Blue Jays Discussion: Spring Training is over. The season begins today

[Canada4Gold]

I don’t get this move at all. What am I’m missing? He finally started pitching well and looked good so we move off of him now for nothing? We could even get a scrap prospect

The move 4 or 5 days ago to DFA him or this trade? A trade or waiver claim was almost inevitable once they DFA'd him. If you're complaining about the choice to DFA him a week ago who would you have sent down instead? They sent down Pearson at the same time which was not loved by the fanbase given how he'd been pitching.

White looked good for a portion of time there but had no options, had no trust to pitch in any important situation and had reverted back to him form last year recently with a few bad outings. When the pen we had was as deep as it was it's hard to justify holding onto him.

Pitching prospects are fun...

Oh great. So all 3 of our best young prospect arms are injured. The good news is there's nobody else down there that I really love so you can't hurt my hopes anymore. Macko perhaps. Guess he'll get hurt next week.

 

[canucksfan]

Would you look at that the Jays offense is top 10 in WAR and wRC+;

Major League Leaderboards - 2024 - Batting | FanGraphs Baseball

www.fangraphs.com

Again, Jays are in a playoff spot and their best hitter is ok and the next 3 are pretty awful;

Guerrero: 125 wRC+
Springer: 94
Bichette: 83
Kirk: 48

Jays pitching is ranked 27th in fWAR with 0.9 with their ace having a 8 ERA and some of their best relievers pitching poorly or only getting back now in Romano, Swanson, Mayza, and Cabrera.

Your top hitters will get better but the lower guys carrying them now which will level off too. You pen will settle in and your starters like Bassitt and Gausman should improve. Not to mention the Jays have the best defense in the league by a long shot;

Major League Leaderboards - 2024 - Fielding | FanGraphs Baseball

www.fangraphs.com

Jays are in a playoff spot, currently on pace for 93 wins and are 2 GB of the division (they win game 3 vs the Yankees and they are tied for 1st). FG has them for 86 wins which is 7th in baseball and 4th in the AL;

Yankees: 91
Baltimore: 89
Rays: 87
Jays: 86

10 of your next 13 games are against the Royals and Nationals.

Stay healthy with a regression to the mean, this team is where it should be. Playoff team in the hunt for the division.

Not worried about Bo. He will get going. Springer I am slightly worried about. Just seems his power is gone.

 

[BertCorbeau]

Such odd scheduling to fly to California for one 3 games series .. then fly to KC

 

[phillipmike]

 

[dredeye]

The move 4 or 5 days ago to DFA him or this trade? A trade or waiver claim was almost inevitable once they DFA'd him. If you're complaining about the choice to DFA him a week ago who would you have sent down instead? They sent down Pearson at the same time which was not loved by the fanbase given how he'd been pitching.

White looked good for a portion of time there but had no options, had no trust to pitch in any important situation and had reverted back to him form last year recently with a few bad outings. When the pen we had was as deep as it was it's hard to justify holding onto him.



Oh great. So all 3 of our best young prospect arms are injured. The good news is there's nobody else down there that I really love so you can't hurt my hopes anymore. Macko perhaps. Guess he'll get hurt next week.

I missed him getting DFA'd. I guess a little cash was that was out there for him then

 

[Eyedea]

It’s sad seeing how much Springer’s power has cratered. I think he’s doing well enough to transition into more of a selective hitter but he can barely pull anything anymore.

 

[Bjindaho]

Monday morning defensive update (using 50 innings for 1B only because most players are negative and a small sample would skew results):

C - Kirk is first overall in Def (arguably the best measure for catchers) and tied for 8th in DRS
1B - Vlad Jr is 27th of anyone with 50+ innings in Def (-2.2) and tied for 11th in DRS
2B - IKF is 18th in Def, Cavan is rocking a 0 Def (IKF is t-11 with 1 DRS and Cavan is t-22 with 0)
SS - Bo is 49 of 55 in Def (t-21 in DRS)
3B - IKF is 3rd in Def, Clement is 23rd (t-5 and t-26th respectively in DRS)
LF - Varsho leads LF Def by 2 (3.5) and is T-1 in DRS
CF - Kiermeier is 2nd in Def, Varsho 22nd (both tied for 12th in DRS)
RF - Springer is 50th of everybody (but slowly climbing towards the positives) and tied for 25th in DRS

Some friendly caveats about D

Def is by far the best measure for catchers because it includes framing.

In most cases, you would expect Def and DRS to be close (which would indicate a pretty comfortable consensus on ability), but there are some oddities in the differences between the two.

For one, DP rating places all of the onus on the first guy to touch the ball (and none on anyone after that). If you wonder why Vlad can be so negative in terms of Def and still be decent at DRS, it is largely the difference of foul balls (a dropped or uncaught foul ball has a very low negative value for runs but still isn't a play made).

I expect Bo to settle in and get better.

Another note is that Def compares everyone to an average fielder whereas DRS compares within the position. This is why 1B generally have negative Def scores (because obviously they don't get to as many foul balls as a guy like Cavan Biggio, for example).

 

[Bjindaho]

Monday morning pitching update:

Note: for fielding, I always use FG because you get access to multiple stats that are useful, but for pitching, BR is better for small samples (except the rare case where teams pull starters to prevent runs counting against them a lot)

Pitcher bWAR
Berrios 1.6 (2)
Kikuchi 0.7 (44)
Garcia 0.4 (91)
Yariel 0.2 (182)

Gausman and Bassitt are negative ATM

The Jays are 3rd worst in pitcher bWAR (0) and 22nd in Runs allowed per 9. Bassitt and Gausman pitching better will help, but the bullpen needs to pitch better.

