Varsho/Moreno/Kirk Discussion Thread

[johanliebert]

Varsho is a great fielder but no amount of stats will convince anyone that hes an average hitter. Team lost Semien and Lourdes offence for this guy to SO as often as he does.

[Randle McMurphy]

Varsho is a great fielder but no amount of stats will convince anyone that hes an average hitter. Team lost Semien and Lourdes offence for this guy to SO as often as he does.

They’ve now resorted to invoking Marcus Semien, who left as a free agent a year before Varsho was even acquired, as a reason this win of a trade was bad.

Where will it end?

[ItsDanger]

According to baseball reference splits, Jays are 56-67 when Varsho starts. Current record is 71-78. Must be something wrong here?

[Randle McMurphy]

According to baseball reference splits, Jays are 56-67 when Varsho starts. Current record is 71-78. Must be something wrong here?

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[Fairview4Life]

In 2021, the Angels were 77-85 overall and 68-78 when…checks notes…Shohei Ohtani started. He won the MVP that season in a clearly fraudulent vote.

[ItsDanger]

Nathan Lukes doing his best "Team MVP" impression.

[JTT]

Been a lot of discussion about WAR on this topic. Here’s an article from the Athletic this morning. Not sure, whether or not it will be behind a paywall or not. If it is, my apologies.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5768651/2024/09/16/mlb-mvp-voting-war-statistic/

[Duffman100]

Someone is using overall record when discussing a single players value in baseball?

[Hottie McShotty]

Varsho finishes the season with .214/.293/.407

What a player... MVP type numbers baby!

[Randle McMurphy]

MVP Varsho led the team in WAR all year while playing through a torn rotator cuff. Just imagine how good he will be next year when actually healthy.

[brwnman]

Varsho ends the year with 3.3fWAR in 136 games. Extrapolated for 136 games, Moreno's fWAR would be 3.5/3.6 based on his 88 games played.

While #NotElite Vlad has 5 fWAR so far.

#6WARVARSHO #5WARVARSHO? #BESTplayerinthedeal

[s e n s i]

Varsho ends the year with 3.3fWAR in 136 games. Extrapolated for 136 games, Moreno's fWAR would be 3.5/3.6 based on his 88 games played.

While #NotElite Vlad has 5 fWAR so far.

#6WARVARSHO #5WARVARSHO? #BESTplayerinthedeal

you’re gloating because a player on a team you allegedly support is having their season cut short due to a shoulder injury, and thus cannot put up the 4+ fWAR season he was trending toward. that’s weird man? but ok

and in the process, having the balls to post another hypothetical scenario where player b this time, ends up with slightly more fWAR, as if that doesn’t directly contradict the asinine “moreno for HOF, worst trade ever” claims.

[brwnman]

Varsho ends the year with 3.3fWAR in 136 games. Extrapolated for 136 games, Moreno's fWAR would be 3.5/3.6 based on his 88 games played.

While #NotElite Vlad has 5 fWAR so far.

#6WARVARSHO #5WARVARSHO? #BESTplayerinthedeal

you’re gloating because a player on a team you allegedly support is having their season cut short due to a shoulder injury, and thus cannot put up the 4+ fWAR season he was trending toward. that’s weird man? but ok

and in the process, having the balls to post another hypothetical scenario where player b this time, ends up with slightly more fWAR, as if that doesn’t directly contradict the asinine “moreno for HOF, worst trade ever” claims.

Huh?

Where is this ‘Moreno is a HOF’ coming from? Moreno and Varsho had the same fWAR when Moreno got hurt; not really a hypothetical. They were also projected to have identical WAR by fangraphs when Moreno got hurt. I was responding to the asinine claims that the Jays got far and away the best player in the deal.

Oh, and yeah.. he wasn’t trending towards 4+ before the injury either. He was projected closer to 3.7-3.8.

[Randle McMurphy]

Daulton Varsho 2024 bWAR: 4.9
Gabriel Moreno 2024 bWAR: 2.3

#Notthebestplayerinthedeal

[brwnman]

Daulton Varsho 2024 bWAR: 4.9
Gabriel Moreno 2024 bWAR: 2.3

#Notthebestplayerinthedeal

Kinda goes to show that defensive value is wildly erratic when it comes to WAR, doesn't it?

Truth is, for defense, it's sample data used by fWAR and bWar (as opposed to be every play). While fWAR is generally seen as a better measure to include OF defense, we should take both with a grain of salt. bWAR uses DRS and fWAR uses UZR, but OAA is accepted as a better measure for OF defense than DRS. In general, defense is constantly being tinkered with these metrics and will continue to do so.


Now back to the ridiculousness of this thread and the bWAR shenanigans:
Vlad is #NotElite
Varsho is more valuable and will get paid more than Vlad because of bWAR
Varsho, Turang, Wynn and Neto are more valuable than Yordan and teams would rather have those guys than Yordan
Varsho will be the first OF ever to be paid like a 5WAR player (45M AAV) who gets almost all of his value from defense/baserunning


In all seriousness, with this dreadful season - this has been fun. Can't wait to do it again next season!

This is such a boring team and I have very little faith in this team being any better next season. Too many holes to fix and it seems like they're simply planning to reassign Atkins as opposed to a complete overhaul of the front office including Shapiro. Can't wait for the 'Jays finished 2nd in Soto sweepstakes.'

[Randle McMurphy]

Ah yes, lessons on defense from the guy who said Varsho wasn't a CF, wasn't the most valuable defensive OF and would be non-tendered despite being a top 15 player in baseball in 2024. I wonder what brand of bad faith arguments we'll get next season in an attempt to save face here as Varsho continues to badly outperform Moreno yet again.

[ItsDanger]

Comparing CF to C defensively is comparing apples to oranges.

[brwnman]

Ah yes, lessons on defense from the guy who said Varsho wasn't a CF, wasn't the most valuable defensive OF and would be non-tendered despite being a top 15 player in baseball in 2024. I wonder what brand of bad faith arguments we'll get next season in an attempt to save face here as Varsho continues to badly outperform Moreno yet again.

Ah yes, forgot about "Top 15 player in all of baseball!"

Only one of us is dealing it in bad faith and it's the one who is willfully ignoring what was actually said.

"who said Varsho wasn't a CF," - I said he was primarily a LF when KK was here. He played more innings in LF than CF. Not sure how you can interpret that in any other way, but it makes sense when you're dealing in bad faith.

"wasn't the most valuable defensive OF" - he's one of the best, not the best defensive OF. Jacob Young is beating Varsho in almost every fielding cat according to Savant. Siri and Siani are also up there. Interpret that how you will.

"would be non-tendered" - said he's more likely to be non-tendered than be paid like a 5WAR as you claim him to be (45M AAV).

[Natural11]

Ah yes, lessons on defense from the guy who said Varsho wasn't a CF, wasn't the most valuable defensive OF and would be non-tendered despite being a top 15 player in baseball in 2024. I wonder what brand of bad faith arguments we'll get next season in an attempt to save face here as Varsho continues to badly outperform Moreno yet again.

Top 15 player in baseball? Lmao. He is top 15 on the Jays, I'll grant you that.

Varsho is another Chapman. All kinds of WAR except when he's not in the lineup you barely notice.

Once a few games ago there was a ball Lukes didn't reach where I figured Varsho probably would have caught it. Then a game later Kirk couldn't score from a double or a fly ball at sac depth, so there's that too.

Varsho is a welcome addition to the team, I like having him. But he's a #9 guy on a WS team that fills his role well. KK, basically, who I might add maintained his outstanding dWAR for about 3 seasons in his prime before falling back to normalcy.

He's not a top 15 player, nor is it fair to him to attribute that type of expectation.

[Randle McMurphy]

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He’s now dropped to 16th in bWAR in MLB this season since the injury. My mistake entirely, I should have said top 16.