AMS528

Early in the season practically everyone on this board (including me and the other usually pragmatic posters) were tearing this team apart, declaring Atkins and co entirely incompetent. And then things changed, and now we're all happy, and everyone has forgotten all the dumb things we (again including myself) said early on. We said we had no farm, our players sucked and we were an expensive team going nowhere. I say this because it is entirely possible Vlad goes on a heater for two months and his numbers wind up completely fine. I think everyone knows the last few years (we'll see how many of them) will suck, but I really think it's early to decide that it sucks now.

I don't think he's going to be the worst contract in baseball when he does provide a really steady floor of performance even if he's underperforming the contract overall. And I do expect him to continue that with some performances that match his xWOBA as well. He's still probably going to put up around 3.5-4 WAR this year. He's made improvements this year as a baserunner and defensively where he's gone from the bottom of the league to acceptable, his sprint speed is still completely reasonable (and he can ramp it up to pretty fast as he did a couple of games ago). He seems dedicated to not letting go of his health. His plate discipline is good etc. Is it a good contract? Miles from it. Is it going to be the worst contract in baseball by next year? No cause like I said he's got he has a good floor with his bat (and if he maintains his defensive/baserunning improvements).

I think it was pretty widely expected that even if the Orioles didn't spend, they would at least maintain being good on the strength of their young stars, plus some of their other highly ranked prospects panning out. It is crazy how that has played out. Coby Mayo has been bad in the bigs and mediocre this year in the minors so far. Kjerstad is now 26 and has been awful. Probably not a major leaguer the way he's looked. Rutschman went from being a superstar in his rookie year to now an ok starter, but you could certainly do better than how he's looked on both ends. Figured he could have a bounceback year but hasn't happened. Gunnar Henderson is still quite good, but he's taken a step back as well from being one of the best in baseball. Jackson Holliday is very young and could still be a star for sure, but for now he's a decent starter. Pitching wise they've had some struggles with any potential young starters as well. No guarantees in baseball.

There's probably some combination of factors here cause Gausman's numbers have not benefited (not that he's a shitballer but that's he way underperforming his peripherals and is most a two pitch guy).

Yeah it's been a while I think if you were to come up with the list of best Jays starters since Doc left, there's basically no one with any kind of sustained performance, just guys with fairly good numbers for a couple of years here and there. According to fWAR, Stroman and Gausman top the list since Doc was traded, and then you've got Happ, Buehrle, Romero, Estrada as other guys who had more than a single season of good work. Beyond that's it's just guys who had a single really good season like Sanchez, Manoah, Ray and Ryu. Gausman was the closest to elite for those two years out of that set. Although I did find Buehrle in his best season pretty soothing to watch.

Wouldn't Kelly basically be our best starter by FIP/xFIP by a pretty large margin?

Gausman and Berrios are opposites cause Berrios somehow manages to keep runs of the board, and Gausman cannot at this point. Gaus is certainly better than this, but the 2022-2023 version is long gone now I think. We've gotta try for Peralta, and if not than Merrill Kelly has been really good this year as another pitcher to try and chase.

I think Ernie will sit against righties here and there but he's going to mostly play, even with the splits, I think it's only reasonable he gets a lot of playing time because of the overall level of his play has earned it. His splits were also nothing like this last year, so no need to rely on them that closely. I think giving Gimenez fairly regular rest days should help out a bit. Having four guys playing at legitimately All-Star levels is awesome though. Kirk, Clement, Vlad, and Barger have all been at that level (if Bichette ups those hitting numbers a bit more he's borderline there as well). Nice to have depth. If only we had a real ace, I'd feel like this team would be set for a very deep run. I think unfortunately we've seen the last of Gausman as a real front end starter (although he's still solid). Gausman and Bassitt have both been solid, but aren't exactly who you want to hand the ball to first in the playoffs. I think if we got 70 innings out of Scherzer we'd count that as a big win now. Same with any positive innings out of Manoah. Saw this article on potentially tradeable players for the deadline. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6431296/2025/06/18/mlb-trade-deadline-big-board-players-postseason/ There's a few interesting names there (Kelly, Alcantara, Peralta).

Arjun NimmalaTrey YesavageRicky TiedemannKhal StephenOrelvis MartinezAlan RodenJonatan ClaseGage StaniferLanden MaroudisJohnny KingRJ SchreckJake BlossKendry RojasJosh KasevichYohendrick PinangoAdam MackoSam ShawJuaron Watts-BrownFernando PerezBrandon Barriera

Yeah that's why I had asked if anyone had noticed real changes, it's such a big swing. It's big enough that he's still tracking for about 4 WAR this year even though he's not hitting near the level you'd want him to.

