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Maybe there is hope for ultra beefcake catcher Alejandro Kirk to remain at the position. If all he needs to do is be agile enough to flop to his knees to block the odd pitch (should be easy with his ample girth) then on the field sexy time with Captain Kirk is coming soon.

That seems to be the general consensus from the articles I've read on the subject. Between the pitching coach taking over game calling, and the likely future implementation of an electronic strike zone, the catching position is going to become far less demanding. Framing will essentially become a useless skill at that point, and much of the implementation of strategy will be removed from the catcher as well.

Something like that could work nicely. My only concern with the catcher wearing a device is the high likelihood of it being destroyed by foul tips eventually. I guess they would need to have backup devices available in that case.

Totally agree here, Groshans is the type of guy who should be close to untouchable. Perhaps a swap for an elite outfield prospect or young outfielder with control could make sense given the lack of impact outfielders in the organization, but Groshans looks like a future star so there needs to be elite talent coming back in any trade with him involved.

The only comparable level of prospect that has been traded away that immediately comes to mind is Noah Synergaard. One guy that ended up having a fantastic career Jeff Kent was traded away years ago, but I have no idea how highly he was thought of as a prospect at the time of the trade.

Atkins himself has suggested that the farm system may be used to improve the major league squad, and potentially to add impact players. https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/atkins-blue-jays-farm-system-keeps-trade-options-open-front-office/

A few days back The Athletic ran a piece with John Lott interviewing Jays bench coach Dave Hudgens about his thoughts on the Astros cheating scandal. As you would expect Hudgens offered very little in the way of opinions during the interview, other than to state that he thinks that using technology in game to steal signs is wrong. The general consensus among commenters for the story seems to be that since Hudgens was the hitting coach for the Astros during this scandal, that he should be dismissed from his job with the Blue Jays. What are thoughts on this from others here on BJMB? My view is that Hudgens was essentially exonerated by MLB, in that he received no sanctions or suspension from MLB after their investigation. I think if Hudgens would have been found to have played any kind of role in implementing the sign stealing and relaying scheme he would have received the same suspension that Luhnow and Hinch received. This was mostly a player driven scheme, and aside from Cora, the players were the main driving force behind this mess. It seems pointless to me for the Jays to dismiss Hudgens from his current position based on assumptions that he must be guilty as he was the hitting coach.

I think at the very least if the qualifying offer system is going to stay in place, the deadline for accepting it should be extended to a more reasonable time frame. Like say something such as the player needing to decide by the winter meetings instead of only getting in the neighborhood of a week to decide. I bet Jake Odorizzi could have found himself a nice multi-year offer with the way this years market ended up developing if he actually had some time to play the market before having to decide on whether to take the qualifying offer. Another possible improvement would be a tier system of compensation for both the team losing the free agent and the team signing one. I don't see why the punishment for signing a qualified free agent reliever should be the same as signing somebody like Bryce Harper or Gerrit Cole. Maybe both the compensation and penalties could be based on total contract value handed out. And the way the compensation system is set up so that compensation picks being based on the size of the market should be completely eliminated. Why should a team lose a higher draft pick for signing a free agent because they are in a larger market? That never made any sense to me.

For the privilege of only one season of Mookie Betts the Red Sox are asking for two top prospects on top of the acquiring team taking on nearly all of David Price's remaining salary. Hopefully this leads to the Red Sox getting nothing more than a comp pick after 2020, on top of having the keep paying Price for the next several years afterwards as well.

The only way I can see McGuire having any real trade value is if you believe the bat that he's shown at the major league level is legit. His extensive minor league history suggests that his small sample size of major league results isn't sustainable, but if it proves not to be a fluke then all of a sudden the Jays might just have a monster catching tandem on their hands. It appears he has been massively lucky up to this point, he doesn't hit the ball particularly hard, and has experienced a massive gulf between xwoba and woba both years he has been called up.

Very cool that technology like this is available. Hopefully Vladdy Jr. is working with one of these as well, clean up the ground ball heavy batting profile and you will very quickly create a monster with the bat.

That's a great point, supposedly the average NFL game has only 11 minutes of actual action in it. A quick look on google says an MLB game has about 18 minutes of action. Why MLB gets so much grief for slow pace of play buy NFL gets none of this grief just doesn't make sense.

I think this was a good example of how publicly available scouting reports sometimes contain faulty grades. I recall Biggio was graded as like a 45 grade runner which you realize is obviously incorrect the first time you see him play. The guy has above average speed and top notch instincts on the bases. I think he might have a chance to be like a peak Kevin Pillar grade runner, who gets the most out of his physical tools because of those top not instincts. Whether he can play center field is a totally different story though. Sure you can likely stash him in a corner from time to time and he won't hurt you too badly defensively, but that's a far cry from expecting him to be the pillar of your outfield when he has mostly played second base as a professional.

I found that to be a little bit surprising honestly. If bringing in Gregorious meant moving Bichette for a few years to greatly improve the team, then why not do it? Bo has shown the requisite tools to play an average MLB short stop, but at this point it's less than certain that he will be able to be better than average. Bichette is on record that he is absolutely prepared to play anywhere on the diamond if it improves the team, and so is Biggio as well.

I would argue rather fiercely that women's curling is even worse.

This could certainly turn out to be a nice under the radar type pickup like Eric Sogard. I sort of struggle to see how Panik would see much playing time though, unless the Jays decided to move Cavan Biggio around the diamond.

Who gives a f***? Why is this even relevant? If a billion dollar organization decided that she is the best candidate to head up their high performance department, what do you have to gain by surmising that the only reason she was given the job is because she is female?

Tsn.ca has their top 50 prospects list up. No scouting grades included, but each prospect has a nice write-up regardless. https://www.tsn.ca/scott-mitchell-nate-pearson-tops-toronto-blue-jays-top-50-prospects-list-1.1428288

Check out the advanced fielding section in Fangraphs, you can find defensive runs saved (DRS) and ultimate zone rating (UZR) in there, broken down by position and year. The sample sizes are awfully small for Holt at short stop, so who knows based on the metrics. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/brock-holt/9345/stats?position=2B/OF#fielding

This is far more than just cynicism on your part. If this were a male hire announcement would you be going out of your way to denigrate the announcement because the man played softball instead of baseball? The inherent misogyny of your criticism is so obvious that it's painful.

In this video it actually appears as though there is something moving around under the patch on his left shoulder...

I'm secretly wishing that Springer would be a prime Jays target next off-season, so I'll just go ahead and hope that it's just Altuve and Bregman that are benefiting most from the cheating.

Sooner or later you would think you need to start punishing the people who were directly benefiting from the cheating scandal. Sure the general manager and the field manager are the bosses, but for the players to get off completely without any repercussions is ludicrous. Especially if evidence like this becomes apparent.

It seems both his stuff and his command have taken steps backward, you would have to think his time as a starter is running out. The upper minors are going to be full of starters that will likely deserve innings from the starting rotation more than SRF very soon, his time to make a good impression is very close to up.

I am intrigued to see how Yamaguchi's stuff translates to MLB. I wonder what his trajectory will be? Will he start in the bullpen like Marco Estrada and become a key linchpin in the rotation? Will he resemble Koji Uehara and become a top-notch reliever? Or does he get hammered and end up getting released, only to return to Japan?