metafour

I mean, he was always a guy with a very extreme batted-ball profile (typically leading to low BABIP and low BA's) and higher strikeouts, and now his power has evaporated post PED suspension. That obviously isn't a good sign, as it definitely suggests that his one true tool (power) was inflated by PED's. He also has no defensive value. Unless he can somehow completely retool his swing/hitting profile, I don't see him as much of a prospect at this point.

Oh no, we've been exposed and we suck again! Mastert*rder was right all along! These dudes are grasping at straws at this point LMAO. Any other brilliant predictions, tips?

Its about the monetary value of the player himself. Clase is a reliever from a dirt-poor country. You think the MLB and the broadcasting companies (ESPN, etc.) make any money from the Dominican Republic, lol? Ohtani is a golden cow who's likeness rakes in god knows how many millions. There is a report that the Dodgers have already made ~$120M in one year off of new sponsorships in Japan. Another report claimed that the "Ohtani effect" boosted the team's value by ~23%, to $7.73 billion. If anyone thinks that ~30 billionaires (the MLB team owners) plus the billionaires that run the various broadcasting companies don't have enough combined might to tell the FBI to go away, then I'm not sure what world you think you're living in. Nobody gives a s*** about Emmanuel Clase. We've actually already seen this before back when Michael Jordan was allegedly gambling and "retired" before coming back. You think the NBA was going to punish him LMAO?

Ok, it looks like the Juan Sanchez hype train has officially started. BA is going to move him up to #7 on the Jays list:

Ty France post trade: 161 wRC+ Eugenio Suarez post trade: -1 wRC+ Just like everyone would have predicted hehehe.

All of those things would seem to be incredibly lucky if one were of the opinion that our front office is incredibly mid. Which is the opinion held by most Jays fans, who are by and large not very smart. Of course, the other possibility is the we actually have a good front office, and they had quietly been building depth, and made a few correct calls and changes to their process following last season which have paid off. None of this should really be surprising because I told you all years ago that Cleveland was very good at churning out random no-name players to their MLB roster, this was during the time when the general consensus was that Shapiro was brought in to "penny pinch for Rogers" lol (great call from the Toronto wiz-kid experts btw, totally nailed that one). Everything that you just listed are things that no one here would bat an eye about as being "lucky" if it were the Braves, Dodgers, Yankees, Rays, or any other number of teams. But because its the Jays and "Shatkins", its inconceivable that they might actually know what they are doing. Even though they have fielded one of the higher winning percentages in the AL since ~2020, the fan opinion from moronic armchair experts is that we have a terrible front office....because they lost a few play-in Wild Card series. When the Braves won it all unexpectedly in 2021, it was deemed rightful because of course AA is a genius! Never mind the fact that 37 year old Charlie Morton was a 4.5 fWAR starter out of nowhere that year, Austin Riley went from two 0 fWAR seasons to a 5.1 fWAR season, they traded for Soler who was -1.2 fWAR with the Royals and then put up 1.2 fWAR with the Braves in just 55 games, Huascar Ynoa went from crap to passable starter, etc., etc. And this is really the most annoying angle to all of this: if another team is good, it is because it is somehow deserved. But if the Jays are good, well that is obviously just a fluke. You brought up Loperfido having a small-sample streak of performance which is obviously going to normalize. Is that "lucky"? Sure, to some degree...but we just saw Warming Bernabel in Colorado who has a 185 wRC+ in ~30 fewer plate appearances than Loperfido. So even the Rockies who have an insanely horrible front office can churn out a lucky small-sample stud. But lets go even further with Loperfido: he was one of 3 outfielders who they called up amidst Santander/Varsho being injured. Roden came up and was crap, and Clase came up and was crap. So 1 out of 3 guys have had small-sample success. Does it still look like some crazy good luck if they are batting 33% on the minor league OF callups this season? Most of their random minor league "where did this guy come from" success stories boil down to a numbers game...ie: they have amassed actual depth, and a few guys have popped from that group. Its not the front offices' fault that the majority of Jays fans are sad ****s and weren't aware that we actually had some promising players.

