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Blue Jays GDT: 2022 v6 | Next: Fri, Jul 8 | @ Sea | 10:00pm ET/7:00pm PT | Stripling vs Kirby (APPLE TV ONLY)

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Remind me again why Matt Gage who was getting everyone out was optioned but Trevor Richards who can’t get anyone out is still here?
 
Moreno showed solid plate discipline when he came up

He is now doing what most of our hitters do regularily: swing at terrible first pitches to fall into a hole

Our coaches need to start coaching and start correcting issues and holding players accountable

Kirk and Biggio are our only hitters with any plate discipline, and Biggio needed to get demoted to learn his lesson
 
klmdg said:
Moreno showed solid plate discipline when he came up

He is now doing what most of our hitters do regularily: swing at terrible first pitches to fall into a hole

Our coaches need to start coaching and start correcting issues and holding players accountable

Kirk and Biggio are our only hitters with any plate discipline, and Biggio needed to get demoted to learn his lesson
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To be fair, Moreno is still a kid. Him hitting a wall is not at all surprising as most prospects tend to.
 
Marmoset said:
Ryu and Pearson getting hurt aren't exactly surprises.

If only the Jays could figure out how to develop pitching AND position players at the same time. For years we had pitching in the pipeline and no position players. Now we're basically the total opposite with Manoah having been the big exception.
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Honestly, most of those vaunted pitching prospects ended up flaming out. That's just the nature of pitching prospects. To the extent that while I would laud the Jays for assembling a lengthy list of quality pitchers on their prospect lists, I don't necessarily hold it as a failing now that they have turned the system into a position player factory with the odd pitching cameo.

Over the past decade or so the notable pitchers near the top of the Jays' prospect boards have been:

Aaron Sanchez
Noah Syndergaard
Justin Nicolino
Marcus Stroman
Daniel Norris
Sean Nolin
Jeff Hoffman
Connor Greene
Sean Reid-Foley
Jon Harris
TJ Zeuch
Nate Pearson
Simeon Woods Richardson
Alek Manoah
Anthony Kay

The vast majority of those guys didn't pan out as expected. Stroman, Syndergaard, and Manoah (so far, but honestly it's too early to be making any final conclusions) look like the strong successes. Sanchez, Norris, Hoffman, Reid-Foley had either short-term success or became relievers with MLB work, Greene, Harris, Nicolino, Zeuch, and Nolin have either had extremely fleeting MLB tenures or have flamed out entirely. Pearson is approaching the cliff unless he turns it around in a hurry, Woods Richardson is still working his way through the minors.

Pitching prospects are lottery tickets. Even the really good ones. TINSTAAPP (a pithy acronym coined by a Baseball Prospectus writer meaning "There is no such thing as a pitching prospect" to underscore the volatility and unreliability of young arms coming into and leaving a developmental system) may be an oversimplification but the reality is that pitching prospects exist in this weird sort of dichotomy: They are considered extremely valuable as currency around the bigs because everyone always needs pitching. But at the same time they are notoriously unreliable in terms of panning out as big league pitchers of consequence. It's almost to the point that you're better off drafting position prospects if you want young talent to plug onto your MLB roster and using whatever pitchers you find develop in your system to trade for MLB help now, including MLB-ready pitching.
 
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It should be noted the majority of those guys flamed out in other organizations too.

Sanchez was good until he couldn't hold a baseball anymore. Thor was really good until the injuries caught up to him and put a dent into his velocity and Stroman has been a generally consistent starter up until this year.
 
klmdg said:
Moreno showed solid plate discipline when he came up

He is now doing what most of our hitters do regularily: swing at terrible first pitches to fall into a hole

Our coaches need to start coaching and start correcting issues and holding players accountable

Kirk and Biggio are our only hitters with any plate discipline, and Biggio needed to get demoted to learn his lesson
Click to expand...

I'm not bothered by Moreno starting hot and falling off. Talented prospects coming up to ambush unsuspecting pitchers before having the league adjust to them is the nature of the beast. Vladdy came up and looked utterly mortal for 500 PAs in his first season. This is part of the learning process for most young hitters, Moreno included.
 
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The Nemesis said:
Honestly, most of those vaunted pitching prospects ended up flaming out. That's just the nature of pitching prospects. To the extent that while I would laud the Jays for assembling a lengthy list of quality pitchers on their prospect lists, I don't necessarily hold it as a failing now that they have turned the system into a position player factory with the odd pitching cameo.

Over the past decade or so the notable pitchers near the top of the Jays' prospect boards have been:

Aaron Sanchez
Noah Syndergaard
Justin Nicolino
Marcus Stroman
Daniel Norris
Sean Nolin
Jeff Hoffman
Connor Greene
Sean Reid-Foley
Jon Harris
TJ Zeuch
Nate Pearson
Simeon Woods Richardson
Alek Manoah
Anthony Kay

The vast majority of those guys didn't pan out as expected. Stroman, Syndergaard, and Manoah (so far, but honestly it's too early to be making any final conclusions) look like the strong successes. Sanchez, Norris, Hoffman, Reid-Foley had either short-term success or became relievers with MLB work, Greene, Harris, Nicolino, Zeuch, and Nolin have either had extremely fleeting MLB tenures or have flamed out entirely. Pearson is approaching the cliff unless he turns it around in a hurry, Woods Richardson is still working his way through the minors.

