Blue Jays Discussion: The Vladimir Guerrero Jr. injury overreaction thread

[phillipmike]

MLB Roundtable: Award predictions, World Series picks for 2018 season - Sportsnet.ca

Some high praise for Paxton; Wilner and Zwelling picking him to win the AL Cy Young. No surprises on the other predictions.

Davidi and Wilner picking the last wildcard spot for the Jays. Everyone has Yankees, Cleveland, Boston and Houston in the playoffs. 2 picked the Jays for the last spot and 3 for the Twins.

Everyone has Nationals, Cubs and Dodgers. 3 for the Cards, 2 for the Mets and Brewers; and 1 each the Rockies, Diamondbacks and surprisingly (Wilner of course) took the Phillies.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Does Wilner count?

 

[zeke]

Does Wilner count?

unfortunately we not only have to ignore his vote, but have to count it as actually a vote for the twins.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Fangraphs has there predictions out too

FanGraphs 2018 Staff Predictions | FanGraphs Baseball

One place the staff diverges sharply from projections? The Blue Jays. Much like our readers, we don’t think much of Toronto’s current 86-win projection, or the second Wild Card spot that goes with it.

The reason for the divergence: "Because."

Seriously though, I kinda get why they're bearish on the Blue Jays coming off of 2017. Fangraphs and their projections systems tend to favour strikeout pitchers (a simple look at fWAR v. bWAR helps determine that), and the Jays rotation which is the primary reason why I'm bullish on the team, is filled with guys that fWAR likes okay over the last three years, but bWAR has loved for the most part.

Jays Rotation (three year best bWAR)
1. Stroman (5.7 bWAR - 2017)
2. Sanchez (5.1 bWAR - 2016)
3. Happ (4.5 bWAR - 2016)
4. Estrada (3.9 bWAR - 2015)
5. Garcia (3.9 bWAR - 2015)

That, and overall, their projection systems are criminally low on Sanchez. I get the blister issue, but take a look at the projections for Garrett Richards (the ace of the team they are projecting to take the second wild card) and see how many innings\production he's being projected for despite chronic elbow issues.

Funny enough, even with those discounts baked in, the team is still projected to win 86, which for some reason continues to strike people as being too high.

 

[phillipmike]

2018 MLB Opening Day: CBS Sports staff picks and predictions for divisions, World Series, MVP, Cy Young and more

No one picks the Jays to be a wildcard team here. They finish 3rd on all 5 writer's ballots in the AL East and Aaron Sanchez is the comeback player of the year in the AL for 2 of them.

 

[Discoverer]

I hate to be that guy, but we both know John is going to start him at 2B/3B as well some days, which will drive us all nuts. Probably batting higher than 9th too.

I was a little torn about how to word that. That's why I went with "need"; barring another injury, they would never need to start him at 2B/3B. It doesn't mean they won't choose to do it anyway, but they won't need to.

 

[phillipmike]

Some ballsy picks on that Fangraphs one;

Sean Dolinar has the Red Sox and Indians missing the playoffs with the Twins winning the Central, the Angels winning the West and the Astros and Jays playing in the wildcard.
Roger Cormier is similar; has the Twins and Angels winning their division and Indians missing the playoffs.
Paul Sporer is probably the best one. Red Sox and Indians miss, Twins win the division and Oakland gets in.

Phillies got 8 wildcard votes. Milwaukee got 7 division votes... Mets, Rockies and D'Backs all got a Division vote.

Pham and JD Martinez for MVP, Bauer and McCullers, along with Nola and Weaver for Cy Young are ballsy picks too.

 

[Nineteen67]

MLB Roundtable: Award predictions, World Series picks for 2018 season - Sportsnet.ca

Some high praise for Paxton; Wilner and Zwelling picking him to win the AL Cy Young. No surprises on the other predictions.

Davidi and Wilner picking the last wildcard spot for the Jays. Everyone has Yankees, Cleveland, Boston and Houston in the playoffs. 2 picked the Jays for the last spot and 3 for the Twins.

Everyone has Nationals, Cubs and Dodgers. 3 for the Cards, 2 for the Mets and Brewers; and 1 each the Rockies, Diamondbacks and surprisingly (Wilner of course) took the Phillies.

The former MLB players with Fox got crucified for picking the Twins.

 

[Nineteen67]

Some ballsy picks on that Fangraphs one;

Sean Dolinar has the Red Sox and Indians missing the playoffs with the Twins winning the Central, the Angels winning the West and the Astros and Jays playing in the wildcard.
Roger Cormier is similar; has the Twins and Angels winning their division and Indians missing the playoffs.
Paul Sporer is probably the best one. Red Sox and Indians miss, Twins win the division and Oakland gets in.

Phillies got 8 wildcard votes. Milwaukee got 7 division votes... Mets, Rockies and D'Backs all got a Division vote.

Pham and JD Martinez for MVP, Bauer and McCullers, along with Nola and Weaver for Cy Young are ballsy picks too.

There probably will be a surprise or two. I think the Astros and Cleveland are good candidates. Cleveland, because they are Cleveland and the Astros because of the hangover.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

The top-5 making up the Angels rotation combined for 210 IP in 2017.

This **** is getting funny.

Pham and JD Martinez for MVP, Bauer and McCullers, along with Nola and Weaver for Cy Young are ballsy picks too.

