metafour

Did I break your rationalism? 2012 Red Sox 11-11 in April (+3 run differential) 15-14 in May (+15 run differential) 15-12 in June (+36 run differential) 12-14 in July (-19 run differential) 2017 Blue Jays 8-17 in April (-21 run differential) 18-10 in May (+29 run differential) 11-15 in June (-33 run differential) 7-12 in July (-65 run differential) If you want to play rationalist, you can start by using comparisons that actually make sense. So what we have here is actually a Red Sox team that was nowhere near as bad as the final 69-93 record indicates, and on top of that you want to further your rationalism by using one of the single most fluky free agent signing classes in MLB history to dictate that "anything can happen". Yes, anything can happen. You know what else can happen? We can actually get even worse next year than we are right now, and in fact this is much more likely than expecting us to find the 2018 equivalents of Victorino/Napoli/Drew/Uehara in free agency. Those four players alone made a combined $32 million in 2013 and yet produced 16.3 WAR, which means that they produced somewhere around ~$100 million in value depending on what figure you want to use as the value of 1 WAR. You will find that MLB free agency doesn't often grant you upwards of $70 million in excess value on your investments. That isn't even counting Jonny Gomes or David Ross who produced pretty good value as well for them (1.1 WAR for Gomes at $5 million, 0.8 WAR for Ross at $3.1 million).

That 2012 Red Sox team was sitting at .500 at the All-Star break and didn't turn into your "69-93" team until literally August/September when injuries decimated them. In fact, going into August they sat at 53-51, which means that for 4 of the 6 months of that season they were actually a fairly average team. How does it relate with our Blue Jays team this season? Well, if you have been paying any attention, you'd understand that this team has spent a grand total of 0 days at .500 or better this season, and that apart from one stretch wherein we beat up on an equally injured Seattle team and Cincinnati, we have been a BAD team for virtually the entire season. So to begin, we need to clarify that you are actually comparing what was an average-ish 2012 Red Sox team who just so happened to have a horrible end to their season to a bad 2017 Blue Jays team that has been bad for the majority of games played to date. As you can hopefully imagine, it is a lot easier to take an average team and improve them enough in one offseason to get a good team the following season than it is to do the same with what is a bad team the year prior. So in reality, the starting points aren't even remotely comparable. You then need to analyze their free agent signings from that offseason and understand that expecting that type of reproduction or luck is beyond silly. Yes, baseball is random, but if you operate your franchise under the premise that you will replicate that 2013 Red Sox free agent class you are going to have a bad time. They got 5.9 WAR from Shane Victorino who hasn't done a thing since that 2013 season. They signed Koji Uehara for $4.5 mill and he proceeded to produce a 3 WAR season in relief, at the time one of the most dominant single season relief performances in history. They signed Napoli for $5 mill and he produced a 3.9 WAR season. They signed Stephen Drew for $9.5 mill and he produced a 3.4 WAR season. Throw in Saltalamacchia having a fluke 3.5 WAR season himself and it is easy to see how they fluked their way from average to very good in one offseason. Sounds simple, right? You just need all your pedestrian free agent signings to put up elite seasons at the same time. Not just good, but elite. This was of course a complete fluke as most of those same players went on to fall back to reality in 2014 which led to a 71-91 season.

By that measure, every team in the league can contend for the playoffs next year. Why stop there? Maybe Conner Greene comes up like 2016 Sanchez? Maybe Pompey puts up a star season? Maybe Tellez is next year's Cody Bellinger? Or, maybe JA Happ turns into next year's version of the 2017 Estrada?

This team has far too many holes to seriously think that you can just go into free agency and find the missing pieces. Its a pipe dream.

Yeah bro; you are going to get a top player who is still 27 years old for a straight salary dump. Ain't happening.

You will find that in the case of really old teams that "projections" very often lag behind reality, ie: they rely too much on past performance that isn't coming back versus taking into account that the actual "true skill" of these players may have shifted permanently. Fangraphs has been projecting positive regression for the better part of the past 3+ months, where is it? This team has actually been getting worse after what was a hot-stretch at one point this season (when we went ~26-16 in one stretch and almost climbed back to .500). This team just isn't very good by any objective measure, and if you want to be a "rationalist", then understand that there is a higher chance that the only actually good part of this team (the bullpen) regresses next season than there is of an old and decrepit lineup all of a sudden learning how to run, field, and hit again. Why? We have actually been extremely fortunate in getting top-tier production from a bunch of no-names, the fickleness of relieving suggests that many of these guys could look completely different next year. You see the problem stretches far past just offensive regression; this team is among the worst fielding and base running teams in baseball. Your only "good" defenders (Pillar, Tulo, Donaldson) are actually declining in this regard as all of them are obviously out of their defensive prime. So what if Tulo makes some positive growth offensively next year when his defense (ie: his only carrying skill the past ~2 years) is likely to shift even further to average if not below average next year?

