AMS528

He's been the one guy along with Biggio (short Dejong stint aside) they've wasted empty AB's on this year. At least Biggio's bat has been ok since the terrible start. Espinal has gotten 205 PAs of being unplayable. Way too many on a team that isn't hitting well enough. The front office was better last year at not throwing away too many AB's on complete wastes.

Yeah makes more sense now that it's confirmed Schneider is at 3rd. It's the right choice with the players available.

Hmm... It feels like it might be a better idea to have Ernie Clement who usually plays SS and has at least regularly gotten games at 3B to play there?

If they get hot and the make the playoffs that will be nice, but really the fact that this team is basically scrapping it out for the absolute last playoff seed after the playoffs were expanded is a terrible result. The knock on the AA two year playoffs run, was that he absolutely cleared the prospect pool to make it in twice for a shot. Right now we have some decent prospects that have stepped up in AAA, but we're probably still prospect rankings wise somewhere in the 20ish range. That should mean given the talent we had built up two years ago and the payroll they have been permitted to have we're doing better than this, and it is incredibly disappointing that we're not. It doesn't feel like we should be doing poorly, and generally speaking the front offices moves have worked out. Gausman has been great, Springer was very good the two years before this, Kikuchi bounced back to have excellent value this year. The Merrifeld trade was good, the Berrios trade has fluctuated for good to bad, to probably good again. Belt has worked out great, Kiermier has been solid, they have been two of the better players on the current roster. Varsho depending on how you measure and value his defense has been between decent and quite good. Semien was obviously an incredible value signing, and so was the Ray trade. But it has somehow never come together in the same year. Each year it's been either the bullpen was a disaster that destroyed us (Brad Hand and the rest in 2021), starting pitching (2022 with Berrios, Kikuchi and Mitch White) or now the offense this year (Kirk, Chapman, Vlad etc.). There is always something that has fallen apart, and maybe some of that can be blamed on bad luck but management has responsibilities there. There's definitely fitness issues the team has failed to address, Kirk and Manoah have significantly damaged the season by being completely out of shape. Vlad I think is not the fitness issue, plenty of big guys hit, but a coaching issue. There's been choices the team has made, Varsho for LGJ and Moreno isn't the worst deal but Moreno is probably a catcher who's going to age well, hits decently already and could improve his framing enough to be really valuable for a number of years. Maybe it's possible there was a different deal they could have struck there with the surplus catchers. But that's hard to say. This year they've stuck with Espinal for to long and too many AB's but Dejong disaster aside they haven't thrown away that many ABs. Having a quicker trigger on decent prospects in AAA coming up instead of spending time on Espinal and Biggio is a fair criticism. It's interesting that really when you look at the moves the front office has made, they've generally gotten good value out of both their recent signings and their trades. And yet none of that lines up for a full season. They fix one part of the team (the bullpen this year for example) and another part falls apart. I'm not really sure how much blame they deserve for it but I don't think there's much of an argument that we've had three years so far of our compete window happen with mostly middling results.

It had been 104 the day before but he had another two hit game. No denying his numbers relative to his age though. They're great.

And it's 104 now with his improved slash line. What on earth is that offensive environment?

I just kind of lurked that board back then, but yeah it was him of the 70,000 post count. It was impressive just how much he would post.

That phrase was uttered in 2009. It's impressive it's managed to survive for 14 more seasons.

No don't worry it was definitely weird and wrong. There's not like a single word in this post that was necessary. None of us needed to know any of that, or how you connected it with Manoah.

I know Marcus Semien was great for the Jays, but I don't think you'd look at his career and think he had a HOF level peak, yet he's actually approaching it. He'll have like a 7 year peak of 38 WAR if he finishes this season at about the level he's playing at. If he plays one more season at this level or around it, his 7 year peak is going to be like 43. His ability to adapt has been pretty great as well. He's still walking at the same rate but he's cut down his strikeouts significantly. His defense is still great. He could age pretty decently. Also as an aside he has one of the biggest differences I've ever seen between his bWAR and fWAR (10 WAR difference). I think Mariano Rivera is the biggest I've seen (17 WAR) since he outperformed his peripherals his entire career.

Just adding some context for the numbers, but the teenage measures 15-19 for that number. Not 13 in case people were thinking it went from that age onwards. Also I imagine contraceptive access is also a factor in the higher rates. It's obviously a higher rate, but the US teen birth rate has dropped by like a factor of four since the 90's. And contraceptive access has played a role in the drop here.

If there is one consistent thing I've seen reading on this board, it's that given the opportunity you will leave no doubt that you're a full fledged POS. It's amazing no matter the topic, you will find a way to mention thugs and be racist, or make wild assumptions about what a 14 year old child did or didn't do. It's not surprising, but it is remarkably consistent that it's practically every topic. I mean if it mattered to you, you could have just said let this play out and moved on, but now you've gotta be f***ing weirdo and talk about whether a 14 year old girl told him she was 14, and that she is a "full-figured mamacita". What made you like this? Gotta avoid it when raising children.

Can't understand the complaints really. He'll probably finish with a bit over 2 WAR again this year. That means give or take around 7.5 bWAR over the last three seasons. That's an elite three year reliever run, up there with any stretch from whoever you'd consider the best relievers in the league right now and in the last few years.

