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It certainly changes the conversation if Horwitz can remain at second base and offer that kind of bat.

I'd guess the offending post has been erased as none of the recent posts indicate anything ban worthy. He received enough warnings about the types of posts that would eventually earn himself a ban so it's not a total surprise.

What does last year's team have to do with the monstrosity that is the 2024 edition of the Blue Jays? That was a very solid team whose primary Achilles heel was an inability to score runs at home as they were very good to great at everything else. This year's team is awful in every regard.

Even if you think the smart move is to trade Vlad I think it ultimately makes more sense to hang onto him for the rest of this season and see if he sustains the type of offensive output of recent months. Having Vlad fully reestablished as a star player should help to establish a stronger relative trade value for him vs having teams looking to buy him for pennies on the dollar hoping they can be the team to turn him around at the plate moving forward.

Super small sample size alert but Kloffenstein scored an overall 61 Stuff+ rating including a 48 on his sinker which appears to be his most commonly used pitch.

Lighten up Eyeore. Vlad has been mashing for the last two months now so he very well may be fixed at the plate. He hasn't approached anything close to this level of sustained success since his 2021 breakout. He'll need to prove he can keep it up but I am very encouraged as even when the batted balls weren't leaving the park in May he still produced a monster 166 wRC+ month at the plate. The actual on field results are nearly matching up with the top of the scale expected results over recent months. Now that he's seemingly rediscovered his power stroke he's re-emerging as exactly the top of the order power threat that the club has largely been missing in recent seasons. With regards to Springer check out this recent Chris Black Twitter/X thread outlining recent mechanical changes he made. It appears as though he's unlocked more bat speed which seems to track given how he was able to turn around upper 90's fastballs from Rodon. April 71.0 MPH May 72.1 MPH June 72.7 MPH His athleticism was still present given how well he's been running and defending, and with the recent improvements to his overall bat speed he at least has a shot to give the club a boost of offense as well. All that really seemed to be missing was George finally rediscovering his timing at the plate as he's improved his swing decisions allowing him to cut his strikeout rate and boost the walk rate this season.

Maybe the offense should tell Gausman to stop pitching like a mid rotation pitcher and he'll start working harder to regain the feel for his splitter.

Kiermaier's bat has been so bad he's nearly unplayable even as a part time bench player. If he were primarily used off of the bench for late inning defense and pinch running I'd have fewer issues with keeping him around but he still receives semi regular starts despite seeing his bat completely disappear for a month at a time.

So the offensive players didn't care enough to try the rest of the season to make the necessary adjustments? That's an incredibly simplistic viewpoint. The fact that the fanbase wasn't booing Springer as much as you'd prefer shows that they are actually decent humans that can recognize he's been trying his hardest at the plate and not mailing it in. He's been busting his ass on the bases and in the field despite the offensive struggles. I have no doubt these guys have been working hard behind the scenes to turn their offensive seasons around and it appears as though some of these dudes have finally found the necessary tweaks with the coaching staff to unlock better results. They know that the fate of the team and their chances to avoid seeing it blown up largely rest on their shoulders and shouldn't need any extra motivation from frustrated pitchers talking to the media to motivate them to try to do better.

Yeah I'm getting close to the point where I'd be fine with a few mid range relievers at this point. The offense has finally been showing enough signs on life recently that it could be worthwhile to grab some bullpen help to see what shakes out.

These guys are just too talented to produce the types of numbers from early on over an entire season. Springer has made adjustments to unlock more bat speed, but I'm not sure if Vlad has done anything mechanical with his swing.

Green is one of the few good stories from the pen this season. I'd be perfectly on board with something similar with Romano but I don't know if he would command the same type of dollars.

Chris Black had a thread outlining some tweaks recently that unlocked extra bat speed. Springer is up several MPH in June seemingly as a result.

Kirk has saved 4 runs in 1053 pitches (3.8 runs per 1000 pitches). Moreno has saved 2 runs in 1565 pitches (1.28 runs per 100 pitches). Kirk is accumulating framing runs at nearly3 times the speed of Moreno. That feels far better to me, but maybe your standards are different.

