Ray

Santiago Espinal (kid we got for Steve Pearce) in AA: .317/.377/.429 He had a slow start but has picked it up since. A little old (already 24) but still intriguing.

Since being demoted to AAA, Lewis Brinson is slashing .192/.276/.308 in 7 games. What a terrible trade for the Marlins.

Randal Grichuk is still only 27 years old. If you look at standard aging curves, there's a good chance he's going to improve within the coming years. Through age 26, he's already been better by wRC+ than guys like Josh Reddick, JD Martinez, Michael Brantley were at his age. You really can't blame them for trying in 2017. No front office tears down an entire roster after going to the ALCS, and Shapiro has all but said the 2017-2018 seasons were veiled attempts to compete to keep interest high, and reading between the lines, it seemed like much more of an ownership decision than a front office one. If there's one big mishap this front office has made, it's trying to compete in the AL East in 2018 with those Red Sox and Yankees teams. And if it really was an ownership decision, Shapiro should've convinced Ed Rogers otherwise. You do realize that player development isn't linear, nor does it happen overnight, right? Smoak was acquired before the 2015 season, and it wasn't until 2017 that he figured it out. You can't judge a whole player development system based on such small sample sizes, especially when it comes to such young players. Judging guys like Billy McKinney, Teoscar Hernandez, Brandon Drury on 1 and a half month small sample sizes is dumb.

Smoak, Grichuk, and even Aledmys Diaz are all examples. Smoak became an all-star. Grichuk is coming off a career low k-rate, and early into the season has improved plate discipline, contact, and reduced K-rate compared to when he was a Cardinal. We were able to sell high on Aledmys Diaz for a legit bottom of the rotation piece with potential. On the pitching side, how about getting Ken Giles and helping him go back to his old elite self? Sam Gaviglio is quietly having a very good season with great peripherals and statcast measurements. Matt Shoemaker was having a pretty damn good start to the season. There's been a fair bit of success stories that you're not pointing out. There's also been a fair bit of failure in the Rays with those type of players that you're ignoring.

Yeah that Austin Meadows sure was such a bust for the Pirates. He only put up a .800 OPS in 50 games with them.

Nate Pearson is destroying the Red Sox AA team right now 3 innings, no walks/hits, 6 strikeouts. 47 pitches 28 for strikes. Sitting 97, hitting 99.

Dietrich or Iglesias also would've been 1 year fill ins who we likely would've flipped at the deadline if they were performing well, not a long term solution. They're not really that different from a guy like Sogard or Galvis. Guys like Hanson and Brito were acquired because they were former top prospects who had intriguing enough minor league numbers and maxed out their development at AAA. They could be long term pieces if they perform well enough. The only way to see if they would stick is by playing them.

Nate Pearson will make his 1st start in AA today. Also, Jordan Groshans has been promoted to a Top 100 prospect on MLB Pipeline.

Smoak was here, but was hardly the player he is now. The guy directly contributes his 2017 season to a meeting he had with Atkins who pointed out his struggles were all mental, and he got pointed towards a sports psychologist. I'd consider that a big success. We're gonna parlay that Smoak extension into maybe something useful this trade deadline because of it. You point out that you want the team to invest in "under 30 guys who might be viable in the future" without realizing that Drury, Hernandez, McKinney, Brito are all well under 30 years old. Giving them AB's is exactly what they're doing.

They've already had success with this to some extent. Justin Smoak has had career years recently and looks like a completely different player than he did in 2016. Also, this is literally what they were/are trying to do with Socrates Brito and Alen Hanson. And they got s*** on for it.

Chris Stratton just got DFA'd by the Angels. I know he's been really bad, but his spin rates are elite: 91st percentile fastball spin 99th percentile curveball spin He's worth putting a claim in on.

We did, and I can't really blame him for that. Although at this point, he probably would've been in line for a call up from us sooner rather than later.

Drury, 26 years old Teoscar Hernandez, 26 years old Billy McKinney, 24 years old Gurriel, 25 years old Alford, 24 years old. Our position player group is literally the 2nd youngest in the entire major leagues. Alot of players you listed are either going through the process of trying to figure out major league pitching, or trying to re adjust to the adjustments the league made from last season. Let's at least give them a whole season before making judgements.

I wouldn't necessarily characterize what AA did as "rebuild". His eventual playoff team relied on mostly 30 year-old position players. One of the main questions I'd ask is how we weren't able to draft and develop a single impact position player from 2010-2015 beyond Kevin Pillar. He gave us around 15 bWAR. The next best position player drafted under the Anthopoulos ERA? That would be Rowdy Tellez, worth a whopping 0.6 WAR so far. I realize we have to give it some time, because some of his draftees are just coming up now (Jansen, Tellez etc), but this seems a little dismal. I also realize that he went very pitching heavy in the draft, but this should be a bit of a cautionary tale when it comes to avoiding position players in the draft. If you go pitching heavy, you're stuck with a farm system that relies on the highest probability bust-rate prospects to pan out.

We'll have to see. I remember he was pretty streaky when he was with us too. Also more former Jays news, Harold Ramirez is slashing .356/.414 /.584 in the Marlins AAA system.

Former Jay Edward Olivares (traded for Yangervis Solarte to the Padres) hit 3 home runs yesterday in AA. He'd be nice to have in the pipeline right now.

Anthopoulos was given about a 5 year window. I would think Shapiro would be given at least that. Likely more, because him and Ed Rogers seem to be close friends.

Vlad and Eloy are struggling mightily right now

Nick Senzel just hit 2 lead off home runs in the first 2 innings against the Giants. Meanwhile, Vlad is sitting at a .465 OPS. He's gonna figure it out, but it'd be nice to see the real him sooner rather than later.

Adley Rutschman is actually insane 42 games .429/.576/.800 14 HR 14% K-rate 25% BB-rate All in the Pac-12. He might be the clearest 1-1 since Appel.

Keith Law Mock Draft v1

Nick Senzel is debuting today and he's batting 2nd in the lineup.

So Alejandro Kirk has been promoted to Dunedin, according to the Dunedin Blue Jays Twitter account. That was a very quick promotion for him, but he's been pretty dominant. How he hits in the FSL will be a real challenge.

He caught 45% of baserunners stealing last season. Seems to have a great arm. Can't tell you about anything else.