metafour

Charles McAdoo's last 5 games: .474/.565/.842

Seattle Mariners last 4 games: 15-1 Loss 3-2 Loss 2-1 Loss 5-3 Loss 7 total runs scored. Boy did Jerry Dipoto ever go HAM at the trade deadline or what? Atkins should take notes, THIS is how you make moves to make sure that you're not wasting your elite pitching. I'm really at a loss for words at just how much Dipoto managed to shore up that offense. Key deadline acquisition Justin Turner struck out for the final out with the game on the line to end tonight's game against the mighty Pittsburgh Pirates. Turner is hitting below 100 wRC+ since the trade. The stupendous Mariners led by Jerry "Boss" Dipoto are now down to 28% odds of making the playoffs (per Fangraphs), after sitting at 50%+ odds heading into the trade deadline. Just an absolute masterclass display of team-improvement.

In Dunedin: 19 YO RHP Gilberto Batista (Jays debut, part of Jansen trade): 2 IP, 3 H, 3 R (1 ER), 2 BB, 6 K Not super sharp, but he was up to 95 mph and got whiffs with 4 different pitches. 19 YO LHP Luis Torres: 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K Also up to 94/95 and a kid to watch moving forward.

Jake Bloss today: 4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 K Topped out at 95.5 mph & struck out Jasson Dominguez.

Will Wagner has played in like 3 games and he has already hit a ball as hard as Colt Keith has all season long. What's funny is that Wagner is supposed to have poor raw power, and Keith is supposed to be Hercules. But hey, Keith made someone's Top 25 one time. He is 23 years old, which means that in 3 years he might hit as well as Horwitz is hitting today.

RJ Shreck in AA since being acquired: .306/.419/.583 180 wRC+ 16.3% BB%, 20.9% K%

Not really. He just turned 23 and was promoted at the expected pace that you would promote a HS player who was hitting well (which he was). The curiosity with him is the fact that he merely only became a "good" hitter in AAA, and has been nothing special at the MLB level so far. So is he a guy who hit a developmental wall in AA and really isn't as good as everyone thought he was? There are always guys who look elite in the lower/mid minors, but they all of a sudden become more average once they hit AAA/MLB pitching and never become impact MLB players.

Its a lot closer than you probably assume at face value. Schneider doesn't swing that much more than Biggio does.

Who gives a s***? The list of players who became considerably better MLB players despite never making a "Top 100 list" is huge. Keith was ranked high because he mashed at A+ and AA. But in AAA he was actually a lesser hitter than both Horwitz and Wagner. Yes he is younger than both, but this isn't some automatic confirmation that he will be a better MLB player. The most recent data points are always the most relevant for trying to determine MLB success. Top 100 lists are driven by hype. Look no further than Ethan Salas. That kid is still making Top 100 lists based off of 48 games in A-ball last year and the fact that the Padres promoted him like idiots to a level that he has no business being at, and yet his hitting has been an absolute abomination since then. He is hitting .194/.285/.299 this season with zero power, yet I'm supposed to believe that he is a better prospect than Nimmala. That kid is #20 on Pipeline's list and Nimmala isn't ranked at all, but what is the difference supposed to be? Both are miles away and have "elite upside" at premium positions. The difference is that Nimmala is actually doing something at the plate recently, while Salas looks like a turd who's only saving grace appears to be that he doesn't strike out a lot.

You're doing the thing where you easily find flaws in your own players (who you see everyday) but butter up another team's prospects. Meadows can be identical to Greene? On what planet? Meadows is nearly 25, has been bad at the MLB level over the past two seasons, and his underlying data and even MiLB stats are nothing mind-blowing. He is really fast and can play CF, so that's nice...but apart from that he is basically a glossed up Joey Loperfido Colt Keith is at least more promising than Meadows, but its 119 wRC+ in AAA and 93 wRC+ at the MLB level so far. Yippie. For a guy who shows up on prospect lists with 60+ raw power, his Statcast EV's are barely discernible from Spencer Horwitz. Jackson Jobe ranks high...just like Tiedemann did before he blew his arm out (lol). He has thrown just 53 innings in AA this season and is walking 4.7 batters per 9.

