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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.

Yimi Garcia's $6 million salary should have zero bearing on the front office's ability to add more talent to the roster. The tax penalty is basically peanuts as far as actual money outlay in concerned as only overages are actually taxed, and unless a team blows past the final tax level there really isn't much of a penalty beyond a small extra financial outlay. If Garcia is traded then this essentially means replacing one of the team's more effective relievers with a depth arm, surely you can see the folly in such a move. I'd infinitely prefer the depth arms be utilized to cover the team in case of injury and/or underperformance and make the minor league guys force their way onto the roster through effective performance rather than force one of them onto the roster prematurely by trading away a primary reliever. Garcia is primarily a single inning reliever, and only has a single year of remaining control. He likely only had a few million dollars of excess value. What do you expect that the team would be able to receive in return that actually improves their chances to win vs what Garcia is going to provide? The team is in the middle of a competitive window so it makes no sense to remove important contributors to take flyers on low level prospects at this time.

You don't seem to grasp how effective Garcia has been for the club the last two seasons and how much money lesser relievers are signing for in free agency the last few offseasons. Over the last two seasons Garcia ranks 38th in MLB in FWAR among relievers with a minimum of 100 innings pitched. He's not easily replaced and makes relative peanuts compared to the typical veteran reliever that provides comparable on field value.

Why in the world would you want that to happen? Wouldn't it be infinitely preferable to see the player bounce back to previous levels of performance and help the Blue Jays win instead of unceremoniously dumping him to another team?

And they should trade a relatively inexpensive reliever who's only scheduled to make $6 million despite providing a full win above replacement. On top of that there was constant grousing that this incredibly reasonable vesting option was going to kick in and that the team should dump this player to avoid paying him that below market salary for 2024.

Kirk has had one poor offensive season in his entire career but of course you are going to completely overreact like usual and call the Jansen/Kirk combination gross. Never mind the fact they are projected for over 4 wins combined.

The lack of other elite players wasn't for lack of trying at the very least. The front office has attempted to sign elite players in free agency including the likes of Cole, Seager, Semien and Ohtani but hasn't been able to convince them to sign on the dotted line. Trade attempts reportedly include the likes of Jose Ramirez and Juan Soto but the team wasn't able to line up in trade values to complete these deals either.

Yeah definitely had a bit of fat finger syndrome there as the Varsho projections range from 99-106 wRC+.

The bottom 4 is not exactly awe inspiring but isn't as bad as you are making it out to be. Biggio/Schneider will most likely be above 100 wRC+, Varsho is projected for anywhere from 99-107 wRC+ and Kiermaier is coming off a 104 wRC+ season and has had an above average bat in 2 of the last 3 seasons.

I guess a lot of this depends on what your definition of a "big" lefty bat entails. I think Belt was awfully close to qualifying as one personally with his 146 wRC+ against right handed pitching. If I had any belief in his ability to reproduce those types of numbers I'd love for the team to bring him back but there are just way too many red flags that make a repeat seem unlikely. It seems almost a certainty the team will sign a primary DH but it'll be a tall order to fully replace the type of offensive output that Belt provided. I have zero concerns over losing Whit. He was a decent low cost acquisition whose best years are behind him and he's easily replaced by internal options. Ryu was a nice depth option to cover the innings the team lost when Manoah morphed into baseball's worst starter, but if Manoah didn't forget how to pitch Ryu wouldn't have been of much use to the team. It seems more than likely that Chapman will be playing for a different team next season but I'm still holding onto a faint bit of hope that he may be brought back.

He's way down on my wish list for DH types as I'd much rather see the team acquire JDM or Soler at this point.

Teo was a free agent after last season so his trade would have zero bearing on whether a Soler addition makes sense.

He still mashed lefties when with the Angels as he produced a 136 wRC+. He'd likely be cheap as hell at this point to the point as well.

Varsho actually outperformed Kiermaier against lefties in 2023 103 wRC+ to 98 wRC+ so it's not necessarily Varsho who would be platooned.

I'm not getting the hate here. Grichuk would be a great addition as a lefty mashing 4th outfielder. It's like the haters would prefer to run the likes of Biggio and Schneider in the outfield instead, and if one of the starters is injured then it's possible one of the aforementioned guys is suddenly starting games in the outfield on the regular.