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The whole thing has started to feel very real to me the last few days. On Tim and Sid yesterday they sort of predicted what was likely going to happen, in that seasons would be shut down completely as soon as a player were to test positive. Sure enough one NBA player initially tested positive and here we are. I can't say I've ever had to go through anything like this before, it's a bit frightening dealing with the unknown of how the Coronavirus outbreak is going to unfold.

It's looking like spring training is likely to be suspended later today.

It seems inevitable that the season is at least going to be delayed if not outright cancelled. All the ingredients are in place for a massive outbreak of Covid-19 south of the Canada/US border. There was a delay in rolling out testing which subsequently means a delay in identifying and quarantining infected patients from the general population. Large scale public gatherings are likely to disappear very soon for awhile so no crowds means greatly reduced revenue for owners. How long they would have the appetite to try to play with no fans in the stands remains to be seen. And even with no fans in the stands once Covid starts hitting the player population at large that could easily mean suspensions of all major sports leagues in North America. The NBA is suspending their season is likely just the start of what we are going to see with the major sports.

In other breaking news it's been announced that water is wet

His statcast page tells you all you need to know about the complete lack of a power tool for Panik. He's bottom of the barrel in hard hit percentage, barrel % and exit velocity. It's a momentous event now when he connects for a home run. A two homerun month constitutes a power surge. The true prototypical slapdick hitter if ever there was one.

I was checking out Panik's numbers from last year and it appears at first glance that his numbers improved when he was traded to the Mets. When looking deeper those improvements don't look to be sustainable for him though, as most of his value was generated in September/October when he managed to run into a couple of home runs. His HR/FB for the month was 22.2%, for a guy that has a 5.2% HR/FB for his career it seems unlikely he can pull that off again. Outside of the 2 months where he managed to hit 2 home runs each, his numbers were absolutely terrible, he had 3 months with WRC+ between 45 and 53. Unless he managed to miraculously gear his swing for more power at this stage of his career he may be a total dud at the plate this season.

Hopefully Panik being on the roster means either Drury gets sent to AAA or outright waivers.

Some interesting Jays prospects don't fall under your cutoff age of 24. Should we just pretend pitchers like Anthony Kay, Thomas Hatch, and Julian Merryweather don't exist? Is a prospect not a prospective player who has yet to make it to the top level of his sport? Simply being over some random age cutoff doesn't somehow mean the player doesn't qualify as someone who may eventually make it to MLB and contribute.

What does an older player like Julian Merryweather appearing on a prospect list have to do with guys like Winckowski and Castillo getting opportunities? Are you suggesting that baseball organizations give out opportunities based on whether or not players appear on top whatever prospect lists?

Why should guys be removed based on age? Sure that diminishes their likely future value if they are already in the middle of their physical prime before reaching MLB, but it's not like everybody develops at the same rate. Injuries delay some guys hitting peak performance, some guys are simply late bloomers (see Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion). Taking guys off prospect lists simply because they are a little older seems pretty pointless.

While Boston is certainly one of the premier franchises, there is still enough drama from the media and fanbase that you need to develop really thick skin in a hurry to play and succeed there. Look no further than David Price to see how quickly things turn sour, guy gets hurt and suddenly the media starts smearing him constantly and fans can't wait to ship him out of town. It makes me wonder if this is something that scares guys off from signing there, or makes the Red Sox really open up the vault to get guys to sign anyway.

That clears up so many questions, I always suspected somehow that A-rod was a closet cross dresser.

Yikes that puts things in perspective in a hurry.

I'd make do with a George Springer addition for center field instead if/when the team misses out on Betts.

This defense may end up being ok. Grichuk by Statcast outs above average has been mostly average or slightly better in his career, UZR and DRS are mostly neutral on his defense as well. Gurriel looked to me to be a guy that might end up as a very good defender once he's completely comfortable in the outfield. He has a knack for making quick release super accurate throws from the outfield, and is able to make some pretty spectacular catches due to his athleticism. The biggest question mark to me is what Teoscar looks like in right field. For much of the year he was actually surprisingly decent in left field before resuming adventure mode later in the season after getting moved out of center field. The speed allows him to get to balls that a lot of players don't, the arm is plus as well, but how many boneheaded mistakes he makes out there will ultimately determine whether he has any business playing right field.

Yeah he has a chance to be a very nice pick up for the Red Sox. Have they stated how they intend to use him yet? With how weak their rotation looks that might be the best use of the guy, but their bullpen had issues last year as well so he could make a definite impact in any role for them.

