Moderator: JaysRule15
rarefind wrote:The Kirk deal is fine.
Even if he doesn't hit if he just continues to be a good/great defender the deal is worth it. He's a top 5-10 catcher and he is only 26. What did you guys expect here?
bartron_44 wrote:Sniff sniff….. i smell a troll…
They are closer now that Kirk improved his throwing, but I’d still take Moreno 100 times out of 100 over Kirk if I was going to build a winning baseball team.
I’ll give the defense a wash now, even though I think Moreno still has the edge there too. And we will just compare them on offense.
Neither is going to hit 20+ HRs and be considered a power threat any time soon. They are both high BA/OBP types. But while Kirk might be the slowest player in all of baseball, Moreno has above average foot speed.(…and not just for a catcher.) I like his chances of being able to hit for a better average with more 2Bs than Kirk.
In a better/deeper lineup, they still hit Moreno in the middle of the order in AZ. And if we only compare the last 2 seasons ( aka since the trade), Moreno’s OPS+ has been 104, and Kirk’s has fallen down to just 93. ( …compared to the 127 he posted in his all-star season when he hit 14 HRs and walked more than he struck out.)
If Kirk can get back to posting an above average OPS to go along with the improved throwing, then I may change my tune in which catcher they should have kept. But I really hate the plug that he is running the bases. He needs to drive in a tonne of runs to make up for his inability to score many. He needs 2-3 hits behind him to make it all away around the bases. He is bery rarely scoring on just one hit after he reaches base.
galacticos2 wrote:MLB needs to introduce an Amnesty clause. Bautista would be my first victim.
anj wrote:Randle McMurphy wrote:hyper316 wrote:Why is Springer hitting so bad?
Because he’s been a bad hitter for over a year?
Funny thing is, he hit .415 in the spring last year. Dude is completely washed now.
anj wrote:anj wrote:Randle McMurphy wrote:Because he’s been a bad hitter for over a year?
Funny thing is, he hit .415 in the spring last year. Dude is completely washed now.
Being wrong has never felt so right.
Randle McMurphy wrote:anj wrote:anj wrote:
Funny thing is, he hit .415 in the spring last year. Dude is completely washed now.
Being wrong has never felt so right.
Could we actually be able to trade him and get out from the remainder of the contract?
Of course, if he somehow is good again, maybe we want to keep him in 2026.
This season, Bichette ranks as a 6th percentile defender, per Baseball Savant. He’s been worth minus-3 fielding runs, which would be his lowest mark since 2022. Neither his range nor his arm strength has graded near the league average, per Savant. Opposing teams might not see Bichette as a Gold Glove candidate, but they value his fielding more than the publicly available metrics.
Multiple rival officials describe Bichette’s defence as slightly below average — a 45-grade shortstop, in baseball terms. Talent evaluators agree Bichette is adept at making the plays he can get to, but it’s the lack of range that hurts his defensive ceiling. Bichette knows it, too, making expanding his range a top priority.
“I had range coming up,” Bichette said. “But I made a lot of errors. Then, I probably went the other way. I just tried to make plays. … This year, I would say that I’m making some improvements on how to get my range back, and I’ve made some good adjustments.”
Earlier this season, Bichette found he was crouching too low before the pitch. With a fixation on making the plays directly hit at him, Bichette learned his low stance cost him on groundballs at the fringe of his range. He’s crouching higher now and continues to work on angles to the ball during infield drills.
One of the biggest indicators of defensive range is pure foot speed. That’s a hard one to train and doesn’t improve with age. When Bichette broke into the big leagues as a 21-year-old, he ranked in the 83rd percentile, per Baseball Savant’s sprint speed (28.4 feet per second). Last year, as Bichette battled through multiple calf injuries, he sat in the 49th percentile (27.3). In 2025, Toronto’s shortstop is down to the 28th percentile (26.2).
That trend, on top of the offensive outlier that was Bichette’s 2024 season, is what makes the shortstop’s potential free agency this winter — or trade deadline market — so interesting. If the Blue Jays fail to extend Bichette, he’ll enter the market as a 27-year-old free agent with All-Star upside and three years with MVP votes.
But what is his defensive future? Bichette is likely to move off shortstop eventually, wherever he ends up this offseason. That move could come in three years or, for some teams, as soon as next season. It could come sooner if he’s traded.
There are certainly teams for which Bichette will be an obvious shortstop option, including the Blue Jays. The Milwaukee Brewers rank last in baseball with minus-1.5 wins above average from the position and have plenty of money coming off the books. The Atlanta Braves haven’t finished higher than 20th in shortstop wins above average since 2022. If you expand to teams that could use a second baseman, though, Bichette’s potential market opens even more.
“I know there are teams that have shortstops that wouldn’t move,” Bichette said. “But I’m just focused on what I can do right now to help my team win, whatever way I can.”
Getting back to his place as an offensive weapon is the biggest task for Bichette this season. After a brutal 2024, he has seen his elite contact return, his strikeout rate drop and his power begin to flash, with a streak-snapping home run on the weekend. If the Blue Jays shortstop can remind baseball he’s a threat at the plate, teams will find a place for him in the field. The question is where.
polo007 wrote:Blue Jays’ Bo Bichette refining defence that could shape his potential free agency - The AthleticThis season, Bichette ranks as a 6th percentile defender, per Baseball Savant. He’s been worth minus-3 fielding runs, which would be his lowest mark since 2022. Neither his range nor his arm strength has graded near the league average, per Savant. Opposing teams might not see Bichette as a Gold Glove candidate, but they value his fielding more than the publicly available metrics.
[b]Multiple rival officials describe Bichette’s defence as slightly below average — a 45-grade shortstop, in baseball terms. Talent evaluators agree Bichette is adept at making the plays he can get to, but it’s the lack of range that hurts his defensive ceiling. Bichette knows it, too, making expanding his range a top priority.