TwistedLogic

That looks like an elite pickoff move.

Mets qualify Conforto and Syndergaard. This will make signing Thor to a one-year deal a lot harder to justify. Also, Conforto might seriously consider accepting. This is essentially the one-year "prove it" deal the Jays gave to Semien.

Adding the Reds to the list of teams that are a hilarious tire fire.

Didn't know this page existed but it's a great resource for payroll estimates. They've plugged in MLBTR's arbitration projections too: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/payroll/blue-jays

Boras is probably frothing at the mouth for this upcoming offseason. I'm already exhausted just imagining how many ******** hot takes and annoying statements he's going to interject during the CBA negotiations.

That's not what happened. Barfield clearly said afterward that he hadn't been removed as an Alumni Ambassador. Now that he's deleted all of those tweets he very well could have been removed but he hadn't been up until that point. What actually happened, according to him, is that he secretly coached a few of the players to help them break out of slumps. He now believes he deserves credit for their offensive turnarounds and wants to parlay that into a paid Special Assistant position with the team. From the tone of his tweets, it seemed like he already asked the team for that and they hadn't called back, so he turned to social media because he thought he'd drum up a bunch of public pressure from his millions and millions of loyal fans and the team would have no choice but to offer him a cushy part-time position. Only nobody actually cares about Jesse Barfield so his plan backfired and all he got out of it was that he made himself look like a psychotic and unprofessional chump that no organization will ever trust again because he can just wake up one day and say whatever the f*** he wants on Twitter, even if it compromises confidential information pertaining to the team or its players.

Not necessarily a purely financial decision. Could be that they prefer him developing in the United States. Could be that they want him to get a proper high school education while he's working his way up. Could be any number of things. If all they care about is money, they could secure a pretty decent bag in the IFA market and he'd get the money two years sooner. It would need to be added in this upcoming CBA. If Lil' Beltre was an IFA, he'd be eligible to sign in like 2025, he wouldn't be waiting till 2028. I'm not even sure how all of this works. If a kid is an American school, can he even declare as an IFA?

So apparently Blue Jays prospect Manuel Beltre's little brother Enmanuel Beltre is considered by some people to be the best prospect in the world at his age. Kid is 12-13 years old and is already drawing some comparisons to Fernando Tatis Jr. https://brobible.com/sports/article/who-is-enmanuel-beltre-baseball/ https://www.perfectgame.org/Players/Playerprofile.aspx?ID=691725 Here's the report from the Perfect Game link: Enmanuel Beltre is a 2028 SS with a 5-3 110 lb. frame from Dominican Republic, SD who attends Dominican Republic. Smaller frame with a lean and an athletic build. Ran a 7.93 second 60-yard dash. Primary shortstop, works very athletically around the infield with good range to either side, stays balanced through the process and has soft hands that allows him to adjust on the move while throwing from multiple arm angles and maintaining accuracy across. Right-handed hitter, sets up slightly open and uses a simple trigger; shows fast hands and works to be explosive through impact. Able to use loft to get the ball in the air and ends the barrel at a very consistent rate. Very advanced player for the age with a good foundation. Named to 2021 13u Florida Showcase Top Prospect List. Problem is, I don't think he's coming into the league through the international market. If he does, the Blue Jays should obviously have a massive advantage towards signing him, since they already made those connections to sign his older brother. But it also looks like he's currently playing stateside and if he enters the league through the draft (Jose Bautista style) then they don't really have any say in whether they can pick him up or not. @Angrioter, do you have any info on this kid and what path he's going to take?

Y'all are a mess.

The guy who broke the news of the Jays coming back to Toronto and increasing capacity a month later is saying the Jays are operating with a $180M payroll figure in mind this coming offseason. Says the team will be very busy and could go even higher than 180M if the right situation presents itself. If that's true, most of my "fantasy GM" plans fit within that number.

Again, you come off like a person who has literally never watched a baseball game before. You understand the point of a checked swing don't you? It's when a ball looks to be close initially and then quickly starts tailing far outside. As you see that happening, you pull your bat back, don't follow through with the swing and add an easy ball to your count. Wilmer Flores did all of that perfectly. He was then f***ed by a bad umpire on a checked swing call that was nowhere close to crossing the plate, on a pitch that was nowhere close to touching the zone. You are trying very hard to die on a hill with one of the worst arguments I've ever seen someone passionately fight when discussing baseball.

Do you actually know what "protecting the plate" means? Protecting the plate is fouling off pitches that are 2-3 inches outside so that you don't leave it up to a s***** umpire screwing you on a close call. It does not mean swinging at garbage that is a foot outside and is nearly in the dirt. Your idea of "protecting the plate" means every count in a close game should always be 0-2. Guys should try to foul every pitch and likely go down chasing crap pitches each time.

The Jays should fire Montoyo and make Dante manager so the Yankees don't steal him away as a hitting coach.

The Yankees got better today. I was really hoping they'd hang on to Marcus Thames just based on how much the Yankees offense underperformed and how much their fans hated him and wanted him gone.

After making my previous post, I wanted to know if Jose Ramirez's two-strike approach in 2021 was uncharacteristically good or just the norm for him so I expanded my search with FanGraphs' "Past 3 Calendar Years" filter (their biggest preset filter). Turns out, Ramirez is just elite at it in general. He's got a 91 wRC+ in two-strike plate appearances dating back to 2018. That's a 739 PA sample and is good for #9 in the league (min 300 PAs). Similarly relevant for this upcoming offseason: Corey Seager (#17 in the league, 86 wRC+), Marcus Semien (#22 in the league, 81 wRC+) and Carlos Correa (#30 in the league, 80 wRC+) are all also elite in those situations. Edit: Expanded again for curiosity's sake, this time all the way back to 2011. Ramirez jumps to #5 (93 wRC+ across 2036 PAs). Shockingly, nobody even comes close to Mike Trout's career 110 wRC+ over that span. Guy is an alien.

Nah, I understand what you mean about wRC+ and I'm not misinterpreting how it's calculated here. Even relatively, Bichette was trash in two strike counts in 2021. The reason I even made the comment I did is because I ran a leaderboard search first and expected to find Bichette near the top of the list, only to find him on page 11 out of 13. We're obviously talking about relatively small samples here and it probably doesn't mean anything for the future, but in the vacuum of 2021, Bichette was #307 out of 383 batters with at least 170 PAs in two strike counts. He hit for an atrocious 26 wRC+ in 357 plate appearances. That's all 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 and 3-2 counts combined and they account for over half his PAs. Conversely, Vladdy ranked #63 in the league with a 72 wRC+ in two strike counts (304 PA), Semien was #30 with an 87 wRC+ (377 PA), and Espinal was the best Blue Jays batter to clutch up in two strike counts with a 100 wRC+ (120 PA). Espinal ranked 9th in the league, but the sample size was obviously much smaller and much more likely to regress. Interestingly enough, the guy we all want on the team for 2022 was right behind Espinal. Jose Ramirez ranked #10 in the league with a a 99 wRC+ on two strikes (327 PA).

Is anyone else surprised to find out that Bo Bichette was trash in 2 strike counts in 2021? I legitimately ran this search thinking he'd be Top 5 in the league for wRC+ with 2 strikes but he's actually among the worst active players in the league. Good example of why the eye test is worthless in baseball.

Hell nah. Not until pitchers and catchers report.