max silver

The metrics really weren't in agreement on Varsho. Both Statcast and UZR both portrayed him as a little above average vs DRS which showed him to be elite. He has mentioned that left field is his least comfortable outfield position as well which is backed up by several of the metrics so far.

I'm not saying that in the slightest. I agree that Varsho was potentially moved up in the order due to being on a hot streak, yet if I recall correctly he started the season hitting up in the order at times before it was established how successful of an offensive season he was experiencing. I'm far from being a proponent of locking hitters into specific slots in the order ala Cito Gaston on his second tour of duty as Blue Jays manager. I recall one instance where Marco Scutaro was the team's typical leadoff hitter and John McDonald was the backup short stop. Instead of reworking his order a tiny bit when Scutaro was out of the lineup he actually inserted McDonald into the leadoff spot so as to not disturb the rest of the order. I fully support moving players up and down the order as warranted by performance

That would likely be the case with any hitter that moved up and down the lineup a lot.

It's really surprising but Varsho's second most productive spot in the order last season was 5th where he produced a 137 WRC+ over a 20 game sample. I think Springer should be just fine next season. I give him a pass for the April struggles as he had truly rotten batted ball fortune to start the season before he got sick, and then he played through lingering illness symptoms for several weeks afterwards. His numbers over the first 23 games/100 plate appearances were pretty rough as he struggled to a 57 wRC+. He had a couple of very good months at the plate from near the end of April until Mid July where he produced a 132 wRC+ over 67 games/293 plate appearances. A great deal of the consternation towards Springer in general seems to stem from the prolonged slump he experienced in July, which saw him really struggle over 16 games where he only managed a -3 wRC+. He ended the season on a solid note where he produced a 125 wRC+ over his final 49 games/223 plate appearances. In other words his season as a whole consisted of two down periods of a combined 39 games or so, and periods where he was very productive over 116 games. To declare him as potentially being finished as a productive major league hitter based on 5 weeks where he struggled seems overly premature. I don't necessarily expect him to return to his glory days but something like 110-120 wRC+ over a full season seems realistic for next season.

I suspect Green would actually be better off if the team were to decline all of the options as he'd likely be able to get a better deal through free agency after successfully returning to MLB this past season.

According to who? Unless you're card carrying member of the cult of batting average who's been decrying this as the worst trade in franchise history since day 1 there is plenty of remaining long term intrigue regarding this trade. The most extreme example I saw of this was a dude who proclaimed that he wouldn't have traded Gurriel alone for Varsho because Gurriel hits for a higher batting average. We simply don't know if or to what degree Varsho bounces back with the bat or even improves over time, how he holds up defensively over an entire season in center field, what kind of long term success Moreno has at the plate etc.

There's a very real chance that with an injury to one of the top 3 members of the rotation that next year's team could consist of these 3 starters until the injured starter came back. Assuming some level of Manoah bounceback trading all 3 of these players opens up 2 immediate holes in the rotation while also moving one of the primary depth pieces. This also necessitates acquiring more starters through free agency and very likely necessitates a massive increase in payroll as these 3 traded pitchers likely earn something like $12-13 combined next season, while also necessitating adding a good chunk of payroll for Soto. This dramatically weakens the team's long term prospects of any kind of sustainability as suddenly the already expensive starting rotation which ate up something like $90 million last season becomes even more expensive.

Damn that's a really steep price to pay for Soto. I'd much rather wait for a shot at signing him for cash only + draft pick in free agency(which admittedly may not come if he's acquired and signed long term by someone else)

I don't think he was implying that Kirk isn't talented, more that people would still like Kirk due to the everyman physique whether he was really talented or not.

I'd much rather the Jays bring back Belt if they were going to go this route. I think Belt has a lot more left in the tank vs Votto who very likely would only offer vetrin presents vs on the field results.

I like him as a bounce back candidate but question whether the front office would see him as a character fit due to the on and off the field shenanigans.

That was like 5% of why he was let go.

Hopefully the Jays low farm system ranking will start to tick it's way back upwards as some of the higher ceiling prospects in the low minors work their way up the system.

Yeah the team unceremoniously dumped Anthony Bass for simply liking somebody else's social media post so it's REALLY hard to see them being willing to deal with the inevitable backlash of a Bauer signing.

That's quite the pitch count he ran for that game.

This is very interesting as the Blue Jays minor league system rankings largely mirror what occurred at the major league level with a low power/low strikeout high contact rate seemingly prioritized.

I definitely become a more casual viewer once the Blue Jays are out, but that's far from a baseball only thing as I'm the same for every other sport where I have a favorite team that I follow. With baseball specifically I find that after a 6 month season I'm ready to move onto something else, especially if the season ends in bitter disappointment as tends to be the case with the Blue Jays the last 3 seasons. The 2020 season wasn't as disappointing to me as I didn't expect the team to make the playoffs in the first place so any kind of post season play was a bonus, but the last 3 seasons have all ended in a way which soured me on watching a large amount of baseball until the next season rolled around.

I'm really sorry that you didn't get your wish here for such a "magical" moment as each of these players had mediocre world series results.

I think Hudgens was the first guy that should have been given the axe as the team was generally unprepared to face opposition starters this past season. They had a huge negative run differential in the first inning and were constantly playing from behind.

I thought Green looked like an awful lot like the Chad Green of old in the last few weeks of the regular season. Given where reliever prices have headed I see no scenario where Green would accept the 1 year option. The two year deal may be a little steep but if Green is back to being one of MLB's top relievers moving forward it's actually pretty reasonable all things considered.

This isn't the first warning of this nature this guy has received. I'd wager it's far past the point of warnings already.

Boston really kicked themselves in the nuts return wise by insisting that David Price be included in any Betts deals.

You are entirely missing the point. Belt was technically a platoon bat but had the negative effects of this nearly entirely negated by the construction of his team. He played the overwhelming majority of games when he was available, sitting only about 14% of the time for lefty starters/load management. He faced about 10% of his plate appearances against left handed pitching. Guys like Bo and Vlad only faced left handed pitching in about 18% of their at bats for comparisons sake.

Why in the world would the Padres even begin to consider that trade?

Belt played nearly every day when he was healthy and available. He played in approximately 85% of the team's games when he wasn't on the injured list and/or dealing with illness. The Jays right handed heavy lineup really limited how often the team faced left handed pitching as a whole, and Belt hit in the top of the order which made opposition managers really hesitant to bring in lefty specialists as Belt was surrounded by the likes of Springer, Bo and Vlad. Over the last 5 months of the season produced around 110 WRC+ against left handed pitching so he was actually decently effective.