2 minutes ago, hovertical said:

in theory, even though I've always thought he kinda sucked, Avi shouldn't be THIS bad again at least. 

His statcast is terrible, but yes. Maybe he is hurt (physically or mentally or both!) and just needs time off. I have no explanation. You'd like to think he hits lefties and plays good defense at a minimum, and that gets him 1+ WAR over 450+ PA. As a floor. There is certainly more to like here.

There are others though.

Soler will be fine. And what's funny is, he's have the 2nd best statistical season of his career according to fangraphs ignoring his cup of coffee call up. He too should do a bit better, maybe 1.5+ WAR where he is a bit more 2019/post-2021 next year. He'll be in a contract year with a cheap 2024 (as opposed to a relatively expensive 2023) so hopefully $$$ is a motivator.

I have to imagine if nothing more Stallings remembers he is a defensive first player and a 1 WAR defensive floor occurs. Fortes needs to be staring 90+ games next year regardless. This should be a 2+ WAR catching combo. Fortes really bailing them out here. Another great development.

And then we get to Rogers. Another, can he honestly be this bad again? Or is Braxton so good Rogers goes to the bullpen and becomes a legitimate Andrew Miller level ace reliever? You'd imagine 150+ vastly improved innings are coming here from one of them.

 

I don't know the answers. I do know they need to sell the farm (excluding Eury/Berry/Meyer/Eder only pretty much) for a longterm SS or CF, and then move around MLB payroll (Cooper, Berti, Wendle, Rojas, Anderson, Floro, Scott, Bleier, Okert, and Hernandez) to open up some money for the other of SS or CF. Bruce is going to dictate how expensive that player is and god willingly he doesn't tell Kim $80m. This team can work if they want. Or just pocket league money I guess.

Avi is fat and awful and always has been. The only advanced stat you've needed to recognize that is eyes. Same with Soler. Both two of the worst players I've ever seen

25 minutes ago, Iowa said:

Avi is fat and awful and always has been. The only advanced stat you've needed to recognize that is eyes. Same with Soler. Both two of the worst players I've ever seen

Chris Davis would like a word

17 minutes ago, pollythewog said:

Chris Davis would like a word

Not to mention Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison. Reggie Abercrombie.

Garcia had 5.3 WAR and effectively batted .265/.335/.450+ playing at worst average defense previous 3 seasons over 1200 PA. Like he sucks right now, but the constant theme here - some objectivity is necessary. Worst player ok? Ok then. Bass was terrible last year also.

52 minutes ago, Iowa said:

Avi is fat and awful and always has been. The only advanced stat you've needed to recognize that is eyes. Same with Soler. Both two of the worst players I've ever seen

worst players.. lol  but Avi looks utterly miserable here and has since day 1.  he just doesn't seem to want to be on this particular team around these particular guys.  You'd think he'd be thrilled to still have a manager who believes in him despite his awfulness but he literally has resting bitch face at all times and just seems completely disengaged.  This again, would be when I'd approve of having Fredi as manager again to ream his ass out for just being a prick - like when we all saw our CF horribly misplay a ball and laugh at it.

Any stats for Avi should be thrown out the window. I've watched this guy forever.. he's garbage. Any positive statistics he has he probably stockpiled playing the Cubs/Pirates/Reds or the shitty AL Central 90 times a year. If you're just staring at advanced stats and didn't know he had so many holes he has in his swing, I don't know what to tell ya. 

Same goes with Soler. The guy has been the same awful hitter his entire life minus a stretch here or there

 

Both garbage. The fact Kim gave them multiple years is inexcusable 

1 hour ago, Iowa said:

Avi is fat and awful and always has been. The only advanced stat you've needed to recognize that is eyes. Same with Soler. Both two of the worst players I've ever seen

I mean I cant argue with this.   I though some dumb team was going to see Avisail's 2021 numbers and fooled into giving him a lot of money.  Too bad the Marlins were the fools.  I've never been a fan of his going all the way back to his White Sox days, he showed a glimmer with the Tigers when he was breaking in, got moved to the White Sox and never really built upon anything, if anything reinforcing the negatives that people had on him from his Detroit days.   Sometimes in this day and age, we think baseball can be played and won/lost while looking at statisticals models ONLY, without relying upon the ole eyeball test.

Signing Avisail Garcia was stupid.  Signing Jorge Soler on top of Avisail Garcia was stupider.  Doing this when having Jesus Aguilar and Garrett Cooper on your roster was dumbest yet.

Though I will say the Soler signing I feel was 100% motivated by Sherman 'proving' to Jeter and his doubters that he would spend money after the lockout, positional need/fit be damned.

Signing Garcia wasnt that bad in a vacuum.  

Its like this organization never factors in things like you know, positional ability when signing players.  

I have zero faith that Garcia will turn into a moderately useful player over this contract.  Soler is who he is, nothing has really changed, he just turned his hot streak in 2021 into a nice little payday for him, again largely thanks to Sherman trying to 'prove' something, no matter how dumb of a fit that was for your actual roster.

57 minutes ago, pollythewog said:

Chris Davis would like a word

Chris Davis pre getting busted for adderall and when Camden was Coors East was damn good though. 

35 minutes ago, MarlinsLou said:

Not to mention Lewis Brinson and Monte Harrison. Reggie Abercrombie.

Garcia had 5.3 WAR and effectively batted .265/.335/.450+ playing at worst average defense previous 3 seasons over 1200 PA. Like he sucks right now, but the constant theme here - some objectivity is necessary. Worst player ok? Ok then. Bass was terrible last year also.

 

None of those 3 were getting paid more than Garcia.  In fact, I'm pretty sure Garcia this year is making more than all 3 combined in their entire careers.  

Garcia also played in very nice hitter friendly ballparks the last few years as well.  Let's not discount him going from a pro hitter park to a pro pitcher park and all of a sudden wondering gee, why are his numbers down.

4 minutes ago, Das Texan said:

 

None of those 3 were getting paid more than Garcia.  In fact, I'm pretty sure Garcia this year is making more than all 3 combined in their entire careers.  

Garcia also played in very nice hitter friendly ballparks the last few years as well.  Let's not discount him going from a pro hitter park to a pro pitcher park and all of a sudden wondering gee, why are his numbers down.

Money means nothing here? Listen I'm not defending the guy here as he is terrible right now, however his home/away splits 19-21 are "slightly" skewed to home based on 2019 (2020-2021 he was neutral in both). Park factors don't explain this at all. He is monumentally a worse baseball player beyond anything anyone could have expected. There is no explanation for this beyond a radical physical decline where he can't hack it anymore literally and/or mentally something is off in life where he isn't focused. He could hit .225/.275/.400 and produce 1 WAR with his defense and that would be an epic downturn in production, and he's managed to do A LOT worse. It's truly breathtaking how bad he is. I mean some guys on fangraphs thought he was going to BREAK OUT this year and he's one of the worst players in baseball? Smart people liked him. It's really bizarre.

He should be a floor 2+ WAR player based on 2019-2021. He is clearly not right now. That is the entire point. This also has nothing to do either with whether a smarter acquisition (Joc) could have been made to bridge to Bleday/Burdick, and spend more resources for a CF (which is obviously a better use of assets). I am just pointing out a severe lack of objectivity in saying "the worst" players. Garcia had been fine for years. He shockingly has the 28th most WAR of all OF 2017-2021 which is a pretty big sample size. He was a very solid starter in these years. There is certainly some hyperbole going on with a message board, but I'm just saying let's have some objectivity. Garcia signing looks terrible. Like you said - not bad in a vacuum though. That's all I am trying to say here.