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Features Last years team vs past Jays
Figured I had to come up with a new topic as the old one is getting pretty full, so why not compare last years offense to all Jays teams from 1977 to now while we wait to see where Anthony Santander, Alex Bregman, and other top free agents sign (such as Jack Flaherty, Pete Alonso, Jeff Hoffman who wants to be a starter again, and others) sadly, they probably all sign outside of Toronto given how this winter has gone.


Over 48 seasons (* by 2020 [60 games], 1981 [106], 1994 [115], and 1995 [144].  Vs all others with 162) stats via FanGraphs...

Category Score Rank Just behind Just Ahead of Notes
Defense  21.1 4 2004 2013 Never thought of 2004 as being good on defense, #1 was 1985.
HBP  78 5 1998 1999 Well, even bad offenses need to be good at something I guess
fWAR  22.7 18 1986 1998 Defense really lifted this
BB%  8.4% 18 1990 2008 Hey, something they were in the upper half of all Jay teams ever!
wRC+  101 23 1989/1998  2009/2000 The PED era really screws around with 2000's figures
Offense  3 26 2013 1991 Dang, was sure this would be a LOT worse
2B  280 26 1985 1987 Surprised by the company being kept here
3B  26 29 2006 2007/13/14
SB  72 32 2005 2002
HR  156 32 1988 1997 1997 should be embarassed, that was in the midst of the PED era
ISO  .148 35 1995 1984 Kind of surprised '84 is this low (Barfield & Bell regulars that year)
BABIP  .283 37 1982 2011
OBA  .313 38 1982 2017
Runs scored  671 38 1991 1997
K%  20.3% 41 2022 2012
Slg%  .389 42 1997 1982
wOBA  .307 44 1997 1977
BsR  12.7 44 2017 1978 Ouch - the baserunning was that bad? Yikes.
Avg  241 45 1997 2017 Was expecting this to be at the bottom, but 1981 (226) will probably hold this title forever

Kind of interesting to put a historical perspective on the offense which was really annoying fans and media alike.  It was bad, 1997 bad, not 1981 bad.  1998 saw the teams offense skyrocket to 816 R (#8 all time), but that '98 team really sacrificed defense to do it (José Canseco in the OF often, Shawn Green in CF 32 times, a 36 year old Tony Fernández flip flopping 2B/3B, Carlos Delgado at 1B (think Vlad but no fun acrobatics), etc.  Basically they did anything they could to get offense added in that year.  Yet despite that Roger Clemens still won the pitchers triple crown with a 174 ERA+ (imagine if he had a good defense behind him).  So yes, the offense could jump next year.  Anthony Santander could be the Canseco for 2025. The big shifts were Orlando Merced replaced by Shawn Green, Joe Carter by Canseco, and Otis Nixon by Shannon Stewart.  Not to mention Mariano Duncan replaced by Fernandez.  The manager was changed from Cito Gaston to Tim Johnson (if only they hired Davy Johnson instead who publicly said he wanted to come here).

Basically what this shows is 2024 sucked, but 1997 shows how fast it can change if you mix in kids and 1 key free agent.  But ideally you don't write off defense like Ash did between those 2 years.

What about pitching?  Glad you asked.  Split into starting and relieving...
Starting First (begin with the good news)...
Category Score Rank Just behind Just Ahead of Notes
Fastball V 94.2 1 -- 2023 Just 18 years of data, but still suprisingly good
WP 9 2 2020 2021 Wow, guess Kirk is damn good at blocking
K% 22.4% 4 2022 2020 A function of era (top 5 all in the 2020's)
K/BB 2.95 4 2023 2008 Top 4 are the 4 more recent seasons
WHIP 1.23 4 1985 1991 Wow, impressive.
LOB% 73.6% 5 2016 1991 Guess the starters were good at this
K/9 8.48 5 2022 2017
IBB 3 7 2000 2014/2019 Guess the Jays don't like to give up free baserunners
ERA 3.95 12 1990 2014
BB/9 2.87 15 1986 2006
BB% 7.6% 16 2006 2013
BABIP .283 18 1990 1980
FIP 4.15 19 2023 1997
fWAR 10.6 33 2017 1994 1994 was a 2/3 season, 1977 was next
HR/9 1.21 36 2009 1996
W 51 36 2011 1980
L 61 36 2011 1997
HR/9 1.21 36 2009 1996
QS 68 39 2021 1980/2013
IP 861.2 41 2017 2018
HBP 47 45 2001 2005/2008 Poor opponents getting beaned a lot

Now the ugly - the pen.
Category Score Rank Just behind Just Ahead of Notes
Fastball V 94.1 5 2021 2019 Only 18 years of data
Holds 83 5 2018 2017 Only for past 23 years
IP 565.2 6 2021 2023
BABIP .276 7 1991 2015 Suggests the pen could've been worse if not for the defense
K/9 7.99 14 2014 1987 Very poor figure for a modern pen
K/BB 2.2 15 1997 2014
K% 20.7% 16 2014 2008
BlSv 23 18 2015 2022 Only for past 23 years
WHIP 1.34 20 1992 2006 Wow, comparable to the Henke/Ward WS pen?
W 23 21 2016 1984
BB/9 3.63 22 2010 1985
BB% 9.4% 22 2006 1992 Huh, the amazing Henke/Ward pen wasn't better at avoiding walks
Saves 36 27 2004 1996
IBB 22 28 1996 1983 Guess Schneider had a LOT less confidence in his pen
WP 22 30 2016 1994 Wow, Kirk kept the starters under control with this, but not the pen
HBP 24 35 1999 2003
L 27 40 2022 1984
FIP 4.84 45 2019 2003
ERA 4.82 45 2020 1979
LOB% 69.0% 46 1979 2000 2020 was the worst pen for allowing runners to score
fWAR -2.5 48 1984 -- Other negative years were 1977 & 1979
HR/9 1.46 48 2019 -- Ugh
ERA- 121 48 1978 -- Worst ever by a lot, '78 was 112

Scary how bad they were - worst Jays pen ever for HR/9, ERA-, fWAR, and close to worst in many other categories.  Yet 5th in BABIP so it could've easily been even worse.
Posted by John Northey on Saturday, January 04 2025 @ 09:27 PM EST.
Last years team vs past Jays | 336 comments | Create New Account
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John Northey - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 06:21 PM EST (#455025) #
FYI: Royals Sign Cavan Biggio To Minor League Contract - good to see he is signed somewhere.

Biggio really wouldn't work here at 3B - his defense there was ugly when he was there everyday a few years back. Yoán Moncada is an interesting one who is available and being chased reportedly by the Jays, Cubs, and Mariners. Could be a good mix/match with Clement at 3B here, and a heck of a lot cheaper than Bregman would be. Bregman would be the better player, but his 7 year/$200 mil demands are nuts imo.  I'd take Moncada on a 1 year plus option deal ideally (could be a vesting one).
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Marc Hulet - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 07:01 PM EST (#455026) #
Moncado has been a league-average or better hitter in just 3 of 7 years and i believe ive3 read that there are some makeup issues there ... I don't really see the appeal or a reason to waste $ on what he offers. Just run Ernie out there.

Jays will need to place Hagen Danner on waivers soon if they can't work out a trade. He was designated Dec. 20 but there was a freeze during the holidays. I've seen other lesser arms get DFA'd and dealt for an asset in returned so I'll be very disappointed if Atkins can't get anything back.
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 08:21 PM EST (#455027) #
Teoscar on the Dodgers approach versus (ahem) some other teams' approaches, per ESPN:

Hernández said he had offers from other teams that would have gotten him an additional $5 million to $6 million.

"For me, money wasn't an issue," he said.

...

He called the Dodgers "different" than other teams.

"They give me the confidence. I didn't get that really in other places," Hernández said. "They trust me in everything that I can give them. That was one of the biggest things for me, that pushed me to do the best job that I can do in a Dodgers uniform."
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 08:34 PM EST (#455028) #
First Kiermaier's comments, now Teo's comments...the pattern strongly suggests that the Dodgers are simply a better-quality organization than the Blue Jays are.

I think the intangibles matter. Trust, feeling valued, quality of player preparation and scouting staff...it's not all about who can offer the most money. We saw this with Burnes as well.

Does Berrios feel trusted by the Blue Jays? Does Davis Schneider? Does Vladdy?

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uglyone - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:16 PM EST (#455029) #
ehhh....i'd take those words with lots of salt.

it's about the money.

both his money personally, and the money he knows they're spending on the rest of the team to try and win.
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:24 PM EST (#455030) #
I don’t see any reason not to take Teo’s words at face value.
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uglyone - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:27 PM EST (#455031) #
never heard anyone say "yeah it was the money".
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Katie - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:28 PM EST (#455032) #
It would not shock me to hear that the organization that went 656-377 over the last seven seasons is a better organization than the one that went 518-514.
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:48 PM EST (#455033) #
Good point. What I find interesting is that the Dodgers aren’t simply outspending other MLB teams on players. They seem to be elite in other ways as well (management, coaching, scouting).
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John Northey - Sunday, January 05 2025 @ 09:51 PM EST (#455034) #
Agreed Katie - shocking that a club that has 2 titles in the past 5 years, made the playoffs 12 straight years, was division champ 11 of those 12 (106 wins for WC the other) is doing stuff better than the Jays are. It is a lot like how the Jays in the 80's/early 90's were doing things differently than the rest of MLB with Cito showing confidence in White and others who other teams had listed as problems. If the Jays are smart they will be talking with anyone who was there who is willing to talk to them about changes the Jays need to make to catch up. 29 of 30 teams need to catch up to the Dodgers right now. Money makes a big difference there, but so does how they run things. Remember, Keirmaier said he never saw stuff like he saw there, and that includes one of the most forward thinking FO's in Tampa. Andrew Friedman was stolen by the Dodgers from the Rays for $35 mil over 5 years - a VERY smart investment on their part. If I ran the Jays and was thinking of getting a new team running things I'd be investigating the Dodgers front office for people who might be ready for a new challenge. The next 3 in line behind Friedman are Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer: Bob Wolfe, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer: Lon Rosen, Executive Vice President, Planning & Development: Janet Marie Smith. Those 3 I'd suspect all dream of being team president someday - you don't become VP without wanting to be the president. Also up there are Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations: Josh Byrnes, Vice President & Assistant General Manager: Jeffrey Kingston, Vice President & Assistant General Manager: Alex Slater. Josh Byrnes was the GM for Arizona 2006-2010, and for SD 2011-2014. With SD he drafted Max Fried (7th overall), and Zach Eflin (33rd overall), Hunter Renfroe (13th overall), and Trea Turner (13th overall) - not bad. With Arizona he took Max Scherzer (11th), Brett Anderson (55th), Wade Miley (43rd), AJ Pollock (17th), Paul Goldschmidt (246th, 8th round, sub $100k bonus), and Adam Eaton (571st 19th round). His last draft for Arizona sucked as his first 8 picks (rounds 1-8, 6th pick each round) failed to reach the majors - ouch - but taking Scherzer and Goldschmidt years earlier was more than enough to cover that.

So if the Jays do decide to dump the current front office there are a few names to look at as possibilities. AA went to Dodgerland after his time here as well. Certainly nothing wrong with raiding that front office imo, especially if the Jays are willing to spend money still. If they are going cheap then chase down Tampa's (people who know how to operate on a shoestring).
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soupman - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 02:18 AM EST (#455035) #
IMO Jays fans need to abandon the idea that hiring a new GM will bring about meaningful change.

The issue lies deeper than personnel—it’s the organizational mindset, which is rooted in a philosophy that feels like it belongs to a bygone era. The "flat hierarchy" the team embraces is less about fostering collaboration and more about preserving the status quo. In a lot of ways, it's the perfect shield for the people in charge to avoid accountability.

While I’ll give credit where it's due—there’s a certain irony in how long the current management has avoided serious scrutiny, especially considering the vast amounts of money in this industry—let’s not kid ourselves. I’m genuinely convinced that if you trained ChatGPT on basic baseball analytics, it could run the Blue Jays with the same level of success (or lack thereof) we’ve seen over the past decade. The strategy seems to boil down to best practices, minimizing downside, finding value plays, and treating relievers as fungible assets. If that's their formula for success, it's hardly revolutionary.

Mark Shapiro, in particular, seems obsessed with cultivating a "cool boss" persona. You can see it in moments like the video from the recent renovations, where he showed up in a plaid shirt and hard hat, trying too hard to project a down-to-earth image. He’s the kind of guy who’d show up to the office with a Tim Hortons cup and a “let’s keep it chill” attitude. But that image doesn’t hide the fact that the team's leadership lacks real innovation and vision.

At the end of the day, simply swapping out the GM isn’t going to fix the core issue: a front office that seems more committed to appearances than true change.

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Eephus - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 06:23 AM EST (#455036) #
I hate doubling down on all the negativity (actually in a rare good mood) but I have to agree with all of the criticisms of this Blue Jays organization I’ve read so far in this thread. Hey, until this past World Series there was some doubt the “Dodgers Formula” could work in the playoffs (Covid Championship aside) and now they’re the toast of modern baseball and rightfully so. They’re not afraid to spend money in a game that is abundantly flush with it.

These Toronto Blue Jays are clearly not run like that. They’ve tried to toe the middle ground: “we’ll spend money on certain guys we really like, maaaaybe break the budget for players we have a complete long shot of getting, but otherwise stick to our internal evaluations on value and go on that way”

It’s a hybrid of big market spending (with a limit) and small market where you have to constantly develop young and cheap players to compliment the few high paid stars you’ve managed to keep. Which truly is the biggest failure of the Atkins regime the past few seasons: where are the young stars coming up in the next couple years? Hello? Is there anybody in there? A bunch of potential platoon bats and fringey starters is not what you want to hang your hat on as a player development system.

This is why (like many of you) I think we’re heading for a very bleak period of Blue Jays history. Going back to Teo’s comments, I believe there’s a strong measure of truth in there. The Blue Jays have been noted for how well they treat players and that isn’t nothing… but as far as optimizing their abilities? That stuff also matters, these dudes wanna win most of all, and I think this is where the Jays are so publicly not close to an elite organization.
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Joe - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 08:02 AM EST (#455037) #
I’m genuinely convinced that if you trained ChatGPT on basic baseball analytics, it could run the Blue Jays
OK, I'm going on a brief tangent here. ChatGPT — or any other LLM, or "AI" if you must — is utterly incapable of doing this, or any other job that involves creativity or reasoning of any sort. (Not that the VCs and other Top Thinkers would let you believe this.)

Without casting aspersions on anyone here: The mental model I try to instil in non-technical people is that LLMs are very fancy autocomplete. They're big corpuses of text (mostly English, mostly stolen, and which which included Batter's Box until I specifically excluded it from OpenAI because they were hitting us so hard) that can gin up a very convincing facsimile of human thought, one which we believe because we're also prone to thinking that, like, the wind specifically hates us when we're walking between tall buildings.

Current LLMs are based on "general purpose transformers" (the "GPT" in ChatGPT), which are a way of encoding the training so that LLMs can come up with those facsimiles of humanity. These transformers let the LLM work, and this is the most important part: LLMs generate the most likely text based on the preceding text and the prompt, nothing more. We just interpret that as reasoning because we're predisposed to do so.

LLMs ("AI") can't reason, they can't think, and they don't even really have a model of numbers (which is why you can get the wrong answer for very simple math questions by just changing the numbers in the question). We're a long, long way off from anything approaching the sort of decision-making ability that you'd need to do such a numerical and creative job.

Final aside: the only reason so much money's being poured into AI is because capitalists are in search of infinite growth. 3D printing wasn't it, and then crypto (bitcoin) wasn't it, so AI is just the next attempt. The key thing is that nobody's making money using AI, even though everybody's trying to integrate it. I expect the bubble to burst in the next few years. There's actually something of worth there, just like there's a kernel of value to both 3D printing and cryptocurrencies, but I truly don't believe it's the world-changing technology that billionaires want you to believe it is.

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bpoz - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 09:14 AM EST (#455038) #
Thanks Joe for sharing your view in ChatGPT. It was very informative to me.

Good job from Bauxites to generate opinions on the Jays with so little activity.

IMO it would be cruel of me to remember/remind people of their opinions as the 2025 season progresses. Also the off season does not end until Opening day.

I have not expressed much of an opinion possibly because I am interested but not obsessed with what moves are happening and what moves should happen. Just my way of thinking.

I am currently very interested in our farm and what could happen in 2025. I made a list of SPs with what they throw using gameday for the Dunedin games. Also looking forward to any prospect lists which should be coming out in the next month. I really like Scot Mitchell. The Jan 15 Int'l signing period is soon.
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Ryan Day - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 09:23 AM EST (#455039) #
First Kiermaier's comments, now Teo's comments...the pattern strongly suggests that the Dodgers are simply a better-quality organization than the Blue Jays are.

Neither player singled out the Jays with their pro-Dodgers quotes, with both suggesting the Dodgers were better than pretty much every team they'd played for. For Teoscar, that would include the Mariners & possibly Astros; for Kiermaier, that includes Tampa, which many people point to as a model for how a modern baseball team should operate.

The pattern at this point suggests the Dodgers are simply a better quality organization than anyone else in MLB, which is borne out by their record. They have truckloads of money and appear to be exceptionally well-run, both from a baseball and people standpoint.

Kiermaier was also very glowing about his time in Toronto, even saying he wanted to hang out with the team in spring training to continue his relationship with the organization.
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ISLAND BOY - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 09:44 AM EST (#455040) #
Thanks, Joe. That was a really good and informative summary about AI.

Something occurred to me this morning. The Jays have spent millions renovating the ballpark and the spring training facilities. Now isn't it time to invest in the team?

If Vlad was on another club and he had a year like last year, wouldn't the Jays be actively after him? I know he's not in the Ohtani,Soto stratosphere but he is a star. I was kind of on the fence lately whether the Jays should try to sign him, but now I say, to heck with it. Negotiate a bit but give him what he wants and, at least, the team will have a cornerstone to build around. The contract would probably be an albatross in the future but you have to give fans some hope, and as salaries go up, even 50 million dollars a year won't be outlandish 10 years from now.

