TwistedLogic

Even if you're being generous, the "out" is what, 11 wins? Lawrie (3), Melky (2), Lind (1.5), Happ (1.5), Gose (1), Rasmus (1), Janssen (.5), everyone else (.5)? Being very conservative, Donaldson (5), Martin (5), Saunders (2) and Smoak (1) alone give you 13 wins. That actually unfairly assumes that Donaldson and Martin will negatively regress despite moving to a better park. That's also not even counting for anything Travis might do, and excludes Estrada completely. And the Jays aren't even done yet. Yes, this is a considerably better team. Taking health and payroll into account, it's a monumentally better team. In 2015, Donaldson, Martin, Saunders and Smoak in total will make as much as Morrow and Rasmus alone made in 2014.

I thought Devlin was great doing baseball. I also like whenever Siddall steps in.

Google has him at 1.80 m (5'9), so that matches your story as well. I'm almost positive that the outcome of the Sanchez vs Norris battle will be truly determined in Spring Training.

Yeah I'm not really getting the dependence on statistics and projections here for a guy like Sanchez. The FO clearly know more about the guys' mechanics, scouting and adjustments to where they feel they can determine where each of them are on the depth chart as of now. Besides, what the projected rotation is right now is completely irrelevant, because even without any new acquisitions (I don't know if I see them going into the year without any new additions), spring training almost always changes the pecking order (see: 2013, Romero). No reason to argue about it in December.

http://i.gyazo.com/d3c75e52499b0db3738d0efbfaf1b403.png

All that means is that the Jays system is incredibly strong, and the systems we've traded to have generally been weak.

The one you're thinking about is probably the walkoff that ended that 19 inning game or however long it was.

Stroman was considered near-ready for the majors out of the draft. People all across the industry were predicting him to be the first player from that class to reach the majors.

Acceptable. I think he'd make a far better color guy. He's terrible on play-by-play.

lol, I can't believe I'm saying this, but Buck Martinez is pretty damn smart for an ancient commentator/70's porn star, when most guys with his age and background are traditionalist fossils. He always seems to give good interviews, and this latest one is no exception. http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7417714/v37011695/buck-martinez-talks-blue-jays-moves-on-hot-stove/?query=blue%2Bjays When the guys mention that the Jays have yet to address their pitching, he talks about how much the pitching will improve simply because of the Martin and Donaldson acquisitions. Mentions how he thinks Graveman is a sleeper, but how great it is that they kept Stroman, Hutchison, Norris, Sanchez and Osuna. He says that he believes the Rays have a great model of building bullpens, which is to get under the radar buy-low and bounce-back guys as opposed to spending on big ticket free agents. When talking about how right-heavy the lineup is, he says he's excited to see Justin Smoak, who he thinks is a big sleeper that, despite not having "put it all together" yet, still has a lot of potential, especially at the RC. "You have to address defense. The Blue Jays on the surface look like a good defensive team, but when you break down the defensive metrics, they were near the bottom defensively last year. Dalton Pompey should improve that in center, Russell Martin will certainly improve it behind the plate"

Best thing I've seen all year. "That guy is gonna be too good" this chick is bad ass. Also this: http://i.gyazo.com/6ebb72d62e3da901db0c2531e609b5d8.png http://i.imgur.com/RN70TUF.gif

Haha, I wasn't trying to be a grammar nazi, but might as well go all the way at this point define: induce succeed in persuading or influencing (someone) to do something. "the pickets induced many workers to stay away" define: deduce arrive at (a fact or a conclusion) by reasoning; draw as a logical conclusion. "little can be safely deduced from these figures" I think maybe you were looking for the word "infer" define: infer deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements. "from these facts we can infer that crime has been increasing"

You mean deduction?

