metafour

Development of draft picks has been a clear negative, but some of this is obviously just situational noise. Roden and Kasevich would absolutely have been brought up this year for at-bats, but they acquired Loperfido, Wagner, and Clase at the deadline. The only reason why Roden isn't up is because there was no reason to start his clock. So yes, on paper it is "zero". But its not because there was absolutely nobody to warrant bringing up.

Why would including Horwitz be "generous"? This is why this s*** is always so melodramatic: you are by default hyper-critical of what you see yourself from your own team, but excessively complimentary to other teams. Horwitz just put up 1.9 fWAR in under 100 games played. His 127 wRC+ was the 39th best in the entire damn league among players with 350 or more plate appearances. There is nothing in his hitting profile that screams "luck": he walks, doesn't strike out a lot, and the power is growing. His wOBA was only 7-points higher than his expected wOBA. He raked his entire time in the minors. But hey, he never made a Top 100 list so he is "AAAA". Meanwhile you are giving credit to the Rockies for what? A 0.3 fWAR reliever in Vodnik LMAO? Wow what talent! He put up a 4.28 ERA and a 4.18 FIP. He throws hard though. Vodnik shouldn't even be a talking point at this stage. Feltner is barely any different from Francis on the surface; the only difference is that he got to start the entire season. Francis was a better pitcher than Feltner once they put him permanently into the starting rotation. Could Francis be a complete mirage? Sure, but Feltner wasn't anything even worth mentioning until this season - so its really not any different as he can just as easily go back to sucking. He was a near 6 ERA pitcher the previous two seasons my guy, but his fWAR last year was inflated to 0.9 because he had an obviously flukey 0.42 HR/9 (it was 1.11 this season). Someone like Orelvis Martinez can very easily come up next year and pop off a 2-3 WAR season. The guy didn't disappear from the planet; he came back after his suspension and hit .304/.360/.522 in 11 games in September. Meanwhile, Nolan Jones is a "bounce back" impact guy? Sure, in the same sensed maybe Manoah comes back and re-enters the Cy Young race. Nolan Jones was atrocious this year, and his 2022 sample was pedestrian as well. Nolan Jones' wOBA was 30+ points higher than his xwOBA last season.

Guerrero, Kirk, Horwitz, Jimenez, Jansen, Biggio, Schneider, Berroa, Bichette, and Lukes combined for 13.7 fWAR. I'm counting Lukes because he was signed as a minor leaguer and never played any MLB games with any other organization. They had a total of 22.7 position player fWAR on the season, so slightly over 60% of their position player WAR was "home grown". You are correct that on the pitching side everyone apart from Francis was signed or acquired as an existing MLB player from outside the organization, however the team only had 8.1 total combined fWAR from the pitchers. Guerrero and Kirk alone combined for 8.3 fWAR. So no, your premise isn't correct. I think someone brought this up already, but the Padres entire team apart from Jackson Merrill, Matt Waldron, and a couple relievers was brought in from elsewhere.

Well said. It was Teoscar (impending FA) for 3.6 fWAR and Adam Macko. They don't/can't sign Kiermaier with Teoscar still on the roster, so those moves are entirely connected. Retroactively using Teoscar's 2024 season is hilarious. Under that same narrative I'm sure the Dodgers wish they would have signed him to a 2 or 3 year deal now that they know that he'd have his 2nd best season ever, but they didn't. Gee I guess Friedman isn't so smart after all.

Why is it a joke? He was worth -0.7 WAR last season, and -0.5 WAR this season. They kept him on their MLB roster (with all the benefits that goes along with that) for nearly a full season and allowed him to keep getting MLB PA's, which is essentially a gift in and of itself for a guy who is trying to extended his career. There are hundreds of guys in AAA who don't get that opportunity - they are up for 2-3 games and sent back down a week later. They could have cut him MONTHS ago and made him ride the bus in AAA for some other team. He received his bonus already: its called being on an MLB roster for a full season and gifted 400+ AB's despite the fact that he is a 1B who can't hit, can't field, and can't run.

$200K bonus for a -0.5 WAR season LOL. Tough s***, sonny. $3M is too much itself.

Lopez has 2.2 WAR carried almost entirely by defense. He has an 86 wRC+ this season (Biggio is at 84 while being cut by multiple teams). Biggio hit for 102 wRC+ last year and 97 wRC+ the season before that. Its whatever. A no-hit defender at 2B isn't really what this team is missing.

Rutschman: 2.9 fWAR in 614 PA's Kirk: 2.6 fWAR in 364 PA's LOL. Rutschman is down to a 105 wRC. Huge, monumental decline offensively.

Josh Kasevich just hit a 409 foot HR. .336/.390/.414 heading into today's AAA game. Roden hit his 9th AAA HR yesterday: .320/.407/.515 (141 wRC+).

I agree - a better GM never would have signed him. What were they thinking?

Yeah, I'm very confused by the "it's not that big a deal" comments. The guy signed for nearly $300K - he is playing professional baseball. The idea that he is helping the other team win because "he wants the season to end" is batshit absurd. If he doesn't want to play, he should fake an injury. Has he considered that his teammates may in fact want to potentially play in the A-ball playoffs? And like you mentioned, him tipping pitches is literally f***ing his pitcher on the mound. I have no idea who Ryan Dunn is or what his prospect status is, but imagine this guy is on the cusp and this bad performance plays into him being released (had nobody found out that the catcher was tipping pitches).

His strikeout rate has also dropped significantly. His hard-hit % is up to a whopping 46.9%. His barrel % is up over 5% to 14.3%. So he is basically just throwing the ball in the zone (lower K rate, lower BB rate) and its getting hit hard. But the ball so far has been going right to defenders (.152 BABIP) or its being popped up at an unsustainable rate (automatic outs). Pitchers who give up a ton of hard contact don't carry an absurdly low BABIP. Its obviously a fluke. He is also carrying a 100% LOB% which also will normalize eventually.