No stars want to come here to a last place team so sign the one who will and it won't cost draft picks or international spending money. If ownership has the resources ( and they do) to do massive renovations, then they have them to spend like a big market team. Tell the front office to get off their butts and sign Vlad. Don't bring in some geriatric, has-been slugger to try to replace him in 2026. There, end of rant.
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scottt - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 09:59 AM EST (#455041) #
I don't think so. The Dodgers typically play worse than the individual records would suggest.
They have been very bad in the playoffs until last year.
Their highly ranked prospects almost never live up to expectations.
Their starters have more than their share of injuries.

It seems to me that they are a media darling.

It's not just the money. Going to a team loaded with superstars who always finish first in their division has some appeal.
They finished second in 2021, but with a 106-56 record.
The last time they finished second before that was in 2012.
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scottt - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:03 AM EST (#455042) #
AFAIK, the GPT in ChatGPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Totally agree with the rest.
I think ChatGPT is openAI version 3.5 and CodePilot is version 4.0. It's licensed by Microsoft who excels at obfuscating through marketing.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:12 AM EST (#455043) #
The Dodgers were voted best front office in MLB, based on The Athletic’s poll of 40 execs and coaches in the game.

Short excerpt from the Dec 30 article:

‘One executive described a first-place vote for the Dodgers as “self-explanatory. They are elite at everything.” Billy Gasparino, the scouting director recently promoted to vice president of baseball operations, has drafted well despite picking in the latter half of the first round every summer. The farm system continues to churn out prospects. The roster tends to be well-managed.’
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:16 AM EST (#455044) #
I downloaded the raw statcast data for the young pitchers in Dunedin after I watched them pitch in games (via milb.tv). Between those viewings and what I saw when I compared their four-seam fastballs and best secondary offering, this is how I'd rank them:

SP
1. Luis Torres
2. Colby Holcombe
3. Gilberto Batista
4. Daniel Guerra

Future RP
1. Eminen Flores
2. Cristopher Castro

I compared their pitching results to Fernando Perez, who is generally considered the best young Latin player in the Jays system (although I feel he's overrated)... other than superior control, his stuff doesn't really play much better.

Data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S_M92z0FphwDLB1gWl8dYYDgWKKY3jrqN4E1EILyuSE/edit?usp=drivesdk
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greenfrog - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:22 AM EST (#455045) #
Incidentally, 16 teams received votes in The Athletic's poll about the best front offices in MLB (those polled were asked to rank the top five front offices in the game). The Blue Jays front office did not receive any votes.
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ayjackson - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:35 AM EST (#455046) #
Marc is clearly not an LLM.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:50 AM EST (#455047) #
I’d like the Jays to take a chance on Diego Cartaya if the price is reasonable as Kirk is 2 years away from free agency.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:55 AM EST (#455048) #
Dodgers are likely looking for international signing pool money for Cartaya (for Sasaki). I doubt the Jays would be willing to part with much of their pool but you never know...
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:57 AM EST (#455049) #
greenfrog is your point that the Dodgers are a very good front office and run a team incredibly well? Anybody disagree?

Or it is to show that they are a better run team than the Jays (or any other team)? Anybody disagree?


Comparing the LAD and TOR is a bit pointless to try to show how The Jays are inferior. Let's pick the team with the biggest budget, Championship, biggest free agent signing last year, biggest spend on imports, etc etc and compare them to the local team who is at their lowest and then grade them. Might as well wait for the Jays rebuild when you can make an evebn stronger case that this front office isn't good compared to the LAD.
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John Northey - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 11:12 AM EST (#455050) #
Agreed 85bluejay - if the Dodgers are about to release Diego Cartaya (just removed from 40 man) then I'd certainly be asking what they want for him. In 2023 he was a top 20 prospect in all of MLB (via all of BA/BP/MLB.com), gotta think there is value there still. Doubt they'd do it purely for IFA cash, I'd rather trade other stuff (lower level prospects for example). From what I'm reading he seems to only have 1 option left but has reached AAA so he could apprentice there, be a call up if someone goes down, but very much not worth giving up much for right now. There is an old rule though - be very careful when trading with smart organizations as you could get your butt handed to you. Tampa is infamous for it, Gillick was the ultimate master (playing chess when the rest of the majors was barely playing checkers).
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SK in NJ - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 11:16 AM EST (#455051) #
Cartaya is exactly the type of player the Jays should be targeting. Good chance he’s a bust but he’s still very young and sometimes you get lucky with struggling former top prospects who get a change of scenery. The Jays are very shallow in catching depth at basically every level.
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uglyone - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:29 PM EST (#455052) #
I don't think we should let inflated job titles confuse us - just assume that anyone who is talking about changing "the GM" or "the FO" is talking about changing shapiro on down.
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uglyone - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:36 PM EST (#455053) #
"OK, I'm going on a brief tangent here. ChatGPT — or any other LLM, or "AI" if you must — is utterly incapable of doing this, or any other job that involves creativity or reasoning of any sort."

the idea here is, i think, that this FO isn't using much creativity, but are doing little more than using a basic model to identify value.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:36 PM EST (#455054) #
Yeah pretty much it all boils down to Shapiro. Shapiro is the AA replacement and Atkins is just one of many planets orbiting the sun that is Shapiro.
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John Northey - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:38 PM EST (#455055) #
Agreed uglyone - if the FO is going to change it should be a full change. I'm not a big one on it unless things are as bad as some suggest it is in the back which we cannot see. If Vlad and others are flat out refusing to consider staying then that is a massive issue that needs to be dealt with. If they aren't then they need to get someone signed to prove it and move on. 10 years seems to be about the limit nowadays for most front offices, it is rare to get guys like Cashman who has run the Yankees for nearly 30 years now - but he certainly has earned that.
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Joe - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:42 PM EST (#455056) #
Cheers for the correction, scottt! Generative pre-trained transformers (GPT) are types of transformers, which is how I got confused. (Not an ML expert, and obviously a skeptic.)

If ownership has the resources ( and they do) to do massive renovations, then they have them to spend like a big market team.
I agree, but isn't this exactly what they've been doing? They only got under the first CBT threshold by a whisker last year, for example (and were spending over it until the trade deadline). Shapiro has clearly excelled at part of the Dave Dombrowski playbook: just get the owner to spend money, and so even if a front office rebuild is necessary (who knows? I'm not in those conversations!), I'd be in favour of holding on to Shapiro at the top level.
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Joe - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:45 PM EST (#455057) #
Shapiro is the AA replacement and Atkins is just one of many planets orbiting the sun that is Shapiro.
Only thing is that Shapiro has said that baseball decisions are done by Atkins, and that his focus has been on facilities and ownership-level things (and, evidently, on signing his name to letters written by disgraced city councillors).
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greenfrog - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 12:53 PM EST (#455058) #
Didn’t Shapiro play an active role in the 2024 trade deadline moves?
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 01:20 PM EST (#455059) #
Shaprio has said that Atkins handles baseball decisions but everybody else ... reporters, agents, players and even Shapiro himself (in interviews) has said he is involved IN EVERY decision and ultimately pulls the trigger on each decision. Sounds like Atkins does the day to day and brings options to Shapiro (of course after getting directions from Shapiro) and then Shapiro makes the choice.

Shapiro: "We have up to 80 million to spend but I don't want to spend more than 30 unless it's for Soto. I don't want Alonso. Let's do this!"

Atkins: "Okay so I met with the agents with the rest of my front office team and these are the agents interested in signing here and what they want..."

*numbers are reviewed, analytically etc. Then Shapiro responds with what he wants to do.

------- End free agency project


------ Repeat the same process for drafting team and all other teams.


Shapiro acts as the director/president
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uglyone - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 01:53 PM EST (#455060) #
Deep in his core Shapiro believes in "collaborative decision making", which involves as many voice as possible, which most definitely includes his voice.
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bpoz - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 02:00 PM EST (#455061) #
I too heard that Shapiro was going to play a more active role in the 2024 trade deadline.
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christaylor - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 02:10 PM EST (#455062) #
Joe, I understand where you're coming from, but in the spirit of combating disinformation. Two of your criticisms are out of date: 1. OpenAI o1 and forthcoming o3 have reasoning models embedded in them. 2. The math issue has been solved and you'd see this if you've played with any recent LLM. The workaround is to generate code (usually Python) and use the code to solve math problems. LLMs now routinely outperform humans on some of the most difficult math problems. 3. Judging the creativity of AI and what they're capable of is slippery. What is creativity? LLM models can be made to seem more creative by turning up a parameter known as temperature which biases them to settle on solutions that are lower probability. I don't have a good definition of the creative process and I don't think anyone does but organized low-probability-shaped randomness seems as good a formal definition as anything. Do I think an AI could run a baseball team, no. But like with coding, writing, using an AI fine-tuned on baseball data, strategy, analytics, and heck even coaches/scouts descriptions paired with a knowledgable user? I'd bet on that combination outperforming a GM that completely ignored the technology. Even if it is used for brainstorming or adjusting biases that all baseball ops people have. (See hybrid chess or go, which was thought to be impossible for AI just a few years ago). I have some skepticism on whether LLMs will take off as a business case, but as someone who codes (and took a class by Geoff Hinton who just won the Nobel Prize), AI makes mediocre coders much better and improves efficiency. Even if all they do is improve software that is a big win that some companies will cash in on. In general, over the last three years, the criticisms of even very informed skeptics (i.e., Gary Marcus) have looked silly approximately every six months. Will the LLM approach hit a wall performance-wise? Yes, it likely can't scale in definitely, but hybrid models are already here and they're only going to get better.
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Joe - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 03:12 PM EST (#455063) #
Christaylor, please don't confuse OpenAI's marketing with truth. "Reasoning" is a buzz word.

As I said, I'm not an ML expert, but I am a professional software developer and manager with a background in mathematics, and what I'm saying is that due to the fundamental nature of the current crop of LLMs, all they're capable of is fancy autocomplete on a gigantic corpus of text, some of which, as you noted, is programming languages python or other programming languages. That's fundamentally what a transformer does. (I'm sure you know this.) Saying "you can generate code that, when executed, gives you the right answer" almost makes my point for me.

This is getting increasingly off topic, so I'll leave with this: until something more fundamental changes with the technology, I'm expecting the output of this AI bubble to billions of wasted dollars emitting gigatonnes of carbon so that people can generate plausible-seeming text quickly, but which solves almost none of humanity's problems.

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Mike Green - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 04:44 PM EST (#455064) #
"This is getting increasingly off topic, so I'll leave with this: until something more fundamental changes with the technology, I'm expecting the output of this AI bubble to billions of wasted dollars emitting gigatonnes of carbon so that people can generate plausible-seeming text quickly, but which solves almost none of humanity's problems."

Word. "Billions of wasted dollars emitting gigatonnes of carbon" is my "open sesame" phrase. I'm not much interested in baseball or the Blue Jays these days, but this insight deserves a positive baseball thought from me. I think that Alejandro Kirk is an under-rated player on the home nine, and I'd love to see him signed to a five year extension now.

He was a pretty good hitter in the second half of 2024 and I think he'll be even a little better than that over the next 5 years. Steamer has him as a 4 WAR player over 425 PAs in 2025 with a 120 wRC+ and great defence.

Happy new year, everyone. See you in 2026, lord willing and the creek don't rise. Ha.
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John Northey - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 05:26 PM EST (#455065) #
Mike Green - I agree 100% on a Kirk extension - he is a player who should be open to it, more so than Vlad or Bo due to not being from a baseball family (thus no intergenerational wealth) plus his bonus when signed was under $50k iirc. So, lets say, a 5 year $50 mil deal would set him up for life. His lifetime earnings are around $3.5 mil right now (BR) and going up by about $4 mil this year (Cot's $4.2 mil estimate). Heck, if I was the Jays I'd probably try for a 3 year guaranteed ($10 mil per on average), then 2 more team option years at say $15 mil per. Could work out as a bargain in the end, while giving him the security he otherwise doesn't have. Just fast gut feel numbers there, but fun to play with (ain't my money).

I'd also explore an extension with Varsho, but doubt he'd go for a strongly team friendly one right now.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 05:52 PM EST (#455066) #
Good to hear from you, Mike Green.

Bichette, Vladdy, Santander and Kirk could form a nice (if slow) nucleus of a lineup in 2025. Alonso on a short-term deal would also help.
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lexomatic - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 06:10 PM EST (#455067) #
Reds are getting Gavin Lux and the Reds are one FO that confuses me more than the Jays.
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John Northey - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 06:44 PM EST (#455068) #
Seems the Reds want a team of infielders at times. Lux is mainly a 2B but probably going to 3B for the Reds (FG suggests) despite only 1 game there in the majors way back in '21. The cost was pretty low - a 37th overall pick (competitive balance pick) and the Reds 4th rounder last year (hasn't played as a pro yet).
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John Northey - Monday, January 06 2025 @ 10:34 PM EST (#455069) #
The Sporting News used to be a solid paper for baseball but really seems to be into click bait now. Using a Bleacher Report rumor of the Jays possibly signing Jesse Winker to create a full article. Only twice in Winkler's career has he reached 120+ games played, a LF/DH with a lifetime 118 OPS+ he wouldn't be a bad part to add, a LH bat who averages 20 HR per 162 G. Appears to be a negative in the field on defense, but pounds RHP (276/379/462 lifetime) while sucking vs LHP (661 OPS). Said to be expected to get $2.4 mil for a 1 year deal that would work easily within the Jays payroll. Could mix/match him with Schneider in LF or DH. But given the source for the rumor I wouldn't give it much more belief than something anyone here says (no insult to anyone here). Santander they also see coming here (would be nice, but no prediction on price or years).

Given things are quiet, might as well check other rumors - they also see the Jays getting Tanner Scott for 3/$45 mil. Scott LH reliever, 22 saves 11 holds 2 blown saves in 2024, 55-67-20 lifetime. A solid closer who can be wild but doesn't give up many HR. Have trouble seeing the Jays spending that much on a closer, but it could happen.

They also predict Nick Pivetta will come here for 4/$60 mil. Not insane, but would be different - Pivetta has been sub 150 IP each of the last 2 years - very different from what the Jays traditionally chase in starters. But he could be a damn fine #2/3 guy in the rotation (high K, low BB, high HR rate).

Fun to dream, Santander & Winker would help the lineup a LOT, Scott would give us that lock down closer we needed last year and for 2025. Pivetta a solid rotation piece as long as the pen is ready to go when he starts. Sign all 4 and the Jays would have 2 QO to pay for (2 draft picks, $500k from IFA pool) in addition to the raw dollars. But this would address all the major issues except for 3B (Clement should be adequate). Maybe we'll get lucky and they do all of it, but that'd add $20 mil (Santander), $15 mil (Scott), $15 mil (Pivetta), and $2 mil (Winkler) = $52 mil+. Cot's has the Jays at $222.7 mil for payroll tax purposes now, this would push them well into the 2nd tier of the tax and in eyeshot of the 3rd. They could do that, but I wouldn't bet on it.
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bpoz - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 06:04 AM EST (#455070) #
Oakland extends Rooker for 5 years.
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 08:24 AM EST (#455071) #
Yup Bleacher Report and the Sporting News are no better than random Twitter reports from people looking for attention.

I find Pivetta to be a difficult add for various reasons but mainly due to the loss of draft pick compensation and international pool money. He's just not worth it... He'll likely end up with a one-year deal on a team that doesn't care about spending as much in those areas.

Of course, in the position the Jays are in (I dont see a path to contending in 2025), Santander doesn't move the needle enough to give up $$$ in those areas, either. Especially with the Jays getting a larger pool this year which could help them restock the cupboard.
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 09:58 AM EST (#455072) #
I could see Pivetta as an option if they sign Santander. From what I've read signing a second QO guy only costs your 3rd pick, it is the 1st signing that costs your 2nd and $500k international pool money. Over 51 picks in the 3rd round the Jays hit gold twice - John Olerud & Jimmy Key, plus a few solid's in Shaun Marcum, Adam Lind, Jake Marisnick, David Weathers. So 10+ bWAR 6 times, just twice over 20. Olerud was a very special case (no one thought he'd sign, but Gillick spent time, money, and guaranteed ML call up immediately to get him - that last one could not be done today while cash is limited by the cap). The most recent of those was Marisnick (2009) so losing that 3rd pick isn't that big a deal imo - about a 1 in 10 shot of getting something of real value vs someone who might be a solid starter for 2-3 years.
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scottt - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 09:59 AM EST (#455073) #
Yeah, I don't know why Pivetta didn't just take the QO and look for a multi-year contract after that.
Fear of not being able to maintain his results?
I like that Stroman actually accepted his QO. that didn't limit his ability to sign a contract later.

Teams have agreements in place very early so I'm not sure the international money matters as much as the lost draft picks.
They are desperate for a middle of the order bat. Santander moves the needle a lot because without him, they will have problems scoring runs. They have many guys who could be very good in the bottom of the order but who can't be counted to produce when the other teams focus on them.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:13 AM EST (#455074) #
Yeah I don't see how you can say Santander doesn't move the needle. He'd be the first power bat and clean up hitter this team has had since when, three years ago? This team has lots of defense and little offense...I'd say Gimenez moves the needle a heck of a lot less than Santander for this team. If you're looking at WAR and individual value then sure, different story but that's not what signing free agents is about.
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greenfrog - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:18 AM EST (#455075) #
If the Blue Jays aren’t going to trade their impending FAs for prospects, they should at least make an effort to go for it in 2025.

Marc, do you think Yesavage could be a contributor in the second half of the season? It sounds as though he’s already pretty polished.
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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:21 AM EST (#455076) #
Per Hector Gomez: “The #BlueJays have showing interest in Jose Quintana. Talks have intensified recently.”
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vw_fan17 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:30 AM EST (#455077) #
Ok, hands up - who had the As being way more active and spending more $$ than the Jays?
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:11 AM EST (#455078) #
SK in NJ - weird rumor there - Jose Quintana doesn't appear a good fit to me. He is an inning eater, not an ace.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:17 AM EST (#455079) #
jays need innings eaters.

i'm still annoyed if the offseason is focussed on bats over arms tbh.

kinda sabotages their whole apparently impressive trade deadline performance where they added a whole bunch of near mlb ready bats. sign a couple of mediocre free agent bats and then suddenly there's no room for any of the internal guys. and if you're not going to use those guys then we should be trying to trade them for arms.
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scottt - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:41 AM EST (#455080) #
They do have some interesting bats in the minors but they aren't going to bat any of these guys in the middle of the order.
Not having a cleanup hitter puts pressure on all the hitters and on the starting pitchers.

