glory

Questioning Atkins is very fair at this point. The best moves the team made for 2016 were made by LaCava, and almost everything since the start of 2017 has been a dumpster fire aside from extending Smoak due to prospects acquired either under performing or flat out sucking. Plus the vet signings have been pretty bad (Morales, Pearce, Grandy, Garcia, etc). Then the one time he gives a long term extension it is to a player with a 5-6% walk rate for his career and a projected 2 ish WAR. Shapiro is fine. Atkins is definitely someone who deserves criticism (so far). The season is still young so if young players start turning it around, then opinions can change.

By the time the Jays are realistically good again, Giles will be in his 30's. With reliever volatility the way it is, an extension would be a risk, especially if we are looking at another bad season or two before becoming good. If there was a chance to seriously contend in 2020, and 2019 was just a bump in the road, then I'd consider an extension, but practically every young player on the roster aside from Vlad either sucks or has struggled badly so far, so it's hard to say what the team's timeline is right now. Biggio is the only prospect in AAA close to ready with Bo injured and Alford s***ing the bed. The Jays are devoid of high end young talent, at least in the upper minors. That's where trading Giles will help. Of course, if the offers are more Drury/McKinney level, then sure keep him and try to extend him. I'm assuming as a closer with amazing numbers, he'd fetch a pretty decent return.

Kirk 1-1 with a double and a walk so far. I'm a believer.

Yes 2+ months of Happ wasn't a great asset, but Drury was an arb eligible 26 year old who peaked at a 1 WAR to that point, and McKinney is a jack of no trades. 1-2 WAR players are signing minor league deals in today's market. They really have no value anymore. They'll have value to a good team that can use 1-2 wins for $550k, but to a rebuilding team? Just sign Adam Jones and Josh Harrison to play OF and 2B/3B and flip them at the deadline for lotto tickets (vetrin presents). Don't trade actual vet assets for 1 WAR young players. That's why I actually liked the Russell Martin trade. Ronnie Brito probably sucks, but at least you can dream. I'd rather have that than a 24 year old 0.5 WAR outfielder who is ready right now.

Dude do you ever post anything other than a one liner that does nothing to further a discussion? Holy s*** you're obnoxious. The Braves are not giving up Touki. That's all you have to say. I'm throwing it out there because he's doing poorly and I'm hoping AA still has some 2013-15 derp in him. If you disagree, that's cool, I won't lose any sleep over it. Let Ray argue your side man. He does a much better job.

Maybe Touissant or Gohara would be available for Sanchez. They both come with huge risk (especially Gohara with his shoulder) but AA loves Sanchez and it's about time Shatkins takes a risk with high reward rather than more McKinney's and Thornton's.

I don't know, I have some hope that a team out there will overrate him. Probably wishful thinking. My gut still tells me AA can't help himself and trades some excess mid level SP depth for him but AA post Toronto isn't trading prospects like candy anymore so who the hell knows at this point.

The Yankees have so many injuries but are still a great team. Unreal. It's bad enough competing with the Rays who could turn everyone they acquire into stars at 50 cents on the dollar, but the Yankees can have their entire 25 roster get hurt and still nearly lead the division. Rebuild will be hard.

Shatkins clearly wants to build internally so their legacy will come down to how well they develop players. Their problem so far is that they sell at such a low leveraging position that the returns have not been very good. JD was traded when he was hurt and had like 3 weeks of service time remaining. Osuna was traded after a DV situation (though they did pretty well there considering the circumstances). Happ was traded with 2 months of control left for 2 players Cashman wanted to clear off the 40 man roster. That's three of the best assets they had from the 2016-17 teams and the returns were very disappointing as a whole. The other trades were marginal pieces like Pearce, Grandy, middle relievers, so that won't yield much back regardless. What they get back for Stro, Sanchez, and Giles will be pretty damn important. If it's more 24-25 year old's who other teams want to take off their 40 man roster crunch, then this rebuild is going to take an eternity. Home run won't cut it, they need a walk off grand slam in these three trades. No doubters with bat flip included. If they end up with more McKinney's, then FML.

Yeah don't blame Stroman at all for that response (though not acknowledging Sid would have been better).

They chose Pompey over DSJ, but Pompey got hurt and then Davis got hurt so they had to trade for Brito once they traded Pillar. In hindsight they could have dropped Pompey and kept DSJ, but unfortunately I don't think Shatkins valued Smith at all, and probably would not have played him over McKinney or Teocar. Pompey probably would have played CF after Pillar was moved, but he got hurt again.

