bluejaysinternNo5

Let's get Schneider in over Vladdy no more fooling around

Damn Paul Dejong just sped run being DFA'd. Good for him.

Horowitz would have outproduced Vlad this season you can’t change my mind

He’s broken

Vlad just reminds me too much of Kendrys Morales and I don’t like it. From 2015-2019 Morales had a wOBA of .333 but an xwOBA of .372 because he hit the ball hard. Here me out: Morales has a fraction of the talent of Vladdy so Morales’ 2009 (his age 26 season) where he hit 34 home runs for 3.7 WAR is equivalent to Vlad’s 2021 (age 22) season, adjusting for talent.

At this point you just have to accept that Vlad is just a personality for the casual fans - they absolutely adore him.

Everyone loves to point to Vlad’s stat cast page as evidence that he’s just unlucky but I can’t reconcile that. Go take a look at Kendrys Morales’ stat cast pages - they’re soaked in red too and they don’t look at all that different from Vlad’s this year. There’s more to the game than hitting the ball hard.

Maybe its just the bourbon but this is why I love baseball. It's such a technical sport. Your technique matters almost as much, if not more, than your athleticism. Even after the ball game is concluded you can sit around the table with the boys and debate the merits and impact of a hitting coach. The beauty of a philosophical debate on hitting technique juxtaposed with the pure euphoria as a man wearing your preferred pajamas smashes a ball into the stands for a home run! This is truly the greatest sport of all.

Ok fair you are right

I'm mostly kidding. Mostly....

I feel like we’re witnessing first hand how a team full of “nice guys” actually plays out at the major league level. Atkins made such a big deal about character and make up and they’ve assembled a team full of dudes who are great guys, obviously! But they would never in a million years bring in a guy like Donaldson or Bautista who have that competitive drive and fire because they’re “*******s”. It’s made for a very frustrating product on the field. Imagine an ancient army full of goof ball Vlad Jrs and Alejandro Kirks along with the unseasoned chicken breast that is Matt Chapman, versus a legion of Viking Donaldsons and tactical, fiery Bautistas. I think I know who I would place my money on.

I honestly believe this is 100%. If you’re a player (especially a younger player) why wouldn’t you buy into the team’s philosophy? There’s a level of trust in the organization that they know what they’re doing, especially when the Blue Jays pride themselves as an analytics focused organization. Besides, a lot of players are constantly tinkering with the little things because there is the belief that you can always be better - which may not be wrong, but it’s all too easy to tinker with your swing and mess it up and oops now 3/4 of the season is gone and you’ve lost all your power. I’m sure the Blue Jays saw the bigger bases and the elimination of the shift and thought they could be the team to take advantage of those things before anyone else, but it just ended up backfiring in their faces and I don’t think we will see a change until next season.

There’s 0 chance Vlad is listening to the team’s coaches I believe that.

No problem. I can’t now, but I’m guessing Vlad falls into point number one in which he hits most of his fly balls to center field, which would cause his xWOBA underperformance. Would love if anyone could confirm this.

More on the topic of xWOBA under performance, here is a link from the Cardinals perspective on their woes this season: https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2023/6/18/23763490/some-xwoba-underperformance-goes-beyond-bad-luck Here are some key quotes: 1) "Fly balls hit to the middle of the park have a tendency to fare much better in xwOBA than they do in wOBA. Across, the league straightaway fly balls have a .520 xwOBA this year, which is fantastic, but those same fly balls only have a .312 wOBA, which is slightly below the .318 league average wOBA... If a hitter tends to hit a well above league average amount of straightaway fly balls, then he’s likely to underperform his xwOBA by a decent margin. That’s not bad luck. That’s simply sub-optimal batted ball direction." 2) "While xwOBA comes in much higher than wOBA on straightaway fly balls, xwOBA drastically undervalues pulled fly balls. The league wOBA on pulled fly balls this year is .866 which is nearly 200 points higher than the league xwOBA on pulled fly balls (.672). The moral of the story here - if a hitter pulls a large chunk of his fly ball and is overperforming his xwOBA, you can’t just chalk it up to good luck." 3) "xwOBA is focused on how hard a hitter hits the ball and the angle at which the ball leaves the bat, and while those things are hugely important, speed makes a difference too. Speed can be the difference between an out or a hit on a weakly hit grounder. It can be the difference between a double and a triple on a ball in the gap. It can be the difference between a single and a double on a ball that’s somewhere not quite in the gap but not quite at the fielder either. Players who are slow can often underperform their xwOBA for that very reason and players who are fast can overperform it by stealing hits and extra bases where a slower-footed player wouldn’t. An update to xwOBA made a few years ago added speed as a consideration on balls that are considered topped or weakly hit, and, as a result, speed doesn’t have as strong of a correlation with xwOBA overperformance and underperformance anymore. Still, though, speed is not a consideration on other balls and fast runners can still steal extra bases on balls hit to the outfield. Speed matters when considering wOBA vs. xwOBA performace, just not as much as it used to."

From 2015 - 2019 Kendrys Morales had these stats: WOBA xWOBA .364 .375 .339 .389 .320 .354 .329 .373 .264 .365 xWOBA broken for slow fatties confirmed

I cannot wait for the article in 5 years from some nerd showing how xWOBA is broken in extreme cases like Vlad.

Lol Vlad is basically the ooga booga caveman meme. All we hear from him is PLAKATA.

Bo and Vlad are two different situations. Bo has always played to his potential from day 1 - people dumping on Bo last season was unfounded. He was still providing positive value even through his struggles. Vlad has been replacement level 3 of his 5 major league seasons.

Glad to know it’s not just me. It’s the whole combination of the media gaslighting the fan base into thinking Vlad is a superstar on par with Tatis, Acuna, etc, to Vlad’s nonchalant goofy attitude and constant ice baths that players hate, his weight being a problem for years now, his constant underperformance aside from a year where get to mash in minor league parks again, etc. At the end of the day you can sum up Vlad as an overweight, underperforming, unserious nepo baby. And that’s just sad given the potential he had.

This might be sacrilege but Vlad is my least favourite Jay’s player in a longtime.

Hey that’s future closer on the 2025 Cardinals you’re talking to!

If the the choices are between DeJong and Anderson I would actually rather have DeJong. At least this way you get a defensive upgrade at shortstop.

If we get Teo back and Vlad then hits for a 200 wRC+ the rest of the season we may need to sign Teo to a lifetime contract as dugout mascot

Noted gatorade ice bath hater Merrifield immediately hits a home run. Point proven!