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Chris Black had an interesting twitter thread about how the key to Vlad unlocking his full potential largely hinges on laying off of low pitches. That will enable the launch angle issues/ground ball problems to be largely mitigated as he has difficulty in elevating those pitches.

I voted the offence should be about the same, but I think it has a decent chance to be even better than in 2022. The team has loaded up on left handed batters just in time for the shift ban. If Vlad gets back to the 2021 version and Bo continues the improvement he showed in the second half of last season this offence could be pretty scary. Varsho made some swing changes last year that enabled him to improve his results at the plate rather significantly in the second half so he has a shot to have his best season to date. He won't likely ever make up for the loss of Teo's bat fully but between him and Belt that loss should be largely mitigated.

Golly gee maybe a Statcast page isn't the be all end all for determining a baseball player's value to his team. Daulton Varsho had a .298 xWOBA in 2023, so I guess you can start preaching to everyone how bad he is with the bat as well. Biggio isn't and will never be a Statcast darling when it comes to quality of contact, but that's not necessarily how he has typically provided value to his team. It's easy to rant and rave about how bad a player is if you only focus on their weakness and ignore all of their strengths. Biggio's greatest asset has been elite plate discipline, and he continues to get on base at a decent clip despite the low batting averages. The WAR per 550 plate appearances are for 2022 only, and nothing to do with his early career numbers so you can stop harping on about 2019 like it's somehow relevant. Biggio got off to a very rough start in 2022, however after returning from Buffalo he managed to produce at a higher than league average rate with the bat with a 109 WRC+. That's pretty good for a player with no talent like you are claiming. After returning in late May he produced at a 3.2 FWAR/550 rate. Here's a newsflash for you, that's really damn good for a utility player. Statcast ranked him as a well above average defender at second base and even or better at all of the other positions he manned as well so he has displayed a lot of defensive utility as well.

It's obvious you have nothing of substance to add to this discussion so you might as well continue to troll away and pat yourself on the back. Biggio (2.4 FWAR/550 PA) was far more productive on a rate basis than Merrifield in 2023 (1.5 FWAR/550PA) and produced similar value when factoring in playing time to Espinal (2.5 FWAR/550 PA).

He produces at a rate of about 2-2.5 WAR/550 plate appearances off of the bench. He did this in 2020 and 2022 with deadened baseballs compared to the launching pad balls of 2019. The one time in his career where he was legitimately bad was 2021 when he dealt with a multitude of injuries and largely played in a position he's not suited for. He's still cheap salary wise and will most likely continue to be as he doesn't excel in categories that are largely valued in the MLB salary arbitration system. The over the top hate just isn't warranted here. For the relative peanuts he is paid he provides plenty of value to his team. If another team deems to be a desirable trade target then Biggio can be moved to improve the team in another area, but if he's kept he's a nice bench piece who can still provide plenty of value to the Jays. He may potentially be helped out by the upcoming shift ban, and if/when MLB implements an automatic strike zone he stands to benefit as much as anyone in MLB.

Only about half of his WAR came with juiced balls in 2019. MLB has been progressively deadening the baseball starting in 2020. Gregorius has produced WRC+ values of 69 and 58 in the last two seasons, surely even you can recognize that Biggio isn't THAT bad.

Varsho and Belt both offer very high potential upsides. Varsho has 5+ win potential and Belt is one season removed from a 157 WRC+. Swanson is coming off of a season where he produced 1.7 FWAR so he shows a very high ceiling as well.

Atkins and Shapiro did emphatically state that reaching the CBT tax wouldn't be a limitation on their spending, but does that include jumping past the first tier of spending? Time will tell. At any rate I think this was a great offseason to spend given the upcoming Rogers Center upgrades as the team's revenue stream should be improved quite a bit once the updates are finished.

Damnit I caught that mistake the first time around but missed it in the follow-up post. I definitely don't think the NHL is any less susceptible to cancel culture than other leagues given how relatively niche the league is.

For the record I was just pulling your leg there. I don't think this is by design and is more of a coincidence than anything.

Wait your cheering for the Jays to become whiter?

The NHL is pretty damn close to immune to cancel culture though. That league and it's players receive infinitely more latitude than every other entertainment related business in this continent.

I'd still like to see a lefty masher added for the outfield as well.

Football is akin to religion south of the border. Accordingly the NFL is nearly exempt from the types of pressure faced by the rest of industry in North America.

He's gone nearly full troll, like 99% worthless garbage troll posts and 1% posts with any substance. This is just part of his shtick. This is right up there with his "Danny Jansen is blind so should be the catcher traded" routine.

Might as well spend up to the end of the first tier of the CBT as the actual financial penalties are very small for doing so.

He's no star by any means but managed to produce 1.3 WAR in about 300 plate appearances. Since he came back from Buffalo in late May he produced 1.6 FWAR in 275 plate appearances. I'll take that any day of the week for a bench player.

Interestingly enough Biggio has basically even splits for his career vs RHP/LHP. He's produced a 101 WRC+ vs LHP and a 106 WRC+ vs RHP. Recent seasons look pretty bad vs LHP though. Neither Merrifield nor Biggio have enough outfield innings at this point to determine who is a better outfield defender at this point. Biggio has looked pretty good at first base in the limited time I've seen him play there, however Belt is far more experienced and almost certainly adds a lot more with the bat if he bounces back sufficiently.

Belt and Biggio don't really occupy the same position much though. Belt is strictly 1B/DH vs Biggio who can play all over the diamond.

Seems pretty damn unlikely as Gausman has been really good dating back to the 2020 season.

I recall specifically that Bo was mentioned as having offered to move for the likes of Didi Gregorius in order to improve the team years ago. If the team is to bring in a legitimate MLB short stop that's better than Bo I have no qualms he will be willing to move. Espinal hasn't established himself as a player who should be playing every day as he's shown little ability to hit right handed pitching, attempting to force him into the lineup all of the time likely weakens the team vs strengthening it.

Do you really think Bo is the person making the decision on the behalf of the organization who plays short stop?

We simply don't know how Moreno projects moving forward. He has a very broad range of potential outcomes hinging on whether he manages to rediscover his power stroke. If he's largely a singles hitter a huge chunk of his offensive potential is not going to be realized. Gurriel had very little trade value so he doesn't really have a material affect on the value of this trade.

Varsho has only played about 2 full MLB seasons so it's far from a given what kind of value he will provide moving forward. Varsho could very well have a 5 win ceiling at his peak. The 3 WAR projection is largely based on him losing 75% of his defensive value. This seems a little unlikely to occur in a player about to play his age 26 season.

I don't think Pham is a great fit for this organization given the amount of value placed on character and Pham's various violence related issues.