For a hockey analogy, it's not like missing a scorer on the power play, it's more like playing the whole game with a guy in the penalty box.
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:45 AM EST (#455081) #
I'm not sure interest in a soft-tossing, 36-year-old hurler - who hasn't been around the AL offenses much at all in his career - is anything less than an admission that this club isn't going to contend in 2025.

To answer the question about Yesavage... he threw fewer than 100 innings in 2024... if you add 30-40 or so innings to that, it puts him at 120-130 for 2025. I can't see him getting through A+/AA/AAA to Toronto in time to pitch meaningful MLB innings. Plus Toronto hasn't had much luck developing pitchers (and keeping them healthy).
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:49 AM EST (#455082) #
Looking at the rotation the Jays were 11th in innings for starters in 2024 despite a hurt Manoah going under 5 IP per start for 5 starts, and Yariel Rodríguez being on a strict pitch limit thus rarely getting a shot at 5+ IP. Plus the Jays lost Kikuchi and his 5.25 IP per start. The big 3 all had 170+ IP (Gausman-Berrios-Bassitt) and Francis is a lock for the rotation with his just shy of 6 IP per start last year, I'd expect more this year. Those 4 should be 170 IP each, which means you can afford a good 5 IP starter in the 5 hole. Quintana is another IP guy. Nice as it would cut down the innings for the pen, but I think going for a guy who throws higher quality innings would be nicer.

FYI: Looking at the charts above you can see the Jays rotation in 2024 was damn fine vs all past Jays rotations. Just 10 pitchers were used - we all know the top 7 (Berrios-Gausman-Bassitt-Kikuchi-Rodriguez-Francis-Manoah) while the last 3 were Burr-Richards-Espino for 7 starts going 13 2/3 IP total (sub 2 IP per start) yet somehow getting fWAR of 0.4 out of those 7 starts (I was surprised) or a 1.82 pace over 32 starts - so basically they were average starts that just happened to be a bit (OK a lot) short.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:50 AM EST (#455083) #
Latest report from Bob Nightengale says if Jays don't re-sign Vlad he is expected to want to join the Red Sox next year. He ays Vlad is now asking for more than 450,000,000 while the team has offered 350,000,0000.

Soto got 51,000,000/year average. At 10 years the high end of Vlad's ask is 45,000,000/year. At 15 years the low end is 30,000,000/year/ I am guessing the Jays are offering 30 million/year for 10 and he wants 40 million/year for 10.

Is it really that challenging to just meet half way to 2/3rds and pay him 35-37.5 million/year which would give him a 20%+ increase over his buddy Devers? It also puts him 20% lower annually than Soto.

In a perfect world I'd let him walk if I had a team that could survive without him like the Braves and Astros and Cardinals have done in the past. Shoot, sucks to have a crappy front office pooping the bed because right now this team is on the edge of collapse and it's insane to even risk losing Vladdy. Sign him, Santander or Bregman and a closer...
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 12:25 PM EST (#455084) #
The Nightengale piece (he's never been overly reliable) comes out the same week Vladdy is set to meet in person with the Jays and discuss contracts.

Plus he cites Bichette's and Vladdy's "friends" as his sources... is he really slamming back cold ones with their friends or is this a seed planted by an agent at a very convenient time, strongly linking Vladdy to an AL East rival with very little actual proof?
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greenfrog - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 12:45 PM EST (#455085) #
Vladdy career line in Fenway: .356/.432/.622 (206 PA)

It’s not hard to see why both the player and the Red Sox would be interested in discussing a free agent contract next offseason.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:01 PM EST (#455086) #
The offense needs ceiling raisers, not floor raisers.

But the pitching absolutely needs floor raisers. Any moderate health trouble on the pitching side and we're looking at disaster there.



back to the hitting side - some see Santander and his ilk as ceiling raisers, but for me spending big money on that level of hitter is more of a floor raiser and actually a bit of a ceiling limiter.
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bpoz - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:15 PM EST (#455087) #
Rooker was a waiver claim pickup by Oakland in Nov 2022. He had a V good 2023 and a great 2024. We need some of our guys to break out. Oakland gave him a chance because they were not going to contend. Hope some of our kids get a chance. Maybe Barger can do it.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:24 PM EST (#455088) #
Ugly, Santander plays up BIG because of his switch hit tool and power. On this team that is non existent. I see him as a lighter, Vlad as a starter log, Bo as the kindling. If done right then the AAAA guys can be the embers. Right now the Jays are missing the fire starter.


Orioles had Santander, Rutschman, Henderson and Holliday as LHH with pop. Ryan O'Hearn (5th best) is better than what they Jays have had since Adam Lind.

NYY had Soto, Chisholm and have added Bellinger and Dominguez.

Boston has Devers, Casas and possibly Duran who had a good year.

TB has Brandon Lowe andJosh Lowe.

Toronto has Lukes, Loperfido and Wagner...

You want to talk about raising the floor on low hanging fruit power and line up balance...
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:30 PM EST (#455089) #
Marc,

Where did you hear that Vlad is meeting the Jays brass this week? I also agree Nightengale's piece sounds like a bunch of BS from agents rather than friends.
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Parker - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:33 PM EST (#455090) #
This front office has already made a big show on whiffing on superstars.

Whiffing on bill-of-goods fake superstar Guerrero might be the best money they never spent.
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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 01:37 PM EST (#455091) #
The rotation needs a durable arm. It would have been nice if it was Burnes so the ceiling and the floor would both rise, but at this point the options are limited and/or come with a qualifying offer attached, so I can see the logic in trying to raise the floor with someone like Quintana. Not sure he's the one I'd target given his age. Feels a bit similar to Jaime Garcia in 2018, but an innings eater that can suppress hard contact and keep the ball on the ground on a team with great defense might work as a back end SP (barring age related decline). They would be banking on Gausman and Berrios being top of the rotation starters though, which I don't think either one is at this point in their careers. Maybe that's the logic behind doubling down on defense. I think trading for Matz (which I've seen mentioned a few times online) might have a bit more upside to it but that doesn't come with the durability factor that this FO clearly likes.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 02:02 PM EST (#455092) #
Dalimon - santander has good power and that's about it. Doesn't bring anything else to the table and even the power is most likely not as good as it looked last year.
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 02:37 PM EST (#455093) #
For a different look - what about the guy the Yankees are trying to dump - Marcus Stroman? His K/9 has dropped to 6.6 last year, he makes $18.5 this year, $18 mil player option for 2026. If the Yankees are giving him up for nothing he'd be tempting. Especially given he right now would feel that fire lit under him due to being benched for the playoffs (was on the WS roster it seems but never used). A guy who was an All-Star who now feels disrespected by his old team might come in and do well. Kind of surprised by his career numbers - he only has 87 wins so far in a 10 year career. Kind of says something about how pitchers are used nowadays.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 02:46 PM EST (#455094) #
He's averaging 112 wRC+ with GF pegging him at 119 next year. If you go by that and OPS and WAR then you can argue he isn't that valuable but then you also have to argue that IKF, Nathan Lukes, Spencer Horwitz and Justin Turner are better, much better.

I think the results show that the numbers are misleading. The Jays have tried using a bunch of higher wRC+ and OPS guys who are cheaper and aside from Wagner and Horwitz in the 2nd half last year they have all failed and all been right handed.

Numbers do not represent the performance day to day only the totality. Since it is not a rotisserie league when it comes to batting stats the numbers are misleading. None of the numbers calculate contributions to actual wins, really.

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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 03:02 PM EST (#455095) #
With Santander you do get a different look. Protection is overrated (I remember a study in the 80's saying how great it was due to how well Dale Murphy hit with Bob Horner in the lineup, but when you looked closely you saw Murphy hit better without Horner).

That said, I see value in having a switch hitter between Vlad and Bo ideally. I'd see it as Springer (sigh), Vlad, Santander, Bo, whoever. (FG has it go Wagner-Kirk-Gimenez-Clement-Lukes after that with Loperfido as the LF batting 9th). So basically it is Loperfido and his projected 84 wRC+ vs Santander and his 119. That is a very big difference. Yeah, Roden projects better at 110 but odds are low the Jays put him out there to start and even if they do will it work out?
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greenfrog - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 03:15 PM EST (#455096) #
The Blue Jays roster is looking pretty bad at the moment. Seeing Springer’s name pencilled in as the leadoff hitter is depressing.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 03:25 PM EST (#455097) #
Lineup with Steamer projections:

* SS Bichette 118wrc+
* DH Wagner 117wrc+ / Roden 110 / Lukes 105 / Schneider 104 / Barger 103
* 1B Guerrero 155wrc+
* C Kirk 120wrc+
* RF Springer 109wrc+
* 3B Clement 103wrc+ / Barger 103 / Orelvis 96
* 2B Gimenez 103wrc+ / Jimenez 99
* CF Varsho 100wrc+ / Clase 85
* LF Roden 110 / Lukes 105 / Schneider 104 / Barger 103 / Clase 85 / Loperfido 84




with very good defense all around the diamond.
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Eephus - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 03:53 PM EST (#455098) #
Not to be a downer (okay yeah kinda) but those are some seriously optimistic projections. Also if we're going into the season with "Alejandro Kirk, cleanup hitter" I think the writing is on the wall. Hell, it'd be screaming at us, in glowing obnoxious neon font. And I think Kirk is a terrific player... with a glove in his hand not a bat. 

And keep in mind I am also bullish on the young guys. But it won't be nearly enough.
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Michael - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 04:10 PM EST (#455099) #
Last year the Jays were an averagish offense with Bichette amongst the huge disappointments (702 OPS on around a 704 OPS average, T17th in mlb, T7th in AL).

It felt worse than that because 2 years ago the Jays were an above average offense (746 OPS on around 735 OPS average, 11th in MLB, 6th in AL), and 3 years ago the Jays were arguably the top AL offense (760 OPS on around 700 OPS MLB average, 3rd in MLB, 1st in AL).

Looking at SP last year the Jays were averagish with a 3.95 ERA against a 4.00 mlb average (14th in MLB, 9th in AL). Again, this was a big step back as 2 years ago the Jays were a top starting team with a 3.85 ERA on around a 4.30 mlb average (3rd in MLB, 2nd in AL); however, 3 years ago the Jays were again sort of just a slight bit below average at a 3.98 ERA against around a 3.90 mlb average (18th in MLB, 8th in AL). The health of the pitchers was pretty good both of the last two years with most people being healthy and effective (outside of Manoah's effectiveness) - certainly better than average - so I agree the floor is not necessarily there depending a lot on health (but we do have some in house options for 5/6/7).

Looking at the RP last year we were horrible with a 4.82 ERA versus a mlb RP of about 3.96, so nearly a run worse (29th in MLB, 15th in AL). Rockies were the only team worse by RP ERA. White Sox the only other team with RP ERA over 4.5 even. By WHIP the Jays RP were only bad, not historically bad, with a 1.34 (24th) versus average RP WHIP of ~1.27. It was really the HR that cost a lot with 92 HR in 565.2 IP which is a 1.46 HR/9. This was a huge change from 2 years ago when the Jays were solidly above average with a RP ERA of 3.68 against MLB average of about 3.95 (8th in MLB, 5th in AL). 71 HR in 557 IP that year. 3 years ago the Jays were slightly above average in RP ERA at 3.77 versus MLB RP 3.84 (13th in MLB, 9th in AL).

So how much, compared to previous teams, was the lower offense and lower RP a fluke versus what we'd expect to happen? Obviously there is some turn over of team members over these 3 years, but the team has a fair amount of similarity of the core pieces. The starting pitching could catch fire and be like 2 years ago, but I think smarter money is that being an over performance/good luck and that averagish performance is more what you'd expect. The bullpen needs to get back to average or better for the team to be average or better, and really to compete in the East you need not just all 3 pieces to be around average but you likely need a couple of them to be above average or one of them to be tip top with the others no worse than average to be fringe competing. For instance Dodgers were 1 in hitting, 4 in RP, 19 in SP; Atlanta was 3 in RP, 3 in SP, 12 in hitting; NYY were 3 in hitting, 6 in RP, 11 in SP. So just shooting for 3 averages doesn't do it, 2 tops/well above average, and 1 around average is what it takes to be the top sort of teams (obviously all 3 top would be even better).

Combine the offense of 3 years ago with the pitching of 2 years ago and we have a great chance. Don't address the RP weakness, and don't get lucky/skill on the others and we could be struggling again.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 04:43 PM EST (#455100) #
"Not to be a downer (okay yeah kinda) but those are some seriously optimistic projections. "

Not sure there's any reason to believe that the projections would be more optimistic about the jays than the other teams.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 04:45 PM EST (#455101) #
Michael i'd argue that those ERA numbers there significantly overstimate the quality of the pitching itself as the Jays were probably the best defensive team in baseball last year, and by a good bit.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 05:00 PM EST (#455102) #
I challenge you to take the 2024 projections and re-post them here for a more realistic perspective.


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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 05:16 PM EST (#455103) #
dalimon5 - I did that already, but for 3 years not just 1. You can read it here.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 06:07 PM EST (#455104) #
Yes the jays came in under the projections last year. In other years, they come in over.
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electric carrot - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 06:31 PM EST (#455105) #
Yes, the team doesn't look a ton different from how things looked at the beginning of last year. Good starting pitching, good to decent hitting, great defense. If the bullpen and Manoah turn things around and we get another bat, things could go very well. Also, let's not forget both Bichette and Vladdy are on walk years -- so they will be motivated to be very good all year.

As per usual I find a lot of prognosticators on this site to be quite dour (and I find myself mostly agreeing with uglyone when he says something with the tiniest hint of hopefulness.) Last year, the dour were rewarded with very lousy results, and I think that has encouraged them further. This year though ... who knows.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 07:20 PM EST (#455106) #
I was down on Vlad since 2022 but hopefully pretty much everywhere else. As it turns out Vlad has gone up and most of the rest of the team (and especially FO) have gone down or gotten worse. I don't see why I should remain optimistic since it's only gotten worse since the season ending with all AL East teams improving more than the Jays IMHO.

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lexomatic - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 07:27 PM EST (#455107) #
Verlander going to Giants apparently.Mightve been a worthwhile play for short term with playoff experience.
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 07:39 PM EST (#455108) #
I'm sure at his age and stage of his career, Verlander does not want to play for a fifth-place team.
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scottt - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 07:46 PM EST (#455109) #
You know the Giants are a 4th-place team?

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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 07:48 PM EST (#455110) #
The Giants are the NL version of the Jays.
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 08:29 PM EST (#455111) #
I suspect Verlander wants regular starts and a half decent offense so he can get a few more W's - he is 38 shy of 300 so that has to be his goal - get 10-20 a year until his arm goes bye-bye. He is entering his age 42 season so time is short. What cost him big time was 2020-2021 he missed most of those years injured otherwise he'd be knocking on the door of 300 (21 wins in '19, 18 in '22 - safe to assume around 20-30 more wins if he was healthy those other years). His stats last year though suggest the end might be near sadly. I'd love for him to have a solid bounceback year. Fun to cheer on old vets as they chase records.
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scottt - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 08:32 PM EST (#455112) #
Are they comparable?
The Giants just changed their front office and are cutting payroll.

They signed Chapman to be their clean up hitter.
And then Adames as their shortstop.
Their biggest homegrown hitter is Tyler Fitzgerald.

The rotation has 2 developed pitchers, Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison.

It's a lot easier to sign guys to play in San Francisco than in Toronto, but not because they are a playoffs bound team.
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electric carrot - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 09:39 PM EST (#455113) #
Boston is salivating for Vladdy.

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2025/01/07/vladimir-guerrero-jr-rumors-boston-red-sox-toronto-blue-jays/?p1=hp_featurestack
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:04 PM EST (#455114) #
The Giants have won a lot more playoff games in the past 12 or so years, far more active improving their club, and have a cleaner path to a wildcard spot than the Jays.

Apparently the Jays are shopping Chris Bassitt and had convos with SF before they signed Verlander.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:23 PM EST (#455115) #
Does anybody know what the hell this FO is doing anymore???
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lexomatic - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:38 PM EST (#455116) #
Does anybody know what the hell this FO is doing anymore???

Probably all-in on Sasaki until they lose out.
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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:41 PM EST (#455117) #
The Giants have been above .500 once in the last 8 years (granted they won 100+ games that year), and they’ve made the playoffs once since Shapiro and Atkins have been in Toronto (vs 4 times for the Jays over that stretch). I made the comparison mostly because they are both teams that have trouble attracting players, haven’t done great in player development/drafting recently, and need to spend in order to win. Obviously if you want to go back further then it is no contest as the Giants won a bunch of titles prior to that. I’m just talking about recently. I don’t think the situations are all that dissimilar, although post 2025 could be a different story.
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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 10:43 PM EST (#455118) #
Forgot the Giants made the playoffs (with 87 wins) in 2016, so that should read twice since Shapiro and Atkins were hired.
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Michael - Tuesday, January 07 2025 @ 11:20 PM EST (#455119) #
A couple of Jays in the long list honorable mention of https://www.mlb.com/news/front-office-executives-poll-for-top-prospects-2025

Breakout prospect of the year: "also received votes" Arjun Nimmala, SS, Blue Jays (one of about 25 past the top 6). Zahir Hope OF LAD top choice with 11.4% of vote.

Pitching prospect is the best future closer: "also received votes" Ricky Tiedemann, LHP, Blue Jays (one of again about 15 past the top 7). Jacob Misiorowski, RHP, Brewers and Jarlin Susana, RHP, Nationals tied for top with 15.2% of vote each.

Who is the best minor league prospect you've ever seen: "also received votes" Vladimir Guerrero Jr, 3B (one of about 20 past the top 7). Bryce Harper was #1 with 15% of vote.

No Jays in best hitting prospect, best pitching prospect, best defensive prospect, or most underrated prospect.