This series is an example of why run differential needs to be analyzed carefully and not just blindly followed. We have accumulated something like a +33-34 run differential in these three games alone. Earlier this season the Yankees amassed something like ~+90 run differential in a sample of 10 wins. This made up the absolute bulk of their +100+ run differential which had everyone convinced that they were the "best team in the AL East".

LMAO look at this guy. Yeah bud, the team has been super fortunate! 3 of the 4 big offseason moves (Santander, Gimenez, Scherzer) all got injured and missed significant time. Varsho came out extremely hot and then got injured and missed most of the season. Kirk, Vlad, Bo all hit like crap for the first month, as did Barger and Schneider. Jeff Hoffman has better K and BB rates than he did last season and a lower BABIP, but he's running a 4.56 ERA because his HR/9 randomly spiked to almost 2.0 out of nowhere (considerably worse than any of his 4 previous seasons). The only real "luck" has been Eric Lauer pitching above expectations. Springer's resurgence is a surprise, but again: this is a former star player who's "demise" happened much faster than anyone ever would have predicted. His season this year is simply counter-balance as far as I'm concerned.

Hey dipshit: MLB baseball is extremely random, hence why the LA Dodgers don't simply win every year despite having "the best team". Your argument boils down to "yeah well nobody expected them to be this good, so that means they actually aren't that good". Did anyone predict the Milwaukee Brewers to be this good? Did you have Cal Raleigh hitting at a ~60 HR pace this season on your bingo card LOL? Did you have the Braves as one of the worst teams in baseball? You are surprised that the Jays are good because of how they looked in 2024/2023, but those were actually seasons wherein almost everything went WRONG for the Jays. A lot of their success this season is simply things turning back around (ex: Kirk and Bichette reverting back to above-average hitters). I love the George Springer argument because it never seems to be made in reverse: he went from 140 wRC+ to 133 wRC+ in 2021/2022, and then completely collapsed to 103 wRC+ and 94 wRC+ overnight in 2023/2024. So if you believe that a historically elite hitter can just turn into a pumpkin overnight at age 33, why would it be so shocking to see him turn it back around and produce another great season at age 35? This isn't a random scrub player, it is a former All-Star who was always a great hitter. Its not even remotely inconceivable that he can still be a great hitter at his age, as plenty of previous players have already shown that it is is possible. For example, Justin Turner was a 138 wRC+ hitter at 35 for the Dodgers. So you have no problem believing that Springer out of nowhere can't hit at all. But its a complete fluke that he managed to find his swing again?

The upper levels of the system are absolutely not "extremely thin". This is pure nonsense. In the OF you have Shreck and Pinango posting elite metrics in AAA. Shreck is up to a 146 wRC+ in Buffalo with a .231 ISO. These guys provide legit depth alongside Loperfido. Shreck is actually hitting much better than Loperfido was in AAA. Josh Kasevich has been hurt all season and is back to rehab games now, but he is a near MLB ready SS who should be at least a backup MLB option because he is an above average defender who can make contact. The catcher that we just acquired for Wagner (Brandon Valenzuela) is now up to AAA and has the tools to at least serve as a backup MLB catcher. You have Manoah and Jake Bloss who are essentially MLB starter depth at this point. Bloss is recovering from TJ surgery, but he will be back next season - he was a borderline Top 100 prospect when we acquired him last season. Tiedemann is also an upper-level arm who is recovering from surgery and should at least become an interesting relief prospect due to his stuff. Adam Macko is up to AAA and is not doing well as a starter, but he has upside as a potential long-man out of the bullpen (this is likely where his future was always headed anyway). You've already seen guys like Lazaro Estrada who have MLB relief upside. In AA you have OF Victor Arias who isn't even 22 yet and is now up to a 156 wRC+ with elite exit velocities and power upside - this is a Top 10 prospect in our system and a big pop-up guy. Charles McAdoo has reestablished himself after a horrible start and is hitting for a 149 wRC+ since May 27th. You of course have Trey Yesavage blowing through AA, he will be up to AAA next season if not making his MLB debut.

