn't the runner or fielder that he used to be at this point and at least with the former there's some tools there for him to literally not be completely useless at the plate despite his being so thus far.

You're severely overreacting lol. First of all, by wRC+ Bo did better in 2021 than in 2020. The "gone down every single year of his 4 year career" can be explained by: Rookie year: only 212 PAs Sophomore year: only 128 PAs, shortened season, pandemic, couldn't even play in his home park Third year: his only actual full year, split between three different home parks Fourth year: is 2/3 of the way through, he can regress to his mean Bichette is whiffing and striking out more this year compared to last, while walking a bit more. His BABIP is the lowest in his career, so maybe that's regression to the mean or he's just being unlucky relative to his true talent. His avg. exit velo is 85th percentile, same as 2021, hard hit rate actually better - 89th percentile this year vs 83rd in 2021, barrel rate about the same, and there's nothing glaring in his batted ball data that indicates his swing has changed. Bo is fine, he's basically a ~120 wRC+ true talent hitter which is reflected in his projections, and due to his swing happy tendencies is prone to being streaky. He's likely not a 140 wRC+ monster like his rookie season, but still a very good hitter that should slot within the top 5 of the lineup.