AMS528

He doesn't even need to be with how elite his defense is now. Being a slightly below average bat makes him worth like 3-4 WAR. Pity his bat has never gotten back to that level cause he would be the best catcher in the game. If he was performing roughly to his expected numbers this year that would be great.

Saddest prophecy.

He's pivoting to becoming Keith Hernandez instead of Prince Fielder.

I don't know man. I've seen Bichettes, Kirk's, Springer's, Varsho and KK's statcast pages. And it definitely feels like there's been plenty of reason for it.

I edited more in after that. But yeah, and when you can restock it lets you deal effectively for more talent. We can't deal for more talent cause who the hell wants our nothing prospects. 2022 and 2021 have produced barely anything. Tiedeman aside we've got nothing to use now to deal with the fact that we can't hit at all. Who on earth wants to deal for zero power Toman/Kasevich/Roden. Those guys have like a combined slugging of .002 or so. Barriera may as well be done, we have to hope he can one day pull things together, but he has no value as a trade chip now. We gotta dream on Trenton Wallace putting up great numbers at 25 in AA.

At least the Leafs have talent that performs in the regular season. I'd love to see Vladdy and Bo perform like Matthew/Nylander/Marner do in the regular season. Fake hope for the playoffs is better than wondering why you're generational hitting prospect can't hit.

Extremely sad that in the past 5 years since he started in Atlanta "bare cupboard AA" drafted Michael Harris, Spencer Strider and Bryce Elder who have more than doubled the total WAR produced by Jays drafts in the same time period. If you give the Jays the 2018 and 2017 drafts to add on, it is literally just half the production, and significant chunks of that are from like Ryan Noda and Riley Adams who we traded away. It's basically Manoah and Davish Schneider in the past 7 drafts who are our controllable young guys that have come up and that is unbelievably bad. Cannot be overstated how mediocre the 2022 draft looks as well at this point. That could have been a restocking that allowed us to deal for a guy like Soto but Atkins failed hard. AA used Langeliers, Cusick and Estes from his drafts to help get Matt Olson as well. And even after all the players that have come up and trades they've made to add they also have some top notch pitching prospects to restock with now with Waldrep and Owen Murphy.

Ok so nothing has made me feel more like Atkins needs to be fired than reading this list of prospect names. My god, there's absolutely nothing there. Macko has not had numbers to make you think he's going to wind up anything more than an ok reliever either. If you combine that, with the lack of drafting success, it really defines the way in which this team has failed. There were never any reinforcements to patch up the issues that would naturally come up, like a player regressing, or declining or not hitting their potential. Every successful team has high level prospects that don't turn out, but they can plug those holes and we can't because of the above.

Vladdy has had a very confusing career with very confusing outcomes. Now he's a high OBP no power bat whose HR totals have declined every single year. But at the same time he's absolutely better than he was last year.

Teo improving his defense really upped his floor as a player. Marcus Semien has the most ridiculous defensive stats right now. Leading OAA by a very large gap. Bis bWAR defense is 1.3 just so far. bWAR loves him.

The development and drafting is such a large gaping flaw at this point that unfortunately negates the success elsewhere. Honestly Atkins has won almost every trade, part of that is unfortunately our prospects haven't been very good, but at least they've identified that. It's genuinely very impressive. The guys we've traded for and signed have broadly been solid acquisitions and often our best players. Basically our entire pitching staff. You don't get sustained long term success that way though. It's temporary, because either those players are older and so will decline, if it's short term deals then you've either got to re up for pricier deals like we maybe have to do with Kikuchi, or they cost you assets. Basically there's costs involved with all those methods of player acquisition that you eventually have to deal with that you just don't when you're able to consistently develop your own talent. That let's you let players walk and replace them with cheaper talent, that let's you weather a star player flopping, that let's you deal for a guy like Soto because you have a war chest to utilize when you need it. Honestly if you're not LA who does that as well as having all the money and location advantages, then I think maybe it's the only thing that really really matters for long term success. At every level it helps you, cheap stars, depth, trade chips, room to add free agents cause of the low cost depth. It's why even though Atkins tenure, when you just look at his "moves" should be a success has been less effective then it should be. How can a guy who hits on so many signings and win all his trades be coming up short at building a long term contender? It's cause he's failing at the the thing that matter more than the rest collectively does.

