Stroman to Mets for Kay, Woods Richardson

[vaff87]

Oh ok. Well that's why I like them both - up until this year, the two were responsible for the greatest moments Toronto sports fans have experienced for the past 20 years (unless you're a big MLS/CFL fan).

They’re both fine, but overrated. Their fanboys conveniently forget the negatives with them.

Masai, Kawhi and Lowry are actual champions. Kawhi blew away anything Vince did in his one year in Toronto. Lowry has had much more success than Vince ever had, and now he’s a champion.

Ok, but why seek to diminish one man to aggrandize another? Kawhi and Vince both did very great, if different things for Toronto.

Vince's shot against Philly rims out, and Kawhi's rims in. Reverse the two coin-flip outcomes, and perhaps today VC is seen as our hero and champion, and Kawhi the villain that left us after a 2nd-round defeat.

Plus let's not forget that if not for Vince, there's a non-zero chance that Raptors go the way of the Grizzlies ages ago.

I find the logic that Vince put the Raptors “on the map” complete nonsense, tbh.

And c’mon, Kawhi is a much better player than Vince ever was. The hypothetical of if you reverse the outcomes is silly. One guy was a 2x champion, 2x finals MVP, 2x dpoy before he turned 28. The other has been in the league 20+ years and has nowhere near those accomplishments; hasn’t even reached the finals, let alone won them. Kawhi will be one of the greatest players of all time, Vince is nowhere close to that.

[Schad]

Bo Bichette is super talented. One of the few things Shatkins did right.

As is Gurriel. And Pearson. And Groshans. We've actually assembled one of the better collections of young talent in the league. Which is good, because we basically need to replace the totality of the team. It'll just take time.

[Cyrus]

Not that I have any issues with Atkins or Shapiro. Who would you say we sold high on?

Woodman?
Osuna?

It seems our drafting is at higher clip than our deal making, whether that's because of depressed assests or something else.

[vaff87]

Bo Bichette is super talented. One of the few things Shatkins did right.

As is Gurriel. And Pearson. And Groshans. We've actually assembled one of the better collections of young talent in the league. Which is good, because we basically need to replace the totality of the team. It'll just take time.

Another thing about Gurriel, is his contract looks like it could be a complete bargain, and for a long time.

[SharoneWright]

Not that I have any issues with Atkins or Shapiro. Who would you say we sold high on?

Woodman?
Osuna?

It seems our drafting is at higher clip than our deal making, whether that's because of depressed assests or something else.

The Osuna issue came out of the blue, and considering all factors, it was a great trade.

But your point is well-taken. Especially in light of the complete mismanagement of the Donaldson asset. But we've been over that ad nauseam. (And if it was ownership's fault - and I don't think it actually was - someone should have talked sense to get him moved in the offseason).

Anyway, it's hard to "sell high" when your assets all simultaneously die on the vine. Tulo, obviously. Martin, obviously. Even younger players like Sanchez and Travis, that seemed to have upward trajectory, are basically worthless now on the trade market. Even now, Giles comes up injured just at the wrong time!!

It's funny, my biggest complaint when it comes to S'kins not acquiring value in a trade was the pittance we got for Steve Pearce. LOL!

[ratul]

Heh, I love that the 2016 Jays aren't Shapiro's team, but the 2017 Dodgers and 2018 Braves are AA's.

And no, the remainder of AA's system was not BEAST. If we had just his remaining prospects -- and all still counted as prospects -- the top ten in our system would look like:

Vlad, Jansen, Borucki, Reid-Foley, Alford, Murphy, Diaz, Vicuna, McClelland, Davy Jimenez.

Using Fangraphs' prospect valuation tool and ratings for those players, that system would be worth about $154m...$112m worth of that is Vlad. That would be one of the worst farm systems in baseball despite the best prospect in the league.

By contrast, the young players drafted and acquired by the current regime are worth about $190m, and that doesn't include Gurriel, or Thornton, or Biggio. So despite the presence of Vlad, Shapiro/Atkins have made a more meaningful contribution to our cache of young talent than AAAAAAAAAAA.