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Marc Hulet - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 08:19 AM EST (#455120) #
It's quite possible that they're the mystery team that had a meeting with Sasaki that was not reported by anyone... and would explain the hesitation to sign a QO player until the decision is made.

However, it's more likely that Plans A through N have all fallen through... apparently they're now looking at Kenley Jansen and clubhouse cancer Alex Verdugo. Which kinds shows they're at the "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" stage of the second disastrous offseason in a row.
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dalimon5 - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 09:29 AM EST (#455121) #
Deadline for Jays and Vladdy to exchange numbers for arbitration is tomorrow.
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Marc Hulet - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 10:05 AM EST (#455122) #
Deadline for the decision on DFA'd Hagen Danner is today, which likely means the Jays put him through waivers.
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vw_fan17 - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 01:59 PM EST (#455123) #
It's kind of depressing when our biggest moves in the last 3+ weeks are a series of "made offer to <XYZ> / missed out on <XYZ>".
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Gerry - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 03:25 PM EST (#455124) #
Danner has been claimed by the Mariners.
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Mike D - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 04:03 PM EST (#455125) #
Four thoughts on the off-season:

1) Atkins was retained despite admitting to an unacceptable failed offseason last winter, on the basis that his overall track record was still strong. But it is clear that his free agent negotiations are revealing that players assess his track record (as reflected in the overall state of the organization) is weak.

2) The discrete, standalone risk of any particular contract proving to be an overpay does not seem to be balanced against the imminent macro-risk of a $230 million last place team that results from “playing it safe.”

3) There does not appear to be any evidence, other than perhaps opportunities for one-year deals, that it is at all advantageous to “wait out the market” in free agency.

4) The pursuit of Soto was a terrible idea (much worse than pursuit of Ohtani who is an on- and off-field unicorn), because it was doomed absent an all-in commitment to be a high bidder…and because it confirmed that the team *is* awash in cash but just choosing to make endless discounted counteroffers to agent after agent. It couldn’t have positioned the team any worse with FA and extension talks.
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92-93 - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 04:21 PM EST (#455126) #
If you like Verlander, Scherzer is still available. I get the "raise the floor" argument for Quintana but would prefer to raise the ceiling with Scherzer. He'd be worth a lot more if healthy at the deadline.
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Nigel - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 04:33 PM EST (#455127) #
I believe that the lack of activity is the FO's intended strategy for this offseason (as it was last offseason) and that we are not witnessing "failure" but execution of the strategy. There are arguments for and against that strategy but I don't believe that two offseasons of doing nothing can be explained by a "failure to get something done". At some point Occam's Razor applies - the simplest explanation for why nothing is happening is because the FO hasn't intended to do anything.

Do nothing and "playing out the string" with this core in 2025 does pair nicely with one year overpays for an Alonso or Scherzer if that is where their markets end up. With this playoff format #youneverknow.
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uglyone - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 04:51 PM EST (#455128) #
then i question their PR strategy of publicizing interest in every free agent.
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SK in NJ - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 04:52 PM EST (#455129) #
I didn't believe it before, as I thought maybe potential job security might impact decision making, but I think Nigel could be spot on. This is 2018 on repeat. Shapiro, who is probably sticking around, wants to move on from this core but can't. So he'll fake his way into trying to build a contender (hopefully in a more convincing way than Morales, Pearce, Granderson, etc, this time) and then do his intended retool at the deadline. I'm still not expecting a rebuild, but selling off Vlad, Bo, Bassitt, Green, etc, at the deadline for the best prospects they can get, and then trying again in 2026 without the "pressure" of a Vlad/Bo core seems to be the plan.

Maybe I'm wrong, and we will see a big FA signing soon. Gimenez doesn't show a direction one way or another. The next set of moves will be very telling.
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Nigel - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:00 PM EST (#455130) #
SK - as I've said for 2 offseasons now, that is exactly where I think that we are at. Frankly, I think its hard to see any data points to the contrary. Last offseason was the inflection point to "do something" (invest in the core or start selling pieces with real value) - they chose neither. If they didn't do either last year why would they "do something" this year? Given that a number of the key pieces have lost a material part of their value, I think you can even make a decent argument that playing out the string with the core in 2025 in hopes of making the WC is now the best baseball decision.
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uglyone - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:04 PM EST (#455131) #
So they're not trying to build a winner even though they have a huge payroll but want everyone to believe they're trying to build a winner and secretly really want to rebuild but are too scared to rebuild.

Sweet.
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uglyone - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:06 PM EST (#455132) #
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Nigel - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:09 PM EST (#455133) #
I don't think that they are too scared to rebuild at all - its just not in their financial interest to do so. They just completed a costly rebuild. They have good to great attendance and good TV ratings. Why would they pull the plug right now? They are running a business to make money.
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Mike D - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:18 PM EST (#455134) #
There is no way that the likeliest theory as to why they keep making second best nine figure contract offers is that they intend to stand pat. It’s absurd on its face.
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uglyone - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 05:19 PM EST (#455135) #
If after 10yrs here they've convinced themselves that they will continue to get attendance and ratings with a weak product, they're even dumber than i thought.
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Nigel - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 06:17 PM EST (#455136) #
I work at an investment firm. We bid all the time on deals where we believe (and in many cases expressly know) that that bid will be unsuccessful. We do so for many different reasons. The most common being that our bid will help the brokers/vendors make a market and that will hold us in good stead with those brokers/vendors when we actually do want to do a deal. The idea that people make offers on things without any intention of success is "patently absurd" is actually patently absurd.
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greenfrog - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 06:28 PM EST (#455137) #
That makes sense, Nigel.

Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes the team is making a serious bid for the player (it sounds as though they did this with Burnes). Other times they are submitting a bid for other reasons.

More generally, I don’t think it’s that hard to ascertain this front office’s philosophy and approach. We just need to look at their track record over the last nine years (and maybe longer if we include their Cleveland years).
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Petey Baseball - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 06:38 PM EST (#455138) #
I think we aren’t putting enough stock into what Atkins said at the end of the year. This also includes myself, since I obviously was off in my prediction that this would be a huge spending offseason. When asked what he would do better (after he said he needed to be better) he used the word “compliment” in regards to adding to the core. In essence….I need to find better complimentary players than I did last offseason. That doesn’t exactly scream “I’m going to spend what it takes to sign Juan Soto, Max Fried, and trade what little prospect capital we have for the best closer on the market, and win the division.”
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Mike D - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 07:04 PM EST (#455139) #
Nigel, I work at a securities regulatory authority. I dare say that offerings and placements are both more numerous and are more frequently arising than are elite out-of-contract baseball stars at a position of need for the Toronto Blue Jays.

The idea that there is a master plan to stand pat on an expensive, weak team while making Kabuki bids to improve relationships with agents with whom the Jays have no interest in making deals in the near term is way, way through the looking glass. My goodness.

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John Northey - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 07:12 PM EST (#455140) #
Often the simplest answer is the right one. The Jays pack the park and viewership is highest with 89+ wins - namely, when they are in contention. It collapses when they are not seen as being in contention. Thus the need to keep at that 90 win level.
  • 4 mil: 1991-1993, *1994 (was on pace pre-strike) - won division all 3 years, '94 was the afterglow of 2 WS titles
  • 3+ mil: 1990, 2016, 1989, 2017, 2023, *1995 (on pace if not for strike lost games) - '95 still had some WS glow (traded for David Cone pre-season)
  • 2.5+ mil: 2015, 1987, 2024, 2022, 1988, 1997, 1996, 2013 - often a year that either started as a 'oh yeah we are winning' but didn't finish that way, or ended as 'winners' but didn't start that way. 1996 the exception (last place the year before, no real hope all of '96 but fans still believed).
  • 2+ mil: 1985, 1986, 1998, 2008, 2014, 2007, 2018, 2006, 1999, 2012, 1984, 2005 - a lot of false hope years. Many skeptical but the team sucked us in but not for long outside of '85 (Exhibition stadium going over 2 mil was quite the trick, many seats the game was a rumor - I sat in some with dates, great for that purpose).
  • 1.5+ mil: 1983, 2001, 2004, 2009, 2011, 2003, 2019, 1977, 2000, 2002, 1978 - a lot of no hope years here, but something excited enough fans to avoid it being a total disaster at the box office (early years, Delgado/Halladay, first over 500 season in '83)
  • 1+ mil: 2010, 1979, 1980, 1982, *1981 - years that had nothing to redeem themselves with. The team sucked, no real hope at any point. '81 was on pace to crack a mil despite one of the worst offenses imaginable.
  • Sub 1 mil pace: 2021, 2020 - we all know why - COVID. Games played in Buffalo & Dunedin, wasting great years playing in the USA instead of here. Sigh.
What this says is contending draws fans big time here, and staying in contention holds them. But you start to stink you get a year or two's grace for reaching the playoffs before attendance crashes. WS wins have a much longer afterglow. Adding stars like Clemens didn't draw much extra, only winning does. So letting Vlad & Bo go bye bye will hurt only if the team loses games. Toronto fans have been this way forever. The Leafs rarely show an ounce of loyalty to stars as they know fans will pack the area regardless. Raptors seem to have figured that out as well. Contending for a title is everything in Toronto, you don't need to win it all, just be close enough to make it exciting.

Avg attendance adjusted to 162 games ignoring 2020/21.
  • 95+ wins: 4 times, 3,337,238 attendance on average
  • 89-94 wins: 8 times, 2,908,452
  • 81-88 wins: 13 times, 2,290,808
  • 70-80 wins: 13 times, 2,370,179
  • sub 70 wins: 8 times, 1,763,958
So the rule is don't be sub 70 wins and you'll be OK, get to 89+ and you are laughing. Note: a few 89's were in Exhibition Stadium which cut attendance automatically (83, 84, part of 89) but that hits the 95+ as well (85+87).

Note: only 5 teams cracked 3 mil last year in attendance - LAD, Phillies, SD, NYY, Atlanta. In '23 it was LAD, SD, NYY, StL, Atl, Philly, Houston, Toronto. Basically to get there you need to be contending and either be a big market or have rabid fans (StL). And even that won't always get you there. Houston has been in the playoffs every year from 2017 to now and only cracked 3 million once. Just 5 times in their history (Jays 8 times, 3 over 4 mil which won't be reached again due to cutting back seats). Heck, the Mets only reached it 6 times (cracked 4 mil once) - 2009 the last time they did (no excuse - they have more seats than the Jays do now, and can fit over 50k in a game as they did June 8th last year). Jays have major fan support, they just need a contender to justify going to games. TV ratings would be fun but sadly not publicly available anymore (very limited availability before 2024).
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Dewey - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 07:12 PM EST (#455141) #
Petey, you mean “complement”. (Not the same as “compliment”.) I expect even Atkins knows that.
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vw_fan17 - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 07:32 PM EST (#455142) #
FWIW, with regards to attendance..

We went to see the Jays in Oakland last summer/fall - maybe the 5th or 7th time I've seen the As in my 20 years here. The As are now gone. The trip to SF (when the Jays are even there) is longer, and subject to more frustrations, not to mention higher ticket prices, etc - only did it once for a day game that ended up going 14 innings. 

We went to the As game mostly as a way for my M-I-L to say goodbye to the As (she grew up in the Bay Area, getting dropped off at the As stadium with her brother in their teens at times). My personal attendance at sporting events has been sporadic - I don't think I've seen the Leafs vs. Sharks since ~2019 or so either, since they always seem to lose against SJ. Haven't been to a Jays game at the dome since.. hmm. 2nd last game of the season when Stieb pitched (in relief) for the last time? Of course, living ~4000 km away will do that..

I have been an mlb.tv subscriber since it was a thing - since the days of mlb-nexdef-autobahn on Windows XP, where you could skip ahead/back to individual at-bats!! I set my "autorenew" status to "off" after the 2024 season because I felt I wasn't getting a lot of use out of it - I often just watched the condensed games, which are free, AFAIK. This front office / offseason hasn't made me want to revisit that decision in any way yet..


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greenfrog - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 08:17 PM EST (#455143) #
Could the economic uncertainty relating to the potential Trump tariffs and the weak Canadian dollar be affecting the front office's decision-making? Rogers may not want to support a very high Blue Jays payroll in 2025 while it waits for greater clarity on that front. This might be a "batten down the hatches" sort of season, where the team makes an modest (not aggressive) bid to earn a WC spot without spending a huge amount of money.
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bpoz - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 08:36 PM EST (#455144) #
Thanks John N for your analysis. Winning generates revenue. I have believed that for many years regarding the Jays. Being in contention until the last game in 2021 probably means a lot. Out by the AS game also meant a lot in 2024. Speculation/extrapolation about the following seasons successes/failures probably mean nothing?
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dalimon5 - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 08:50 PM EST (#455145) #
I think that's a lot more believable than Nigel's Major League-esque conspiracy theory.
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Gerry - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 10:19 PM EST (#455146) #
The reason the Jays will not rebuild, or trade Vlad or Bo, is that it would be the end of Atkins, and possibly Shapiro. The Jays need to get better for those two to keep their jobs.

We don't know what the Jays remaining budget is. We know they are not throwing money around like drunken sailors, they have a limit. If money was no object they could have signed several players already.

It could be they need to ration their available funds to fill two or more gaps in the roster. While I am very critical of the front office, I will give them credit if they are preserving some funds to get good deals. However the other more gloomy option is that no-one really wants to take their money.
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John Northey - Wednesday, January 08 2025 @ 11:32 PM EST (#455147) #
It is curious how little the Jays have spent, but been rumoured to be in on everyone. Just 9 guys left projected as 2 fWAR+ players at FG. 3B: Alex Bregman, IF: Ha-Seong Kim, 1B: Pete Alonso, OF: Anthony Santander, Jurickson Profar, SP: Jack Flaherty, Nick Pivetta, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw. Over 2 in '24 but not expected to repeat: IF: Jose Iglesias, SP: Andrew Heaney, RP: Jeff Hoffman. After that we get to the guys who will probably be cheap and available come mid-February begging for work, or who are relievers thus super-variable in estimates of value - Kirby Yates, David Robertson, Tanner Scott, Kenley Jansen, Carlos Estévez and many others. If the Jays get any of those 5 relievers under the 'sub 2' category both last year and projected I'd be happy - any could be a solid closer if they will sign at a reasonable price.

At this point of the offseason many players will start getting anxious about being signed. Some might even ask their agents to check Japan to see if they can get more that way. The challenge for the Jays is finding 2 more solid relievers, 1 solid bat (LF/3B/DH), and ideally 1 more decent player to fill in at one of those 3 positions. I suspect the Jays at this point are knocking on doors seeing who is desperate and moved their expectations down a bit. Now is the time for the Jays to be firm on their valuations of players and not to panic. Don't need to see a Springer situation again where we have a vet making a lot of money and kept in the lineup even when he isn't playing well in a few years. At this stage I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Jays sign Kim to a 1 year deal (he'll miss April and maybe May - by that point Bo might be dealt so SS would be open for him then, if not then he can go to 3B and continue the Jays effort to make baseball like soccer with 0-0 scores), Profar to a 2 year plus option deal (or 3 year with opt-out), and make offers to nearly everyone I listed. Robertson or Jansen I'd like here as the closer - both solid but shouldn't cost $10+ mil or need a 2+ year deal to sign.

Yeah, I'm lowering expectations. Not much choice IMO. They could still sign Santander, Bregman, and Flaherty but I wouldn't bet on it.
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lexomatic - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 07:57 AM EST (#455148) #
Kim would be such a questionable move this offseason. Even with a decent Bichette trade lined up. It would mostly be spending to look like youre doing something.
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SK in NJ - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 09:25 AM EST (#455149) #
Shi Davidi seems to think that the Jays are not the favorites to land Santander based on his latest article ("they’re staying in the game on Anthony Santander, although they’re probably not the favourite to land the switch-hitting outfielder right now"), which goes against what the national US media has been speculating. I think it's clear when it comes to the Jays, no one in the media knows anything.
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dalimon5 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 09:30 AM EST (#455150) #
Nobody in the media, nobody in the clubhouse and nobody in the front office. Nobody knows anything.
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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 11:43 AM EST (#455151) #
Zips projections preview:

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Gerry - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:21 PM EST (#455152) #
That's around 40 WAR or an 85 win season.
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John Northey - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:26 PM EST (#455153) #
Beat me to it uglyone - just saw it and was going to post. DH the only nightmare. Funny they have Gimenez as the highest WAR player. Springer the other nightmare but hopefully he'll see playing time reduced if so (we can dream).
Compared to the AL East so far...
  • NYY: Judge 7.9 miles above all, Volpe 3.3, Wells/Trevino 3.1 are the highlights. Lowlights 1B: 0.6 (Rice/LeMahieu), DH 1.3 Stanton. Pen is 4.3, rotation 3.7-3.6-2.5 (Fried-Cole-Rodon) 2.0 Gil, 1.9 Schmidt, 1.1 Stroman. Outside of Judge they really aren't any better than the Jays - but that is a BIG thing. Add a DH and the Jays look a LOT better.
  • O's: Henderson 6.1, 3's for Rutschman, Westburg, Holliday, Cowser, Mullins, ugly at 1B 1.6 Mountcastle, DH 1.6 (assorted). Pen is 3.9, rotation Eflin 2.9, Rodriguez 2.7, Kremer 2.2, Povich 1.2, then 3 guys sub 1 (ugh). The O's had a clear need but didn't do much (rotation). This was before they signed Tomoyuki Sugano who could be good but hard to say (at 35 it is very hard to predict 0.6 fWAR projected). Overall a LOT better than the Jays with so many 3's, but fans should be pissed they didn't go all out for Fried or Burnes or Kikuchi or Snell.or even Eovaldi.
  • Boston: Devers 3.9, Duran 3.5, Abreu 3.0 all damn solid, ugly is C: 1.5 (Wong). Pen is 3.8, rotation 4.6-3.2-2.3-2.2 Crochet-Houck-Bello-Crawford then 2 1 or less guys. Pretty solid all around with Catcher & 5th starter the only obvious holes. They are in far better shape than I thought.
  • Rays: not done yet.
Of course, there are many 'what about' for the Jays. I suspect many don't buy 3.5 for Kirk or 3.3 for Bo, but also 3.8 for Vlad seems low as does 2.3 for Varsho. LF at 2.0 for Loperfido/Schneider/Lukes seems optimistic to me. If 2nd half Francis was for real then 2.3 is low, but if it isn't then 2.3 is high. If the pen produces 3.2 fWAR overall I'll be very, very happy (vs the negative they did last year).
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dalimon5 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:42 PM EST (#455154) #
You guys know you can have a 100 WAR team and finish last place, right? There's no balance to this team and they will lose a ton of games with this offense. Maybe I'm wrong and they will win90% of their games 1-0, 2-1, 3-1, 4-2, etc etc.
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scottt - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:43 PM EST (#455155) #
Gimenez is top at around 4 WAR.

