re: MLB Trade Deadline News: Mets get Cespedes, Cubs Hunter Padres LOL

The more I look at this, the more this looks like a steal for Toronto. They may not need O, but this was too good to pass up.
They don't pick up a huge amount of extra salary ($54 mill through 2020), and they didn't give up a top 50 prospect. Just one top 100 and a couple of others.

Interesting article on fangraphs talking about the Jays upgrading their offense.

LINK

A piece of it

quote:

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When people argue against upgrading strengths, they’re really arguing for the presence of diminishing returns, but in baseball, the evidence actually supports the idea that adding a good hitter to an already good line-up actually returns a higher level of value, not a lower one. I wrote about this concept earlier this year; while people tend to want to balance out a team’s strengths and weaknesses, historical data actually shows that stacking good hitters has non-linear impacts, and the Blue Jays may actually get more of a benefit by adding a good hitter to their line-up than they would by adding an equivalent upgrade in the rotation.

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quote:

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This is why you want to use something like BaseRuns or a Markov Chain when modeling team run scoring, rather than just taking individual player’s linear weights and adding them together; in a good line-up, the whole really is greater than the sum of the individual parts, because good hitters create more opportunities for other good hitters to turn their production into runs. And because players tend to hit better with men on base than the bases empty, a good hitter can have a positive impact on his teammates performances as well, further increasing the non-linear value of adding a good hitter to a team already strong in run scoring

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So when you see comments about the Blue Jays not needing Troy Tulowitzki because scoring runs wasn’t the team’s problem, ignore them. There are no diminishing returns to scoring more runs; there is no point on offense to where the marginal value of a run scored is worth less than preventing a run from being allowed on defense. All that matters is the differential between runs scored and allowed, and you don’t get any extra credit for being above average at both as opposed to dominating in one and surviving at the other

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I think this nails it. Upgrades are upgrades regardless of where they come from. Extra runs created are just as valuable as extra runs saved.

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Can't imagine any of those guys being okay with moving to set up.

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I can't imagine them trading to bring in any of those three with the intent of keeping Storen in the 9th inning. Each one of them has more career saves. Kimbrel is under contract until 2017, with a 2018 team option. Pap is under contract through 2016.

Maybe you put Chapman in the 8th because he's arbitration eligible at the end of the year.

That's not really what this is about though. Unless any of them have a no trade clause, once they're with the Nats it's the Nats' decision to make who goes where. Personally, I think all three are better 9th inning options than Storen and if they trade for any of them, that's what happens.

Royals get zobrist

They are going all-in.

Ship

Royals going for it

Are they hoping Ventura can get it together for the postseason? He's still in Omaha right?