max silver

At anywhere close to full freight this is a really bad contract. If the Padres are willing to eat something like half of it then it starts being palatable, but even then paying the guy for another 10 years until he's in his 40's is a really hard pill to swallow.

He's a guy I don't imagine the Padres would be terribly interested in moving given their plans to try to compete in 2023. His contract is remarkably team friendly compared to the value he brings and is perfect for a cash strapped team like the Padres.

Machado's contract scares the hell out of me but I'd consider taking it if it meant also receiving Tatis as well.

Yeah Donaldson is still a very solid defender based on the metrics and has been for his entire career At a glance it appears as though he may have had one of the unluckiest seasons in recent memory as he posted a .329 xWOBA but ended up with a .284 WOBA/78 wRC+ presumably due to the remarkably low .115 BABIP. The next lowest batter for comparison was Pete Alonso at .205. I went back 10 years and the next lowest BABIP with a minimum of 180 plate appearances (similar to what Donaldson received in 2023) was Ryan Schimpf in 2017 at .145.

BTS was obviously replying to the bolded section in this post, and things went off the rails when AngrySaskfan or whatever his name is missed that in his reply.

I can't decide if that dude is a troll or the resident harmless crazy guy.

I don't think anyone is going to have a chance to make any sort of realistic case for Varsho ever providing much more than a touch above league average offense in a typical season, but that's a far cry from trying to make a case that the guy has never produced at the plate and is never going to produce ever again. Despite the tough 2023 season he still has produced a 96 wRC+ for his career up to this point, and he's shown nothing to categorically prove that he can't return to previous levels of success or improve his 2023 results. This is a player who had really nice minor league numbers, and in his first two seasons as a regular he produced league average or slightly better offensively. His early projections each show a fair bit of improvement from the 2023 struggles, with ZiPS projecting a 109 OPS+ and Steamer projecting a 108 wRC+. Perhaps those might be a touch optimistic but if two separate projection systems expect a significant bounceback from a single down season then it seems perfectly reasonable to expect for this to occur. XWOBA is not a perfect stat, and on it's own does not paint a complete picture of player performance in a singular season. It has a rather glaring omission in that it does not include spray angle, so as a result it can tend to undervalue players who have the ability to pull fly balls into the seats despite underwhelming exit velocity numbers. WOBA and xWOBA are not 100% correlated to each other, and as such there will be seasons where a player outperforms their expected stats, and seasons where they underperform their expected stats. Varsho had one season where he outperformed his expected stats by 20 points, and 1 season where he underperformed his expected stats by 10 points. With a 100% direct correlation perhaps his career wRC+ output would drop by a few points, but this wouldn't likely be a drastic swing dropping him to something like a career 80 wRC+. If you look at Varsho's home/away splits there is one particular component which sticks out like a sore thumb. Home vs R 52 wRC+ Home vs L 84 wRC+ Away vs R 105 wRC+ Away vs L 120 wRC+ Varsho's 2023 numbers were essentially ruined because he struggled against right handed pitching in the Rogers Center. This is a player with a 101 career wRC+ vs right handed pitching, so there is good reason to expect that this will be a crazy anomaly which is not going to happen again in the future. You are making this grand declaration about the book being out on Varsho after a single down season at the plate. From the listed splits it appears as though he only had a massive hole against right handed pitching, but then only at home at Rogers Center. I guess opposition pitchers chose not to exploit this uncorrectable hole on the road in order to be fair to Varsho or something. You have declared that Varsho has some sort of fatal flaw in his swing where he has no chance to make adjustments. Varsho actually made an adjustment by adding a toe tap in early August, and this immediately saw an improvement to his results. Over his last 50 games he produced a 116 wRC+ including incremental improvements to his batted ball metrics, strikeout and walk rates, with the biggest gains seen in a return of his HR/FB rate returning to values more resembling his career norms.

That post might as well be written in gobbledygook. You need to learn how to string words together into a sentence that resembles the English language.

Got something of use to add here? Feel free to pick a side and add to the debate.

Huh? This post makes absolutely no sense.

Varsho strikes out at approximately 1% higher than league average. You are acting completely irrational in nearly all of your posts lately, it seems like maybe somebody needs to get laid or something.

What voodoo metric is this that you are referencing? Varsho was exactly average by wRC+ in 2021 and 7% above league average by wRC+ in 2022. You should chill out here, Varsho is a low average/high power hitter when he's at his best, but that is far from a terrible hitter despite your incoherent ranting.

