Blue Jays acquire Randal Grichuk from STL

[Skin Blues]

Apparently being 64th in wOBA among regular outfielders over the span of 2 years makes you a league average hitter. I don't see why that's a problem. The argument could be that he isn't a good hitter despite the results and projections, not that he strikes out too much. However, he's been about a league average hitter by wRC+ the past 2 years, and both ZiPS and Steamer project him to be barely above a league average hitter again in 2018. So it's a fair assumption to say he's a league average hitter, regardless where he ranks among outfielders with >750 PA over the past two seasons. With his defense (both career defense and projected defense) that is objectively worth about 1.5 to 2 WAR per season, and all 3 of his team control years occur during the typical peak for hitters; ages 26-28. To argue he's not a 1.5 to 2 WAR player, you'd have to say that something will change this year that has not already changed, since he's already stuck out in 30% of his plate appearances in each of the past 3 seasons. Predicting those kinds of changes is typically not something that the best scouts or projection algorithms are capable of doing accurately, let alone people casually browsing through a guy's stats. So we really have no reason to think he'll be bad because he strikes out a lot, or that his batting profile doesn't work well with our lineup.

As for the Cardinals giving up on him as I've seen said in other places, I think it's more that they simply have better players now. Ozuna, Pham, and Fowler are all better than him, so he's the odd man out without enough playing time to justify keeping him. They had a chance to get what they see as a 3.5-4 WAR player from the Marlins and they jumped at it. Luckily (or unluckily) for us, Grichuk was a significant upgrade over our current 3rd outfielder, which is probably either Carrera, an unproven Teoscar, or an out of position and injury prone Pearce. I get that people want us to tank so any move to improve the current roster is a net negative since it costs money and assets we could use on prospects, but this trade moves the needle a tick towards being a playoff team for the next 3 years at a pretty minor cost.

It's a problem for the simple reason that playing a league-average hitter in a corner OF spot is a much different proposition than playing one in a middle infield spot. A 2 WAR player over a full season of PAs is, by definition, an starter; Grichuk's production on a WAR/650 basis has also trended down in each of his seasons thus far.

So what we're left with is a player who, if he doesn't improve, is eminently replaceable given the position he plays, and who with a little more erosion becomes a below-average option at a position teeming with options.

Again, if he can be a plus defender in CF, that changes. If he's not that, he's a deeply flawed player at the position with the deepest pool of offensive talent in baseball.

You are not very good at convincing me that getting a 26 year old 1.5+ WAR player with 3 years of cheap control in return for a middle reliever with poor projection is a bad trade, haha. The worst things you can say that actually hold water are that a) he doesn't play SS, and b) if he gets worse he'll be below average. The horror!!

[Schad]

You are not very good at convincing me that getting a 26 year old 1.5+ WAR player with 3 years of cheap control in return for a middle reliever with poor projection is a bad trade, haha. The worst things you can say that actually hold water are that a) he doesn't play SS, and b) if he gets worse he'll be below average. The horror!!

It's that i) mediocre-to-average corner OFs tend to be more plentiful, and ii) he has been getting worse with each passing season. That combination is such that he's pretty close to the borderline between being worth playing with any consistency, and given Grichuk's tendency toward awfulness for the first two months of every season, he's going to have an uphill battle to keep his place in the lineup.

[Skin Blues]

You are not very good at convincing me that getting a 26 year old 1.5+ WAR player with 3 years of cheap control in return for a middle reliever with poor projection is a bad trade, haha. The worst things you can say that actually hold water are that a) he doesn't play SS, and b) if he gets worse he'll be below average. The horror!!

It's that i) mediocre-to-average corner OFs tend to be more plentiful,

Good starting pitchers are more plentiful than good DHs, too, but that doesn't mean we should value them less.

ii) he has been getting worse with each passing season. That combination is such that he's pretty close to the borderline between being worth playing with any consistency, and given Grichuk's tendency toward awfulness for the first two months of every season, he's going to have an uphill battle to keep his place in the lineup.

You've gone from citing RZR as a defensive statistic to breaking down his performance into the month by month category. We need some more damn news to talk about, this is getting ridiculous.

[Schad]

Good starting pitchers are more plentiful than good DHs, too, but that doesn't mean we should value them less.

If those starting pitchers are in, like, the 20th percentile of starting pitchers, it then becomes worthy of some consideration of whether they're good. Being a league-average hitter as a corner outfielder is not a plus; his defense makes him useful, but to be more than a stopgap/fourth outfielder,

You've gone from citing RZR as a defensive statistic to breaking down his performance into the month by month category. We need some more damn news to talk about, this is getting ridiculous.

I cited multiple defensive metrics because any discussion of defensive metrics invariably devolves into a discussion over one's preference in defensive metric.

And I mention the fact that he's a notorious slow starter only because we have a deep outfield (barring further moves). If he doesn't hit in the first six weeks, his position as an everyday (or close to it) player is going to be under threat. And if he loses that position, even if his ultimate WAR/650 is the same as projections hold, he'll ultimately have been less valuable in 400 PAs or some such than if he gets 600.

Anyhoo, here's Jeff Sullivan on the trade:

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-depreciating-randal-grichuk/

Yet, remember where we are now. When Grichuk first played in 2014, home runs were few and far between, relatively speaking. Now there’s more power in the game than ever, while Grichuk hasn’t shown his own progress. The home-run era hasn’t meant all that much to the highest tiers of power hitters. They were already clearing the fence without too much trouble before. What this era has done is lift the lower classes. Guys who were never thought to have too much power are hitting the ball out 15 or 25 times. Grichuk still hits the ball harder than most other players do, yet, such quality of contact is no longer so necessary.

Three years in a row, Grichuk has finished with an isolated-power mark over .200. That used to mean more than it does now. In 2015, there were 64 players who batted at least 250 times, with an ISO of at least .200. The next year, there were 84 players. The next year, there were 116 players. Power, obviously, has taken off, while Grichuk’s power has not. He’s remained something of an all-or-nothing hitter, but he just hasn’t hit the ball in such a way to take advantage of this new environment. He was never a warning-track hitter, and he hasn’t yet meaningfully moved to exchange swing power for contact.

None of this is entirely Grichuk’s fault. He can’t control the era in which he plays. But his skillset would’ve meant something different, only a few years ago. Now, his power isn’t so special anymore, because more players than ever are able to go deep. Grichuk’s approach has never improved, not for more than a couple weeks at a time. As his power has gone, so has his wRC+, and, Jake Marisnick just posted an ISO of .252. Grichuk just no longer appears quite so special.

Again, it hardly makes him bad, and he’s worth taking a chance on. As much as I’m fond of Teoscar Hernandez, the Jays can find room for everyone. But maybe the thing to watch here isn’t so much the walk rate. The Cardinals could never improve Grichuk’s batting eye. Maybe the Jays need to focus on getting Grichuk to exchange some pop in the name of making more contact. Grichuk doesn’t need to generate that peak exit velocity, not now, not in this era. That’s not what’s required to hit the ball out. If you just hit the ball, then damage may come. It’s still an adjustment that needs to be made. But it’s a little bit different from what one might’ve assumed.

[polo007]

The newest Blue Jays outfielder Randal Grichuk chats about knowing he was most likely going to be moved by the Cardinals in the offseason, his initial reaction upon learning he was dealt to Toronto, the role management has envisioned for him, and rebuilding his bat in the minors last season.

http://pmd.fan590.com/audio_on_demand-5/Randal-Grichuk-with-Jeff-Blair-jb-20180126-Interview.mp3

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

JUPITER, Fla. • It wasn’t the elevated anxiety on the mound, the touch-and-go command, or even the jostled focus that finally assured Conner Greene something was amiss for him this past season. A few phone calls with his father did. Their brevity was unnerving.

Here was the man who raised him to be a ballplayer, who took him to a park at 3 days old and held him as he chopped grounders to an older brother, and whom he relished talking to, at length, always. Greene called him “like my best friend in life,” and suddenly he was sharp and short with him, bristling in ways he never did.

“When you’re agitated in everyday life …” Greene said. “Look, when my phone calls to him are getting short and I’m being mean to him, and I’m not myself, then you know there is something wrong. I was feeling very agitated and distressed, and I realized that it was an issue that had nothing to do with my pitching.”

This past week, sitting at his new locker in the Cardinals’ spring training clubhouse, Greene revealed that part of his issues last summer was his reaction to medication. The righthander, whom the Cardinals acquired from Toronto in last month’s Randal Grichuk trade, has long had a prescription for his ADHD, and last year it was altered to another brand. Over time, Greene had difficulty sleeping and eating, said his father, Johnny Greene. Greene described how he became irritable, and the lanky righthander couldn’t relax and felt his focus was fleeting, especially on the mound. The results were revealing.

A year after Baseball America rated him Toronto’s No. 4 prospect and other outlets had him as the Blue Jays’ top pitching prospect, Greene took a step back in the minors and a step out of the top 10 rankings. His walks spiked. His outings were turbulent.

“He was upset, upset with everybody,” Johnny Greene said. “It was not him. He was a completely different kid.”

“Now,” Conner said, “I’m good.”

[Skin Blues]

I remember when Mike Napoli could barely stay awake on the field because of his sleep apnea, and he had serious surgery that was going to make a world of difference. Then he had by far the worst season of his career. I wish the best for Greene, and it'll be a shame if we missed out on something great, but I find it hard to believe that the wrong brand of Adderall caused him to far-from-uncharacteristically walk 14% of the batters he faced last year.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Agreed, SB. I hope Greene thrives to the best of his abilities, and I'm sure he has various issues he has to overcome. The reality, though, is that every player has issues, and it's going to take more than an article centered largely around his dad suggesting that he's better than he played in the past for me to be convinced that's actually true.

[vaff87]

I still find it funny that the Angels picked Grichuk and Trout back-to-back, and picked Grichuk with the first pick.