The Pham, Martinez, McCullers and Nola picks aren't super ballsy. I could see each one happening.

 

[phillipmike]

The top-5 making up the Angels rotation combined for 210 IP in 2017.

This **** is getting funny.

The Pham, Martinez, McCullers and Nola picks aren't super ballsy. I could see each one happening.

I mean it is possible but in my head 4-5 guys in front of them they either must beat out and/or have a down season. I just dont see that happening especially a quasi DH in Martinez.

We are talking Trout, Altuve, Judge, Stanton, Donaldson, Correra, Lindor, and Ramirez in the AL and Bryant, Freeman, Harper, Votto, Goldy, Kershaw, and Seager in the NL.

For the Cy Young we have Sale and Kluber as staples (maybe McCullers doesnt look so bad now) and Kershaw, and Schrezer in the NL with a lot of other contenders.

Neither of those 4 guys listed are in the top 10 of my respective lists for the Cy Young or MVP.

 

[Discoverer]

Let's be honest... a lot of this is guys making slightly off-the-board predictions so they look awesome if they end up being right.

You have nothing to lose in making these kinds of predictions, but you get bragging rights if you go out on a limb and get it right.

If you walked up to any of these people and said "Tell me who you think will be the AL MVP and I'll give you $100 if you end up being right" every single one of them would pick Mike Trout. But that's boring.

 

[Eyedea]

Nola is a top 5 pitcher in the NL, and his VORP was 6th overall despite throwing ~30 less innings than everybody ahead of him. Only SPs with better DRAs than him in 2017 were Kluber, Scherzer, and Sale.

 

[HockeyGuruPitka]

Did Teoscar Hernandez not play well enough to get a roster spot?

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

Did Teoscar Hernandez not play well enough to get a roster spot?

He'll be up before you know it.

 

[Boutette]

Did Teoscar Hernandez not play well enough to get a roster spot?

He did, but they are paying Pearce and Granderson to play out the year in left and Morales isn't going anywhere, so until one of those guys (or Smoak maybe) gets injured or does literally nothing through April-May he's stuck in Buffalo.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Pearce will be injured in no time

 

[phillipmike]

Injury bug hitting everyone;

The Rays have suffered a tough blow on the eve of Opening Day, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that righty Nathan Eovaldi will be down to open the season. “Loose bodies” in Eovaldi’s elbow will likely require surgery, per the report.

Hopefully it avoids us and its just Tulo though i do wish Tulo was healthy.

 

[Longshot]

There probably will be a surprise or two. I think the Astros and Cleveland are good candidates. Cleveland, because they are Cleveland and the Astros because of the hangover.

A reporter on the Fan590 the other night when I was driving home (might be the same guy that made the above predictions) said he thinks Cleveland is overrated and won't be a playoff team. He said he worried about Kluber taking a step back after two long seasons, with the playoffs factored in and wasn't impressed by the moves they made for everyday players.

He also said he expects the Jays to be a wild card team.

 

[Discoverer]

Injury bug hitting everyone;



Hopefully it avoids us and its just Tulo though i do wish Tulo was healthy.

Yikes. They've already lost Honeywell and De Leon to TJ. Their margin of error was pretty damn thin to begin with, but losing that much starting pitching before the season even starts has to really sucks.

 

[The Nemesis]

Wow. Way to go Vlad

Was that Bo wearing no.7?

Yep. He seemed more hyped than Guerrero.

Gross.

Ryan Ngoins.

Or at least the perception version of Ryan Ngoins.

Did Teoscar Hernandez not play well enough to get a roster spot?

He probably did, but it was a numbers game. They're carrying Granderson and Pearce as the platoon LF setup with Granderson probably being the utility OF and maybe some mild OF innings for Solarte/Diaz if necessary to some in-game shuffling.

In a perfect world I would foist Morales on some other team that wants an MLB bat or we can pay to eat some salary, then let Pearce slide into more of a DH/LF utility bat role and let Hernandez be the 'proper' 4th OF. But for now he's just caught in the numbers game.

 

[GoonieFace]

He'll be up before you know it.

Hopefully not too soon, I enjoy going to the Bisons games, and by the looks of it, they will have alot of guys worth seeing.

 

[Discoverer]

with Granderson probably being the utility OF

I assuming they'll do a little shuffling depending who's in/out on any given day. If Pillar gets a day off, Grichuk is the CF.

 

[phillipmike]

Yikes. They've already lost Honeywell and De Leon to TJ. Their margin of error was pretty damn thin to begin with, but losing that much starting pitching before the season even starts has to really sucks.

Yeah they are in a bad spot. Roster Resource has their depth chart up to date by the minute and they only have 3 starters listed.

Tampa Bay Rays 2018

They only have Archer, Snell and Faria listed.

They say Eovaldi is expected to miss 6-8 weeks. Andriese is likely to get a spot and they just said Pruitt might get the other. Banda is a good arm. Ubaldo Jimenez and Colby Lewis are still available. I wonder if they can get a guy who is currently on a minor league deal like a Hellickson or a Anderson to terminate and give them a spot if they feel like those other guys arent ready.

 

[phillipmike]

Yankees Opening Day Lineup;

Brett Gardner LF
Aaron Judge RF
Giancarlo Stanton DH
Gary Sanchez C
Aaron Hicks CF
Didi Gregorius SS
Brandon Drury 3B
Neil Walker 2B
Tyler Austin 1B