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I question whether the prospect cost would ultimately be worth it. If it's true as suggested that the Pirates would have no interest in the Jays catchers it becomes very hard to envision a deal without either including Tiedemann or involving a third team. I've seen rumblings on the internet that Tiedemann could soon be baseball's best left handed starting prospect, and if he continues to dominate the minor leagues he will be arriving very soon. This guy is a keeper in my view.

I've seen article suggesting the concept of exponential offense, where essentially adding more good hitters to an already good lineup has the effect of leading to an offense that produces more than the sum of the parts suggests it should. https://tht.fangraphs.com/the-exponential-nature-of-offense/

I just think the Pirates expect a return based on Reynold's 2021 numbers, and expecting him to be able to repeat that type of performance seems very unlikely.

Is Reynolds really a star? He's had one season out of 4 where he managed to perform at that level.

I was thinking of that as well, deGrom is so damn good that he might actually provide a little "value" without pitching that many innings. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised for him to suffer a career altering injury and not return with the same type of ultra elite stuff that he features presently.

It's said that in baseball the best predictor for future injury is prior injuries, particularly in the most recent season. So there's strike one against deGrom. He's in his mid 30's and this deal is paying an extremely injury probe pitcher until he's nearly 40. There's strike 2. When deGrom was able to remain healthy he wasn't averaging 99 MPH with his heater and featuring a 93 MPH slider. I just think there's a limit to what the human body can handle, and deGrom has likely pushed well beyond that limit in recent seasons. There's strike 3 for why I think this contract is more than likely to explode in the Rangers faces.

DeGrom is amazing but that contract is asinine. The guy will be lucky to crack 500 innings over the 5 years of the deal, there's just so much likely dead money in this deal. The Rangers said they were going to spend "stupid money" last offseason, and that's just continued.

Hip surgeons are likely cackling with glee at the sudden influx of patients.

Barger may very well end up knocking down the door in AAA as well.

He managed to avoid his arm falling off in winter ball so that's a start.

Is that actually true, or just a narrative that's not really backed up by his results? I don't think anybody has argued that Berrios is a true #1 starter/ace type pitcher, but rather he is more of a very good number 2 in a good season/#3 in a more average season. Below is a quick breakdown of his starts from 2019 and 2021, which are his best two seasons up to this point. For comparisons sake I've also included 2022 results. 2022 Season 0-3 FIP: 12 starts 3-4 FIP:7 starts 4-5 FIP: 3 starts 5-10 FIP: 3 starts 10+ FIP: 7 starts 2021 Season 0-3 FIP:15 starts 3-4 FIP:5 starts 4-5 FIP: 5 starts 5-10 FIP: 7 starts 10+ FIP: 0 starts 2019 Season 0-3 FIP: 11 starts 3-4 FIP: 7 starts 4-5 FIP: 7 starts 5-10 FIP: 6 starts 10+ FIP: 1 start I recall a troll who was ranting on about how Berrios would have 1 good start and then 2 bad starts (don't think it was you specifically connorp), but this certainly doesn't seem to be the case. In 2019 Berrios had 20 starts which looked legitimately good, with 5 more that were at least league average or so, and 7 poor starts. 2019 had 18 good starts, 7 average or so, 6 bad starts, and 1 disaster. Hopefully Berrios can regain the form he displayed in 2021, as there were far fewer disastrous starts that season.

Berrios had a very weird season where he performed a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde routine. He made a lot of very good/great starts, but then had a large number of disaster starts which really tanked his overall numbers. 0-3 FIP: 12 starts 3-4 FIP:7 starts 4-5 FIP: 3 starts 5-10 FIP: 3 starts 10+ FIP: 7 starts So Berrios pitched great in 12 of his 32 starts, very well in 7 starts, mediocre in 3 starts, very poorly in 3 starts, and had 7 absolute disaster starts. He gave his team a great chance to win in 19/32 starts (59%), kept them in the game at the very least in 22/32 starts (69%), and basically gave his team no shot to win in 10/32 of his starts (31%).

