sliderguy35

generally i'm more bearish on pure hit tool guys without power like kasevich, especially if they don't have some other carrying tool like elite speed or defense. you need to be a real outlier to hit the 90th percentile outcome of being a real ML contributor like a jacob wilson or brendan donovan. otherwise these kinds of guys almost always just end up as part time contributors who might have a nice babip-luck fueled season during their career like a tyler freeman or alex verdugo. not to say that it can't happen for him, outliers do exist in the game. i'd just rather bet on the stuff we know plays, rather than hoping someone can break the mold

pinango's definitely My Guy in the org, you just don't see many guys that make that much contact & post EV90 numbers that high. a lot of the high EV90 guys are like will robertson where part of that is b/c he whiffs so much that the sample size of batted balls is smaller. making a lot of contact naturally raises the denominator of that calculation so being able to still maintain elite contact quality metrics with a lot of batted balls is a great sign. I was super high on barger coming into this season b/c he displayed basically the same qualities in triple A in 2024: elite exit velos w/ an above average contact profile (about a 50th percentile pulled flyball rate, doesn't really beat the ball into the ground too often). although barger made better swing decisions so he was getting to his power more often. pinango is also still 2(!) years younger than barger was last year and made drastic changes to his approach this year (his swing rate is down 5% from last year). there's still room for development here but i wouldn't be shocked at all if he's the next guy that everyone is salivating over in spring camp next year.

roden EV90: 104.6 schreck EV90: 103.7 ML average is just above 105, so they're both below average. the link to more of the fun stats (EV90 / SEAGER / contact rate stuff) is below, i have it bookmarked https://therealestmuto.shinyapps.io/Damage/

it looks like the brewers tweaked his stance a bit, moved him closer to the plate & told him to hunt down-in pitches (his swing rate in the upper part of the zone is way lower with the brewers, and down-in is way up). they're also just giving him better matchups. he had the platoon advantage in 24% of his PAs this year on CHW, that number is up to 34% on MIL. realistically though, the brewers saw a guy with a 13% barrel rate who makes a lot of contact and thought he'd be a nice flyer to take a gamble on. it's really hard to be consistently bad when you make contact with the ball a lot and over 12% of that contact usually leads to damage.

its really impressive that schneider's been able to make meaningfully more contact & cut the strikeouts from "atrocious" to just a normal level of "bad" without hampering his quality of contact (more barrels, still pulling the ball in the air more than basically anyone in the league). it's unrealistic to think he's going to keep being a 140 wRC+ guy (it's almost impossible to carry a BABIP over .300 in a larger sample size when you hit that many flyballs), but he's proven he's at least able to do a credible isaac paredes impression this year (albeit with a bit more raw pop so he's not as ballpark-dependent). schneider is just going to be subject to more hot/cold variance since he doesn't make nearly as much contact as paredes does, but it probably balances out to a guy who's slightly better than league average in the long run. also, i wonder if all the work the jays have been doing in Japan the last few years will have them as one of the leaders to land munetaka murakami this winter. he'll /probably/ be able to stick at 3rd, (at least for the first few years) & you can move barger to be a full-time outfielder next year. normally i'd be the first guy out on a profile like this since there are GLARING red flags (sub 65% contact rate in 2024 in NPB!!! hasn't handled velo very well recently, etc), but it's not hard to talk yourself into a guy like this. Hes going to be a 26 year old with legitimate 80 grade power who's shown the ability to be elite already & could potentially be a swing tweak away from being a 130-140 wRC+ cornerstone in the lineup. the jays are one of the few teams with the depth & financial muscle to be able to weather if he doesn't work out too. would love to see them take the shot because if it works out... sheesh

never understood why people think the FBI would cover-up the true story if ohtani was actually aware of the gambling. surely they would have looked into it & included it in their report, especially considering the timeline & the original statements i guess it's just the rise of right-wing online "truther"-ism + a general lack of trust in government institutions nowadays but like what does the US government care if ohtani gets implicated, they dont give af about baseball

i know everyone realizes the offense is good, but the slow start & the fact that they're hitting more doubles than homers is kind of clouding how good they actually are. since may 1st (so basically 3 months and change), they've literally been one of the best offenses of recent memory. only 2 teams in the last 15 years have ever had both a batting average & slugging percentage 10%+ above league average at the same time: 2017 Houston Astros (110 AVG+ / 111 SLG+ / 121 wRC+) 2023 Atlanta Braves (110 AVG+ / 120 SLG+ / 126 wRC+) The Blue Jays since May 1st: (115 AVG+ / 112 SLG+ / 124 wRC+). They're also the only one of the 3 to have an above average walk rate (106 BB%+). it's kinda shocking to see & it will probably come a bit back to earth over the last 2 months, but don't take for granted what we've seen so far. This team isn't just a slap-hitting squad, they've got real juice.

i'm sneaky-in on freeland as a guy to go get this offseason (probably wouldn't cost much since he's an expiring at the end of the year unless he throws 170+ innings). added a new slider that stuff models love & the curveball is already a plus pitch. he's currently running the highest swinging strike rate of his career even if the K% isn't showing it. his fastball has above average shape away from coors from a low-slot & he commands it really well. he throws his fastball down-in-the-zone a majority of the time even with 2 strikes so it feels like there's hidden potential for more strikeouts/whiffs here as well if he starts spotting it up. it also seems like the rockies haven't caught onto the seam-shifted wake changeup wave that's been taking the league by storm the last few years. freeland throws his sinker at about 83% spin efficiency which is right in the SSW sweet-spot to get good late movement, but throws his changeup with 98% efficiency so it's missing out. a grip / cue change (i.e "cut your changeup a bit more") would probably be all it takes to unlock it into a usable weapon. would not be shocked at all if he ends up in a smarter org than the rockies (any other org) next year or once his contact expires in 2027 and ends up as a sub 4 ERA arm over 150 innings

generally, reliever control is considered less valuable because A) even the good ones are usually only throwing 60-70 innings a year & B) their performance is a lot more volatile year to year. that being said, if i was going to bet on a reliever being good throughout their years of control, it's gonna be on the guy that throws 98-100 with a multi-year history of good command & groundball tendencies.

very funny that atkins says he likes the fastball shape since it's probably the most middling thing about the pitch and the reason it doesn't really play up as an elite pitch at that velo. kwan is a crazy comp. he's the best defender in baseball at his position, never run a SwSTR% more than 4% in the minors, makes contact at a 90% rate & elevates the ball, complete outlier guy. roden's at a 7% SwStr, just over 80% contact and hits a ton of groundballs. much more likely to be the LF version of bryson stott or a gavin lux if he was a good defender. still a guy who can play in the bigs, but is mainly strong-side platoon limited & isn't going to be racking up the WAR with only 400 PAs per year

feels like the varland debate has gotten more philosophical (the idea of giving up assets for a reliever with control) rather than about the actual assets that we got / gave up. varland is different from any of the other reliever examples people are providing because he has legitimately ELITE velocity. the relationship between velocity & performance isn't linear, averaging 98 makes a real difference from averaging 95 or 96. Hitters vs 98+ MPH fastballs in 2025: .291 xwOBA / .342 xSLG Hitters vs 95-97 MPH fastballs in 2025: .343 xwOBA / .439 xSLG it just gives him a much higher performance floor than any of the other comps that people are making. roden is fine. he's a good defender who makes a lot of contact & average swing decisions, but i'm not going to lose sleep over trading a guy with a 5.2% barrel rate in over 300 batted balls at AAA. it feels like the only way for him to be an impact big leaguer would be if he starts pulling the hell out of the ball in the air, but that feels like a longshot for someone who's got a 45+% groundball rate in AAA. rojas might pitch for the twins next year, & be pretty good, but he also might get stuck at AAA for another 2 seasons. it's just so hard to project on a guy with average big-league stuff that they've pushed through the system, that's still never thrown more than 100 innings in a season in his minor league career. tidy work by atkins. i also really like that we're not throwing additional lower ranked guys in to make these 1-for-3 or 1-for-4 deals just to give up a slightly lower ranked prospect. those are the kinds of trades that look great now, but then 4 years from now you look up and one of the throw-ins from that deal figured something out and is awesome (cough cough the doval & bednar deals)

having extended control of relievers is overrated, but it's not like they paid a crazy premium to get it & you'd MUCH rather have it than not. they dealt from positions of strength for the org that were blocked by other guys (loperfido's already up & i'd be willing to bet that pinango runs a higher wRC+ than both when he comes up next year + TINSTAAPP). not to mention the years of control suddenly look amazing if he ends up being an SP conversion candidate in the offseason. he's always had great command & remember, this is a guy who's velo floor has skyrocketed over the last few years. if he's now sitting 95 as a starter instead of 93, with a platoon-neutral breaking ball (the curveball he added), look out. & if starting doesn't work out, upper echelon velo with good command will always play, there's a lot less risk of him completely flaming out like some relievers do IMO. bieber got driveline'd before 2024 to get his velo back up & he looked like the best pitcher in baseball in the starts that he did pitch that year. he's essentially always been elite as long as his fastball velo's been above 92 mph (which it has been in his rehab starts) & was gotten for about as cheap as a guy who could realistically start game 1 of a playoff series would have gone. really liked this deadline, a lot of upside without giving up a ton of close to ML talent. every deadline as a buyer comes with some risk, but the upside for the risk that we took today could really be WS-defining.

