AMS528

What's been the best team to miss the playoffs the last decade or so? If this years Jays don't make it they'd rank up there with anyone I think given both their lineup and pitching rotation are top tier.

Kirk for sure. He really looks like he'll just be a consistent good hitter for years if his weight doesn't impact him negatively. Dickerson is 32 and looks like he can't hit for as much power as he used to. I think you take Gurriel there.

This is just purposely being obtuse to the point of meaninglessness. There's nothing of value in what you wrote there. Statistically has any player had a 40 HR/20SB season while pitching 100+ innings with a sub 3 earned run average and striking out over 10 batters every 9 innings? No. Well then I think we can comfortably say that Ohtani is doing something incredibly unique, historic and elite statistically that you can appreciate. And simultaneously appreciate watching something that hasn't been done before either.

Wanted to see where Orelvis was ranking on the HR leaderboard for the minors (he's 6th), and realized that the Royals have three of the top five HR hitters in the minors this year and they're all in AAA now (Witt Jr., MJ Melendez, Nick Pratto).

Steven Matz's overall numbers have been pretty good. 3.8 FIP, 2 WAR in 118 innings. He's very very borderline, but any chance the Jays extend him the qualifying offer? I suppose it's pretty pricey if he takes it, but it's pretty important to have that pitching depth as well.

With a strong finish to the season and a top three CY Young result he's probably one of the best one year free agent SP signings in the past decade.

I remember when we're talking about a Ray extension being like 3/48 and if that was reasonable. Are we now at like double that? Is 5/80 now at least what he's looking at?

I think it's a little odd to think we'd be able to replicate the value we got from those two signings. It's possible we resign one or both (Ray being much more likely I think). Ray is first in bWAR for pitchers and Semien is first in bWAR for position players (not including Ohtani). The odds of getting even close to that kind of performance from other short term value signings in incredibly incredibly unlikely. Like absurdly so given those signings often do not work out for teams across the league.

Honestly I like little updates on random prospects that may not go anywhere. It's interesting, especially when someone else can chime in and let us know that he's throwing over 100. These thread dies when our best prospects aren't killing it. It's nice when people keep it going with news. You don't always have time to go through every minor league box score day to day.

It has been pretty impressive just how consistent Lopez has been at every stop. Doesn't matter what level you've got him in, his numbers have stayed pretty steady with the bat. That kind of performance may speak to a pretty consistent approach. I was a bit skeptical at the start of the season, and I still am a bit given how he's always hit a lot of groundballs but it's worked for him so far. Playing at five positions this year makes him pretty much a plug and play guy as well. Sucks for Kevin Smith, but the reasoning is there.

I haven't even read the rest of this thread, but how on earth are you even implying that would be the situation for Deshaun Watson. When this dude got massages from like 30 different women, some of whom weren't even real massage therapists. Forgetting everything else, who the hell uses 30 massage therapists as a professional athlete, reaching out by DM each time. Like you've gotta purposefully oblivious to look at that situation and not think it's strange how he's going about getting massages. And that each massage goes basically the same way.

That's at least a 60 grade bat flip. He hit for a sterling .050 in college though so I'm skeptical we'll ever see it in action.

It really doesn't make much sense to wait until September to call up a guy who has clearly performed well enough to get a shot. It's not as if we care about his service time here.

It can be posted once per page so no one ever needs to ask for it.

He just keeps hitting for power. He's got speed, apparently solid in the infield, he's cut down the strikeouts to a reasonable level. Honestly there's really every reason to be optimistic he could turn out to be an everyday player. Recency bias obviously given Biggio has performed in the big leagues, but does Smith have a higher ceiling (and lower floor) given he probably won't suck at 3B defensively and can be pretty comfortably slotted on any given off day?

10-4 76 for 48 against

This is pants on head crazy. My man cannot walk to the mound with having some kind of issue and you want to possibly tie up ten million a year for over a decade??? He hasn't even performed at the MLB level yet. What would even be the basis on which that contract offer would be made? At best you could talk yourself into a Ozzie Albies type extension.

Just an aside, but with that comparison I think you have to compare the degree of difficulty in winning a championship between the two leagues. Last 40 years only 13 NBA teams have won a championship. 23 MLB teams have won in the last 40 years. In MLB it is significantly more likely that your team will eventually win. In the NBA you can luck into a superstar like Jordan or Duncan and with how much those guys can dominate a game really have a leg up on everyone else. Ujiri did not lottery luck into any superstar player like that, and built a team to win a championship that had no lottery picks at all. For me that at least puts him on par with Gillick. And depending on his next rebuild I think he'll be the best Toronto sports exec all time.

My response to that is those things may be true but also should note that the Jays did not get much of a discount for signing a non-star piece to a long extension. I remember even at the time people noted that was a decent chunk of change for a player like Grichuk. Obviously Acuna is a uniquely bad extension, but it's insulting how little of a difference there is in their salaries. I'm quibbling though, maybe they could have saved a couple of million a year on that deal. Ultimately like you said, he's not a complete zero so it's not the end of the world. It's just annoying, like a mosquito.

The Jays have three guys (Vlad, Semien, Springer), playing at basically MVP levels and Bichette a tier below that. Teo is having a solidly above average year as well. With Berrios/Ray/Ryu/Manoah/Matz as a solidly above average rotation it would actually be a tragedy to miss the playoffs this year, and especially knowing they've underperformed in terms of their expected wins thanks to their record in close games. You can't really rely on this level of performance repeating itself. Vlad is amazing but he might not be 180wRC+ amazing next year. Bryce Harper put together one of those ridiculous seasons and then settled into a solid star but has never come close to matching it. Semien may not be around and it's unlikely whoever his replacement is (unless it's like Correa or similar) will get close to what he's done this year. Springer will be one year older. Ryu is already showing signs. I don't doubt that with the prospects out there they'll continue to put out solid teams with consistent playoff chances, but man getting three position players performing at this level in a single year is tough. They're good enough to be in the playoffs. Really have to hope they continue their current level and at least get one game out of it.

A 6/1 K/BB ratio will help that. Before he got traded he had dropped down his strikeout numbers and increased his walks. If nothing else works as well for him he has a pretty elite eye and could be an OBP machine at a corner outfield position

This is a ridiculous display of power hitting from a 19 year old. Prodigious power honestly. Only other guy in the minors doing anything like this at that age is Marco Luciano who's a top ten prospect at this point.

I would absolutely love to see it, but is their any concern about having to use his arm in the outfield on a regular basis and how that would be risky for his pitching? I can see that being a reason to not put him out there, even though his numbers could be insane. I have no doubt he'd be a decent fielder. He's got the speed obviously. If he was in the outfield this season he could be on pace for like an 11-12 WAR season. Literally one of the 20 greatest seasons (by fWAR) all time. Even without those numbers if he finishes the season at the pace he's played it's one of the all time greatest seasons ever.

He's obviously hitting better than he can sustain, but also no one should be surprised that he's hitting much better than he was here. I'm pretty sure the few times I checked his xWOBA was significantly better than his actual results. He was gonna wind up hitting better at some point. He is a pretty decent hitter generally. For 1B you hope for a bit more, but he's better than a decent number of guys other teams are trotting out there. Honestly we also wound up with a decent return given we sold him while he was hitting so badly.

I tend to think the amount of wins a manager changes is pretty minimal, but between a bad bullpen and Montoyo this team has seriously underperformed it's talent level. We've got a real shot at winding up with one of the worst differences between our expected record based on run differential and our actual record. Run differential would have us as a 61-41 team right now.