max silver

I think there's approximately zero chance Crane would allow his GM to trade Yordan given how he tends to meddle in the team's attempted dealings.

I don't think you knew that Springer was going to break his toe which took him off of his game, or ditto for Kirk breaking his thumb, or Barger missing nearly the entire season and Santander missing the entire season and finally Vlad having an inconceivably poor season with that bat after a massive post season and WBC. I think this team should have a lot better offensive unit than when we've seen in a more normal season although I can agree one more potent bat being added would have been the cherry on the top of an already excellent offseason.

Those two are absolutely part of the problem with the team struggling to score runs to the degree they have.

Yeah if Springer wasn't interested in waiving his no trade rights and nobody was willing to make an acceptable offer the smart play is hanging onto him.

Yeah it's going to be awesome to watch Straw and his 64 wRC+ receiving more playing time. I can hardly wait.

I think Miles has shown himself to be far too capable of retiring major league hitters to start the season as a depth piece.

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 30 | Run: 70 | Arm: 55 | Field: 65 | Overall: 40 Bateman played with Cubs manager Craig Counsell's son Brady at Minnesota, where he developed into one of the best contact hitters, fastest runners and top defenders in the 2023 college crop. But his utter lack of power affected his Draft stock, even after he batted .500 during a two-week stint in the Cape Cod League, and he dropped to Chicago in the eighth round. He overcame surgery on his right hamate in February to hit .261/.376/.307 at Double-A, ranking third in walk rate (15 percent) and sixth in on-base percentage. He was at Triple-A Iowa when the Cubs traded him to the Blue Jays as part of the return for Kevin Gausman. A left-handed hitter, Bateman rarely strays from the strike zone, rarely hits balls with authority and rarely lifts them in the air. He lacks strength and understands his limitations, so he focuses on reaching base by drilling grounders through holes in the defense and working walks. His approach comes at the expense of any power, as of the time of the trade, he's a career .342 slugger with six homers in 315 pro games. Bateman's game is built around his plus-plus speed, which he uses to beat out hits, steal bases and chase down balls from gap to gap in center field. A two-way player until he had elbow surgery following his freshman year with the Gophers, he has solid arm strength and has notched 23 assists in 278 starts in center. He has drawn comparisons to Orioles 2023 first-rounder Enrique Bradfield Jr. and Myles Straw.

This sounds quite a bit like an outfield version of Kasevich.

I was a good athlete growing up albeit a little heavyset in my teenage years. I wasn't allowed to play sports as I was needed on the family farm.

You posting this GIF is peak irony.

I'm going to wager the front office might prefer a do over on the Gimenez trade given the offensive struggles.

If a pitcher you want is available now at a price you are willing to pay then you pull the trigger. It's weird as hell to be so upset that the team chose to get to work on next year's team at the trade deadline instead of waiting for the offseason. What would the prospect cost difference even be? One of the lower level prospects wouldn't have been traded or something?

Do you honestly think that Imai had some of the "best pure stuff" ever seen in his league and ended up looking this mediocre in MLB? It's ok to admit you misread this guy's potential instead of foolishly refusing to acknowledge you simply made a mistake.

Sliderguy is the complete anthesis of Jays 24. Unlike Jays24 who possesses rudimentary baseball knowledge at best, barely possesses a functioning brain and is constantly spewing out galaxy brained nonsense, Sliderguy is statistical savant and understands pitching on a level far beyond us mere mortals.

With Kasevich the impact of the pop up rate wouldn't be particularly high as he only manages to put the ball in the air about 23% of the time leading to a total of 5% of balls in play being popped up. This doesn't excuse the low fly ball rate in any fashion but it does largely reduce the number of automatic outs created by the high pop up rate.

Lauer was a nice swing man last season but I think he's being overrated quite a bit. Lauer made only 15 starts last season so he wasn't even a starter for the majority of the season in the first place. On a per start basis he was barely more effective than Berrios who was likely pitching with a wonky elbow for much of the season. And don't try to pretend the only reason you are happy to see Lauer enjoying success is that it gives you an excuse to create more whiney posts.

I believe Lauer has pitched to something approximating a 4.0 xERA as a Dodger. I see little chance of him continuing to suppress runs to the degree he has but the current version of what he has to offer absolutely would have been useful to the Blue Jays. It's too bad he appears to have such a thin skin and was so willing to blast his team and manager in the media as it would have been nice to see him turn around his season with the Blue Jays.

Twisted Logic had a helluva more baseball acumen that Jays24 will ever possess.

The first time you make an intelligent post on this board we should have a celebration.

Is the front office just supposed to pay everyone their exact asking price no matter how far apart the negotiations are? Arbitration exists for a reason, and if Lauer and his agent didn't ask for the moon after coming back from Korea there's a very good chance he would have won his hearing.

Come on now. You have literally zero credibility on this board to be able to attack others this fashion.

Are you aware John Macdonald had a career 56 wRC+? I can agree that some of us are likely looking at Kasevich through rose tinted glasses but I see little chance he's going to be anywhere close to that bad with the stick at the major league level.

I'll take your lack of answer to the very basic question I asked as you simply being unable to answer. I'll help you out, Hoffman struggles on days when he isn't commanding his pitches and he doesn't always bring his best stuff into games as well. It's really that easy. The inning he's pitching is is almost completely immaterial compared to whether he's effectively placing his pitches where he needs to with sufficient stuff to miss barrels and bats. When you point at the inning nearly in entirety as the reason to why Hoffman is failing or succeeding you are displaying a lack of basic understanding of why he actually tends to struggle at times. The reason for the recent struggles are easily verified with the Stuff+ location metric. In the 4 outings prior to last night's dominant performance Hoffman produced an average location + of only 81 to go along with an overall stuff rating of only 100. These outings saw him not bringing his best stuff into the game and compounding things further was the inability to command the subpar stuff on top of that. These outings all came before the 9th inning, and the inning he was pitching in had literally nothing to do with his struggles, much as the inning he's pitching in has nothing to do with his success. When Hoffman brings his good stuff and command into games he's fully capable of dominating in any inning of the game, and when you use this reductive declaration of him being dominant because he's not closing it's missing the forest for the trees. On top of that your reading comprehension could use some work. My original statement that triggered this conversation was that last night's version of Hoffman would be dominant in any inning of the game. He brought an absolutely filthy slider into the game and dominated the middle of the order of MLB's best offense. I'm not saying Hoffman should be closing in place of Varland as it's impossible to argue against the perfect results Varland has produced in the spot, but I'm simply pushing back against this overly simplified narrative of Hoffman's dominance being due to him pitching in a non closer's role while largely ignoring the drastic change of his pitch usage.

Why don't you go ahead and explain why Hoffman largely struggled in his recent outings? He had a 4 game stretch from July 12-24 where he pitched to a 4.91 ERA/8.74 xERA. You can't blame the 9th inning as he hasn't pitched there for an extended period of time. You constantly harp on about how Hoffman primarily enjoys success because he's not pitching in the closer position so I'm dying to hear your explanation towards why he would struggle in non closing situations. Here' a bit of a hint: he struggled for exactly the same reasons why he struggled at times in the closer position.