Varsho is going to miss some times in CF, so that's already flawed.

The pen right now has Burr, Little, Pop and Nance.
I think they will still add there.
Jays relievers were 6th in FIP in 23.
The 24 Zips projection predicted the pen to be solid!

Compared to last year:
Guerrero up 3.8 from 2.8.
Varsho up  2.3 from 2.2.
3B up 2.0  from 1.3. 
Kirk down 3.5 from 4.1 (maybe Jensen related).
Bichette down 3.3 from 3.8
Springer down 1.6 from 2.7. 
DH down 0.9 from 1.9.

Gausman and Bassitt are down but Berios is up.
Francis 2.3 replacing Kikuchi at 1.8.
Rodriguez 1.6 replacing Manoah at 1.6

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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:45 PM EST (#455156) #
They were weak offensively last year but not near the worst offensive teams, and overall it seems more things went wrong than right offensively.

Even if they repeat last year they won't be awful offensively, but with moderate bouncebacks from the underachievers they look more like a middling offense than a bad one.
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scottt - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:54 PM EST (#455157) #
A team with 100 WAR would be expected to win around 148 games.
It would be hard to finish last with a team like that.
It's possible that the pitchers would have low FIP and yet let a lot of runs scored, but it would take a lot of 1 run losses and a lot of blowout wins.
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scottt - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 12:56 PM EST (#455158) #
If only Guerrero hits again, he will get a lot of walks.
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99BlueJaysWay - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 01:38 PM EST (#455159) #
I’m still hoping for some action. I’m concerned that more roster consolidation hasn’t happened yet, to be honest. I had assumed we would sign some players that would make others more redundant and easier to trade. I know they aren’t world beaters, but where are Barger, Clase, Loperfido, Wagner, and Jimenez going to play? I don’t think they have much to prove in AAA, and being in the ML on the bench isn’t great either. Anyone else feeling like this?

For example, I’d rather give Barger a shot to be the 3B than have him play in AAA while Clement is there. Nothing against Clement, but I don’t think he’s the long term solution so I’d rather see if maybe Barger can cut it.
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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 01:50 PM EST (#455160) #
$8.2m for Varsho

$1.97m for Clement

$1.63m for Sandlin

$0.9k for Pop
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dalimon5 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 01:51 PM EST (#455161) #
The projections are calling for 17 WAR from pitchers and 23.3 WAR from hitters. Out of that 23.3 from the hitters you have maybe 14 or 15 WAR or more coming from the defensive side of WAR if I had to guess. So if you look at offensive WAR how does this team compare to BOS, NYY and BAL?

Then add the call ups Toronto will have and compare to the top prospects coming up to the NYY, Red Sox and Rays. This team is not close. They need two offensive minded bats and a SP. With those additions they can then add at the trade deadline and become a playoff team.
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bpoz - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 01:58 PM EST (#455162) #
Totally agree with 99BlueJaysWay about the kids. I see competition that is hopefully fair. If Roden makes the Opening day roster then someone will have to be taken off the 40 man roster. So losing players like Danner seems a bit inevitable to me.
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dalimon5 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 02:00 PM EST (#455163) #
And don't forget about the negative WAR which happens every year but is not posted int these previews. Last year it was about 5WAR total in the negative from the Swansons, Mayza's, Pop, Cabrera, Pearsons of the world, etc.

Of course nobody will suck in 2025 and we can reliably predict a mid 80 team as is.
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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 02:01 PM EST (#455164) #
the likelihood of using negative war players is included.
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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 02:04 PM EST (#455165) #
and again the offense projects around average so the offensive compenent of position player WAR is likely around average.
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dalimon5 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 02:10 PM EST (#455166) #
ugly, use the AL East and AL West to find the average instead of all MLB teams. If you compare Toronto to teams like Colorado, CWS, etc etc then it makes them look better. If you compare them to the top 6 teams in the AL they will be competing with then I think you will be shocked how poor they grade and how far below the average they are for offense.

Bellinger is a good example of a player that is not a huge difference-maker for this year and will have roughly half the WAR value as Gimenez. It doesn't change the fact to me that he would help the Blue Jays win more games in 2025 than Gimenez, considering the strengths and weaknesses of this team. I look at it like a deck of cards and a game. Maybe Bellinger is a Jack and Gimenez is a King with more value but to me the higher value card is the one that gives me a three of a kind not the one that is graded higher on its own.
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Gerry - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 03:01 PM EST (#455167) #
Jays reach dwal with Ernie Clement for $1.97M.

That leaves Vladdy and Kirk.
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greenfrog - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 06:52 PM EST (#455168) #
ESPN ranked the worst mistakes for every team since 2020. The Blue Jays came in at #19 (the worst was the Angels' decision not to trade Ohtani at the 2023 trade deadline):

Biggest mistake: Pulling Jose Berrios in the fourth inning of the wild-card series (October 2023)

We could have gone with the Hyun Jin Ryu signing (four years, $80 million), a deal that produced just two healthy seasons, but I'm pretty sure Blue Jays fans would go with manager John Schneider's decision to remove Berrios in that playoff game -- a similar move to the Snell one except even harder to rationalize since it came in the fourth inning and Berrios had thrown just 47 pitches. What made it even worse was that Twins manager Rocco Baldelli totally played Schneider.

The situation: It was 0-0 in a must-win Game 2 for the Blue Jays, so the urgency was at least understandable. Berrios walked Royce Lewis to lead off the inning, and with three of the next four batters hitting from the left side, Schneider brought in lefty Yusei Kikuchi to replace Berrios. Baldelli promptly pinch hit three right-handed batters and the Twins scored two runs -- the only runs in a 2-0 victory. The bigger message here, however, was that Schneider didn't trust his pitcher. Blue Jays players certainly didn't like the move, with Whit Merrifield saying afterward "I hated it" and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. adding "everybody was surprised." Maybe it wasn't a surprise the Jays fell apart in 2024.
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Gerry - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 07:21 PM EST (#455169) #
Vladdy signs for $28.5M

Kirk for $4.6M
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JB21 - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 07:28 PM EST (#455170) #
Interesting that MLBTR predicted 29.6M for Vlad.
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uglyone - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 07:49 PM EST (#455171) #
scott mitchell TSN is cryptically hinting about Sasaki
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greenfrog - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 08:07 PM EST (#455172) #
If the Blue Jays land Sasaki (which my iPhone just autocorrected to Saskatchewan), I’ll climb right back aboard the bandwagon.
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Vulg - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 08:12 PM EST (#455173) #
Vladdy signs for $28.5M Timing should work out well for the Dodgers when finding a replacement for Freeman.
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John Northey - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 10:31 PM EST (#455174) #
Vulg - except Freeman is signed through 2027, Vlad will be a free agent after 2025. With DH taken by Ohtani that would be quite the mess to put Vlad, Freeman, and Ohanti on the same team. At 3B they have Max Muncy right now who is signed through 2025 with a $10 mil team option for '26. He'd be child's play to trade with that deal, but they'd really be taking a risk on defense to put Vlad at 3B for a full year, but what a killer offense that'd be.
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John Northey - Thursday, January 09 2025 @ 10:42 PM EST (#455175) #
Well, good that the Jays got everyone signed so no arbitration cases this year.

Current payroll estimated to be at $223,854,239 (Cot's). $1.184 mil more than before arb settlements. More than expected: Varsho $800k , Kirk $400k, Manoah $450k, Clement $170k, Sandlin $130k. Less than expected: Pop $365.5k, Vlad $400k.

Not a big spread in the end. It rarely is iirc. So the Jays have roughly $17,145,761 left before the luxury tax hits.
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mendocino - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:07 AM EST (#455176) #

Héctor Gómez@hgomez27·2h
SOURCE: The #BlueJays plan to make a second contract extension offer to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., which will be very close to what the player is looking for.
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Vulg - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:31 AM EST (#455177) #
Vulg - except Freeman is signed through 2027, Vlad will be a free agent after 2025. With DH taken by Ohtani that would be quite the mess to put Vlad, Freeman, and Ohanti on the same team. At 3B they have Max Muncy right now who is signed through 2025 with a $10 mil team option for '26. He'd be child's play to trade with that deal, but they'd really be taking a risk on defense to put Vlad at 3B for a full year, but what a killer offense that'd be

It was mostly tongue in cheek, too many variables, but I will say with certainty that position redundancy would not dissuade the Dodgers from locking in what they'd view a long-term and strong solution at 1st. Freeman will be 36 heading into '26, there's no cap or financial constraint, and teams like the Dodgers already dole out contracts knowing they'll get little return on their investment in the later years (Freeman in this case).

Hopefully Vlad signs in Toronto long term, but I'd have to imagine the Dodgers are near the top of the suitors list if he hits the market after his final arbitration year.
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:33 AM EST (#455178) #
They could offer up to the 3rd largest ever ($426 mil to Trout for 12 years) in raw dollars, 4th is Mookie Betts at $365 mil for 12. Heck, the present day value (when signed) for Ohtani was $460.8 so if the Jays really wanted to go nuts they could offer $461 mil for 15 years (lifetime contract basically) and make Vlad the 2nd highest paid ever in total dollars. But it seems Vlad was after $450 mil, so more likely an offer inbetween Betts and Trout is in line, around the $400 mil mark. The Jays first offer was $340 which was #8 all time - tied with Fernando Tatis ($1 mil more gets you 7th Francisco Lindor). Beating Judge I'm sure is high on the list ($360 mil for #5). But to be worth making the offer I figure needs to be close to Trout's $426.5 mil - might be less, but in eyeshot (ie: over $400 mil).
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Marc Hulet - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:43 AM EST (#455179) #
$420M/12 would be my guess on what might get it done.

Given the Gomez comment (his sources are usually from the players' sides) and Vladdy taking a little less on 2025, it feels like maybe they've come to an agreement on a shell/outline of a deal that just needs to be fleshed out and officially offered.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:51 AM EST (#455180) #
Marc,

If that deal gets it done (35 million/year) then I will be shocked this FO took so long to sign that deal. Vlad is not worth 40 or more million per year but 35? I would have signed that deal sometime between July and November. Shame if they went this deep into the off season to pay out that amount.
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Marc Hulet - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:32 AM EST (#455181) #
He wants $450... no mention of term. Probably 10 years. My number is a give and take on both sides and Vladdy still rakes in one of the top overall dollar amounts ever handed out. Plus the Pete Alonso contract struggles are a bit of a warning sign for the player and agent.
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mendocino - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:32 AM EST (#455182) #
dalimon5, don't you need to have the Soto signing first to get to the money you and Marc are talking about. Was Vladdy even willing to sign back in July. Kudos to Vladdy's agent for sitting back and let things play out.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:40 AM EST (#455183) #
I don't think it was either Vladdy or Soto for this team. With Springer and Bassitt alone coming off the books soon that covers most of Soto's annual pay out (44.5 vs 51 million).

It's true we don't know if Vlad was willing to sign and I do think he and Vlad did not want to sign. It makes a lot of sense now that I think about it that Vlad sees Alonso struggling on the market and is seeing the value now of the security of a 400 million dollar deal (instead of holding out for as close to 500 million or more that he can get).
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:42 AM EST (#455184) #
"Current payroll estimated to be at $223,854,239 (Cot's)."

FYI - Rich Griffin has them at 196,000,000 total 2025 payroll and 30,000,000 left to spend.
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SK in NJ - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:50 AM EST (#455185) #
Vladdy probably would have won an arbitration case if he wanted something closer to $30M, so while I’m not reading too much into yesterday’s agreement, I’m a tiny bit hopeful that it’s leading to an extension. The lower 2025 salary would help with the CBT in the event that they agree to an extension, as the extension would kick in for 2026, leaving the 2025 CBT hit as $28M regardless. The Red Sox did the same thing with Devers.

If Vladdy’s ask is $450M then I think it would be foolish not to figure out an extension prior to ST. My assumption was that his ask was going to be $500-600M after the Soto signing, but you can definitely rationalize $450M with the current baseball economy. They’ll just have to step up their player development game to surround him with talent moving forward.

Not getting my hopes up though.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:59 AM EST (#455186) #
You would pay him 45 million/year for 10 years? Thats is very steep and dangerous for a player that had close to 1000 ABs of 112 wRC+ in Sep 2022-April 2024.

No chance he makes more than 40 million/ year unless he tests the market and gets Boston, NY, LA and two more teams all bidding against each other for a 1B.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 11:01 AM EST (#455187) #
Let me just add that this is what I think the baseball front offices will do. Personally I would pay Vlad up to 45 million so long as it wasn't longer than 10 years.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 11:30 AM EST (#455188) #


Zips projections don't really project playing time - if a player is projected for significantly fewer than fulltime pa that likely means they're being projected for platoon duty using their more favorable platoon split.


Zips

* SS Bichette 548pa, 112ops+, 3.2war/650
* DH Wagner 444pa, 110ops+, 2.9war/650
* 1B Guerrero 665pa, 146ops+, 3.8war/650
* LF Schneider 472pa, 105ops+, 2.8war/650
* 2B Gimenez 610pa, 105ops+, 3.9war/650
* C Kirk 428pa, 105ops+, 4.6war/650
* 3B Barger 488pa, 104ops+, 2.4war/650
* RF Springer 551pa, 101ops+, 1.8war/650
* CF Varsho 529pa, 100ops+, 2.3war/650

* UT Stefanic 415pa, 104ops+, 2.5war/650
* OF Lukes 357pa, 103ops+, 2.4war/650
* IF Clement 400pa, 92ops+, 2.4war/650
* C Heineman 218pa, 71ops+, 1.8war/650

* OF Roden 518pa, 105ops+, 2.0war/650
* IF Jimenez 423pa, 99ops+, 2.6war/650
* UT McAdoo 511pa, 98ops+, 2.2war/650
* C Sanchez 281pa, 71ops+, 1.4war/650

* OF Loperfido 474pa, 96ops+, 1.7war/650
* OF Schreck 507pa, 96ops+, 1.2war/650
* IF Orelvis 447pa, 90ops+, 0.5war/650
* C Clarke 312pa, 76ops+, -0.6war/650

* OF Berroa 386pa, 86ops+, 1.5war/650
* OF Clase 539pa, 85ops+, 1.6war/650
* IF Kasevich 519pa, 80ops+, 1.0war/650
* C




* SP Gausman 163ip, 114era+, 3.0war/32
* SP Berrios 173ip, 103era+, 2.2war/32
* SP Bassitt 152ip, 103era+, 2.3war/32
* SP Francis 103ip, 107era+, 2.4war/32
* SP Rodriguez 90ip, 105era+, 1.8war/32

* SP Manoah 97ip, 100era+, 1.9war/32
* SP Tiedemann 64ip, 99era+, 1.3war/32
* SP Bloss 93ip, 88era+, 0.7war/32


* RP Burr 47ip, 122era+, 0.9war/65
* RP Garcia 46ip, 113era+, 0.5war/65
* RP Green 50ip, 110era+, 0.4war/65
* RP Sandlin 58ip, 108era+, 0.3war/65
* RP Swanson 55ip, 107era+, 0.2war/65
* RP Little 49ip, 102era+, 0.1war/65
* RP Robertson 51ip, 102era+, 0.2war/65

* RP Fluharty 63ip, 101era+, 0.1war/65
* RP Tate 54ip, 101era+, 0.1war/65
* RP Juenger 70ip, 98era+, 0.4war/65
* RP Pop 55ip, 94era+, -0.1war/65
* RP Petersen 45ip, 94era+, -0.1war/65
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 11:42 AM EST (#455189) #
"Vlad is not worth 40 or more million per year but 35?"

at some point you should ask yourself why you care about this difference.
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JB21 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:19 PM EST (#455190) #
Agreed. A rounding error for Rogers.
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Cracka - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:33 PM EST (#455191) #
The question at this point is how much value and goodwill Vlady provides to the team and Rogers beyond the analytics. I think it's a very significant amount, perhaps even more than $100M. If the team enters 2026 without Vlady & Bo, it will greatly impact season ticket sales, overall attendance, advertising revenue, Sportsnet viewership, etc. A 3-5 year rebuild could easily cost tens of millions in lost revenue vs. 3-5 continuous competitive seasons. Vlady is a star. His immeasurable goodwill is almost certainly more than >$100M to the franchise over a 10-12 year contract. If he's willing to sign here, I think they'll make it happen.
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bpoz - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:42 PM EST (#455192) #
IMO if Vlad is signed then this offseason has been very successful.
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pooks137 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:43 PM EST (#455193) #
"Current payroll estimated to be at $223,854,239 (Cot's)."

FYI - Rich Griffin has them at 196,000,000 total 2025 payroll and 30,000,000 left to spend.

The difference between Cot's and RG's payroll estimates are due to a few factors

- Griffin is likely only counting up the big 26-man roster salaries, because his figures and Cot's 26-man projection is near identical

- Cot's is likely including all the other minimum salaries for the 40-man roster spots

- Cot's averages salaries over multiyear terms for CBT purposes instead of simply using the 2025 actual payment

- the actual CBT amount that counts is always higher than pure salaries owed because player benefits worth a few million also get included against the CBT cap

So both numbers are sort of correct despite being 30 mil apart.

Griffin's 191 mil figure represents the salaries for 2025 that matter most.

Cot's 224 mil figure is how it works out with the accountants and suggests a lot less payroll room if the FO and Rogers care about CBT thresholds.

