2019 Blue Jays Season Thread

[Resolute 14]

From Reddit. lol:

[Roof-Daddy]

Position players I don't want to watch anymore:

1. Rowdy Tellez (.684 OPS since call up)
2. Billy Mckinney (.554 OPS since call up)
3. Jonathan Davis (.426 OPS since call up)

Please stop subjecting me to these players Montoyo, for the love of christ.

Drury and Fisher are also getting close as well.

[flamingred89]

Fisher takes a HR away with a nice grab. Still waiting for him to pull in a routine fly ball though...

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Position players I don't want to watch anymore:

1. Rowdy Tellez (.684 OPS since call up)
2. Billy Mckinney (.554 OPS since call up)
3. Jonathan Davis (.426 OPS since call up)

Please stop subjecting me to these players Montoyo, for the love of christ.

Drury and Fisher are also getting close as well.

Ya I am with you on those three. If you're at ~400 PAs and are still sitting at a sub .300 OBP and hovering around a .220 BA (I'm looking at you Tellez, Drury, Hernandez and Grichuk) then they're not worth a roster spot in my opinion.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

From Reddit. lol:

I'd be interested to see Keith Law's reasoning why he doesn't think Biggio is a major leaguer. Seems ludicrous.

[Matty81]

I feel like Stoeten's been in the same camp as Law of being a bit negative on Biggio this year (though he seems to have shifted from humorous to really negative and defensive in general).

For me I think it has a lot to do with people who take a traditional and inflexible view on player development as a straight line... player A hit at ____ average in rookie ball ergo he will be this level of player at the major league level. Same guys who give up on a player after a major league season because the sample size is big enough and they will never improve. Inability to accept player development arcs outside of conventional wisdom.

Biggio has always been a guy at lower levels that prospect evaluators never really liked a lot. I think a lot of prospect raters who were down on him will have really hard time accepting that he bucked the trend and actually improved as he moved up the ladder... tough for them to admit they were wrong.

But as guys like Bautista have shown, it's not the norm, but some players do improve later in their career, even in some cases at the MLB level. I think the Jays need to be really careful with a couple guys on their roster who haven't dominated at the MLB level but could be late bloomers.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Grichuk grand slam to take the lead in the top of the 9th.

[Roof-Daddy]

Lol what a comeback.

FU oriloles

[flamingred89]

There’s bad and then there’s the Orioles. But It’s always fun to watch comebacks like that regardless of opponent. It’s just a shame that Showalter isn’t still in the dugout for the O’s. Losing looked good on that ###hat.

Grichuks stat line for the night pretty much sums him up. 1-5 with a bomb and a couple K’s. He is what he is at this point.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

Ya I am with you on those three. If you're at ~400 PAs and are still sitting at a sub .300 OBP and hovering around a .220 BA (I'm looking at you Tellez, Drury, Hernandez and Grichuk) then they're not worth a roster spot in my opinion.

I don't mind Grichuk and Teo so much as long as the jays have enough good hitters in the line up to keep them lower down in the order. They don't get on base enough but if they're somewhere around 6 thru 9 in the order with .750+ OPS thats fine IMO. Especially if they provide passable defense.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Here is Keith Law talking about Biggio in the Arizona Fall League in 2018:

...he appears to barely be a major league prospect. He has no position at all. He doesn’t have the speed or athleticism to obviously profile anywhere. He drew a slew of walks this season, but it’s because he’s passive, not because he’s disciplined; I saw him strike out looking four times this week, always on pitches that were clearly strikes, at least two of them fastballs from right-handers that he should have seen better than he did. I know his superficial line this year has some fans thinking he’s a future regular, but I see an up-and-down guy.

I think he undervalues Biggio's athleticism. I don't think Cavan is a spectacular second baseman, but I do think he is perfectly adequate, especially for a rookie. I don't disagree with Keith on Cavan being too passive, as this has been mentioned a lot in various articles about how the Jays have been asking Cavan to be more aggressive, especially on the 4 seamers. Cavan has been saying he is starting to be more aggressive lately, and this does tie in with his recent run of success, though taking arbitrary end points can make a lot of players look like they're turning a corner at various points in the season.

