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Semien is saying all the right things in that he's open to returning to the Jays next season. That would lead me to believe that he's not dead set on returning to short stop. It was obvious how much he means to the team and Bo in particular. Remaining a key part of the best offensive middle infield combination in the sport would have to hold a lot of appeal.

It will be interesting to see how things end up shaking out. The Jays have 4 major league quality catchers on the roster, with 3 of those looking to be starter quality. McGuire should be the first one moved as his upside is the lowest of the 4, and hopefully he has built a bit of trade value as he could likely start on a lot of teams and looks to be a fine backup even on good clubs. I'd like to see Jansen as the starter with Kirk as the backup/DH going into next season, but Charlie seemed to be hesitant to use Kirk at DH when there were only two catchers on the major league roster.

Semien was given his choice of second base or third base and ended up choosing second base. Given that he provides Gold glove quality defence there I just don't see how it would make sense for him to switch positions again.

I certainly don't expect Jansen to rock a 151 WRC+ over the course of a full season, but that is what he was able to produce over his final 54 games/156 plate appearances in 2021. That's certainly starting catcher material and at the very least should have earned him the spot to start 2022. The reports of Moreno being a premium athlete with a strong arm make third base sound like a very realistic option.

Biggio had success in 2019 and 2020 with the same skill set that he brought to the majors in 2021. He's only 26 and should be at the age where he is hitting his physical peak, not at an advanced age where you would expect to see a sudden skill deterioration. I refuse to buy into this narrative that he is suddenly finished because Keith Law refuses to admit his mistakes and spent hours digging through data to come up with some sort of fatal flaw that somehow proves that Biggio has no major league future. Biggio didn't really face a significant increase in fastballs against in 2021 so I don't really think you can use the weakness against velocity to explain the struggles during the most recent season. When you examine his numbers you quickly see that he struggled against all manner of pitches in 2021 including some he previously had some success against such as cutters and change-ups. He has been tinkering with approach but it really hasn't been working for him so far. He stated wanting to be more aggressive at the plate but this has been at the expense of his walk rate as his chase rate has increased by several points. Interestingly he hasn't always struggled against fastballs, when he first came up it was actually the pitch that he created most of his value against. It's been 2020 and 2021 where he started to struggle somewhat against the fastball with this peaking in 2021. There is an obvious attempt to use the whole field as he was previously pretty pull heavy, but this certainly hasn't worked out in his favor up to this point. His best results in far in 2021 were to the pull side, with a 174 WRC+ on balls that he pulled, vs 63 WRC+ when going up the middle and 119 WRC+ when going to the opposite field. It appears to me as though the approach changes in 2021 really didn't do him any favors and he would be far better off reverting to his old ways of trying to hit the ball hard to the pull side and working walks.

Far from it. Biggio just suffered through an injury plagued season which included several hand issues, various back issues, a neck injury and an elbow injury. I am having a hard time seeing how any player would be able to play up to their capabilities if faced with the same injuries that Biggio was forced to endure. Maybe he doesn't fully reach the previous heights that he rose to during his first few seasons but that's far from a given.

You are missing the point here. The Rays had to move a player who ended up putting up 3.8 FWAR in 99 games (that's a six win pace over an entire season) after being traded in order to swing an early trade for impact relievers. A guy like McGuire who would have had zero trade value at the time (remember that teams could have had him for free off of waivers before the season started) wouldn't have brought back the type of arms which could have made much of a difference at that point.

I recall reading an interview with Vladdy's Dominican trainer in which he stated that they intended to hit things just as hard this offseason as they did last year. I think another key would be baking in a few more rest days for Vlad as the season progresses to keep him fresh. Perhaps he can eventually get himself into the type of condition which will allow him to play every day without fatigue setting in but it was apparent that he's not quite there yet at this point of his career.

I get the feeling this individual has transcended beyond the artificial constraints that our addictions to organized sport have trapped us within.

This angry person posting more often would certainly take things in an entertaining direction despite how confounding the initial post is.

The Rays had to trade their major league starting short stop to bolster their pen. The Jays certainly don't have a Wander Franco caliber short stop replacement in their minor league system so they really didn't have the same type of trade ammunition available to them.

Like Espinal knocking out the Oriole starter?

WTF is wrong with you? Get out of here with that garbage.

It seems to me that your entire lecture is worthless. I didn't even suggest that Biggio shouldn't have been called up, I simply pointed out that he had been struggling against inferior AAA pitching, and that it would be unrealistic to expect him to be called up and suddenly lock in against far superior major league pitching. Generally the organization as a whole prefers to call minor league players up after they have had a run of sustained success in order to give them the best chance to succeed against the superior competition that the major leagues have to offer. Biggio has been having a very rough go against AAA pitching. Does a k rate of 28.9% and ground ball percentage of 49% against poor quality minor league pitching suggest a player who is having good at bats and is ready to succeed in the major leagues to you? Just like was the case with your Ryu argument you are once again grasping at straws and using the poorly thought out argument of poor batted ball luck to try to make your point again. When you look at the raw numbers it becomes apparent that the 68 WRC+ isn't indicative of some sort of hard luck, it's well earned as line drive rate is low and ground ball rate is through the roof, along with a very high strikeout rate and without the hallmark high walk rate that Biggio can produced when he's performing at his best. Obviously none of us have likely watched his at bats but it's certainly not hard to look at the results of those at bats and determine that Biggio has not been at his best or anywhere close to that in Buffalo this season.

The Biggio rant has some merit given that Biggio had mostly struggled during his time in AAA and I don't see how you could have realistically expected such a nice performance from him offensively. However the Jansen hate is just so off base that it's totally laughable. To anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention it should be painfully obvious that Jansen has been an absolute masher since returning from his initial hamstring injury. The time in AAA working with the swing doctors down there seems to have unlocked his offensive potential to a great degree. If you look back to June after he returned after the initial injury he has posted a 195 WRC+ in the 79 plate appearances, and that is with a BABIP of only .315 so it's not reliant in the slightest on batted ball fortune as he has been mashing with an ISO of .411. If you are to remove the month of April where Jansen struggled his worse you find that he has produced a WRC+ of 147 in his last 148 plate appearances and been good for 1.8 FWAR. For the season as a whole Kirk is only 5 points ahead of Jansen in WRC+ however Kirk is a full win behind in value with similar overall plate appearances as Jansen is a far better defender than Kirk. It is super obvious who the starting catcher on this club should be right now and it certainly isn't Kirk.

If I recall correctly Ray had retired something like 12 batters in a row before the meltdown. He had shown no signs of real trouble up to that point other than the original Judge home run.

My bigger issue isn't so much that Ray wasn't removed before the third time through the order came around, but more so that he was allowed to remain in the game well after he was actively getting demolished by the Yankees the third time through the order. I see no issue if you want the manager to trust what his eyes are telling him instead of relying on analytics to help formulate a decision as to when to remove his starter, but this was the worst of both world's when neither tactic was employed.

We already knew full well that Charlie was in over his head managing a major league squad based on the multitude of absolutely baffling lineup and in game strategy decisions that we've been witness to up to this point. The thing that I hope will break the camel's back with respect to the front office's view of Montoyo is the complete lack of urgency in games in which the club's entire season hinged upon. In 2 of 3 games in the Yankees series he stayed with the starter too long despite having help warming in the bullpen. With Ryu this lead to 2 extra runs after the lineup turned over a third time, and with Ray the final 2 runs of the 4 run Yankee outburst should not have been allowed to happen. I can see sticking with Ray after the Rizzo home run, and I can even maybe excuse the second Judge home run, but Ray should have been unequivocally removed from the game at this point. Seeing the manager sit on his hands and hope for the best when it's obvious that the opposition has locked into the starter should be a fireable offence, but we can only wait and see if the front office views things this way as well.