Pitching prospects are lottery tickets. Even the really good ones. TINSTAAPP (a pithy acronym coined by a Baseball Prospectus writer meaning "There is no such thing as a pitching prospect" to underscore the volatility and unreliability of young arms coming into and leaving a developmental system) may be an oversimplification but the reality is that pitching prospects exist in this weird sort of dichotomy: They are considered extremely valuable as currency around the bigs because everyone always needs pitching. But at the same time they are notoriously unreliable in terms of panning out as big league pitchers of consequence. It's almost to the point that you're better off drafting position prospects if you want young talent to plug onto your MLB roster and using whatever pitchers you find develop in your system to trade for MLB help now, including MLB-ready pitching.
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I agree with a lot of this, but then the discussion comes full circle because the pitching we've been bringing in from outside is frequently having the exact same problems. The difference is that Ryu, Berrios, Kukuchi, Roark, etc. all cost a lot to bring in, either in terms of dollars, assets to acquire, or both.

Given a choice of one or the other, I would focus on drafting and developing position players over pitching. But it sure would be nice to have a few arms on the farm who are candidates to step in, which doesn't seem to be the case for the Jays at the moment.

At least it's still much better than the Leafs and developing goalies.
 
Blitzkrug said:
It should be noted the majority of those guys flamed out in other organizations too.

Sanchez was good until he couldn't hold a baseball anymore. Thor was really good until the injuries caught up to him and put a dent into his velocity and Stroman has been a generally consistent starter up until this year.
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When I said the guys on that list were flaming out, I was talking about it irrespective of where they made it to the bigs.

Of that group I posted Syndergaard, Nicolino, Nolin, Norris, Hoffman, and Greene all saw their MLB peaks after being traded or cut loose by the Jays

Syndergaard famously in the Dickey trade
Nicolino as part of the massive Marlins deal
Nolin was included in the Josh Donaldson acquisition
Norris was a key piece of the David Price trade
Hoffman was the price to unload Josey Reyes and take back Tulowitzki
Greene was dealt to the Cards for Randal Grichuk

With the exception of Syndergaard, all of those trades were probably net wins for hte Jays even if the returns were ultimately short term or underwhelming.
 
The Nemesis said:
I'm not bothered by Moreno starting hot and falling off. Talented prospects coming up to ambush unsuspecting pitchers before having the league adjust to them is the nature of the beast. Vladdy came up and looked utterly mortal for 500 PAs in his first season. This is part of the learning process for most young hitters, Moreno included.
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I'm not bothered by him falling off either

I'm bothered that over his past 3 games he has been falling behind early by taking wild hacks at bad pitches

A good manager or hitting coach would have told him to just chill and take the 1st pitch no matter what before his last at bat tonight
 
Marmoset said:
I agree with a lot of this, but then the discussion comes full circle because the pitching we've been bringing in from outside is frequently having the exact same problems. The difference is that Ryu, Berrios, Kukuchi, Roark, etc. all cost a lot to bring in, either in terms of dollars, assets to acquire, or both.

Given a choice of one or the other, I would focus on drafting and developing position players over pitching. But it sure would be nice to have a few arms on the farm who are candidates to step in, which doesn't seem to be the case for the Jays at the moment.

At least it's still much better than the Leafs and developing goalies.
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Kikuchi and Roark didn't cost that much. Each was signed for about $12m a year, which is generally "fair" low-end FA dollar value for pitchers. Ryu cost a lot in dollars, but turned in about 1 and a half good years which is probably only mildly disappointing considering expectations for how big FA contracts on pitchers north of 30 tend to age (I remember discussion at the time being that the hope was he could provide 2 good years of value on that contract in time for the team to eat the last year or two on the downswing)

And while the price tag on Berrios was high, his sudden breakdown is somewhat mystifying and if there's a silver lining in the cost it's that Martin has floundered with the Twins as his primary calling card (hitting) has deserted him and now he's an underwhelming bat with fringe utility fielding skills and the Woods Richardson hype train has slowed down as he had a speedbump season last year and is repeating AA this year. So the Jays may have made the right choice to sell high on both of those players at the time and have only seen it undone by a baffling and unexpected implosion for a guy whose biggest calling card was consistency.
 