Yes, shatkins had nothing to do with the 2016 Jays. And of course the 2018 Braves are Alex's - he was the GM and they were 20 wins better compared to the 2017 team

in case you want to convince me that shatkins is really all that good, I'll remind you of Mark Shapiro's division record with Toronto/Cleveland

2019: Fourth
2018: Fourth
2017: Fourth
2016: Second (HEAVY Asterisk)
2015: Third
2014: Third
2013: Second
2012: Fourth
2011: Second
2010: Fourth
2009: Fourth

So, to recap, that is ZERO division titles in a decade for the big shat. This compares to Double A's two division titles as GM and one more if you count the dodgers and definitely one more if the Braves maintain their pace this year. And this all excludes the 2016 playoff team for the Jays which he built. It's not even close.

[Sanyo]

Can MAsai also be the GM of the Jays?

[Schad]

Yes, shatkins had nothing to do with the 2016 Jays. And of course the 2018 Braves are Alex's - he was the GM and they were 20 wins better compared to the 2017 team

How do you possibly square these two thoughts. Shapiro and Atkins were in charge of the 2016 Jays. They made more offseason moves than Anthopolous did...seriously, look at the 2018 Braves and tell me which offseason acquisition by AA made the difference. Here:

Signed:

Chris Stewart - got 16 plate appearances before being DFA'd.
Peter Moylan - was pretty bad as a middle reliever, didn't pitch past July.
Peter Bourjos - 47 PAs before being DFA'd.
Ryan Flaherty - really bad in a backup role.

Total WAR produced by his offseason signings: -1.4. They were all cheap, nothing pickups, but those cheap, nothing pickups actually made them actively worse.


Or perhaps it was the players he traded for:

Charlie Culberson - the shining star of AA's first year. He was worth a whole win, and would have been a league-average player if he played every game.
Brandon McCarthy - was mediocre, and then got injured.
Preston Tucker - was bad, got shipped out as ballast at the deadline.
Danny Santana - a whole 32 PAs, spent most of the season in the minors.
Shane Carle - a reasonable middle reliever.
Carlos Perez - bad, got DFA'd.


The sum total of all of AA's offseason acquisitions for the Braves last year? One-tenth of one win. Well, maybe it was his moves during the season:

Jose Bautista - was bad, got DFA'd, went to be middling elsewhere.
Jonny Venters - a tolerably mediocre middle reliever.
Brad Brach - solid middle reliever,
Adam Duvall - was awful, and they actually traded things for him.
Kevin Gausman - gave them 10 good starts, worth almost a whole win.
Lucas Duda - a whole 22 PAs of meh.


AAAAAAAA acquired 16 players who saw major league action. Combined, those sixteen players were good for 0.7 WAR. That's about the combined impact of 2018 Sam Gavilgio.


Or, maybe it was the coaches he brought in?

The manager? Holdover.
The pitching coach? Holdover.
The batting coach? Holdover.
Assistant batting coach? Holdover.
The freaking bullpen coach? Holdover.

The only coach he brought in of any significance was the first base coach.



AA was smart not to **** with a good thing, but the Braves would have been a very good team with or without them. Doing nothing was clever, but rest assured: he did less in his first year as GM than just about any executive in the history of baseball.

[Ado05]

I like AA, but he's being overrated now. I think he's a good GM, but lets not act like he was some sort of god. He did make some god like trades though.

If the team didnt go on that crazy in 2015, everyone would've been calling for his head.

[Schad]

Everyone had already been calling for his head. Such is the nature of the Jays board that, at that point, I was mostly arguing that AA was flawed but did a lot of things right while people argued that he was the worst GM ever, and now I'm arguing that he was flawed but did a lot of things right while people argue that he was an unimpeachable genius.

[vaff87]

Spoiler:

Yes, shatkins had nothing to do with the 2016 Jays. And of course the 2018 Braves are Alex's - he was the GM and they were 20 wins better compared to the 2017 team

How do you possibly square these two thoughts. Shapiro and Atkins were in charge of the 2016 Jays. They made more offseason moves than Anthopolous did...seriously, look at the 2018 Braves and tell me which offseason acquisition by AA made the difference. Here:

Signed:

Chris Stewart - got 16 plate appearances before being DFA'd.
Peter Moylan - was pretty bad as a middle reliever, didn't pitch past July.
Peter Bourjos - 47 PAs before being DFA'd.
Ryan Flaherty - really bad in a backup role.

Total WAR produced by his offseason signings: -1.4. They were all cheap, nothing pickups, but those cheap, nothing pickups actually made them actively worse.


Or perhaps it was the players he traded for:

Charlie Culberson - the shining star of AA's first year. He was worth a whole win, and would have been a league-average player if he played every game.
Brandon McCarthy - was mediocre, and then got injured.
Preston Tucker - was bad, got shipped out as ballast at the deadline.
Danny Santana - a whole 32 PAs, spent most of the season in the minors.
Shane Carle - a reasonable middle reliever.
Carlos Perez - bad, got DFA'd.


