Blue Jays Discussion: The other trade deadline passeth. You know, the complicated one. (Mod warning post #1)

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The Nemesis

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So is Stroman gonna be the next guy we move at sub-optimal value?

If Stroman were a trade candidate (big 'if' here given that the upside of his uneven performance and general seasonal trend in the wrong direction is that it sabotages his leverage in contract negotiations) it'd be a different situation given that his "sub-optimal value" is not necessarily responsible for his poorer performance. This isn't like hanging onto Donaldson for too long or letting Encarnacion walk or whatever. Stroman was young enough to be part of the core moving forward and his value lowering has been a slow crawl from ace-calibur to shaky fringe #2. There was never a flashpoint "right" time to move him, so it's hard to then say that watching him struggle now represents a failure to seize an opportunity, no more than you can say it with any player that's good at any given time (eg: hey, Danny Jansen has exploded onto the scene. The chances of him being a 6.5 fWAR player over a 500 PA season are slim to nil. Better trade him now because his value can likely only go downhill as his real limitations are slowly exposed)

The bigger missed opportunity was probably Estrada. He was already showing back issues and a reasonable probability that his bubble might burst as early as spurts of the 2016 season. It might've been a good opportunity to flip him for something in that off-season rather than watching his value go full Chernobyl the last couple of seasons.
 

Cloned

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I don’t know if anybody caught Atkins’ interview with Scott Mitchell. He said during that interview that his belief is that pitchers develop later and position players earlier. It makes me think their plan is to rely on bluechip young position player prospects contributing over veterans in those positions, and when the time is right, they’ll spend most of the budget on pitchers that have already matured. It’s a decent plan if they can execute it properly.
 

TheMadHatTrick

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If Stroman were a trade candidate (big 'if' here given that the upside of his uneven performance and general seasonal trend in the wrong direction is that it sabotages his leverage in contract negotiations) it'd be a different situation given that his "sub-optimal value" is not necessarily responsible for his poorer performance.

I'm not quite sure what this means Nem. Is this supposed to be worded differently?
This isn't like hanging onto Donaldson for too long or letting Encarnacion walk or whatever.

No one is saying it is. Players are traded under different circumstances (see Osuna). Their relative value under those circumstances would be the governing commonality. In Stroman's case it could be that his attitude (which has supposedly rubbed teammates and management the wrong way) gets him traded more so than his poor performance, and his attitude has been been known for a while.

Stroman was young enough to be part of the core moving forward and his value lowering has been a slow crawl from ace-calibur to shaky fringe #2.

I wouldn't call it a slow crawl. The guy has been worth 3.4+WAR the last two years. This is more or less out of nowhere in terms of his performance (and largely explicable by injury). Again, if he were traded its seems likely to be less because of his performance while semi-injured than that management just got tired of the off-field headache (Jeff Blair made a comment to this effect a few months ago).
There was never a flashpoint "right" time to move him, so it's hard to then say that watching him struggle now represents a failure to seize an opportunity

That's fair, but again, no one even said that. You're reading way too much into a tongue-in-cheek, single-line, semi-jokey sentence.
 
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TheMadHatTrick

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I don’t know if anybody caught Atkins’ interview with Scott Mitchell. He said during that interview that his belief is that pitchers develop later and position players earlier. It makes me think their plan is to rely on bluechip young position player prospects contributing over veterans in those positions, and when the time is right, they’ll spend most of the budget on pitchers that have already matured. It’s a decent plan if they can execute it properly.

So the Chicago model basically. I've been a proponent of that for a while.
 

Garlando

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Had he moved Donaldson in the offseason people would have been out with pitchforks. Those same people are now wondering why he didn’t. Atkins has made some questionable moves but all gms have. But he’s done a lot more good than bad with what he was left with (aging, overpaid vets past their prime with nothing available on the farm to help).

I really don’t think fans would have come out with pitchforks had they moved Donaldson in the off-season. There were a lot of logical/rational arguments shared here to do so last off-season to try and get a quality asset or two while his value was still high and the Jays had leverage of a full year left and he was healthy. Realistically, I think most fans saw that the Blue Jays entering the season were a secondary contender at best behind the Red Sox/Yankees/Indians/Astros in the AL and likely needed a lot to go right just to earn the second wildcard.