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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 12:45 PM EST (#455194) #
zips only uses ops+ (until fangraphs converts it to their player pages), but i'll just use it interchangeably with wrc+ to average it with the steamer projections for now:


​* SS Bichette 115
​* DH Wagner 114
* 1B Guerrero 150
* C Kirk 113
* RF Springer 105
* 2B Gimenez 105
​* LF Schneider 104
* 3B Barger 104
* CF Varsho 100

* UT Stefanic 107
* OF Lukes 104
* IF Clement 97
* C Heineman 74

* OF Roden 108
* IF Jimenez 99
* UT Martinez 93
* C Clarke 81

* OF Schreck 99
* UT McAdoo 94
* IF Kasevich 83
* C Sanchez 75

* OF Loperfido 90
* OF Clase 85
* OF Berroa 84

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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:05 PM EST (#455195) #
"at some point you should ask yourself why you care about this difference."

I love this question because it makes me feel that one of us has not actually considered it. It's a good question to ask. Your comment is a very common one that trivializes money. Using principle and common sense it's easy for me to care since it is not about the money.

Using your rational there is no difference for us to care if the team pays a player 35, 45, 55, 85, 100 or 300 million or more per year. If a tree falls and nobody is there to hear it does it make a sound, etc etc. If Trump takes over Canada why should anyone care if they live half way across the world. Yada yada.

Who cares if Springer is making 25, 35 or 45 million this year on the books? If he is making 50 million and the team does not resign Vlad because they are reaching a self imposed limit, would it make you care at all or is it just easier for some to live in a bubble?

Let me turn this question around to you - at some point you should ask yourself why you don't care about this difference.
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:07 PM EST (#455196) #
Cracka - no player affects ticket sales or TV revenue for the Jays. Ever. The proof is in the pudding as they say - attendance saw no real change when they signed Roger Clemens and he won 2 pitcher triple crowns here, no drop when they dumped him on the NYY. No drop when Delgado was dumped, no drop when Halladay was traded (well, attendance dropped but that was due to the team telegraphing that it wasn't trying to win that year). Every last jump in attendance came as the team either appeared to be trying to win (2013) or when it actually was winning (2015, etc.). I've shown this multiple times but people still buy into the feeling that guys like Vlad & Bo sell tickets when it is 100% winning that sells. All else is minor.

Bottom line, a Jays team that makes the playoffs with dull 'who cares' players is always going to do better in attendance and viewership than one with Vlad & Bo that doesn't. Always. This might be different in some markets, but here winning is everything. The Jays base is around 1.5 million fans even if they suck and keep sucking for years. The stats show that - sub 1 mil in 1981 and 2021 - both special cases (strike in '81, COVID games in Dunedin & Buffalo in '21), sub 1.5 3 times at Exhibition Stadium pre-the team getting to 500 (1979, 1980, 1982), once at Rogers Centre in 2010 when the team dumped Halladay and announced that 2010 was a pure rebuild year after 16 years of rebuilding (despite Bautista's charge for 50 HR that year, Vernon Wells bounce back final year here).

So yeah, if trading Vlad helps the team win then trade him. Same with Bo. But I figure a long term deal for Vlad might be best due to the type of player he is - a damn good one.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:08 PM EST (#455197) #
Pooks - thank's for that post. Another site is posting some payroll numbers, i'll leave it here.


"For reference, here’s the breakdown between the official dollars spent and MLBTR’s projections involving the team’s final seven arbitration-eligible players.
Guerrero Jr. — $28.5 million, $29.6-million projection
Varsho — $8.2 million, $7.7-million projection
Kirk — $4.6 million, $4.1-million projection
Manoah — $2.2 million, $2.4-million projection
Sandlin — $1.63 million, $1.6-million projection
Clement — $1.975 million, $1.7-million projection
Pop — $900,000, $1-million projection
It’s minuscule savings, especially in a market like Toronto. But, for context, the team’s 2025 Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) payroll now sits at roughly $228.3 million, according to FanGraphs’ RosterResource. That puts them almost $13 million below the initial luxury tax threshold ($241 million) and just under $33 million shy of the second bracket ($261 million)."

https://bluejaysnation.com/news/where-blue-jays-payroll-stands-after-settling-2025-arbitration-cases

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bpoz - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:11 PM EST (#455198) #
I just compared our 2024 pen before Opening day our current pen. On paper 2024 looks stronger.

This is my evaluation of 2024 Romano was the top reliever #1, followed by Yimi and Green with #4 being Swanson. The lefties are Mayza followed by G Cabrera. #7 would be T Richards because he has experience. I cannot rank the others. I always thought of Pearson breaking out during each outing. But he did not.

2025 does not look as good on paper to me.
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Marc Hulet - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:11 PM EST (#455199) #
Would it be a successful offseason simply if Vlad resigns... and comes back to essentially the same team as last year:

Adds:
Gimenez (defence)
Sandlin (middle reliever)
Walker (depth reliever)

Subtractions:
Horwitz (offence)
Romano (injured high-leverage)
Cabrera (lefty reliever)

*Yimi was with the team 2/3 of last year
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:24 PM EST (#455200) #
Subtractions:

* Kikuchi 2.1war
* IKF 2.1war
* Horwitz 1.9war
* Jansen 0.6war

I think Gimenez + internals cover the loss of IKF/Horwitz. Not sure we have a Jansen replacement though.

Kikuchi is the most significant hit. We haven't replaced him, and we probably should have upgraded on him. I don't think internal candidates are likely to be enough here, though it's not impossible i guess.

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ISLAND BOY - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:37 PM EST (#455201) #
The Jays still haven't done anything/enough to address it's two biggest needs in the offseason: more power and fixing a dreadful bullpen.
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SK in NJ - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:42 PM EST (#455202) #
I think extending Vladdy and doing little to nothing else wouldn't necessarily be a successful offseason, but it would show a plan and a direction, which are two things the team hasn't shown in at least a year. The alternative is keeping Vladdy (they are not trading him prior to the season) at least until July and then either trading him for 50 cents on the dollar or losing him to free agency for a comp pick. If the options were extend or trade, then there would be a legit argument for both directions, but extend or stand pat is a no brainer. Extend him, live with the bad money towards the end, and try to build something resembling a sustainable winner moving forward.
[ Reply to This ]
greenfrog - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 01:54 PM EST (#455203) #
Recipe for a successful off-season:

1. Extend Vladdy
2. Sign Sasaki
3. Add another bat
5. Add another bullpen arm or two

Pretty simple, really…

[ Reply to This ]
John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 02:04 PM EST (#455204) #
IMO if they pull off signing Sasaki that'll make this a great winter. He could be an ace for the rotation at a very, very low cost and when the winter started the odds of him coming here were seen as 0%. I'd still put it at 1% maybe, but there is that sliver of hope. If the Jays can sell him on being a star for 2 full nations rather than being a bit player in Dodgerland (3rd biggest Japanese star there), then I'll be quite impressed and happy.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 02:07 PM EST (#455205) #
Regardless of what you think of Vladdy, just know that all the other players view him as an elite star, not to mention being a great guy and great to be around, and him being here longterm is absolutely crucial to us having any attractiveness to free agents for the forseeable future.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 03:07 PM EST (#455206) #
Ugly I totally agree with that. Also can we pin this on every thread until off season is done:

Recipe for a successful off-season:

1. Extend Vladdy
2. Sign Sasaki
3. Add another bat
5. Add another bullpen arm or two
[ Reply to This ]
99BlueJaysWay - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 04:20 PM EST (#455207) #
In reply to John - I don’t think there’s anything precluding them from offering him a contract, right? That could be another reason the offseason is slow, maybe instead of the ML minimum they sign Sasaki to a contract with much higher guarantees right off the bat. It would make the Jays’ offer more competitive, one would think
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Spifficus - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 04:27 PM EST (#455208) #
Nope. Given his age and lack of experience, he's under the international prospect rules. That means bonus pool money only, and a bunch of anti-shenanigan rules.
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SK in NJ - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 04:57 PM EST (#455209) #
Sasaki might be why Atkins (and other teams) are not doing anything yet. With that said, I can't imagine there's even a 5% chance of him signing with the Jays. Obviously if Shapiro and Atkins can actually pull that off then it changes the outlook of this team dramatically (especially if coupled with a Vladdy extension), but I would say the chances of Sasaki being a Dodger are greater than 95%, and even that might be rounding down.
[ Reply to This ]
greenfrog - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 05:02 PM EST (#455210) #
The wildfires in LA might give Sasaki pause before signing there.
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 05:08 PM EST (#455211) #
The Dodger idea is weakened a bit by his having very bad experiences with big city media in Japan, thus wanting to be somewhere that isn't as high pressure (thus removing any NY team from the mix almost certainly). The more I read the more I figure somewhere like San Diego or Arizona might work well for him - west coast, not a ton of pressure, big but not massive markets. Nice thing is there is a deadline of January 23rd so it can't become too big a thing for too long. As I said before, I see it as a 1 in 100 shot for the Jays, but earlier it was a 0%, thanks to a mix of rumors and his statements (via his agent). I figure the way Toronto fans didn't tear Kikuchi apart when he had troubles year one and generally cheered him on would help (I don't think anyone blamed him for that playoff loss even though he was the one who blew it - mostly due to most seeing it as the manager doing a stupid move on behalf of the GM/president/etc.)

Wouldn't that be wonderful if he does sign though? A guy who literally has zero incentive to go to any particular team, picking the Jays. The high end facilities in Dunedin, the good treatment of Japanese players here in the past, a chance to be a star for a full nation on top of his own. There are reasons to come here. We all can list many others why not to come of course, but right now it is fun to be a dreamer. Can't hurt that we aren't on fire right now and don't have a felon leading the nation.
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85bluejay - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 05:10 PM EST (#455212) #
If Sasaki signs with the Jays, I'd say he really values anonymity.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 05:42 PM EST (#455213) #
"If Sasaki signs with the Jays, I'd say he really values anonymity"

Classic "We're not good enough," Canadian personality here. Why would signing in Toronto, the largest MLB market by size of its TV and ballpark audience equate to anonymity? I feel like this is a sentiment from Canadians not actually living in or knowing a lot about Toronto...you know, the economic and global city known around the world? Do you really think he's going to be invisible playing for the Blue Jays instead of the Dodgers? He's be fan favourite #5 or 6 in LA after all their other big stars.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 05:42 PM EST (#455214) #
Morosi saying Hoffman on a multi year deal might be happening.
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JB21 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:38 PM EST (#455215) #
with... the Jays?
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SK in NJ - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:39 PM EST (#455216) #
Jays have signed Jeff Hoffman. 3 years, $33 million.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:40 PM EST (#455217) #
Honesty trying to turn Hoffman into an SP works for me. That's the slot we need to upgrade and he has a chance to do it. Gamble we need to take imo.
[ Reply to This ]
uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:42 PM EST (#455218) #
Lmao i posted that before i saw the news i swear.
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:45 PM EST (#455219) #
Hoffman signs!!!! We actually got someone!

$33 mil for 3 years with his initial role being closer. I wouldn't be shocked if he is given a shot at starting at some point though as he seems to have been after that.

Amazing - finally someone took the Jays cash. Yes, for the 2nd time it is a former Jay coming back, but this guy never pitched in the majors for us, just in the minors before being part of the Tulowitzki trade.
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Gerry - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:46 PM EST (#455220) #
Atkins says Hoffman will get an opportunity to close out games so I guess he is not signing as a starter.
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Gerry - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:47 PM EST (#455221) #
How much money do the Jays have left?
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 07:52 PM EST (#455222) #
Lots

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BlueJayWay - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:00 PM EST (#455223) #
How much money do the Jays have left?

It's Rogers, so....potentially an unlimited amount.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:03 PM EST (#455224) #
If he can be an ace closer that's good for the money too.



Zips projections today said that even a mediocre bullpen this year would be worth a full 6 wins over last year. Which is crazy.
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Marc Hulet - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:13 PM EST (#455225) #
Brett de Geus DFA'd for Hoffman.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:14 PM EST (#455226) #
$11m on hoffman instead of $8.5 on romano is very good business.
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greenfrog - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:28 PM EST (#455227) #
That’s one item off my four-part checklist.
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:37 PM EST (#455228) #
Amazing deal. How did nobody else match?
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greenfrog - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:37 PM EST (#455229) #
I generally like the signing, but one thing to note is that he had TJ surgery in 2014. He has been great the last couple of years, but there may be a little extra injury risk for him over the next 2-3 years because of the TJ procedure (just a guess). And he had a lot of appearances and innings in 2024. Sometimes relievers who get worked a lot one season experience some struggles the next year.
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Gerry - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:39 PM EST (#455230) #
Good call greenfrog.

Sources say Hoffman had a bigger contract agreed with the Orioles but they backed out after a physical. There were concerns with his shoulder.
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greenfrog - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:45 PM EST (#455231) #
If Atkins and Shapiro are on the hot seat, they may be less concerned with Hoffman’s performance and health in 2026-2027. They need the Blue Jays to make the postseason in 2025 and Hoffman may be helpful on that front, at a tolerable AAV for luxury tax purposes.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:50 PM EST (#455232) #
Orioles putting out rumours they were gonna pay him more but for the medicals.

Feels really good not to be the loud runners up for once, especially when it's for such medium to small sized contract.
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Marc Hulet - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 08:57 PM EST (#455233) #
At $11M average, a very low risk when you balance his injury risk vs the talent level.

It's worth noting, the Orioles are typically the most conservative club in baseball with medicals.
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SK in NJ - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:01 PM EST (#455234) #
Good news is this signing might put to rest the 2018 redux fear that I had earlier in this thread. The 2018 Jays would have signed a much cheaper one year deal for a player coming off a down year. Between Hoffman, and earlier Gimenez, it looks like the team is legitimately trying to add wins and are willing to spend for it, which is a good sign.
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uglyone - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:02 PM EST (#455235) #
https://bsky.app/profile/middaughsome.bsky.social/post/3lfglekzxbc2w
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dalimon5 - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:10 PM EST (#455236) #
So the Orioles had a deal for almost 20% more. Cool.
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 09:36 PM EST (#455237) #
Interesting - a bit concerning as I remember the nightmare David Wells for Mike Sirotka deal where the Jays got 0 IP from him and paid him $6.8 mil over 2 years while losing a highly chased pitcher who just won 20 to lead the league (along with leading with 35 starts and 9 complete games and a 1.2 BB/9 rate at age 37). Wells had a bad year with the White Sox (104 ERA+ after a 123 the year before and just 16 starts) but had 6 more ML seasons left (15.6 bWAR over his post-Toronto years).
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John Northey - Friday, January 10 2025 @ 10:37 PM EST (#455238) #
Btw, looking at Fangraphs Jays projections and the 80-20 range (ie: a 20% chance of the player doing better or worse depending which you are looking at). Generally a good bet outside of injury (see Bo) of the playing being in that range. The biggest variability is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (3 WAR), Andrés Giménez (2.6), Bo Bichette (2.7), and Daulton Varsho (2.5). IE: if these guys have good years that could add over 5 wins to the Jays total, if they have bad ones it could cost over 5 wins - a 10 win spread in the 'luck' range. The OPS+ for Vlad is 165 vs 127 (yeah, neither would shock me), Gimenez is 123-88, Bo 133-92, Varsho 121 to 83. Of course, if Varsho or Gimenez is in the 120's for OPS+ they have to be MVP contenders with their defense mixed in.

Vlad's 3 most comparable players are Rusty Staub, Zeke Bonura, Rafael Palmeiro - if he plays like Palmeiro from now on he is easily worth that mega deal he wants, but Staub, not so much. Bonura was a player in the 30's whose ML career ended after 1940, but he was still a damn fine player then - wonder if there were personality issues (sent to AA in '41, 1.018 OPS but just 46 games, war cost him 42-45, came back and had killer stats in B/C/D leagues but just 9 games in AAA...weird, have to figure there was a personality issue). Staub had a 6 WAR 170 OPS+ season at 25, 6 WAR 145 OPS+ at 26, 5.9 at 27 (all in Montreal) then never had a 3+ WAR year after that (14 seasons 13.7 bWAR, 119 OPS+) - Montreal had great timing, trading him for a package that included Ken Singleton who in 3 years was a 2.1-5.7-1.5 player before being traded to Baltimore. Still, overall, those 3 don't make me enthused about a long term deal as Palmeiro was caught on PED's, Staub's career was never as good elsewhere as it was in Montreal, and Bonura...well...his career was just weird with how fast it ended.
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scottt - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:14 AM EST (#455239) #
If there are injury concerns, they keep him in the pen and try to avoid having go back to back which is possible with Green, Garcia and Swanson.
For now, that leaves Pop and Nance in the pen because they are out of options.

Seems like a decent upgrade and probably less risky than bringing back Romano.
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SK in NJ - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 10:10 AM EST (#455240) #
Apparently the Orioles still offered Hoffman a contract after backing out of the original deal, just at a lower price than the one they agreed to earlier. The Jays just non tendered a fan favorite presumably because of medical concerns so I doubt they’d be reckless when spending $33M for his replacement. Relievers get hurt all the time so injury risk just comes with the territory. Hopefully it’s not an issue with Hoffman for the next three years.

“How much money do the Jays have left?”

Curious about this as well. They’ve added a shade under $30M to 2025 payroll between Gimenez, Hoffman, Garcia, and Walker, and the CBT hit is higher than that due to Gimenez’s contract. Santander is easily going to be $20M a year or more, and they still need a SP. Just speculation on my part but a team counting pennies isn’t signing Hoffman to this contract. I think they will blow past the 1st tier of the luxury tax. How much so remains to be seen.
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ISLAND BOY - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 11:29 AM EST (#455241) #
As well as the starting pitcher, they also need a power bat. If a deal for Santander doesn't materialize then maybe Alonso might take a one year deal. They got to have someone a bit fearsome to hit behind Vlad. (Providing he doesn't get traded)
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bpoz - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 11:33 AM EST (#455242) #
With Hoffman we have a strong pen on paper. We are also V strong on D. The rotation is not deep in that Gausman, Berrios, Bassitt, Y Rodriguez and B Francis give us only 5 reliable SPs. You generally need 7 in case of injury. Our farm may provide Bloss and a surprise SP. Manoah will recover and rejoin the team at some unknown time next year. Our O has not added any good/established players. The payroll is under the luxury tax threshold which is also V good.

