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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

Aaron Sanchez Update: He followed up a great and good start in his first 2 appearances with 2 shit starts and is now back on the Injured List with a pectoral injury. He probably will get moved to the bullpen soon unless they can fix him.
 
Vladdy is hitting .341/.406/.589 since the all-star break. That could legitimately be his season line next year.
 
Even with the first half struggles (relatively speaking), Vlad is in the middle of the 12th best (and climbing) 20 yr old season in modern history (1960-present). If he maintains what he's been doing for most of his last 250AB, he should pull into the top 10.

Fwiw, most of the top 20 are either the current studs of the game that look like future or potential HOF'ers (Trout, Cabrera, Correa, Harper, Acuna, Soto, Stanton) HOF'ers (Griffey, Bench, Alomar, A-Rod) or perennial all star level players (Upton). There are just, enough injury cases to keep you nervous. Guys who looked like they might be great and were just never able to stay healthy and put it together.
 
The slash line, sure. But his limitations at 3rd will keep him from putting up that type of WAR numbers. Sooner he's moved to 1st, the better imo.
 
Send him to DH and be done with it. Rotate him in at 1B here and there. Waste of time at 3B. Who cares if he's a slob at DH.
 
I think you give him next year at 3rd and then if he hasn't slimmed down or isn't getting better, move him to 1st. I believe he could be a terrific defender at 1B.
 
Matrim said:
I think you give him next year at 3rd and then if he hasn't slimmed down or isn't getting better, move him to 1st. I believe he could be a terrific defender at 1B.
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Yeah, this should be the plan. Gives Rowdy the opportunity to sort his shit out and earn more reps early season. If Rowdy hasn't shown significant improvement by mid to late June, make the switch. Gotta figure Vladdy could lose an easy 20 or so just by putting in work over the winter. If he doesn't, there's no way to can pencil him in at 3rd for much longer at all. Even a meh glove at 3rd with that bat is monstrously valuable, so you can be patient and see if it can work for a few years, but I'm not bullish on that happening at all.
 
MindzEye said:
The slash line, sure. But his limitations at 3rd will keep him from putting up that type of WAR numbers. Sooner he's moved to 1st, the better imo.
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He's at 2.2 WAR now and he collected nearly 1 WAR in the last 2.5 weeks. I would be surprised if he doesn't finish the season at least over 3.
 
MindzEye said:
Yeah, this should be the plan. Gives Rowdy the opportunity to sort his shit out and earn more reps early season. If Rowdy hasn't shown significant improvement by mid to late June, make the switch. Gotta figure Vladdy could lose an easy 20 or so just by putting in work over the winter. If he doesn't, there's no way to can pencil him in at 3rd for much longer at all. Even a meh glove at 3rd with that bat is monstrously valuable, so you can be patient and see if it can work for a few years, but I'm not bullish on that happening at all.
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Not sure if you've seen Vlad in person, but he's actually in pretty good shape.
 
-18 uzr/150 is really bad for Vlad. But yeah you have to give him at least 1 or 2 more years there to see if he can get up to an average or so fielder before making the move to 1b.
 
To think that he would be on the 3rd year of a 3/60 deal had this group not pulled the pin and panic signed Morales of all fucking people.

Edwin has 100 home runs under that contract and he's sneakily turned into one of the best power hitters of this era. Sitting on 410 career bombs now and leads MLB in HR's since 2012. Donaldson is 12th and Bautista despite being basically out of the league for 2 years (he played last year, but was old and busted) is 25th.

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As for Rowdy, I think there's enough there to warrant another chance. He's only 24 and has been studly at every level (sometimes it takes him a while, but was 185 wRC+ in AAA before the callup this year). His walk rate has increased from abysmal to just bad, another increase to average would be pretty huge and in line with his minor league performances. His batted ball profile is basically everything you want from a young power hitter. 84% hard or medium contact, 80% pull or centrefield. He just misses too many pitches (14.5% swstr...jeebus)

His batted ball profile is basically the same as some of the elite sluggers in the league. (He's 43rd in MLB in hard contact%). He just doesn't make enough contact overall. Looking at his plate discipline numbers, his Zone swing% (% of pitches in the zone he swings at) is really fucking low, so he's being ridiculously choosey. Too choosey. He needs to go up there and be taking about 15-20% more rips than he's currently taking. Hard rips, and let babip do the rest.

This is outside of my wheelhouse, but I wonder if there's something technical in his swing keeping him from making more contact (his zone contact rates are also terrible, so when he is swinging, he misses a lot...when he connects, he's barrelling a lot of shit).

Regardless, there is some intriguing shit in his statistics and at only 24, with his size and power I don't think you can punt on him yet. As much as I'd love Eddy back, I'd rather see him winning shit somewhere else than doing a retirement tour here winning 70 games a couple of times.
 
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