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I think the 2021 was very comparable to the 2015 team in terms of overall talent. It will forever haunt me that team missed the playoffs by a single game as it was an offensive juggernaut with solid defense and pitching.

Do you actually think Bo would agree to a clause that stipulates he's going to be forced to move to second base in the future? The club has zero leverage with Bo given how close he is to free agency at this point.

This deal basically looks fair for both sides to me. I'm just not seeing this as being particularly team friendly especially given how many opt outs Witt has after 2030.

Witt's deal might end up with him earning $378 million over his career so it's not exactly the most team friendly deal in the history of the sport. On the low end he's guaranteed $289 million so is this even very team friendly to start with?

They'll need to avoid signing sons of ex major leaguers if they are to have a chance to lock them up to team friendly deals.

I have strong suspicions that Manoah's season was derailed by an offseason shoulder issue so the rotation essentially lost a key member for most of the season as a result. Of the other rotation members I'm most concerned about regression from Bassitt but this is more due to his advancing age as he's going to be 35 years old this season. As has been mentioned by Terminator in a different thread the team has better depth options this season compared to a year ago so hopefully they can weather the storm if any rotation members miss large chunks of time. I'm cautiously optimistic about Mitch White and want to see if he can build on the strong finish to his AAA season. I think Tiedemann likely debuts this season if the need arises and he's anything but AAA fodder. I simply don't think it's reasonable to assume that all of the members of the offense that had disappointing seasons are going to do the same thing in 2024 as most of these guys are young/in their primes. They all have enough of a track record to indicate that they are capable of more than what they did in 2023 based on previous levels of success.

Hopefully he can handle the outfield without resembling a deer in headlights ala early career Gurriel.

I didn't personally see anything to indicate that Schneider was below average at second base last season. The metrics back up my eye test as well with an even 0 DRS, 5.0 UZR/150 and 3 OAA in 182 innings of work. His arm strength is rather low but plays just fine at second base.

The team basically needs to figure out why the team didn't perform in the clutch at home in the Rogers Centre. The team was a good offense on the road but had a puzzling lack of hitting at home and were negatively affected by the renovation much more than the opposition. I don't know why there is this assumption that the rotation is suddenly going to suck. Sure they might suffer from several injuries but all of the returning starters have essentially spotless injury histories so it's not outside the realm of possibility that the rotation continues to be a strength for the club. I think the offseason has been largely underwhelming up to this point. I wouldn't necessarily paint it as "horrible" but I certainly wouldn't complain if another bat were to be added.

So I take it you have essentially zero faith that the underperformers from 2023 are going to experience any sort of bounceback. The only above average offensive contributor that's been lost is Matt Chapman, but I think a the very least some of what is lost from his likely departure will be countered by a full season from Davis Schneider.

I think Vlad's wrist had a sizeable effect on his overall results last season. He was on fire for the first 5-6 weeks before the wrist issue popped up and the results from that point forward took a nosedive. He very well may have some mechanical issues that require ironing out but I think the talent still remains for consistent 140-150 wRC+ seasons. It's interesting that you mention Mookie Betts as a comparable player. We can directly compare their early career numbers. Betts Age/wRC+/Comparison to Vlad at same age 21 129 +19 22 120 -46 23 136 +3 24 107 -11 Vlad Age/wRC+/Comparison to Betts at same age 21 110 -19 22 166 +46 23 133 -3 24 118 +11 Vlad's numbers up to his age 24 season compare very nicely to Bett's early career numbers. Betts obviously had the sizeable overall value advantage due to the elite defensive and baserunning contributions but offensively Vlad has held up nicely in this comparison in his early career. Betts exploded for a career best 185 wRC+ in his age 25 season so Vlad is certainly going to be hard pressed to keep up at this point.

The guy still has generational natural talent but it's up to Vlad and the coaching staff to determine how to fully unlock the talent to produce more consistent results. It appears as though his wrist and knees have caused issues at times so hopefully he can alleviate some of this with his offseason training.

He's more of a haterade aficionado.

He pretty much leads the brigade in all of the overly reactionary whining sessions around here with the barrage of surface level evaluations.

White pitched to a 3.76 FIP as a Blue Jay in 2022 after being acquired in trade. There's no way in hell he deserved the .368 BABIP he was victimized by as he limited hard hits to a 35% rate with an 87.8 MPH average exit velocity and ran a 46% ground ball rate and 19.6% line drive rate. Too many people refuse to look beyond the BABIP fueled ERA when evaluating his relative performance that season. White was injured in the spring last year and it effectively nuked his 2023 season. Time will tell what he is moving forward but at least there's hope he can be an effective swingman or multi inning reliever in seasons to come. He was sitting mid to upper 90's to end the season in AAA and was striking out nearly 12 batters per 9 innings over his last month and a half of starts so it's not as though the guy is devoid of talent.

I'd like to see some stuff comparison results between what White was featuring to end the season in AAA and what Frasso was featuring at his best. I don't think there is likely to be a very big gap between the two.

Are these end of season rankings or 2023 mid season rankings? I can only hope that the system looks a little better after the second half as so many of the prospects had poor first halves.

That would certainly be a good option for the team, but moving Bo to second base really reduces the value of Schneider and Biggio to the point where a potentially really nice second base platoon is effectively erased, and the subpar collection of third base options continues to be an issue. I think the team is stronger overall keeping Bo at short where he's likely worked his way to about average defensively and strengthening the third base situation.

Adames would be a 1 year rental. If the team wasn't willing to move Bo to second base for a single year of Semien they aren't going to for Adames either. Adames would presumably shift to third base if acquired as his plus arm would be an asset at the position.

I never once said that Kirk's weight isn't within his control. I was simply outlining that the best we could likely ever hope for him is to become less slow on the bases due to his naturally stocky build. He's dropped about a foot per second of speed on the bases over the last few seasons so hopefully he could at least regain that bit of lost speed if he slims down a bit. The loss of top speed has had negligible effects on his splits however as his 90 foot time has gone from 4.44 seconds to all of 4.49 seconds. It would be fantastic if he were to manage to drop 50 pounds but he's not going to morph into Mookie Betts as he simply isn't an explosive type of athlete and never will be.

Kirk is not as likely to be bad at the plate as he is to be good, there is simply no basis in fact that would lead one to this conclusion. If he has another disappointing season at the plate then his projections will be adjusted downwards accordingly. I don't care about Kirk clogging the bases as that's largely beyond his control. I'd much rather see him on base 35% of the time and not come around as often as a faster player than see a more typically slow catcher on base only 30% of the time if not even less. He's always going to be one of baseball's slowest players due to his naturally stocky build so there's no reason to hate him for this. The extra weight he's carried around his midsection doesn't help anything but he can't help that he's really short and hampered further by having incredibly short legs on top of that. It's easy to see the guy wouldn't have a lot of fast twitch muscle potential either with his natural frame so he's never going to resemble Ben Johnson on the bases no matter how much weight he drops.

I'd wager it's more like 80/20 that he's above average.

What in the world are you even basing this on? Kirk has a career 114 wRC in MLB, is projected from a low of 107 to a high of 122 wRC+ by the various projection systems, absolutely torched the minor leagues, and runs elite BB/K ratios all throughout his career. There's no need to place such an overwhelming level of emphasis on a single season, it's nonsense like this that had led to the hot takes of George Springer being finished at the plate, Varsho is never going to hit, Vlad should be traded for peanuts etc.

My only small bit of consolation is the fact that Burnes has seen declining results over the last few seasons so hopefully that trend continues. He's been trending downwards from a bonafide ace into more of a good number 2 type of pitcher. 2021 1.63 FIP/2.43 xERA 7.5 FWAR 2022 3.14 FIP/3.05 xERA 4.6 FWAR 2023 3.81 FIP/3.40 xERA 3.4 FWAR

Check out Kirk's career numbers since his first full professional season and see if you can figure out which one stands out from the others. 2018 R 160 wRC+ 2019 A/A+ 158 wRC+ 2020 MLB 165 wRC+ 2021 AAA 143 wRC+ 2021 MLB 106 wRC+ 2022 129 wRC+ 2023 96 wRC+ The only other year where Kirk wasn't solidly above average offensively was his short MLB stint in 2021 where he still produced a 106 wRC. His quality of contact was excellent and his xwOBA of .373 vs actual of .330 suggested he was rather unlucky that particular season. He's been below average a grand total of once in his entire professional career.