Ray

Some quick scouting reports on AA guys by 2080 baseball Nate Pearson, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays (New Hampshire Fisher Cats) Improved control and off-speed consistency have led to a dominant start to 2019; frontline starter upside with the power stuff to close games if he needs a fallback. Kevin Smith, INF, Toronto Blue Jays (New Hampshire Fisher Cats) Pull-heavy, power-focused approach has struggled so far in first taste of Double-A; still shows the baseline offensive tools to be a bat-first everyday infielder with adjustments. Patrick Murphy, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays (New Hampshire Fisher Cats) Physical frame with high-90s fastball and flashes of above-average curveball; lack of third pitch and injury history likely point to setup relief role long-term.

People seem to forget the Liriano/McGuire/Ramirez for Drew Hutchison trade which was fantastic. Liriano put up a sub 3 ERA down the stretch and kept us alive in that wildcard game, plus we added two Top 100 guys to our depleted farm at the time. All for Drew Hutchison.

Yennsy Diaz: 7IP 2H 0R 8K 98 pitches Brock Lundquist: 2-for-5, no hitting .261/.367/.378 after a slow start in AA.

The best you could've hoped for in trading Liriano is someone interesting, and at that point, Teoscar Hernandez was a 24 year old putting up a .865 OPS in AAA. We even ate Liriano's entire salary to maximize the return. For all intents and purposes, we did much better than we should've in that trade. It looks bad in hindsight, but that doesn't mean it was a bad trade at the time. Speaking of Liriano, we also ended up getting him + Reese McGuire + Harold Ramirez for Drew Hutchison. We bought low on Liriano when he was putting up a 5.46 ERA, and he ended up being pretty crucial down the stretch in that 2016 playoff run. And we still ended up getting McGuire on top of that. I would classify that as acquiring an undervalued player and helping them improve. Furthermore, if you want to point at the Yankees, one example of them turning around a player markedly is Aaron Hicks. He didn't break out until age 27 after previously posting 1300 plate appearances of a 77 OPS+. Tesocar Hernandez, Brandon Drury, Billy McKinney, are all younger than that and have already been better hitters than he was at that point. It's easy to criticize all the bad things about a player because it can be done instantaneously, whereas improvement and development happens over time and is harder to see. Let's at least give some of these guys more rope before writing them off.

The guy you called dumb drafted 2 of the 3 players in your avatar.

Yeah, this is gonna kill our playoff chances for sure.

This might be because our biggest assets so far have been: 1. Half a season of a 34 year old JA Happ with a 4 ERA 2. Roberto Osuna coming off a domestic violence issue 3. Half a season of near 6 ERA Francisco Liriano 4. A minor leaguer who couldn't throw strikes, and a reliever coming off a career year. You can argue that the returns have been underwhelming, but it's not like they were unloading young controllable pieces here (besides Osuna who had his own issues).

Votto on track for the worst month of career by far (.507 OPS in May). Sitting at 75 OPS+ so far into the season. K-rate is up significantly, BB% is down significantly. Not looking good for him or Cincy. Still 4 years left on that deal.

It's been 160 PA now and Biggio's K-rate is still at 15% That's quite a dramatic drop from last season in AA (26%). Even better news is that he's kept his walk rate more or less the same and still has a .208 ISO.

BA scouting report on JJ Goss?

Keon Broxton DFA'd by the Mets

Clearly 200 plate appearances in the majors is enough to make that big a judgement.

The key is the affordable part. If he wants something similar to what Kyle Hendricks got, fine. They're both similar ages and have been close enough in value since their debuts. I don't really see Stroman settling for that though. I think this front office will want to wait to see what teams are going to offer though. If the Padres are desperate enough to compete and are offering 2 good close to ready arms, it'll be hard to turn that down.

Some of the struggling bats are finally coming around in May: AA: Brock Lundquist: .385/.489/.538 Santiago Espinal: .314/.386/.412 A+: Cal Stevenson: .318/.400/.432

Giles in 2019: 1.47 ERA, 1.57 FIP, 0.982 WHIP, 13.7 K/9. He should fetch us a nice return this deadline.

Or just send him to Buffalo because he has options

Teoscar needs to be optioned to AAA to figure it out. He's been terrible. Bring Gurriel back up.

Jaxx Groshans?

Patrick Murphy is having himself a game 7 innings, 3H, 1ER, 1BB, 10K, 84 pitches Hit 98 on his fastball

Austin Riley is being called up by the Braves. .300/.376/.671 with 14 HR in 36 games in AAA.

Getting Giles + 2 prospects for Osuna was a coup.

Josh Winckowski had himself another nice start: 7IP 5H 1ER 1BB 4K 81 pitches Lowers his season ERA to 1.70.

Biggio is still walking more than he's striking out, and his K-rate in May is actually less than what it was during April. He's hitting for a decent enough average and still has a .381 OBP in May. Only thing that's slowed down is his power surge, but that's to be expected.

Small sample size, but Alejandro Kirk is still doing Alejandro Kirk things since his promotion to High-A 5 games .389/.476/.611 Still walking more than he's striking out (3BB vs. 2K). He's made a seamless transition so far in one of the notoriously hardest leagues to hit in.

We'll have to see how they pan out, but I am a big fan of the drafts they've done so far. It's a nice balance between safer picks like a T.J. Zeuch, and high upside types like a Pearson, Bichette, Groshans etc. For the most part, they've hit on almost every major trade. Converting JB Woodman into Trent Thornton was a gigantic win. Same with Conner Greene and Dominic Leone into an everyday player in Grichuk. They've done well with assets with limited value. I do wish they were better at major league scouting. They've had successes on smaller scales with guys like Gaviglio, Biagini, Leone, Aledmys Diaz, etc, but the Yankees were able to add everyday players in Aaron Hicks, Luke Voit, and top of the rotation guys Jonathan Loaisiga, Domingo German for practically nothing, all within the last 3-4 seasons. Dodgers recognized the talent in Max Muncy and Chris Taylor. Most of those guys were just an adjustment away from being good, or just needed more playing time to thrive, and those teams recognized that. I get that they're trying to do that with guys in Drury, McKinney, Teoscar, Hanson, Brito etc., but it still feels like it could be better. Maybe it's just a matter of being patient with some guys.