Blue Jays Discussion: Winter Meetings: Because there's no more fitting time to talk baseball than December

[Smif]

Pompey, I'm absolutely hoping the best for him but the love fest for Travis Snyder is still fresh in my mind. I'm not handing him anything until he's fully proven he belongs in the bigs over a long stretch.

 

[Scion]

I can't see the Jays giving him(Lee) 1 yr at 15 -18 million....likely what he will get

1 year with a 5M base salary and 10-12M in incentives seems fair for both parties. I highly doubt that any team is offering 15-18M in guaranteed money. A couple of things that work in the Jays favour is Shapiro, LaCava and Atkins familiarity with Lee and the fact that the Jays are a contending ball club.

 

[zeke]

You're right, we have no information regarding his rehab and simulated innings, just like we have none about anybody else in the league. That doesn't excuse his durability concerns and the fact that he would be on a innings cap if he were to transition back to a starter next season.

In terms of identifying a new-found Sanchez over the course of four starts, it's extremely easy to pick and choose numbers that support your argument. It's even easier to suggest the luck considering he had a 113 FIP-, a 2.13 K/BB, an 88% LOB rate, and gave up just 16% soft contact. Hevere was essentially a right-handed Michael Montgomery, or something like Nick Martinez. I wouldn't bet a starters spot on that "success" and expect him to outperform Dickey/Estrada/Happ/Chavez over the course of a full season.

everything is "new found" with rookies. we know that sanchez' middling small sample milb stats came at advanced levels for his age, we know he's got a couple wicked pitches, we know he lacks command, we know his command improved significantly over.the course of his very young rookie year, and we know he has the pitches and the profile which suggest his fip beating tendencies might be real.

either way, the question marks on pompey are similarly significant.

 

[Mitchy]

I've said it since it was reported that the Phillies were walking away from Lee, offer him a one year deal with lots of incentives. If he performs you get your money's worth, and if not it's a minor commitment that won't hurt you.

we should absolutely do this.

Absolutely agreed.

I've also been a proponent of a Cliff Lee signing for a long while. He carries some risk, but the upside is great.
Would love if the Jays give him an incentive laden deal.

I can't see the Jays giving him(Lee) 1 yr at 15 -18 million....likely what he will get

I highly, highly doubt he gets that.

 

[Bad News Benning]

Pompey could hit like **** and still have value. He could be a gold glover in LF.

He's basically a switch hitting Ender Inciarte. Elite level defense with some offensive potential.

 

[Woodman19]

1 year with a 5M base salary and 10-12M in incentives seems fair for both parties. I highly doubt that any team is offering 15-18M in guaranteed money. A couple of things that work in the Jays favour is Shapiro, LaCava and Atkins familiarity with Lee and the fact that the Jays are a contending ball club.

Having Martin behind the plate sure won't hurt either.

 

[Edo]

Exactly... Pompey doesn't have the flashy average, but I see him as a better player than Ben Revere, not just going forward, but right now.

Ridiculous how some of the fan base here underrate Revere.

A guy who has yet to figure it out isn't better than a guy with a career .295 BAA. Eventually? Possibly. But right now?

 

[zeke]

“I like the type of pitchers the Toronto Blue Jays like,” Atkins said, somewhat redundantly. “So I want to be collaborative in thinking about that. Just my input is a part of it, but two things that come to mind are durability and outs. I like pitchers that can get outs and can take the ball.”

dear lord this corporate nothingspeak is already driving me nuts.

 

[TheOtherSide]

So whatever happened to Johan Santana? Is he still pushing for a comeback?

 

[BackHandShelf22]

So whatever happened to Johan Santana? Is he still pushing for a comeback?

He opted out of his contract last year. Forget why. Maybe his body just wasn't holding up.

 

[Bad News Benning]

Pompey, I'm absolutely hoping the best for him but the love fest for Travis Snyder is still fresh in my mind. I'm not handing him anything until he's fully proven he belongs in the bigs over a long stretch.

Snider calling card was his stick. He wasn't that good defensively so his 750 OPS wasn't good enough. If Pompey has a 750 OPS (which is definitely possible given his good plate discipline) he will be a very valuable player capable of 4 or 5 WAR seasons.

Pompey isn't a sure thing but I think he will prove more valuable than Revere over a full season if you want to go by WAR.

 

[Bad News Benning]

Ridiculous how some of the fan base here underrate Revere.

A guy who has yet to figure it out isn't better than a guy with a career .295 BAA. Eventually? Possibly. But right now?

Revere isn't underated. He's rated how he should be. Good average guy that can steal some bases but limited elsewhere.

Pompey will probably never hit for as high an average as Revere but there are good reasons why people feel Pompey will be better as soon as next year.

 

[Kurtz]

That Zobrist signing is the steal of the off season so far. Yeah, he's aging, but he was an under-the radar superstar for 6 straight years before last year. And he was pretty good last year too. $14 mil? Bargain. And unlike the other bargain of the off-season, Iwakuma, he doesn't even cost a pick.

I'm just glad he's out of the AL. Jays killer. I was sure the Yankees would swoop in and grab him in the end.

Also, how does O'Day get below $8 mil per, when Lowe gets $6.5 and Madsen gets $7? Another steal there. I don't get why the Dodgers didn't just sign him when the whole Chapman thing went awry.

Oh well, good for the Orioles. They won't be as ravaged by free agency as originally thought. Could even bring back Chen.

 

[Cor]

Sign Cliff Lee.

