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I place approximately zero value on XFIP as a method of evaluating pitcher performance. I think aside from the issue with walks Bassitt has pitched pretty well for the most part. He was f***ed over by the umpire in the Seattle game, but settled down very nicely after the early home run. He's been inducing a ton of soft contact so far. I had a look at his XBA values from start to start, and that seems to back up the low'ish batting average on balls in play to a degree. Batting average vs XBA start to start is as follows: Batting Average/Expected Batting Average For Each Start .556/.491 .143/.199 .2/.197 .13/.314 .13/.201 .125/.15 .182/.214 There's really only 1 start in there where it appears as though Bassitt was extraordinarily lucky on batted balls, with a few starts where he was a little bit lucky at least as far as batting average is concerned. I think a more useful comparison would be WOBA vs XWOBA on a start to start basis. WOBA/XWOBA Per Start 0.728/0.694 0.281/0.327 0.3/0.323 0.156/0.315 0.217/0.271 0.307/0.294 0.259/0.306 This paints a pretty similar picture to batting average vs expected batting average, in that there is really only one game where Bassitt looked to have been blessed by above when it comes to expected results vs actual results, which a few other games where he appeared to be a little bit lucky.

Playing Varsho at catcher just opens up another hole in the outfield. The team can cover some outfield innings with Merrifield at present, however using Varsho at catcher would necessitate playing the ice cold bats of Biggio and/or Espinal at second base more frequently. Maybe you're still better off going this route vs using a AAA catcher on a regular basis though.

From looking at rolling XWOBA values it appears as though Kirk has both a higher ceiling and a higher floor as he's provided peak output of over .500 xWOBA while also largely avoiding the dips below league average expected offense. Having said that it also appears as though Jansen has managed to hit peak output more overall times than Kirk has.

That's where the team's strength at catcher takes a real nosedive as it necessitates running a depth player from AAA at catcher a good chunk of the time.

The numbers I referenced from Jansen ran from early May of 2021 until the end of 2022, that's nearly two full MLB seasons. I also referenced the fact that Jansen only played about a full season's worth of games for a typical starting catcher during this time due to injuries. It's certainly possible he would experience cold stretches if he were to remain healthy more often and experience the typical accumulation of fatigue of a typical MLB regular, however he managed to maintain this type of production over several seasons, despite a ton of stops and starts due to trips to the injured list. He maintained excellent peripherals, barrel rate, plate discipline etc. which to me suggests this wasn't entirely an unsustainable fluke run of success. I was curious what's lead to the lack of success this season, and one thing that stands out is inability to get balls into the air to the pull side. He has hit a larger percentage of pull side fly balls out of the park compared to 2022, however far too frequently his batted balls to the pull side have been on the ground. Another change is that Jansen has been hitting the ball more frequently to right field with awful results to show for it. Hopefully this isn't a conscious choice as he was easily at his most productive when pulling the ball in the air. Kirk managed to stay healthy for the entire season of 2022, but it's not out of the question that he wore down as the season progressed due to how much his overall production reduced as the season went on. I'm not one to rag on the guy at all as I think he's almost the perfect backup catcher who's bat is so good that he can regularly DH on days when he's not catching, and while he is catching he is a great defender. I just won't ignore the fact that his build greatly limits how frequently he is available to catch.

I guess some of this depends on what you would ultimately qualify as a small sample, but Jansen was a legitimate offensive force for most of two seasons. He offered a tantalizing glimpse of power potential over early May 2021 until the end of season in 2022. After a return from the injured list (if I recall correctly) he mashed for the following 121 game appearances. It's really too bad he found himself on the injured list so frequently, but he managed a 148 WRC+ over nearly two full seasons, just without a ton of actual game appearances during this time. 4.8 FWAR/148 WRC+ is a lot more than Kirk has shown at any point of his own career up to this point.

Statcast has a blocking leaderboard. According to their methodology Kirk is one of MLB's best blocking catchers since the start of 2022. He leads in blocks above average per game at 0.21. Interestingly enough Jansen shows up in third place in the same metric, so each of these guys are great in this skill.

Perhaps part of this could be due to primarily playing a less familiar position in left field.

Acceleration is something that I wish Statcast directly measured, as well as directly displaying top overall sprint speeds as well. Average sprint speed is really only showing a small part of the overall picture.

