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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

This isn’t like hockey. There isn’t any other professional sport where the prospects are more expendable and more of a crap shoot than baseball.

Especially when you have a good team with a plausible path to the playoffs and clear holes that need to be filled.
Totally agreed prospect capital in baseball are more trading commodities

However there is a right time to put your poker chips in the middle of the table

Move some lower level kids for immediate short term support

Don't deplete our top kids for a quick fix where most likely the WC spot is our only shot this year
 
Totally agreed prospect capital in baseball are more trading commodities

However there is a right time to put your poker chips in the middle of the table

Move some lower level kids for immediate short term support

Don't deplete our top kids for a quick fix where most likely the WC spot is our only shot this year
If you only move lower level prospects, you're only going to get a low-level return. You can't be afraid to move someone with actual upside because that's what it takes to get valuable pieces.

Not doing anything in the offseason was a blunder because now the trade market is basically frozen until July unless you overpay. And anyone you get will only be there for around 1/3 of the season. Huge missed opportunity.

There is also positional scarcity in MLB that you have to factor in. Groshans is going to be a 3B, which is good, they need a 3B on the team. But so is Austin Martin probably. so is Miguel Hiraldo. Orelvis Martinez might stick at SS but even he might not. Kevin Smith looks like he's a prospect again, and he plays SS/3B. You could probably convince Semien to come back and play there. So dealing Groshans depletes that position less than you would think. Even more likely is that he never makes it. Just one example but he probably would have been worth a very good young SP in the offseason, and they had an enormous hole there.

I wouldn't trade Austin Martin. I would have never traded Vladdy or Bo when they were prospects, but aside from the guys who are as close to sure things as prospects get, everyone should be on the table once a team moves into the contention window. Jays probably aren't there yet, but they seem to think they are.
 
If you only move lower level prospects, you're only going to get a low-level return. You can't be afraid to move someone with actual upside because that's what it takes to get valuable pieces.

Not doing anything in the offseason was a blunder because now the trade market is basically frozen until July unless you overpay. And anyone you get will only be there for around 1/3 of the season. Huge missed opportunity.

There is also positional scarcity in MLB that you have to factor in. Groshans is going to be a 3B, which is good, they need a 3B on the team. But so is Austin Martin probably. so is Miguel Hiraldo. Orelvis Martinez might stick at SS but even he might not. Kevin Smith looks like he's a prospect again, and he plays SS/3B. You could probably convince Semien to come back and play there. So dealing Groshans depletes that position less than you would think. Even more likely is that he never makes it. Just one example but he probably would have been worth a very good young SP in the offseason, and they had an enormous hole there.

I wouldn't trade Austin Martin. I would have never traded Vladdy or Bo when they were prospects, but aside from the guys who are as close to sure things as prospects get, everyone should be on the table once a team moves into the contention window. Jays probably aren't there yet, but they seem to think they are.

Good post Manny

Would you trade Moreno right now for a young SP with upside
 
Always trade the big name prospects with less than elite numbers not the no name prospects with elite numbers.
Agree with this generally. I’d be hesitant to trade Moreno because I doubt his perceived value is anywhere near his actual potential. He might actually be the Jays #1 or #2 prospect in terms of actual potential, but I don’t think you’d get anything near what you’d get for some of the better known guys.

That’s why I’ve been on the trade Groshans bandwagon for at least a year. But then just because a guy is ranked 35 or whatever by Baseball America doesn’t mean other teams are willing to give up a lot for him.

And this is another reason why trading prospects is a good idea. A team has way more info on their own guys than anyone else does. The Jays should know which guys are overvalued by other teams and try to trade them to fill areas of need.
 
Agree with this generally. I’d be hesitant to trade Moreno because I doubt his perceived value is anywhere near his actual potential. He might actually be the Jays #1 or #2 prospect in terms of actual potential, but I don’t think you’d get anything near what you’d get for some of the better known guys.

That’s why I’ve been on the trade Groshans bandwagon for at least a year. But then just because a guy is ranked 35 or whatever by Baseball America doesn’t mean other teams are willing to give up a lot for him.

And this is another reason why trading prospects is a good idea. A team has way more info on their own guys than anyone else does. The Jays should know which guys are overvalued by other teams and try to trade them to fill areas of need.

yep yep yep.

no way you get top prospect value for Moreno right now, even though he likely is. Groshans is probably a good example of the opposite.

for me it's always trade the Hoffmans and Norrises and Sanchez' in the system - the name guys without the numbers to back it up.

it's funny in retrospect AA got burned on his trade mostly from the non-elite prospects he traded, not the top ranked ones. Even Thor was barely in top-100 lists when traded.
 
You don’t dump teams quality prospects for the sake of making a trade

Team is clearly making progress with a young lineup , but pitching injuries killed them

They would be 5 games better right now in the win column
most quality prospects bust in baseball. they are also some of the most valued trade capital. you can do the remaining math about asset management...
 


Awesome to hear that descriptor but tbh I'm not sure it totally applies given how good he already was before this season.
 
I suspect Pearson's value may be at the highest it will be now (or is already on the decline). Worth capitalizing IMO given the injury concerns and current roster makeup.

Maybe maybe not - the injuries and recent struggles may actually be underrated him at the moment.
 
Pearson is a tough case, since you can really see his potential and feel it, so I kind of think he's the kind of guy you need to ride or die with. Like, it's one thing to trade away a Syndergaard if you did it while he was just a pipe dream, but you can't deal away a guy with his potential unless if you're really getting a stud with control back.

As for the other prospects, I think Groshans is the guy you deal to help the pitching staff. As people have mentioned above, guys bust all the time, and he's in that mix of rising fast on prospect charts so maybe someone will want to overpay. Martin I would only deal if the club doesn't see where he ends up defensively - he's the sort of guy where if you can play him up the middle somewhere, he's immensely valuable. But if he can't hang there, and ends up as a RF or LF, then his value kind of drops like a rock. I mean, might still be a useful guy, but if he ends up more like an Adam Eaton sort of guy, that's not really someone you get overly excited about.
 
Yeah, Pearson’s stock has definitely fallen, he was the top RHP prospect in the game a few months ago. If he doesn’t show that he can dominate in MLB this year, it will slide more. So it’s possible that his value is as high now as it’s ever going to be.

But he could also come back next year and be one of the best pitchers in the game.

There’s lots of risk either way, and in that situation, Shapiro and Atkins are probably just going to sit on their hands. Could work out for the best.
 
not if he busts it would not be. and the only thing he's shown to date is that he's made of glass...
I'm willing to take the risk. For a team looking to trade for a young controllable pitcher with stud upside, you know who fits that description?

Nate Pearson.

No one can predict the future, and it also obviously depends on what the return would be, but personally I would not trade him or Manoah, unless it's a Godfather offer.
 
And I generally agree on Groshans, nothing wrong with keeping him up to now since he suffered a season ending injury early on in 2019, so there wasn't much data on him. Who knows what was being offered...

But we definitely do need a 3B so between him and Martin, figure out who you want to keep and trade the other.
 
Groshans has lost serious value as well. The time to move him was probably the offseason. He is getting his first taste of AA and he is failing. He's had some injuries so it's not like they should give up on him, but he's another guy who is probably never going to be as highly touted as he was in the offseason.
 
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