AMS528

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.

Gabe Gross looked like Babe Ruth in spring training one year. It's not completely meaningless, but it's also not meaningful.

Springer is 34 at a time when aging curves have become more normal so there's less reason to expect he'd be as good as that again. Slightly better than last year maybe. Vlad has played at 2021 levels, 20% of the time. 1 out 5 full seasons. Again there is not a lot of reason to expect that level of upside, even if he was better than last year which we should at least expect. Given that, you're not talking about much upside, but mostly hoping that Varsho hits better to compensate for not having Belt anymore, and Kirk is better to compensate for IKF being much worse than Chapman. Meanwhile KK is probably not going to be as good as last year cause he's also 34 and probably outperformed his peripherals last year. Schneider also performed out of his mind for his stretch which is unlikely to repeat. Those are not 141 PAs we're getting again from anyone. Given that, again it looks less like a reasonable upside and more like we're hoping to just match last years performance at the plate. The real upside part of that, where we exceed last years performance, needs Springer to not have aged, Vlad to return to elite hitting, Varsho hitting like 2022, KK repeating, and Kirk hitting again which seems more like the 95% outcome. There's a chance there but it's not so likely. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but Belt and Chapman were good hitters or at least decent hitters in Chapman's case, so we were already starting from a deficit when looking at needing guys to bounce back to past form (Plus those Schneider ABs).

True, and it's also true that there are no rules against doing that so it's more of an ingrained culture thing at this point where everyone's accustomed to just discussing every other topic in the around baseball thread. Be the change you want to see I guess.

I don't know if this is really the place for discussion about it, but I have really found the fact that all the discussion on this board basically gets confined to like four threads is unideal for effective discussions. I get not wanting a specific thread for every issue with the team etc. but even just having like general blue jays hitting discussion, general blue jays pitching discussion, general blue jays bullpen discussion or something like would probably help with a conversation or discussion not getting lost in a couple of pages, or a single diversion between two posters drowning out any other conversation for a series of pages. This is like the busiest Blue Jays message board by a mile, and it's weird that it winds up working that way.

I have generally felt like Atkins has done a good job, especially on trades getting value consistently. But there is like no way to view this offseason as anything but a disappointment when you strike out on every free agent available and even the ones whose price dropped significantly. IKF as the best acquisition is pretty miserable. Getting KK again, and not maximizing the value that Varsho would bring at CF instead is also pretty s*****. This wasn't a very good offseason when you're trying to squeeze a few more wins in. The front office must believe a few guys are primed for breakouts and returns to form which I hope is happens.

I'm sure this has been discussed a few times already, but I just want to note my frustration at the team failing to maximize Varsho in CF by signing Kiermaier. Just feels like they'd be failing to get the best out of the roster.

So it's still a somewhat crowded ballot, but at least with Mauer and Beltre getting in as first year candidates it doesn't create additional backlog. And Helton got in clearing another spot. Next year is two more definitely HOF players in Ichiro and CC. Ichiro is a mortal lock, could come close to getting every single vote and really should get every vote. CC didn't have the peak of most HOF pitchers, but the standards have changed for pitchers. He'll get in but maybe not next year. So probably Ichiro, Wagner, maybe CC and maybe Andruw Jones. Beltran might need another year. It might be 2026 when we see a real clearout of the close candidates. Guys like Beltran, A-Rod, Utley and Sabathia (if he doesn't make it in 2025) are going to see bigger boosts cause the closest candidate to making it in is going to be like Cole Hamels and Edwin and they're absolutely not making it. 2027 is light as well with just Buster Posey. If CC makes it in 2025, then you've got a real clearout potentially happening in the backlog for two years running. There could also be an unexpected candidate or two (Abreu or Petitte probably) get a bigger jump because of that.