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I'd give Bellinger what it takes for him to choose the Jays over the Cubs but that's it. There's no sense and caving into Boras's ridiculous demands at this point and paying the guy like a true star player as he simply hasn't shown that he's that type of player moving forward.

For the last two seasons Gallo basically has essentially been an automatic out in half of his plate appearances. Combine his 2023 42.8% k rate with the popup rate of 7.2% (58.3% FB x 12.3% IFBB) and you end up with an even 50% strikeout and pop up rate. That's the last kind of guy a team with so many lineup openings should be employing.

This just goes to show how s***** most depth pitchers actually are. Unless you have your own home grown optionable starters these guys tend to be completely fungible.

Bellinger hasn't generally been a dead pull hitter for most of his career though and certainly wasn't in 2023 with a 44/37/19 split. The results back up this approach as well as he produced 183 wRC+ to the pull side, 187 wRC+ up the middle and only 73 wRC+ to the opposite field. It's certainly fair to wonder if he has much of a chance to recreate the success on balls up the middle as these included a .397 BABIP.

There was a definite element of bad luck in the two week slump Schneider experienced over a two week span. He was absolutely striking out too much during this period of time, but still managed some solid contact. In the 34 plate appearances where he went hitless he produced 5 line drives, barrelled up a baseball and averaged 89.3 MPH off of the bat. None of his batted balls fell in for hits despite producing some decent contact off of the bat.

It's too bad Bellinger employs Boras as his agent as Boras has historically been perfectly willing to let his guys wait the market out until spring training starts to maximize their contracts. It really hampers the rest of the team's offseason work not knowing if they will be employing Bellinger and Chapman as well as each of these moves will have a sizeable effect on the remaining budget to spend on other players.

There's just no way the team could roster all of those guys at once given the redundancies this would present. I think Barger is likely to replace Biggio at some point, and Jiminez is the most likely heir apparent to take over for Espinal as he seems to be the only guy with the glove to handle short stop.

I would have loved to see Schneider receive more playing time down the stretch to give him a chance to work through his issues at the plate. The team completely benched the guy after a rough week at the plate which is understandable given the stakes of the games at the time, but the issue was that Merrifield was in a two month slump of his own and the team kept inserting him into the lineup every day. I guess at the end of the day the team accepted the higher offensive floor that Merrifield offered vs the higher ceiling Schneider added if he were able to emerge from his slump.

How many seasons do you think it would take these two to hit 4+ WAR? Steamer has the two projected for a total of 1.4 WAR, and over the last two seasons combined they produced 4.5 WAR. I could easily get on board with a Taylor signing provided he'd be on board with typical 4th outfielder level of playing time, but damn that Gallo strikeout rate just keeps getting worse and he's having an increasingly hard time even managing a .300 OBP.

So despite all of the evidence you view Kiermaier as a better center fielder just because. That checks out based on your entire posting history. Kiermaier was on record stating that he chose to sign with the Blue Jays because they promised him a starting job in center field. It shouldn't come as a massive shock to you that they were true to their word and started Kiermaier there as promised. The Semien situation is similar but had some key differences. Atkins stated that they weren't going to move Bo off of the short stop position for a single season as they still viewed him as having potential to be a quality defender at the position. At that time it was also stated that there was no interest in moving Bo off of the position for a single season, as if he were moved it would be a permanent position swap and not a single year move. Moving Bo for a single season would have denied him of the necessary repetitions required for him to improve at the position. Varsho is already a premium defender in center field, so there would be no lost developmental time if he were to spent time at a different position.

Perhaps the eye test tells you Kiermaier is a better defender but the metrics don't back that up. We can compare these players metrics directly to paint a more complete picture. I'm going to utilize Varsho's last two seasons of center field play as he's produced very similar rates in these seasons, and will use Kiermaier's 2023 only as his numbers were most likely negatively affected by a bad hip in 2022. DRS/OAA Overall Comparison Varsho 841 innings 23 DRS (27.3 DRS/1000 innings) 18 OAA (21.4 OAA/1000 innings) Kiermaier 981 innings 18 DRS (18.3 DRS/1000 innings) 13 OAA (13.3 OAA/1000 innings) Kiermaier has a higher top speed compared to Varsho, but Varsho has simply been a far more effective fielder on a rate basis. It remains to be seen if Varsho can replicate these types of numbers over an entire season in center field as he's yet to play a full season there. If these numbers stick he is arguably the best center field defender in the sport. Kiermaier also possessed a stronger throwing arm, but he hasn't turned this into extra outs compared to Varsho who has a relatively weak throwing arm in comparison. I think Varsho benefits from great technique as he gets into position very quickly, gets rid of the ball quickly (likely his years at catcher benefit him here) and he has a very accurate arm as well. It stands to reason that runners would be more likely to attempt to advance on the bases as well, giving him more opportunities to throw out runners compared to Kiermaier. I have also included the DRS throwing component over the same timeframe. Statcast also has this type of statistic, but I did not include it as it does not break down the outs saved per position played so it's not an apples to apples comparison as Varsho split his time between left field and center field. DRS Throwing Runs Saved Varsho 4 DRS (4.8 DRS/1000 innings) Kiermaier 2 DRS (2.03 DRS/1000 innings)

I think Teoscar is a decent left field option as his metrics for his last few seasons out there looked good in limited playing time. I think if the team brought in someone like Michael A Taylor as a platoon option/defensive replacement type of 4th outfielder the team would be in very good shape defensively in the outfield with Teoscar offering potential upside with the bat if he bounces back.