Now no one could have foreseen all the unfortunate things that have happened this year that have led to the struggles in the win column, that’s obviously not on Shapiro/Atkins. I do think that their commitment to try and win this with this roster after it failed in 2017 and the fact that they tried to sell themselves as real contenders in 2018 with largely the same roster hurt their credibility with the fans and the attendance numbers this year reflect that. They also have not been able to turn 3 important assets in EE, Joey Bats, and Donaldson into much positive value towards that next core which probably sets the franchise back some. Good news is they are committed to building the right way and continue to draft/sign well and develop the farm system effectively while managing service time ideally and they are right in that they likely aren’t too far away from winning baseball again.
 

dangomon

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Question about Merryweather. Atkins stated that the PTBNL did not clear waivers from the 40 man roster, but Merryweather is on the DL and cannot be put through waivers. Or at least I was under the impression that these players could not be put through, and I assume if he was put through someone may have claimed him if he's worth what people are saying he is.
 

Discoverer

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Question about Merryweather. Atkins stated that the PTBNL did not clear waivers from the 40 man roster, but Merryweather is on the DL and cannot be put through waivers. Or at least I was under the impression that these players could not be put through, and I assume if he was put through someone may have claimed him if he's worth what people are saying he is.

"Didn't clear waivers" doesn't have to mean he was put on waivers and claimed by someone. Players who were never put on waivers also didn't clear.
 

Morgs

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I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and since people are talking about the 2017-18 offseason:

The way I see it and remember it, I wanted them to make it clear what they wanted out of this season. The last thing I wanted was JD to walk for a comp pick after a wasted season, and believed he either needed to be re-signed or traded prior to the season starting as we couldn't risk getting nothing for our best and arguably most valuable (in a trade) player. I wanted Shatkins to either:

1. Go for it (signing Cain, re-signing JD, going after "big fish" [Ozuna, Yelich, Stanton lol] etc.)
2. Blow up the short term while they still had value (trading/re-signing JD, trading Martin, Estrada, Happ, Pillar, Morales, and maybe Smoak)

To me, instead of them making a stand and just picking one of the two options they chickened out (reports say it was Rogers, but who knows) and decided to go for somewhere in the middle and hope we become a 2nd wildcard team to show competitiveness. Now nobody could have guessed that arguably our 4 best players would absolutely bomb this season (JD's calf, Osuna's DV, Sanchez/Stroman), but I still didn't see the commitment one way or the other that I really wanted before VGJ comes in next season. The thing is too, I'm not even complaining about the deals in the off-season, because I loved where their heads were at on every single one of them being as low-risk as possible while having some legitimate strong upside.

What hurts for me is that the lack of commitment they've shown has lead to losing the best player in Jays history for a "PTBNL" in a wasted season - my biggest fear coming into 2018. I mean, it's arguably an even worse decision than getting a comp pick/another season out of JD. Not only that though, a lot of the players that we would've been talking about getting a good/great return for in the off-season had their value diminish to almost nothing or nothing by the time the deadline came around. I'm not going to get into Osuna, but I do believe that wasn't handled in a great way either.

I know we're in a great position moving forward with our current Major League core (Stroman, Sanchez, Boruki, Travis, Jansen, Grichuk, Smoak) especially with the next wave of talent coming prior to 2020, and minor payroll moving forward. I just feel like we could've handled this season a whole a lot better - especially Donaldson (and to a lesser extent Osuna).
 

BlueForever75

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I don't think management ever thought that this would have been the result with both Donaldson and Osuna.

You had a player in Donaldson that had a terrific last two months of the season last year and the betting was him being healthy and continuing to contribute. If the Jays were in an unfavorable positon come trade deadline he would have been shipped out for a greater return. No one saw him having a bum shoulder in the spring and taking a minor calve injury as far as he did. You cannot put this on management.

As for Osuna, this came out of no where. And had he not done what he did. He would have gone on to have another terrific season and could have been dealt this coming off season for a huge haul.

Management isn't to fault here. Sorry I do not buy it. Had the Jays had a full season of JD, and at least 3/4 of a season of Tulo. Not to mention no injuries to both Stroman and Sanchez. We would be in contention for the wildcard. We have 60+ wins with a bandaid lineup and our superstar out all season.

How do you blame management for this?
 

GoonieFace

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I don't think management ever thought that this would have been the result with both Donaldson and Osuna.

