AMS528

Think this is probably right. The playoffs are always unfortunately going to be at least somewhat luck based. If they weren't the 2015 Jays would be world series champions with what was definitely the best team in the league that year. I would say there's some minor free agency failures as well, but really it's all about every single draft they've had post Bo Bichette.

One prospect for the Jays there (Yesavage), and he's 94th and we just drafted him, so we barely missed having no prospects on this list. Tied with the Yankees and Astros for least, but the Yankees have the 14th ranked prospect. Houston was in the same boat practically with their only prospect on the list ranked 89th. Who's been our highest prospect on any of these lists (BA etc.)? Fangraphs Board has Jake Bloss at 84th.

The ability to reload is maybe the most important when I think about cause of the flexibility it gives you financially. You don't have to rely on free agent deals if you can just trade for a controllable player from a bad team and supplement with the odd great homegrown player. The Jays have undoubtedly failed on that count. I know it's lame to compare to the Braves because it's a constant on this board but it's relevant here. The Braves traded away or called up much of their talent, but if you look at their minor leaguers, the number or pitchers in the minors they had with successful years this year is impressive as hell. AA seems to be aware that he does one thing well, and it's draft solid pitching prospects and they have decided that it's all they will do. Their recent drafts are very funny for that reason cause of the compete imbalance but I suspect finding their strength will allow them to build back capital quickly.

They did have him for the best season of his career (2022), and when they signed him again after Colorado released him in 2023, he hit well for them in the short stretch he was there so I get the sense maybe they just looked to fix whatever changed when he wound up in Colorado. I can see them viewing him as being potentially as good as he'd been in 2022 when he was a 2.4 WAR player given what they saw in his brief return.

Gotta ask is it really that low hanging?

That was a mediocre press conference by Shapiro. Doesn't really matter though.

I see Jeff Hoffman high up on that list. Jeff Hoffman elite reliever. Pretty impressed he stuck it through and got enough chances for long enough to turn his career around. Managed to have his velocity jump significantly after years. Didn't even produce 1 WAR in his first 7 years in the league. He's going to get a good contract. There's probably a decent number of pitchers out there who may have become decent relievers given enough years and opportunities but didn't get those chances. Just a volatile role.

I would like to bet that it's not going to be 600 million or even 500 million. I'd bet like $500 on that easy.

They traded Turner, but at that point they had Horwitz who was already hitting much better. They traded IKF who was never going to keep up his performance and didnt as expected in Pittsburgh his bat entirely collapsed. Chalk that one one up as lucky as Clement was better than IKF would have been the rest of the way. Jansen and KK were both having bad seasons, losing KK was going to help if anything. The pen was a bit worse and losing Kikuchi probably cost a couple of wins, but Clement and Horwitz getting the AB's that may have been taken by Turner and IKF probably makes it close to a wash there. Kirk was much better than Jansen as well and him playing more wouldn't have hurt given how good his defensive numbers were. This team was maybe a win or two better without the deals let's be honest. They sucked and they would have continued to suck in new ways.

No Strider, or Acuna. No Harris for a third of the season, no Riley for the last third run along with some other injuries. Braves deserve credit, both for the players who stepped up and AA for the depth he built.

They have drafted enough pitchers having decent to great seasons this year that they could definitely put together a package. AA stockpiling pitching prospects for deals as he's done forever.

Basically what happened. Sucks for them, but Fried/Lopez are pretty good as the starters for the first two games I guess.

Surely there's like one better pitcher than that in their pen.

What a day for what might the best bullpen in baseball to blow up.

Schwellenbach started the year in high A ball, made the jump all the way to the Majors, has put up a 3.29 ERA/FIP since being up, and has held together the Braves rotation which dealt with injuries and Bryce Elder falling off, blew past his career high in innings pitched and has not slowed down all the way to this critical game. Impressive as hell rookie season.

Former Jays of some specific interest to me roundup. Moreno - 2.5 WAR in 97 games. Injuries hindered him this year. He's got the potential for some 4 WAR seasons in him I think. LGJ - 2.2 WAR in 133 games. He is remarkably consistent and stable as a hitter. You can rely on him for near exactly the same performance year in and year out. Matt Chapman - 5.5 WAR (7.2 bWAR) - Earned himself a massive (and questionable) contract. Would have been great to have him, would have papered over Bo's non-entity of a season I think. Jordan Hicks 0.5 WAR - Started out strong as a starter and fell off pretty hard after those first bunch of starts. Teo Hernandez - 3.5 WAR - Right to his usual numbers. Maybe we'll consider him again. Robbie Ray - 0.0 WAR - Came back from injuries striking out loads of guys and giving up loads of HRs and walking loads of batters. Pitched like his pre Jays self. One of the best decisions the FO ever made was choosing Gausman and letting Ray walk. Marcus Semien - 4.2 WAR - Not the best hitting season for Semien, he was just league average, but like he always does he accrued a f*** ton of value by being incredible defensively, being a decent baserunner, and hitting just well enough. He's up to 46 bWAR for his career and has a 7 year peak of 40 WAR btw. I don't think he'd ever make the hall, but he really is going to probably get to a mid 50s WAR total. Wish he would have hit a bit better and gotten 5-6 WAR. Would have built the resume a bit more. He's put up 15 WAR for Texas. He's the rare older free agent who is going to be worth the contract he signed. Wish we kept him. Simeon Woods Richardson - 1.8 WAR - Did great his first 115 innings and then got smacked around the last 20 or so. Maybe not hugely surprising since it was a career high in innings and he ran out of steam. But decent year overall. He only just turned 24, he might have a good career. Austin Martin - -0.2 WAR in 93 games - He does not hit well enough to compensate for not being good defensively. Feel free to add on and argue about anyone you'd like.

Cmon that's being just as ridiculous in a different way. Teo had a very strong multiyear track record and his one off year he had a .643 OPS at Safeco and .830 everywhere else. Safeco is notorious for hitters, and really if anything it was probably a buy low on an extended deal for some team in the league. The Dodgers benefited from Safeco basically. Actually looking at those numbers I'm surprised anyone considered his Safeco numbers at all when doing a deal.

Vladdy has hit basically .350 since May which is just incredibly impressive.

I read that he spent a lot of time working on it for this season but even then I agree he could have stolen more there. It's not just that he's gonna nearly steal 60 bases which is crazy. It's that he's going to also have stolen those bases while basically never being caught. He has the highest success rate for a fifty plus stolen base season except for one guy in 1922.

Vlad now has a very good chance of reaching 200 hits which is another plus for an arb case.

Overall there's definitely more SBs and as high as any year in the 80's or 90's so it's a little less impressive to have 50. But maybe it's more evenly distributed in terms of the increase and the top end is still hard to hit. Even ten years ago when SB numbers were significantly lower there were two guys with 50 SB, and this year it's likely to also see 2 guys with over 50 SBs.

6.2 bWAR and 5.3 fWAR. If his baserunning was less horrific those two numbers would be closer, but he may finish the year as between a 5.5-6.5 WAR guy. Not what anyone thought would happen after the first two months. His defense stopped bleeding his value as much these last two months which helped.

I appreciate his need to go for history in style. He's not gonna slum it to 50/50. No that wouldn't be adequate, he's gotta have one of the best hitting games of all time as well while doing it. Only player to steal a base when getting that many bases in a game as well. And apparently also the record for most RBIs by a Japanese player in a single season passing Hideki Matsui. He's also left himself some runway to pad that 51/51 season further. Maybe 55/55 for fun.

Even ten years ago we could have traded Berrios for a very good return. Now I'm not sure if anyone is looking at his peripherals without significant concern.

Genuinely feel like not giving Horwitz a shot a 2B is shortsighted. He should at least continue getting a number of starts there and to see if he can improve. His bat could really just play so much better there as a full-timer, I think he's got a decent floor for his bat, and that really means his value at 2B could be very solid. At least run him as a 2B/1B/DH. Vlad plays every single game and it's best to keep that DH slot more rotatable.