LOUIS VARLAND LETS GOOOOOO

clearly the marlins are just making room for the alan roden for ronny henriquez + dane myers trade

i feel like i'm taking crazy pills with the spencer jones thing, obviously they're just trying to pump his value with these leaks right? there's just nobody good that makes contact at the rate he does, Chris Carter is probably like a 80th percentile outcome for him. more likely he's just christopher morel or keston hiura. the yankees are a smart org, there's just no way they can think he's actually this valuable.

the only way bieber's not a rental is if he's REALLY bad. if he even pitches mediocre down the stretch he's going to free agency & some team is gonna offer him the jack flaherty contract (2 years, $45M with an opt-out) just on the upside alone. the berrios extension happened while berrios still had an extra year of control left. even if bieber really likes it here and wants to sign back during the offseason, it's going to be on the open market where he can drive his price tag up. expecting an extension before then is just naive

alright boss atkins, it's alan roden & edward duran for david bednar time

preller absolutely rocks getting 4 more years of miller and 3 more of sears (who is gonna look a lot better in that ballpark) is exactly the kind of return you should get from de vries. fangraphs made a good point in their padres prospect list about how outside of merrill, they haven't really been able to develop position player talent at all. moving a guy with helium for controllable ML pitching fits right in with their MO.

he's almost certainly going to opt out so this is essentially a rental, but probably the best upside play they could have gotten at this point. apparently he's been 92-94 mph in his rehab starts & if that's the case then there's the front of the line guy we've been looking for. Since 2019, Shane Bieber fastballs: 92+ mph: .327 xwOBA / 17% whiff rate / 30% K rate sub 92 mph: .428 xWOBA / 9% whiff rate / 7% K rate the curveball & slider have always been unholy offerings that spit in the face of physics itself, but if his fastball is playing up, he's as legit a #1 as you're gonna get. e: edited because i was double counting 92 mph on the dot, it numbers are actually worse sub 92

i don't disagree with you that he might be a regular big leaguer one day but davis schneider literally did this 2 years ago but better lol. loperfido is a fine 4th outfielder for now but lets have some perspective, it's been 58 plate appearances. you can absolutely luck your way into a 186 wRC+ would love to see them get maton though, consistently one of the most undervalued guys year to year. another name to consider: pierce johnson on the braves. misses his fair share of bats, doesn't really walk anyone & has a club option for next year

getting 6 years of tidwell (who has the stuff to at least be an up-and-down AAAA guy & if the command pops, he could be your 3/4 starter) for a rental reliever is already great work by the giants. to get butto AND gilbert on top of that is highway robbery, even if they're considered arrow-down guys by the mets. let's hope the mets didn't just reset the reliever market, b/c otherwise the price for everyone remaining just went WAY up

jeff hoffman rocks, that is all. GG

FIIIIIISSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH THANK YOU CAVAN BIGGIO

myles straw cycle watch... never a dull moment with this team

You're lumping in all of the Rockies & Reds years where he was a starter and also bad. Since he went to Philly, started throwing 3 ticks harder & developed his new slider / splitter, his HR/FB rate was 8.3% which is a bit less than league average. FIP is tied to the unreasonably high home run rate & barrel rate for pitchers is essentially just as unreliable for pitchers as HR/FB% is. (it takes about 400 balls in play for pitcher barrel rate to stabilize https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/30584/baseball-therapy-getting-to-the-bottom-of-the-barrel/). the xERA is high because of all the barrels, but again it's a lot of variance baked into that (which is why in the mlb.com explainer, they say that xERA isn't a predictive metric) don't get me wrong, it's frustrating to watch him continue to give up runs in big games, but there's a reason i keep bringing up k-bb% in every thread, it's one of the best predictive metrics out there & we've just gotta trust that things will work out eventually thank you! great comp, but hoffman's been even better under the hood FWIW