You had a player in Donaldson that had a terrific last two months of the season last year and the betting was him being healthy and continuing to contribute. If the Jays were in an unfavorable positon come trade deadline he would have been shipped out for a greater return. No one saw him having a bum shoulder in the spring and taking a minor calve injury as far as he did. You cannot put this on management.

As for Osuna, this came out of no where. And had he not done what he did. He would have gone on to have another terrific season and could have been dealt this coming off season for a huge haul.

Management isn't to fault here. Sorry I do not buy it. Had the Jays had a full season of JD, and at least 3/4 of a season of Tulo. Not to mention no injuries to both Stroman and Sanchez. We would be in contention for the wildcard. We have 60+ wins with a bandaid lineup and our superstar out all season.

How do you blame management for this?

Because people are lazy and its easy to blame management, especially one coming from a "small market" team. People automatically think they are cheap and not committed to winning. Fact is, they can build a sustainable winner, not like AA who tried for short term success, than bailed when it didn't work.
 

Morgs

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I don't think management ever thought that this would have been the result with both Donaldson and Osuna.

You had a player in Donaldson that had a terrific last two months of the season last year and the betting was him being healthy and continuing to contribute. If the Jays were in an unfavorable positon come trade deadline he would have been shipped out for a greater return. No one saw him having a bum shoulder in the spring and taking a minor calve injury as far as he did. You cannot put this on management.

As for Osuna, this came out of no where. And had he not done what he did. He would have gone on to have another terrific season and could have been dealt this coming off season for a huge haul.

Management isn't to fault here. Sorry I do not buy it. Had the Jays had a full season of JD, and at least 3/4 of a season of Tulo. Not to mention no injuries to both Stroman and Sanchez. We would be in contention for the wildcard. We have 60+ wins with a bandaid lineup and our superstar out all season.

How do you blame management for this?

Being in contention for the wildcard for me is not what you want when the best player in franchise history is about to become a UFA. I'm not going to talk more about the Osuna situation because it's over, but I don't think we handled it as well as we could've. Diaz probably was a better option than Tulo this year anyway, so....

I'm not blaming management for how poor this season has gone, I'm blaming them for not drawing a line in the sand and committing to a plan. If they wanted to go for it this season, I would've been more than happy to get saddled with a few bad contracts in the next couple years (Yes, even if we didn't make the wild card) because I would've at least said "at least you tried". If they wanted to blow it up short-term (anyone available on the ML roster except Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Travis) I would've been just as happy.

Unfortunately what I saw was them going for low-risk, high-upside moves that showed they were going to try, but not bet on themselves to win. And again, I actually really liked almost every single one of the moves. I just didn't see any single one of them being the thing that would push us over the edge into competing instead of just going for a wildcard.

And again, I love where we are going into next season and especially 2020; but we wasted a season and wasted our best assets.
 
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BlueForever75

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I see nothing wrong that this management group has done. Especially when it comes towards the fans. If anything they tried to make us all happy by not blowing it up and went with what any other management team around baseball would have done. Look at Washington, why didn't they trade Harper? Cause they thought they assembled a team that would be competitive. We did the same with Donaldson.

None of this was planned for, and if we were on in their shoes this past off season looking at competition for the Wildcard. We all would have thought we would be in contention not planning for any of this. The 3 teams that were supposed to contend for the 2nd wildcard spot (Angels, Twins and Jays) all didn't pan out.

This isn't Atkins or Shapiro's fault. Nor is it Rogers. You want Rogers to spend and they did. It didn't work out.

We offered more term and money to EE. Wasn't their fault.

We brought back Bautista hoping for a rebound. Didn't work out. Wasn't their fault.

They went after other FA, but were responsible in their offers. They didn't come. Not their fault.

They kept JD around to try and compete. He crumbled like a baby. Not their fault.

Hand injuries to Stroman and Sanchez. Not their fault.

All they have done is try to make the team better with the hands they were dealt. When they acquired the team, and with what has transpired through their tenure with it the way it crumbled.

But here is everyone ranting and raving about AA. When all he did was kill this team. And now he acquired another team in the Braves that has nothing to do with his doing. But hes better then our management?

Guys give your heads a shake.
 

Morgs

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I see nothing wrong that this management group has done. Especially when it comes towards the fans. If anything they tried to make us all happy by not blowing it up and went with what any other management team around baseball would have done. Look at Washington, why didn't they trade Harper? Cause they thought they assembled a team that would be competitive. We did the same with Donaldson.