Pearson is getting hit just as hard as he was here. He has an absurd 21.7% IFFB rate with the Cubs (it was 13.3% prior to trade). He is posting a .152 BABIP. This is clearly just batted-ball luck in a small sample size.

Avg EV Wagner: 90.4 mph Horwitz: 88.5 mph Max EV Wagner: 109.1 mph Horwitz: 108.1 mph Wagner hits the ball hard, but his batted ball profile is what limits his power - he hits too many ground balls. He has just a 25% FB rate in his short MLB stint (it was 28.1% in ~70 AAA games with Houston). If you look at Horwitz who has a very similar skill-set/profile to Wagner, you will see that he has been slowly raising his FB rate. Its at 35% this season which is the highest its ever been in a full-season sample. This is what has allowed him to increase his power output this season. When he was in AA/AAA he had the exact same "label" as Wagner as a guy who "didn't have any power". The point here is that Wagner has the tools to hit for more power (he doesn't swing a noodle-bat), the question is whether they can tweak his swing without breaking it.

He legit has like a 120 wRC+ since the All-Star break. Maybe try watching with your eyes open.

I'm so done with Danny Jansen. Stop trying to make Jansen happen, its over.

Jake Bloss with a bounce-back tonight, albeit a bit wild: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 5 K The FB topped at 94.4 mph and averaged 92.9. He had 11 whiffs on 28 swings (39%). Alan Roden also 2 for 3 with a HR.

Oh wow, so a talented hitter (1st round pick) managed to find a way to improve?

Pointless post is pointless. He is 18 years old and in A-ball. Of course that means that there is an outcome where he doesn't even make the MLB. I never said that he was guaranteed to be an MLB star - any player who is still only in A ball is obviously going to have a wide range of potential outcomes. The original post by Laika that I was responding to made the claim that his K-rate meant that his chance was "puny" - which simply isn't true at all, given the fact that I can name quite a few current MLB stars who struck out a lot at similar ages/levels. The one thing they all have in common is that they have elite power/bat-speed/etc. Laika then shifted to the argument that these guys with high K-rates must have had better batted-ball profiles. Some of them did, but I can also point you to Marcell Ozuna for example: Age 19 @ Low-A: 32.1% K-rate, .289 ISO, 0.71 GB/FB, 22.0% IFFB% Age 18 Nimmala @ A-ball: 31.9% K-rate, .239 ISO, 0.67 GB/FB, 25.3% IFFB% Ozuna's GB/FB rate was 0.51, 0.77, and 0.71 over his first 3 pro seasons in the low minors before it started improving, so the idea that an 18 year old is doomed to the same batted ball profile for the remainder of his career is simply not true. And again, a pretty important fact here is that Nimmala is playing SS, and there is no indication yet that he wont continue to play SS. A legitimate SS with huge power has considerably more leeway than most hitters, which would increase Nimmala's odds in comparison to "most" high-strikeout low minors hitters. Paul DeJong is in his 8th MLB season as a high strikeout, low BA, high FB% SS...because he can crank out HR's and play defense. Here is another example: Age 21 Brent Rooker in High-A: 29.0% K-rate, .273 ISO, 0.82 GB/FB, 10.3% IFFB% Brent Rooker went on to strike out at a putrid 34.7% rate in AAA at age 24. How the hell is that guy a successful MLB hitter with a K-rate that poor? By the way, Nimmala had another very Nimmala-esque game this morning: 2 for 4, HR (#16), 2B, 2 K

No, I'm not thinking about it the wrong way. Most players at that age/level don't have the raw tools to ever even make the MLB. So if they have a 30% K-rate in A-ball, it is likely because they outright suck. Why would I care about comparing Nimmala to those players? He doesn't belong in that "bucket". The players who can "turn around" or succeed with defects like a high K-rate in the low minors are those with elite tools. Nimmala is a SS with 60 or 70 grade power upside and above-average current EV's. You will find that most if not all of the successful MLB hitters who were striking out a lot in the low minors will fit some variant of that type of profile. Most of Nimmala's issue right now is pitch recognition, which you would expect to naturally improve as he sees more pitches. Here is a fun fact: Nimmala is YOUNGER than each of the following 1st round HS hitters who were just selected in the 2024 Draft: Bryce Rainer, PJ Morlando, Theo Gillen, Kellon Lindsey, Dante Nori. So he is still younger than 5 of the 8 HS hitters who were drafted a full calendar year after him. He is very young. His batted ball profile has (current) flaws, but to pretend like this means that he has only a miniscule likelihood of making the MLB is silly. His current profile looks very similar to Trevor Story, who obviously had significant MLB success for a period of time.

Biggio is younger than Lukes and has 6.2 career fWAR. Relax my guy.

This is wrong. There are multiple current MLB stars who had similar K-rates to Nimmala at similar ages in the low minors. One of them is Baltimore's own Gunnar Henderson who had a 29.3% K-rate at an older age 20 in A-ball (157 PA) and then followed that with a 30.1% K-rate in High-A (289 PA) at age 20. Nimmala's K-rate is also improving. He is at at a 27% K-rate for the month of August. Even if he forever remains a high-strikeout hitter, his power is elite and will play regardless. He is literally hitting for more power than Vlad at the same age.

Alan Roden since July 25th: .400/.475/.624 (184 wRC+) with a 13.1% BB-rate and a 12.1% K-rate. .224 ISO as well.

RJ Schreck update: 2 for 3, 2B, HR, BB Oh yeah, and this was the HR:

Marc Hulet normally has pretty good insight into Jays prospects. This is what he wrote about Lazaro Estrada today: