Orgfiller

Alan Roden is clearly LF Spencer Horwitz. Hopefully it’s semi passable “below average” defense rather than butcher who should DH. Not the worst outcome if he becomes like this version of Horwitz though.

Meh, he’s just a guy you can plug in at pretty much any infield position to give guys days off. Been with the org forever and had a decent little year at AAA so it’s also a nice gesture to such a long tenured player. The team isn’t competing anyway, so just plug him wherever to allow yourself to rest anyone without fear of him getting injured and also feel good about yourself because you’re doing him a solid at the same time.

Brent Rooker has a 168 wRC+ this season with 4.8 WAR. That's a better hitting line than Vlad (barely) and equal WAR in in about 80 PAs fewer. Guy is legitimately one of the best hitters in baseball, and the projections believe it too.

It's not like he's a complete disaster out there or anything, e.g. when comparing him to someone who actually looks bad out there like Teoscar. He's 36th percentile OAA, with slightly above average range and arm strength, but his accuracy must be horrendous because the only reason he's a negative by Statcast is his arm value is a -2. Is he airmailing the cutoff throw every time and missing badly when throwing to bases or something? Seems like this has been an issue before for him, just one of those things he never really got good at and it's only gotten worse.

Lmao at these dumb f***ing idiots giving a gassed Francis two outs on two pitches. On the weakest contact imaginable.

Yeah definitely some conditioning work to be done in the offseason to prepare for at least a 130 IP starter's load. Since the no-no bid he's pretty much been running on fumes, decent quality pitches still but the reduced velo makes his error margin a lot higher, can't get away with as much. Have to imagine the back and forth between the rotation, long and medium length relief, has f***ed with his conditioning a bit as well. Maybe a more consistent load - ideally as a starter - shouldn't see this come up as clearly.

Not as many whiffs in this one, but Bowden Francis is getting pop ups for days. Lots of awkward weak swings and guys getting under the ball when they're connecting.

This lineup looks like Vlad Jr. and Springer are rehabbing in Buffalo.

Don't think any of those 3 teams are looking likely to make it in as things stand. Anything could happen but it would take quite the chaotic September.

It's just strange because the Giants are basically bidding against themselves in this deal. Like this is the absolute max deal that any team would be comfortable giving to Chapman, which might be generous, and they did it before the player even gets to FA to test the waters? Chapman this season has basically been his identical usual self, 110-120 wRC+, plus/plus-plus defense, slightly better baserunning than usual. That guy last offseason could only do as a good as 3/54 (with the player opt outs giving him more leverage), is he really worth 3 times that amount a year later (older) with no semblance of a talent change? What a weird contract to hand out before they reach FA.

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.