max silver

Garcia has largely been excellent this season but it seems like a lot of people are slow to recognize this fact. His k rate is not exciting but has been increasing as the season goes on. Both Garcia and Bass have been been extremely hard to square up this season and this directly ties into their ability to keep the opposition off the board. Bass has legitimately been a top reliever in all of MLB this season and is a massive upgrade for this team. Go look at his statcast page, check out Fangraphs leaderboards for relievers as well. He's been borderline elite, makes next to nothing salary wise, and has another year of control. There's really nothing not to like about this acquisition.

I recall Bass was a very effective reliever for the club in 2020 during the covid shortened season.

Pop has legit stuff and Bass has been MLB's 7th most valuable reliever by FWAR this season. Their value in the offseason is irrelevant when it comes time to upgrade a roster at the trade deadline. Groshans has produced an 82 WRC+ in AAA this season, he obviously has very little trade value at this point and this wasn't likely to improve moving forward, might as well cash in an extra piece for a massive overall upgrade to the pen.

Even if he doesn't maximize his slider potential Pop still looks like a flamethrowing version of Adam Cimber with tons of remaining control. This is a very nice pickup for this season with potential to be a massive get in the future.

Pop shows how limited the actual utility of these stuff metrics can be at times. Pop's slider looks good to a stuff metric but hasn't played the way you would expect as he's given up a .606 WOBA/.520 xWOBA and only induced a 12.5% whiff rate.

Yeah looks like he needs to work on developing a more effective secondary pitch as his repertoire has no swing and miss right now. Upper 90's wormburner inducing sinker is a nice starting point though.

Go take a look at what Bass has been doing this season. This move is a little under the radar but Bass might actually be one of the most effective relievers moved this at the deadline. A 1.41 ERA/2.79 xERA/2.06 FIP/1.4 FWAR reliever is a massive upgrade to the Jays pen.

This trade really upgrades the Jays pen to a large degree. Pop looks like a pitch to contact guy but he has a huge sinker. Bass is in the midst of a monster season and arguably becomes the bullpen's best reliever. It's too bad Groshans has turned into a pumpkin in the upper minors but he's largely become expendable.

Looks like Groshans trade value has really cratered with the season he's had. 82 WRC+ in AAA certainly isn't very inspiring.

Hopefully he's turned a corner after his injured list stint. It sounds like the club completely overhauled his mechanics so time will tell if the signing produces any value or not.

Just replace the carrot with something more enticing like a cheeseburger or whatever.

Yeah Barriera already has premium stuff straight out of high school, but even incremental improvements would be huge for a player this talented.

Tiedemann is up to 41 on Keith Law's midseason list as well. He looks like a surefire keeper at this point and nowhere close to somebody you'd move out for a non elite return.

An impact left handed bat would be nice to have for sure, but who should come out of the lineup to facilitate this type of addition? There haven't been a lot of available names listed that fit this team. Happ would be a nice get but Gurriel and Teoscar have both been mashing for several months. Josh Bell has had a great season but Kirk has been the team's most productive hitter as a whole and Vlad is the most talented hitter on the team so I can't see taking either of these guys out of the lineup.

This is just so well thought out and eloquently stated that you've convinced me that Bo should immediately be designated for assignment.

I have very little concern over the club missing the playoffs, however there will be plenty of blame to go around if the Jays miss the post season. You could certainly argue Bo's underperformance would be a factor, but getting essentially nothing out of Ryu, Pearson missing most of the season yet again, undermanned bullpen, George Springer's body breaking down again and Danny Jansen missing a huge chunk of time will all be equally as important if not more so.

Barriera isn't supposed to have a lot of remaining projection, but I'm still curious to see how he responds to a professional strength and nutrition program. The stuff already sounds top notch but even squeezing out a little more from him would be tremendous.