That's true, in which case that really leaves even more money for both resigning bullpen pieces, fitting in the raises, and having plenty left for adding another large contract. No reason to think we're going to be exclusively relying on Schneider/Barger/Horwitz filling in the pieces we'll be potentially losing. And there's definitely enough money to try and retain Kiermaier again and still add a large piece. Out of the three of him, Belt and Chapman, he would likely be the most responsible signing. Belt has given as a solid year, but is pretty old to rely on again. And Chapman is going to get a huge long term deal given there's basically no one better out there.

Jackson Holliday's position really does give him a solid floor even if he hits nowhere near as well as he's hitting now. But man were Vlad's age 19 hitting numbers unbelievable. He has underachieved so hard, and we have completely lost years of cheap value if he had worked things out which he certainly still has a chance to do. There was a reason he was the best hitting prospect in a while and why genuine prospect analysts were saying he was going to be a HOF hitter.

Given his performance this year, let's say Berrios finishes the season out similarly and ends with about 3-3.5 WAR. 5 out of the 6 seasons prior to that he was a 3-4 WAR pitcher consistently. He has the one terrible year last year. What kind of contract do you believe Berrios would receive as a free agent? Taijuan Walker signed for 4/72, and Taillon signed for 4/68 last year. They're 30 and 31 respectively when they're signing those deals. Neither have Berrios' overall career WAR or general track record with pitching as many innings in each season. That's not me being trying to be a homer, just laying out reasonably nearby deals from the year before, and their respective WAR numbers. The year before that you've got Gausman and Ray signing 5/110 deals. Both are coming off of career years, a decent bit better than their past performance has shown, but they each have some decent seasons from earlier. Stroman also signs that year for 4/92 with a player option. He's got a pretty similar track record to Berrios. Consistent steady performer, nothing too elite but also only one poor season relative to the rest of their steady performances. Those are probably the rough markers.

There's what? 60 million coming off the payroll next year? Ryu was basically a surplus bonus this year. Chapman and Whit and KK have been very valuable. Belt has been decent. Grichuk is the other retained chunk they'll lose. Kikuchi is still under contract next year, and given his performance this year, no reason to think he's not going to likely be locked into a spot. The expectation given his last few starts is probably that Manoah will also be locked in, and hopefully more ready for the season and the pitch clock. That's five starters, and you certainly should sign one other half decent one for depth. Ideally Ricky T is also doing great as depth, but given his complete lack of innings he's unlikely to be much of a factor. I assume some guys will get ARB raises (Kirk, Swanson, Romano). Bichette is already locked in there. I'm no expert but given Varsho and Vladdy have had bad seasons I assume their raises may be lower than expected. Jansen you hope signs a reasonable extension. I feel like that still leaves a decent amount of space for a pretty large sized contract. Even after signing a SP for more depth. Obviously not a very good free agent class, but maybe there's a deal to take on a contract for a position player.

Did Horwitz make some kind of swing change? It seems unlikely given he was already hitting decently, but going from having just 2 HR's for most of the season to suddenly hitting 7 more all at once is pretty large shift in performance. With that kind of power you can hope that he has a chance at turning out like Lyle Overbay for the Jays in 2006.

True for a few places. I lived in Windsor for a few years, and saw Detroit actually become a much nicer city than it used to be. Helps that it has some great architecture, from back when people wanted their buildings to look nice. It's got lots of issues still, but they've figured out that the smaller population is for the best, the cheaper housing has attracted some needed gentrification, and lots of places that were run down have been fixed up or have new businesses running. Nice to see when it happens.

Funny enough if he went like 0-14 in that series his numbers would still be decent on the whole.

Are the Mets sending some money to the Astros? I mean really otherwise, it's kind of ridiculous to not sign a guy in the winter and then deal what may be your two best prospects for him months later.

That seems to be everyone's response. Kind of old for his level relief prospect with decent numbers. Honestly you can't get an actual major league player that's going to play a decent role for cheaper than this price. Near nothing going back and even getting some cash for it. This a pretty good deal just on that basis regardless of how Dejong performs.

Agreed. You're not trading away someone who's going to play for a number of years, it's not SP or regular bat. It is a 38 year old reliever. A really good 38 year old reliever, but still. A lottery ticket that has genuine upside potential is a good return. The Mets weren't going anywhere with Robertson on the roster, anything they get in return would ultimately be the right move given his age, and given that Edwin Diaz is back next year.

David Robertson to the Marlins. Two rookie league guys in return for the Mets. Very funny to have the Mets selling to the Marlins. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/38085699/mets-trading-reliever-david-robertson-marlins-sources-say Also noticed that Robertson hit 20 bWAR this year. I think that's basically the value most consistently elite relievers hit and then kind of cap out at for their careers.

It would be crazy to trade a pitcher who is one season removed from from a top 5 Cy Young finish. Why trade him when he's at literally the lowest value now. You're much better off holding on, and trying to get him to figure things out and get back to his level. If we traded Berrios last year at his lowest value, ate money to get out of his contract, that would have been dumb, because one year later he's back to being a very valuable starting pitcher. And he looked bad last year. Maybe Manoah isn't going to make it back, but you've gotta take the chance that he is going to return to form, cause it's way harder to find a durable #2 pitcher than it is to find a maybe 2 WAR 2B. Like Whit Merrifield is already doing that for us.