metafour

This has to be one of the worst misses by an ump....right?

He actually looks good this game. Pounding the strike-zone and he's putting guys away with legitimate pitches. Kind of the worst game imaginable where Ray looks completely ordinary, and this guy looks overpowering like Ray normally does.

I don't think that would have made any difference. Under that scenario all they'd need to offer him is 40% of the slot, and there's no way that Boras would accept that - especially seeing that he's apparently not even injured to the point of surgery being required.

Teoscar needs to pull his head out of his ass. His plate appearances of late have been pathetic, and WTF was that throw?

How so? Next year's draft projects to be at least as good, if not better than this year's. There should be an "equally advanced" college pitcher or hitter available to them at #11, one that hypothetically wouldn't be carrying a looming injury hanging over their head. And really, the "big deal" with these medical disagreements is that they often involve micro-tears or subjective damage. So what often ends up happening is that there's slight damage or concern, but not enough to warrant surgery. So the player is healthy enough to pitch, but they just end up inevitably blowing out their arm anyway in short order. So with Rocker I'm sure the fear was that if they sign him, he makes a handful of starts in the minors next year and completely tears his elbow (thus confirming their pre-draft physical)...and then he's sitting out till potentially 2024. In many ways its entirely preferable to draft someone like Hoglund: he had the surgery and now you get to recover him in an MLB rehabilitation program, as opposed to getting a pitcher who's waffling in between healthy and injured and just waiting to hear a pop in the elbow.

Apparently he's not planning on going back to Vanderbilt. This is worse for him than it is for the Mets. Remember that he turned down 1st round money out of HS and now he's left unsigned again. It sucks that it worked out this way for him, but he's slipping into dangerous territory.

I don't think people realize how significant his season has been. He is absolutely torching through AAA, and he has a much better defensive outlook than Austin Martin. I think he legitimately has ~3 WAR upside with his power and defense, on top of significant improvement in his plate discipline. He has doubled his walk rate, has brought the strikeout rate back down, and he's actually hitting for even more power than he did in his big breakout season in Dunedin.

Who's talking themselves into anything? This isn't Blue Jays fans talking themselves into a narrative; it's literally being collaborated by outside baseball writers who are cycling reports/information from other teams' evaluator's as well as in-person evaluations. These people have absolutely no reason to "cover" for the Blue Jays. Both players we traded have empirically been moved down prospect lists; with Martin dropping all the way to #59 on Fangraphs' rankings. Of course Blue Jays fans were initially "shocked" and mad, but that's because as fans we generally Stan for our prospects and look at things in the most optimal light possible. I don't think anyone here is arguing that Austin Martin has no chance of correcting his flaws, but the general stance that we'll naturally take as fans is to gloss them over while they're here. To me the scary part with him is that the two things that literally popped up as critiques pre-draft, which is what caused him to drop to us, actually look to not only be legitimate - but they appear even worse than initially hoped. Fangraphs says that he's not even getting good reviews defensively in CF with a below-average arm and average range due to his lack of speed, and he's obviously not a SS or 3B. So what is he now, a 2B and/or rotational piece between CF/2B/LF? At the plate he appears to require a swing change. This isn't an impossibility and he's obviously talented enough to make it work, but a current slap hitter with no defensive position where he projects as more than average is a profile that can go downhill really really quickly. I also found it very interesting that Fangraphs noted that evaluators were pointing out that he wasn't swinging at enough pitches and that he was playing himself into too many poor hitters counts. With Simeon Woods-Richardson, I've always felt that he was a guy who we tried to hype into more than he was. He was a mid-rotation upside when we traded for him with non-elite stuff, and he's since then declined. His age is nice, but he's physically maxed out and he apparently still can't spin a breaking ball that projects as more than average to fring above-average. The lack of control he's shown this season is confusing and worrying, because this was actually his only true standout "tool", as are reports that his velocity and stuff in general have backed up. So really, they traded two guys from an elite farm system that have bigger question marks today than they did coming into the season. Of course there was an initial "shock" of trading a guy we just drafted 5th overall and outrage surrounding that, but the reason why you've seen a change in attitude is because we've had time for information to come in which suggests that this really isn't a "shocking" a package as we initially thought.