 

[aingefan]

What is this obacon stat? Cuz everything is better with bacon.

 

[phillipmike]

What is this obacon stat? Cuz everything is better with bacon.

xwOBAcon (Expected Weighted On-Base Average on Contact) — A metric that removes strikeouts, walks, and HBP to measure the productiveness of a hitter when they put a ball into play.

 

[Bjindaho]

If a callup becomes necessary, Buffalo has 3 guys that are all showing well to earn it.

Horwitz is rocking a 21% BB rate and has played some LF to add versatility.

Barger is teetering on the BB:K rate with a 1.021 OPS playing 3B and OF.

Orelvis seems to have completely changed his offensive approach and now has a 21% K rate this year with his 6 HR.

That being said, the Jays only hitters below 100 wRC+ are Springer, Kirk (.179 with 1 extra base will do that), Kiermeier, Jano (small sample) and Bo.

 

[Suntouchable13]

If a callup becomes necessary, Buffalo has 3 guys that are all showing well to earn it.

Horwitz is rocking a 21% BB rate and has played some LF to add versatility.

Barger is teetering on the BB:K rate with a 1.021 OPS playing 3B and OF.

Orelvis seems to have completely changed his offensive approach and now has a 21% K rate this year with his 6 HR.

That being said, the Jays only hitters below 100 wRC+ are Springer, Kirk (.179 with 1 extra base will do that), Kiermeier, Jano (small sample) and Bo.

I wonder who those guys might replace on the roster. At the very least, I’d think their stock is rising and the Jays could dangle them at the deadline for significant upgrades to the roster.

 

[Bjindaho]

I wonder who those guys might replace on the roster. At the very least, I’d think their stock is rising and the Jays could dangle them at the deadline for significant upgrades to the roster.

If KK doesn't start hitting better, Vogelbach could be in trouble (since he is a straight luxury).

At this point, we all know that Bo will rebound and be the awesome player that he can be, but I'd at least be mulling over the possibility of moving him.

If Orelvis doesn't slow down...there's going to come a point where he simply takes a roster spot and the Jays will have to deal. If management is being proactive, the smart move is Cavan before he regresses to the mean (with the caveat that you are trading a 2-3 win player even with regression)

One thing about the roster as it is going is that if KK doesn't hit, he slowly slides to 4th OF (and at this point, it looks like it is Schneider who plays more). If IKF cools off, Clement plays more. Vogelbach might be gone if an IF slows down, because IKF hitting less could open the door to Barger getting a shot and Biggio hitting less could open the door to Orelvis.

 

[The Nemesis]

lol, Some fan behind the dugout in today's Yankees/As game yelled something at the umpire and the ump thought it was a person in the Yankees dugout and tossed Aaron Boone.

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

lol, Some fan behind the dugout in today's Yankees/As game yelled something at the umpire and the ump thought it was a person in the Yankees dugout and tossed Aaron Boone.

 

[Lightsol]

I mean, f*** the Yankees, but REALLY... They don't have any control over the f***ing fans...

 

[Discoverer]

In the ump's defense, Boone is always complaining about something, so it's a safe bet to make.

 

[BertCorbeau]

that it happened to the Yanks but holy shit umps are so soft

 

[Westlander]

In the ump's defense, Boone is always complaining about something, so it's a safe bet to make.

The Boone who cried wolf..

 

[phillipmike]

 

[canucksfan]

 

[kb]

TJ x 3

 

[Discoverer]

Orelvis seems to have most of the attention so far this year, but Barger has been right there with him in terms of performance. Lots of great starts in Buffalo... Horwitz and Robertson have been on fire, too.

 

[The Nemesis]

rofl. All he had to do was cop to the mistake and it would've been fine. Instead we get this rambling nonsense.

 

[Puckstuff]

If KK doesn't start hitting better, Vogelbach could be in trouble (since he is a straight luxury).

At this point, we all know that Bo will rebound and be the awesome player that he can be, but I'd at least be mulling over the possibility of moving him.

If Orelvis doesn't slow down...there's going to come a point where he simply takes a roster spot and the Jays will have to deal. If management is being proactive, the smart move is Cavan before he regresses to the mean (with the caveat that you are trading a 2-3 win player even with regression)

One thing about the roster as it is going is that if KK doesn't hit, he slowly slides to 4th OF (and at this point, it looks like it is Schneider who plays more). If IKF cools off, Clement plays more. Vogelbach might be gone if an IF slows down, because IKF hitting less could open the door to Barger getting a shot and Biggio hitting less could open the door to Orelvis.

Biggio, Clement, Schneider, IKF, KK, Barger, Martinez etc all feel like interchangeable pieces until one or two of them break out imo. Maybe add Horwitz to the list if he can play an adequate LF.

So many damn options:

LF - Barger/Horwitz/Schneider/Kiermaier/Biggio
3B - IKF/Barger/Clement/Biggio
2B - Schneider/Biggio/Clement/IKF/Martinez

If Barger stays hot for another week or two, I want them to drop Vogelbach for Barger. Getting Martinez in seems a little harder with Davis Schneider playing his 2B role while adding better defence and we have Turner as a right handed hitting DH. Where is this fit for Martinez? I would be shocked if they drop Biggio for Martinez given they value defence and left handed hitting vs right handed hitting. I think Martinez can only swipe a position from Schneider or through an injury to someone like Clement, IKF or Turner.

1. Springer
2. Guerrero
3. Bichette
4. Turner
5. Varsho
6. Jansen
7. Schneider/Biggio
8. Barger/KK/Schneider
9. IKF/Clement/Barger