MLB Pipeline sucks (and that has nothing to do with the Jays low ranking). Their rankings are very very lazy. That new Top 30 Jays list is not good. For example: where is Victor Arias? It seems very obvious to me that they don't want to have to write up a bunch of new profiles, so they try really hard to keep guys on the list who they already have profiles written for. For example: Josh Rivera slotted in at #30. Arias is easily a better prospect. Dahian Santos at #22 is another "what?" inclusion.

Nimmala tonight: 3 for 5, HR, 2B He hit 3 balls over 100 mph (105.1, 102.0, 100.3).

His ISO is down to .155 this season (xSLG = .374) and he combines that with low BA, a really high strikeout rate, and below average contact rates. Even with the above average walk rate and chase rate, that profile is pretty ugly. Traditionally the guys that stick around in the MLB with high strikeouts/poor contact are typically guys with raw power who can mash and run into HR's even when they dont make the best contact. Schneider isn't even that, as his EV's are all very average. He is dependant on pulling the ball with optimal launch-angle to generate power, but the fact that he doesn't make contact and strikes out so much limits the number of occurrences where he is able to pull and barrel the ball properly. The other Buffalo guys (Wagner, Horwitz, Roden, Kasevich) are all contact freaks. I have a much easier time seeing those guys stick. Roden by the way hits the ball VERY hard. I've been looking at Buffalo games on Statcast recently and he is reaching 110+ mph EV's seemingly every couple games.

Why would he be fired during the season? Has there been a single GM fired yet? What is the benefit of firing him before the season ends?

More new draftees making their debuts in Dunedin today. 4th rounder Nick Mitchell had a standout game: 2 for 3, HR, BB, K Sean Keys: 1 for 4, 2 K

Jacob Sharp since being acquired: .316/.409/.842 with 3 HR's in 6 games (2 walks, 2 strikeouts).

Moves of note: - RHP Jake Bloss joins Buffalo, expected to make AAA start this Saturday. - SS Josh Kasevich has been promoted to Buffalo - OF Dasan Brown has been promoted to New Hampshire

It is so strange because he was rock-solid as a prospect in the high minors. He looked nothing like the hitter he ended up becoming at the MLB level: AA: .301/.378/.520 for a 159 wRC+ with a 13.9% K-rate AAA: .313/.368/.750 for a 161 wRC+ with an 18.4% K-rate (small sample of 18 games) Obviously stats don't always line up, but there was nothing to suggest that he would be a .200 MLB hitter. Going back even further, he hit .311 in Rookie ball and .286 in High-A.

Alejandro Kirk is a 25 year old catcher with a 1.2 fWAR in 61 games, who is really good defensively, who walks at a solid rate and strikes out very little. If he develops a touch of additional power, he has a shot at putting out really great overall numbers for a few years.

He was NOT the "#1 prospect in baseball" when he was traded. He ranked #1 for a few weeks on BA's list during a midseason July update after 4-5 prospects ranked ahead of him all graduated off the list. He was moved up by default, but more importantly, when BA did their actual full re-rank at the beginning of the next year he dropped to a spot even lower than he was before he temporarily became "the #1 prospect". He went from #5 (early 2022), to #1 (midseason 2022), and then down to #12 in January 2023 when BA did a full re-ranking of their entire list. He was traded on December 23, 2022. The lists themselves are always behind the actual industry consensus. Nobody in baseball had him as the "#1 prospect" at the time of the trade. This is no different than how the Jays announced the recent acquisition of Charles McAdoo who was "ranked #25-30" on Pittsburgh's lists, and then all of a sudden the writers came out to report that they were about to move him up to Top 10-15. In the case of Moreno, his #12 ranking on January 18th, 2023 is more accurately indicative of where he was ranked at the actual time of trade, NOT his July 2022 temporary "#1" ranking. Again, he was traded on December 23rd, 2022 - not in July 2022.

That wasn't what was said at all. Neither I, nor anyone else stated that Arozarena wasn't an obvious upgrade to their roster. The comment that was made was that those two trades supposedly proved that DiPoto wasn't "wasting his pitching". All I said was that Seattle could have done much more at the trade deadline, and trading for Arozarena and taking a pie in the sky gamble that 40 year old Justin Turner is going to get hot at the right time does not warrant patting DiPoto on the back for anything. They lost 6-0 today and had 3 total hits. Its a little too early to celebrate Seattle's supposed offensive renaissance.

