Anyways, you're being way too generous. With a .287 winning percentage, the Orioles as a team are playing below replacement level which is .296. That is quite an achievement.

What few good players they had are long gone. Just look at the current roster. Who could be brought in for free and bump existing Jays off the roster? (Darren O'Day would have to be excepted for historic reasons.)

You mean a whole nother level? (Sorry Dewey, just baiting you.)

And in the NL West rather than the AL East.

I don't imagine it matters much to Tellez's confidence (given what the man has weathered on the personal front) but maybe Gibbons will protect him from Sale at the very least? Or does he go all in with this baptism by fire?

Just providing cover for the times I mess up unintentionally. Maybe you'll chalk it up to baiting and give me a pass.

Using fangraphs WAR for ease of sorting, the top AL catcher is Jan Gomes (8th in the majors). By this measure, Maile has been a top-20 catcher in all of baseball. I would have lost a lot of money if someone offered to bet on that happening before the season.

Similarly, the top AL 1B is Matt Olsen (he plays for Oakland and appears to be perfectly average at basically everything, I can't remember anything about him). Tyler White for Houston might end up leading the AL 1B position in fWAR, since he's close now with only 200 PAs. Smoak could with a few good weeks too. You'd think the league with the DH would be the one to find a way to extract value from the C/1B types, but apparently not so much.

The only advantage the AL seems to have is an extremely top-heavy group of position players (sounds like the leagues mirror player distribution), with Trout, Betts, Ramirez, Bregman, Lindor, and Chapman.

This is certainly a surprising turns of events. There is room for skepticism, surely, based on his weak 2017 season and based on the fact that his offensive numbers have dropped quite a bit in the second half of 2018.

Still, if any team in the market for a catcher sees Maile as a potential starter, the Jays should be exploring a trade. Jansen has been tabbed the catcher of the future, starting now. Martin isn't going anywhere in 2019, so may as well serve as the backup with McGuire taking his place in 2020. Maile becomes an expendable luxury in this scenario and should be moved if he can attract suitors.

2004:  13-16
2005:  14-16
2006:  18-10
2007:  15-13

2013:  12-14
2014:  14-12
2015:  19-12
2016:  13-16
2017:  14-14
2018:   4-6 and counting

I don't know how this transition happened. His glove will always play as a backup. But his 2018 bat could play as a starter. The team should definitely look to sell high.

Oh, I no longer believe I could outhit Maile. He has successfully negotiated that hurdle.

I have heard friends muse that Martin could be a player/manager next season and then morph into a fulltime manager thereafter. Not sure how much appetite the organization might have for that sort of thing.

• The O's are historically bad this year (over 100 losses already) with horrid catching (negative WAR for their #1, 0.0 for their #2, 0.4 for their 3rd catcher (a 27 year old AAAA guy who had a 633 OPS in AAA), negative for their #4 guy.  Ugh.  Of course, their system is such a mess odds are you won't find anything worth getting beyond roster relief and maybe some cap space for international free agents (although given the shape they are in the O's would be stupid to trade that away).
• The Mets suck, but have a few decent catchers including Mr. Injury d'Arnaud.
• San Fran is having a bad year, and have 3 solid catchers so not a match
• Royals suck almost as bad as the O's, but have a solid starting catcher but negative WAR from all others behind the plate.
• Seattle has been lucky good this year, no playoffs but good record, with poor catching - net of 1.0 WAR from their 4 catchers this year. Most from their #1 guy
  

ESTRADA    ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR
Martin    3.38  37.1  27   8  38   7
Maile     5.42  81.1  88  27  50  14

HAPP       ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR
Martin    3.71  87.1  77  22  94  11
Maile     5.74  26.2  22  13  36   6

GAVIGLIO   ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR  
Martin    3.45  44.1  43  15  49   3
Maile     5.92  51.2  61  15  41  10

STROMAN    ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR  
Martin    6.01  76.1  92  26  58   8
Maile     4.15  26.0  23  10  19   1

SANCHEZ    ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR  
Martin    3.83  56.1  46  34  51   5
Maile     6.17  23.1  29  11  16   3

BORUCKI    ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR
Martin    3.52  46.0  55  14  26   4
Maile     2.77  13.0  12   1  13   0 

GARCIA     ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR
Martin    8.16  28.2  39  15  28   5
Maile     4.74  43.2  36  23  38   8

BIAGINI    ERA   IPT   H  BB   K  HR
Martin    6.75  21.1  21  10  18   4
Maile     6.68  32.1  52   7  22   9

In CF, Pillar is clearly the team's best defensive player, even if the numbers are noting a sharp decline (perhaps an aberration). He's arb eligible the next two seasons meaning he'll still be relatively inexpensive. Thing is, he's never improved one iota as a hitter so you know what you're getting there, sadly. And, if 2021 is deemed the "year we compete", he'll be 32 and certainly well into defensive decline. (He would solve a lot of problems in Cleveland as their fulltime CF.)

So the question re CF is when to make a move and if so, to whom? Grichuk passed a subjective eye test in CF, but the numbers don't support him. But he does have almost 3 years on Pillar. Moving him to CF would open a corner OF slot, perhaps for Gurriel.

As for 2B and SS, I'm not sure who the best defenders are on the current roster (Travis and Diaz?) and even less sure who will start at those positions in the next few years. Or who should start.

I worry that the Travis we were enthused by a couple of years ago is long gone. He doesn't seem likely to survive a numbers game due to his lack of versatility. Some around here are optimistic about Tulo v2.0. Others, myself included, are far less sanguine. Those could well be your 2019 starters.

Not sure where the drama lies. The Yankees are heading to the WC game if even as just the road team. The only potential drama in the AL is Oakland's pursuit of Houston for first place.

I get that each team would prefer to be the home team (and their owners all the more), but I would guess that each team will prioritize resting its players in advance of the post-season to going all out to earn home field advantage.

We're just killing time until 2021.

I think Gibbons is rewarding Solarte for the player he was early on, hitting well and being a good teammate. I agree with others that those AB could be better spent on other players at this point.

But that would have to be with the idea of trading him, no? Even ignoring his drop in performance, there's just no room for him on the roster.

It would be something if the Jays picked up his option and then traded him, sending a few million to the recipient team (who might see him as a 5M asset, say) just to get some kind of meaningful return. Would any team even see him as a 5M asset after the year he had?

Pillar's salary may not matter, but I wouldn't mind seeing some open payroll used to extend some guys, especially Stroman and Sanchez, as there aren't so many high-end pitchers in the system. Might even be a buy-low opportunity, although I suspect they both would be willing to take their chances on the open market in free agency.

Sanchez hired Scott Boras last year to represent him. He's not re-signing or coming cheap. He only has two years of control left. He probably should be traded next trade deadline is he's not hurt, which is a big if.