metafour

His time in Atlanta is irrelevant to the discussion as it is OBVIOUSLY influenced by what he learned under Friedman in LA. He is a completely different GM now than he was with the Jays. With the Jays he had shown a few elite tools (which are still there today), but he had significant flaws elsewhere which is why his tenure in general was all over the place. Those are the actual facts. When he went to the Dodgers he got to learn from the best organization in baseball which helped him iron out his deficiencies. Before that all he had worked under was Ricciardi.

Blue Jays record during AA's tenure: 2010: 85-77 2011: 81-81 2012: 73-89 2013: 74-88 2014: 83-79 2015: 93-69 Fans like jaysblue conveniently forget that prior to that 2015 trade deadline, the general fan consensus was that AA was a failure and needed to be fired. He had made a ton of "blockbuster" moves over several seasons that added significant salary to the payroll but barely moved the needle at all in terms of the team's playoff aspirations. It's kind of funny how in half a season in 2015 after one magical run he went from failure to "best GM in the league" according to Jays fans. Yes that 2015 team was underperforming their Pythagorean expected record in the first half of the season so it's not surprising that they went on a run, but it's also entirely possible that one or two injuries happen and the team slumps and that run never even materializes at all. Everything fell properly for the Jays, including scrubs like Chris Collabello emerging as impact bats. You can give AA credit for 2016 as well (after he left) since it was still essentially his team, so you can conclude that his "build" in fact succeeded as it led to two playoff appearances, but for all that work he put in over ~5 seasons all he managed to build was a team with a two-season window of contention. His roster had zero possibility of contention past 2016 because even in 2015 all of the best players on the team were seconds away from inevitable collapse (which is exactly what happened - by 2017 the ~five core position players alone had seen a collective ~66% drop in their fWAR from 2015). The other thing that doesn't get brought up is that the AL East was significantly weaker in 2015 than it has been the past three seasons while Atkins has tried to contend. Only the Jays and Yankees finished over .500 in 2015. Take a look at the past three seasons and there are 3-4 teams out of 5 in the East who have been legitimate playoff teams. The Yanks are currently in last place and they're 4 games over .500 which is absurd. This means that Atkins' road to wins has been SIGNIFICANTLY tougher.

Put this guy on the bench!

Great call by Danny on that HR! Amazing!

They are measurable stats you tard. Why are all of these random new posters complete dipshits?

Kirk is literally one of the best pitch framers and blockers in the league. Some of these takes are just moronic.

I didn't say that.

I mean, they can punish players. Pretty simple: you show up horribly out of shape, you're playing complex ball until you drop 'x' amount of weight. Manoah/Kirk show up to spring training like a blimp? They start the season in AAA. You have to send some sort of message at some point of what you tolerate.

Bonilla finished 4 for 7 with 2 K's. OF David Guzman (2nd highest bonus last year) was 4 for 5 with a 2B and 2 BB. He's hitting better than Bonilla so far. SS/2B Aneudi Garcia (18 years old) was 2 for 4 with a 3B and 2 BB. He's having a big season repeating the DSL.

No offense big dawg, but you can play this game all day. The Orioles have certainly done well, but I can spin this around too: 1) Failed to develop DL Hall (not drafted by Elias, but he's been in their system the whole time). 2) Grayson Rodriguez is a complete who-knows. Looked good against the Jays anemic bats, but so did Pearson at times during his initial callup. Has a 6.09 ERA on the season. This was the #1 pitching prospect in the minors. 3) Gunnar Henderson is a hit, but what happened to their other 2nd round pick from that same draft (Kyle Stowers)? He's at -0.4 fWAR this season. Whoops. 4) Have they developed Jordan Westburg? Who knows yet. 5) 2021 5th overall pick Colton Cowser is at -0.4 fWAR hitting at 30 wRC+ after callup. 6) 2021 2nd round pick Connor Norby has a 101 wRC+ in AAA. Big yawn. He's a year younger than Davis Schneider. 7) 2021 2nd round pick Reed Trimble looks like a complete bust. Why no development? He has a 61 wRC+ as a 23 year old in High-A. Subtract Rutschman and Holliday who were #1 overall picks (they SHOULD be great) and Henderson (no different than Bichette) and the picture scales back. Am I supposed to be impressed by their development of Jud Fabian and his 40% K-rate in AA?