I've been looking at AAA Statcast recently; check the EV's on Alan Roden lately: Aug 4th: 108.4 (1B), 106.9 (GO) Aug 3rd: 94.3 (1B), 89.3 (1B) Aug 2nd: 112.2 (2B), 103.7 (FO), 102.9 (LO) Aug 1st: 110.5 (2B), 94.6 (LO), 90.5 (2B)

Bros, Nimmala just did it again LMFAO. 2 for 3, HR, BB so far tonight.

1B/DH only players who were comparable hitters to him (or even better hitters in some cases) signed extensions in their mid 20's for nowhere near $300M (eg: Yordan Alvarez, Paul Goldschmidt). Don't you think that those players' agents would tell them to just wait for free agency is they thought that there was $300+ million on the table for them? Agents are paid a percentage of the total contract signed. It makes zero sense to suggest that all of those players signed extensions that ended up losing both the player AND agent millions of dollars. The idea that Vlad is going to get $100+ million more than the established "market value" of a bad defensive 1B/DH because he is 1-2 years younger than normal is a giant leap of an assumption. If you are going to try to argue, at least do ten seconds of research. This statement is absurdly false: 2019: .772 OPS 2020: .791 OPS 2021: 1.002 OPS 2022: .819 OPS 2023: .789 OPS 2024: .930 OPS As you can see, it is nowhere near "yEar aFtEr yeaR". It is TWO (2) seasons of elite hitting. The literal problem here is that he is NOT a "consistently elite hitter".

I never stated that he had "no marketability", I am challenging the completely unfounded notion that apparently he is so marketable that Rogers has no choice but to meet whatever crazy nonsensical demands he has. This is what the argument being made is: "well of course he's not worth anywhere near $300+M as a player, but he is so marketable that Rogers has no choice but to give in to his demands". There is zero proof that Guerrero has anywhere near that much marketing potential such that it is going to force ownership to hand him a contract that is completely balls to the wall out of line with the market for 1B/DH type players. Vladimir Guerrero is not Ohtani. Surely you are smart enough to understand that. Ohtani has "marketing value" outside his on-field performance because whatever team he plays for has immediate and instant access to the market that is the entire nation of Japan. Japan is a first-world country with a population of ~120+ million, and the most popular sport is baseball. Broadcasting rights, partnerships with Japanese brands and companies, merchandise sales, etc., etc. are all at play for the team that controls Ohtani. What does Vlad Guerrero give you access to? The booming economy of the third world Dominican Republic? Don't make me laugh. Guerrero is just an average young "star", no different than any other player of his ability around the league. This season he ranks 14th in the league in jersey sales. What is interesting is that Bo Bichette (who has been injured and having a terrible season otherwise) is 19th in sales. What is even more interesting is that Pete Alonso ranks above both at #12, and Alonso is player that the Mets have had little interest in extending. He is insanely popular among their fans, and yet you don't see the Mets blowing the market apart to keep him on the team. In fact, they are going to let him go to free agency, and apparently the market for him is underwhelming (despite the fact that he is a proven hitter, sells jerseys, wins HR Derbies, etc). I deliberately stated that Guerrero was not particularly well liked in the PREVIOUS two seasons - and this is 100% true. To pretend otherwise is nonsense. You post on this forum, don't you? Prior to this season the fan narrative was that he was fat, lazy, not serious about the game or his fitness, and he was catching routine flack for loafing on the field and not running out ground balls to first base. There were all sorts of posts made about how the coaches were coddling him and afraid to sit him for his poor effort. He was berated as an underachiever following his 2021 season. The reason why I bring this up is because this was just a year ago. Nobody in their right mind was claiming that Rogers' profitability was riding on Vlad being kept long-term at any cost in 2022 or 2023. But here we are, a year later and apparently he is SO VALUABLE that Shapiro is going to be forced to break the market to sign him? No, man. Stop. His marketability is entirely tied to his performance, just like 99% of the rest of the players in the league. He is not "special" like Ohtani. He is simply the best player on the Blue Jays. Yes, there is "marketability" tied to that, but it also isn't particularly difficult to market players in Toronto. Rogers has a massive natural boost in the fact that this is the only team in Canada, and this extends to whoever the best player on the team is. So like I said, if Vlad's demands are totally out of line with what the number-crunchers in Shapiro's front office calculate his value to be, they will simply move on and find another "franchise player" to market. He is NOT "irreplaceable", which is why it is completely baseless to suggest that Rogers has no choice but to pay him as if he is Juan Soto (which is what the fan narrative seems to be).