Only semi connected to that, but the bWAR/fWAR divide on Taylor Walls is wild. Cause according to fWAR he's unplayable and anywhere from below average to slightly above average defensively, and according to bWAR he's the best defensive fielder in the world. He has 9.4 bWAR for his career and 0.8 fWAR.

I've missed more games than I'd like to this year, but can anyone tell me how legit Vladdy's defensive improvements have been? Is he genuinely above average out there and also not one of the ten worst baserunners in the game now? If he heats up at all (or gets at least closer to his expected numbers), he should wind up with a very good season cause those other numbers aren't dragging them down as much as in past years.

f*** the sox. Honestly I hope Devers feel incredibly petty and works hard on being a good 1B. He wasn't particularly in the right with how he dealt with things, but it sounds like Red Sox management is a disaster and how they managed this situation is emblematic of that.

Good for him. He's been playing in the system for a long long time and he's having a great season. With the OF depth it was possible for him to get lost in the shuffle so glad he's getting a call up even if it's very brief.

I've been super negative on Atkins mostly because of the farm (free agency they've tried and he's obviously done well with trades). My view was the failures last year were largely being caused by a lack of reinforcements from the farm arriving cause the major league talent on the whole wasn't that bad. The 2017-2022 drafts overall have been pretty rough, but nailing a couple of drafts (plus a player or two from those prior drafts like Barger eventually turning out) can change things quickly. It's early but the returns on the 2023 and 2024 drafts have a decent number of positives so far, plus some of the players acquired at the deadline. I said this elsewhere but it's very nice to follow the minors and see good performances compared to how sad last years minor league follow was. They can even deal someone for a starter.

I mean to what extent does it matter and not matter? Like we obviously don't mean hitting coaches shouldn't exist cause they're useless (unless you did mean that which I doubt). So we're running on the assumption that they do matter at least a little. We know hitting philosophies broadly matter because the meta for hitting has changed significantly over the last decade and a half as hitters have adapted to more and more velocity from pitchers. Teams will have fluctuations but year to year of course, but it does seem to me to make sense that overall hitting philosophy being instilled by a team matters. And if you have one that is better suiting to hitting that existed in a low velocity era, than you may actually negatively impact your hitters. I think that's feasible, and would at least explain some the drastic change here along with some better luck this year.

He's 7th in the league in OAA with 8 and he's played 16 games. It's absurd. He can easily be solidly below average at the plate and still super valuable.

Schreck and Pinango have not slowed down the slightest since they hit AAA. Lot of OF depth available right now. Following the minors last year was a demoralizing experience, it's nice to be able to see several great performances happening.

I think they'll wind up doing a mix of Barger in the OF with occassional 3B starts, and I think it's what may make the most sense to get everyone into the lineup consistently. Ernie can get 3B starts and Gimenez doesn't need to play every single day so he can do some 2B as well (maybe Gimenez can do SS on a Bichette off day?). Springer needs to DH pretty regularly since his defense is horrific but he's been our best bat (and his underlying numbers show he's genuinely bounced back). Probably just need to be flexible regularly to get the best lineup out there. Depends on how Gimenez looks with the bat as well, he's better than he was in the ABs he had, but also the Barger/Clement duo has been so good that you need to let them play even if you're paying Gimenez 20 million a year.

Looks like Gabriel Moreno is starting to fulfill some of that top prospect potential now. 2.1 WAR in 47 games. Lining up to be a big year for him. Most of the value seems to be from his defense, although he's hitting solidly as well.

Or for a slightly hopeful comp for Nimmala, look at Corey Seager's BABIPs through the minors. Regularly higher than .350 to above .400.

Nimmala's got another HR, back into the league lead with 9. Single and a double as well, OPS is up to .940 apparently. He's on a heater, he's going to rapidly rise on the lists.

Roden has been absolutely raking and hitting with plenty of power since he was sent down. No strikeouts and still walking at a good rate. Hopefully he's not just AAAA guy who's too good for AAA but not quite good enough to hack it in the show. Small sample but he was a decent fielder and neutral baserunner when he was up here, so he doesn't need to much more than average with the bat to stick around.

I think he might be at this point. He has over 100 plate appearances this year and he's striking out at a 18.7% rate which is a pretty remarkable improvement. He's 19 so I'm sure they don't want to rush him up to AA, but as we know strikeout rates start communicating good info pretty early, so he's probably figured out something here. He keeps this up through June and maybe he should get some AA at bats by July/August.

Future top 10 prospect.