Olerud363.354

They should resign Bassitt and Tatsui Imai Then just have guys on stand by half the time, experiment with 4 inning outings, starters being the setup man sometimes. piggy backing, 6 man rotation sometimes... everybody end up with 140 innings, maybe Bieber less. Option Yesivage for a couple weeks for a rest. Put Bieber on the dl a few times. All kinds of crazy stuff then just aim to be fresh for the playoffs. And as a second purpose to this make sure different types of relief work aren't new to these guys. Like your first opportunity as a set up man is ideally not game 7s. Gotta still make the playoffs so that is why they need Tatsui Imai to do this. Realistically probably never work... because guys have their routines... or maybe it would.

Seems like in the Atkins press conference he said something like 'Bieber is probably going to be ready for Spring Training, taking it week by week. The whole thing is weird between making him the 3rd then 4th SP in playoff rotation, to him taking the qualifying offer. Wonder what is going on. Hopefully just a slow TJ recovery and nothing else. Also sounds like Berrios wasn't too happy watching playoff baseball.

Jim said that even after regression their splits were something like wRC+ was like 90/110 in favor of Scheider. It is probably more like 85/105 but same trend. That mostly reflects the difference in total wRC+ rather than platoon skill. Jim has 40 years experience being the most highly paid engineer in a firm of 2000 and more statistical analysis experience then the rest of you combined. I still will say that he intuitively understood that the platoon trends of Clement and Schneider were real (albeit small) and he did correctly deduce the net wRC+ difference of 20 (vs righties) between the two. Personally I have 22 years experience going from job to job, getting canned fairly quickly, though have not been canned in many years, I guess because my linkedin has had that green 'open for work' thingy since before Covid. That being said I've been canned by many Jim-types, and many phony-types just trying to eliminate me before I took their job, so I know the difference between the real-deal and the make-believes.

Enough about Olerud already Olerud. One more thing. He also had potential as a pitcher. I don't think it was Ohtani like potential but crafty lefty type potential. Given his elite hand eye coordination (which shows up on offense and defense) got to think he'd he'd have had more control than Brandon Little. Probably could have pitched 50 innings a year, at the very least been a position player mop up guy with some actual pitching game. Love to see another player like him come up in my life time.

John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 24 to start his prime years hitting .363 and setting the Blue Jays batting average record. John Olerud had an 8 fWAR MVP type season at 29 to end his prime years hitting .354 and setting the Mets batting average record. Have to think if he had a manager and organization that believed in his style his age 25-28 seasons would have been better. Even with that way more fWAR than Delgado and Mattingly... should have been a hall of famer. Should have been a life long Blue Jay.

Olerud has 57 fWAR compared to Delgado 44 and Mattingly 40. Delgado has a 135 wRC+, Olerud 130 wRC+, and Mattingly a 124 wRC+. The only reason Olerud isn't being considered with Delgado is I guess is that people don't think the 1b defense metrics are real. What is the reason that he isn't being considered along side Mattingly? Olerud is better on offense and defense. Olerud's best two seasons are both better than Mattingly's two best. His best 5 combined are better. If Olerud wasn't platooned by CIto his career would look completely different. 20 homers and 80 rbis on back of the baseball card looks so much better than 15 and 60. Then there is the second order effect that platooning probably had on a young player. Not seeing lefties much for so many years probably hurt his development.

Is it though? Clements career wRC+ against righties - 82 Schneiders career wRC+ against righties - 112 Jim regresses it (I presume) without math, just uses his intuition from a life of stats, logic and decades of experiences both intellectual and visceral and and comes up with 90/110. What are the actual numbers if you regress? Formula on fangraphs looks simple enough, but like Jim I am a very experienced man of statistics so know the answer but would like to see the peanut gallery do the math. (fyi I do agree about Terminators point that since Schneider only plays against Josh Towers level righties we can't totally trust his splits).

Schneider has 500 PAs against righties. How do you regress them? Using the league average against righties? I understand like if he had 30 at bats against righties and went 12 for 30 with 4 homers... You wouldn't believe it, and you'd just take his career stats. But if we are already taking his career stats what else is there to average in? 500 PAs against righties, 300 PAs against lefties. Pretty even. Slightly above average guy against both. I guess maybe not enough at bats and you adjust based on long term general trend and assume his even platoon splits actually would be unbalanced (better against lefties worse against righties) if he had a 12 trillion at bats in a simulation?

My above post is pretty long. Shorter version is that there is nothing super special about Mookie on stats cast, and actually rates below clement in range, arm and speed. If there is something 'special' about Mookie it is hard to measure, but whos to say, given what we know about Clement he doesn't also possess the same 'special' qualities? (Totally agree no need to force a move to Center, still an interesting discussion).

Just out of curiosity I looked at Bett's savant page. Last year he was 92 percentile range, 29 percentile arm. Take that with a grain of salt but he's close to Clemente and Giminez. A little less than them in range. That's just one measure obviously and could be flawed. So the counterpoint maybe to Mookie Betts being a freak is that range is more important than traditionally thought and players with good range can play different positions. Also interesting Mookie's sprint speed is below average only 36%. Is that really true? If so why does he have such good range? Instincts? First step? Agility. Clement's range is elite and spring speed very good. No need to move him to center with Varsho still here. What could be interesting is just start giving him time in the outfield once and a while, just as much in preparation for playoffs as for any long term move. Like start thinking about playoffs with potential longer games and more moves needed, and try to give these guys a little experience at difference things before throwing them into it in the World Series. Same goes with Starter's relieving. Give every starter 5 relief appearances, prep for playoffs, and also could be useful once and a while. Counterpoint to that philosophy (play around with roles in regular season so it is not new in Playoffs) is that no one really does it... so must be some downsides in terms of player comfort.

According to Savant Ernie Celent is 98% range, and 25% arm. Jiminez is 97 and 47. Bo is 1 and 46. Barger is 20 and 99. Who I would want at short if all I knew was statcast range and arm 1. Jiminez 2. Clement 3. Barger 4. Vladimir Guerrero jr. 5. Bo Bichette

His defensive metrics have always been great and he's played a lot of short stop. According to baseball reference he was the best defensive player in baseball at 2.9 dWAR. Scored well on fangraphs the last couple of years. He's scored high defensively with a mix of of all three middle infield positions so I'd be skeptical of claims he can't play short above average. I think Giminez was just shifted there instead because Giminez is an even better defensive player, but Clement would be fine at short. The only flaw in that theory, that these awesome defensive infielders should to be able to play short well is arm strength. Maybe Clement doesn't have quite the arm you want at short. I don't know that and I suppose could look it up on savante.

Jake Cook is 22 years old and scouting report is that he has some of the best speed and defensive potential of the draft class. Normally I'd say if he can hit, it should show up right away and no reason he can't be ready for 2027. Like the typical path for a 22 year old College player (if they can hit) is to rip through a couple levels of the minors and show up at age 24. I guess he was a pitcher though so could take a little more time to develop. On a related note kind of weird that very few of the Jays draft picks got any minor league experience last year. Cook, Parker, and a couple others I can't find any stats for. One of the only guys who appears to have played is Sean Casey's son who hit quite well for a month in Dunnedin. https://www.milb.com/player/jake-casey-814457. Would have been interesting to see what Cook (about the same age) would have done there, but I assume they are holding him back and working on stuff.

I am curious why you think they wouldn't make these changes? I am a complete outsider but I assume they are tracking performance on every pitch and adjusting from start to start. So if the data says make some changes I would hope they would. Seems like in some of your other posts you are hinting that the Jays have some limitations on the coaching side. The game is so data intensive these days, and teams are using AI now to make best use of data, so if there is something that would help, and it is public enough that people are discussing it on message boards... well the team would have to know about it, and it would only be human stubbornness that would prevent good strategies from being used.

Both those years they were trying to win and there was tonne's of excitement. Won 80 in 2005 and the expectation was to win 95 and contend in 2006. And they should have. The 2006 Blue Jays were missing 70-90 runs. What is the greatest OPS of all Blue Jays teams? 2006 .811 They scored a pedestrian (for 2006) 800 runs and should have had 900. They had better statistics then the 2015 team but 90 less runs. 90 runs. Gone. Into the ether. The fates are cruel. This is why I think I'm not as torn up over game 7 2025 World Series as others. The f***ing fates have lots of ways to screw you. Some late, some random, some mysterious. 90 f***ing missing runs. Gone because the fates f***ed us for 162 games in weird mysterious ways. The 2013 team also was expected to win, and it became apparent they wouldn't 15 games in. That sucked too. You had tickets for a mid June game and were excited to see Dickey, Johnson, the track team (Jose Reyes and friends), Bautista and EE going for 80+ homeruns.... and it was gone April 15th and had to suffer through John Farrell getting the golden season instead.

I think they'll give him every chance to work things out. He was their best reliever by fWAR. Probably make the team and get a month to work things out and if he doesn't he'll work on it in Buffalo.

2005 was amazing -- Burnette, B.J. Ryan, Glauss, Overbay maybe forgetting a couple. The 2006 team played great just messed up short stop and for some reason their offense was inefficient. They scored 800 runs with stats that should have led to 900 2012 - track team and ancient knuckle baller. Not the greatest really. 2014/2015 - Donaldson, Estrada, Russell Martin, Devon Travis, Justin Smoak, Michael Saunders -- pretty incredible group

I think there could be benefit (or a disadvantage) depending which way interest rates sway. They buy the bond every year so if interest rates go up, the price of the bond goes down and they have some extra present day money. If interest rates go down the opposite. If there was ever dramatic interest rate changes (which there will be) team could get a bit screwed on this. 10 year interest rates historically have been as high as 15% and as low as less than 1%. When Ohtani signed his contract they were about 4.5% and haven't changed much since then. I am curious what happens if the 10 year swings dramatically say there is a financial crisis and it goes to 0.5%. That would mean a 10 year bond that matures at 70 million could cost millions more, so practically speaking LA would have to pay more. Not sure if it would change luxury tax calculations too.

A Bichetteless/Tuckerless team had a pretty exciting run and made Rogers a tonne of money by first getting homefield advantage then playing almost every playoff homegame. Ohtani was unique but business case for anyone else is just wins and deep playoff runs, so any means that gets that will be a good business case.

My understanding is this is how it works LA buys a 50 million dollar bond that will mature at 70 million in 2035 and set it aside for Ohtani. If Ohtani for some reason needed the money right now I suspect he could get it (not 70 million but whatever the bond is worth today). Interesting thing is a team could get a bit screwed if interest rates go way down. If there is a crypto/AI crisis and they lower the rates to almost 0, LA then has to pay almost 70 million for the bond (that is my understanding anyway).

Am I missing something still? Deferrals aren't like some huge benefit to the team. They still have to buy a bond that basically matures when the money is due. Hit to the cap is the present day value of the bond. Actually not sure how you would even stop deferals. Because they aren't what people are thinking they are. If Kyle Tucker want to be paid in bonds that mature in 2038 that's up to him and the team. What people think the deferred money is (team doesn't pay until 10 years later) is already banned. Otherwise a team like Florida could sign huge contracts, go bankrupt, and never pay.

Seems though they adjust everything to compensate for that. I live in the U.S. and my stubhub auto-converts to American. The prices for Toronto games are just as expensive. Everything you buy at the stadium is pretty much adjusted for the dollar. Also suspicious of NY Mets numbers. No way they are that far behind Philadelphia. Biggest problem with Toronto isn't the dollar but the fall-off in interest in bad years. I have a lot of friends who are Mets fans so they are like my second team. Mets attendance and interest is much more resilient to strings of 70 win seasons (like 2009 to 2014) than Jays. If winning years Jays have to be top 3 in revenue with Yankees and Dodgers. Maybe 2024 numbers were crunched by losing, but it's ussually the 2nd and especially third losing season where Jays lose half their attendance.

There must be something else weird about that chart. I know it was 2024 but how are Toronto's revenues about the same as Baltimore? Is it because they don't get "TV Renenue" since Rogers owns the team? So that (and maybe other) of their profits are in Rogers books but not the Jays?

He was being compared to Pedro Martinez through 2015. Kind of dumb in retrospect but his 2014 was similar to Pedro's 1994 and his September 2015 and playoffs were great. The size, the swagger, the reports on how good his stuff was.... Not saying any serious scouts compared him to Pedro, but just heard some comments 'reminds me of another undersized fiesty pitcher' a few times. In 2014 he gave up only 7 homers in 130 innings, great walk rate. 2.84 FIP. 3.17 xFIP. In 2015 he had a lucky 1.64 ERA and was 4-0 down the stretch beating the Yankees in a couple of key games. Just that October 2015 he looked like something special. Then it turned out he was decent but not special and had some attitude problem or something.

He was the third starter in the World Series. Pitched critical games 3 and 7 which were both losses. Did not go 5 innings in either one. On the other hand wasn't horrible. Left both games with the lead I believe. In an ideal world want a better closer, better third starter and better second hitter. Doesn't mean Max Scherzer, Jeff Hoffman or Nathan Lukes can't be part of a world series team, just that maybe really crazy to give them so high a percentage of the most critical innings and at bats in a generation.