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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

MindzEye said:
ackshually...

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Vlad not hitting is a problem but I've never really loved this lineup aside from a magical month and a half where they turned into the best slugging lineup in the world and almost won the whole fucking thing.

If Vlad is a top 5-10 stick as usual and we cap out at 84-85 wins, that's uhhhh...not fucking good. The goal shouldn't be to spend 280 million to win 88-90 games if everything goes right.
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I don’t disagree with that part. It’s the total discounting of devastating injuries and not thinking that that’s a huge reason for our situation that I disagree with.
 
Preston said:
Well ya I didn't suggest that either. But obviously this entire operation is contingent on him bouncing back. Gonna be real tough to go very far if he doesn't. I'm just saying that if he does bounce back, there's probably a very clear path to 90 wins next year with a couple of modest reinforcements and a little more injury luck.

But if he doesn't... MASSIVE issues.
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Yeah, a healthy Vladdy makes all the difference. As well as having more than 40% of your starters available to pitch.
 
Like how many wins were we deprived of because all of the following either pretty much missed the season or a big chunk of it?

Barger
Ponce
Bieber
Yesavage
Kirk
Springer
Santander
 
LeafOfFaith said:
I don’t disagree with that part. It’s the total discounting of devastating injuries and not thinking that that’s a huge reason for our situation that I disagree with.
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Yeah, injuries have clearly played a role this season as well.

But with that said, a few of those guys were known injury issues going into this season. We traded for Bieber while damaged, it shouldn't be that surprising that he's remained damaged and/or shit. Sandy has been dead for a long time now and that should have been baked in. Springer's regression from an awesome season should have been expected. Barger was an unknown against lefties and I can't sit here and blame a bad season on a platoon guy getting hurt. Kirk's missed time wasn't a negative at all really, with Valenzuela's play. We're going to up with 5+ WAR out of the catcher spot this season.
 
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zeke said:
wRC+ since the deadline (41gms):

1. BOS 109
2. TBR 108
3. TOR 106
4. SEA 105
5. CHW 104
6. NYY 103
7. TEX 102
8. CLE 101
9. BAL 100
10. KCR 100
11. MIN 98
12. DET 92
13. ATH 92
14. HOU 87
15. LAA 81


and that's with vladdy sucking balls (94wrc+).
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Too bad the season starts in April
Every year
 
But 5-6 win Vladamir takes them well out of .500 territory. Yes there's still room for improvement, yes they need another big bat and could use less dead weight like "best hitter in the league" Erndog.

But a single player playing like the player we thought he was kind of changes everything. And maybe that doesn't mean or have to mean it alone makes them a legit contender, but it sure gets them a couple of players away from that.

Of course if you don't believe in Vladamir, then it's over, but what's the fun in having no VladdyOfFaith?
 
Vladdy was raking at the beginning of the season, then he went looking for homers. Wasn't he batting 380 at some point?

I wonder if our pitching had been what is was supposed to be, if Vladdy doesn't veer off looking for slug like he did and screw himself up.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Like how many wins were we deprived of because all of the following either pretty much missed the season or a big chunk of it?

Barger
Ponce
Bieber
Yesavage
Kirk
Springer
Santander
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Barger - 2
Ponce - 2
Bieber - 0.5
Yesavage - 1
Kirk - 1.5
Springer - N/A (was always expected to suck)
Santander - -1

So all in all, about 6 wins potentially from them. Although if the starters didn't get hurt, we probably wouldn't have gotten the 0.4 from Corbin, and maybe Miles get a few less innings. So round it out to like 5 or 5.5.

But yeah, if you get those guys healthy, and also get another 3-4 wins from Vlad being Vlad and not Clement, that's a pretty decent team. Even if you knock another couple wins back (we probably didn't expect 1.8 WAR from our backup C and other stuff like that), still could easily have been 6 or 8 WAR ahead of where we are. Which would put us in a much more comfortable spot (although still playing WC games).
 
CH1 said:
Vlad went from 4.6 WAR last year to 1.4 right now. Will need more than that correction to plan a parade
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Don't think any of us felt 4.6 was his upside after the playoffs he had. 5 felt like a reasonable hope. Which again, woulda put them well above .500, though obviously not true contender status. But also not as far away as Jonas suggests either.
 
Preston said:
But 5-6 win Vladamir takes them well out of .500 territory. Yes there's still room for improvement, yes they need another big bat and could use less dead weight like "best hitter in the league" Erndog.

But a single player playing like the player we thought he was kind of changes everything. And maybe that doesn't mean or have to mean it alone makes them a legit contender, but it sure gets them a couple of players away from that.

Of course if you don't believe in Vladamir, then it's over, but what's the fun in having no VladdyOfFaith?
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Eh, the difference between regular Vladdy and whatever the fuck this has been is about 3 wins. Sure, peak MVP candidate Vladdy would have been nice but regular boring 130-140wRC+ Vladdy doesn't meaningfully change the quality of this year's team by himself. He's the biggest cut in the death by 1000 cuts that makes it mediocre though for sure. Getting about 0 WAR out of half of our starting staff this year has sucked. Max, Corbin, Bieber, Lauer, Taillon and the randos have combined for like 50-55 starts and produced 0 WAR. Remember kids, that's above replacement, not above average. Can you make the playoffs with almost half of your starts being shit?
 
Yeah...to expand on that for a second, almost half of our pitching WAR is from 2 guys. We're 9th in pitching WAR, but that's kind of deceiving with how top heavy the contributions have been.
 
MindzEye said:
Eh, the difference between regular Vladdy and whatever the fuck this has been is about 3 wins. Sure, peak MVP candidate Vladdy would have been nice but regular boring 130-140wRC+ Vladdy doesn't meaningfully change the quality of this year's team by himself. He's the biggest cut in the death by 1000 cuts that makes it mediocre though for sure. Getting about 0 WAR out of half of our starting staff this year has sucked. Max, Corbin, Bieber, Lauer, Taillon and the randos have combined for like 50-55 starts and produced 0 WAR. Remember kids, that's above replacement, not above average. Can you make the playoffs with almost half of your starts being shit?
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Ya I'm more hopeful on Vlad being better than that and feel it's a prerequisite for their window. If that doesn't happen, then yeah it's a little tougher.

But obviously losing Vlad and Springer in 1 year is what, like 6-8 wins lost? Kinda cooked them this year. Vlad being Vlad and magically finding another Springer or something close to it, are the two quickest gains you can make and gets them well over 90 wins again. Even ignoring the obvious weird injury stuff and hoping for something that is more within the realm of expectations next year on that front.

Now where does one find another Springer?
 
MindzEye said:
Yeah...to expand on that for a second, almost half of our pitching WAR is from 2 guys. We're 9th in pitching WAR, but that's kind of deceiving with how top heavy the contributions have been.
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So now imagine Yesavage, Bieber, and Ponce rounded out that rotation all year and were pitching to their capabilities. We go from 9th to what, 1st?
 
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