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I can read just fine. It seems the issue may be that you have an incredibly short memory. You specifically complained about trading Vlad for a player who barely hit .200. There was literally no other substance in the post.

Imagine using only batting average as a means to evaluate overall player performance.

There's a snowball's chance in hell Carroll would have ever been on the table for any of the Blue Jays catchers.

Seems like somebody is setting himself up for disappointment.

Kikuchi's Steamer and Zips projections each project him to take a bit of a step backwards but nothing too severe. I hope he trains at Driveline again this offseason as it helped him make a dramatic career turnaround after his first rough season with the Blue Jays. On that topic it would be amazing if Manoah were to train there as well as a few added ticks of velo would make likely be a huge difference maker for him.

I don't expect any massive drop-offs in performance, but then I wouldn't have expected Manoah to suddenly tank heading into 2023 or Berrios to struggle in 2022 so anything is possible.

I recall Keith Law said his hips were so big he had a hard time getting around on the baseball. Wasn't he affectionately known as Walrus on the predecessor to this board?

White was throwing bullets/sitting mid to upper 90's to end the AAA season so he likely has a legitimate opportunity to be the swingman/6th starter. I would guess Francis is more than likely to be stretched back out in spring training next season. He was hurt in the spring and didn't have a chance to be fully stretched out before his eventual call-up. Maybe Parsons would receive a callup before Tiedemann if he's deemed not sufficiently prepared for MLB, but that leaves him as a more likely 8th rotation option vs 6th.

It could also be something that would "normalize" given more seasons of data.

That's one guy we are in agreement on. I thought he would make a tremendous 4th outfielder/platoon bat but it's not surprising he would choose to return to the Dodgers.

The 30+ dudes all have pretty spotless health histories at the very least.

Isn't that dude more like the #8 starter?

Both Kirk and Moreno had portions of their career where they were noodle bats, and each of them has had stretches where they are high average hitters with power. Kirk's first 544 plate appearances in MLB saw him produce a 139 wRC+ and hit 21 home runs. He hit the ball hard with regularity with an average exit velocity of 92.1 MPH and a hard hit rate of 46%. This is the type of upside he has displayed against major league pitching. If he returns to any semblance of this he is going to extremely valuable factoring in his gold glove nomination worthy defense behind the plate. Unfortunately he stopped squaring up the baseball almost completely in the second half of 2022, and the next 633 plate appearances aren't nearly as noteworthy. He has slumped to a 94 wRC+, hit only 10 home runs while slapping the ball around with an average exit velocity of 87.9 MPH. It's far from determined what type of hitter Moreno is going to be moving forward. We can definitely state he's going to gun a bunch of runners down when behind the plate, but we simply don't know how his framing is going to look in the future. He had a hot streak to end the regular season which carried into the first few playoff rounds, but leading up to this he spent several seasons of play as a singles hitter who hit a ton of ground balls, seldomly walked, and hit for very little power. For the final 3 playoff rounds he did very little with the bat more akin to how he looked prior to his hot streak. I'd love if we could go back in time and avoid the broken hand that seemed to completely sap his power, but what is done is done.

Ultimately the team would still have been in great shape behind the plate no matter which of the three catchers they ended up moving. Even with Kirk's struggles with the bat and Jansen missing half of the season the team still received the 6th most WAR in MLB from the trio of Jansen, Kirk and Heinemann, and 2nd in WAR for the last two seasons combined. It's too bad Kirk is built like the MLB equivalent of Danny Devito, Jansen is made of glass and Moreno turned into a slap hitter for several consecutive seasons as it really limited the return each of these players was able to provide in trade.

Roden started flashing a little more home run power in his AA stint where he hit 6 home runs in 209 plate appearances. The ISO only jumped 11 points up to .149 as his overall extra base production dropped a lot as the doubles largely dried up. I recall the home ballpark in New Hampshire is hitter friendly for left handed power so it remains to be seen if this home run spike is something that carries over to Buffalo once he works his way up. I get the feeling that his ceiling is a Michael Brantley lite type of hitter if everything clicks for him in the future.

The Blue Jays already project to be a solid team before making any off season additions. I'd argue they would benefit as much as anyone in baseball by adding an elite talent as a means to instantly elevate the roster to true contender status. My only concern with an Ohtani addition would be what level of funding would remain to fill the other holes in the roster (left field and third base).

Jiminez has suffered from so many lower half injuries that he doesn't seem like a guy you'd want spending very much time in the outfield. He's like a younger version of Giancarlo Stanton when it comes to the leg injuries.

Most of these sound pretty reasonable, but I think if Varsho plays primarily in center field next season he should beat his projection pretty handily. The projection systems don't buy him as an elite defender as of yet, however the on the field results paint a decidedly different picture. Over the last two seasons of play he leads MLB in combined OAA at 28, with the next closest player coming in at 21 OAA. DRS gives him an even bigger lead as it rates his left field defence much higher than OAA, where he leads the pack with 48 DRS. The next closest player has 31 DRS for comparison.

I wonder if this is the same scenario for all of the bidding teams with regards to having extra funds for Ohtani.

It might not be a playoff team without bouncebacks from some of the underperformers like Vlad, Kirk, Springer, Varsho, Manoah, Epsinal etc. (holy s*** that's a long list) No matter who is brought in the team likely needs better seasons from a lot of those guys if they are to have a shot to compete given how many wins are heading out the door in free agency.

If you haven't watched this already check out the Baseball Doesn't Exist breakdown of the kind of revenue Ohtani generated for the Angels.

You totally missed that I was joking.

I can't say I disagree with any of this. The time for this to be a sustainable winning organization is running short, so it's imperative for the farm system to begin producing high quality inexpensive replacements within the next few years. The expensive rotation is one of the primary reasons I'd be very hesitant to trade Tiedemann and even Manoah, given the fact that the team simply can't sustain paying $100 million per season on the rotation alone, especially with the upcoming decisions to be made with regards to long term contracts pertaining to Bo and Vlad. I think with the upcoming emergence of the likes of Barger, Rodon, Martinez and Tiedemann, who each have a shot to be above average MLB regulars in my view, that sustainable winning is still a possibility but far from a given.

Not buying it man, likely taken out of context and specifically designed to make it look like you want the team to acquire dudes who are actually still good baseball players.

I specifically recall that it was reported years after the fact that Dalton Pompey was bullied by one of the Blue Jays veteran players when he was first called up. I don't have any specific information with regards to who the culprit was but it's not a giant leap of logic to place suspicions on a certain MVP level third baseman as the primary suspect.