But it's not "two elite prospects". It's at best ONE elite prospect. And that one prospect is currently hitting with a .102 ISO and .383 SLG with serious defensive question marks, so his own status as an "elite" prospect is teetering on dangerous territory. We actually traded away two prospects who's tools/status have declined this season. They both fell on our own organizational rankings. This is EXACTLY what you want to see a team with a stacked minor league system do: you protect your most promising prospects and deal from the guys who you are less certain about.

They did? Last time I checked, Keibert Ruiz ranks higher than Austin Martin on both BA's and Fangraphs' updated rankings. He's also absolutely dominating in AAA this season, unlike the two guys we traded. Max Scherzer also had a full NTC and obviously controlled the suitors that Washington could engage.

Atrocious career? Let's not get melodramatic. He was drafted 14th overall and managed to play in 8 MLB seasons, providing 3.3 career WAR. Good player? Hardly, but there are guys drafted every single year in the first round that won't even make as much as a significant appearance in the majors, let alone stick around for 8 seasons.

Exactly. I'll bet any amount of money that Gabriel Moreno was off-limits in any trade discussion. The fact that they were willing to move Martin, while it being collaborated through several sources that both internal AND external evaluators were down on him, means something. They likely view him as more Dansby Swanson, than Alex Bregman. I'm sure Minnesota is hopeful that they can make some fixes with him which might entirely be possible, but you can't sit there and protect every prospect. Or sit there with a finger up your ass because you drafted this kid 5th overall so now you have to marry yourself to the notion that he's elite. Arizona's trade for Shelby Miller ended up being horrible, but they wetre correct in dumping Dansby Swanson even though at the time it was unfathomable that they'd trade a guy they drafted #1 overall.

Fangraphs literally just reevaluated him at #59. Baseball America dropped him from #12 to #21, and as per their comments on him after this trade - it seems they could have made a case for dropping him even further. Either way, no, he's not a Top 10 prospect anymore. You are glossing over the concerns on him significantly. He dropped to #5 in the draft due to his arm-strength disappearing and the defensive question marks surrounding that, on top of there being worry about how much power he'd hit for. Now, both of those question marks (power and defensive outlook) look even worse than they did when he dropped from #2 to #5. Fangraphs says he hasn't looked good at either SS or CF this season (below-average arm and average speed limits his range), and his exit velocity is actually down 8 mph from college. So he has actually DECLINED in the power department. Now, this is obviously his first pro season and you can argue that he can make adjustments, but what you are looking at is a guy who's prospective outlook as of TODAY is less than what it was to start the season. That needs to be accounted for when evaluating this trade, because ultimately when it comes to scouting the most recent sample is worth more than last year's sample. Baseball America literally dropped him out of the Top 100. Fangraphs has him at #48, and I don't think Keith Law has him in his Top 100 or ever did. Again, read the freaking updated reports. His velocity has dropped this season and he has never had "elite" stuff. There is lots of talk about a future backend #4 or #5 starter or reliever outlook with him. Again, just like Martin: his outlook and value have regressed. The control issues out of nowhere are concerning because that was actually his best "skill"; because he's an average velocity and average breaking-ball pitcher otherwise.

Dude, R.A Dickey was old as dirt and coming off a season where he was doing unprecedented things with the most gimmicky pitch in baseball. There was basically zero precedent to suggest that he'd be able to remain dominance as a knuckleballer, by way of the pitch itself being completely unpredictable. Furthermore, he went from a huge season in the Mets' pitcher-friendly park to trying to emulate that success in the Rogers Centre - and similarly hitter-friendly AL East parks. Don't be stupid. The Dickey trade was bad from day one because we were praying for a repeat of fluke success. Jose Berrios, at 27 with multiple years of well above-average performance and obviously above-average stuff, is nothing like R.A. Dickey. In fact he might realistically not even be at his peak yet.

