Brownie19

Rickey went from hitting .327/.469/.553 with a 182 wRC+ with Oakland to hitting .215/.356/.319, 90 wRC+ in the regular season and .170/.316/.255, 65 wRC+ in the playoffs in 1993 Yes, he brings other intangibles, but Rickey didn't play very well for the Jays once they acquired him. That's not BS, that's a fact.

100%

I think Term addressed this best when we discussed it yesterday. Understanding the future of the team will be one of many considerations, but it's unlikely players are avoiding teams because their farm system sucks. SF is ranked 28th overall by Fangraphs. Chapman just signed a long extension, Adames just signed there long term. Angels and Astros are currently 29th and 30th overall and players still sign there. White Sox have the 4th best farm system in baseball - that isn't drawing in the top free agents. I expect the uncertainty of Bo and Vlad are much larger factors, as is living in another country, as is money and what your family wants. Prospect rankings are just some minor consideration.

Boy are you a ray of sunshine. Welcome to the board 🙄

I don't think I said that - nor was I trying to say that. There are a lot of probabilities in baseball though. If you trade for an all-star at the trade deadline, the probability of them producing down the stretch and into the playoffs is MUCH higher than if you add some role players having poor seasons (like Roserio, Soler, etc.) - but the cost is also higher for the all-star. An interesting example is when the Jays had to give up Steve Karsey to get Rickey Henderson in 1993. Rickey is one of the best of all-time and was a superstar rocking a .327 average and a 182 wRC+ (4.4 WAR) when we got him. He went on to hit .215 with a 90 wRC+ the rest of the way. Did that mean Pat Gillick was a bad GM? Was there some illusion he ought to have known Rickey would suck in TO? If the Jays didn't win the World Series, would it have been fair to blame Gillick for adding Henderson? No - obviously not (or at least I don't think so). There was probably a 5% chance Rickey would play that bad for the Jays - but that's exactly what happened. Nobody's fault - that's just how probabilities work. Sometimes you can make the right decision and get sh*ty results. The reality is that GM's can't predict outcomes. Their team may see something in the underlying stats that they think gives them an advantage - so when they're sifting through the scrap heap, the guy they pick may have a slightly higher probability of success, but it's marginal. If there was a high probability that Roserio, Soler, Pederson, Duvall were all going to play that well down the stretch, then the price to acquire them would have been higher. Braves gave up Bryce Ball, Alex Jackson, Pablo Sandoval (yes - the Panda) and Kasey Kalich to get those 4 players. It cost him essentially nothing to add those 4. It was a low risk move that paid off beyond his wildest dreams. As I said several times, kudos to AA. I do like his approach of throwing multiple pieces against the wall - that increases the probability that something sticks. There is an old adage that "you have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good". AA is a good GM and thus sometimes - good things happen. For the same reasons, I'm not going to blame AA for the Braves playoff failures in 2022 or 2023. They had the teams to win the World Series in both of those seasons. I'm not going to second guess why AA didn't add more to push those teams over the top or suggest he ought to have been more aggressive at those deadlines. The playoffs are a crapshoot.

I could be wrong, but I believe Pardinho gained a ton of velo when he moved to the pen. I think he's throwing 96/97 now. He was more of a soft tosser early on as a starter. He was also quite young then and has gained velo I believe.

Perhaps - or perhaps they use them in differ situations, which can help. But you only get them for like 150 PAs (of acquired at the deadline), so you're mostly hoping for a hot streak. Dodgers "hit" with Kike last year. Got him right around the time he (they?) realized he needed glasses and he got red hot the rest of the year. That's a pretty crazy example.

Ah yes, forgot about Duvall - he did play well for them. I wasn't trying to discredit him. I think it was the right call in 2021. They were at or just below .500 and had lost Acuna. They had a great young core and were entering their contention window. It wasn't the time to start giving up several top prospects to "go for it". Instead, he made several low risk deals that didn't cost a lot of prospect capital to see if they could catch lightning in a bottle - and they did. The players he got all previous success, but you can't pretend it was some given that they would all excel in Atlanta. It was the right call given the situation and everything broke their way that year. AA tried the same thing last year. Acuna was hurt (again), Strider was hurt and several key players were having sh*tty seasons. It wasn't the time to be super aggressive and trade the farm, so he went out and got Soler, signed Ramon Laureano, Gio Urshela, Harold Ramirez, Brian Anderson and Whit Merrifield. This time, only some of the sh*t stuck (Soler and Laureano were great) - it was enough to scrap into the playoffs, but not enough to create the magic like in 2021. That's perfectly fine - that approach isn't going to always work. And DeJong is a streaky hitter who has pop (which we needed). It's not the perfect example, but it's not far off.

Dude was such a horse in the mid 2010's.

Yeah - that seems obvious. Just another headline to generate clicks.

Who else is he interested in joining?

Sirota was originally drafted by the Dodgers in 2021, but didn't sign.

To be fair - he traded for Soler (77 wRC+ with KC), Eddie Roserio (88 wRC+ with CLE) and Pederson (92 wRC+ with CHI) and magically, they all went on incredible runs as soon as they reached Atlanta. He literally threw a bunch of s*** against the wall and it ALL stuck. If wasn't an aggressive move at all and it probably fails 8 or 9 times out of 10. He knew they weren't really that good, but, to his credit, he worked some low risk deals to see if he could strike lightning in a bottle - and he did. Kudos to him, but Atlanta was VERY close to repeating what happened in the 90's. One might suggest they still could if they don't find a way to win another WS over the next 4-5 years. Atkins made a similar type move in 2023 adding DeJong, who had a 93 wRC+ at the time and that prick gave us a -76 wRC+ in Toronto LOL (yes, Soler, Roserio and Pederson all had better track records and such).

Exactly. If 2021 doesn't happen - the current Braves may very well be considered somewhat of a disappointment like the Braves of the 90's with Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz/Chipper/Andruw/etc. for their inability to win the big games. But it did - and the Braves won is what was a crazy unexpected year for them. It was fun to watch.

I wouldn't have thought Washington was so similar to the Rockies...

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-alek-manoah-says-his-2022-mechanics-are-back/ Maybe he's alive! But he seems delusional... “I mean, I don’t want to overstimulate, 'cause obviously these rehabs are so long for a reason. Like you said, there could be bumps in the road, there could be a bump right now that I don’t see coming," said Manoah. "But that is something that, every morning when I wake up, my alarm goes off every morning, I tell myself, This is what we’re doing it for. It’s to go win a World Series next year, it’s to go be a deadline acquisition for the Toronto Blue Jays."

That's because he didn't wake up Kikuchi...Yusei wouldn't have bothered with an Uber.

wait until they hit AAA...

Looks like Pete Walker really rubbed off on Kikuchi...

If true - then it starts with Rogers. Those morons almost hired Kenny Williams instead of Shapiro. Edward Rogers had done some truly insane things over the past few years. I guess, sell the team?

I appreciate the optimism - very little of that around here these days, but I think it's safe to say Manoah is dead. I also consider Ricky T to be dead. The fail rate is just so high to start with - when you add in the Jays factor, it's tough to do much more than expect they are dead until proven otherwise.

Rumor has it the O's are in discussions with Seattle to acquire Castillo.

Brock - I'm curious what type of growth you've been able to achieve with your other sites. I have no idea how many active members we actually have, but say it's 75 that post at least once a week. Should we expect that number to double over the next year or so? I guess the reality is that most the "casual fans" that infect comment sections in Facebook, Reddit, etc. do so because that access/community is right in their face. They are much less likely to latch onto a website like this right? RIGHT?

You could see the disgust in his face on draft night. I'm actually surprised he signed.

We must be due for some good luck. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.