Man I wish we had Tim Anderson. None of this "put your head down and run the bases" BS. He hit a bomb and admired it. All the Brian McCann's (and unfortunately Grichuk's) of the baseball world can cry all day.

I'm on Team Shatkins, but even I'm not that impressed with what they've done, especially from 2018-present. Their peak so far was probably 2016 with their small incremental improvements that helped push that team back into contention, although a giant part of that was 'Shacava' (Estrada, Happ). The rebuild is supposed to be the easy part but they are routinely selling low and targeting lower upside players closer to the bigs. I'm trying very, very hard to see upside in some of these players (Drury, Teoscar, McKinney, Thornton, Paulino, Perez, etc), waiting for the player development side to fix some of these guys and turn them into solid big leaguers or fix them in the minors, but I'm just not seeing it. Too early? Maybe. But I need to see something that makes me optimistic about future moves.

The Jays had Ramirez spend all of 2018 in AA despite doing well there. They had no intention of ever calling him up. I never saw him as a prospect but at least promote him to AAA in 2018 and see if maybe there is something there. He was smart to go to Miami.

Start Davis in CF full time. Seriously. I don't want to see Teoscar and McKinney playing at the same time ever again, and Grichuk back in RF will help his defensive value.

I think Dick Pole and BTS are both right. The team is definitely tanking, and Atkins may not be as smart as we all think/hoped he'd be. I am not writing off Atkins by any means, but he needs his results to start mirroring his reputation of being endorsed by Shapiro.

Yup. The Padres being in contention is only going to help the Jays since we have Stroman and Giles who could help contending teams. One of those guys will go to the Padres IMO. Sanchez will go the Braves.

Mariners started the year 13-2 and are now 20-20. That seems like the most Mariners thing ever.

Yeah even if Davis is a long shot, he has skills that might be useful in a bench role (speed, defence, hit LHP in the minors). I'd probably be less surprised if he turned into a 1 WAR player than if Teoscar and McKinney do. McKinney literally does nothing well. Teoscar might have some upside if his power comes back but even then it's probably not a player who can start on a good team.

He’s also drawing more walks than strike outs. Might mean nothing for his big league projections but I think he can be a good 4th OF/platoon guy.

Jonathan Davis needs a call up as well. He's killing it in AAA, is already on the 40 man roster, and is blocked by Socrates f'n Brito.

They may not intentionally be ignoring it, but that seems to be a pretty consistent pattern with them except for Galvis. Even Grichuk is being used at CF this year where his defensive metrics are worse and his overall value will be hurt by it. They signed Pearce (good) but used him almost exclusively in left (stupid). Gave three years to a DH who makes my sprint speed look like Bolt's by comparison. Teoscar has improved this year but still kinda sucks. McKinney sucks. Gurriel is really bad in the infield and he had to go borderline Chuck Knoblauch before Shatkins was willing to try him in the OF in AAA. Solarte sucked defensively. Granderson was best suited as a DH by the time they signed him. Signing Galvis was a good sign, at least they acknowledge they needed a defensive upgrade there, but overall the track record isn't good.

Nah, he'll sign a 7 year, $21 million deal with 3 team options bringing the total value of the deal to $40 mil.

I see a lot of breakout candidates in that lineup. Just watch you guys.

He also has a 5-6% BB% for his career and is in an era where he will increasingly see more and more off speed stuff. I think expecting a huge breakout, beyond the 2.5 WAR type that he has been, is not as likely as I would have thought a year ago. They could have sold at the 2017 deadline (JD and Happ would have had 1.5 years of control left, and Stroman/Osuna 3.5 years each). Regardless, they didn't need to tear down. They could have traded JD in mid 2017 and still tried to win in 2018. Maybe they use that saved money in free agency, or to acquire a player in trade, etc. Not being able to leverage the assets they had while still being able to fake an attempt at contending is definitely on them. Rogers wants to make money, so of course they won't want to rebuild when attendance is high, but that should not have prevented Shatkins from trading certain players in order to maximize the return. What percentage do you give any of those players turning into 2-3 WAR types, especially in this organization? 10%? 5%? It's pretty damn small. At least with Grichuk you can hope on a 3+ WAR path if he puts things together, but the others are huge long shots. As far as development, almost nothing in baseball is linear, but there are indicators to show breakout potential. For me, BB% is huge. If you're a 5% BB type, then I'm not counting on that player turning into much unless he has a Javy Baez type of hitting ability, and that's not very common. Base running is important. Defence (which Shatkins typically ignores) is important. Exit velocity and stat cast performance is important. You can't just look at age and some minor league numbers without context and assume a player has potential to improve.