Heck, if give Santana a MLC as well with an invite

 

[TNCHL]

Can someone help with explaining the advanced stat xFIP? That one still kinda confuses me.

 

[BertCorbeau]

I figure the lopsided awfulness of the Miller trade to the Diamondbacks after-shook the internet so much that it broke HF earlier.

Yikes.

 

[hockeywiz542]

So whatever happened to Johan Santana? Is he still pushing for a comeback?

He opted out of his contract last year. Forget why. Maybe his body just wasn't holding up.

Johan Santana first attempted to come back from the shoulder surgery that derailed his career in 2014, a torn Achilles tendon thwarted his efforts to join the Baltimore Orioles. The next year, a toe infection denied him the chance to pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays.

According to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Johan Santana is not ready to give up just yet. Once considered among the game's top starters, Santana - wielding a "fresh arm," as his agent put it - wants to give it another chance.

 

[Bad News Benning]

I figure the lopsided awfulness of the Miller trade to the Diamondbacks after-shook the internet so much that it broke HF earlier.

Yikes.

had to check the schedule and make sure it wasn't the NHL trade deadline yet.

That's pretty much one of the few things I've seen crash HF that wasn't NHL trade deadline or Free agent frenzy related.

 

[zeke]

obviously pompey's sample is tiny still but it's all we got, and most likely he only gets better.

last 2yrs:

Revere (27): 95wrc+, 7.2spd, -10.8drs/150, -5.8uzr/150
Pompey (22): 88wrc+, 8.4spd, 22.0drs/150, 4.1uzr/150

similar hitting, pompey with better speed, and pompey with much better defense. both defensive metrics agree that revere is pretty poor defensively, while drs thinks pompey is elite while uzr thinks he's just good. except uzr doesn't really think that - it thinks pompey is elite in CF (as does DRS), but thinks he's awful in LF (while drs says he's elite there too). since him being awful in LF doesn't make sense in any way, then it's likely just an outlier number.

Revere: 2.1fwar/650pa, 1.7bwar/650pa, 1.9avgwar/650pa
Pompey: 1.8fwar/650pa, 3.1bwar/650pa, 2.5avgwar/650pa

decent chance pompey is already better than revere.

moreover, while I get that pompey's faceplant in the first month scared some off, there's pretty good evidence that it was mostly mental. because even though he crushed AAA in 2014, after his MLB faceplant he carried his struggles back down to AAA with him and sucked there even worse than in MLB. it wasn't until he went down to AA that he got his head on straight, destroyed AA, then went back up and crushed AAA again, and then even crushed MLB in the few at bats at the end of the year.

we could look at it this way:

On Way Up ('14): A+ 150wr+, AA 138wrc+, AAA 137wrc+, MLB 105wrc+
Melts Down ('15): MLB 63wrc+, AAA 59wrc+
Rises Again ('15): AA 175wrc+, AAA 143wrc+, MLB 236wrc+

decent chance that he just folded mentally as a 22yr old rook, and not because of any physical shortcomings. but he seems to have figured it out.

and if that month was just a temporary blip, then he could be a pretty major upgrade.

 

[Bad News Benning]

Johan Santana first attempted to come back from the shoulder surgery that derailed his career in 2014, a torn Achilles tendon thwarted his efforts to join the Baltimore Orioles. The next year, a toe infection denied him the chance to pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays.

According to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Johan Santana is not ready to give up just yet. Once considered among the game's top starters, Santana - wielding a "fresh arm," as his agent put it - wants to give it another chance.

Santana is not going to last 200 innings, let alone spring training. It's not a question of if....it's a question of when.

 

[zeke]

Can someone help with explaining the advanced stat xFIP? That one still kinda confuses me.

FIP is basically strikeouts, walks, and homeruns.

xFIP just replaces homeruns with (flyballs x league average homerun per flyball rate)

basically there is evidence that says HR rate can be flukish, and that flyball rates are more of a skill, with most pitchers ending up with a league average rate of home runs per flyball.

 

[The Nemesis]

Can someone help with explaining the advanced stat xFIP? That one still kinda confuses me.

It's FIP that modifies how it weights HRs.

FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, is like ERA that takes away the impact a defence has on the pitcher's performance. The idea being to show the effectiveness of the pitcher solely based on things he can control (since there would be a big, tangible difference for a team that has something like the Jays infield behind them vs, say, the White Sox). xFIP recognizes that though HRs allowed are one of the things entirely under a pitcher's control, year-to-year rates of HRs allowed compared to fly balls allowed can fluctuate wildly and aren't always indicative of the pitcher's performance/skill.

So xFIP tries to control this by subbing out the # of HRs allowed for how many HRs they should've allowed given their FB rate on a league-average HR/FB ratio (which is steadily between 9% and 10% each year).

 

[The Nemesis]

had to check the schedule and make sure it wasn't the NHL trade deadline yet.

That's pretty much one of the few things I've seen crash HF that wasn't NHL trade deadline or Free agent frenzy related.

My first thought was "oh my god, someone in the NHL did something crazy. Stamoks get traded? " and I rushed to TSN.

My second thought was "dammit, Stewart"

 

[RayzorIsDull]

This might just work out for the DBacks. They scored the 2nd most runs in the NL last year. Adding Greinke and Miller to go with Bradley, Corbin, Anderson, Godley, and Delgado. They will be an interesting team to watch this year.

 

[Mitchy]

My first thought was "oh my god, someone in the NHL did something crazy. Stamoks get traded? " and I rushed to TSN.

My second thought was "dammit, Stewart"

He's a real GM, though.