None of this was planned for, and if we were on in their shoes this past off season looking at competition for the Wildcard. We all would have thought we would be in contention not planning for any of this. The 3 teams that were supposed to contend for the 2nd wildcard spot (Angels, Twins and Jays) all didn't pan out.

This isn't Atkins or Shapiro's fault. Nor is it Rogers. You want Rogers to spend and they did. It didn't work out.

We offered more term and money to EE. Wasn't their fault.

We brought back Bautista hoping for a rebound. Didn't work out. Wasn't their fault.

They went after other FA, but were responsible in their offers. They didn't come. Not their fault.

They kept JD around to try and compete. He crumbled like a baby. Not their fault.

Hand injuries to Stroman and Sanchez. Not their fault.

All they have done is try to make the team better with the hands they were dealt. When they acquired the team, and with what has transpired through their tenure with it the way it crumbled.

But here is everyone ranting and raving about AA. When all he did was kill this team. And now he acquired another team in the Braves that has nothing to do with his doing. But hes better then our management?

Guys give your heads a shake.

Who are you even arguing with?
 

BlueForever75

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Being in contention for the wildcard for me is not what you want when the best player in franchise history is about to become a UFA. I'm not going to talk more about the Osuna situation because it's over, but I don't think we handled it as well as we could've. Diaz probably was a better option than Tulo this year anyway, so....

I'm not blaming management for how poor this season has gone, I'm blaming them for not drawing a line in the sand and committing to a plan. If they wanted to go for it this season, I would've been more than happy to get saddled with a few bad contracts in the next couple years (Yes, even if we didn't make the wild card) because I would've at least said "at least you tried". If they wanted to blow it up short-term (anyone available on the ML roster except Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Travis) I would've been just as happy.

Unfortunately what I saw was them going for low-risk, high-upside moves that showed they were going to try, but not bet on themselves to win. And again, I actually really liked almost every single one of the moves. I just didn't see any single one of them being the thing that would push us over the edge into competing instead of just going for a wildcard.

And again, I love where we are going into next season and especially 2020; but we wasted a season and wasted our best assets.

They made offers to EE, Cain, Lynn, Cobb etc.. They didn't come. They acquired talent in good trades to try and better the team. Solarte, Diaz, and Grichuk are not reasons we didn't have a good season this year.

Not having Tulo, Donaldson, Stroman, and Sanchez all season are the reason why we didn't contend. Had they been there we would have been all in. Keeping them around proved they were all in.

Sorry but your wrong. If Donaldson and Tulo average what they have in their time with the Jays. And Stroman was Stroman. And Sanchez came back as the ERA champ. Are we singing the blues today?

Ask yourself that before crapping on management.
 

Morgs

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Jul 12, 2015
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They made offers to EE, Cain, Lynn, Cobb etc.. They didn't come. They acquired talent in good trades to try and better the team. Solarte, Diaz, and Grichuk are not reasons we didn't have a good season this year.

Not having Tulo, Donaldson, Stroman, and Sanchez all season are the reason why we didn't contend. Had they been there we would have been all in. Keeping them around proved they were all in.

Sorry but your wrong. If Donaldson and Tulo average what they have in their time with the Jays. And Stroman was Stroman. And Sanchez came back as the ERA champ. Are we singing the blues today?

Ask yourself that before crapping on management.

I very clearly didn't once crap on management except for the fact they didn't draw a clear line in the sand. You said it yourself that we had a chance to get the 2nd wild card spot. If we don't have a team that could legitimately compete, what's the point in going for it in 2018, when we were clearly one year away from VGJ - our soon to be best player.

In the 2018 off-season, we're one year off from losing our best player ever for essentially nothing. Either keep the course, retain him, and go for a Yelich/Stanton/Ozuna to put us over the top, or sell-off before Vlad and trade/retain him. Why bother basically keeping the course and only betting on internal improvement as well as low-risk players from outside the organization? If we're trying to compete, go for it. If you're just trying to make the playoffs, what the f*** is the point in keeping guys that won't be here when the Vlad era starts.

That's not really how it works when it comes to guys like Tulo and Donaldson though. Donaldson, it was easy to expect a 6+ WAR season if healthy. Tulo though? I don't know why you'd expect him to be any better than he was in 2017, after coming off more surgery and more issues in spring training.
 