Fun fact; Ty France actually has a higher xwOBA than Davis Schnieder.

But this argument makes doesn't make sense. If this is the first year where he has been good and he has years of control left, how do you conclude that this is his "peak value"? This is his first season as a full-time reliever, so its not like he has history of being a BAD reliever. There is no reason to believe that this isn't simply his new base-line of performance, with it being clearly possible that he actually improves over the next few years. By the way, I got curious and took a look at his game-logs from last season because he spent ~half the season as a starter and then switched permanently to the bullpen: He was a starter from the beginning of the season till August 14th: 6.14 ERA, 5.84 FIP, 2.21 HR/9, 7.85 K/9, 2.70 BB/9 in 36.2 IP He started relieving in September and immediately had 3 really bad outings: 25.31 ERA, 7.48 FIP, 3.38 HR/9, 10.13 K/9, 5.06 BB/9 in 5.1 IP Then he flipped a switch and closed the season with the following 5 relief outings: 2.35 ERA, 2.78 FIP, 1.17 HR/9, 12.91 K/9, 2.35 BB/9 in 7.2 IP Even in 2023 when he pitched some relief outings late in the season in September, he posted the following: 1.50 ERA, 2.84 FIP, 1.50 HR/9, 12.75 K/9, 0.75 BB/9 in 12.0 IP So really, his performance as a reliever has generally ALWAYS been strong or very good even before this season. His overall numbers just look bad in 2023 and 2024 because of his appearances as a starter. Sure the samples are small, but apart from those 5.1 innings last season immediately after they moved him to the bullpen (where I assume he was also playing with his stuff and pitch-mix) he had ~20 innings of elite reliever performance in 2023 and 2024.

Sure, but if Varland is a 1.5 WAR reliever and we are bad in some future season, then you can just sell high on him at the deadline and recoup a lot of the capital that we paid to get him. A reliever who is performing well and throws 98-100 will never not be valuable at the trade deadline, and he has so much control left that its hard to imagine that we won't have an opportunity to extract value back out of him at some point in the event that the team isn't competitive 2-3 seasons from now (or whenever). Of course that is dependent on him maintaining his performance, but that is why control is still valuable for a reliever. Look at Bednar with Pittsburgh: he completely fell apart last year, but because of the years of control they could build his value back up and still sell him for assets a year later. s***, its possible that Varland isn't even done improving and his value actually ends up increasing in future seasons.

I mean Emmanuel Clase doesn't really strike anyone out (by closer standards) and he has been the best reliever by fWAR since 2020. Robert Suarez is another guy who throws really hard but doesn't strike a lot of batters out. These definitely may be outliers, and the best relievers traditionally are striking out 10+ per 9, but its not unprecedented. Varland should be able to get away with less than sexy K-rates if he can maintain his elite ability to induce groundballs (95th percentile this season) and BB%. But even still, his success is so newfound that its hard to really conclude that he can't get even better and start missing more bats as they refine his pitch mix/approach. His velocity blew up and he has completely changed his pitch mix, but there may be more refining left to do. I think that Rojas is more of a control-over-command guy right now, so while his stuff should play out of the pen even right now, I don't think that there was much confidence that he wouldn't get hit around by MLB hitters. Its a small sample, but he has allowed 4 HR's in his two most recent outings in AA and AAA and has surrendered hits. He will be interesting to follow in AAA because it may turn out that he was just overpowering A+ hitters by throwing his pitches in the zone, but once you start facing better opposition you need to be able to throw quality strikes - not just strikes in order to not get hit around.

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.