Kirk is a far better blocker and framer. Unless you think that framing is somehow not important for some reason that's two key defensive skills where Kirk is far more effective, and Kirk even has really solid throwing metrics this season as well so he's closed the gap in nailing baserunners this season as well. It's a shame that the bat has gone backwards but he's shown improvements in his batted ball metrics that have yet to materialize into more hits, and he's arguably the best overall defender behind the plate as well. I still hope he can regain a bit of offensive output in the future, whether it's this season or in the future with a new coaching staff.

The team really didn't have anyone better which is a big part of the issue. The choice has largely between giving previously effective relievers an extended look at the major league level vs getting rid of them and cycling through a bunch of waiver wire pickups given the lack of home grown relief prospects.

It's nice to see Vlad continue with the recent power surge but he seriously has to be among the dumbest players in MLB. He gifted the Yankees a run when he wasn't paying any attention to the runner and then potentially ran them out of a big inning as well later in the game. He has a recent string of embarrassments in the field including falling over backwards when attempting to catch a popup as well. He started the season looking better at first but his metrics have been trending downwards to the point where he's nearly on pace to equal his disastrous OAA numbers from a season ago. It might finally be time to consider moving him to primarily DH if he doesn't stop making so many mistakes in the field.

There is a Statcast zone category for ground ball rates. It's low key kind of amazing he has such a high ground ball rate on pitches up and in.

I think even if the team decides to take a shot to compete in the second half the smart move is still to move KK out to open up center field for Varsho. Schneider has proven himself to be a capable enough defender in his own right that he should be playing nearly every day, and the recent emergence of Horwitz as a passable second baseman has decreased the availability of starts at second base.

I have no issues with appropriate comparisons and Kendell seems perfectly apt as a high average low power output type of performer. I've seen too many online who act like he's destined to become the next Pudge Rodriguez and destined for the hall of fame and he needs to make some serious improvements to even become a solidly above average overall contributor.

Come on man, nobody has said Moreno is a total bust. He just hasn't developed offensively to anything more than a league average bat at this point and it's far from a given he'll ever be more than that. His underlying metrics all point to a decidedly average bat at best and unless he makes tangible changes to his overall batted ball profile he's not going to be more than that.

Not sure I agree that Vlad's production with runners in scoring position is any kind of issue. He's up to 128 wRC+ with RISP for the season as a whole, but it's been trending upwards much like his overall numbers over his two month hot streak. Up until nearly the end of April he was sitting at 38 wRC+ which is obviously terrible for a player in a run production spot in the lineup. Over the last two months he's produced 177 wRC+ with runners in scoring position which is actually better production that his overall numbers over that span of time.

I hate to even really hazard a guess here as I just don't know what the market value for Vlad would be. He's already earning $20 million per season, and if he continues mashing the rest of the season he's going to see a massive raise in arbitration as he received a $5 million raise last offseason despite the relative struggles of 2023. It's hard to see him signing long term for less than a $25 million AAV as a result. He should be able to roll out of bed and produce 150 wRC+ seasons based on his raw talent alone but unfortunately that hasn't been the case other than his MVP caliber 2021 season. First base/DH types haven't been handed out monster extensions or free agency deals in recent seasons so there isn't really a recent precedent for one of these types of deals for a player with his natural offensive gifts that primarily mans first base. I think the early declines of all of Pujols, Fielder and Cabrera outlined the hazards of giving out mega deals to defensively limited and/or bad body types of players and this will likely limit the overall term that Vlad receives. I think once Vlad eventually signs an extension or in free agency this will likely set a bit of a new precedent moving forward.

That's all well and good that Moreno was a top 5 prospect in online publications, but ultimately that's immaterial when it comes down to how other front offices viewed his actual trade value. He had a very serious question mark in the lack of power in the bat that he still hasn't put to rest and this is the primary factor that's limited his offensive output. It's not an issue in this neck of the woods but there are still posters in other online discussion sections that view the guy as some sort of generational catching prospect when he's proven that he's nothing of the sort up to this point.

Vlad has been mashing for the last two months now. He put up a 173 wRC+ from April 28-June 8 despite the lack of power as he hit only 4 home runs. This shows how productive he can be even without the ball leaving the yard. He cooled off for a week in early June with a -37 wRC+ over a 6 game sample before the recent power explosion which has seen a 215 wRC+ over an 11 game sample including 4 home runs. I legitimately think he's earned an extension at this point as he's most likely fixed at the plate, but it's most likely going to be difficult for Vlad and the club to align on value at this point given how close he is to reaching free agency.