sliderguy35

correct me if i'm wrong but if colombia holds onto this game, i believe canada just needs to beat whoever loses the cuba / PR game tonight to advance right?

tugboat sighting! this guy rocks

pitch results wouldn't affect the stuff grade at all. my guess is that the model really likes the fact that it gets above average IVB & extension and has less arm-side movement out of a slightly below average arm angle. (even with the poor velo). the problem with tj's model is that it doesn't really weight release height / approach angles as much as it should, and doesn't seem to account for the fact that IVB is partially a product of velocity (less velo = more IVB since the ball has more time in the air). 7 feet of extension is good on a 4 seamer, but it plays down when the release height is still well above average 17 IVB is technically above average for all 4 seam fastballs, but is pretty mediocre when looking at 4 seamers at 91 it just seems like it takes the inputs at face value, rather than contextualizing them with the rest of the pitcher's characteristics. i appreciate the work that goes into running his site / pulling and cleanly visualizing the data / providing free access to these player summaries, but I would take anything that spits out a grade with a grain of salt. when there's so many twitter analysts making their own stuff models without transparency as to how they're created, it's better to just take the raw data at face value and form your own opinions

every single 2026 blue jays spring training game for some reason:

im more in on ponce after today than i was when they initially signed him. i still think the fastball isn't going to play very well but the 2 curveballs he threw today had phenomenal shape for how hard they were thrown and coming from his release. (my new comp for him: cade cavalli) having a legit 3rd pitch that will play platoon neutral is huge. they should probably give him some kind of sinker to help out a bit against righties and then just have him play mediocre fastball roulette w/ 2 banger secondaries.

this guy's website is good but he's maybe one of the worst mlb twitter presences out there. all he does is find guys who have at least 1 above average pitch in his model & then post about how underrated / how much of a "demon" they are to try and farm impressions. it makes it hard to take his model seriously

yeah he's probably a reverse-splits guy but i think the changeup can play more platoon neutral because of how much depth it gets out of a higher slot, that thing is nasty. the fastball is probably more above average than truly plus. he does get above average ride for how hard he throws, but the above average release height & below average extension makes it play down slightly. i think TJ's model undervalues release traits a bit and is too keyed in on velo / raw shape. i'd have it more in the ~105 stuff+ range which is still a good pitch but not a full standard deviation above the mean. if he's able to throw enough strikes to be relevant, i'd imagine that he forces one of little or fluharty down since they have options & bastardo can essentially fill the lefty killer role.

berrios showing up to spring training making no significant changes after having the worst peripheral #s of his career

let me preface this by saying that i have no delusions that devereaux harrison is going to contribute to the big league team this year & might not ever in his career. but wow, his fastball is crazy unique. 19 IVB 1 inch of arm-side movement 5.5 ft release height 94MPH I did a search to try and find a realistic MLB comp in the last 5 years and it just doesn't exist. it's a completely unique shape which is almost always a good thing in pitching. he also throws this weird, super vert-y sweeper that's a bit slow but also pretty unique. the obvious caveat here being that he might never learn how to throw strikes (13.5 BB% last year). a fun arm that i had no knowledge about prior to last weekend, guys like this are part of the reason why i love spring training so much

i know that nance is out of options, but i'd still have him competing with the group below. i like him, but if he doesn't look good in spring training there's a very real chance they just DFA him which they wouldn't do with anyone else in that top group if they looked bad.

great move, it's pretty clear now that the FO sees lukes as an injury replacement / 5th outfielder considering they just traded for his direct replacement on the roster. my guess is that the astros wanted loperfido b/c he can at least moonlight in center and be a strong side option if they want to platoon jake meyers. i'll ride for most guys with a double digit barrel rate but i like that sanchez was able to post his lowest chase rate / highest contact rate / lowest groundball rate across a full season of ABs while actually increasing his bat speed slightly last year. he was also catching the ball out front farther than he ever had previously and improved his attack direction to the pull side for the first time in his career (opposite field attack directions heavily correlate with GB%), so theres reason to believe he might cut that GB rate even further. its kind of shocking how similar a player he is to barger when you look at it lol

the problem is that the walk rate is kind of a mirage. high contact guys who chase a lot almost never have a league average walk rate. in the last 5 years, if you look at guys with a : chase rate above 30% (lukes was at 31%) overall contact rate above 85% (lukes was at 87.7%) with at least 250 PAs (lukes had 400+ last season) there have been 38 total player seasons since 2021 and only 2(!) have an above league average walk rate, 2025 lukes and 2024 bryson stott. if his walk rate drops to like 6 or 7% (which is right around average for his chase rate / contact profile) and he doesn't start slugging any more, it's got a chance to turn into a real "alright now the tuxedo's seem kinda f***ed up" type of situation

finally, full statcast data for all spring training facilities. the nerds (me) are absolutely jacked up

i just looked at some of the lukes projections and.... wow a 108 wRC+ feels very aggressive. having a .300 projected babip for a guy who doesn't hit the ball hard and hits it on the ground a ton doesn't seem like it'll age very well. my guess would be a wRC+ in the high 80s / low 90s and almost no meaningful at-bats in the back half of the season (if he's even on the roster). if that's the case, then outside of a trade acquisition, it leaves 3 options for that left field spot by midseason: schneider, pinango and schreck. we kinda know what we're getting from schneider at this point, his approach is repeatable and it's commendable how much he improved his results against fastballs last year pinango's contact quality data is elite (you just don't see that combination of exit velocity & contact rate very often), but he has issues with getting the ball in the air and is apparently a butcher out in the field. my comp for him is like a left-handed heliot ramos. schreck is almost like the opposite of pinango, his soft skills (putting the ball into the air on the pull side / approach at the plate / defense) are excellent and they allow his stats to play up, but his contact quality would be some of the worst in MLB if he were promoted immediately. think like nolan schanuel if he could play an outfield corner. personally, unless pinango takes a barger-esque leap (another guy who had elite contact quality metrics combined with enough overall contact to make it worth it) and starts putting the ball in the air more, i'd like to see schneider get a legitimate shot to win the job

the brewers trading everyone on their 40 man who can play 3rd base for 2 lefties and another 2nd basemen

i can't believe matt davidson is only 34 years old, he looks like he could be caissie's grandfather in that photo. also TIL he has 82 HRs across his last 2 years in the KBO, good for you matt davidson. it's also immensely confusing that there's 2 different left handed pitchers that have time on the guardians named logan allen that are pitching in the wbc, but only 1 of them is good. i have to imagine that we have the one that's out of MLB considering james paxton is starting over him in the rotation.

wow, good for him, he's obviously earned it. it sounds like from passan's piece on ESPN that the special exception clause which allowed him to compare his value to other free agents instead of just other arb cases was what pushed it over the edge in his favour. it probably won't have as much of an impact on future arb cases as what people might think b/c of that.

is this really analysis that they put on BA? it's fine to mention the injury but just saying "he was hurt so his 1st half splits should just be extrapolated to a whole season" instead of looking how the injury might have changed his peripherals feels incredibly lazy and shallow. the batted ball distribution was similar, the hard hit rate dropped slightly but it was already bottom of the barrel to begin with and not the reason for a 40 point drop in wRC+ it actually feels very similar to joe panik's career arc, remember when he was an all-star? groundball guy with bottom shelf exit velos, strong first full season where he looked like a cornerstone for that franchise and then the BABIP gods came for him.