Three Jays prospects made it onto Keith Law's midseason top 60 list. 5. Gabriel Moreno, C, Toronto Blue Jays Previous ranking: No. 6 There’s no real reason for Moreno to be on this list, when he should be in the majors – the Blue Jays optioned him because they activated Danny Jansen from the injured list and already have Alejandro Kirk in the midst of a huge breakout season. In almost any other organization, Moreno would be in the big leagues, as he played well in his brief stint with Toronto and doesn’t have much to learn in Triple A. At this writing, he’s had a hit in every game since the demotion, and continues to make a ton of contact. He’s hitting more groundballs this year than before, with less power, but even as an 8-to-12 homer guy with high OBPs and plus defense, including at least a 70 arm, he projects as a longtime regular who’ll make some All-Star teams. 41. Ricky Tiedemann, LHP, Toronto Blue Jays Previous ranking: Unranked Tiedemann has been up to 100 mph this year and sits in the mid to upper 90s with an above-average to plus changeup and above-average slider. He starts on the extreme first base side of the rubber and finishes a bit on that side too, so left-handers get a horrendous look at the ball. And he’s dominated batters on both sides. He’s supposedly headed for Double-A New Hampshire, where his below-average command will be better tested, but hasn’t pitched anywhere since July 8. 49. Yosver Zulueta, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays Previous ranking: Unranked Zulueta threw all of one pitch in the Futures Game, so yay for that, but he’s emerged from nearly three lost years as a four-pitch starter who mostly needs to build up his workload. Zulueta defected after the 2018-19 offseason, ended up having Tommy John surgery and suffered a season-ending knee injury in his first outing back in 2021. His outings this year have been short, but he’s been up to 100 mph with improvement to both his slider and curveball, while he needs to throw his changeup more consistently for strikes. If he can handle the workload, he’s a mid-rotation guy at least, while he could also help the big club as a reliever right now.

Addison Barger has really exploded onto the scene with a monster showing in high A and AA. I think he's easily the breakout offensive star in the clubs minor league system up to this point of the season. His numbers have rocketed upwards after he reached AA including a reduction in his k rate, so I was curious what kind of production he was putting up in Vancouver leading up to the promotion. Barger really hit his stride towards the end of May. Over his last 34 games in Vancouver Barger slashed .347/.438/.653, good for a 1.090 OPS/199 WRC+. His k rate was a very solid 18.8% during this period. He hasn't missed a beat in AA as he's continued mashing with another 4 doubles and 4 home runs in his first 15 games. Put these two stints together and you see that Barger has had an extremely impressive run of sustained success. Heading into today's game in his last 48 games between the two levels he has produced some very gaudy offensive numbers at .382/.458/.688, good for a 1.146 OPS/212 WRC+. He has been an extra base machine with 17 doubles and 12 home runs in his last 201 plate appearances. His strikeout rate during this period was a perfectly acceptable 19.9%. I haven't been able to track down any reports on his defensive abilities but he's certainly made himself into a very interesting prospect with the impressive offensive production. Coming into the season I thought Orelvis was the most likely candidate in the minor league system to take over from Chapman once his contract expires, but Barger has certainly placed himself into the conversation with what he's been able to accomplish.

I would hope that even the least knowledgeable posters on here would know enough to not be suggesting a Moreno for Bednar trade. Jansen for Bednar is likely similar value wise but it seems a little doubtful Jansen would be of great interest to the Pirates giving he only has a few remaining years of control. I don't think I'd go so far as to suggest that Hader has been garbage this year as a whole. He went through a very uncharacteristic rough patch of about 10 days in July leading up to the All Star break. He's allowed 16 earned runs total on the season, however 12 of these came during an 11 day stretch from July 4 to July 15. Crazier yet is that 9 of these were surrendered in back to back outings on July 13 and 15 where he only recorded a single out combined. Aside from his two disastrous outings he's allowed all of 7 earned runs in his other 33-2/3 innings for an ERA of 1.87. Time will tell if he's managed to right the ship coming out of the All Star break or not, but early returns are very solid.

