metafour

Barger hasn't been bad, but he has cooled off and looks a bit tired out there (much more impatient at the plate, general decline in at-bat quality). The point I wanted to make was that with Clement and Lukes struggling, and Kirk/Springer injured, having Barger cool off as well is obviously not going to be good for the offense. Its a lot of compounding decline in quality. Loperfido is definitely running an inflated BABIP and obviously isn't a 173 wRC+ hitter, but he still has a quality .339 xwOBA (13 points higher than Lukes). His success compared to Lukes' recent struggle since the ASB isn't just related to BABIP luck: Loperfido: 41.2% line drive rate, 0.0% IFFB rate, 47.2% hard-hit %, 91.1 average EV Lukes: 10.4% line drive rate, 19.0% IFFB rate, 29.2% hard-hit %, 83.3 average EV Lukes has a higher ISO because of those HR's he has hit, but apart from those he has been making really really poor contact lately (as evidenced by his very low LD rate, hard-hit%, and average EV). Loperfido has a sky-high BABIP because he is running an absurd 41% LD rate and hitting the ball hard. Again, this will normalize over time, but the story here isn't that Lukes is just being "unlucky" while Loperfido is "lucky", One is making very good contact, and the other is making very poor contact - and this is reflected in their BABIP.

LOL I absolutely knew that Varsho would come up cold and would immediately get blamed for any offensive issues, as if the team was crushing it in prior games. Lukes since the All-Star Break: .167/.224/.407 - 71 wRC+ Clement since the All-Star Break: .227/.235/.333 - 52 wRC+ With Springer out, Barger scuffling, and the above two putting up some really bad at-bats the lineup has become very problematic. Even Davis Schneider is hitting just .217 with no power (.261 SLG) since the All-Star break. He has been taking walks and getting on base so his overall line isn't as bad as Clement/Lukes, but with Straw and Heineman playing so much there is very little impact potential at the plate.

Khal Stephen apparently has a "minor" shoulder impingement. Same injury that Bowden Francis is dealing with and that Yimi Garcia had. Bieber is obviously a calculated risk, but Khal Stephens' injury makes it a risk/upside play for Cleveland as well. They didn't acquire a healthy pitcher.

Ok, but what if we are in a tight playoff race by the time that Manoah is ready to be called up? You are going to sit a current starter to take a pie in the sky chance that someone who has been BAD against MLB hitting over the previous two seasons is going to come in late in the season coming off TJ surgery and be better? What if he comes back and gets lit up like a Christmas tree and you lose the division by 1-2 games? Now lets pretend that he comes back and looks OK or good for a few starts. So what? Are we now going to start him in the playoffs because he pitched well for a miniscule sample of 2-3 starts? Even bad Berrios has strung together good starts this season. Its not like you are going to have a chance to have Manoah make ~10 MLB starts before the playoffs to allow yourself the opportunity to make a reasonable call on his ability to pitch in the playoffs. The whole point is that you are so far ahead of yourself its not even funny. Talking about Manoah having better stuff than Gausman when he hasn't faced anyone of value even in the minors yet, and his stuff looked garbo in 2023 and 2024. You also forget that when he fell apart and finally got sent down, he was also getting his sh*t pushed in by minor league hitters. In 2024 he made 4 AAA starts and had a 6.5 ERA. You need to come to grips with the fact that Manoah may not even be a good pitcher at all anymore. And the late season during a playoff run isn't exactly the proper time for a front office to test that theory against MLB teams.

LMAO. You talk as if Manoah is throwing high 90's and is a sure-fire dominant arm. He is sitting ~93 in his rehab outings; and while this is in line with his MLB average, he benefitted a TON from luck and/or new pitcher shine in his two good MLB seasons. Once hitters figured him out, his performance fell like a rock, and he was also bad in his 5 starts last year prior to injury (yes I'm aware that he had a 3.70 ERA, but look at his underlying data - he was not pitching well at all). Take a look at his Stuff+ and Pitching+ metrics in the MLB: 2021: 99/95 2022: 98/94 2023: 91/80 2024: 87/79 These are not good readings at all, even in his two seasons where he actually had success. In both of those seasons his ERA well out-paced his FIP. Gausman is at 100/102 this season. So basically better than any of Manoah's individual MLB seasons, and way above his last two seasons wherein he was getting rocked. Alek Manoah is a back-end starter at best until he proves otherwise. And the idea that a likely rusty back-end starter is going to come in at the end of the season and steal a starting spot is HIGHLY unlikely.

Those differences are significant when you are looking at an outlier player (Kwan) and what makes him good. sliderguy is correct: a big difference is that Kwan ran much lower GB/FB rates throughout the minors, which translated to the majors. He was also much younger and blew through AA and AAA at age 23, so he was well ahead of Roden on the development curve. Again, the big problem with Roden is how many balls he hits into the dirt. Steven Kwan does NOT have that problem. If you look at Kwan, his worst season offensively (2023 - 99 wRC+) just so happens to be his season with the highest GB/FB rate (1.51). And this 1.51 GB/FB rate is still considerably below even the AAA numbers of Roden. Roden was running a 1.83 GB/FB rate against MLB pitchers this season. The whole "well just teach him to elevate the ball" thing is much harder than people think. Josh Kasevich has the same problem and he didn't magically learn how to lift the ball either. We complain about Guerrero when he is running ~1.45 GB/FB rates, and Roden is considerably higher than that.