It's all well and good to be jealous about Baltimore but it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison given how bad Baltimore was during their tank style rebuild. They get full credit for hitting on so many of their picks but it's impossible to ignore how much they benefited from being able to pick from the top of the draft 1st overall twice, 2nd overall once, and 5th overall in a 5 year span. This would have also given them a far higher draft budget, and as a smaller market club they also receive extra picks and budget in the competitive balance rounds. This allowed them to essentially pick 4-5 top 100 level talents in every one of those seasons. Add in the fact that they are going to be further rewarded for their tanking efforts and small market with even more potential picks for having these players succeed upon callup and they are set for a potential dynasty. The amateur acquisition and development definitely experienced a lull after Bo, Vlad and Cavan emerged and that's one of the primary reasons why the system is light on impact talent in the upper levels of the minors at the moment. It's completely disingenuous to give zero credit for later round players and amateur international free agents signings and act like they don't count just because you don't care for the general manager. There have been quite a few minor league players traded to supplement the major league roster from the listed draft years. That's just as valid of a use for minor league assets as playing them on your own roster, but it would definitely be preferrable if the team can start developing more of it's own home grown talent for long term sustainability. On top of that there are still players who were drafted/signed in the listed time frame that are still working their way through the system as well so the book isn't fully closed on those years at this point. Guys like Barger, Orelvis and Leo Jiminez were acquired during the years you mentioned and they are nearing readiness for their first call up. A lot of the 2020 acquisitions are still pretty young/raw as well so it simply wouldn't be realistic for some of these players to have debuted already. Dudes like Kendrys Rojas and Dasan Brown are some such players who still have a shot to at least make it to the majors at some point. The 2020 draft was shortened dramatically due to the pandemic, and there were far fewer opportunities to actually lay eyes on these players before the draft. It really sucks that the team drafted a bit of a dud in Martin but at least they were able to turn him into Berrios in trade. At the same time most players lost a year due to the pandemic when no minor league games were played, so it's not overly surprising that this particular draft year and subsequent lost year slowed the development of a lot of the players in the system. This would have certainly been a factor for other teams as well so it doesn't completely excuse the relative lack of results by any means but it had to have been a factor in the lack of development for many earlier in the decade.

White doesn't have options so if he's to stick around at all he needs to be on the major league roster in some capacity. He's almost like the defacto number 6 starter unless he's traded away. Perhaps the team could sign or trade for a 5th starter type but with the other more pressing needs on the roster I'd much rather see any available trade and financial assets be expended on position players. Manoah's early projections are not terribly inspiring but I have a really hard time seeing him being anywhere close to as bad as he was in 2023, there almost certainly must have been something physically wrong with him to see the stuff and command crater so dramatically.

IKF at least has a high quality infield glove to go with the substandard bat vs Tapia whose only positive attribute was being a productive baserunner.

I just don't think you can definitively state that the complex will start churning out quality MLB players at X date in the future given the complexity and unpredictability of developing major league talent. There are just too many players that hit developmental walls at certain stages of their development on the way through the system. I'd wager that we should have some answers to these questions within a few more seasons once more prospects have a chance to spend their entire minor league career with the complex in place and in full swing.

It stands to reason the guy is most likely a somewhat better Espinal replacement. Ever since the early season hot streak ended in mid June of 2022 Espinal has been a pretty lousy player, and with the defensive dropoff last season he really has very little use on an MLB roster. It's hard to believe but Kiner Falefa has actually been a better offensive performer over the last 1.5 seasons since Espinal's bat morphed into a pool noodle. Espinal 166 GP 508 PA 77 wRC+ 0.5 FWAR Kiner Falefa 199 GP 676 PA 84 wRC+ 1.0 FWAR Kiner Falefa has produced a little better offensively and his infield defensive metrics are better as well, especially after the dramatic drop off Espinal experienced in 2023. It's still likely a small upgrade at best though and reduces money available for better players so it's a hard move to really like very much on it's own.

It seems like there are people that expected this facility to immediately start churning out fully developed prospects from the day it opened. I believe the hitting lab just opened a year ago or thereabouts so it's still relatively early in regards to how long the complex has been running at anything close to full capacity. I like the talent that has been infused into the system in the last 3 or so drafts, and having a complex such as this one can be an important tool in improving the development of the talent in the system over time. I hope that more roster players and minor league prospects eventually make the decision to train full time in Dunedin over the winter as this will allow the facility to reap the maximum rewards for the organization as a whole. Once the organization has all of the necessary technology in place in the hitting and pitching labs, as well as the systems and expertise to properly staff these labs the team can approximate something akin to offseason driveline training in house.

I haven't heard anything myself but I would guess that ship has sailed by now. I thought he was primed for a breakout season as a multi inning reliever in 2023 if he finally managed to stay healthy. He at least managed to avoid injury for an entire season but his off speed command was completely non existent and greatly limited his usefulness as a member of the bullpen. The stuff is still top notch but he needs to start controlling it if he has any chance to be anything other than a depth reliever.

Having this development complex also has a chance to maximize the developmental results of high end players in the system as well. I think having this complex has already paid dividends in allowing prospects a chance to spend some time in Dunedin in the middle of the season for a tune up. This allows pitchers to fine tune their deliveries and pitch design in the pitching lab, allows hitters to work on their swings with advanced modelling in the hitting lab and other assorted behind the scenes development that simply wasn't available to the team previously. I recall Tiedemann has spent time in Dunedin mid season on tune ups, Zulueata did something similar last season as well.

White ended the season really strong in AAA so at least there's hope he could provide some innings as a swingman next season. Ross Stripling also struggled quite a bit in his first few seasons after being acquired so hopefully White can also experience a similar resurgence next season.

If IKF was signed to be a starter at third this team is going to be in tough generating much offense from the bottom of the order. I really doubt that he's expected to be anything other than a utility type of player though but time will tell.

I don't think these moves should necessarily remove the team from signing any free agents, but worst case scenario if the team completely misses out on their preferred free agency and trade targets these guys are at least competent major league players which create a decent floor for the team.

Varsho was still acquired after the team signed Kiermaier last season so there's no reason to think he's suddenly expendable after Kiermaier was brought back. The team was perfectly happy to run both guys in the outfield last season and Varsho provides a perfect insurance policy to cover for any potential Kiermaier injuries.

I'll never understand what the Padres were thinking handing out 10 year deals to Machado and Boegarts. I'd rather the team sign for Chapman instead if they are going to expend this kind of money on a third baseman. Machado just had elbow surgery so while he should be fine moving forward that adds a potential long term health related concern to a dude that's signed into his 40's.