Here's a blurb from the excellent Blengino article I referred to above: http://i.gyazo.com/5ee161b33fe2d11bdb3af817c9606078.png And another: http://i.gyazo.com/328d0c2531458d92db878077ee06cd6a.png

And almost comically, he's actually due for some positive regression outside of just moving to the Roger's center. According to Tony Blengino of fangraphs (here) he had a criminally low line-drive rate last year (6th perceptine), far lower than his career norms (56th percentile in 2013), so he should actually improve at the plate based solely on that. Pair that with moving to the Rogers center, where he'll get fewer outs in foul territory, he'll get more balls through the gaps on the ground due to the turf, and he'll knock more of them out of the park, due to the closer outfield walls, and the hard-carry atmosphere in the dome, and we have reason to be incredibly optimistic with the Jays' new third baseman. I'm one of the people that think Lawrie will put up 4+ wins in Safeco, and was predicting a Pompey-like rise for Barreto in 2015, and I'm still f***ing stoked.

These are usually the worst trades every year. I really hate the idea of giving up a considerable amount of talent for three months of a player. Just absolutely hate trade deadline rentals and they're almost never worth it. You don't even get a draft pick if they leave.

Well then to that I gotta say that 130M over 5 years for two relievers is just not a very good use of your assets at all. Not even a little bit.

No, Soria is good, but they won't give him up. Outside of him, their relief pitching was pretty garbage last season. If they want Navarro, the Jays should give him to them for free. I'd also really appreciate if they would dump Estrada on somebody. I get why people like him on the depth, but you can bring in someone like Beachy or Medlen for the same price. Estrada's skill set doesn't play to the dome, and he was terrible last year. No way in hell you get those guys for 5/26 combined. You're looking at 4/90 at the very least (4/40 for Miller, 4/50 for Robertson). Neither guy is worth that kind of money with the other relief arms still available out there (Neshek, Gregerson, Crain, trade market).

Is that Kevin Pillar behind the kid with the glasses? He'll look ugly as f*** in that uniform. Yeah I could see Loup working, but I don't really see AA dropping a reliever from a bullpen that only has like three arms right now. I'm kinda surprised that he did. He usually sticks to the "I can't comment on specific players" narrative and this revelation won't do Melky's camp any favors in leveraging the market.

I've repetitively said how perfect Moss will be on this team, but I don't know what you trade for him that the A's would want. I can't imagine AA didn't try to add someone like Moss or Reddick or something to the Donaldson trade, and it must have been a thing where they couldn't work something out on what would go the other way. Swisher isn't good anymore.

Bautista has a similar contract right now to what Headley apparently has on the table. Despite some serious injury troubles, Bautista's contract has long been considered one of the best in the game. The value he'll provide on that contract will far outweigh some injury concerns.

