max silver

For what it's worth Arenado and Altuve employed produced less extreme batted profiles earlier in their careers. None of these guys are perfect comparisons, but I simply used them to outline that there are a collection of dudes in MLB who have displayed the ability to pretty regularly outproduce their expected stats despite uninspiring quality of contact metrics. Instead looking at career BABIP levels I suspect it would be more instructive to look the types of xBA/BA splits that the aforementioned players tended to enjoy in the seasons where they greatly outperformed their expected stats to a great degree as I suspect this would look rather similar to the type of split that Bellinger produced in 2023. I'm most likely just looking for potential silver linings/bits of hope that Bellinger might have a chance to replicate his 2023 success in his good seasons in the future. I don't think it's completely impossible he enjoys similar seasons in the future, but I certainly wouldn't expect this to occur with any kind of regularity. I don't think there are any front offices both looking to spend a huge chunk of money and dumb enough to hand out something approaching $200 million for Bellinger's services so the contract demands should eventually come down to something more reasonable given the question marks in his offensive profile.

I just tend to think with where the club finds itself in the competitive cycle and need for potential impact Bellinger is a worthwhile gamble up to a point. He's the ultimate high risk high reward player but I'm kind of at the point where I'd like the team to take the shot if they can get the contract terms down to a mutually agreeable level. Baseball contains a collection of good hit tool+high contact/low strikeout guys with lower exit velocities who have the ability to regularly park balls in the seats despite the uninspiring quality of contact. This includes players like Boegarts, Altuve, Arenado and even Jose Ramirez who have all experienced a pile of seasons where there is a massive gulf of 30 to 40 points or more between their WOBA and xWOBA levels. Bellinger just experienced one such season and given the similarities between his 2023 and the seasons that the previously mentioned group has often experienced this could be the type of result he's able to produce in a good season. I have a theory that there is a group of players who are outliers in terms of being able to regularly beat their expected stats by a large degree in a similar fashion to pitchers who are FIP beaters year over year. It's too early to tell if Bellinger could be one of these guys after a single season of running this type of profile though.

Hey what can I say, I'm a bit of an optimist.

Don't try to pretend you even understand what's being discussed.

Break down the projections a bit and it's really easy to poke holes into the 2.5 result. Bellinger has averaged 2.6 BrR for his career, but is projected for a sizeable drop to 0.6 for 2024 despite actually improving his relative sprint speed in 2023 and despite being projected to play 20 more games than he did in 2023. His defensive projections are essentially assuming he's going to spend a large amount of time at first base, yet he's most likely going to spend the majority of his time in a corner outfield spot/spot center field duty as a Blue Jay so he would be most likely to handily beat that projection as well. A player with his defensive and baserunning abilities is a really good bet to beat a 2.5 win projection with the projected 108 wRC+ value.

You are acting as though a 2.5 win projection is a concrete lock for what kind of value Bellinger is going to provide moving forward, I simply don't agree. If you think this is the same player as he was in 2021 and 2022 then good for you. I see a player that undertook a complete overhaul in his offensive approach such that his 2021 and 2022 seasons aren't terribly relevant in projecting what he is moving forward. A 2.5 win projection is well and good, but I simply think he has a good chance to beat this projection handily. I just don't think he's worth the kind of contract that Boras is looking for at the moment, but reduce the AAV and term a bit and he suddenly starts to make a lot of sense as a worthwhile gamble.

Bellinger was a 4 win player while missing a months worth of games. Average that out to a full season and he was a 5 win player. He missed a month due to injury and experienced a short slump sandwiched around this injury, but for the most part the guy produced star level results for the majority of his season. 31 G 150 wRC+ 1.3 FWAR 14 G -7 wRC+ -0.6 FWAR (Terminator was in full gloat mode here) 85 G 150 wRC+ 3.3 FWAR So in essence Bellinger was producing results like a 6+ win player for 90% of his season, and factoring in the slump and assuming similar production through the missed time would have produced a 5 win season. He was a little lucky in terms of actual home runs vs expected, but let's surmise that the slight luck component was reduced in terms of home runs and Bellinger would have basically clubbed 5 home runs per month instead of the 6 that he averaged as a whole. That still leaves a player that can hit 25-30 home runs in a season, and combined with an expected .270 batting average and good outfield defense+baserunning presents a player that has a good chance to provide yearly win totals in the 4+ range. I think he's most likely going to be worth a pretty sizable contract, it just remains to be seen how much of the offensive improvements are going to stick year over year.

Boras has actually done this before but I don't think it was with guys with this high of a profile.

I tend to agree with you here. The team is rapidly approaching a point where it's necessary to maximize the strength of the on the field roster for the next few seasons as there is a very good chance it will be necessary to tear things down and rebuild the team. It's entirely possible that neither of Vlad or Bo will be long term Blue Jays and as such I feel this is an important offseason to add the best talent available to maximize the team's chance of success in this short window. If the team needs to undertake a rebuild having guys like Chapman for an extra 3 or 4 years and Bellinger for 5 or 6 years after the window closes won't be a huge deal because the team won't likely be competitive for 3-4 years anyway and these deals will be closer to expiring by the time the team hits another competitive cycle. There are not really perfect players available next offseason to add to the roster either so I don't feel the need to wait until next year. The big free agents that are available in the next offseason come with just as many question marks as the likes of Bellinger and Chapman do right now. Altuve has made a career of seasons like the one that Bellinger just produced where he's constantly running huge gulfs between his results and expected stats, Bregman has been steadily declining and is a Boras client so the contract ask is going to be obscene, Alonso is a 1B who is likely a 3ish win player but also a Boras client, Soto is so bad defensively he's supplied almost identical defensive value to Ohtani the last two seasons and will be an almost impossible sign etc. I think the club may actually be better served to add the potential impact talent that's available to them right now despite the question marks.

He's just so hard to know what to expect moving forward. His quality of contact metrics are less than inspiring and appear to support results in the 110-120 wRC+ range, but I can't help but look at Jose Altuve for nearly his entire career and wonder if Bellinger might be in a similar mold of a guy that outperforms his expected stats year over year. Check out the kind of splits that Altuve runs year in and year out in all in nearly all of his good seasons: 2015 wOBA .347 xWOBA .300 .047 split 2016 wOBA .391 xWOBA .385 .006 split 2017 wOBA .405 xWOBA .360 .045 split 2018 wOBA .363 xWOBA .352 .010 split 2019 wOBA .374 xWOBA .344 .030 split 2020 wOBA .278 xWOBA .288 -0.010 split 2021 wOBA .357 xWOBA .332 .025 split 2022 wOBA .397 xWOBA .354 .043 split 2023 wOBA .393 xWOBA .336 .057 split Jose Altuve has ran sizeable splits between his on field results and expected stats for 6 of his 9 seasons in the Statcast era so in his case this is a phenomenon that has been very repeatable and is reasonable to expect year over year. Bellinger ran a split of 0.041 between his results and expected results in 2023. He's only done this once in his career, but I will be interested to discover whether this was a single year anomaly or something that he can repeat moving forward with a low bat speed/high bat control kind of approach.

The only stadium where Bellinger would have been expected to hit 16 home runs was in San Fransisco. Most major league parks would still place him in the low 20 range for last season typically only shaving a few home runs from his expected stats. Kiermaier is essentially being replaced with Varsho, and Merrifield is likely replaced internally as well. The Jays only received 0.2 WAR from Hicks so I don't think he needs to be replaced. Ditto for Ryu where I think the internal options will likely replace what he offered with more depth starters needing to be added. The team needs 3-4 position player additions depending on what the team plans to do for DH. The key for the Blue Jays to get better will be receiving stronger contributions from the returning roster players. Preseason projections look strong but if course the hitters still need to perform to this level for the offense to perform as required.

Given how bad most of your reactionary hot takes about baseball tend to be I don't know why you expect to be taken seriously about basketball either.

I'd be interested in signing Bellinger (assuming he comes at a reduced cost compared to present) and Teoscar this offseason. I think Teoscar is a good candidate to bounce back in 2024 as he posted dramatically different home/road splits. He posted the best defensive metrics of his career last season as well, so he could provide a little diversity to the club in a combined DH/OF role. I'm also a big fan of the idea of signing Taylor as 4th outfielder as well. He's just too perfect for this roster as a guy who would likely provide great defence across the outfield with a bat just a little below league average. My only potential concern is the sizable increase in his k level.

This is obviously a case where jaysblue erred in thinking that he could really show it to the Atkins Bootlickers TM for once and for all, but his argument was quickly picked apart like usual.

Acting like a Gallo signing would be similar to the Belt and Kiermaier signings is a false equivalence. Both of Belt and Kiermaier were greatly hampered on the field with injured body parts that were surgically repaired. Each of these guys experienced only a single down season before signing with the Blue Jays. The key difference with Gallo is that he has displayed greatly reduced baseball skills over the last few seasons with no underlying medical issue that I'm aware of. Gallo has simultaneously seen his already too high strikeout rate continue to rise to career worst levels while also posting the highest pop up rates in his career. He's only been a 105 wRC+ hitter on the good side of his platoon, and has been reduced to essentially a 1B/LF at this point of his career. It really seems like his best days are well behind him at this point and he just isn't a realistic candidate to bounce back given all of the offensive red flags.

It's technically fair by BTV but this trade would seriously weaken the Brewers chances to compete.

It reduces the long term payroll commitments but does nothing in the short term except most likely make the team noticeably worse.

Baby's what? You mean babies? How on earth can a baby be 60 years old? Does finding a constant barrage of nonsense posts to be really irritating make one a baby in your estimation?

I placed you on ignore upon your return as all you posted was troll level s*** in every post something like 500 times a day. I noticed that it seemed like nearly every other response to the various threads had your name attached to it so I unblocked you to see if the post quality had improved. Looks like it's time to add back to the ignore list.

Why would the Brewers want to swap Yelich for Springer though? They make similar salaries and Yelich was literally twice as valuable as Springer last season.

As far as I can see Adames would be a rental player.

Definitely. Varsho might actually be an upgrade on Kiermaier, and left field may be Varsho's worst defensive position in the outfield based on the early OAA returns so Bellinger should be a fine replacement.

I don't know man, the guy has a 97 wRC+ Steamer projection, but that includes Gallo improving his k rate compared to the last 2 seasons and producing a higher BABIP value than he's managed the last 5 years. I just tend to think he's nearing the point where he will have no offensive utility whatsoever as the k rate just keeps increasing year over year.

I'd certainly rather have Bregman and Soto vs Bellinger as well, but those guys are likely to see the team facing way more competition for their services and are unlikely signs as compared to Bellinger who doesn't appear to have very many suitors. Eventually the Jays will be forced to move on from Bellinger as they need to fill their lineup holes and this will remove one potential option, so hopefully Boras will eventually lower the demands to something more in line with the value that Bellinger is more likely to provide (3-4 WAR vs the 5+ the contract demands imply).

I wonder if Keston Hiura will be of any interest to the club. He was above average offensively in 2022 (115 wRC+ despite the 41.7% k rate). His 2023 numbers in AAA looked good and the strikeout rate was more manageable.