Table of Content
However, he's a very pull-heavy hitter and finished last year with a brutal .269 BABIP . With shift restrictions preventing three infielders from standing between first and second base, Varsho could see some added benefit there. Second, the market for catchers was shrinking after the St. Louis Cardinals nabbed Willson Contreras in free agency and the Atlanta Braves acquired Sean Murphy for spare parts. Heck, even the Cleveland Guardians seem happy just signing Mike Zunino. First, as mentioned above, each of those backstops has some drawbacks.
But he also would've netted Toronto the least in a trade return, given his age, proximity to free agency, and the fact that he's merely a league-average hitter for his career . It's all a far cry from their current stint with the Druid company touring The Lonesome West around the country. "It's directed by Garry Hynes and again we play two brothers but in very different circumstances," says Kenny. The only real point of reference in their work is Hall's Pictorial Weekly, given that D'Unbelievables' material is also firmly rooted in that same rural type of eccentricity. Performing together for 10 years, Kenny and Shortt have become masters at vernacular comedy and what's most impressive about the new video is their way of working with accents and regional colloquialisms. Also impressive is the very physical aspect of their performance and the way they introduce and integrate elements from harlequinade, mime and pantomime into their work - which obviously goes back to Jon Kenny's love of commedia dell'arte.
Who gets referred to online and in real life all the time - normally during various RTÉ chat shows
Gurriel will play the corner in the final year of his contract and provide the same offensive value as Arizona just traded away. If Carroll can patrol center field close to as well as Varsho, there's really nothing bad about this deal from the D-Backs' perspective. And, finally, you've got Moreno - the star of a Blue Jays farm system that had been depleted in recent years. There were public evaluators just last year arguing that Moreno was the best prospect in all of baseball - at least alongside New York Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez and Baltimore Orioles right-hander Grayson Rodriguez.
Another great indication of Moreno's maturity as a hitter is that he never seemed to waver from his plate approach despite struggling to drive the ball early in his big-league career. It took him a long time to get that first career homer - 24 games - but before that, he still managed a .323 OBP. He needs some work, like every developing prospect, but his contact rate and eye at the plate are a great start. It still likely begets another move, as Whit Merrifield and Cavan Biggio currently project to be both second base/fourth outfielder. With Kevin Kiermaier in the mix, the Jays likely have the best defensive outfield in the league.
Top Leagues
And while Kiermaier and Varsho might seem like overkill, expecting the former to recapture his Gold Glove form seamlessly after so many injuries may be foolish. But having three center fielders patrolling Rogers Centre must sound like music to the ears of Blue Jays pitchers - particularly Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios, who had troublingly high BABIPs, ranking last and second-last in 2022, respectively. Danny Jansen was always seen as a good defensive catcher, but it has never fully come together for him at the big-league level, perhaps at least partially due to injuries. He hit very well last season, though, boasting a 140 wRC+ over 72 games.
There are also some promising underlying numbers, as Varsho seemed to be penalized a disproportionate amount by the shift. Despite having 27 homers last year, he isn't going to tear the cover off the ball. He had a respectable barrel rate but an average exit velocity in the 25th percentile.
The young lad who comes into the shop
After touring extensively all over Ireland for almost a decade both men went their separate ways in 2000, exploring independent careers in TV, movies and music. Up until now, a comeback was usually given a "never say never" response when either Pat or Jon was asked, but they both now feel the time is right. Even if it is an overpay, Ross Atkins and the Jays' front office pulled a necessary trigger here by acquiring Varsho. He showed reason to believe last year that he's the best defensive outfielder in baseball, ranking 99th percentile in outs above average and 97th in outfield jump.
This was swiftly followed by Pauline, which did similar - if not better - business for them. There will be a new show next year, they say, but until then it's D'Telly. The Jays shouldn't regret adding elite reliever Erik Swanson to the mix, but Teoscar Hernandez would now fit this roster much better than he once did. There aren't a whole lot of options readily available, but this certainly won't be the final move of the offseason for the Jays.
Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for user created content, posts, comments, submissions or preferences. Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for the content of external websites. So imagine a scenario where your team keeps the two outfielders most worth building around, probably doesn't lose that much defensive value (because the 22-year-old Carroll seems like a good center fielder anyways), and still lands a top prospect. Corbin Carroll and Alek Thomas are the two outfielders who seem most worth building around and still have that prospect shine that makes them harder to deal away - especially for a rebuilding team like the Diamondbacks. Even further, 25-year-old Jake McCarthy has made himself very valuable as a peskily good hitter with great baserunning acumen. Even further, Varsho is a much-needed left-handed bat, which the Jays have been in pursuit of for quite some time to very poor results.
Of course, the real headliner is Moreno, whose pop time to second base ranked 89th percentile in MLB during his short stint in the majors last year, according to Baseball Savant. That's a key tool for catchers to possess as the league approaches the addition of robot umpires while also policing pitchers' pickoff attempts. If Moreno can indeed control the running game, he could easily become a crucial part of the Diamondbacks' next window of contention, regardless of whether his bat matures.
Even though their last video was one of the biggest selling Irish videos of all time , Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt, aka D'Unbelievables, still don't have the profile and punch of many of their contemporaries. You could blame it on an RTE/Dublin 4 conspiracy, or the fact they've never had any real measure of success abroad, but in terms of bums on seats and box office receipts, they are, by a country mile, the most successful Irish comedy duo ever. Now signed to the Sony empire, their second video collection, D'Telly, is released this week and looks set to do well - their first video (D'Video) stayed at No 1 in the Irish video charts for 15 consecutive weeks. The two have just finished a mammoth three-year tour of their last stage show, I Doubt It Says Pauline and are currently going straight, with acting roles in Martin McDonagh's The Lone- some West, the final part of the Leenane trilogy. While he's frustratingly streaky at times, he's also roughly as good of a hitter over the course of his career as Varsho was last year in his breakout.
Instead, though, they decided to make the move that made the most sense, trading away the unknown commodity. Because where would the Jays be if, hypothetically, they traded Kirk, Jansen got injured (he's played 292 games out of a possible 546 over the past four years), and Moreno just never panned out like so many prospects before him? That would severely hamstring a win-now team playing in arguably the toughest division. "It's the two of us playing these brothers who run a general shop down the country," says Jon Kenny. With Kenny and Shortt hogging all the acting roles, it's a testament to the breadth of their acting ability.
For these reasons, it was starting to look increasingly likely that the Jays would head into 2023 with Kirk and Jansen sharing time as catcher and Moreno in the minors, awaiting an opening of some sort. Kirk could also act as the designated hitter at times, so it didn't seem totally nonsensical to just hang onto all three. Alejandro Kirk is coming off an All-Star campaign and has proven himself as one of the better hitting catchers in the league. However, while he's a good framer, he's not especially good at controlling the running game. There'll be an increased emphasis on that as MLB implements pitcher pickoff restrictions and larger bases. It had been rumored all winter that the Jays were shopping a catcher.
He's probably a nine-hitter against southpaws at best, but his defensive prowess makes up for the fact he might not provide much positive impact on the offensive side against fellow lefties. The Blue Jays traded top catching prospect Gabriel Moreno and outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to the Diamondbacks for outfielder Daulton Varsho on Friday. Feedback on “For everyone who grew up watching D'Unbelievables videos on repeat”. Email “For everyone who grew up watching D'Unbelievables videos on repeat”.
References
It's clear that, given the value put on cost-controlled players, Moreno would likely net the largest return of the three. However, he hasn't really slugged well in the minors and didn't look especially MLB-ready in his short stint in the majors this year (despite a good 113 wRC+ over 25 games attributed entirely to his impressive plate discipline). D'Unbelievables are a comedy duo from Ireland formed in the late 1980s by Pat Shortt and Jon Kenny in Limerick. Together they created characters which could be seen on every street corner and pub in Ireland. They toured extensively all over Ireland for almost a decade until Jon Kenny was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease in 2000. Pat Shortt meanwhile launched his solo career in the late 90s and was the main force behind the success of the RTÉ comedy series Killinaskully.
This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. And there’s a good chance anyone growing up then will instantly recognise some of their more memorable characters. Out of all Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt’s work together as D’Unbelievables, these two were perhaps the great staples of Irish household video collections in the ’90s.
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