metafour

That list is using absurd recency bias. Chase Davis, drafted #21 overall, is the 50th best prospect in all of baseball?

Are they though? I think this is one of those things where it's easy to see failure within yourself but fail to take light of what the actual difficulty/failure rate is universally. The Blue Jays are likely no worse than average here. For fun, I took a look at the Tampa Bay Rays' success with pitchers drafted within the first 3 rounds from 2017-2020, and the results are shockingly bad - and this is with 2-3x the sample size of Toronto's pitchers drafted within the first 3 rounds over the same timeframe (because Tampa Bay is awarded so many freaking compensatory picks). Out of something like 11 players drafted that high (nearly 3 per draft), they've produced Shane McClanahan - that's it. The rest is pretty much all slop, to the degree that Nate Pearson actually looks like a budding success story. And this is a team that is renowned for their drafting/development system. There may be a few outlier teams league-wide in terms of being categorically superior in terms of pitcher development, but Toronto is not as bad as you probably perceive.

The Jays draft as per Prospects Live rankings: #12 SS Arjun Nimmala #51 RHP Juaron Watts-Brown #72 OF Jace Bohrofen #76 RHP Landen Maroudis #107 Nick Goodwin #200 LHP Connor O'Halloran #211 OF Sam Shaw

That Bo Bichette guy is pretty trash.

Kiley McDaniel's new mock has the Jays taking Stanford 3B Tommy Troy. https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/37969209/2023-mlb-mock-draft-31-kiley-mcdaniel-predicted-final-updated-picks

@Spanky99 Please post the final BA Mock Draft!

Fangraphs (Eric Longenhagen) Mock Draft from today: Keith Law Mock #3 (June 29th) had the Jays taking HS C Blake Mitchell. He stated then that the Jays might be the floor for Mitchell and Vanderbilt OF Enrique Bradfield, and that they're on HS 3B Aidan Miller as well.

Frasso in AA (including last season): 51 IP, 50 H, 19 BB, 62 K 4.41 ERA 10.94 K/9 3.35 BB/9 3 IP per outing That's not even "lock to be a high leverage reliever" performance. No one even knows how his stuff carries as the lineup turns over because his outings are so short. He has made zero progress in terms of building stamina since being drafted. I'm intrigued to see if he's actually hurt again given his recent crap outings and loss of command/control.

You are embellishing. They traded an extremely volatile prospect who had thrown barely any innings (and this has persisted) for a flawed albeit somewhat intriguing MLB pitcher with control and a lower-leveled intriguing prospect. Nick Frasso turns 25 in a few months and has only gone over 3 IP once over his past 7 starts. I knew right when they traded him that they didn't like something about him - this FO has been extremely careful about the prospects they give up. There's no way they were going to expose a potential star pitcher for Mitch White lol. BA jumped the gun, period. I'd wager a lot of money that he never shoots up that high if he had been traded to a non-darling organization. It's actually comical how few innings he has thrown going all the way back to college. At the pace he's on, he'll be ready to be a "mid rotation starter" when he hits 32 years of age.

Sounds like some Commie gobbledygook.

Stunning and brave! We have made the world a safer place today. Love is love!

Jarold Montealto from Nicaragua signed with the Jays:

His stuff grades out as elite, and the performance is obviously elite. Whether that holds year over year is to be seen, but I'm not understanding this weird push to try to downplay him.

He had an ~11 game stretch immediately after being traded wherein he hit almost all of those doubles. Since then, the XBH's have slowed down considerably once again. I don't think that MLB teams would have valued him much differently over a sample that small, given how extensive his lapse in power has been.

Dumbo lets all the clear strikes pass by without swinging and then swings and weakly grounds out on ball 4. I was actually amazed that he didn't just pop up on the first pitch he saw.

But you are overrating the prospects dealt, otherwise why would you still be bringing that trade up as some sort of "what if" scenario? If you actually evaluate those prospects AT THE TIME OF THE TRADE: Martin was showing no defensive value and was not hitting well in AA, all he was doing was drawing walks and swinging a noodle bat. Keith Law was CONSTANTLY stating that SWR's upside was that of a reliever, and this was at the time of the trade. If you remember, he was struggling heavily and his stuff was down. Both players fell out of any Top 100 prospect discussion. Again, this was at the time of the trade. If the website writers were coming to these conclusions, I highly doubt that actual teams were seeing "star prospects" in either of these two. Martin in particular seemed to be getting far too much benefit of the doubt, as if people were afraid to "write him off" despite the fact that he was showing very very concerning issues for a supposed "elite hitter". So you don't even need to look at the prospects "in hindsight", because what you see now is basically the same or worse to what was seen when they were actually dealt. SWR was doing much better in AA this season and was recently promoted to AAA, but I just looked at a Twins forum out of curiosity and some of the reports suggest that he's been ~88-91 with his fastball this season. Everything else still looks the same: concerns relating to his delivery, and a breaking ball that flashes above average, but seems to be too easy to pick up out of his hand. From the Twins perspective, it really looks like they got a ~#5 starter and a utility hitter with no power who can't field any position better than average for 1.5 years of Berrios, who at the time was still a ~3+ WAR starter.

But this doesn't make sense given your complaint. Actual team evaluation of "prospect value" is always ahead of the internet reporting, but even given that understanding both of those "top prospects" we traded were dropped significantly immediately after the trade by pretty much everyone. Neither player was performing well, and neither player was a "Top 100" prospect. So what exactly do you think they could have been traded for, that was "more" than Berrios? You are severely overrating the value that those two had. I really think that Minnesota was banking on Martin being "fixable", in which case they'd potentially have landed a star prospect. Instead he has become even worse. Minnesota took on more actual risk in that trade, because they could have probably traded Berrios for any number of packages that had more exciting prospects; instead they chose to go with the one that had the recent "top draft pick" hoping his poor performance was an aberration. For the Blue Jays, that trade looked good at the time and it still looks good IMO, even with Berrios struggles this year. He's too young with too much track record to not bounce back, even if it's next season.

Moreno is up to .322/.389/.415 Otto Lopez is up to .296/.381/.437 Both guys have been hitting well recently. Another fun look-in: Jordan Groshans is hitting .346/.452/.500 in 15 games since being traded. He has 5 doubles and a HR (he had just 8 doubles and a HR in 67-games prior to being traded). Maybe I shouldn't have made fun of him!

Cade Doughty just hit his 3rd HR since turning pro in the first inning.

Right, but there's always going to be "something" potentially wrong with almost any free agent you approach. Ryu was old and injury prone, but he did still give two years of performance on a 4 year deal. This seemed like a very realistic outcome for him. Sure, you would have hoped to get that ~5 WAR season out of him. Springer really wasn't that "injury prone". He played in 51 out of 60 games in 2020 (85%), 122 out of 162 games in 2019 (75%), 140 out of 162 games in 2018 (86%), 140 out of 162 games in 2017 (86%), and 162 out of 162 games in 2016 (100%). The risk there came from his age + defensive position. Of course, his very first year here he plays the least amount of games he's ever played. Year #2 has now also featured a lingering injury. That outcome was always there as a real possibility, but that's the reality with most free agents. It's been pretty bad luck with that signing so far. I don't understand the Berrios one. He's "bland", but his AAV on his extension is only $18.7 million. He's a guy who had 3+ WAR in 3 of the 4 seasons prior to him signing that extension (the one outlier season was the shortened 2020 year). 2 of those seasons were 4+ WAR seasons. At ~$18.7 million, anything close to or over 3 WAR is surplus value on his contract. I don't think that anyone expected 28 year old Berrios to pitch at a 0.3 WAR season. It was still a good signing regardless of how bland he was because the guy is rarely if ever injured. He's just been terrible this season. Age is an obvious risk-factor, but even that one isn't dependable. Look at Carlos Correa - 1.6 WAR season for the Twins and he's only 27. He has a $35 million AAV on his contract.

Exactly, a lot of this is pure revisionist history. Berrios was a 27 year old with great health. Panned as a "great extension" at the time it was made. Now it's seen as some "huge gamble" they took LOL. No offense to anyone, but it's typical fan-BS. "Wooohooo! We signed Springer! f*** yeahhh!". Then it's "what a bunch of idiots, why did they take this huge risk and sign Springer?" Kikuchi is the only real head-scratcher where it seemed like they were throwing big money in the hopes of performing magic.

That's what teams are always hoping for, but if you look back at "top free agent signings", it's very hit or miss to even get one or two of those "elite years". Last year's mega-class seems to be like a ~50% rate at this point. A lot of it is just down to luck IMO. The Braves gave Marcell Ozuna $64 mill in 2020 and he's been a negative player over the first two years of his deal. That's a considerably worse signing/outcome than Ryu who got $80 mill. And that's from a "smart team".