SWR's stuff has apparently been down this year.

It looks like we got 17th round pick LHP Cooper Benson signed as well for $125,000 according to the MLB Draft Tracker. He was a draft-eligible Sophomore (only eligible because the draft got pushed to July this year) who blew his elbow out after one start I believe. He should be one to watch as I believe he could have gone much higher had he not been injured.

How is reciting a stat-line "s***ing all over a prospect"? The initial talking point was that this is a bad trade because we "burned" Riley Adams as an asset. In reality, he is actually an anchor for us because we are a team that is so strong in the farm system that we're going to struggle to protect all of our interesting prospects, and Riley Adams - who is 5th on our immediate catching depth chart, is occupying a spot on our 40-man roster with no immediate use for us as anything other than "well if 3 other guys all get injured at the same time, we have Riley Adams!". "Burning" him as an asset suggests that we could have done more in a trade with him - and that's the part where his extreme flaws as a hitter and his age make me question what exactly you think makes him more valuable than what he was just traded for? Griffin Conine was traded for a rental just last season, and he is much more interesting than Adams because he actually hits an obscene amount of HR's. You can say all you want about "backup catchers", teams didn't even want Reese McGuire for free and he looks much more useful than Adams is expected to ever be (much better defense, better contact ability, and much better plate discipline as he literally strikes out half as often). A 25 year old catcher who's not even hitting .240 in AAA and strikes out 32.2% of the time better project to be an elite defender...and Riley Adams isn't even that.

Riley Adams is a low BA, extremely high K% hitter which means that he is EXTREMELY flawed at the plate, and he's old - so the likelihood of him "figuring something out" isn't that high. The fact that he doesn't make contact also means that his plus power is going to be very hard to tap into at the MLB level. He hit .258 with a 31.6% K-rate in AA, and he's hitting .239 with a 32.2% K-rate in AAA. Unsurprisingly, he hit .107 with a 40% K-rate in his small MLB sample. What do you think he reasonably projects as? A .220 MLB hitter who strikes out ~35% of the time? You seem to be over-exaggerating his potential upside as well as his value, because once again: teams aren't lining up for an OK defense backup catcher who looks like he's going to hit .220 and strike out 30%+ of the time. He's not "nothing", but this is about his value: a one-for-one flip for a rental reliever who's been elite in the past and hasn't been great this season, or as like the 4th piece (essentially a throw in) in a bigger deal. He's not headlining any other trade. There is also value in getting him off the 40-man roster for us, because we have too many catchers on there - and his "role" on this team is basically only as the emergency backup to the emergency back LOL. Had Moreno not been hurt, he would have been a better option over Adams to play even today.

No, he hasn't - but then you need to ask why he's striking out 3 batters fewer per 9 despite throwing harder than he has in each of the previous two seasons. I'm sure that there is optimism that they can make an "adjustment" of some sort and potentially got elite production out of him for the remainder of the season.

I mean, Riley Adams' "value" is what? As a throw in piece in a bigger trade? He's 25 years old and like 5th on our catching depth chart. He's not a top prospect - this is about the price for a rental reliever who's had obvious success in the past. One interesting bit: Brad Hand's velocity this year is actually higher than each of his prior two seasons. He's been OK, but I'm sure there is hope that we can get better performance out of him during the remainder of the season.

Those guys are all having huge seasons statistically. I'm not sure on the actual prospect status/grades, but Hauver was a 3rd round pick in 2020, and Smith was a 2nd round pick in 2019. Glenn Otto is 25 but he has 115 strikeouts vs. 17 walks in 75.2 innings this season.

Palmegiani is signed!

Also, Jud Fabian isn't signing: