Olerud363.354

If confused by my last post watch the documentary. Corrupt Quebec politicians saying they won't help fund stadium for millionaire baseball players when babies need medicine or something. But much more goes into Big O roof repairs. Anyone live in Montreal? Excited for 2028 and the new roof? God. Could have had a downtown stadium and the Rays for that 870 million.

Watched the 'Who killed the Montreal Expos' documentary and it was the stadium that killed them and ironically the stadium is still killing any chance of a team playing there even for a year. Like Rays could have played there this past season, but they were doing a 870 million roof renovation which will take four years. So Expos in 2000 or so tried to fund a 200 million baseball only beauty. And the politicians would have none of it because they couldn't justify helping fund this when baby's need medicine and such. That is fine. If that is your values. But it's complete ********. How much have they put into Olympic Statdium over the years? Like one roof patch of big O probably costed as much as downtown outdoor stadium. So Billlions with a B wasted on it over the years. It is insane. They wouldn't build a nice baseball only downtown thing, Pittsburgh style, but will continually waste money on the big O. 1. 200 million in 2000 for downtown Montreal Gem 2. Stop funding any maintenance to big O and probably over the years save 1 billion. 3. Use the difference to save the babies and get them medicine. 4. Have baseball and saved babies. But current strategy they presumably killed a lot of baby's because they used their medicine money fixing big O Just everything that is wrong with our society.... and don't get me wrong, if the people want to feed the baby's instead of downtown stadium... absolutely fine. BUt then don't fund any Big O maintenance if those are your values.

Absolutely. In reality every single thing would be different. However you are right, IKF was 5 for 15 in the ALCS with a hit just in front of Springers homer. Hypothetically if every other event was the same (which it wouldn't be but I digress) then replacing IKF with Biggio in that ALCS they probably lose. Replacing IKF with Biggio in the World Series they probably win. Going forward all you can do is try to maximize the run differential and fix some of the little things on the margins (the IKF role would ideally be a better baserunner).

IKF also made an error that led to an un-earned run in game 3 ALDS. He makes that play more than likely that whole game is different, with Bieber having a chill first, may not get in trouble a couple innings later in that game... the bullpen is more rested going into ALCS, win one of the games early in the series, bullpen and starters more rested going in to WS. Literally it all is IKFs fault. Jays win World Series in 6 without him, but maybe have less revenue (2 less home playoff games if win ALCS in 6 and WS in 6). IKF made a bit of a baserunning error in game 3 WS too. No one is perfect but does get me thinking what if it's Leo Giminez, or even Cavan Biggio in that spot. Every else stays the same Cavan Biggio is a foot further ahead in the 9th inning of game 7.... Obviously maybe Biggio, or Giminez or who-ever does something else dumb and everything bufferfly different

Exactly. Hoffman gave up an insane number of homers in 2025. His numbers for a closer were awful. The logic that 'his previous 10 innings were good so give him a break here' isn't quite right, especially since few of those innings were in leverage. Some reasons Jays lost game 7 were Hoffman, lack of reliable setup man, relatively weak hitter for a 2 hitter, weak hitting bench options who were subbed late in game, and 2 of their 3 best hitters were injured. Those are the reasons. Even with all that they were an inch a way from winning that game. No team perfect and it's game of wack-a-mole. You could address all this get 2 great relievers and hit Tucker second, and better hitters on the bench then lose a fluke early round series anyway....

The only time he came in a close game was game 7 ALCS, so likely any other reliever subs for Hoffman they still make the World Series. I mean certainly a different guy might have blown game 7 ALCS on the other a different closer might have saved both game 7s. I get that he was good in the playoffs. However only 2 save opportunities of which he converted 1. I don't think this is black and white. What do you consider? Hoffman's last appearance? Last 10? The entire year's worth of work? Can't do anything about the past, but what do you consider going forward? Guy gives up most homers for a reliever in baseball, gives up homer in most critical inning in 30 years. Do we consider the 15 homers in regular season? Or just last 10 games? When evaluating his role.

Guy that hits the ball 440 feet off Ohtani doesn't seem like he would have 12th percentile bat speed. Squares it up a lot, but how do you hit it 440 feet with 12th percentile bat speed? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/bo-bichette-666182?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb Maybe the bat speed thing is biased somehow. I guess must have different speed of swing as his Ohtani homer was 79 mph compared to a reported average of 69.

Bo Bichette apparently has 12th percentile bat speed, 1 percentile range, 21 percentile speed and 36 percentile arm, 12th percentile chase yet must do something else well. I bet Jose Ramirez had awful statcast first couple of years to. Maybe Holiday will do what Bichette or Ramirez do.

I'll admit I'm nitpicking, and you are right Haladay's tools are pretty lame.... but twice as good by WAR is less meaningful 2-1 then it is 8-4. In the limit of that framework some guy with 0.2 WAR is infiinitely better than someone with 0 WAR. Need to use "wins above nothing" for the ratio to be meaningful. For some reason Witt's age 22 season he had a .314 xwOBA and Holliday a .312 xwOBA about the same. Their expected hitting, defense was similar. Witt's advantage was all baserunning. I do see Halladay's tools are blue... so not sure how their xwOBAs (2022 and 2025) ended up so close.

Jackson Holliday's age 21 season is pretty similar to Bobby Witt Jrs age 22 season. Witt was better, but just a bit. A lot of development left here.

The Orioles delusional optimists (like myself) probably deserve some ribbing... (never a fanboy just thought they collected so many young players they couldn't fail). However c'mon https://www.thebanner.com/sports/orioles-mlb/orioles-colton-cowser-broken-ribs-injuries-N7F4QE72M5GHHHTYSOPJYX5DIQ/ Guy was injured, just like Bichette in 2024. This whole... 'never realized that so and so was -1 WAR and completely sucks at the age of 25 lol. Orioles done' is stupid. A lot of guys were injured, maybe some randomly under-performed. Regression to the mean is a thing, even with a team you dislike.

On the topic of Orioles one fascinating thing is how similar Kirk and Rutschman's lifetime stats are to each other. Even their "good" and "bad" seasons are kind of similar. Both are like 15 fWAR lifetime. Kirk fatter still, shorter and a year younger. There was like a moment when Rutchman looked fit, healthy, performing, able to DH when not catching, and Kirk looked like a .250 hitting obese noodle struggling to play 100 games a year. That was like 12 months ago. Now they look they same career-stats wise but with a Kirk at a high point.

This is just as dumb, or actually dumber then anointing Elias a genius in the midst of a 102 win season. Elias collected a lot of talent, the talent under-performed. Guys like Henderson, Rutchman still have elite projections. Then they have tonne's of guys projected for like 2 WAR in 100 games and out of that collection some will over-perform so would not surprise me if they are right back in the middle of things next year. We will see... The one thing I predicted would happen that has not, and is running out of time to happen, is for the Orioles to get back to 3 million a year attendance. That was one of the reasons, remembering what the 90s were like, I thought the Orioles were in great shape for a long run of success. Get the attendance up, get the revenue up, re-invest, keep the wins up, keep the attendance up, re-invest. Jays have a good shot at that now. Critical year for both franchises to become a Red Sox/Phillies/Mets like organization with multi-generation (a generation being a group of players) that can be successful for a couple decades.

A big if, but if they were all healthy that is a good rotation. Just stats-scouting that they were all pretty good at times last couple of years but make between 4 and 20 starts. Critical year for them. One of the reasons I thought Orioles would have an extended run ;is that in the 90s they were similar to the Jays, in that they got a new ballpark, had some success and generated a tonne of money, then were a big payroll team and free-agent spender for a few years. Part of the extended success model would have been for them to build revenue, which last year destroyed that momentum. Instead the Jays had a magical year with insane revenue.

Anything can happen, especially if Grayson goes to the bullpen but I guess the medicals aren't clean on Rodriguez. This idea of medicals isn't black and white. Medicals aren't clean on Grayson, Hoffman and likely Bieber. Their value is down but it's all just very gray. Maybe using a closer without clean medicals will burn you, or maybe it won't. Maybe Bieber loves his friends, or maybe his arm hurts. Probably the medicals say Grayson is in for a rough road but isn't completely worthless, and the Angels will take the risk while the Orioles want to contend next year and get more certainty.

