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The team that ended the season very well may have been the best team in baseball. They unfortunately ran out of season.

The 2021 also had a fearsome lineup that featured the likes of prime Springer, Semien, MVP Vlad, the best full season version of Teoscar and Bo in the top 5 so it's not like AA is the only GM in recent history that built an offensive juggernaut.

The guy has been gone for a nearly a decade. Maybe it's time to move on with your life. I'd hope you would realize that the years from 2017-2020 were spent cleaning up the mess that the previous guy left behind, but that would require even a modicum of rational thought.

Bo could probably stand to deprogram himself a bit from the Dante Bichette cult of letting the ball travel.

Oh f***. It's crazy to think but the team might actually wish that they still had Mitch White available to them to soak up some innings given how incredibly thin the starting depth has become in recent weeks.

I looked up the baseball savant breakdown of his last start and he is featuring an interesting pitch mix. He threw 30% cutters, 27% change ups, 22% 4 seamers and 21% sliders. He averaged only 91 MPH on the 4 seamer but the change up played like an elite pitch yielding a 62% whiff rate. At a glance he appears as though he might be a Trevor Richards type or something of that sort.

Moreno hit a few home runs in the first two series of the playoffs and the reactionary idiots basically acted like he was the second coming of Johnny Bench or something. When Moreno cooled off and did essentially nothing over the rest of the playoffs and returned to essentially a league average bat for the playoffs as a whole you would think the bitching would have subsided at least somewhat but sadly that wasn't the case.

It's not like the roster is exactly bursting at the seams with other leverage reliever options at the moment so unfortunately it might be necessary to just deal with Swanson having spring training at the major league level. It's really too bad that Green is out given the fact that Romano and Swanson are still rounding into form.

I really don't think Varsho's play warranted anywhere close to the amount of hate that he received online. Moreno was barely a league average bat himself which made the hot take overreactions for the trade all the more baffling.

I actually see that Varsho's 2022 season has been downgraded a bit from 4.8 FWAR to 4.4 FWAR. I missed that Fangraphs completely switched over to utilizing Statcast numbers for all of their defensive value calculations in early April. I still think he has a great shot to match or eclipse that total as it's easy to see that he's taken a big step forward in the field, even when factoring in the early opportunities he's seen to make great plays.

Varsho's 4.8 win season in 2022 was largely based on defensive excellence. He produced 10 OAA in right field in 541 innings that season, and 8 OAA in 378 innings in center field. Up to this point he's produced 5 OAA in left field in 112 innings, and 1 OAA in 44 innings in center field. He's trending similarly in center field at this point as he's put up 1 OAA in 44 innings, which would put him on track for 9-10 OAA if he plays a similar 400-450 innings in center field which would align with what he's done the last 2 seasons. He has already put up 3 more OAA this season in left field compared to all of the 2023 season, and is on track for an astonishing 36 OAA assuming a similar playing time split to his 2023 numbers.

They can receive credit for pulling off the strategy for sure but I just don't think AA deserves credit for being some sort of pitching developmental wizard as his teams featured very few actual home grown starters.

Varsho was nearly a 5 win player in 2022 while splitting time in right field and center field while running essentially a league average bat. I think he will likely come in around that mark again if he manages a 100 wRC+ for the season based on the massive step forward he's taken defensively in left field.

You can go ahead and tell me which teams had as many supplemental draft picks in the same timeframe and then we'll compare notes. Surely you can recognize that constantly having 3 or more extra first round draft picks every draft to throw at high school pitchers gave a remarkable boost to the chances to draft high ceiling high school arms into the system. On top of that I don't believe there was a hard slotting system either or a draft budget so the team could spend as much as it wanted on those supplemental picks greatly increasing the chances of getting them signed instead of going to college.

The hand injuries may be able to be mitigated with the new wrist and hand armor but Jansen has suffered at least one soft tissue injury in the last 3 seasons as well.

That's great in theory if you ignore the fact that Jansen's incredibly injury prone and starting more games likely opens the possibility to injury sooner.

I think it was fairly defensible that Kwan received a gold glove vs Varsho as Varsho's left field OAA metrics were just a shade above average last year on top of the fact that he split time between left and center field. I do wish that gold gloves were still awarded to the best 3 outfield defenders instead of one per position as Varsho likely should have won a few of them by now but has been denied at least partially due to splitting time between different outfield positions. I think Varsho has improved a great deal defensively and there should be far less of a chance of him not being rewarded again. If he keeps up the type of play he's featured so far a platinum glove may not be out of the discussion.

And when a shrewd free agent signing worked out for the team it was "luck", but then when something bad happened that was ultimately out of the front office's control it was obviously their fault instead of an unlucky break.

I don't think Varsho's 2023 season was necessarily disastrous. Despite the relative struggles with the bat he was still a league average position player by FWAR and nearly a 4 win player by BWAR.

As good as Berrios has been I think Kikuchi might actually have better numbers by the end of the season. Varsho has been a different hitter since he added the toe tap last season. As good as he was in left field last season he's also taken a massive step forward defensively this season so the sky is the limit for the dude.

Look in the mirror man. You are so full of s*** it's literally astounding. You are a massive hypocrite. You pretend to be some sort of rational paragon of virtue, and complaining about other posters ruining the discussion by name calling and other assorted bad behavior. And then you instantly proceed to call another poster names including calling him a narcissist, seemingly because he's willing to call you out for s*** posts when necessary.

You are one of the last posters who should be making accusations such as this one.

Are you going to give credit to AA for the development of pitching prospects that ultimately developed in other minor league systems? He had the not so insignificant benefit at the time of a wealth of extra draft picks due to gaming the free agency rules in order to garner extra picks. I suspect if the current regime were able to have 3 or 4 supplemental draft picks after the first round every season they would have hit on a lot more pitching related draft picks as well given so many more chances.

To start with the Astros, Yankees and Rays have needed a lot more depth to start with as they've suffered a massive amount of injuries compared to the Blue Jays pitching staff over the last few seasons. Those teams have largely been able to develop their own pitching depth as they have had more success in developing their own rotation members which is an area where the Blue Jays have struggled. It's not as though the current front office has never been able to acquire useful depth as they acquired Ross Stripling a few seasons ago and turned him into a full fledged member of the rotation, and it appears as though Rodriguez may be an even more successful acquisition this season. They had a bit of trouble last season early on as Alek struggled, but then Ryu essentially acted as a depth starter late in the season after returning from Tommy John surgery. It appears to me as though the plan was to allow Alek to battle for the 5th starter spot in the spring, and due to the shoulder issue he wasn't able to make the squad. I'm somewhat encouraged by his last few starts as he's only walked 1 hitter in his last 9 innings spanning two starts so the strike throwing ability appears to be returning. His velocity has also nearly returned to the levels seen in his 2022 season as well so hopefully these are signs of good things to come. I think far too many are writing him off completely while using a few tough rehab starts as a final nail in the coffin instead of allowing the process to continue and for Alek to build up towards a potential MLB return. I hope the team doesn't rush him back like they did last season as it appears as though a combination of Rodriguez and Francis should be able to hold down the fort until an eventual return if he makes it back.

What the f*** is "proven" pitching depth even supposed to mean? Do you think that proven MLB starters are lining up to throw innings in AAA or something? On top of that it seems as though "unproven" pitching depth option Yariel Rodriguez is showing to be an absolute home run signing so far.