The sum total of all of AA's offseason acquisitions for the Braves last year? One-tenth of one win. Well, maybe it was his moves during the season:

Jose Bautista - was bad, got DFA'd, went to be middling elsewhere.
Jonny Venters - a tolerably mediocre middle reliever.
Brad Brach - solid middle reliever,
Adam Duvall - was awful, and they actually traded things for him.
Kevin Gausman - gave them 10 good starts, worth almost a whole win.
Lucas Duda - a whole 22 PAs of meh.


AAAAAAAA acquired 16 players who saw major league action. Combined, those sixteen players were good for 0.7 WAR. That's about the combined impact of 2018 Sam Gavilgio.


Or, maybe it was the coaches he brought in?

The manager? Holdover.
The pitching coach? Holdover.
The batting coach? Holdover.
Assistant batting coach? Holdover.
The freaking bullpen coach? Holdover.

The only coach he brought in of any significance was the first base coach.



AA was smart not to **** with a good thing, but the Braves would have been a very good team with or without them. Doing nothing was clever, but rest assured: he did less in his first year as GM than just about any executive in the history of baseball.

You saying AA is not responsible for Ronald Acuña, Freddie Freeman. and Ozzie Albies, schad?

[Cyrus]

Why are you even arguing with this troll? You know he's just trollingv around. Stop responding to him, or very least stop quoting him so I atleast don't have to see it.

[The_Hater]

They’re both fine, but overrated. Their fanboys conveniently forget the negatives with them.

Masai, Kawhi and Lowry are actual champions. Kawhi blew away anything Vince did in his one year in Toronto. Lowry has had much more success than Vince ever had, and now he’s a champion.

Ok, but why seek to diminish one man to aggrandize another? Kawhi and Vince both did very great, if different things for Toronto.

Vince's shot against Philly rims out, and Kawhi's rims in. Reverse the two coin-flip outcomes, and perhaps today VC is seen as our hero and champion, and Kawhi the villain that left us after a 2nd-round defeat.

Plus let's not forget that if not for Vince, there's a non-zero chance that Raptors go the way of the Grizzlies ages ago.

I find the logic that Vince put the Raptors “on the map” complete nonsense, tbh.

And c’mon, Kawhi is a much better player than Vince ever was. The hypothetical of if you reverse the outcomes is silly. One guy was a 2x champion, 2x finals MVP, 2x dpoy before he turned 28. The other has been in the league 20+ years and has nowhere near those accomplishments; hasn’t even reached the finals, let alone won them. Kawhi will be one of the greatest players of all time, Vince is nowhere close to that.

Vince did put Toronto and the Raptors on the map. They made the playoffs for the first time and were suddenly playing on national telecasts. The TV ratings in Canada were non existent before Vince, half the games weren’t even televised, and they skyrocketed after he arrived.

But Vince wasn’t even close to the player Kawhi is on either side of the ball, that isn’t even worthy of a debate. Kawhi is arguably the best player in the league right now while Vince was probably never one of the top 10 NBA players in any single season of his career.

[vaff87]

Ok, but why seek to diminish one man to aggrandize another? Kawhi and Vince both did very great, if different things for Toronto.

Vince's shot against Philly rims out, and Kawhi's rims in. Reverse the two coin-flip outcomes, and perhaps today VC is seen as our hero and champion, and Kawhi the villain that left us after a 2nd-round defeat.

Plus let's not forget that if not for Vince, there's a non-zero chance that Raptors go the way of the Grizzlies ages ago.

I find the logic that Vince put the Raptors “on the map” complete nonsense, tbh.

And c’mon, Kawhi is a much better player than Vince ever was. The hypothetical of if you reverse the outcomes is silly. One guy was a 2x champion, 2x finals MVP, 2x dpoy before he turned 28. The other has been in the league 20+ years and has nowhere near those accomplishments; hasn’t even reached the finals, let alone won them. Kawhi will be one of the greatest players of all time, Vince is nowhere close to that.

Vince did put Toronto and the Raptors on the map. They made the playoffs for the first time and were suddenly playing on national telecasts. The TV ratings in Canada were non existent before Vince, half the games weren’t even televised, and they skyrocketed after he arrived.

