BigCecil

Struggling but love to give him more rope. He has been pretty solid making adjustments.

I said blocking. Moreno is an 80th percentile framer this season. Personally I hate calling this a “skill” but in that area he has improved a lot. “Far better” is an over statement. Blocking you are correct which is huge. Both has been good at nailing base runners.

Look at Romanos stats the last 3 years and then what Ross signed Chad Green for and then doubled down on with the option

I think BOS this year so far is kind of what we would like to be next year. O'Neil for 6M is working out. Duran is worth over 3 WAR and a bit of found money. I still they they are defying gravity. Yanks are just better than us with ungodly middle of the order ISO which offsets terrible offensive years from the likes of Torres, Cabrera and Rizzo. They have lost Cole and DJM for half the season but their depth is better. 2nd in HRs and runs in MLB. They made their own luck getting Soto etc. You can say the same about the O's. They have had some key IL stints but getting a guy like Burnes didn't hurt.

One of our few home grown arm pen success stories wil join the ranks of Thornton, Saucedo trying to stick with another team. I wish him well. His V and stuff just never looked right all season.

He is more athletic. 50th percentile speed and 90th percentile pop time etc. The only important thing Kirk does better at this point is blocking. If we had a choice, which we obviously don't, there are still a lot of good reasons to take Moreno over Kirk at this point in their careers, even though Moreno's ISO to this point is disappointing. Kirk 0.7 WAR, Moreno 1.1 and Varsho 1.7 in '24 None of them are wildly impressive. Varsho is back to his career wRC+

In a nutshell this is it. Vlad still doesn't pull much 94+ but he he took 96 out to RCF last night. He can still be so impressive. Tantalizing. With his age, the way he has gotten in shape and his EVs a reasonable extension makes sense. I just don't he will sign such an animal. So move him at value this deadline instead of pulling an LAA and milking him with fan base for 1 more season, and ending up with much less value back or a comp pick.

So true. We are all guilty of very bad hot takes. I thought Turner was cooked and he has battled back his last season 114 wRC+ number, coming out that brutal slump. Varsho is now at 1.7 WAR down from his 2.1 high. I'm pretty comfortable with the under I took on 3.5 Jano was hot. Now he is not. Swanson was the bomb, now he is in BUFF. IKF has almost quadrupled his '23 WAR total and his bat is 30% over his career number. Career year? Just reminds you how long this season it is, and how hard baseball is.

Its possible to like Varsho a lot and still think the deal was an over pay. I feel that from the time of deal view. How big of an over pay is a fair debate. Catchers sometimes mature at the plate slower with all their other duties. Jano was 27 before he had his first big above avg bat season, as an example. Patience is required. Moreno now 24 won a Gold Glove on the back of his DRS in '23 but he is still a work in progress. He just barely out WAR'ed Varsho in 23 (aside from one LGJ season in the deal)and this year the WAR delta as of now is 1.1 to 1.8 with half the season left. Moreno battled injuries early in '24. Moreno could still blossom or flop. Varsho could be an 80 bat in the 2nd half of '24. Lots can happen. This deal gets more real for us as Jano walks and we are left with Kirk in '25. Jano should have been extended. Moreno is 4 years younger than Varsho and under AZ two years after Varsho likely walks from the Jays. The control, prospect standing, premium position and age spread has value at the time of a deal. Best time to evaluate a deal is at the time its made. Or way down the road and are a long way from that point in time for a solid evaluation.

Vlad has value in 2024. If he won’t extend on reasonable deal, move him. Will be a sellers market.

LOL. No way. Precisely my point. They are in our Division aren't they? And we match up with our top WAR accumulating players so far - IKF and Varsho. Thats the sad state of the fapping material available to us. Pick who you want as replacements on that list. They are 44 and 54 so lots of room between the three I chose and 44th to select. Sad state.

I agree 100%. The issue is does HE know that? I think not and he will be impossible to extend as a result, so sell "high".

Vlad. Who knows what he demands. I'd extend for the right deal but whats the right deal in Vlad's & Agents mind? We have no clue. If he wants 8/250 for ex. forget it. Move him when he has 1.5WAR and 135 wRC+ at the deadline if he doesn't want to get into a real negotiation. This team is reduced to fapping about IKF and Varsho being 54th and 44th on the MLB WAR Leaderboard 50% of the way through the season, topping out at 1.9. Meanwhile Soto Henderson Judge etc all over 5 already. Listening to Fangraphs nerd Dan Szymborski on Jays situation and projections etc this am on Jays Talk Plus is a sobering reality check. As if we need it.

100%. Chase percentile scary. Deal him don't extend him. On top of that, paying him any kind of premium as a SS would be insane. Hopefully he does a '22 Bo style heater before this deadline or off season to build value.

A laugher for us! Nice to see Vlad smoke 97 for a double.

“A Plague on both your houses”

If you want a treat and distraction from the current malaise around our team give Jays Talk Plus with Blake Murphy a listen on the Orlando Hudson interview today. He talks about being a black young man from the Southern USA coming to Medicine Hat, Alberta to play and what it was like. Then he talks about coming to TOR and the melting pot there. And what his family thought of it. They had never seen anything like it. Pretty cool insights.

Was just more really thinking about pen arms in general. We have debated the Green Teo stuff ad nauseum. Whats a middle inning medium to high leverage pen arm worth vs a middle of the order bat position player. Green hasn't been bad, and he was hurt. FIP is material for a pen arm. Point is it was a large pen arm investment for this FO given their history. I would argue it was a risky one based on injury history/age. We will never know on Teo correct. At the end of '22 he was coming off a 2.9 WAR season. There was a lot of concern about his OF play and some brain dead behavior. We have no idea if he would have done a 2+1 option or not and at what AAV.

Cautionary tales with volatility of bullpens all over. Trade a 130 wRC+ career .226 ISO bat like Teo, not extending him on the cheap, for a RP whose extra years of control aren't much good to us in the Minors. $10.5M AAV times 2 for a 33 year old Green - with injury risk coming off TJ, who 50% through 2024, has been worth negative WAR. Edwin Diaz 5/102 sucking. Hader 5/95 has been great. Yimi has been nails in '24 for $6M In 2021 the pen did us in. Is there a moral to this story on pen arms and value? A Cap on what you want to pay them? Its pretty obvious that you need to develop more pen arms from the farm. Failed starters etc. Mayza was one...Romano was a Rule 5. Thornton was but blossomed in SEA as has Saucedo.

I have a good source bud. Not conjecture. Also, this is business 101 SOP. Most of this path is obvious.

They have placed tighter controls on decisions. These people are intelligent. The situation is obvious to most of us dumb dumbs on this board. It sure as hell is obvious to the Board and the committee of the Board that oversees and liaises with Shapiro for the Jays segment of the Rogers business. Think about the capex and payroll invested in this business and renos/development facilities. Think about the current state of the farm and the on the field product. Think about the short windows of Jano, Kooch, Bo, Vlad. Think about what they owe Springer. Think about the lack of vision into future costs and talent with no long term extensions (this can be both a pos and neg). I don't want to be chicken little, but it ain't clear or pretty.

Yep. He is a position of conflict everyone sees. Whats in his best current short term survival interest may not be in the best interests of the business/franchise mid to long term. So he has been neutered when it comes to decision making.

Worked in big pubcos at senior level and have started and built companies as entrepreneur. Whataboutism never cuts it long. Ultimately accountability rests at the top. Simply blaming the employees and management you hired becomes an unhealthy organization. Baseball, like every single other business, deals with variables and economic or other unforeseen events that affect results. Injuries, suspensions, under performance etc. etc. The FO's job is to juggle those axes well and get financial & performance results. If that were easy to do, no execs would get compensated such large amounts. They are paid to be right a lot more than they are wrong. The last few years ownership has been happy with the Jays financial results, but not the overall performance results. But the lack of drafting and development success has now caught up with our FO, and the financial results (payroll, attendance and eyeballs watching, concessions) will eventually converge with the on the field results. This FO has done some good things and some bad things. Bottom line is its just not been good enough overall, and some people are getting whacked. And they should be.

That swing by Devers lol. Jesus. Came out of his shoes and got it all.

Gimme some Trent. Dude has a FIP under 3. Got to hand it to him for sticking and becoming a valuable pen arm.