Orgfiller

Ok but only Ryu has already been replaced and counts as dead money coming off the books. Kiermaier and Chapman will need to be replaced/brought back, that's 6-8 WAR minimum right there that most likely they'll have to spend to replace. That's before we start considering any arb increases from the younger players. They'll have some room to spend but they'll be right up against the max they're willing to spend again if they want to stay competitive with the core and contracts already in place.

Same with Jo Adell, who already has 12 homeruns in AAA, just turned 24 in April. I wonder how much it would take to acquire him, his defense is awful so he would be likely be Teo 2.0 but maybe some better coaching can unlock some defensive utility? Much like Teo he has all the tools, but maybe his instincts and baseball IQ are just terrible.

I don't know why this is the assumption to take. He's a top 50 prospect and hasn't played 2B since 2021 so clearly the team likes him on the left side of the infield. Now obviously, expecting him to replace Chapman's production at the hot corner is a tough ask, but both the team and the industry viewed Barger highly coming into the season, I don't think one month of poor performance should change that outlook.

The one constant this year for Belt is he takes excellent at bats. Takes close pitches for balls (although gets the Biggio treatment on a few of these), fouls off tough ones in the zone to keep the AB going and tiring the pitcher out, and will generally swing at the good pitches. The only problem, which is still the wildcard, is if his bat speed/timing can make a comeback. He’s at 90th percentile barrel rate, 71st percentile average EV and 77th percentile chase rate. The remains of a good hitter are there, but can he start making consistent contact going forward? If his K rate was 30-35% he would still be a productive hitter, if it was mid-high 20s then he might be the guy the Jays thought they were getting in signing him.

In their defense, they also faced maybe the two best teams in baseball. They were bound to regress heavily though.

Pitching tends to find a way to make these sorts of conundrums resolve themselves. One of those guys get injured (ideally not Gausman) and there’s a wide open hole in the rotation for Tiedemann to fill in.

Any velo numbers? He was low 90s last year I think on top of the command issues.

McCutchen and Santana are hitting in line with their projections. The wildcard here is Jack Suwinski who has 86th percentile average EV, 96th percentile max EV so the power is legit as f*** and he's barreling the hell out of baseballs - 96th percentile barrels, 83rd percentile hard hit rate. The craziest part about him, he has 97th percentile chase rate to go along with 96th percentile walk rate, but the other side of the coin, he's 17th percentile in whiff rate and 10th percentile K rate. So you can't throw Jack Suwinski balls hoping he chases, because he doesn't, so your best bet is to throw him strikes hoping he whiffs on them...except if he actually makes contact he's punishing the ball. Easily the biggest development for the Pirates so far.

It's not a thing. Green would be eligible for the postseason. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/postseason-roster-rules-eligibility Green is currently on the 60-day IL and will be the majority of the year.

Thus far the team has had a pretty good track record in moving MiLB talent and not have them come back to bite them. Moreno is the most likely right now to be one that'll sting moving away, but they got a guy in whom they believe to be a very solid contributor for a number of years in Varsho. Who have we even moved of note recently that we would love to have at the MLB level? Winckowski, who isn't even with the org they traded him to and is peaking as a reliever who throws semi hard and doesn't K anyone? Bryan Baker had like a 3 mph uptick on his fastball velo and has been good for the Orioles, that one sucks, but relievers just do that kind of s*** sometimes. The two highest profile guys they moved aside from Moreno were Austin Martin, who blows, and SWR who averages 91 on his fastball out of the bullpen and whose command hasn't been what it was as an advanced 18 year old in A+.

4 WAR out of Espinal over two full seasons too, for what was at best a 40 FV prospect. Danny Jansen wasn't a Shatkins pick, but any/all of his success at the MiLB + MLB levels came post 2016. Everyone's just being a doomer now after the embarrassing 4 game sweep in Boston, but at the end of April (literally one week ago) nobody was talking about how much of a disaster the player dev is.

He's 20...in high-A, it's not like anyone is saying he's on Tiedemann's level or anything. Cleveland's market inefficiency and what makes them so good at pitching dev is most of their pitching freaks are boring college pitchers who throw lots of strikes with okay stuff and somehow they get them to be strikeout monsters. Toronto will already draft the big power arms early - guys like Pearson, Manoah, Ricky Tieds, Barriera, Nick Frasso even - although IIRC Frasso started out as projectable arm, the big velo didn't come until later. I wonder how differently the pitching dev would be viewed if Pearson wasn't made of paper mache. Just because Berrios, Kikuchi were garbage last year doesn't mean the org targets soft tossers with "pitchability". Both of them are guys with good stuff, ditto Gausman and Manoah. They've also gotten career years out of Robbie Ray, Steven Matz, Ross Stripling and sold/let them go at the right times. To some extent that's a skill, it's just annoying and unfortunate that they haven't been able to develop these kinds of arms themselves. It's why I haven't given up on Mitch White yet, the org has found success with players of his ilk in the Shatkins era.

Santos has a pretty funky delivery. I can see both how it would lead to command issues and for his stuff to be hard to hit when they’re swinging at it.

Third or fourth place in the AL East is like a 90-95 win team.

Pitching prospects lol. TINSTAAPP

He's been pretty mediocre outside 2020. One of the rare examples of a guy from the Cleveland pitching factory not panning out. Just never had the stuff to produce swing and miss.

Good for him. Once his HR/FB rate regresses from 3% he'll be back to being a good 3/4 just like BTS mentioned.

The Mets paying 38 year old Max Scherzer and 40 year old Justin Verlander a combined $80M for them to have finally declined due to old age would be f***ing hilarious.

What the f*** is going on with the Cardinals? 10-21 with mostly the same roster as last year.

Yeah there’s that too. The throw would’ve beat the runner though so it might’ve been worth the effort.

Tough play for him, since it was neither in fair territory nor foul ground when he picked it up Vladdy couldn’t pick a side to give him a throwing lane. Kirk just had to guess where Vladdy would be standing.

That drilled him, f***. Initially I thought Kirk made a stupid throw as he should’ve aimed towards the left side of the bag, but the replay showed the ball was right on the line when he picked it up, lose-lose with him picking it up on the move as well.

I know he missed across but ump?

f***

Varsho is an incredible baserunner.