Orgfiller

Francis is bringing it again. Tough start with the pair of homers but he's really settled down since. 6:0 K/BB, 16 whiffs in 83 pitches -> 6/25 on the FB, 4/10 on the splitter, 4/5 on the slider.

To be fair they might just be wanting to increase his positional versatility, and giving MLB reps is the best way to gain valuable experience at a position he might be slightly less accustomed to. Yesterday night when Barger came out of the game they shifted Clement to 3B and Leo to SS. I think they're molding him to be a utility guy who can/you're fine with starting more often than not, and with Wagner/Horwitz being the strong side of the platoon and Davis Schneider tanking, they need someone to cover the lefty platoon at 2B if Clement is gonna be playing the left side of the infield. Also, Bo still does exist within the org. They might think Leo is already capable enough of handling SS, but we know he won't be a starter there if Bichette is still around, so move him around the infield and see what other positions he can cover with the former healthy.

The crazy thing is he's underperforming his xwOBA by 25 points which is pretty significant. Even Aaron Judge has a delta of within .001 between his actual and expected.

That's some insane power output for his size. Altuve esque, and even he didn't show this kind of power in the minors.

The problem with May is he had turned into kind of a slap hitter. Like yes his wRC+ was 166, but his BABIP was .412 and his ISO .112 which was lower than even his poor April. Now sure, in retrospect you can say that maybe May was him tweaking his swing to have more bat control and plate discipline, as his K rate dropped and walk rate improved. But it was concerning at the time that someone with his natural raw power and hitting prowess could only be a rich man's Ichiro. Subsequent months saw the power output and contact ability merge into one, culminating in the glorious stretch from July onwards as an absolutely elite hitter.

I don't think that is true at all, I think you have it backwards. If a player is replaced with 2 strikes against them, and the substitute player then proceeds to strike out, then the replaced player is charged for a strikeout. The same is true I think of a pitcher replaced mid-AB if they got the hitter to a 3 ball count, if the substitute pitchers completes the walk it is charged against the original pitcher who was taken out. It would be completely illogical to award hits to a substituted player who was taken out mid-AB. If there's one thing baseball never does, it's try to assume that a hit is the likely outcome from a plate appearance.

Sneakily putting up a solid 3 WAR season with elite hard hit ball rates, coming off major injury. He's like if present day Giancarlo Stanton was also an excellent baserunner and could play a valuable position.

More importantly than needing to dissect his season into chunks - slumps and hot streaks are just natural parts of the game - is that his expected results based on quality of contact has him looking like he should be closer to a 120 wRC+ bat. As a comparable to justify me pulling this number out of my ass, Horwitz has a .342 wOBA which translates into a 124 wRC+, Kirk is sitting at a .338 xwOBA on the season. If his brutally poor luck this season had translated into performance, we'd be looking at Kirk's season very favourably and feel extremely comfortable with him being our #1 option behind the dish next season. I mean, we still should be, but it would help to look at his raw line and see some prettier numbers.

I mean he's 25 years old with 40 innings above A+ in 6 years with the org, it's reasonable to be skeptical that he's anything more than a journeyman. Would be interesting to know if there's anything to the stuff, as it's worrisome how slowly the org has progressed him through the system given he's been around since 2018 with always pretty decent performance. Always injured, poor stuff that would get figured out at higher levels? Did he revamp his body and stuff this past offseason in a lab and it's paying dividends?

Yes, the Jays totally needed a replacement level DH who is always injured as a rental in a non competitive season.

If you sort the MLB wRC+ leaderboards for careers, Joey Votto slots in at 50th best all-time. That's ahead of legends and recent inductees like Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones, Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Larry Walker, Reggie Jackson, Miguel Cabrera. Joey Votto is a slam-dunk HOF. One of the best hitters of his generation, MVP, generally likeable guy by the media and fans.

Not that anything you said is incorrect, but it appears RPs have higher standard deviations of Location+ than SPs do. I have to imagine that has to do with relievers being able to get away with poor control/walks over a short stint, but a starter going multiple innings won't. A reliever can get away with walking a guy every ~1.5-2 innings, but as a starter that's awful and means you're likely not sticking in the rotation much longer. https://library.fangraphs.com/pitching/stuff-location-and-pitching-primer/ If you scroll down to the Pitching+ section, you'll see the chart have it as 3.34 SD for SPs, and 5.87 for RPs. If you check out Swanson's page, he's dropped from 98 Location+ to 94, so reasonably within one standard deviation (for a reliever). His Stuff+ actually got better(?) on his two secondary pitches, but it went from garbage to abysmal on his fastball, and his Location+ on his splitter cratered as well. So the splitter is more or less as good as it used to be, the slider has actually been somewhat better, but the fastball became unplayable.

Corbin Burnes is an elite arm when healthy. Zach Eflin is a very good SP3 or good SP2 that you're comfortable starting games in the playoffs. Let's not overstate his contributions.

If you ever wonder why people don't bother having discussions with you, it's dumbass sentences like this. I haven't seen JH being some overzealous homer anywhere, and here you are claiming that he's some 80 IQ fan who worships the Jays' front office for no reason. It completely invalidates the rest of your post. Nobody is comparing the Orioles to the Blue Jays, only you are. And then you're the first one complaining when people do try to make a comparison. It's exhausting and unreadable garbage that provides nothing in the way of discussion. I'm sure you'll reply with some strawman argument about me being an ardent Ross Atkins defender. That's your entire personality these days.