Soto = 750 million (2026 projected = 6) Vladdy = 500 million (2026 projected = 5) Tucker = 400 million (2026 projected = 4.4) Bo = ? million (2026 projected = 4)

If you just go by WAR and say Tucker's fWar worth a 400 million than Bo fWAR worth 320 million, based on the 5 to 4 ratio that the fangraphs website reports. If you say the ratio between something other than 5-4 than maybe there are reasons that you have but one of the reasons is NOT backward fWAR.

Both have played about 750 games, 5 fWAR per 150 for Tucker, 4 fWAR per 150 for Bo Bo 122 wRC+. Tucker 138 wRC+. Tucker is better going backward. But very slow bat for such a good hitter. But actually Bo even slower bat. Vlad fast bat. Tucker medium. Bo slow. I think it is true see https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/bo-bichette-666182?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

Tucker. Not entertaining. No 80 grade tools but better WAR than Vladdy. If I was an agent I'd sell Vlad on the tools and entertainment, and Tucker on the solid performance. The question is whether the the data supports Tucker going forward as a 5 WAR guy without elite tools? 5 WAR is 5 WAR whether you do it with tools or not. But the tools may indicate something about how it goes moving forward to age 29-39.

He has the same lifetime wRC+ and wOBA as Vlad Guerrero Jr. with much better defense and baserunning. Not that you are wrong. The things that he is great at are chase% and bb% and I don't know enough to say if those are tools that will age well. Things that he is good are sweet spot %. Things Guerrero is good at is hitting the ball harder than anyone but not quite getting the results you expect consistently (though has had his moments for months at a time, including the 2025 playoffs). Tucker's tools, outside of plate discipline, are from what I can see, worse than Guerroros (exit velocity, spring speed, arm all worse... which sort of makes you wonder if Guerrero should be playing some outfield and third). Anyway the agents will put together a package highlighting the players strengths and making the comparions good as possible. So the agent will have a Tucker/Guerrero comparison package that will use wRC+, defense and baserunning to argue Tucker deserves as much if not more. Not saying agent will convince a team, but just needs to convince one.

Steamer has Clement at 1.6 in 118 games with declining defense. Weird thing is that it has Varsho's defense going negative. So not sure exactly why it is predicting these guys to fall off a cliff defensively. Clement in 150 games with decent defense is more like 3 WAR again... so if you make that trade by projections you assume the model is correctly modeling Clement's defense and playing time... which it may not be.

What do you think he'd cost? Years ago Blue Jays got Randal Grichuk and Aledmys Diaz from the Cardinals, at a similar age and stage of career, and they cost almost nothing. Daulton Varsho cost a top 5 (overall in MLB) prospect and Gurriel. Interesting that the incremental cost between 2 WAR projected guys and 4 WAR projected guys was so steep. If you consider Donavan a 3 WAR projected guy what is the price? (of course beyond WAR and projections there are all kinds of internals we don't know about)

He has an almost .400 minor league on base percentage. The projection systems don't seem to like him that much, but still project him as better hitter than IKF. Projected for a .320 on base in the majors. Just eyeballing the projections they have him at 1/2 a win better than IKF in limited time.

Rather have had Cavan on the team then IKF I think. Just the story. Legacy trio wins world series 1. Vlad Guerrero greatest playoffs ever 2. Bo Bichette inspirational comeback and big World Series hits on one knee 3. Cavan Biggio - hits .100 and scores winning run with 80th percentile sprint speed and max use of sliding glove Craig would be proud for sure.

Scored more runs in 2021 and 2022 (with respect to league average) I was critical of Shapiro and Atkins in late 2023 when it looked like they were way behind the curve with respect to Baltimore and Tampa Bay. 2025 that has obviously changed. Is it sustainable? We will see. Interesting to look at key players (by WAR) and how Atkins got them Bichette, Kirk, Barger, Schneider, Yesivage - signed/drafted developed by Atkins Guerrero - signed by AA, developed by Atkins team, signed long term by Atkins Springer, Gaussman, Bassit, Hoffman, Santander - big ticket free agent signings. Clement, Straw, Lukes, Lauer, Heineman - Free struggling minor league vet reclamation projects (I know Straw was kind of accidental but still fits that profile as he was in the minors all of 2024) Varsho, Berrios, Giminez, Bieber - acquired for Atkins draft picks Morena/Martin/Horwitz Probably forgetting a few people and bullpen pieces