AMS528

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.

With the exception of last year Jose Berrios has pitched like a very steady #2-3 pitcher for 6 out 7 seasons of his career. Maybe that one season is enough to give that much skepticism, but this year he's 28th in pitching WAR next to Aaron Nola, Charlie Morton, and Ohtani. He's fine. He's a very solid option, and very much back to being the guy who is worth the 100 million dollar deal. You have Gausman and Berrios as your first and third best pitcher and the expectation reasonably would have been that Manoah would have been your #2. I can't really see Manoah's implosion as a failure of the front office. He pitches well again and that would be three three caliber of pitchers you'd want to go into the playoffs with. We literally have the guy who statistically been just about the best pitcher for two seasons. Manoah finished 3rd in CY Young voting last year. Even including his really s***** last year Berrios is 15th in the league over the past 5 years in WAR. Gausman is 8th. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2023&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=&filter=&players=&startdate=&enddate= They may need to pick up a guy like Stroman because of Manoah sucking (although they can hope he bounces back like his last start), but that does not look a rotation that coming into this season that wasn't properly constructed for the playoffs.

I think there's even more added difficulty when you factor in the backlash from Angels fans that would miss out on Ohtani chasing 60 HR's.

Didn't see the start but some mixed responses here which feels surprising cause 8ks with 0 BB's can't really be anything but great. Especially given what came before.

There's no diminishing a BB% of 14 with a K% of 19 that comes with a lot of power. That's a substantial change to his batting profile. He's also hitting more line drives and popping the ball up less. Everything about that breakdown looks super positive.

Looking back at that season is the most frustrating thing. That team was amazing. They underperformed their differential terribly. They should have been at least a 95 win team. We had 6 position guys who were performing at a 4 WAR level. Springer, Semien, Bo, Vlad and Teo were a literal murderers row to face as a pitcher. Ray, Berrios, and Manoah were great and importantly super steady. I said it at the time as well, that this was a season they might really regret in a few years.

Atlanta is ridiculous. Even the guys who were struggling hard like Harris have bounced right back to being good. Wild how all these AA trades and extensions continuously work out. They're carrying less payroll than the Jays which is just frustrating. Their backups are even great. D'Arnaud, even Pillar is hitting. I forgot he was even in the league still. They've been doing it without Fried. Albies is probably going to be worth his entire contract from this year alone and Acuna is somehow going to probably be worth 75% of his extension in just this season. Just unconscionable stuff. He's gotten some luck, but I do wish AA had stuck around under Shapiro.

So it seems like he'll probably be worth about 5 bWAR this year as a pitcher. Last year was 6, and the year before was 4. That honestly means he has Gerrit Cole value as a pitcher. Cole signed a 9 year 324 million dollar deal. He's also been worth 5, 3.5 and this year it honestly looks like he could wind up with 7 bWAR as a hitter. But even conservatively at 6, he's pretty much a 4.5-5 WAR batter. Similar guys in terms of 1B/DH types Olson and Freeman signed 8/160 and 6/162. Ohtani and is younger than Freeman and is probably worth more than Olson as a hitter and is just going to get paid more as a hitter. If his arm ever falls apart and you really have to decide to make him a hitter, he'll gain value cause he can play in the outfield again. It's really hard to quantify what an Ohtani contract should look like cause 500 million does seem to be what he's worth. He'll undoubtedly increase the number of fans watching games, and sales of merch as well. The otherside of it is, because there's never been anyone like him, there's no way to no how long he can do both without deteriorating health wise. He hasn't so far, and for three years has been remarkably solid. But whatever contract it is, is probably going to contain some incentives that kick in for both managing to pitch and hit in the same year maybe? No idea honestly, it's also possible a team just says screw it and gives him the 500 million without any of that, but for say 10 years and 500 million that could feel a bit risky even for Ohtani.