Enmanuel Bonilla today: 4 for 6 with a Grand Slam and 6 RBI's

Espinal is a negative defender in 2023 by every metric.

Brandon Barriera is back on the 7-day IL. Undisclosed reason.

This past at-bat: swings through a completely hittable FB, fouls off a few pitches, then singles after getting jammed on a FB right down the middle of the plate. There's just no authority to his swing.

There is more to this than just pitch recognition. I'm seeing him routinely missing completely hittable pitches down the heart of the plate. So the "hit tool" has declined significantly as well. I have no idea what happened to him because hit tool and pitch recognition were not issues for him as a prospect. He just looks like a completely forgettable hitter in every regard. It is infuriating that of course the one "generational talent" out of the pool league-wide who ends up completely tanking is the one who the Jays control.

Nimmala really isn't that thin at all.

Arjun Nimmala so far today: Walk, single on groundball, reached base on throwing error by 3B

Clement gets in the game and immediately doubles. They need to bring up the AAA mashers and send half the useless f***s on the roster to the moon.

I took a look at one of his first appearances to open this season in Dunedin on Statcast. He was throwing a 93-94 mph sinker and a cutter. No idea if his stuff or velocity has changed since then.

Arjun Nimmala and Sam Shaw making their pro debuts today and hitting #1 and #2!

But you are making an assumption (Laureano will hit again) and not taking into account the acquisition cost of bringing in Varsho (plus the acquisition cost of adding Laureano) to bring in a player who looks like either the same as or worse than Varsho. Take a look at the Statcast data, Laureano is just a crappier version of Varsho: same "flaws" (but worse) and same benefits (but less). The only thing he has on him is arm strength. Again, why not just stick to your evaluation and let the guy you think is a very good player (Varsho) figure it out, as opposed to spending more assets to hope that another struggling player will figure it out? If neither guy starts hitting, you actually lose because Varsho is both a better defender AND base-runner - so the actual upside is much higher with him anyway (hence why he's put up a ~5 WAR season whereas Laureano's peak was at ~4 WAR).

So the plan is to sit Varsho (a guy coming off a 5 WAR season) and trade assets to acquire another struggling (but marginally better?) bat under the pretense that this guy is going to start hitting? I don't get it, why not just let Varsho play and hope that his own hitting starts to normalize?

This has to be an all-time worst take. Bo Bichette is a career 128 wRC+ hitter over 498 games played. Are you seriously trying to pick through selective sample sizes to find what you want to see? He is a Top 5 hitter at his position since 2019. That's a pretty long-ass sample size.

What is 'mixed' about Atkins' trade history? The Mitch White trade? This FO clearly has a better read on their own prospects than the AA-led FO did. Sending Syndergaard instead of Sanchez is the perfect example: he misevaluated and sent the wrong guy. Allowing Musgrove to be a throw-in for Happ is another one. Atkins has made a lot of trades, and the underlying theme is that they're generally trading away surplus guys or guys who are on the precipice of losing lustre. They have a clear idea of who they want to keep and who is expendable; there seems to be less "guessing" which is generally what allows other teams to come in and scoop potentially elite talent away from you. The worst part about AA's trades wasn't about what he gave up, it's that he turned a cheap and prospect-laden team into an old and extremely overpaid roster overnight, which gave the team little to no wiggle room. And the "stars" he was acquiring were generally all guys who were in clear decline. So he locked up all of his financial flexibility on guys like Reyes, Dickey, Tulowitzki, Buehrle, etc. which meant that when they needed to add more to fill gaps, he couldn't do it in free agency because Rogers wouldn't let him. Buehrle was at least good and provided value, but he was paid $19 mill and $20 mill in his final two seasons - he was hardly a "bargain". Reyes was a colossal mistake, and then they needed to trade even more prospects to get rid of him by turning the clock back a bit to acquire another anchor contract in Tulowitzki. A guy like Daulton Varsho makes nothing. Even if he never bounces back with the bat (seems unlikely), at least you aren't crippling your roster by acquiring him. Same thing with Mitch White: yeah he sucked and you maybe traded a good prospect for him, but his failure doesn't limit your team in any way.