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The Nemesis said:
Kikuchi and Roark didn't cost that much. Each was signed for about $12m a year, which is generally "fair" low-end FA dollar value for pitchers. Ryu cost a lot in dollars, but turned in about 1 and a half good years which is probably only mildly disappointing considering expectations for how big FA contracts on pitchers north of 30 tend to age (I remember discussion at the time being that the hope was he could provide 2 good years of value on that contract in time for the team to eat the last year or two on the downswing)

And while the price tag on Berrios was high, his sudden breakdown is somewhat mystifying and if there's a silver lining in the cost it's that Martin has floundered with the Twins as his primary calling card (hitting) has deserted him and now he's an underwhelming bat with fringe utility fielding skills and the Woods Richardson hype train has slowed down as he had a speedbump season last year and is repeating AA this year. So the Jays may have made the right choice to sell high on both of those players at the time and have only seen it undone by a baffling and unexpected implosion for a guy whose biggest calling card was consistency.
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That's one way to spin it. The other way to spin it is we parlayed our 5th overall pick + basically our whole return from the Stroman trade into Berrios, a $20mil/year pitcher with an ERA north of 5.
 
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Kurtz said:
That's one way to spin it. The other way to spin it is we parlayed our 5th overall pick + basically our whole return from the Stroman trade into Berrios, a $20mil/year pitcher with an ERA north of 5.
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Find me a crystal ball that would've shown how a guy with almost 800 innings of sub-4 ERA solid performance would go full pumpkin out of nowhere this year for reasons I don't think anyone's been able to adequately explain (his velo isn't down, his pitch mix isn't radically different, his command hasn't deserted him. He's just suddenly getting squared up on pitches in the zone for some reason) and I'll take the negative side of that trade view. But there were already questions about Martin as he never really hit that well in his pro tenure and Woods Richardson was in the middle of having an awful year in AA and they spun those two into the guy that was generally heralded as one of the prizes of last year's deadline who pitched excellently down the stretch and earned his extension.

It's also disingenuous to call SWR the "whole return" for Stroman. Kay has floundered hard the last couple of years but he was decently regarded as a guy with back-of-the-rotation MLB upside when he was acquired.
 
The Nemesis said:
Find me a crystal ball that would've shown how a guy with almost 800 innings of sub-4 ERA solid performance would go full pumpkin out of nowhere this year for reasons I don't think anyone's been able to adequately explain (his velo isn't down, his pitch mix isn't radically different, his command hasn't deserted him. He's just suddenly getting squared up on pitches in the zone for some reason) and I'll take the negative side of that trade view. But there were already questions about Martin as he never really hit that well in his pro tenure and Woods Richardson was in the middle of having an awful year in AA and they spun those two into the guy that was generally heralded as one of the prizes of last year's deadline who pitched excellently down the stretch and earned his extension.

It's also disingenuous to call SWR the "whole return" for Stroman. Kay has floundered hard the last couple of years but he was decently regarded as a guy with back-of-the-rotation MLB upside when he was acquired.
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I also think Berrios will regress to his mean in the 2nd half, I just don't see the silver lining in the guy we drafted 5th overall and the assets we got back for Stro turning out to be immediate busts. That doesn't make me feel good about our management group's ability to assess prospects (even though they've done fine overall in drafting/development).
 
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Kurtz said:
I also think Berrios will regress to his mean in the 2nd half, I just don't see the silver lining in the guy we drafted 5th overall and the assets we got back for Stro turning out to be immediate busts. That doesn't make me feel good about our management group's ability to assess prospects (even though they've done fine overall in drafting/development).
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I don't think anyone expected a 20/30 grade power from Martin when he was drafted. He was definitely BPA at the time so I don't consider grabbing him 5th to be an issue. Still think he can carve out a pretty solid career in LF/CF especially with the hit/speed combo. SWR was very advanced for his age and there were expectations of an increase in FB velo but it just never came. Not a good outlook for his potential so it made sense to sell high and cut bait at the time. Still has 4/5 potential but don't see much more if he's settling in the 90-92 FB range.
 
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Eyedea said:
I don't think anyone expected a 20/30 grade power from Martin when he was drafted. He was definitely BPA at the time so I don't consider grabbing him 5th to be an issue.
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BPA in what sense? Martin was dropping by draft day, from a top 2 consensus prospect just a few months earlier. Other teams saw the red flags with him and we missed them.

Baseball first rounders bust all the time - I can't hold mid-round busts like Pentecost, Warmoth, etc against us. But at 5, you need to do better than a guy who is a clear bust almost immediately.
 
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Kurtz said:
BPA in what sense? Martin was dropping by draft day, from a top 2 consensus prospect just a few months earlier. Other teams saw the red flags with him and we missed them.

Baseball first rounders bust all the time - I can't hold mid-round busts like Pentecost, Warmoth, etc against us. But at 5, you need to do better than a guy who is a clear bust almost immediately.
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Well the O's opted to go for a below slot signing with Kjerstard and picked up Coby Mayo and Carter Baumler in the later rounds, Marlins went with Meyer who rose significantly and was linked to the Jays, and the Royals went for arguably the top rated pitcher on draft day in Lacy. There were concerns over where Martin would play, and the fact that he was a Boras client, but general consensus had him as the best pure bat in the draft and at a premium position (SS-CF). Plus the fact that he was actually starting to hit for power later on in his short season, there was plenty of hype still surrounding him.
 
 
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