Josh Donaldson knows where his bread is buttered By Nick Ashbourne | @Nick_Ashbourne on Dec 3 2014, 1:59p http://i.gyazo.com/33958d8a92942e46df1ea0ad1b232a7e.png Just about everything that can be said about the Josh Donaldson-Brett Lawrie trade has been said. That doesn't mean there isn't more to know about the man who will be manning the hot corner for the Blue Jays for the foreseeable future. MjwW already put out an excellent summary on what Jays fans can expect from Donaldson as a hitter, but today I figured I would go a little bit deeper on the man who rather justifiably fancies himself a "Bringer of Rain". Donaldson's patience-power combo is well documented, as is his inspiration, but what makes the slugger so effective? It should come as no surprise to know that as a Jose Bautista disciple Donaldson absolutely feasts on pitches middle-in. The following Brooks Baseball zone profile shows his Isolated Power by pitch location since his 2013 breakout: http://i.gyazo.com/5f1642b64e4952b5cc094eb2806d4ccb.png Almost all of his extra-base hits come from pitches on the inside half of the plate. We tend to think that Bautista is the same way, but in fact Donaldson is much more extreme in his preference for inside pitches. The Baseball Savant heatmap below shows the pitch location for all of Bautista's extra-base hits last season: http://i.gyazo.com/5fa74f0d70e8f591a0bf9cb477ce42fa.png Joey Bats is hitting the ball with authority wherever it's pitched. Donaldson, on the other hand, is more specialized: http://i.gyazo.com/210e84bcdfd6bf1b04f935d40ba266a0.png The 28-year-old does almost all of his rain bringing on pitches middle-in with a preference for balls lower in the zone. Interestingly, Donaldson's swing rate by pitch location over the last two years seems to suggest that he is very much cognizant of this information. http://i.gyazo.com/08d2121c241ea8c10c865da748be31b5.png For the more chart inclined folks, the relationship between Donaldson's swing rate and power breaks down like this: http://i.gyazo.com/6b5e77daed41c02659710f1f9a9aa0c1.png For the purposes of the table I defined "inside" as the leftmost two columns in the zone profile above and "outside" as the rightmost two. From this information it appears that Donaldson destroys inside pitches, and he knows it. The quick rebuttal to this would be to say that most extra-base hits come from pulling the ball, and it's easier to pull inside pitches. There is absolutely some truth to that, but looking at the distribution of Donaldson's extra-base knocks last year shows he is not just pulling the ball: http://i.gyazo.com/3d21540e2e06f721704618e7c805d996.png Even if the new Blue Jays slugger isn't hitting pitches all over the plate, he is driving balls all over the diamond. It seems that he is simply a savvy guy that know his greatest strength, specifically crushing inside pitches. More specifically, he has absolutely owned pitches on the low-and-inside corner of the zone. He can pull those pitches to left field... ...drive them to centre.... ...or even take them the opposite way. Donaldson is just a special hitter. His combination of power and plate discipline make that abundantly clear. It seems that he pairs those abilities with a strong knowledge of where he can do the most damage on by aggressively going after balls inside and laying off outside pitches. While self-awareness is unlikely to be graded on a scout's 20-80 scale, it could be a big factor in Donaldson's success.

I can see the Yankees being behind that offer, but 4/65 will probably end up being a complete steal on Headley.

Like I said, I agree. Reporters are *******s. Still, it's their job and it's a dog-eat-dog industry, so when you have an opportunity to get a controversial bite like this, and the guy on the receiving end is a dumbass bigot that isn't in much need of remorse, I can see why they keep prodding him about it, and will probably continue to do so, especially after this spectacle. No, this is a one-sided way of thinking. If the media can talk to Martin about his Canadian heritage, or Dickey about his trek to climb a random mountain, or about his history with being sexually abused, or they can ask Rasmus about how much he hates LaRussa, or just last night, ask Saunder's to talk about his uncomfortable situation with Jack Z, they can ask a question like this. None of these guys lashed out and said this has nothing to do with baseball, whether they were easy or tough questions. Saunders immediately responded saying that he wasn't going to go into it, but he still gave them somewhat of an answer. You said it yourself, they're paid professional athletes. If you look back at the interview, when Hunter said that it had nothing to do with baseball and they could ask him about it when he's retired, it was done. The guy didn't prod him anymore. It was a train-of-thought type thing where Hunter randomly felt he later had to add "Mike is a prick though". Im not defending the reporter, I don't care about the reporter. Im only talking on the principle of Hunter acting like an assclown on national TV, regardless of the reason or provocation. When he has the views he has, he should know that he'll never be the "victim" in these situations because he brought it upon himself.

Everybody knows that reporters are *******s, but they shouldn't be called out in that setting and in the manner that it was done. If he had left it where he originally left it, that would have been more than adequate of a response, telling him that it had nothing to do with baseball and they can talk to him about this stuff after he's retired. Dwelling on it in his head and then lashing out and saying "prick" four times in the middle of a press conference is completely unwarranted and doesn't constitute "calling someone out". It makes you look like an uneducated and unprofessional tard. Secondly, it was Hunter's prerogative for originally mentioning his homophobic views in the media in the first place. How do you expect to not be grilled for that? If he didn't want to be questioned for it, he should have been smart enough to know not to spew that garbage in an open forum in the first place. Of course, that thought probably never crossed his mind, because he's a moron that clearly doesn't think before he talks.