Orgfiller

Added Tyus Jones. TCA up, will PM and email.

Genuinely could not find how to set my keepers. I'll keep Poeltl over McCollum, the rest look good.

I feel like the most likely of the FAs to come back (of the ones anyone actually cares about anyway) might actually be Chapman? He was dogshit with the bat from April onwards, but on the whole his numbers over the season are basically identical to last year's. Everyone keeps saying "he's not the defender he was once", which is probably true, but by every metric available he was actually a better defender this season than the last. His avg EV was excellent (98th percentile), barrel rate and hard hit rate were elite (98th and 100th!! percentile respectively), he didn't chase much, and both his sprint speed and baserunning value were once again good. Maybe you hope he takes the QO, or try to offer him a 1/20-22 pillow deal, where he'll spend all offseason getting rid of the ******** opposite field approach and come into Spring launching bombs to the pull side, with some regression happening during the season, to once again put up yet another 3-4 win season. There's basically no reason to believe Chapman will be a < 3 win player in 2024, his mean is exactly that of 2022-2023, which were practically the exact same season on the aggregate.

Good call, I feel like this makes releasing him even more of an almost no-brainer decision. Cabrera has 1 remaining according to fangraphs, everyone else that's relevant (Pearson, Espinal, Biggio even) have at least 2.

I think Richards is such a volatile relieve that at this point I'd just release him. He started out the season on fire, but in classic Trevor Richards form he completely blew up near the end of the year, to the point where you'd want him nowhere near a mound in a tight playoff game. The Ks are great, when the changeup is working it's one of the best pitches out there, but the fastball is a terrible pitch, his command is shaky, and he has a terrible tendency to give up some absolute bombs in bunches. Barely above replacement his whole reliever career. Spend the $2.4MM on a collection of league min relievers from the farm throughout the year, one of which is bound to produce similarly or better. Use the savings in conjunction with other money coming off the books to make an upgrade elsewhere. Espinal at $2.5MM is okay I guess but also not someone you should be giving much more than the league min. to. I'd consider seeing if he bites at a cheaper one year deal, or consider non tendering him altogether.

Where have you seen that Smith might be moved from the catching position? He's one of the best catchers, offensive and defensively, in the sport, and he doesn't hurt you on the bases. The Dodgers also have Freddie Freeman at first, so where would he even be moved to?

The offense were given multiple chances lol. Gausman didn't have it in the first game, but the bullpen locked the f*** in and blanked the Twins the rest of the way for 4 innings. Game 2, Kikuchi BLEW UP...to the extent of 2 runs, and that was it. The bullpen following him yet again completely shut down the Twins for another 3.1 IP. What did the offense do? The pitching or controversial Berrios to Kikuchi decision didn't lose us the series.

So, you want Atkins fired because of the state of the team and org. But if it was AA instead in his position with the exact same results, it would be unreasonable if people would want him fired as well? You think people who defend Atkins are doing so because of his stunning good looks, dripping swag, and charismatic interviews?

Dude Chapman just hit a ball 401 feet. I don’t know what else you think Davis Schneider, or just about anyone, could have done better.

Jansen being injured basically makes it so that they have to carry Cam Eden at all times for whenever Kirk gets on base late in games. Also what's the status on Jansen's injury? Is he due back at any point in the playoffs?

It's been a whole 2 years since he last pitched for them. In any case, you can see his career # against them, pretty much in line with career numbers with a couple of big time K/BB performances, one clunker (peak 2022 Berrios) and one wild but effective start. https://www.statmuse.com/mlb/ask/berrios-career-record-vs-twins https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=berrijo01&year=Career&t=p#oppon_extra

Bichette has an uncanny ability to foul off any pitch no matter how nasty, and just continue doing so until he gets one that he can actually do something with. Insane hands and coordination.

Good to see him lean on the breaking ball more.

Margot is not their regular CF, Siri is and he’s elite. Margot is having a nightmare of a game but he’s also not nearly this bad.

It went under his glove as a routine fieldable groundball. That’s a 3 base error all the way.

How does Vlad even mishit that. That should’ve been sent 450 feet.

It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The reason homers are important in the playoffs, or more decisive, is because pitching and defense are that much better compared to the regular season. The best teams are in the playoffs, and the best teams tend to have better pitching and defense, so the baseline is already naturally significantly higher. With better pitching and defense, it's harder to string hits together and make s*** happen on the bases, so out-homering the opponent will set you up better for getting wins. You also can't be a bad hitting team and make the playoffs, generally speaking. So teams that make it will have more prolific power hitters/hit better for power as a team, and it will be manifested into better winning chances when encountering good pitching + defense in the playoffs, against similarly powerful teams.

Yeah, most seem to think Votto is essentially a slam dunk HOF'er, and Freeman will easily surpass him in fWAR next season barring catastrophic injury in the offseason, and will be within a couple of decent (2-3 win) seasons from also overtaking him in bWAR as well. He's peaking offensively and baserunning wise in his mid 30s lol. To be fair, this is also around exactly when Votto started succumbing to injuries and age related decline. Freddie is easily tracking to surpass him in most counting stats, with career-wise wRC+ currently a wash, though he likely ends up under as his decline years bring down the overall performance.

Moreno is a poor framer and DRS believes he's the second coming of Yadier Molina (who was, unsurprisingly, one of the best framers of all time). That's where the massive (2+ wins) difference in rWAR and fWAR are coming from. OAA still thinks he's a good defensive catcher, albeit more good than great due to the aforementioned framing issues. Fun fact: Varsho is 0.4 dWAR behind Moreno, as DRS believes he's Brett Gardner in LF and Kevin Kiermaier in CF. He has 27 DRS combined, 17 of which are attributed to his CF defense - which is as much as KK has but Varsho has accrued it in half the innings.

He did strike out 7. The weird thing is a lot of the Rays’ hits were on fastballs way outside the zone. Almost as if they were just waiting on Kikuchi to lose his release point and miss up and away, which he does pretty often throughout his starts. Kind of a fascinating strategy, don’t think many teams are just waiting for a pitcher to miss but not in the middle of the zone.

Oops

I mean, Gausman exists. The pitching and defense has been great, that’s why we’re here. The hitters as a group have been decent but nobody has stood out for prolonged periods without slumping or getting injured (Bo).

I feel like a big part of it is how many fans are transplants. Lots of NYY, Red Sox and Canadian snowbird fans down south. Obviously Florida also has a big Latin American community, and many of those fans are also Yankees or Red Sox (Big Papi) fans by default. Those games for the Rays probably average by far the most attendance, while Miami doesn't even get to see the Yankees all that much.

While I'm sure there were mechanical swing changes involved, I'm pretty sure Heyward has changed his swing many times throughout the course of his career. I think it's been a big thing and a source of frustration with fans of the teams that have employed him. He never lived up to the offensive bar he put up in his rookie 20 year old season and bounced between awful to mediocre to somewhat above average offensively ever since. That's not to say he was a bust or his career hasn't been a productive one, but it's been a recurring theme for him to make changes to his swing that have had varying levels of success, or lack thereof.