Brownie19

Oh right. Ha.

Are you trying to suggest good organizations never sign dominant closers?

1 year, $15M deal for Verlander. Does the old horse have one more 150+ inning, 2-3 WAR season left in him? Seems like a lot of money to find out, but it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I think it would have been nice to see him return to Detroit for one last season. Help that young team one more time - Billy Chapel style.

That's an interesting way to think about it. I'll give it a try.

Did someone pour water on you recently?

Seems like a reasonable place for him to land. Verlander "might" have one more good season in him and SF "might" be a contender this year if things all break right for them.

If you denounce advanced statistics completely, then this might not be the best community for you.

That has nothing to do with your claim that "his career has been mediocre".

No - it's ludicrous because it's grossly incorrect. Dude has 35+ career WAR.

He's never been your traditional ace or superstar, but his career has not been mediocre 😕 I'm not suggesting he's a prime target, or someone I want on the Jays, but that is a ludicrous statement.

Shatkins is Shapiro + Atkins. It's not negative or positive, it's just slang that originated at the on-set of this new FO, when it was unclear whether Shapiro was calling the shots, or whether Atkins was. It's certainly not used around here nearly as much as it was back in the late 2010's.

Yeah - I guess they do.

Are you just hung up on this because I said he "sucked" instead of saying he underperformed? C'mon man. I have no idea what my age has to do with this. It wouldn't matter if I was 40 or -7 at the time, as I'm obviously looking up the current stats. I assume your trying to flex on how old you are because you're memory from 30 years ago tells suggests he didn't "suck"? FWIW - His OBP in the playoffs was .316, it wasn't "near .400". I also never said the Jays wouldn't have won without Rickey. Oh and I sometimes use "old school" and advanced statistics to prove points as some readers prefer one over the other. Either way, you're creating a strawman argument and I'm going to move alone thanks.

I suspect it's more than you think. But who knows really. They're all in the Top 1%, so you'd think money wouldn't matter as much either - but it does.

Would you suggest that was bad luck for Rickey and the Jays?

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.