You did however claim this strikeout increase was the main factor. I just don't see how a 6% increase in k rate is going to lead to a 40 point drop in xBA. Grisham produced an xBA 62 points higher that 2022 back in 2020 with a k rate of only 3% lower than 2022, so quality and type of contact is key. At any rate I agree the Jays should aim higher when it comes to an outfield trade candidate. Jansen on his own isn't likely to bring back an exciting outfield replacement, but perhaps as part of a package deal something can be worked out.

Give the Biggio hate bit a rest. After he was called back up from AAA he produced a 107 WRC+, that sure as hell looks like an MLB hitter to me. He'll likely never hit for much of an average, but we'll get a clearer picture once the shift ban is in place in 2023. If/when MLB goes to an automatic strike zone Biggio stands to benefit tremendously from that as well.

Touche, you got me there. However I still think contact type is more to blame for the large drop in expected batting average for Grisham. He saw a 4% increase in ground ball rate, a stark decrease of 7.7% to his line drive rate (most likely contact type to fall in for hits), and a 5% increase in pull rate. For a left handed hitter who is heavily shifted this is definitely problematic, as more ground balls into the shift is correspondingly going to do a number on BA/xBA.

Expected batting average has nothing to do with k rate, it's only relevant for batted balls. It looks like somebody needs to brush up on his statistics. (For f***s sakes, turns out it was me who needs to brush up on statistics)

Are you so dense that you think the only way to contribute value is with the bat? Grisham is an elite defender in center field (13 OAA/8 DRS) vs Tapia who is a buffoon in the outfield (-4 OAA/-4 DRS). Grisham also outproduced Tapia on the bases as well (5.8 BsR vs 2.0 for Tapia)

Just thought of that as well and edited the previous post to reflect that reality.

Because their catching tandem production was absolutely awful at 0.5 WAR. This is easily the biggest weakness on that team. That certainly creates issues in the outfield for them though as they stand to potentially lose Profar in free agency.

What would you actually be willing to trade Jansen for? You act as though he is basically untouchable. Keep in mind this is a player who has been injured so frequently he's only managed to appear in 142 games over the last two seasons. For comparisons sake George Springer, who takes far more s*** than Jansen for being injury prone, has still managed to appear in 211 games in the same span of time.

Bellinger has displayed a sub replacement level floor vs Grisham who has displayed a floor of about 2 WAR, so I'll give the victory to Grisham on that count. Bellinger's best seasons were produced with baseballs which were far livelier than the mushy cored crap that MLB used last season, and his plate discipline, walk numbers and k rates have all been trending in the wrong direction. I don't think he's likely to return to any more than league average with the bat without some drastic improvements.

You act like Grisham is a sub replacement level player, he's far from the worst the team could do when it comes to bringing in a player for center field. It's no given that he rebounds enough to meet his projections offensively, but he's projected for similar WAR value to Teoscar and comes with three years of remaining control. I wouldn't love a Jansen for Grisham swap by any means, but unlike Jansen Grisham has avoided the litany of injury issues and largely been available for his team. Jansen simply isn't going to bring in a blue chip prospect or elite major league piece, he simply doesn't have the track record of performance, has a very spotty injury history, and only has two years of remaining team control. You need to lower your expectations to something more realistic when it comes to a trade return for Jansen.

This has potential to be a sneaky good pickup for the Pirates. Santana fell victim to baseball's second highest negative xWOBA/WOBA differential of -.044 points. His xWOBA of .352 places him in the 88th percentile in MLB. As a left handed hitter he was shifted virtually all the time at 98.3%, so he likely stands to benefit a lot from the upcoming shift ban. Finally, his new home stadium of PNC Park has potential to give him a boost to his home run totals, and his expected home runs in Pittsburgh is tied for the highest in MLB with bandbox Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

You don't have to go that far back to see Mookie Betts traded away by the Red Sox when they couldn't get him inked to a long term deal. I certainly didn't agree with how they watered down the return by moving out Price at the same time though.

It's a tricky decision to say the least. I'd eliminate Gallo immediately as I wouldn't be surprised if he's finished as a productive offensive performer and he shouldn't be played in center field. Each of Kiermaier and Bellinger have plenty of question marks. KK had hip surgery, and it remains to be seen how he bounces back from the surgery. With close to full return of previous speed KK is by far the best defender of the trio. Bellinger has more potential with the bat, but I'm not overly convinced he will ever get past what he's shown the past two seasons falling in the .280 xWOBA range.