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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

axlsalinger said:
Again, I do like Matt Chapman. But there is a limit to his value in both years and AAV. It's one thing if the last year or two of the deal sucks, but we need him to be a better hitter in those first few years. I'm just not sure he's a guy you want to overpay. And defense does start to decline into your 30s.

And I want to be clear, I am not advocating to start IKF at 3B, it's possible they could get away with it as a short-term stopgap but if Chapman signs elsewhere they should definitely be looking at the trade market.
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It's simple. You either need to pay Chapman, or replace Chapman with someone who can provide reasonably similar value (3.5+ WAR).

I disagree vehemently that IKF is even a short term replacement for a team that fancies itself to be competitive. He's a replacement level player away from SS imo. IKF is the type of utility guy that you should be generating constantly from your system for that relative poverty pre arby rate, not one you should being giving free agent rates to.
 
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MindzEye said:
It's simple. You either need to pay Chapman, or replace Chapman with someone who can provide reasonably similar value (3.5+ WAR).

I disagree vehemently that IKF is even a short term replacement for a team that fancies itself to be competitive. He's a replacement level player away from SS imo. IKF is the type of utility guy that you should be generating constantly from your system for that relative poverty, not one you should being giving free agent rates to.
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Hard to say how good his defense could be at 3rd, probably not as good as Chapman but he can definitely match that 75 wRC+
 
How can you claim it was a joke when you made the exact same point seriously multiple times above?

And my Varsho comment was on point. Beating a dead horse, yes, but still good.
 
axlsalinger said:
RE: DH, forgot about JD Mart, him or Rhys would be fine.

I've heard some minor league eval guys impressed by the way Orelvis improved his K% and power potential, he's not that far off. I do think if he's playing well we'll see him in the summer. However, I've also heard the 3B-D is shaky so yeah, he may wind up at 2B.

I do think you've gotta take Atkins at face value though it's quite possibly a message for Chappy/Boras, or Bellinger.

Kirk has got to prove it, for sure. As for Vlad I feel very confident a big rebound year is coming.
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Even if they make the optimal DH move and I’m not convinced they will this team is still worse and an absolute disaster at 3B. It will negate all positive regression elsewhere
 
manny said:
How can you claim it was a joke when you made the exact same point seriously multiple times above?

And my Varsho comment was on point. Beating a dead horse, yes, but still good.
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I was making the point that IKF could theoretically function as a poor man's Chapman if he continues to struggle mightily at the plate, but obviously he's been a better hitter throughout his career and provides elite D at third base.
 
This dude is a moron. Sure those guys can improve and let’s say you replace Belt if you go in as is at 3B you’re worse

Also even if one is sold on the bounce backs why does that mean it’s okay to not improve on the guys you are replacing?
 
axlsalinger said:
I don't think they're done yet, and also agree with this dude.


View: https://x.com/FAmmiranteTFJ/status/1742637321214685315?s=20
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Except...none of them really had significant "down years" unless you count their career years as the norm.

Vladdy could "regress" from 118 wRC+ to 130 but that's not a huge jump. Regression for Kirk would be into the 105 range, not the 130 range. Varsho from 87 to 95-100. All of those would be nice to get in conjunction with each other, but there's some other potential pain points in the lineup.

- Is Springer cooked? 34 yrs old, big decline at 33...is 104 the floor for now?
- Say what you want about Chapman, but right now IKF is the starting 3B and 80 wRC+ is a mile worse than 110
- Davis Schneider raked last year and kind of bailed out the 2nd half offence. There's regression there, even if he turns out to be a plus stick for the position. 176 wRC+ is not being duplicated.
- KK had his best offensive season in 6 years. 104 wRC+ is not the norm for him, 90-95 is.
- What is replacing Belt's 138 wRC+?
 
MindzEye said:
Except...none of them really had significant "down years" unless you count their career years as the norm.

Vladdy could "regress" from 118 wRC+ to 130 but that's not a huge jump. Regression for Kirk would be into the 105 range, not the 130 range. Varsho from 87 to 95-100. All of those would be nice to get in conjunction with each other, but there's some other potential pain points in the lineup.

- Is Springer cooked? 34 yrs old, big decline at 33...is 104 the floor for now?
- Say what you want about Chapman, but right now IKF is the starting 3B and 80 wRC+ is a mile worse than 110
- Davis Schneider raked last year and kind of bailed out the 2nd half offence. There's regression there, even if he turns out to be a plus stick for the position. 176 wRC+ is not being duplicated.
- KK had his best offensive season in 6 years. 104 wRC+ is not the norm for him, 90-95 is.
- What is replacing Belt's 138 wRC+?
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If they sign Soler, JDM, Hoskins or Joc i can see the Belt replacement, even if not the full 138 WRC, presumably they will get more than 400 PA

The problem as youve shown is that IKF best case scenario is a wash with Merrifield ( personally i see a downgrade) and in a nightmare scenario is part of some 3 headed 3B monster that is a massive downgrade from Chapman, and arguably one of the worst 3B situations in MLB

Atkins, seems to be fine with this. Now, sure, he could be saying these things to not tip his hand to Boras or whoever, but forgive me if i dont quite trust a guy who values a replacement MI enough to give him 2/15 and a man who uses phrases like, not 3 players, likely closer to 1. For fuck sakes, this man had time to prepare for this presser too
 
Also, with exception of Manoah imploding ( a situation not guaranteed to get better) the pitching staff was basically flawless last year and there is dick all in AAA that is a proven stop gap commodity if anyone gets hurt, or someone like Kikuchi regresses

While im pissed. Ross talks about the only think missing being guidance, and the offense being a blip last year. Well the same fuckers that coached the offense last year are more or less returning, save for yet another assistant hitting coach, transferring a dude who was making problematic tweets, and promoting a dinosaur of a old school manager to a fucking made up position.
 
they need to reasonably replace the pieces they lost. last year had pretty equal parts over and under achievement.

they brought back KK. they replaced Whit. That leaves Chapman and Belt to replace.
 
zeke said:
they need to reasonably replace the pieces they lost. last year had pretty equal parts over and under achievement.

they brought back KK. they replaced Whit. That leaves Chapman and Belt to replace.
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KK is probably a worse version than KK last year, and LF was one spot to add thump to the lineup, but sure, i can get behind KK, seems like a great guy, great CF. Even if i really hate the idea of Varsho in LF again, sure, fine, whatever, he helps the pitching staff

I feel like Whit replacement is the ceiling of IKF, he's a worse offensive player, and on the surface could be a Chapman replacement.

Replacing Belt isnt as easy as you think. JDM, Soler, or Hoskins are the best bets, Joc, if a quint, but he needs a platoon parter, and that would mean another bat, which is more than not quite 2 or whatever the fuck
 
Yeah, initially, you could try to make up some stories like "oh, I wonder if she like used a fake id to pick up rich people from a bar, and then blackmail them to keep quiet about it" to like sort of try to excuse him in this. It's still not entirely clear if the payments to the mother was more of a "shut up and I'll pay you to keep quiet", or if this was the mother like pimping out her daughter to get money. In either event, this doesn't seem like an innocent mis-communication...
 
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