AMS528

171 wRC+ after tonight. Could definitely end as a better hitting season than his 2021 year now. Also of some interest, even with his underperforming last season, his overall wRC+ for the last four years combined is 145. Good for 9th in the league. 12th in the league for fWAR among position players as well. 10th by rWAR. Even when he had started hitting well the refrain was that he would end up with 3-4 WAR for the year. Gotta say though, one depressing fact about this year is that an absolutely elite hitting season by Vlad has us six games under .500. We have last years pitching staff with this Vlad and we're ok. Not having an ace, the worlds worst bullpen, nothing from Bo, bad seasons from Springer, KK being bad and then Schneider also turning into a pumpkin. Just a lot of areas failing. Really speaks to the mountain the Jays have to climb for next year. You have to hope you get literally this exact season from Vlad again, plus either Bo or replacement Bo has to perform, you have to hope you completely successfully revamp the pen (although it very literally could not be worse), either sign an ace or hope that Gausman can pitch like one again, hope that Berrios continues to outperform his frightening peripherals, that Bassitt doesn't decline, and that we can sign someone who lifts the floor of this team. It's a lot.

I notice as well that Roden is overall hitting lefties pretty solidly for the season. He wasn't as much last year, and definitely earlier in the season this year. That gives him some more potential runway to be a regular.

SP/OF - One season, potentially career destroying for his arm. Goes 50/50, GG defense, 15-5 - 2.4 ERA/FIP, 200ks - 16 WAR season. C'mon Dodgers let us see if he can do it. I think he played OF while pitching in Japan?

Just decided over the winter that if he couldn't pitch he may as well become the leagues most effective base stealer.

Doh! Yeah that's gotta be it. 28 in 98 games was ridiculous for a 19 year old.

Ohtani has 3 stolen bases today. Up to 46 along with his 44 HR's. Has also only been caught four times. 50/50 is well within sight now. Really just a question of the HRs I think.

Bowden Francis was a prospect when we got him. Dillon Tate is a 30 year old reliever. Not really the same thing. If we can get him to get him to perform like he did in 2022 as a reliever, that's a good win.

Travis Snider hit 16 in 118 games as a 19 year old. Richard Urena hit 15 in 91 games as a 19 year old. Lots of top prospects didn't hit that many, but I clicked around randomly for the A ball 90s Jays (Hagerstown Suns) and I found Mike Whitlock who never made the majors hit 20 as a 19 year old in A ball. That's the highest I've found.

Yeah a discussion in not really necessary when you're talking about a guy who's produced wRC+ OF 89, 62, and 41 over the first three seasons of his massive deal haha. No you point and laugh at that deal from a distance and then consider whether Bo has a risk profile that is in that ballpark as well (not that it matters, he's not resigning and we're probably trading him).

I had only been counting the ones from 2021 winter, but he makes sense to include as well. Out of those 6 big contracts, I think four of those teams would be anywhere between fine with to thrilled with the deals. That's honestly not bad given the amount of money being paid to those guys.

Story and Baez were disasters, Lindor is on a HOF path, Seager has a world series and has been great, and Correa was great one season, poor in his second and amazing this year pre injury (which is his long term concern). So feels like it's a fairly mixed bag. Baez was definitely by far the riskiest profile, everyone knew it, and it blew up in the exact way you would expect. Story could have been ok. Am I missing anyone?

That's not really accurate, cause he did start hitting better in May. His wRC+ was 166, 172, 201 in May, June and July. He performed when he needed to, and he absolutely had some bad luck in that first month as well. He wasn't matching his expected numbers but obviously that did eventually happen.

I really think last year probably needs to be tossed in terms of Vlad's performance. His xwOBO has in every other season basically matched what he's actually done and it looks like a very clear outlier now. If he hit like his expected numbers indicated he would have probably been at around like a 130-140 wRC+. He's projected to hit around 5.5 fWAR this year (which is amazing given he was tracking for 3-4 two months ago). 6.3, 3.4, 3ish, 5.5 as the last four years would be viewed differently for sure. I think I'm increasingly comfortable with a large extension (especially if it has like an out in his age 31 season).

For the life of me I could not remember who the hell we traded him for. Jonathan Villar, who I completely forgot we even had for a brief stretch in 2020 and who really sucked for us.

I feel like it would be a good idea to send Davis Schneider down to the minors to regroup a bit. He's slashing .157/.236/.236 good for a .472 OPS and 37 wRC+ since June in 199 PA. He's gone beyond struggling now, he's been one of the worst hitters in the league for three months now.

It's hard to hit 50 when you walk 232 times (120 intentional).

I mean I didn't comment at the time but I read those posts, and the response to people saying that the team probably had a talk with him and that's why he clarified what he meant was kind of ridiculous. Complete and utter denial of the possibility even though that is not an abnormal thing to happen in sports. I get why people who argued that would be annoyed and pointing this out now. It's not as if the responses were nuanced.

Sure, but I think reading that makes it seem possible that they weren't particularly happy and when that happens you clean up what you say for your employer. I didn't get into it earlier, but I think it's a little weird how no one seems to think there's any chance that's what happened? I feel like that's happened many times across leagues from the NBA/NHL/NFL/MLB. I feel like it happens in the NBA relatively frequently even. Why would it be that unlikely?

When a guy just hits at every level, and has never been old for his level either it's worth noticing for sure. He's been ridiculous since the slow start, and that can be expected when you get traded initially. We've had him playing at 3B and 1B primarily with a single start in RF. Pirates also basically just had at 3B with a few starts in RF. He's going to be interesting next year in AAA.

I think this may be accurate. I don't think he was ever going to get like the Lindor contract but I think with another good season he'd have been looking at 200 milion and I think that's what was reported a couple of times. He's going to be looking at a lot less than that without a really good season next year. One bad season can be an anomaly, two bad seasons is not, it's a patter and now execs are more skeptical. If he's with the Jays next season he's working his ass off to gun for a new contract, if he still sucks it's cause he's very likely broken. Risk there is we're not going to get almost anything as a return, but if the issue is we're not getting much in the offseason anyways that's a little more tolerable as a risk to take.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2024/08/18/ethan-holliday-2025-mlb-draft-top-prospect-jackson/74842574007/ Nothing new here really, just more confirmation of what we've heard for the past few months. At this point we have to hope Bo comes out with one decent month to up his value a little more for the offseason.

Biggio had at the exact same age mind you, the better first two years of performance without a doubt. 4 WAR in 160 games with pretty similar power numbers. Most people were pretty high on him. Schneider's approach has fallen apart earlier than that, and he's basically performing exactly like Biggio in 2022. However much you hate Biggio's approach they're coming to the exact same results he had in 2022 with practically identical numbers across their savant pages.

Given your hatred of Cavan Biggio I'm almost surprised at your optimism on Schneider. They basically have super similar batting profiles and even their usage potential as utility players. Launch angle guys with excellent chase rates who basically entirely rely on those two things.

Maybe this is ill-advised or a waste of a potentially good platoon, but given the statcast numbers, and his bat (so far), it feels like Horwitz could put up good value at 2B. Is it more valuable to the team to do possibly effective platoon and stick him at DH (plus starts at 1st and 2nd on occasion) where his bat is potentially just ok?