I think however it's fairly obvious right now Cavan is absolutely worth a roster spot on the Jays for at least another season and has shown to have a lot of valuable tools that can compliment any line up. He is versatile, he has a tremendous eye at the plate, he has a bit of pop in his bat too, and is apparently worth almost 2 WAR according to fangraphs. Thats good enough for 12th among a very strong group of rookies, which would place him near Alex Verdugo, above Eloy Jiminez, and near Keston Hiura, albeit a few PAs fewer than Cavan, who was a BP top 10 prospect going into this season. Keith, is in my opinion, wrong.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

I don't mind Grichuk and Teo so much as long as the jays have enough good hitters in the line up to keep them lower down in the order. They don't get on base enough but if they're somewhere around 6 thru 9 in the order with .750+ OPS thats fine IMO. Especially if they provide passable defense.

Grichuk is definitely fine in the outfield. Teoscar is still a bit of an adventure in CF, though he does seem a lot more comfortable there than in LF. I still think there is too much swing and miss with the two of them combining for close to 300 strike outs this season. But ya having them lower in the line up would definitely be a lot more palatable.

[flamingred89]

Agreed. Having a CF platoon of Grichuk/Hernandez is not the worst thing going forward. Both provide replacement level metrics, Swing and miss a little too much, but have lots of pop and above average speed. So you take the good with the bad. If the Jays could target a a good RF In free agency then I actually quite like their OF for next year.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat

I'd be interested to see Keith Law's reasoning why he doesn't think Biggio is a major leaguer. Seems ludicrous.

At this point, it's pride overriding reason. IIRC, part of Law's initial skepticism was that he didn't think Biggio is a ML calibre second baseman defensively, but as the kid's bat has improved, he's just dug his heels in. Even though Biggio has an OPS, OPS+ and WAR this year pretty much equal to his father's career average and well ahead of his dad's rookie year.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Keith Law has a tendency to make his mind up on players and not adjusting his projections:

https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/mets-pr...neil/284510638

McNeil, 26, has emerged as one of the best players in the minors this year, hitting .349/.418/.640 with 18 HR split between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Las Vegas. McNeil is hitting a ridiculous .410/.460/.679 in 19 games with Vegas.

But Law wasn't impressed, leading to this exchange:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1015303951040708608

https://twitter.com/user/status/1015292387982274567

https://twitter.com/user/status/1015304747253891072

https://twitter.com/user/status/1015305807724830720

Jeff McNeil has an OPS of .919 for the Mets, was an All Star, and has started at 2B, 3B, LF and RF this year.

[flames_fan_down_under]

https://theathletic.com/1224040/2019...ember-stinker/

Yet several thousand did show. Some had entire sections to themselves to watch the second worst-team in baseball face off against the fifth-worst team for the 15th time in six months.

That prompts a question. One, I know you were thinking.

One that’s stumped me.

A simple yet mystifying query that I asked more than a dozen people Wednesday.

“Why the hell are you here?”

[Roof-Daddy]

Saw an interview with Shapiro on Tim and Sid the other day, he talked about how the Jays plan on keeping Vlad at 3rd for the time being, and hope he can make the same type of improvement Devers made at the same stage in his career.

Hopefully Vlad hears all the noise and takes it seriously. I really hope he doesn't show up next season at the same weight and body fat levels. The guy could be elite for a decade plus if he takes that stuff to heart. His body won't hold up the way he is now, and he certainly won't play much longer at 3B either. Hopefully if he ends up moving to 1B it's only because Groshans/Martinez/Hiraldo have made it to the show and force him to switch corners.

[flames_fan_down_under]

I agree with you.

For Vlad to be valuable he needs to:

-work on his conditioning,
-hit the ball higher, his launch angle stats are worrying, hard singles are great but doubles and home runs are what make players valuable,
-and work on his foot work to stay at 3rd base.

Big offseason for Vladdy Jr.

One player I am not worried about is Bo Bichette, he strikes me as an extremely confident and determined young man.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Cavan 'Not-Worth-A-Roster-Spot' Biggio with a solo jack.

Gurriel Jr!! Back to back!!

And almost back to back to back, Hays with an insane home run stealing catch.

[flamingred89]

Pat: “The Orioles haven’t had a decent centre fielder since Adam Jones was out there”...

That was literally last season, Pat.