So a lot of great accomplishments to date. A Vlad signing will hopefully happen.
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scottt - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 12:38 PM EST (#455243) #
Gausman, Bassitt and Berrios are reasonably reliable.
You have to worry about the guys who play every days before the back ups. 
Macko should be a possibility behind Bloss. Maybe Bash also. Eric Lauer is a depth starter with a spring training invitation. 
Outside of that, they seem to have a full rotation in Buffalo already.
For the pen, Gowdy, Pardinho and Brock are possibilities.

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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 01:09 PM EST (#455244) #
This bullpen is 3rd overall at best in the division. That's okay, the important thing is they have a better chance to finish games now which was a major issue last year. Now they can try to add to the offense so that there isn't so much pressure on the SP and bullpen to begin with like last year. It's also possible they add another top arm to the bullpen to make it the strongest in the division.

Toronto Top 5
Hoffman
Garcia
Green
Sandlin
Swanson

NYY Top 5
Williams
Weaver
Hamilton
Cruz
Cousins

BAL Top 5
Bautista
Akin
Soto
Cano
Dominguez

BOS Top 5
Hendricks
Chapman
Slatten
Weissert
Bernardino
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 01:24 PM EST (#455245) #
Here are rotations using my dummy anti-analytics analysis:


I'd say NYY and TB take top two spots then it's a wash between BOS, BAL and Toronto after that.

Toronto Top 7
Gausman
Berrios
Bassitt
Francis
Rodriguez
Yesavage
Manoah

NYY Top 7
Cole
Fried
Rodon
Gil
Schmidt
Stroman
?


BAL Top 7
Eflin
Rodriguez
Morton
Kremer
Rogers
Povich
Suarez

BOS Top 7
Crochet
Houck
Bello
Crawford
Bueler
Giolito
Whitlock

TB Top 7
McClanahan
Pepiot
Bradley
Rasmussen
Baz
Littell
?
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Marc Hulet - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 04:04 PM EST (#455246) #
For starting rotations, I'd rank it NYY, BOS (better depth than TB), TB... then a noticeable drop to TOR and BAL - neither of whom have much SP depth.

BAL has a better MLB pen (NYY and BAL have the best pens), the Jays have more reliever depth (higher floor) but the pen has a lower ceiling.
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Gerry - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 05:15 PM EST (#455247) #
It's not a great sign when your number 6 starter has never thrown a professional pitch and your number 7 is out until the second half with surgery.

Jake Bloss is probably number 6.

Gausman, Bassitt and Berrios have been very reliable over the last few years. Is that a feature or luck? It better be a feature for the Jays sake.
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 06:06 PM EST (#455248) #
Yesavage is an MLB pipeline top 100 prospect and I expect him to move up the list when it's updated this month. Bloss needs time in the minors. What do the posters with actual experience with prospects think? Jays want another starter to sign anyway.
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 06:08 PM EST (#455249) #
By actual experience I mean other than myself. Marc, Gerry, ugly if they've played with the Canadians...speaking of which, anybody heard from hyperbole lately?
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Gerry - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 06:40 PM EST (#455250) #
There is very little starting pitching help on the farm.

Other than Bloss, you are looking at a journeyman.

Heads up, the Jays top 30 drops next week. I think Bloss and Adam Macko are the only two starting pitchers who have reached AA on the top 30.
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 06:47 PM EST (#455251) #
Scott Mitchel saying the Jays were at the finish line with Burnes until family considerations changed his decision. If they were that deep with him then they probably weren't plan ing on landing Sasaki.
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John Northey - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:07 PM EST (#455252) #
If they were deep with Burnes it doesn't say a thing about Sasaki or anyone else - basically the Jays want at least 1 more starter and Burnes was the best proven talent available. Any sane team should've chased him. Sasaki is the best bargain available, again every team should chase him hard. Only a fool would think they are guaranteed a player until that player has signed on the dotted line. Last year the Dodgers started to panic when reports of Ohtani going to Toronto emerged until he reassured them he wasn't on those flights - so even the most obvious case of 'we have him' wasn't 100% until that signing happened.

If the Jays had got Burnes they'd still have chased Sasaki then done a trade of Bassitt most likely to open a slot. The cost/risk would've made a ton of sense. Worst case they have 6 ready to go ML starters plus a 7th who is in the pen. A very nice problem to have.
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Petey Baseball - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:11 PM EST (#455253) #
If by the end of January, if this team has signed Sasaki and Santander, plus re-upping Vlad by ST it would be an absolute boon. It’s not likely but from all indications, is possible. I’d like to know what the win projections would for ‘25 with that roster.
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John Northey - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:24 PM EST (#455254) #
Seems Santander isn't thrilled by the Jays offer as he is now open to short term offers it seems. Gotta be annoying for the Jays - ask the guy to make up his mind and he decides to keep hunting. Tim to see if Jurickson Profar (S) is affordable I'd say, Jesse Winker (L) also might be worth looking into. Neither ideal, but both could be a decent bat to mix/match with the kids here. Getting to the beggers can't be choosers stage of the offseason. Flaherty is also doing the 'give me a short term high AAV deal' thing too. Lots of good names on the free agent list - wonder if the Jays will sign any of them? Come February 1st a lot of them will be quite desperate.
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mendocino - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:27 PM EST (#455255) #
https://x.com/N_asty25/status/1875906013452468380

N⚾️@N_asty25

I paid $11 for this information.

Per @francysromeroFR
here are the players expected to sign with the #BlueJays on/after Jan 15.

SS Cristopher Polanco &#127465;&#127476;
SS Juan Sanchez (1 Mil) &#127465;&#127476;
SS Kennew Blanco (600k) &#127483;&#127466;
OF Elian Reyes (260k) &#127465;&#127476;
C Diego Arce (180k) &#127474;&#127485;
RHP Raduan Perez (180k) &#127483;&#127466;
C Josh Gori (165k) &#127483;&#127466;
RHP Guilyerver Rodriguez (110k) &#127483;&#127466;
RHP Alexander Valiente (75k) &#127464;&#127482;

The #Bluejays have a pool of $6,261,600
These contracts (subject to change) add up to $4,870,00
Leaving an estimated $1,391,600 left over.
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mendocino - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:34 PM EST (#455256) #
Polanco 2.3 mil
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bpoz - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 07:37 PM EST (#455257) #
Thanks mendocino.
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:16 PM EST (#455258) #
John, if the Jays were planning to sign Sasaki they wouldnt have risked losing international pool dollars by signing him as it would lessen their offer capital to Sasaki.

The Dodgers for example and backing out of agreements with some of their international prospects so they can increase their offer to Sasaki.
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greenfrog - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:18 PM EST (#455259) #
If I were Atkins/Shapiro, I wouldn’t be thrilled about Santander’s camp leaking that the Blue Jays have made him a contract offer (if that is where the leak originated). I would be tempted to immediately withdraw the offer and then leak that fact to Rosenthal and Passan.
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scottt - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:46 PM EST (#455260) #
Apparently Santander is looking for a deal with opt outs.
That makes it worse for a big market team since they could pay the QO penalty for a one year deal.


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92-93 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:48 PM EST (#455261) #
The Jays are working the order backwards in filling their needs. Defensive 2B, setup RP, and now closer. Hopefully that means power bat and frontline SP are next, be it by trade or free agency.
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Marc Hulet - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 08:57 PM EST (#455262) #
I've been one of the low men on Bloss since the Kikuchi deal. He flew through the minors and reached the majors with Houston out of necessity. There's talent there and he's a very, very smart person (double major while playing baseball in college, masters in finance) and he's reportedly very coachable so he'll get the most out of his abilities...

I've also gone back and watched his MLB starts with Houston to try and see if I'm missing something. But his stuff just isn't that special. He looks to me like a No. 4/5 type. His fastball gets hit hard so it's easier for hitters to lay off the curve, which seems to be his best pitch.

But he's also the closest thing to a No. 6 starter with Macko next. I'd like to see how Eric Lauer does as a 2-3 inning/once-through-the-lineup reliever.
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dalimon5 - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 09:02 PM EST (#455263) #
Thanks Marc
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SK in NJ - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 09:24 PM EST (#455264) #
If Santander wants an opt out, then I think the Jays will pass and move on to someone else.
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John Northey - Saturday, January 11 2025 @ 09:36 PM EST (#455265) #
Thanks mendocino for the info - I'm pretty sure the Jays would risk losing out on Sasaki to lock in someone like Burnes. Also I cannot imagine $500k would make the difference for Sasaki as he seems to be looking long term - he will sign where he feels is best for him for the next 6 years, not where is best for short term cash. If the cash was all that mattered he'd stay in Japan another 2 or 3 years then mega cash in.

The Jays with that $1.391 left over might be in good position to swoop in and take someone who the team that signs Sasaki dumps. The Pirates already committed to a Dodgers pre-signed guy for example. I expect a lot more of that going forward. Teams that put all the eggs into the Sasaki basket will (outside of 1) be in bad shape with IFA's after this month.
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bpoz - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 12:15 PM EST (#455266) #
Regarding the baseball concept "nobody knows anything" I plead guilty. I did not see the Gimenez trade or the Hoffman signing.

I did however suspect the Yimi signing. I am strongly expecting a Vlad extension and a BO trade. If LAD signs Roki then they should have extra SPs that are young but have played in the ML. LAD may want Bo if so, we get a young SP and a bit more. Then we can trade Bassitt which I would expect. We would also save a lot of money.
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John Northey - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 12:20 PM EST (#455267) #
Read elsewhere that Sasaki has asked a former teammate of his about the Jays - James Dykstra. I'm sure I'm not the only one who went 'who'? Had to look the guy up - he was in the Jays minors in 2021, pitched in Rk-A-AA-AAA but just 11 1/3 IP overall. Went to Philly the next year and to Japan where he played with Sasaki. Shows the importance of being good to all players in the system I guess. You never know who will talk with who. If the Jays left a good impression on him then it might pay off handsomely. If not then it might cost them. Odds are we'll never know for sure. Still, good if he is asking about the Jays. Looking deeper at his game logs he first pitched here in AA on May 7th 2021, just 1 game then promoted to AAA for 3 games, back to AA for 3, then out until August 31st and back in rookie (guessing he was hurt), 2 games there, 1 in A, 1 more in AA September 16th and that was it (the 19th appears to have been the final game in AA that year). If the Jays did a solid rehab job on him that'd be a big bonus (fingers crossed).

More realistic things are what to expect in 2025. I am expecting a trade at some point soon (January or February) to get another bat in here to DH while the kids go to battle for LF (Loperfido, Roden, Clase, Schneider, with Schreck and Berroa dark horses in the battle). I suspect Clase and Lukes will be fighting for CF time while Varsho is hurt (could platoon as Clase is a switch hitter). Roden and Loperfido are both LH hitters so whoever wins between them will probably share time with Schneider in LF. I expect a utility infielder to be signed at some point so Jimenez can play everyday in AAA (SS/2B alternating in case Bo gets hurt/traded and to be ready in case Gimenez gets hurt or moves to SS). Wondering if Orelvis Martinez might get a shot at DH if no deals happen - he has a ton of raw power, and maybe being left at DH would let him harness it without thinking so much about fielding.

A lot of those ideas are far from ideal, but at this point of the off-season one has to start assuming what we see is what we'll get. Sucks to not be contending, but the kids could be fun to watch as will Gimenez and Varsho on defense. Gotta look for bright sides.
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Petey Baseball - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 03:58 PM EST (#455268) #
What sense would it make for the Jays to trade Bo? He had an awful year last year and has little value with one year left. I keep hearing the trade Bo stuff and I’d put the over under at 5 percent. It’s just not happening.

If they somehow end up with Santander or Alonso on shorter term deals then add a starter through trade, that will be one hell of an offseason…whether Guerrero Jr. signs an extension or not.
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Marc Hulet - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:22 PM EST (#455269) #
If Bichette comes into camp looking like the Bo of old... and hits well early in the spring, I could see a mid-to-late spring deal. It's an unusual time for a bigger named player to get dealt but stranger things have happened.

But I highly doubt anything happens before he spends time in camp.
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dalimon5 - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:32 PM EST (#455270) #
They would possibly trade Bo because 1. He isn't apparently interested in resigning so try to get future value for him rather than only 1 season's worth and 2. Front Offices have projection systems which likely value Bo as a top player at a premium position available.

Most systems have Willy Adames as a 3.5 - 4 WAR player for 2025 with 25 HR, 80 Runs and 85 RBI (wRC+ 111). Thats coming off his best season at age 28.

Bo is projected for 3.8 - 4 WAR for 2025 with 20 HR, 80 runs and 75 RBI (wRC+ 118). That's coming off his worst season at age 26 with injury.

There just aren't a lot of teams that have a need at SS other than the LAD.



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Michael - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:44 PM EST (#455271) #
Yeah, you should always be willing to trade anyone, but it doesn't make much sense to sell low at start of season. If jays are competitive this year, it makes sense to keep Bo as a good player with health/performance questions after last year. If Bo plays well at the start of season, it helps increase his value by answering any uncertainty, and the jays can deal him if they end up non-competitive. The only real reason to trade him preseason is if the jays aren't going to compete this year and you think Bo is going to suck early in the season which would then decrease his value and have you not get anything.
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:46 PM EST (#455272) #
There is a non-trivial chance that Bo is traded before the season. But I think the most likely scenario is that the team makes a few more additions (bat, SP, RP). Then if the team falls out of contention during the season, Bo and others will be traded at the summer deadline. That approach probably makes the most sense from a baseball and business standpoint.
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dalimon5 - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:48 PM EST (#455273) #
Don't you feel that the Blue Jays can trade Bo Bichette and receive good value back possibly all at the same time continuing to improve their team over last year and finally competing in 2025 I'm not sure why you feel that all of those things are not possible.

New SP signed, Will Wagner, Gimenez and whatever you get back for Bo is greater than Gimenez and Bo and Wagner blocked.
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John Northey - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 04:55 PM EST (#455274) #
My gut is a mid-season trade for Bo and anyone else if the team is out of it, and maybe even if they are in it depending on backup situations (ie: if Jimenez is hitting up a storm in AAA and there is a clear need on the ML team that trading Bo can fill). Will that happen? Unlikely, but it could. Right now the Jays are trying to build up for 2025, free agents are hard to sign, most wanting more than their value as far as the Jays are concerned. Then you have the question of which kids are ready for prime time and which are not and in what roles. A lot of us are counting on Francis being solid, but really, he only had a handful of starts with insanely low BABIP stats. If he actually can keep that up then his value is sky high, but odds are he can't thus is he a mid-rotation type or #5 or lower? Manoah might be a key mid-season addition, or he might miss all of 2025. Lots of questions. Few answers until the bell rings, and even then it will probably take until May to have a decent idea of what is here, June or July to be certain. Btw, did anyone notice Gausman led the AL in complete games and shutouts? 2 and 1, but that is all it took to lead the league. Sigh. I miss the days of Roy Halladay.
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greenfrog - Sunday, January 12 2025 @ 06:44 PM EST (#455275) #
Bichette and Gimenez could produce 6-10 WAR in the middle infield. That would be hard to match without Bichette. Wagner is a nice bench/depth piece to have, though (similar to Biggio in years past). Orelvis could be a factor at some point as well.
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Katie - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 01:23 AM EST (#455276) #
For what it's worth, that useful bench piece's number one ZIPS comparator is Edgar Martinez.

(It's worth basically nothing as it just means a similar hitter and at a similar career stage, not that ZIPS is predicting him to develop like that hitter.)
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:10 AM EST (#455277) #
That is interesting, Katie. It would be wonderful if Wagner turned out to be a valuable full-time player. I guess the question is, are you willing to bet the Blue Jays 2025 season on him being that player? The team could start him in a bench role and then expand his playing time, including at DH, if he continues to perform well. And there will be ample opportunities for playing time in 2026 if Bo departs via free agency (and in 2025 if Bo or Gimenez gets injured).
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Gerry - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:59 AM EST (#455279) #
Ken Rosenthal reports that the Jays hosted Roki Sasaki last weekend in Toronto.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 09:00 AM EST (#455280) #
In the “here we go again” dept., Ken Rosenthal and Andy McCullough of the Athletic just reported:

The Toronto Blue Jays, a silver medalist for one free agent after another the past two offseasons, are trying again.

Club officials last week hosted prized Japanese right-hander Roki Sasaki in Toronto, sources briefed on the meetings told The Athletic.
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Ryan Day - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 09:11 AM EST (#455281) #
There just aren't a lot of teams that have a need at SS other than the LAD.

I'm skeptical that Bo's next contract has him playing SS anyway. He's 26 and basically tops out as "good enough" to play the position. Whoever acquires him, whether via trade or free agency, is likely doing so for his bat, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him at 2B by 2026 at least.

I'd be happy if the Jays swapped him & Gimenez this year, but there are obviously more clubhouse politics in that sort of move. A team with an established shortstop wouldn't have that problem.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 09:33 AM EST (#455282) #
Rosenthal also invested an entire article questioning why Sasaki would even consider Toronto...
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bpoz - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 10:14 AM EST (#455285) #
Some information to digest.

From Aug 1-season end we scored 1 or fewer runs in 7 games. 6 losses. We had a17W-12L August followed by a 7W-17L Sept. But to end the year 2W-10L record which probably made us look worse than we were.

So after the trade deadline we had a good Aug followed by a V bad Sept. We probably were tanking in Sept.
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scottt - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 10:57 AM EST (#455287) #
Not really tanking.

By September, the pen was really bad.
There were trying guys and most looked bad most of the time.
Francis went 4-0 in 5 August starts and 0-2 in 4 September starts.
He still brought his ERA from 3.72 to 3.30 over those 4 losses.

Varsho hit the IL on Sept 12.
Wagner was on fire but cooled down before he hit the IL on Sept 14. 


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92-93 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 10:59 AM EST (#455288) #
I've asked this a couple times, but we'll try again.

Where is this idea coming from that Gimenez can play SS? Has anyone with the Jays hinted as such? Why didn't Cleveland move him there after trading away Lindor?
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Marlow - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 11:15 AM EST (#455289) #
The West coast teams undoubtedly are the favorites to land Sasaki, so I am not getting my hopes up. I am happy that Roki Sasaki got onto a plane to come visit Toronto though, even though last week was the coldest temperatures this winter.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 11:26 AM EST (#455290) #
I can't answer why Cleveland kept Gimenez at 2B other than to think it's because he's so good/elite at 2B that they didn't want to mess with a good thing.