It's too bad Ray didn't have it today. Lately I get the feeling that he's running on fumes right now which makes sense when you consider he's basically had no extra rest the entire season. After being absolutely dominant for several months prior the command suddenly isn't there and he's been struggling as a result.

Would you prefer the team lose and miss the playoffs? Like it or not we are stuck with Charlie so maybe we should cheer for the team to win?

If we are comparing the short stop play of Semien and Bichette I hardly see how a year when Bichette wasn't even in the league has any relevance. Are 2018 defensive numbers for a 32 year old player really of any relevance at this point anyway? What in the world is wrong with including Semien's 2021 short stop metrics for this comparison? Semien played 134 innings in 2021 for the Blue Jays and the defensive metrics are separated by position so I really don't see how it isn't relevant here. It's not like I'm putting any of Semien's second base numbers into the comparison, and you still end up with a very close innings total for each player which is making for a very good apples to apples comparison over the chosen time frame. I really have no idea what you are trying to get at with the Gurriel/Springer tidbit. Over the time that Bichette has been in the league the simple fact remains that during this time frame Semien has actually ranked worse in 2 of 3 major metrics. Semien is by no means a bad defender at short stop as he is sure handed and doesn't make a lot of mistakes, but it's really not true that he is some kind of gold glove calibre defender at the position.

I have suspicions Bo would be willing to move off of short stop if it meant the team was able to retain Semien. He was reportedly willing to move off of the position for Didi Gregorius prior to the 2020 season and Gregorius is a fraction of the player that Semien is. The team is just so much better with Semien on board than without and I have a hard time seeing any comparable free agents with respect to expected contract vs actual production offered. In a perfect world the team could sign somebody like Correa, but he is more likely to receive an 8-10 year mega contract which will make it hard to squeeze him into the team budget. Perhaps Story or Seager could be attained without completely breaking the bank but I simply think Semien is a better overall player than either right now and into the immediate future.

When you start to examine the various defensive metrics it becomes apparent that this is somewhat of a false narrative. I chose to utilize numbers from 2019-2021 to capture a more recent sample and to better compare to Bichette. During this timeframe there really aren't any metrics that show Semien to be an elite defender at this stage of his career. As he isn't getting any younger it seems unlikely that he will suddenly return to the elite defensive production of earlier seasons. The best defensive metric for Semien looks to be UZR. If you are to look at UZR for 2019-2021 Semien ranks better than Bichette with a 9.7 UZR rating with most of his value accumulated in the error runs category. This still only ranks him 15 by UZR/150, good but certainly not elite. Bichette fairs poorly due to errors but when you look at the individual components such as range and double play runs he shows better than Semien in each, it's only large amount of errors from Bichette that is holding him back. He has been cleaning this up as the season has gone along and should continue to improve here. From 2019-2021 In a 1796 inning sample Bichette has 7 DRS vs 2020 innings for Semien with 2 DRS. When you examine Statcast Outs Above Average Semien has produced -14 OAA vs -9 OAA for Bichette. Neither one is great but I'll put my money on the younger player as being more likely to improve these numbers vs the aging veteran. When you compare the metrics as a whole Bichette has actually produced better defensive numbers than Semien in 2 out of 3 of the most commonly cited metrics. Semien is an elite defender at second base, and Bichette looks to be improving to a large degree at short stop, whereas Semien looks to be declining. With Semien at short stop you would see less errors however he has worse range and a weaker arm and subsequently would make fewer tough plays than Bichette is capable of. Which of these players would ultimately save more runs defensively is obviously up for debate, but the one thing that is for certain is that Semien is far from a lock to be an improvement defensively at short stop vs Bichette at this point of his career.

Even Aroldis Chapman has seen some sizeable chinks start to appear in his armor.

Projecting relievers is like voodoo magic. Kimbrel was ridiculous with the Cubs surrendering all of 2 earned runs in 36 innings. With the White Sox he's surrendered 12 earned runs in only 19 innings. Given what was given up for Kimbrel I'm certainly glad it's the White Sox that have to deal with trying to turn him around and not the Jays.