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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

It was not really reasonable to assume that we'd have brought in both EE and Fowler instead of Morales/Bautista/Pearce.

But both EE and Fowler have been worth 2.3 WAR each. Bautista has been -0.1, and Morales -0.7 (all Fangraphs numbers, BB-ref has JB at -1.6 and Morales at -0.3). So by fWAR, had we signed one of EE or Fowler instead of the JB/Morales duo, we'd be about 3 wins better than right now.

In other news, looks like Tellez sucked at AAA on the season. His 2016 numbers looked pretty similar to Rhys Hoskins (152 vs 159 wRC+ both as 1B-only prospects), but then Tellez puts up a 73 wRC+ at AAA, while Hoskins kills AAA pitching and then puts up 2.3 WAR in 160 PA in MLB. Obviously won't keep hitting like that, but other than Tellez being a couple years younger, they seemed to be pretty close to each other as 1B-only guys outside of the top-100 prospect lists with some offensive potential but not much else.
 
UWHabs said:
It was not really reasonable to assume that we'd have brought in both EE and Fowler instead of Morales/Bautista/Pearce.

But both EE and Fowler have been worth 2.3 WAR each. Bautista has been -0.1, and Morales -0.7 (all Fangraphs numbers, BB-ref has JB at -1.6 and Morales at -0.3). So by fWAR, had we signed one of EE or Fowler instead of the JB/Morales duo, we'd be about 3 wins better than right now.

In other news, looks like Tellez sucked at AAA on the season. His 2016 numbers looked pretty similar to Rhys Hoskins (152 vs 159 wRC+ both as 1B-only prospects), but then Tellez puts up a 73 wRC+ at AAA, while Hoskins kills AAA pitching and then puts up 2.3 WAR in 160 PA in MLB. Obviously won't keep hitting like that, but other than Tellez being a couple years younger, they seemed to be pretty close to each other as 1B-only guys outside of the top-100 prospect lists with some offensive potential but not much else.
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If ownership wanted to they could have afforded both of them. They have the money.

Morales was and will continue to be a utterly shitty signing considering that EE was a LEGIT alternative. Shapiro jumped at signing him when he could have waited for other players like every other GM did.
 
UWHabs said:
It was not really reasonable to assume that we'd have brought in both EE and Fowler instead of Morales/Bautista/Pearce.
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Sure it was.

But those aren't even best-case scenario signings. EE and Fowler have just been solid, not great signings. There are many other examples of great signings that some people liked the sound of (like Reddick), who would have had even a bigger impact.
 
zeke said:
Sure it was.

But those aren't even best-case scenario signings. EE and Fowler have just been solid, not great signings. There are many other examples of great signings that some people liked the sound of (like Reddick), who would have had even a bigger impact.
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I know those are the guys we would have brought in were us all here the GM of the team. And yeah, they certainly were not the best signings - Fowler I think was expected to be more like a 4 WAR guy than a 2.5 WAR guy. That deal isn't looking great at the moment.

But yeah, and EE+Reddick off-season, or sign EE and trade for a guy like Bruce or Granderson, would have looked a lot better than what we ended up with. But we also would not have signed Smoak to his deal.
 
Why wouldn't we have signed Smoak? That was cheap and happened before anything else.

EE + Bruce/Granderson/Fowler = $18-31 million, 4.3-4.9 WAR
Bautista + Morales + Pearce = $34 million, -0.8 WAR

They easily had one of the worst offseasons of all possible offseasons they could have had.

Also I don't think anyone expected Fowler to repeat last year, and he certainly wasn't paid like anyone expected him to be a 5 WAR player.
 
leafman101 said:
Why wouldn't we have signed Smoak? That was cheap and happened before anything else.

EE + Bruce/Granderson/Fowler = $18-31 million, 4.3-4.9 WAR
Bautista + Morales + Pearce = $34 million, -0.8 WAR

They easily had one of the worst offseasons of all possible offseasons they could have had.

Also I don't think anyone expected Fowler to repeat last year, and he certainly wasn't paid like anyone expected him to be a 5 WAR player.
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Do you not remember how universally reviled the Smoak signing was last summer? This was a 1B who was worth a career total of 0.3 WAR before the season. Yeah, it wasn't a lot of money, but he was the sort of guy who you bring in on a spring tryout in hopes that he can take an MLB job, not someone who you give multiple guaranteed years to.
 
Yeah of course, but signing Smoak didn't affect their ability to spend $34 million on Bautista, Morales and Pearce so I am not sure I get the argument that it would have affected their ability to spend less money on better players.

Ideally these guys make more than one good decision an offseason. Credit where credit is due, Smoak ended up being a good signing. Unfortunately there were too many bad ones.

It was just a bad offseason.

If the argument is just that people here wouldn't have signed Smoak, who cares. First of all, I don't think I would be a good MLB GM, but I'm pretty sure I could have gotten more bang for my $40 mill than 2.8 WAR. And more importantly, critiques of Shitkins don't have to be qualified based on what armchair fan GM's would have done. We can easily judge their offeason on the merits.
 
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jonmorosi

Marco Estrada's deal with the #BlueJays is expected to include one guaranteed year, source says. @MLB @MLBNetwork
 
Locking him up now you expect should be cheap. Assume there would be escalators or vesting/mutual options.
 
Silly Yankees. Walk Morales to get to Goins and he gets his 2nd grand slam of the season. (20 rib with bases loaded this season)

Bautista still struggling at the plate but has made a few highlight plays to help keep the fans happy.
 
anne25 said:
It's not often you see that little trick work.
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It comes up a handful of times per season, mostly on plays like that. Especially with the new slide rules I think the defense pays a little more attention to guys ever so slightly stepping off the base to re-adjust things.
 
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