In what way was Roden fast tracked? He is nearly 26 and played 71 games in AAA last season. He has played 100 career AA games. He is not young, nor has he skipped any levels or been pushed through levels needlessly. I think that everyone is well aware that players can sometimes figure things out, but you also need to be aware that hitters with swing concerns may also never successfully make the required changes. With him, its been the same story every single season, and the early MLB sample was really bad. He can still be a usable MLB player, but what is the upside? He hits a ton of groundballs, doesn't barrel the baseball, and has OK but not great exit velocities. His power has regressed this season in AAA, and it looked like he was swinging a wet noodle against MLB pitching.

He's not? Please describe what you think he is then. He is 26 years old and his power has regressed this year. Just a .102 ISO in the MLB, and .165 in AAA (down from .196 last season). He had a comically poor 1.3% barrel rate in his MLB sample, and even in AAA it is only at 6.6%. He doesn't have the raw max EV's to get away with low barrel rates. They've had him for a long time, and it's been a constant battle of trying to get him to somehow elevate the ball more. He hits a lot of groundballs, and his hitting profile didn't work at all against MLB pitching. Maybe the Twins can unlock something with him, but the Jays typically didn't miss on evaluations like this. He has a low impact hitting profile as he currently is.

Years of control absolutely does matter for a reliever, by the way. Because they are always so highly valued as deadline pieces, if the Jays end up underwhelming in any of the next ~5 seasons they can just offload Varland and likely recoup a good portion of what they gave away to get him. He is a pitcher with historically strong control and command, so its not like there is a high likelihood that he is going to just forget how to throw strikes and completely fall apart.

I did some digging on the notable relievers that were traded this deadline. Sorry bud, the underlying pitch data paints Varland as much better than you think. Better even than Bednar, and of course Doval as well: Stuff+ Ryan Helsley: 129 Tyler Rogers: 127 Mason Miller: 123 Jhoan Duran: 123 Seranthony Dominguez: 113 Louis Varland: 110 Griffin Jax: 110 David Bednar: 107 Danny Coulombe: 107 Camilo Doval: 105 Phil Maton: 104 Andrew Kittredge: 99 Pitching+ Griffin Jax: 132 Tyler Rogers: 120 Ryan Helsley: 118 Jhoan Duran: 117 Louis Varland: 116 Mason Miller: 114 David Bednar: 112 Phil Maton Camilo Doval: 105 Danny Coulombe: 103 Andrew Kittredge: 103 Seranthony Dominguez: 99 By the way, Tyler Rogers who ranks at the top of both Stuff+ and Pitching+ strikes almost nobody out, but he is impossible to hit and routinely beats his FIP by upwards of a full run.

Bieber is 30 years old, Gausman is going to be 35 in ~5 months. The difference here is that Bieber is still in the age range where he can reasonably be expected to pitch consistently at a high level if his stuff is back to normal. He isn't old. Gausman isn't an ace anymore because he is aging and declining, as expected. Bieber was absolutely elite in a small 12-inning sample last season before he blew his arm out: 20 strikeouts to 1 walk in 12 innings.

There is nothing preventing the Jays from using the time they have to extend Bieber, especially if he pitches well here and the team succeeds. This is the type of stuff they normally look to do.

Khal Stephen is a pitchability type that has blown through High A, but the stuff is still more back-end rotation caliber, and who knows how he handles higher levels. He is also on the phantom DL and hasn't pitched since July 20th. I knew that they were going to look to sell high on Stephen.

What.jpg? Gunnar Hoglund and Kevin Smith for Matt Chapman. Kendall Williams and Ryan Noda for Ross Stripling. Austin Martin and Simeon Woods-Richardson for Jose Berrios. Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein for Jordan Hicks. ?

This is how BA has them: Baez - #6 Dohm - #25 Elissalt - Unranked MLB Pipeline: Baez: #8 Dohm: #14 Elissalt - Unranked

Keep in mind that Fangraphs is basically just one guy (Longenhagen) and he is absurdly over-worked and/or under-staffed. He didn't even get to updating his 2025 Draft board until literally the day of the draft.

Apparently we are in advanced talks with Korean RHP Moon Seo-jun with the leftover IFA money that we have from the failed Roki Sasaki bid. This kid was apparently going to be a Top 3 pick in the KBO draft and is super projectable at 6'5 (which is irregular for a Korean pitcher). From an article I found, he's hit at least ~94mph with the fastball.

Tait is basically catching Nimmala (they are ranked very similar, for example BA has NImmala at #42 and Tait at #50) and Mick Abel has way more pedigree than someone like Francis considering that he was a Top 100 prospect.

Some of you have the dumbest takes, Bednar has been one of the best relievers in baseball for 2 straight months now. I'm talking completely wipeout dominant: 1 ER, 11.19 K/9, 1.93 BB/9, 0.39 ERA, 1.38 FIP. Apart from last season, he has been an elite reliever in 4 of the last 5 seasons...including right now at this very moment.

Over the past two months Dominguez has a 1.19 ERA, 2.29 FIP, and 3.10 xFIP and has been overpowering hitters. He also presents elite splits against right handed hitters so he presents interesting matchup value against guys like Judge (although he can't pitch against LHB's). Yes, he walks a lot of guys - but this everything else about him is elite. If he could somehow limit walks he would be an elite closer. He actually has a fair bit of high leverage experience and even pitched in the World Series in 2022.

LMFAO yeah OK man. Apparently no other team will be interested in acquiring any pitching, so it should be pretty easy for us to just somehow acquire two top-end starters and two high leverage relievers. A real big-brained idea here! Why stop there bud? They should get Suarez as well!

I agree - only players who get base hits 100% of the time are useful in playoff games! Every other team will only have betters who NEVER make any outs.

Are you high LMFAO? What in the f***...

Juan Sanchez is 3 for 3 with another two doubles in today's DSL game. He is back up to .345 with a 1..021 OPS. This kid looks very promising early. Also, BA has some recent footage of his swing: