metafour

Fabian just went 1 for 11 with 9 strikeouts against Arkansas so it doesn't look like the contact issues just magically disappeared - thats a bad as he was showing earlier this spring. But the other thing that needs to be considered: we have no 2nd round pick which means we have a reduced bonus pool, and it looks like Fabian wants over slot or he's going back to school. He doesn't seem to be a "fit" for us. Do we want to go overslot and allocate most of our pool to a guy who showed major whiff problems this year? His whole hype/fall reminds me a bit of Jaren Kendall from the 2017 draft who went right behind our pick of Logan Warmoth. Kendall was a CF from Vanderbilt who entered the season at one point with #1 hype, showed major contact issues, and then dropped to the Dodgers while being praised as a "huge steal" (lots of Jays fans wanted us to take him too, not that Warmoth turned out any better). In the minors, Kendall has basically been a continuation of his final season at Vandy. With Fabian, I'm not sure the risk vs. commitment required makes sense for us.

There have been a number of links to Joe Mack as well - both guys seemingly being the best HS hitters in that range while also just so happening to both play catcher. It seems like overkill (especially considering that their top IFA signing in the next class is ALSO supposed to be a catcher) but I think they're likely considering BPA at that pick.

Can anyone post BA's newest mock from today?

Hagen Danner as a pitcher so far in High A... 9 IP, 5 H, 2 BB, 12 K 2.00 ERA, 0.78 WHIP

But exactly what "wisdom" is he going to share that is going to make it worth carrying a useless player on the roster? Just one page ago someone posted a video of him getting thrown out trying to tag up in a 2-run game - a guy who's ancient and can barely move does something so asinine that had it been a rookie or lesser known player, they would have been berated by the coaching staff. But because its "Albert Pujols" we need to come up with non-quantifiable "qualities" he's supposedly bringing to the team. Shouldn't someone of his caliber/experience KNOW that he can't do something that stupid? So if he himself can't make that judgment call, how/what is he supposed to "mentor" a younger player on?

LMAO. Hall of Famer enjoys getting his ego carressesed as young players come up to him to proclaim their admiration and respect for him. You think THAT makes him a "great guy"? Literally anyone in his position would LOVE to "interact" with random young players who are essentially treating you as some sort of "godlike" figure. That is your barometer? He talks to young players and ipso-facto, that means he's a great clubhouse guy and "mentor"?

Is there any actual PROOF that Albert Pujols is ANY of these things? "Great clubhouse guy" - seems to me that he's a guy who knows he's actually ~45 years old, has been a complete detriment on the field for 5 years now, and yet he's complaining about whether or not he gets to play? That seems to paint him as a guy who can't even accept reality and is likely strong-arming the team into losing games by feeding him at-bats instead of accepting his "new role" on the team as he should have done. I loathe this auto-assumption that every old has-been is a "great mentor" or "leader".

Their top signing in the upcoming IFA class is also going to be a catcher.

Of course he gets credit for that, but the post I quoted pointed out his "DRAFTING" as being really good (of course it also wasn't HIS drafting). In reality he accumulated a TON of high picks (genius move) which through sheer numbers produced some good prospects. It also produced a ton of biblical flameouts (see: Tyler Gonzalez or whatever his name was lmao) and a horrendous "process" to drafting which saw us repeatedly fail to sign top picks. The below average player development during his tenure also plays into that as well, as obviously some of those busts may well have developed differently under a better system of development. AA really got a ton of credit for drafting/minor league building after JPR's failure in that sphere, but we're actually much stronger in this area under the Shapiro/Atkins regime. All you need to see is the extremely calculated and precise way they execute drafts: they make sound picks following an obvious process, take risks where presented/needed, and sign EVERYONE. Their drafts come down to spending almost every dollar allotted to them, and you can really tell that they're vetting players significantly and doing their work. Draft results under AA declined significantly once the MLB closed the comp-pick loophole and he had to play with the same base number of picks as everyone else. His drafts in Atlanta haven't been very noteworthy either, IMO.

Drafting under AA was really propped up by the billion high picks we had. In reality we could have done even better with a more process-driven approach that combined his "high upside" plan with more background analytics and planning to better maximize those picks.

Keith Law is actually extremely high on Martin lol.

There it is. $2.6 million.

Amed Rosario is also going to Cleveland. This always seemed like a non-necessary move for us.

34 year old Yu Darvish isn't getting them Gore. Yeah right.

Sure, but you're now dumbing the draft process down into a binary equation which is entirely silly. Teams operate within varying parameters and those parameters were exaggerated this past year due to COVID. There are teams in MLB who do not deal at all with "hard sign" players even in normal years, and the overall theme of the entire 2020 draft was that "risk" was given even more scrutiny than it normally does. What ended up happening is that Wilcox spooked a lot of teams by holding his opportunistic bargaining power in a year wherein most teams wanted SAFE easy signings - including several teams that don't like being spooked even a little bit. Thus, he ultimately fell and got paid his market WORTH by an aggressive team. This is what almost always happens in situations like this when a top talent chooses to play hardball. The theme of the 2020 draft was "under-slot" - and Wilcox didn't fit into that theme at all. He was valued by one of the best drafting/talent acquiring teams in the league at $3.3 million which pegged him as a 19th/20th overall talent. This is considerably out of the range of the value of a competitive balance A pick either way, so I'm not really sure what your argument is. $1+ million in terms of draft bonus is a bigger jump than you make it out to be.

This is conjecture and not proof of anything. Wilcox was still a Sophomore and already had set a precedent on how he would handle negotiations when he turned down a LOT of money out of HS. His price tag was known which is why he fell to the 3rd round - the fact that he still got paid Top 20 money proves what his actual "worth" is. You also aren't taking into account the scaling in terms of MLB draft value when you try to downplay by stating that the difference is only "less than a million dollars". First off, the very first Comp A pick was valued at $2.365 million which is basically $1 mill less than his bonus. The last Comp A pick was worth $1.999 mill which ias now $1.3 million less. That is a significant difference in value - kind of like how a Top 10 pick is worth considerably more than the 20th pick.

Wilcox signed for $3.3 million which falls in between the slot values of the 19th and 20th overall picks in the 2020 draft. He was seen as a 1st round talent both times that he was draft eligible - out of HS, and this past season. He is worth considerably more than whatever a competitive balance pick brings back.

This actually isn't as scary as you would assume it to be. Realmuto just turned 30 and there is no reason to fear that he'll fall apart unexpectedly as he is the most athletic catcher in the league, on top of also being above average in literally every category (including baserunning) which means that he's not dependent on just his bat or just his defense to produce value. We've already seen from examples like Yadier Molina, Martin, and even Buster Posey that elite catchers absolutely can and have held their production well into their mid 30's. Russell Martin was 2 years olders than Realmuto is right now when we signed him as a free agent, and even in his final seasons he was still a 1+ WAR player (he was actually more productive than Jansen was for us this past season).

So you actually didn't present any counter arguments at all. I'm well aware that AA was offered a multi year contract, and my post even mentioned that. However, that multi-year contract would come under a rebuild. Rebuilding a team is not easy nor is it a guarantee to succeed, most certainly not in the AL East. The risk there for AA is that if the rebuild falters - he's going to be the first guy shown the door by the new President (Shapiro). So why take that risk when he also had the option to walk out on the highest of highs which would make him one of the primary options for every job opening that would come up? Your later point answers your own question: he was still in his 30's and therefore had all sorts of time to regroup and wait for a more favourable opening to come along. You state that he left because Shapiro wouldn't give him autonomy (complete BS because he gave Antonetti autonomy in Cleveland and obviously gives this current FO autonomy) and yet he willingly took a job in Los Angeles for two years wherein he wasn't even the GM, and was also working under a President (Friedman) who is quite obviously considerably more hands on than Shapiro. He took THAT job because its the most safe "transition" job imaginable - working under an elite team in the prime of their competitive window. His reputation would only increase by adding "worked under Andrew Friedman" to his resume, and thus using that he was able to turn down the Twins and then eventually fall into a dream scenario in Atlanta wherein the rebuild was already completed by Coppolela, and he just had to steer the ship into the playoffs. So instead of driving a challenging rebuild in the AL East, he was able to parlay his 2015 success into a job wherein someone else already did all of the heavy lifting for him - in an easier division to boot. Not only that, but he ALSO left because with Shapiro coming in, his path to becoming the eventual President in the Jays organization was now blocked. Yes, he could have stayed here as the GM - but unless Shapiro walked out on his own, Anthopolous would need to eventually leave anyway if he had visions of ascending in his career. Note how in Atlanta that window was already opened for him. After only two seasons with the team he was promoted to Team President - on top of retaining his duties as GM. So now he actually DOES have "full autonomy". The guy simply made a move for his own personal benefit, and he executed it perfectly. Can't even blame the man as looking out for himself should be his primary focus, and he quite clearly knows how to work the system in his favour to do so given his noted rise from the mail-room to now the President of an MLB team. All of the crap about him leaving Toronto because Shapiro wouldn't give him autonomy is window dressing that he used perfectly to maintain his public perception as the knight in shining armour, while the guys that came after him had to do the dirty work of disassembling and rebuilding an old and rapidly declining roster that had no chance of future playoff success.

Of course he would not have had absolute "full autonomy" - the problem here is that you are now making a hyperbolic conclusion which implies that if one does not have "full autonomy", then this simultaneously concludes that there is meddling or micromanaging going on. That is a fallacy. "Full autonomy" is a complete misnomer because no GM in baseball has absolute "full autonomy". If you want to get technical, even Anthopolous under Beeston didn't have "full autonomy" because Beeston's run-ins with Boras quite obviously meant that Anthopolous COULD NOT target his players even if he wanted to. If your lone title is "GM", then that means that you have a boss (ie: the team President). If you have a boss, then by definition you can never have absolute "full autonomy". The reason why Anthopolous left is actually very simple - he was protecting his own self interests. As it became obvious that Beeston (his safety net) was going to be replaced, the natural train of thought is to assume that the next President would want to bring in his own GM - especially when the incumbent GM (in this case Anthopolous) had never made the playoffs and thus hadn't built up any job security. Seeing this, Anthopolous rushed to actualize his "playoff push" and this resulted in a legitimately elite playoff contender which secured Anthopolous' job once Shapiro was hired, because Anthopolous had been crowned as the prince of Canada for finally getting the Jays back into the playoffs. However, the makeup of that 2015 team was fundamentally flawed for the reason that the core was built around old and declining players who were not only well on the wrong side of 30, but were entering free agency and looking to get paid. Furthermore, due to trade activity which led to that 2015 playoff run, Anthopolous had stripped the farm system of any MLB-ready difference makers which could have offset the natural decline of an aging roster - our best prospects were all in rookie ball. This meant that the only way to continue that playoff run would be to double-down with overpaid acquisitions through free agency, which would eventually lead to a catastrophic end-point. Shapiro, being an analytically driven baseball executive, would obviously not push the team down that path as that model of team building had already been exposed numerous times as foolish. This meant that a REBUILD was inevitable and Anthopolous obviously knew that himself, because he's not an idiot or incompetent. So how does this lead to Anthoplous protecting his own self interests? Simple: he could walk out on his own terms while looking like a genius while his "value" in the MLB was at his highest, take an easy job for a year or two in LA under Friedman, and then just wait for the perfect opportunity to come calling - which is exactly what he did. His other option would have been to stay here and to actualize a necessary rebuild/strip down of the roster wherein he'd have to face the brunt of going from "fan favourite" to the guy who didn't keep pushing for a World Series, which would only tarnish his public perception. He was obviously very smart and left that part to Shapiro/Atkins as he himself rode off into the sunset. He was probably also rightfully paranoid of the possibility that while Shapiro would keep him on as GM, under an inevitable rebuild he could get pushed out and replaced after 2-3 years in which case he'd now be entering "executive free agency" not as the guy coming off a near World Series appearance, but as the guy coming off of a rebuild. To rise from a guy working in the mail room to GM requires a lot of foresight and power-moves in order to propel yourself higher and higher. Anthopolous is obviously extremely good at this game. After 2015, he correctly saw the writing on the wall and left on his own terms, which allowed him to take all of the glory while absolving himself of any responsibility with cleaning up the spilled milk. Note how after he left, he took a job with an elite organization in its prime - which meant that his reputation could not in any way be lowered. Then, he took his time to make sure only to take control of an organization which was already on the rise and bustling with young talent.

That position is also corroborated with Shapiro's time in Cleveland as well his highly publicized fundamental belief in structuring a front office by creating a "think tank" of highly qualified collaborators. Even the way you worded that - Shapiro whispering into Atkins' ear about what to do - does not reflect the way in which our front office operates. You forget that up until a year ago, the front office also had Tony LaCava and Ben Cherington who are both about as qualified as Atkins is at carrying the "GM" title, also in the room. That also completely bypasses people like Mike Murov, Joe Sheehan, and even Andrew Tinnish who also exert their own influence such that even regardless of Shapiro's alleged input, Ross Atkins HIMSELF is not the Emperor at the helm. It seems entirely counterintuitive to suggest that all of these guys are paid a salary to do what, act as mouthpieces for a guy who publicly took himself out of "baseball operations" a decade ago? If you actually read about what he focuses his time on - going past the parameters of the "President" role to essentially represent the team as an Owner - then you'd know that there would be no time for him to micromanage to the level that this conspiracy theory suggests. And that is literally what it is - a conspiracy theory. I've literally read on here in one form or another that Shapiro dictates who we draft. He dictates free agent signings. He dictates any and all baseball trades. All without any burden of proof, and a mountain of evidence to suggest otherwise (including hearsay from people OUTSIDE of the organization). I'm kind of surprised that I haven't read yet that he's secretly feeding managerial decisions through an ear piece to Charlie Montoyo, because he seems to have found the magic key to operating on a 72 hour day, while everyone else on the planet is limited to 24 hours. How else could he supposedly perform all of these duties?

Your entire viewpoint on this topic is problematic for a wide range of reasons. Ultimately, you are juggling two separate premises and presenting them as "fact", when in reality an actual analysis of both premises would tell you that neither of your positions are as convincing as they are in your own head. 1) Overstating Shapiro's Tendencies in Cleveland and Applying them to Toronto I don't know why this position keeps resurfacing, but Shapiro's actual role in baseball decisions is nowhere near as heavy footed as message board posters make it out to be (if it's even there at all). I don't know if everyone saw the recent media blurb about his potential candidacy for the Mets' Presidency, but one of the comments was striking: Shapiro actually represents Rogers at Owners' meetings, a rare occurrence for any President/CEO in baseball. The significance of something like that is simple: his position has long transcended that of "baseball GM" and now more closely mirrors that of "baseball Owner". Its literally been a decade since he was last a GM, and yet his name is brought up continuously as if his personal moves or positions 10+ years ago in Cleveland are a driving factor in what this organization believes/does today. This is a silly narrative which has already proven to hold zero weight. For example, a few years ago I had multiple people on this board telling me that the Jays wouldn't target HS players in the draft because that wasn't Shapiro's history in Cleveland. That position has proven to be false. The Indians under Shapiro also held very little position and commitment in the IFA market, and that too has proven to not carry and transfer over to his time here in Toronto wherein the team is one of the most active in that market year in and year out. Even if you look at his time in Cleveland, once he became President and handed the GM reigns over to Antonetti, he actually gave him autonomy to make his own moves. This has been documented in moves such as the blockbuster Ubaldo Jimenez trade in 2011: Shapiro openly stated that he would not have made that trade himself, but yet he didn't block Antonetti from making the deal. The indication of that is obvious - as he has transcended past "baseball operations", the caveat of "what would Shapiro do" is long irrelevant. The way he operated in Cleveland is an entirely different animal because that franchise has its own limitations and parameters - we witness this even TODAY as the team is currently juggling the idea of shipping out their franchise player - a 27 year old in his prime. Obviously, the positions that one can make as "President/CEO" significantly changes with the organization under which one holds the position. One would not operate as the CEO of Microsoft in the same manner as they would had they been the CEO of some computer-startup. As such, the fallacy that you are committing is to comb through his past in a completely different market, and then carrying those positions forward today as if there was a 1-to-1 translation. Cleveland has considerably more razor thin margins, and thus they must hold a position that represents those unique parameters. If what you believe is true (past predicts future regardless of organization), then Andrew Friedman would not have done ANYTHING that he has done in his time in Los Angeles, as he was not making those moves in Tampa Bay. The Andrew Friedman example presents a more exaggerated scenario, but that exaggeration proves the point entirely: a smart baseball executive will change his position depending on the environment. The only point that you can make about Shapiro is that his viewpoint is that the goal should be to field a consistently winning team. That position in no way indicates that the team will be risk averse, and it is the position of basically every smart/well-run organization in the MLB. 2) Misappropriating "Win-Now" Moves and Their Hypothetical Importance Your entire position on this topic began with the fundamental conclusion that if one is in a competing position and DOESN'T unload their future in order to "win now", that another team will do so and it will result in them edging your team out and winning the title. While this conclusion seems to make sense on paper, it actually doesn't seem to hold much truth in baseball as you appear to want to believe. You have been challenged on this point by more than one person and have not really responded in any way to the truth that what you are proposing in reality has NOT actualized in the way that you claim. Your own example of Anthopolous going "all in" at the 2015 deadline is proof in itself: not only were we a better team on paper than the Royals were, but we also made more "win now" moves at the deadline than they did - and we still lost. Today we talk about how the better team didn't win that series, but that is the entire point: baseball has so many more variables than a sport like basketball does, and as such the real truth seems to be that planning your team around moments of going "all in" seems to be a less optimal strategy than trying to build a team that makes the playoffs for 10 straight seasons - because the ACTUAL championship predictor seems to be the number of playoff appearances itself. I'll bring up the Dodgers once again, because they prove this point entirely: if you look at their blockbuster and trade-deadline moves from the past decade wherein they were an elite level team basically every season, you will find that they actually made a plethora of significant "win now" moves that in fact did not, as you predicted, secure them the championship: 1) Hanley Ramirez in 2012: a 4+ WAR addition that performed as such in LA when healthy, ultimately didn't push them over the top. 2) Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett in 2012: mega-blockbuster deal, still didn't push the Dodgers over the top. 3) Yasmani Grandal in 2014: added a player that would go on to play at a 4-6 WAR pace for LA, still didn't push the Dodgers over the top. 4) Rich Hill and Josh Reddick in 2016: a combined ~4-5 WAR added at the deadline, still didn't push them over the top. 5) Yu Darvish in 2017: this was the move that was billed as THE move that would finally win them a World Series as the team was a heavy favourite even without Darvish, ultimately still didn't push them over the top. 6) Manny Machado in 2018: superstar level performer added at the trade deadline to an already World Series favourite roster, still didn't push them over the top. As as you can actually see, the notion of "buying" your way to a World Series is actually much more complicated than: team A and B are both very good, team B makes more win-now moves at the deadline and therefore beats out team A. It took the Dodgers almost a full decade to actually win the World Series, and that was with moves almost every single season that under "theory" should have given them the title. Of course, that isn't actually how baseball works. Now, the conclusion here isn't that you should never make those moves as the need to improve your team with current MLB performers is always an obvious necessity, but the caveat is that this must be done while also never leveraging yourself out of future playoff appearances. The Dodgers did this masterfully, as while all of the above "star" acquisitions came and left, they maintained a core group of young stars on their roster and elite prospects in their system which were PIVOTAL in them ultimately winning the World Series in 2020. They never actually leveraged themselves out of the future, what they actually did was maintain a window of contention long enough for the "randomness" of baseball to swing in THEIR favour. Their team could have won the World Series in any and ALL of the past 3-4 seasons as they possessed the talent to do so, but it never happened. The longer and more often that you can keep rolling the dice, the more likely it becomes that the winning combination falls for you. Even Anthopolous came to this conclusion: after selling the entirety of our future competitive flexibility to "win now" in the years leading up to 2015, he has been blasted by Braves fans for NOT doing "enough" the past two seasons. Consistency and steadiness ultimately wins this race, NOT bullish and uncontrolled explosiveness.

Cano got popped for Stanozolol which is one of the most easily detectable and known steroids in sports. It seems like he's just a complete idiot, or he was taking something that was marketed as something more 'designer' and it turned out to be Stanozolol instead (ie: his dealer/doctor f***ed him). The vast majority of guys who are doping in sports and getting away with it in this age are all on designer steroids that are altered at a miniscule level to pass detection - remember that testing will ALWAYS lag behind what is actually available on the market. It always kills me when these guys with a hundred million dollars in the bank pop positive for something from the 1970's or earlier that your average bro from the gym is on LMAO.

The nature of baseball is that there is no such thing as "buying" a World Series by "going all in". The Dodgers have been an elite level team for literally a decade and they only now won a World Series. The "simple" statement would be to say that they won because they sold prospects and bought Mookie Betts, but that assumes that they did literally nothing in the previous ~9 years which isn't the case at all. They made other moves and additions in previous years and never won, how come? Probably because of randomness and the fact that making the biggest splash rarely actually secures your team the World Series. The nature of baseball ACTUALLY seems to imply that your goal should be to stretch your playoff window as long as possible. The longer the window, the more likely that you actually "hit" on one of those postseason appearances. Here's the thing about the Dodgers: they could have moved guys like Seager and countless other young players in "win now" moves several times over, but without those players they don't win it in 2020.

I don't know if you saw this, but a Washington State school district just revealed an equity study which now groups Asians WITH "white people" in an obvious attempt to inflame the supposed gap LMAO. So if there's anyone on here who is Asian...congrats guys, you're now "white".