I wouldn't necessarily choose Jansen over Kirk, however preferring Jansen is hardly indefensible. Starting from 2021 when Kirk became more of a regular Jansen has actually outproduced Kirk in overall value on a rate basis. Jansen comes in at 3.96 FWAR/550 vs Kirk at 3.17 FWAR/550. Jansen has had a hard time staying on the field, but when on the field he played like a 4.5-5 WAR player in 2022, and sustained this type of production despite having a lot of starts and stops due to making several trips to the injured list. I think it's up in the air what kind of offensive player he eventually settles in as, but I don't think the power surge over the second half of 2021 and entire season in 2022 is some kind of fluke.

His sprint speed has been slowly declining since peaking at 28.4 ft/second in 2021. He's down to an average of 27.9 ft/second so far this season. I just have a hard time seeing him continuing to be an elite center field defender if this trend continues.

I don't think the bolded is really true. In 2021 Kirk hit 8 homeruns with a .194 ISO in only 189 plate appearances.

Kirk has displayed power in MLB already, whereas Moreno hasn't shown any power since a short stint in AA several years ago. Over Moreno's last two seasons in a combined 442 AAA/MLB plate appearances he's produced all of a combined 27 extra base hits (22 2B/5 HR). It's far from a given this is going to improve dramatically over time.

That's kind of a weird shot at Bassitt who has pitched really damn well after his first start of the season meltdown. I wouldn't argue that Eovoldi offers ace like upside when he manages to stay healthy and pitch at peak effectiveness, but this hasn't been something he's been able to accomplish for most of his career.

I think Kirk has simply been in a bit of a slump timing wise this season. Over his career (including his early season struggles) he's averaged over 44% hard hit rate/90.5 MPH exit velocity, whereas this season these have both dropped precipitously to 34%/85.9 MPH with a corresponding increase in ground balls. Once he hits his stride he's fully set up for a massive surge in production given the great swing decisions and walk rate, as he's kept his head well above water offensively almost solely based on walk rate so far.

Oops looks like it's me that missed that point. Still interesting discussion but that certainly removes any concerns over Jays performance in AA. Good catch on your part/poor reading comprehension on my part.

Kirk still manages to be an above average offensive contributor despite the lack of power given his elite bat to ball skills and strike zone awareness. Historically he has hit the ball a lot harder than his last half season or thereabouts so hopefully he will start squaring up baseballs more frequently as there is decent raw power hiding in his sizeable frame. I don't think it's a slam dunk that Moreno is going to be better for the next few years given the fact that Moreno doesn't appear to be a great defender yet aside from his throwing skills, both his blocking and receiving/framing appear to need some improvement.

Theoretically higher spin rates on 4 seamers would make it harder to make solid contact on pitches up in the zone and increase the likelihood of getting under the baseball. This is certainly an ongoing issue with Orelvis though which is unfortunately only becoming worse over time.

Something I don't recall seeing discussed here is how AA is using a pre-tacked baseball this season. This makes it much harder to properly evaluate both hitter and pitcher performance from this league as this baseball has had a noticeable effect increasing spin rates for the pitchers. I wonder if this could be factoring in to Kloffenstein's resurgence and Orelvis Martinez's struggles this season (one could only hope). https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/new-enhanced-grip-baseball-raising-concerns-strikeouts-in-double-a-southern-league/

Little reverse jinx going on here, I like it.

If Horwitz can at least play a passable outfield I think he could eventually be a potential Biggio replacement. The team still has both of Espinal and Merrifield to cover second base, and Biggio has been given the occasional start at first base which Horwitz could receive instead. Horwitz is on a massive heater with .411/.521/1.110 189 WRC+ over his last few weeks with a matching 19.7% k/bb rate. I think he could potentially provide an offensive spark from the bottom of the lineup to a team that's largely struggled to consistently produce offense from the bottom third.

I see next to no chance that the Pirates would have made that deal. They already had a great catching prospect of their own and were also asking for the moon in Reynolds trade talks.

I just don't know how many years Varsho will be able to effectively man center field as he appears to be slowly losing speed over time, and he wasn't really a burner to start with. He seems to have great instincts/get great jumps though so at least that part of his game should age a little more gracefully.

Yeah Belt looked like he should retire after his first six games, but he's bounced back and been pretty damn good since then. His last 16 games he's produced a 154 WRC+ backed up by pretty decent peripherals/exit velocity, save for his still too high 35.5% k rate.

His defense has actually been pretty solid for most of this season, he just chose a rather unfortunate time to airmail a throw to first base.