Out of the minor league guys Davis is the one I like the best as well. He doesn't have a super high ceiling, but the floor looks to be higher than the other guys. He's taken a long time to reach MLB as he's needed to repeat a ton of levels in the minors, but each year he has made substantial improvements to his results, adding both improved power and walks to his game. He had a rough MLB debut, but after having a chance to adjust to MLB pitching maybe he improves enough at the plate to provide some value.

Puig is obviously a very polarizing player and his name keeps popping up in various threads at this point. Sooner or later this discussion will die down, he'll sign with somebody, rosters will be set, etc. etc. etc. so. Let's have a friendly wager on who has a better 2020, just for bragging rights. I say both Teoscar and Gurriel will put up better WARs by the end of the year than Puig. Those guys are both still improving while Puig to my eyes looks to be going backwards. This is still a rebuilding squad, and there are a million outfielders the Jays are looking at to see who can perform at MLB. Puig is almost certainly going to be better than all of these guys no doubt, but he's a basket case who has been a disruptive presence. I say let him be somebody else's problem.

Given all of the clamoring for signing this guy and proclamations of 4 win upside I'm not so sure everyone on here actually ever looks at Fangraphs. Why in the world do so many posters seem to have a raging boner for the Jays to sign this player? It seems the most common reason is he is better than Anthony Alford, who is likely gone by the end of spring training anyway, if not shortly afterwards.

You can go back to 2015 if you like, but that just changes the argument from declining player to mediocre player instead. Aside from his sensational debut years Puig has only really had one good year, and that was largely due to a huge defensive season that is a huge outlier and very likely never to be reproduced. The bat is nothing special in this guy, and the overall value is nothing to get excited about either. Here are WAR values going back to 2015: 2015 1.5 2016 1.0 2017 2.9 2018 1.8 2019 1.2 In 3 out of 5 years he has produced less than 2 WAR. This simply isn't a very good player. His projections for 2020 are very generous/optimistic given the long run of mediocrity.

Check out these numbers and tell me you don't see a distinct downward trend the last 3 years. Let's start with walk rates: 2017 11.1 2018 8.1 2019 7.2 Now the k-rates: 2017 17.5 2018 19.6 2019 21.8 How about o-swing%: 2017 29.3 2018 31.1 2019 34.2 Another noteworthy stat xWOBA: 2017 .366 2018 .349 2019 .334 You have me on the swinging strike rate, 2019 wasn't his worst year. It held steady at 10.5% for 2017-2018, but jumped quite significantly to 13.6% in 2019 He has had worse seasons in this stat. But the jump in swinging strikes combined with worst since his rookie season tendency to swing at pitches off the plate are definitely noteworthy. If you can look at these numbers and not see a very distinct possibility of a player with declining offensive abilities then we will have to agree to disagree. This player put up a paltry 1.2 WAR with a WRC+ of only 101. His Zips projection thinks that's the kind of bat he has going forward, and gives him a bump to his defense, despite two consecutive sub-par years by UZR. There is a very good chance he's simply not a good player anymore, and if you combine this with the noted character issues Puig isn't a great proposition to add to a team that with a CEO with a slogan on his whiteboard of "no *******s".

Obviously my post was tongue in cheek, but when you take a look at a huge amount of Puig's numbers you see a guy with eroding baseball skills. He walks less, strikes out more, swings at more pitches off the plate, swings and misses more than ever before, provides no added value on the bases, and might even be below average defensively now to boot. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that he is suddenly going to resurrect his career, he's pretty much the poster child for wasting immense physical talents by not getting the most out of the talent he possesses. His two best seasons he rocked BABIPs of .356 and .383, he hasn't come close to replicating those numbers since, and subsequently never approached the same kind of overall value. It seems apparent that both Panik and Puig have their best days behind them at this point, given that their career best seasons are many years ago. Panik actually has one less year elapsed since his career best season.

Joe Panik put up a 3.8 win season in 2015. Applying the same logic as some like to use on here when projecting Puig we can state that Panik has the possibility of putting up a 3+ win season in 2020.

That Ryan Borucki aceucki nicknake or whatever the f*** it is even worse.

-Patrick Murphy gets called up mid season and forms a nice 1-2 flamethrowing starter punch with Pearson -all three of Gurriel, Grichuk and Hernandez out WAR Puig -Nate Pearson comes up in May and proceeds to win rookie of the year award for AL -Mathew Shoemaker miraculously makes it through an entire season without serious injury -Red Sox finish 4th in AL East -Torkelson drops to 5th and gets drafted by Jays (gotta dream big)