But Vince wasn’t even close to the player Kawhi is on either side of the ball, that isn’t even worthy of a debate. Kawhi is arguably the best player in the league right now while Vince was probably never one of the top 10 NBA players in any single season of his career.

I just don’t consider that “putting them on the map”, tbh. It doesn’t have the same significance to me that it seems to with other people. I don’t buy the idea that the Raptors would have moved if it wasn’t for him.

[The_Hater]

Shitkins needs to go in the offseason, they have worn out their welcome here. I get rebuilds are hard but they took too long to start one and botched too many things here. Time to go!

It’s not only likely, but probable, that they started the rebuild late due to ownership demands.

The Jays were making the playoffs, the stadium was full, the TV ratings were high and ownership wanted to keep the money train going. 2017 made things clear that a mid season rebuild with an aging team should have happened but the deadline passed, the off-season came and they were making moves that seemed more fitting for a team trying to make another playoff run in 2018. Just seeing how Shapiro operated in Cleveland, this went completely against his M.O.

[The_Hater]

I find the logic that Vince put the Raptors “on the map” complete nonsense, tbh.

And c’mon, Kawhi is a much better player than Vince ever was. The hypothetical of if you reverse the outcomes is silly. One guy was a 2x champion, 2x finals MVP, 2x dpoy before he turned 28. The other has been in the league 20+ years and has nowhere near those accomplishments; hasn’t even reached the finals, let alone won them. Kawhi will be one of the greatest players of all time, Vince is nowhere close to that.

Vince did put Toronto and the Raptors on the map. They made the playoffs for the first time and were suddenly playing on national telecasts. The TV ratings in Canada were non existent before Vince, half the games weren’t even televised, and they skyrocketed after he arrived.

But Vince wasn’t even close to the player Kawhi is on either side of the ball, that isn’t even worthy of a debate. Kawhi is arguably the best player in the league right now while Vince was probably never one of the top 10 NBA players in any single season of his career.

I just don’t consider that “putting them on the map”, tbh. It doesn’t have the same significance to me that it seems to with other people. I don’t buy the idea that the Raptors would have moved if it wasn’t for him.

The team never would never have been moved, that was just a US narrative usually coming from fans. Corporate sponsorship money was high, attendance was strong and the team was making a profit. Plus they had plans to build a new arena. Vancouver was having huge problems with every one of those items before they were moved.

But check out the Canadian TV ratings before Vince arrived. Just Abysmal. And pretty much every current Canadian playing in the NBA says they were drawn to basketball because of Vince.

[Schad]

I'll go a step further, it's not only probable, it's definite. Shapiro said as much...that they felt that they couldn't rebuild prior to 2018 because it would be a slap in the face to the fans who'd been filling the Dome. Which is corporate-speak for "we're going to keep doing whatever it takes to get your money, until you stop giving us your money".

Said it before, but if there's a critique to be lobbed at our management, it's that -- two years after being headhunted to lead the organization -- Shapiro lacked the pull in the boardroom to convince Rogers to do otherwise. Ironically, that path even cost them money, because attendance and viewership cratered while we were carrying a $160m payroll.

[TheProfessor]

Bauer trade makes this trade look so much worse now, granted Bauer is better than stroman but still.

[Schad]

It does, but the Bauer trade will also make literally every trade made for the next year or two look much worse. It took two teams making seemingly strange decisions (though San Diego's might be understandable if they think that Reyes' weight/knees will preclude playing OF much longer), resulting in a bizarre situation where a contender traded the best player to a non-contender because the return in net value was so overwhelming.

On current projections, Bauer's worth something like $30m in surplus value. Franny Reyes is projected to be worth more than that before he hits arbitration, and that doesn't even include the prospects (it's also a fairly conservative projection, reflecting the boom/bust in his approach).

The Stroman trade might well prove to be poor, but there's also a significant spread between poor and whatever the **** this is.

[bballsparkin]

I just don’t consider that “putting them on the map”, tbh. It doesn’t have the same significance to me that it seems to with other people. I don’t buy the idea that the Raptors would have moved if it wasn’t for him.

I think Vince put the Raptors on the map. He was incredibly flashy and fun to watch. The idea that the Raptors would have moved is silly. Toronto has like three times the population as Vancouver. And I can say the Grizzlies were bad. Like really bad. I was a day one fan and thought Shareef was better than Vince. As an adult I stand corrected. IIRC the Grizz won max 23 games. Stu wrecked it for Vancouver. They never got the corporate money to support a loser. The Raptors were never leaving.