What players are you considering as the "core" they built around? For me it's really just two guys in Vlad and Bo. If Springer is part of it because that was their big signing to start our new contention window, then that's certainly a strike on them, not for the signing itself but to expect him to maintain his level in the back half of the deal, given he's 34 and at the age where players really start to decline. There were 7 qualified batters last year who were 34 or above. Exactly one of those guys (Paul Goldschmidt) managed above 2 WAR. If you drop it to 300PAs, you get 26 guys and add JD Martinez and Belt to the list who managed above 2 WAR. Basically we're talking about the 90% outcome for 34 and above. The expectation for Springer is to get like 1.5 to 2 WAR in a decent scenario. I think that had to be something people knew was coming. I think when you look at it, there just wasn't really much of a core to this team. Not compared to the types of teams that Atlanta and Houston built and Baltimore has started to build. Depth is great but you've gotta have more than a limited core to build it around, and some of those pieces should also be prospects you develop and that hasn't happened. If the core was a couple more reliable guys, then maybe you can take Vladdy not turning out. I think a strike on them is that there should be core pieces now performing that would be coming to replace the cheap production that we should have gotten from Vlad (and Bo who has generally otherwise performed). They're not there. Maybe Schneider is one of those pieces, but we're not rolling in top prospects here.

Berrios in a trade really should get a goodreturn cause he has two years at a really great price, and you're getting a Mark Buehrle type consistency with innings pitched. He's a likely opt out after those two seasons unless he has a 2022 type season again.

Hmmm can't say I'm enjoying the no fun+no winning version of this team.

Great offense is just more fun then watching your batters put up three runs a game. 2021 really is going to be the best version of this team that existed isn't it. I posted at the time that we may look back on this year with regret, cause you don't get two top three MVP finishers and a CY Young winner all in one season almost ever. Didn't even make the playoffs. Damn Brad Hand.

He's the youngest player in that league. He's struggled a bit, but this is beyond early for any judgement given his age.

So this team is actually worse than it's record right? As far as I can tell they're lucky to be only three games under .500. With their offense they're lucky to not be in the bottom five so far. Aside from an easier schedule is their any real performance related reason to be positive about the outlook for the season?

Man but much prefer this to the other. At least you can hope to tinker for control. His stuff sucking was more hopeless.

I had no idea Tyler Black was Rod Black's son. First round pick and top 50 prospect as well. https://jaysjournal.com/posts/legendary-canadian-sports-broadcaster-rod-black-calls-his-sons-hit-in-his-mlb-debut Nice day for him getting to call his second hit from the stands.

I've seen people mentioning the top spin thing a lot, is there any article on this anywhere? Is that even fixable, cause honestly it seems like the weirdest thing that Vlad is this anomalous player who uniquely underperforms his peripherals cause he gets too much topspin when he hits the ball.

The Rangers won the WS so from their perspective it was already worth it, but from like a dollar perspective I think Marcus Semien is going to wind up being worth or very close to worth every dollar of his contract. He's aging better than anyone would have guessed. I wanted him resigned and didn't think he would age this well. Yet another season of good walk rates even lower strikeouts, steady power, good base running and elite defense. He's like the recipe of how you make a player that racks up WAR without blowing you away. I'm cheering for him to continue his pace through the season cause then his 7 year peak WAR is in the 40s and we get a long shot HOF candidacy that could happen. Really want him to age like Beltre

Well this looks excellent. And he has a good launch angle unlike Vladdy.

You really could not have asked for a better start from Horwitz, Orelvis, and Barger. Horwitz and Barger probably deserve shots sooner than later with their age, and better walk to strikeout numbers. I don't really know if Horwitz is going to succeed, but his numbers have consistently been too good not to give him a decent shot at least.

The number of people who whine about Romano is amazing to me. Am I confused or do the Jays have a bunch of other relievers who've racked up 7 WAR over the past three years? Actually for that matter, how many relievers in baseball have 7 WAR over the last three years?

It's good that they tried to get Ohtani. He was always a longshot and likely to go to LA which is why they were the heavy betting favorites from day one. Which means reasonably that should not have been, and I strongly assume would not have been the only option they were relying on. What matters is ultimately the moves that they did get done, and that is what they will be graded on. The success of those moves.