Suntouchable13

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Wow TB is opening with Stanek again tonight, rofl. And this is a team that is 11 games above. 500 with next to no legit starting pitching. Unbelievable
 

Diamond Joe Quimby

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Nice. He had a tough start to the year, but has been very good post all star break (.306/.360/.856), and it'll be touching that his Mom will get to see him make his MLB debut.

Good for Rowdy. 126 wRC+ and .185 ISO since May 10th. Really turned things around.

Still would like to see some ISO similar to his Double-A season, but there's a good Duda-esque bat there.
 

TheMadHatTrick

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Nov 2, 2008
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Good for Rowdy. 126 wRC+ and .185 ISO since May 10th. Really turned things around.

Still would like to see some ISO similar to his Double-A season, but there's a good Duda-esque bat there.

Agreed.

I think part of the problem is his overall approach. He seems to be a line-to-line hitter rather than a pure slugger. He's not in attack mode where he just tries to drive the baseball, but rather he just goes with whatever the pitcher gives him.

You can see that in his strikeout rate which has been around 18 for the last 3 years (unheard of for a supposed power hitter not named Vlad). You can also see from the fact that he has virtually no platoon split other than slugging (in fact his avg and obp are better from the left side than the right).
 

The Nemesis

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I'm not quite sure what this means Nem. Is this supposed to be worded differently?

Yeah, I was a little tired when I was writing. What I was trying to say is that it's different in that he doesn't have something in particular hanging over his head to create the sub-optimal value like Donaldson (injury, pending free agency, souring org relationship) or Osuna (legal trouble). His value issues are because of his poor play, not causing it nor separate from it. Yeah, there's the whole "attitude issue" but that's more of an annoyance at this point than a divisive problem.


No one is saying it is. Players are traded under different circumstances (see Osuna). Their relative value under those circumstances would be the governing commonality. In Stroman's case it could be that his attitude (which has supposedly rubbed teammates and management the wrong way) gets him traded more so than his poor performance, and his attitude has been been known for a while.

I'm not saying anyone is saying that it is, it was just a follow-up on noting that Stroman's case to be traded is somewhat weak given that his issues haven't reached a breaking point and if anything the team is benefitting from the fact that even if he struggles he's still a useful pitcher and his iffy play is helping the Jays by taking away his earning potential and leverage when it comes to negotiation time.


I wouldn't call it a slow crawl. The guy has been worth 3.4+WAR the last two years. This is more or less out of nowhere in terms of his performance (and largely explicable by injury). Again, if he were traded its seems likely to be less because of his performance while semi-injured than that management just got tired of the off-field headache (Jeff Blair made a comment to this effect a few months ago).

The specifically notably bad performance this season? Where he went completely in the tank, yeah, that's unexpected. But on the whole, it's been a steady progression from his rookie year (discounting most of 2015 which he missed) in terms of:

  • Rising fielding-independent stats (FIP, xFIP, SIERA), coupled with a steady-ish BABIP except for a small spike this season
  • Shrinking K rate
  • Rising walk rate
  • Rising hit rate
  • Rising HR/FB until this season, coupled with the fact that while his GB% stays samey, his GB/FB rises. So he gives up fewer fly balls, more of those fly balls leave the yard.
  • Trading a lot of medium contact for hard contact
  • Falling swing %
  • Falling # of pitches in the strike zone (which would seem to be tied to the lower swing rate and the strikeout/walk rate changes)
Yeah he's had some bottoming-out moments this season, but I'm beginning to wonder if Stroman is kind of like the pitching Colby Rasmus: A relentless tinkerer who ends up fiddling his way out of an effective situation the minute he has any sort of hiccup in a never-ending quest to find something better. He had a solid setup and arsenal when he came into the league, but he's got this newfound quest to become the extremist of extreme GB pitchers and it's hurting him as he's dumped his 4-seam, curve, and change in increasing favor of relying on his sinker and slider.


That's fair, but again, no one even said that. You're reading way too much into a tongue-in-cheek, single-line, semi-jokey sentence.

My apologies. There's so much on here with people overreacting and panic-reacting that it's hard to know when something is meant to be tongue in cheek or not. So it's easier just to assume it's legit and respond accordingly

What's that law? That sometimes good satire is indistinguishable from the genuine article? :laugh:
 
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