he's an acceptable shortstop defender but for a small skinny guy, he really isn't all that fast. just 5 stolen bases and no extra value added on the basepaths from taking extra bases and below average sprint speed. i've liked all their other extensions but think this one really has potential to not look great for the A's. the arraez comparison gets made a lot but arraez has never had a line drive rate of less than 25% in his entire career and has always been within shouting distance or just below the league average groundball rate which is why his averages were so high. wilson was 4th among qualified hitters last year in GB% (over 52%) which probably won't play as well moving forward for a guy without premium wheels. the power output is probably a bit inflated as well, wilson hit homeruns on 10.5% of his flyballs last year (which is actually below average, 15.6% was league average last year). but, if you look at guys who had a 90th percentile exit velocity less than 100 MPH (aka very weak) and a GB% of greater than 50%, the only person in the entire statcast era to have a HR/FB rate over 10% was jose iglesias in the juiced ball 2019 year (the only year he hit more than 10 HRs in his career). of course there's the park factor to consider but they're (supposedly) only going to be playing there for another 2 seasons. the cost of the extension is light enough that it won't sink them but personally, I wouldn't want to be paying "what if jose iglesias was an average defender" that much money in a small market.

i think your shape comps are a tad aggressive, especially for the fastball. both of the guys you listed (estrada / slaten) throw a few ticks harder while also having the same / more IVB. remember that IVB is negatively correlated with velocity (the faster the pitch, the less time it has in the air to gain IVB), so guys who throw harder while maintaining the same IVB will have their fastballs grade out MUCH higher. bloss was sitting around 94 in AAA before he blew out, the velo combined with the shape and the plus extension leads it to look more like david festa / sean burke's fastballs (although with a slightly lower release height). both of which are good fastballs for a starter to have & a good place to build an arsenal from, but definitely not plus or plus-plus all that being said, i do like bloss a lot & both breaking balls are plus in my opinion. a breaking ball-heavy, "what if sean burke had average command" type guy is a good floor for a pitching prospect & there's right tail outcomes where he looks a lot like zac gallen IMO.

exactly the kind of stuff you want to hear (although i think the high end outcome of cook looks a lot more like jarren duran than byron buxton). i'll always be in on the organization taking shots on freaky athletes who are recent position conversions. the risk is high, but there's potential to get real value outside of the first round (plus, usually you know pretty quickly if a player is going to take to the conversion or not).

T100 feels pretty hot on stanifer. sitting 95 over 100 innings is awesome and its good to see that the command improved but the fastball performance in particular feels a bit inflated. his release traits (release height / extension / spin capacity) balance out to slightly above average but nothing incredibly unique & the fastball shape is probably being overestimated in TJ's model because of the different ball at the lower levels of the minors. its a good fastball but not one that you'd be able to throw 60% of the time in the upper minors / big leagues and see success. i do love the slider and the innings track record though. he's a good prospect they made out of basically nothing which is a win for the player dev group, i just think he's a lot closer to the 40+ that fangraphs put on him and way too early to stuff in the top 100.

i read somewhere that rosario had a separate medical issue that needed to be healed before he could even have the surgery which is why it took so long. i like the return for the nats a lot. all the hitters they got outside of fien are natural pull-side elevators & they can afford to wait on rosario. ortiz will probably even contribute next year even if he's likely limited to the strong side of a platoon. god the rangers are so weird. this obviously makes them a bit better but they were already top 3 in SP WAR last year. every hitter in their lineup is projected to have at least a 100 wRC+ but they're still projected to be middle of the pack in hitter WAR? they're the definition of mid

i feel biased because i just traded for him in BORED a few hours before the brewers did... lmao i like him b/c he's small and doesn't chase at all so he should be able to run above average OBPs without whiffing too much (his MiLB contact rates are about average). he'll never be a huge raw power guy b/c of the size but he consistently puts the ball in the air to his pull side (he's never had a GB rate above 33% in any year in the minors) so his pop is going to play up (although he probably wont ever be a batting average guy in my opinion).

i figure with the okamoto signing pushing barger primarily to the OF, they're probably going to increase schneider's reps on the dirt. otherwise (unless you make a trade or send lukes / schneider down for jimenez) you're looking at rostering 7(!) primary OFers which doesn't feel like a prudent use of resources. the playoff playing time stuff just seems like a combination of them having the ability to carry an extra infielder / schneider, davis not having a lot of experience at 2B throughout the year & schneider, john wanting a "veteran presence" in the lineup. given the jays current roster construction (aka swapping bo for a 3B), it just makes more sense for him to be on the dirt rather than primarily an extra OF