It seems you missed where I compared Bo Bichette to an average MLB regular to portray that he hasn't been somehow dragging his club down and preventing them from winning games. I won't argue that he shouldn't be dropped in the lineup as his offensive contributions for the season don't justify him batting cleanup. There are a number of options far more suited for this spot than Bo, you can easily insert of any of Teoscar, Gurriel or Chapman into this spot. I can just as easily use WRC+ to portray how Bo's poor start to the season dug him a hole early on. I could even argue that he was largely snakebitten for the month of April as he was regularly producing very high quality of contact right in line with his career averages. Using the same start point of May 1st has seen him produce a 115 WRC+ over a 3 month stretch of play. I won't argue that he's been producing the expected level of offense given his talent level, but to suggest that he's suddenly a lousy player when experiencing a down season (Vlad has been taking much of the same kind of flak) simply isn't fair. I fully agree that for Bo to maximize his offensive output he is going to need to tone down on the excessive aggressiveness at the plate. For what it's worth Bo isn't really swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone this season compared to previous seasons, however it's possible that he's swinging at pitches so far out of the strike zone compared to prior seasons as his whiff and k percentages are up a bit compared to previous levels. He's walking at a similar rate to his career levels, but to me the thing that seems to be missing is his ability to do damage on the pitches in the strike zone he does make contact with.

The Jays have a few position players who are actual scrubs. Zack Collins and Bradley Zimmer come to mind. You have insanely high standards if 2022 Bo Bichette is a "scrub" in your view. He had a very slow start in April, however from May 1 onwards he has been playing at a 4 win pace over the last 3 months. He is on pace to accumulate 3 WAR this season in a down year. The average MLB player accumulates about 2 WAR in a season, which makes 2022 Bo Bichette an ABOVE AVERAGE regular. Maybe you can give the scrub nonsense a rest or spit your venom at players who actually deserve it.

Unfortunately it appears as though Chafin isn't vaccinated. Perhaps he could be convinced to get jabbed if traded to a contender though. It appears as though Barlow has seen his stuff drop off quite a bit this season as his fastball is down several ticks, and his slider is producing a lot less whiffs. He is generating a lot less strikeouts as a result. Trivino has been a replacement level reliever this season and feels like a bit of gamble for a team that isn't in much of a position to be gambling on bullpen acquisitions given how the bullpen has been a relative weak spot the last few seasons.

As a whole I generally like this group just fine. This core group of relievers has been pretty solid for the most part aside from the times when the entire pitching staff has been blown up due to starters leaving the game early, whether due to lack of performance or injury. The guys at the front end of the bullpen have been the biggest issue, as for the most part the players ran through this part of the pen have been sub replacement level disappointments. I have no issues with either of Romano or Garcia in their current roles, each has largely been tremendous lately and are trending upwards as the season goes on. Romano has had a few blips along the way and his slider has been very hittable at times, but for the most part he's gotten the job done throughout the year. Garcia was a little shaky early in the season, however if I recall correctly he received even less spring training time compared to everyone else due to Visa issues. As the season has gone on he's been getting better and better, and has also seen his velocity and k rate subsequently increase as well. If another high leverage reliever were attained it could potentially unleash Garcia as a general purpose fireman to be used any time when needed. His stuff is downright nasty and he's been effective against both righties and lefties. If at all possible new acquisitions should at least be able to pitch ahead of Cimber and Mayza who are more suited to lower leverage situations due to largely pitching to contact. Nate Pearson is the only in house option I think has what it takes to pitch leverage situations this season, and if he can return to full health in time his high octane relief game should play perfectly here. Merryweather is theoretically another option that could pitch in this type of role, but he was largely ineffective out of the pen this season even when healthy. I have even less confidence in his ability to stay healthy than I do with Pearson. Cimber is a guy who should probably be used most frequently to start innings rather than brought in with runners on base. He typically doesn't generate many strikeouts and struggles a bit with runners on base so isn't really a great leverage option. It feels like he's been struggling a bit lately with his command which has led to more walks and hits than usual. Mayza has been a little hard to get a good read on this season due to inconsistent performance. His strikeouts have largely dried up this season, most likely due to having no feel for his slider which has been a garbage pitch this season. He should likely be limited to facing primarily left handed batters when at all possible as he's struggled quite a bit vs right handed batters. I think Phelps is perfectly suitable for mid relief. He's ran into issues with walks from time to time, but has generally managed to keep runs off of the board when he pitches. He's seen his k rate improve as the season has gone on which is a plus.

That's fair but a really tough price to pay. I think I'd be a lot less reluctant if there were indications that the team had a legitimate shot to sign Soto long term.