It's a couple of things. Intentional walks are kinda dumb and teams have learned that it's not smart to give away free bases, even with hitters as feared as Judge. The other thing is that while Judge is probably in the 99.99..th percentile in terms of raw/in-game power all-time, he does whiff and strike out quite a bit. Bonds didn't, he was complete in every possible way, elite eye, elite in-game power, elite contact rates. He was also someone you didn't want on base, earlier in his career, as he was a very good runner who would steal bases. lol Even before his peak steroid era years, Bonds was putting up 18-20% BB rates, with strikeout rates no higher than ~14%, with ISOs in the .300-.330s range (Judge is currently at .388 this season). So when Bonds entered peak steroid final boss mode, he had the best eye in the game, didn't strike out, and when you actually pitched to him his ISOs were in the .400s-.500 range. Completely unbeatable. Of course, with Judge, he's facing the best pitching ever with insane velocity and spin. So being the mountain of a man that he is, he chases barrels and hard contact at all times to maximize his power at the expense of some more swing and miss.

Interesting note about Kirk, he's actually not having all the bad of a hitting season if you look under the hood. His BABIP on the season sits at a lowly .257, which even with his poor foot speed is uncharacteristically low for a hitter with his all-fields, line drive approach. He has a .339 xwOBA, which is a 53 point underperformance from his actual wOBA. Sure, you can claim that Kirk will always lose a bit of expected output due to his pathetic baserunning ability costing him numerous infield singles and doubles, but never to this extent. His avg. exit velo and xwOBA sit comfortably in the 70th percentile, he doesn't swing and miss, draws a decent number of walks, and he's never been a barrel chaser but does connect hard. If his underperformance was more in the ballpark of 10-15 wOBA points lost due to his legs, we'd be probably be looking at him with a ~110 wRC+ and comfortably providing 3-4 WAR of value.

The Jays signed IKF to a bargain 2/15 price, got an elite 2 WAR half season out of him, flipped him at his highest value for a stud in Charles McAdoo who RAKES in AA at a good age for the level, and then replaced IKF internally with literally another IKF at the league minimum. Absolute masterclass from Ross.

It's all SSS and adjusting to the new level though. He was very good in A+ for them, albeit at not the best age for the level, and had only played 8 games in AA in his first taste.

This is Buxton's second best hitting season lol. Your ability to be consistently confidently incorrect is incredible.

Don't forget Wagner at 2B for maximum chaos. The new market inefficiency is gonna be pairing Berrios and other slick fielding pitchers to cover up for the abysmal infield defense.

A big reason for their turnaround is Carroll has been closer to the level we saw from him last season in the second half. 149 wRC+ with an ISO nearing .350. Eugenio Suarez also rocking a 141 wRC+ since the break. Gabby Moreno at 152 wRC+ (limited playing time). They basically coasted long enough to not bottom out and now one hot streak has put them right back into real contention.

Bieber for like a 2/$40-50M deal would be a dream, not sure if that's realistic though, and for a team that's on the low end of contention he might not even want to come here to have his bounceback. Maybe 1/20 deal with a player option for 2/60 for the next two seasons after that could get it done, but the risk is major with a relatively low reward if he's not fully healthy by May 2025. Buehler would be nice on a pillow deal, Gleyber you'll probably need some opt out laden contract to convince him.

No way Manoah or Ricky T are options for next season. Best case they start real pitching around July ish, go on rehab for a month+, and between the inevitable setbacks and s*** performance from coming back from major arm surgery, best case they can relief for 2 innings at a time tops in late September. They're both strictly 2026 depth options at this point, let's hope they at least recover decently from their injuries, but I have even less faith in Ricky than I do Manoah to make it back as a contributor in the rotation. I can see Manoah coming back as a rock solid 4/5 innings eater with some potential for more, Ricky I think is doomed to relief, the innings just aren't there and he can't seem to handle a starter's load.

To play devil's advocate to the notion that he would be a plus outfielder still, you kind of have to consider the fact that he's now 30 and has played the outfield in competitive games for all of 8 innings in his entire MLB career, and he never received one opportunity to make a play in those instances. How ever much he's out there shagging flyballs in BP pregame doesn't hold a candle to the instincts and muscle memory he's probably lost since playing the outfield in competitive games back in Japan. It's entirely possible the DH penalty is still more favourable than having him play defense at this point in time. After all, his teammate Teoscar Hernandez is the perfect example of a guy who should have all the tools to play an elite - let alone average - corner OF, and he's struggled immensely to do so his entire career, despite countless opportunities out there to improve. Won't argue with you about most talented player in history. That just goes without saying lol.

Ah yes, and Elly has a totally sustainable .360 BABIP right? Not to mention the very sustainable 30 points of xWOBA overperformance right? Come on Jim, don't be obtuse just because you own one guy in fantasy. Elly has just as much variance as anyone with that K rate, the defense has been just above average but nowhere near Witt's level, and they're 1A and 1B in terms of sprint speed in the majors, both will post big numbers baserunning wise. Witt is clearly a much better player now, ELDC still has another level to reach to get there.