Varsho is almost a lock to produce a higher WAR total compared to Kiermaier if he plays an entire season in center field. He's basically averaged 4 wins per season in his time in center field over his career and he's most likely a better center field defender than Kiermaier is at this stage of his career. He's a better baserunner as well, has a much better offensive projection than Kiermaier (106 wRC+ for Varsho vs 88 wRC+ for Kiermaier), is younger/doesn't miss time due to injury, and will be less expensive to boot. Literally the only thing that was better about Kiermaier vs Varsho last season was the results with the bat, but dig a little deeper and you see the two players produced nearly identical expected statistics, with Varsho coming in a little higher with a .303 xWOBA vs Kiermaier at .301 xWOBA.

I'm not huge on hockey analogies for baseball players but Merrifield is easily replaced internally by some combination of Schneider, Espinal and Biggio.

I can only assume you are utilizing Baseball Reference for some reason instead of Fangraphs which any self respecting baseball nerd is inclined to prefer. At the same time you must have missed Whit's 2021 season where he was still an above average regular. According to Fangraphs Whit has been worth 6 wins above replacement over the last 3 seasons combined, and according to Baseball Reference he's been worth 4.5 wins above replacement.

This does nothing whatsoever to outline that the team had a bad strategy as a whole with runners in scoring position. Your original quote says Whit wanted to just swing at whatever pitch came his way, put it in play and hope for the best. You stated that the team preferred a hitter to be more selective and hunt for a specific pitch. It would stand to reason that the team wouldn't want a player to completely ignore a sound two strike approach and just watch pitches down the heart of the plate for strike 3, and outside of Chapman at times I'm not so sure this was a massive issue for the team. The team was middle of the pack in strikeout rate with runners in scoring position (21.9%) compared to all situations (20.9%) so this doesn't seem like it was the major factor holding them back.

A 1.5 FWAR season would be his best since 2019 so the standards don't need to be set too high.

In my defense most of my post was perfectly on topic.

Is that because it was a bad offensive approach to start with or did the players fail to execute a sound plan effectively? Don't get me wrong I'm not saying there wasn't something amiss with the team's offense this season, but I'm pushing back against the idea that the issue was that not enough players were expanding the strike zone and swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. The team was well above average on the road but really bad at home. The clutch numbers were fantastic on the road but awful at home. Did they employ a different road strategy or did the players simply not perform at home?

Teoscar has historically been far more effective at turning the hard contact into production on the field vs Chapman. I really think Chapman needs to tweak his offensive approach a little as the flyball heavy approach with so many of the batted balls hit to the largest part of the park simply isn't a recipe for success.

We are discussing the team's offensive woes presently. The early hook on Berrios is a completely separate issue, try to stay on topic.

Obviously the goal is to plate the run. What Merrifield seems to be espousing (I haven't listened to the interview, only read through what Carlos presented) was a small ball approach where an out is traded for the run scoring. It would appear as though the team preferred to set up the possibility of scoring more than a single run by not wanting players to chase pitchers pitches in the hopes of slapping a run home.

You seemed to have purposely left out the quote where Bo directly stated the gameplanning was fine. He eventually stated that the Twins simply played better than the Blue Jays in a short series. There's nothing saying the team needs some sort of massive organization overhaul anywhere in his quotes, simply that everyone needs to reflect and determine how to improve moving forward. The team obviously thinks there was something amiss with the offensive strategy as the hitting strategist was reassigned to the minor leagues so hopefully Mattingly has success in the role.

Criticism is fine when it's constructive and warranted. This is seemingly a below average veteran player espousing the benefits expanding the zone and swinging at pitches out of the strike zone as if it's a sound offensive approach. Do you agree with him or something? What does Bo have to do with Whit Merrifield running his mouth on the way out the door? Kindly provide an actual quote from Bo instead of "Bo also made a comment".

Which months would those be exactly? Whit had a tremendous month of July (171 wRC+) which was largely driven by an unsustainable home run rate. It seems to have slipped under the radar somewhat but he was absolutely awful the last two months of the season. Over his last 49 games/206 plate appearances he really struggled to a 46 wRC+. This is second worst in MLB among qualified players. But this guy wants to talk s*** on his way out the door and act like he was some sort of offensive hero? f*** that noise.