Going for it again next year is a joke. We are 9 games below .500 and have holes all over the roster that need to be addressed on top of no reason to expect that any of these old scrubs are going to improve enough to actually make any sort of difference in a playoff race. By the way; we were making the playoffs with Donaldson playing at an ~8 WAR level. Even if he turns it around next year, understand that his days of playing at that level are likely long gone, so while a 5 WAR season would still be very good, its 3 less wins on a roster that already has zero wiggle room.

And in the end, it doesn't even matter.

This Naswell Paulino kid is roasting the DSL. No idea what his stuff is like, but he was one of our more expensive signings in last year's capped class.

Yes, so we can pick lower in next year's draft. Duh.

Kevin Smith: 2 for 4 with his 3rd HR (steal alert?) Ryan Noda: 3 for 4, 2B Chavez Young: 2 for 4

The Reds eat $10 mill a year and get absolutely nothing of value for a guy who is still one of the best players in the league. Brilliant. Maybe we can get them to throw in Nick Senzel too?

Gil Kim said he's got some of the loudest tools in the system. He's worth more than just "keeping tabs on".

Chris King is at the GCL game today. PK Morris is making his pro debut. Should also get some reports on 18 year old Jol Concepcion who was brought up from the DSL and has been posting strong numbers as an 18 year old.

Kevin Smith: 3 for 4, 2 doubles so far tonight. Average up to .299 The strikeouts are real, but the power is coming through and he's showing more Cape Cod contact than Maryland contact early.

Warmoth batting 3rd for Vancouver tonight.

Ryan Borucki: 7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K 10 groundouts, 1 flyout. 94 pitches, 61 strikes.

Having the "highest ceiling" is a relative term and isn't something that you can actually measure. Several players on that list have ceilings that are obviously as high, if not higher. Tatis Jr. for example is drawing Machado comps. I don't see a problem with that Moncada placement given what he's shown and the fact that he's still largely tools-over-substance with some worrying question marks. Is he even going to be as good as Bellinger who was ranked below him and yet is already crushing MLB pitching?

A guy like Quintana can just be traded later if needed to recuperate whatever you gave up for him.

Ryan Noda has another HR tonight...

The Yankees' quick turnaround has everything to do with the shrewd acquisitions of guys like Castro, Hicks, and Gregorius for virtually nothing and seeing them blossom in New York; not "blowing their brains out" in the IFA market which has largely produced nothing significant for them yet. You keep bringing up the failure of not going "all in" in the 2015 IFA market without considering that the Cubs spent $15.53 million that year and could do so because they were in the penalty the previous year and thus had the whole year to reach agreements for the 2015 class. The Dodgers also spent $7.88 mill that year (this is looking at just the 16-year old kids, not Cuban signees). The point is, there are other teams signing these players as well, so its not as simple as deciding to "blow your brains out" and then everyone signs with you. I mean, we could have easily signed a bunch of $300-500K kids for $1+ mill and made it look like we were getting sweet talent, but spending a ton of money and actually signing the best players are two completely different things. If you look at that class, the top ~8 or 9 guys all signed with different teams, and while the Cubs went crazy, they didn't land ANY of the Top 3-5 elite guys. Why didn't they sign Vlad Jr. if they were going all in? Probably because he had a deal with us for maybe 1-2 years prior.

Yeltsin Gudino 3 for 3 with a double and a walk. Now pushes his line up to .270/.342/.323. Still more work to be done, but his year-to-year improvement is very evident. Apparently he's been hitting .338 since the MWL midway point.

Can we interject some personal responsibility here? If your lifelong goal is to become a professional athlete, and you've so far succeeded enough to become a PROFESSIONAL minor league player, the idea that you don't have the resources or "knowledge" to know that you can't eat chocolate bars and chips all day is a total joke. Do you need to wipe their bottoms after they've gone to the bathroom as well? If you can't spent half a day learning about nutrition when your career of choice is entirely athletic, then just give the f*** up.

Most of these people who want to try and scrape out a second wildcard spot don't realize that we close out this season with something like 22 of our final 30 games being against AL East opponents. Because of this, the AL West and AL Central teams that we'd be competing with for that spot have a significant advantage because they are more competitive within their own divisions than we are within our own division. Regardless of our "2 of 3" series win against the Yankees because Betances couldn't throw a single strike, we have one of the worst winning percentages against inter-divisional rivals in the entire league. Going into that series against the Yankees I believe only Oakland had a worse winning percentage. The reality is, just how confident is anyone that we'll go into those final 30 games (which WILL be what decides the wild card spots) and come out with a sufficient winning record? We haven't managed to beat up on a single AL East team this year, and that includes the Orioles.

Except that Donaldson is almost certainly outside his "MVP window" already, and even still, the novelty of having an "MVP caliber player" on a non-competitive team is just that: a novelty. In a completely fair-weather market, the idea that you need to keep Donaldson around during a rebuild to "appease fans" or anything of the sort is a complete joke and serves no actual discussion in a strategic setting. No, Toronto 'fans' will not fill a stadium to watch Donaldson play on a ~70-80 win team.