2015: 304/361/498
2016: 290/332/479

And it's worth noting that he started slowly in 2016 with a number of MLB at-bats serving as a form of spring training for him.

A player with his hitting profile would bat in the middle of many lineups. I am perfectly comfortable with him in leadoff spot for Toronto. His days batting 9th should mercifully be behind him now.

From the Latin-to-English translation of O Fortuna:

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it

Not sure if it was hubris or irony that a German set this to music just before the second world war.

Yeah, sorry. I'll go pour myself another coffee.

Also, unless I am mistaken Carrera would need to stay on the DL for the entirety of August to avoid being optioned and pass through waivers, which he likely wouldn't survive. But as you noted, Upton (even if he is playing like Atlanta Upton at the moment) has usurped the 4th outfielder position, making Carrera superfluous, both now and on a playoff roster.

Not just a poor hitting team, but the poorest walking team in all of baseball at 2.3 per game. Liriano could not have asked for a softer landing spot to make his pitching debut for the Jays. Which is not to say he won't be useful and effective. We'll just have to wait and see, but truer tests are yet to come.

Hey, what gives??? I thought we weren't even allowed to look ahead to September's call-ups? Somebody somewhere needs to publish the rules. Who's in charge around here?

I ask this with all due respect, but what is your fascination with ex-Jays, particular the prospects that never panned out? I can't imagine for a minute the organization looks at the likes of Robinzon Diaz, Eric Thames, and Guillermo Quiroz any differently than the numerous other players who are probably not good enough for MLB. And my question applies to Canadian players, another fascination of yours.

I'm sure the organization is looking for talent. Period. Birth certificates don't matter. Who originally drafted a player doesn't matter.

And the organization recognizes that most players in the minors are there to give the good players someone to play against. There is no career plan for everyone in Buffalo. If some, like LeBlanc, are able to parlay AAA success into an MLB opportunity, good for them. But these types of players are freely available talent. They have virtually no trade value.

August numbers:

Smoak 1/13, 9 K
Upton 0/18, 10 K
Barney 1/15, 7K

Barney has actually been struggling for a while and now sees his 2016 numbers in line with his career numbers.

Back in the 1980s, Bill James argued the talent in MLB is not distributed normally (i.e., does not fit on a normal curve). He said that while baseball talent in the human population at large may be normally distributed, those vying for jobs in MLB find themselves on the far right end of the curve.

For the sake of discussion, consider this image. Let's say the curve as a whole represents the distribution of baseball talent of all people on the planet. And let's say the gray section represents the pool of players feeding MLB (that section is clearly too large in the image, but the idea still holds). This includes players in MLB and the high minors.

The Z line represents replacement level.

When you start at the Z line and move right, players are getting better and better, and scarcer and scarcer.

When you start at the Z line and move left, you are looking at replacement level players and then sub-replacement level players. You can see that these numbers are growing like crazy. This is what freely available talent looks like, that big chunk of humans to the left of the Z line and at the Z line.

When a resource like a sub-replacement level player is desired, going and getting one is not difficult. They are bountiful which is why they have no trade value other than for each other. I need a crappy catcher and you need a crappy third baseman so let's swap.

please provide beforehand a player would have played well above his or her expected performance

How is this knowable? Random variability alone will explain why some performances are better than expected and some worse than expected (and then generate a whole narrative on its own).

As for Wade LeBlanc, he has been slightly above replacement level for his MLB career. But he's 32 (today, happy birthday Wade), so he's not a young player with potential. His career peripherals are not strong (high walks, high homeruns, low strikeouts). Does he have the ability to pitch well in AAA? Absolutely. Does that necessarily mean it will translate to success in MLB? Well, maybe, maybe not. So far he has a FIP of 5 in Seattle and is right around replacement level, kind of what we expected.

I don't criticize you for your fascinations. Trumpet the successes of Matt Hague and Wade LeBlanc all you want. Follow ex-Jays and Canadian-born players with reckless abandon. It's all entirely your prerogative. I just suggest that you contextualize their minor league success. Know that doing something in AAA at age 30 is much less impressive than doing so at 22. Know that fooling AAA players with breaking balls out of the strike zone doesn't guarantee similar success in the majors.

And know that replacement level players are plentiful. They are not the scarce resource that good players are. Anyone who wants one can have one.

Sure. That's why I said minor league successes need to be contextualized. If Wade LeBlanc has added a gyroball to his repertoire, then he's not same guy he used to be. But if he is dominating inferior hitters with the same toolkit that had not previously served him well in the majors, expectations needs to be tempered.

Jeffress had wildness issues that he got under control.

No one who performs at replacement level needs to always stay there. I certainly wasn't arguing that. Nor was I arguing that a 25-year old RL player has no trade value, when he is seen to have some skills that are yet to be exploited. I was saying that if you're a 30-year old bouncing around in AAA, like Diaz and Quiroz and LeBlanc and Hague, you're virtually freely available.

These numbers seem low to them. Why don't they practise? They do practise. A lot. But how hard could it be? It's more difficult than you think.

I wonder if bunting isn't just way more difficult than people think. Raul Mondesi may be the Steph Curry or Wayne Gretzky of bunting. It looks easy for him since he has incredible expertise. Most people don't and won't, even with all the practise in the world.

Mike is the glass-half-full yin to my glass-half-empty yang. He may well be right about LeBlanc being a late bloomer and prove me dead wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. If you ever see Mike and I disagree on a position, side with him. His track record is far more impressive.

Thanks for unearthing that old essay. If I could write well and express myself properly, I wouldn't be stuck in the middle of the writers' normal curve, as I am. I'd be over at the far right like Magpie.

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