max silver

If you only watched the last few months of the season started to resemble a competent outfielder instead of a little leaguer playing outfield for the first time. Somehow Gurriel actually managed 7 DRS and was nearly even by UZR. Statcast OAA paints a completely different picture at -7 OAA though.

Wonky projections like these are why I really don't place much faith in projection systems. Since his breakout Teoscar has produced a 135 WRC+ in 260 games, over portions of 3 seasons dating back to 2019. Yet Steamer still projects him as a 110 WRC+ bat. Similarly Semien experienced an offensive breakout in 2019, and over his last 377 games he's produced a 128 WRC+. Yet he is projected for a 112 WRC+.

I'm super excited about Moreno's imminent arrival. This kid feels like he's on par with Bo Bichette, and I think he's going to make a similarly loud debut in MLB this season.

I'm seriously pissed off about the Rogers/Shaw merger. I get a fantastic deal on my cellphone plans as an existing upper tier Shaw internet customer and only pay $25 per month per device. I see zero chance of that continuing if the Rogers/Shaw merger is to go through.

I took a look at Gray's statcast page, and one of the first thing that stands out is that his fastball command appears to be pretty bad. The heatmap for his fastball shows that he leaves too many fastballs middle middle, and the batted ball statistics back this up as well. WOBA against fastballs was a whopping .396 with an XWOBA of .358. I suspect a simple pitch mix tweak could make a difference, as it appears that historically his curveball has been quite effective, garnering swing and miss in the 30% range, whereas his fastball has been his worst pitch results wise. Perhaps dialing back the fastball usage a bit in favor of more curveballs could work in his favor. In 2021 he threw more sliders and less fastballs and accordingly had better results.

I'm not sure I'm super interested in Gray. Perhaps as a reclamation project acquiring him could hold merit, but it seems unlikely simply getting him away from Coors alone is going to lead to much if any improvement, as his career home and away splits are actually very similar across the board.

Gotta hope there's money for a few high leverage bullpen arms and an impact bat as well on top of these pitchers. I'd be happy enough with 2 of those starter options if going the one year route for each. With Pearson, Stripling, Hatch, Kay, Allgeyer, Logue, etc. depth hopefully for once the Jays would have semi decent depth starting options available.

If payroll parameters would allow for it I would qualify Matz with hopes of him signing a slightly cheaper AAV multi year deal (something like 3 years/$40 million), sign Semien and go hard after one of Syndergaard or Verlander.

I certainly wouldn't do it. I would rather the club spend the necessary dollars to resign Semien, and then midseason have the ability to add another potential impact bat to the lineup once Moreno is deemed ready for his shot. Semien+Moreno would be a far stronger combination than Ramirez alone. This certainly would have a negative effect on future financial flexibility, but in a lot of ways I think Semien is a perfect fit due to being a little older, in that he won't require an 8-10 year mega contract that would be required to bring in a player with comparable impact such as Correa or Corey Seager.

It very well might. If he doesn't have a qualifying offer tying him down I suspect he'll have no issues with landing a 2 or even 3 year deal. It remains to be seen if he decides to bet on himself and take the qualifying offer in hopes of solidifying his value after a good 2022 season. Of course there's risk in this if he sucks in 2022 or ends up getting hurt as he loses out on the multiple year security.

Wasn't something like this tested in the Atlantic League at some point recently?

Why are you even arguing here? What you are suggesting is completely irrelevant to what happened in the game, and you are really coming across as a moron here. This pitch was far too low and outside to swing at, it absolutely positively 100% is a pitch that a batter should NOT be swinging at. The batter correctly identified it as such and was able to check his swing in time. The home plate umpire correctly called it a ball. The only issue here is the blown check swing call by the first base umpire, everybody else in this instance correctly did their job, and if not for the blown call the game would have continued.

Are you semi blind or something? That pitch is 5 or 6 inches low and outside by a similar amount. Might be time to check your prescription.

It was obviously a ball in real time. You are so wrong here it's laughable dude.

If he would have swung at the pitch he likely would have missed and struck out anyway. That wasn't close enough to the strike zone to necessitate swinging, this protect the plate business is nonsense.

I don't have a lot of concern over this not getting done. The front office would have been in contact with his agent to get a feeling for what kind of contract would be required to get Berrios inked to an extension before making this trade in the first place.

I seriously think a balance needs to be achieved. Going all in and emptying out the farm system leads to a boom/bust cycle that really goes against the stated goal of sustained competitiveness year in and year out. The club really only has 2 remaining elite prospects in the minor league system at this point. This isn't to say that nobody else in the organization will be able to reach the same type of heights eventually, but shipping out these prospects in exchange for a short term competitive window is very short sighted and reeks of desperation. This team is going to become very expensive pretty soon as Teoscar is going to get expensive through arbitration, Vlad has a chance to break arbitration records as he goes through the system, Berrios only has one year of remaining control and will be in line for a big raise etc. etc. If there are no inexpensive replacements available to replace aging expensive veterans eventually this will catch up to the organization and the on field results will predictably suffer. The Dodgers are the model to follow in my view, you can see that they make their truly elite prospects off limits in trade talks, but despite this have had no issues with putting together an elite team with a healthy farm system. Rogers allowing for a similar payroll is most likely not going to happen, but with the size of the Jays market they should easily be able to spend up to the luxury tax once full crowds return and the club morphs into the yearly contender it is expected to be.

The front office is going to need to carefully thread the needle during these next few seasons. They obviously need to maximize the current roster as much as possible while the young core is still relatively inexpensive, but also need to keep an eye on the future given how expensive these same players are going to become in the not too distant future. I see a need to hang onto the truly elite talent in the minor leagues as these players are going to need to be retained to have an opportunity at maximum production levels with low salary cost. I wouldn't move out players like Moreno and Martinez unless it were for similarly talented pre-arb players at other positions of need. While the idea of trading for players like Jose Ramirez holds obvious appeal for the short term, it would likely come at a very high cost in terms of future sustainability.

I actually think the new slimmer Vlad would likely make a very good third baseman. He is very agile for a big man, his hands are good and the plus arm is perfect for the position. I wish the club would have given Vlad a longer look at third base last spring to see what he could do, he 100% would have been more suitable for the position than Biggio at the very least.

A key difference is that the Anthopoulos didn't have any elite young talent on that team to begin with, and all of the top talent aside from Stroman were of the 30 year old+ variety. There was always going to be a short window on those teams given the nature of acquisition of the stars and the lack of a talent pipeline to replace them. This current Jays club has two franchise players, a largely young lineup, and more potential elite position player talent in the minors.

His xWOBA was right in range with his career best seasons. He really seemed to have a s*** luck season as historically his WOBA and xWOBA have tended to follow within a few points of each other, but in 2021 the spread was 32 points. Another point is that he put up the 2.2 WAR in only 135 games. With a little better health (maybe a tall order given his chronic calf issues and extensive injury history) and a bit more batted ball luck there is definitely potential for him to provide a lot more than the 2.2 WAR. I don't think a 4 win season is at all out of the question for Donaldson.

Donaldson was only bad as per the UZR metric. By both DRS and OAA he was right around average. We obviously can't ignore UZR completely but there is certainly food for thought when two other metrics show completely different results. I think as a part time third baseman and part time DH he could be a very valuable addition. If the club were to utilise Donaldson and Kirk primarily in the DH spot the lineup would really benefit greatly.

I guess upon further reflection I certainly have other concerns. My other concerns with this plan also include the uncertainty of sustained performance from Scherzer and the crazy amount of money that would be tied up in the starting rotation, particularly with several pitchers who are aging with potential to decline very quickly. Scherzer has a good chance to be great for several more seasons, but at his age I wouldn't at all surprised to see him hit a wall very quickly and find himself out of MLB in short order. Would this leave any money for upgrades to the rest of the roster? Would there be any money left over to improve the bullpen or resign Semien or find a suitable replacement? I would honestly rather the club simply resign Ray and offer a qualifying offer to Matz, the rotation from 2021 was a real strength of the club as it was constructed towards the end of the season, I see no need to do something so drastic in signing three guys with as many question marks as your proposed trio presents. Ray and Matz are no sure things but should come with fewer concerns than bringing in two Tommy John recipients who would potentially each only be good for 100 or so innings a piece.

I was stunned when Semien ended up signing with the Jays as I recall the statements from his agent that he was looking for a 9 figure deal for his client. I recall reading that the front office tried to sign Semien to a multi year deal before the season started. That would have been a real coup had they managed to pull it off, but good on Marcus for betting on himself as he will be rewarded richly.

My biggest issue with signing all three is that it would likely force Manoah to AAA as there would be too many starters on the roster with the presence of Ryu and Berrios in the rotation. Who knows what you would even get with Verlander though given the advanced age and long layoff.