In only 634.1 innings at SS in the majors, Gimenez has accumulated 7 DRS and 8 OAA - both excellent numbers for a player who came up through the minors as a SS.
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Ryan Day - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 12:14 PM EST (#455291) #
Gimenez was regarded as an excellent defender when he was a shortstop prospect, and as Marc points out his stats as a SS in the majors have backed up that reputation. At the time of the trade, Fangraphs described him as not just a shortstop playing second base; he’s a very good shortstop playing second base."

I've been looking for some reason why he wasn't playing SS in Cleveland, and the only things I've found are "he's great at 2B so don't mess with it" and he has only an average arm. So perhaps in some circumstances it would make sense to keep him at 2B, but he's almost certainly the best shortstop in Toronto.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 12:46 PM EST (#455296) #
It's possible the Guardians infield benefitted by having their two best defenders play 3B and 2B in terms of range rather than the entire left side. Having Gimenez at 2B likely helps mitigate the Josh Naylor non defense and cover the SS spread to the left side.

I don't think playing time trumps ability. The guy is a lightning fast vacuum.
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scottt - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 01:28 PM EST (#455297) #
The thing with the Jays is not to negate his range by having him in the shift.
The left side can shift less against lefties since he can cover the right side by himself.
Should be interesting to watch.

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SK in NJ - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:20 PM EST (#455298) #
It is being reported that Jeff Hoffman failed a physical with the Braves as well. Seems very odd that Hoffman both failed a physical (ATL) and got an offer reduced due to medical concerns (BAL), and yet the Jays had no issues giving him $33M. Would be a big gut punch if this is a Kirby Yates situation.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:30 PM EST (#455299) #
Desperate times often results in desperate measures.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:41 PM EST (#455301) #
Will be interesting to see if the Jays have a signing introduction presser for Hoffman as they are likely to be peppered with questions about his health which both the Jays and Hoffman may be eager to avoid.
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uglyone - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:46 PM EST (#455302) #
That is some weak weak stuff from those 2 orgs to leak that face saving stuff about hoffman's medicals.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:53 PM EST (#455303) #
I think it's safe to say that the baseline for reporting has dropped 7 or 8 rungs this year. Click bait and page views are being chased. What are the chances that the Blue Jays spend hundreds of thousands in payroll on medical staff and that all of those experts reviewed the same information as the Braves and Orioles and failed to see a major red flag? To me that's like one surgeon not seeing a fracture that two others saw. I just don't see it happening. All this is is one club being more comfortable spending money than the other two.

What's a lot more likely to me is that Baltimore and Atlanta were looking to stretch Hoffman into a starter or swing man or closer and opener and did not feel comfortable testing the durability of his arm.

Way to much is being made of this, negatively. The LAD took Jack Flaherty after he failed a physical with the NYY and used him to help win the World Series. Too much toxicity around the TBJ coverage. The Jays took SeungHwan Oh after he failed a physical with the Rangers and he pitched fine.

I'd take these reports about the Orioles and Braves a lot more seriously if they had been reported before the player signed with Toronto and not after the fact. Orioles still tried to sign him after the failed physical just for less money. What does that say?
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 02:56 PM EST (#455304) #
Update just in:

"1:50pm: Bowman further reports that the Braves’ offer to Hoffman was a five-year pact valued between $45-48MM total. The idea would have been for Hoffman to pitch out of the rotation in the season’s first few years before a potential move to the ’pen down the road. The lengthy nature of the pact suggests that part of the aim was to tamp down the annual value of the contract and thus reduce the luxury hit."

source: mlbtraderumors
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 03:02 PM EST (#455305) #
per Fangraphs:

"I wouldn’t quite call Hoffman’s arsenal classic, but you’ve seen pitchers who at least strongly resemble him before. He throws a four-seamer in the upper 90s with solid vertical movement and explosive arm-side break. He complements that fastball with a sharp, mid-80s slider. He misses an outrageous number of bats with those two pitches, a solid sinker, and a nasty splitter. Pitch-level models think everything he throws is spectacular. This isn’t a case where some lesser pitcher BABIP’ed and misdirection’ed his way into a year of good stats; Hoffman has clearly been the real deal of late.

From that standpoint, I think that this signing is great. The Jays had a specific need, and they got one of the best pitchers available to start patching things up. I preferred Tanner Scott and Blake Treinen among free agent relievers, but only by a hair, and I think Treinen was always headed back to the Dodgers. In other words, the Jays are shopping at the top of the market here, and that’s definitely a good idea given the depths of their bullpen dysfunction last year and their postseason aspirations in the upcoming season."

"Their bullpen shortcomings mean that Toronto was surely most interested in Hoffman as a reliever all along, but given that starters are more highly compensated than relievers in free agency, you might expect other teams to make larger offers to him for a starting role. In fact, Hoffman and the Orioles reportedly reached a three-year, $40 million deal that fell through thanks to concerns over his physical. It didn’t appear to be a huge disagreement – the Orioles continued to negotiate with revised terms – but I surmise that teams might be skeptical Hoffman can hold up to the rigors of full-time starting.

There will surely always be some risk there. But honestly, I think that’s mostly to the good for Toronto. If teams thought Hoffman could hack it as a starter, he probably wouldn’t be available for three years at $11 million per year, a bargain rate for an elite reliever. Every reliever is an injury risk, and I’m skeptical that teams are so good at anticipating injuries that they can meaningfully distinguish between the different risks associated with otherwise-healthy players; Hoffman didn’t hit the IL at all with the Phillies for whatever that’s worth."

source : https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jeff-hoffman-joins-the-jays/
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 03:38 PM EST (#455306) #
I'm really intrigued by how the US immigration reform will affect MLB - I can imagine a tweet from the guy at the top, " why are we giving visas to all these foreign born players to take high paying American jobs." and the resulting restriction on said visas. If I remember correctly (Big assumption), sometime during the 2016-2020 period US immigration sharply cut the number of visas that was approved for clubs resulting in teams developing young Latin players in Dominican camps for longer periods and being more judicious about which players come stateside.
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uglyone - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 03:43 PM EST (#455307) #
5 x $9m is most likely NOT a "better" bid than 3 x $11m.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 03:54 PM EST (#455308) #
It sounds to me as though the Blue Jays have a legit chance of signing Sasaki. Per MLBTR, the Yankees and Giants have been told they’re out of the running. Apparently the Mets aren’t expected to sign him either.

Maybe 10% chance he signs in TO? Maybe more than that?
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uglyone - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:04 PM EST (#455310) #
Sasaki would be such an amazing perfect add that i have never at any point considered it possible and won't start thinking it is now either.

It would be such a big deal that it could plausibly singlehandedly save the entire shapiro era.

no way it's happening.








unless it is.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:06 PM EST (#455311) #
Sasaki is the #1 free agent in my books going back a long time. He's more valuable than Ohtani, Yamamoto, Soto for the money provided you sign him long term when eligible.

If the Jays got Sasaki this FO instantly becomes legendary and the franchise decidedly stronger on the positive side compared to now where they waver on the fence.
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Michael - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:08 PM EST (#455312) #
It is weird when the signing is basically vibes based and mostly not money due to international signing and bonus pool. I'd imagine a decent part of the Jays presentation might be showing more clips of Varsho and Gimenez and Kirk and others defensive gems, combined with the relative good health of our rotation the last few years, since if you are looking at career value for a young pitcher signing early the most important thing is health and second most important is defense. The Hoffman signing might help also since a terrible bullpen allowing inherited runners to score and/or forcing the starters to go deeper than they should would also be bad for signing.

But yeah, it is always unlikely we'll get a guy, but it would be pretty fantastic if we could.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:10 PM EST (#455313) #
Shapiro/Atkins did remind Sasaki that the American media pays no attention to the Jays, so if he craves anonymity, then the Blue Jays are a good bet. Of course, if Canada's is annexed, then that may change!
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:11 PM EST (#455314) #
Further context: "more valuable" I mean if he signs for the short term entry deal as a minor league free agent and then re-signs for 10+ years after that period. When you look at his next 10-15 years and compare to Ohtani and Soto he will be far more valuable by virtue of his age and career curve. I am not saying Ohtani and Soto are not as good or valuable right now.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:19 PM EST (#455315) #
"Shapiro/Atkins did remind Sasaki that the American media pays no attention to the Jays, so if he craves anonymity, then the Blue Jays are a good bet. Of course, if Canada's is annexed, then that may change!"

Having lived in the United States I can opine confidently that this is untrue. The Jays get the same amount of coverage as any other out of market team save for the New York Yankees and LAD. You act like baseball fans and media in the US are ignorant. They aren't. The only argument you can make is Toronto Blue Jays games are not featured on National TV networks and that is true for every team except for the NYY and LAD.

If you live in the US and like baseball you typically follow the team closest to where you live. People don't follow the Blue Jays in the US typically because they are in another country. Same reason we don't typically follow US teams if we have a Canadian city in the same league. You keep suggesting that media goes out of its way not to pay attention to Toronto. No evidence to suggest this. You can bet your ass if Sasaki goes to Toronto then Rogers will have multi million dollar deals in place to broadcast games to Japan. I find it silly to think a professional baseball player will come play in Toronto because there is no media attention here. He's live in an igloo close the Greenland and take a snowmobile to work.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:22 PM EST (#455317) #
I wonder if the nasty ownership fight in San Diego and the catastrophic fires in LA might spook Sasaki?
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:50 PM EST (#455320) #
That's a fair point for sure.

Also - I left the Cubs out, they are reported to be in the mix as well


Anybody else wondering if it's naive to think that there aren't HUGE offers of $$$ under the table to Sasaki? Sasaki has to do three years as a minor leaguer and then 3 more through arbitration. He will be 29 turning 30 when he is a free agent in 2030. I imagine teams are offering him X amount contract from his age 30-36 seasons now. Example, Rogers offers him a 250 million dollar contract (10 years/25 million) for his age 30 to 40 seasons + kickbacks of Japanese TV deals. This way he makes money now with the broadcast kickbacks and has security for his 30s.

It's been reported and basically confirmed that the Dodgers made half a billion and counting on Ohtani TV rights before the season even made it to the half way point. Sasaki is no Ohtani but it's not hard to imagine Sasaki drawing more eyes than Ohtani in 2-3years when Ohtani starts to decline.

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John Northey - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 04:59 PM EST (#455321) #
Under the table money is prohibited under IFA rules which Sasaki is subject to. Same with guaranteeing him a long term deal now. The Jays (and others) could suggest a long term deal is possible after year one (or whatever the rules allow), but cannot sign or guarantee it today.  The Jays could point out that they were deep in the Ohtani and Soto sweepstakes thus have the cash to do a deal like that vs others like KC and smaller markets he might be looking at (if he indeed is avoiding the biggest US markets).  Also could point out sponsorship deals being possible coast to coast here - and that the owners also own the TV network, cell phone company, cable company, etc. thus TONS of possible ways to cash in outside of raw pay once he reaches the majors 'nudge nudge wink wink' that other clubs might not have available.

I'd still put it at no more than 5% odds (1 in 20) but at least it is growing (vs Yankees & Mets at 0%).
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:03 PM EST (#455322) #
If I'm an international superstar with no direct ties to the US, I'm looking at their political climate, their bullying of other nations, anti-immagration, and thinking, "Do I really want any part of that chaos?"
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:27 PM EST (#455323) #
Toronto is also the only tram left out of the 4 that has history with Asian pitchers AND No current Japanese ace starter to share the spotlight with. That's unique.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:29 PM EST (#455324) #
*team
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mendocino - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:30 PM EST (#455325) #
Jim Bowden on Blair & Barker says Sasaki big on endorsements, if he signs with Jays wouldn't have to compete with Ohtani and Yamamota, would have Canada to himself. Ohtani was always going to LA but impressed with Jays pitch.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:43 PM EST (#455326) #
I think it’s great that the Blue Jays are going all-out to try to sign Sasaki. Are their chances low? Maybe. But as the Great One said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 05:48 PM EST (#455327) #
I argued hard for the Blue Jays to sign Darvish. Same for Ohtani and Yamamoto. I guess I’m doing it again for Sasaki.

This repetition also reminds me of the Japanese proverb, fall down seven times, stand up eight.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:02 PM EST (#455328) #
Just posted on MLBTR (after my BB posts!):

“The Roki Sasaki frenzy is nearing its completion. Several teams have reportedly been told that they won’t be signing the right-hander and now Jeff Passan of ESPN reports that the Dodgers, Padres and Blue Jays are the three finalists.”
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uglyone - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:10 PM EST (#455330) #
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:11 PM EST (#455331) #
I predict Blue Jays shockingly prevail and land him.
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Eephus - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:17 PM EST (#455332) #
I’m as pessimistic as they come with this “Blue Jays are in the running for Player X”… but you gotta think eventually they’re gonna get one of these guys no? I’m not counting on it, but I will be seriously impressed should they land Sasaki.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:30 PM EST (#455333) #
The industry has always felt the Dodgers were the favourites all offseason. 2 days ago the industry consensus changed and the Padres became the favourites.

Darvish is his idol/mentor and may be the difference. I predict the the Padres get him because they are not the Dodgers and he wants the spotlight.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:36 PM EST (#455334) #
CA is a bit of a mess due to climate change and/or fire management issues, plus the Trump-related chaos and stress. Toronto could be a good alternative.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:39 PM EST (#455335) #
Everything I've read about Sasaki is the opposite - that he doesn't want the spotlight... that the media frenzies in Japan drove him crazy. He wants to be the best and everything else is noise.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 06:59 PM EST (#455336) #
SD is not immune to the fires life LA. It's very different from LA. Less media coverage than Toronto and LA. Its quieter and perfect temp all year unlike LA and Toronto.

They also have a stronger farm system than Toronto and good players under control.

Biggest attraction to Toronto would likely be the $$$$ he can earn and less attention than LA or NY. I wonder why he passed on the Cubs but not Toronto.
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scottt - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:08 PM EST (#455337) #
This is a weird process.
Why are there finalists? Normally, it's to have a final chance to up the bids.
In this case? Is this just a way to dramatize his signing or is he presenting demands of some sort?
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:12 PM EST (#455338) #
Scott - that is a good question. Maybe he’s headed to LA and MLB wants it to look like he seriously considered a couple of other teams (so that overprivileged LA doesn’t appear to have been a foregone conclusion).
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:15 PM EST (#455339) #
"With Roki Sasaki yet to inform clubs on where he’s signing, another international prospect has flipped teams days before the start of the international signing period.

Venezuelan outfielder Orlando Patiño, who had been set to sign with the Dodgers, is now planning to sign with the White Sox, Baseball America has learned. Patiño is expected to sign for $570,000, an increase from the $400,000 he was in line to get from the Dodgers prior to Sasaki’s posting.

Patiño is 6-foot-2, 203 pounds and extremely strong for his age with big righthanded power. There isn’t much physical projection left with Patiño, but he already drives the ball with impact in a swing geared to lift the ball. He’s a corner outfielder with a plus arm to fit in right field.

Sasaki’s impending signing has caused ripple effects throughout the international market with the 2025 signing period set to open on Jan. 15. Teams that believe they are still in the mix have told the international players who had committed to sign with them that they still want to sign them. However, those signings would have to wait until after Jan. 15 and might ultimately fall through if the club does sign Sasaki. Many of those agreements are still in place, but it’s a situation that has created more tension in the market and caused trainers and players to consider offers from other teams. Several players committed to teams that have been in consideration for Sasaki have been receiving offers from other clubs and starting tryouts with other teams.

Patiño is the second player the Dodgers have lost from their expected 2025 international class. Darell Morel, a 6-foot-5 shortstop from the Dominican Republic with big lefthanded power, had been set to sign with the Dodgers but is now planning to sign with the Pirates for close to $1.8 million, a bonus that would be around double what he would have received from the Dodgers."

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/white-sox-flip-international-prospect-as-roki-sasaki-decision-looms/
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:18 PM EST (#455340) #
I don't use Twitter or X or any of the social media sites...anybody have visibility on Scott Mitchell's feed? He was the first to be hinting at the Jays being serious front runners for Sasaki over a month ago.
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John Northey - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:22 PM EST (#455341) #
I felt all along the Jays odds of getting Sasaki were very poor, but now I'm starting to get hope...dang it. So many things could be in the Jays favor - the nuttiness in the USA, the wildfires in California, the desire to be away from the insane spotlight LA/NY has, his being down to a final 3 - I suspect he is very respectful to the clubs as a part of who he is. He doesn't want to mess up things for people with no shot. Wouldn't be surprised if he signs on the 15th, or announces who he is signing with then as they work on getting more cap space.

This will be an interesting final step to watch, regardless of the final outcome. The Padres have an ownership mess that could cost them. The Dodgers are super-bright spotlight. The Jays are the quiet place - which sounds weird given they have the biggest local TV audience and more local papers than virtually any US city I think.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:38 PM EST (#455342) #
Mitchell hasn't really posted anything since breaking the news on the connection - other than to basically say "told you so."
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uglyone - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:46 PM EST (#455343) #
can't begrudge a man a quality I told you so tho.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 07:51 PM EST (#455344) #
Basically we’re going to have to wait another few days to a week to find out the outcome.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:08 PM EST (#455345) #
Nightengale (I know, I know) says LA and SD are heavy favourites and that SD is cautiously optimistic they’ll land Sasaki.
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85bluejay - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:13 PM EST (#455346) #
2 IFA prospects have already abandoned the Dodgers to commit elsewhere, so it seems some agents are thinking Dodgers.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:33 PM EST (#455347) #
I suspect Sasaki knows where he wants to go but has a couple teams lined up in case something falls through at the last minute due to the physical (he's had injury issues) or squabbles over the final contract details. Plus the agent could still be making plays for more $$$ - teams can't trade international pool money until Wednesday.

With the uncertainty with the San Diego ownership, I would lean to the Dodgers still being No. 1.
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greenfrog - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:39 PM EST (#455349) #
There has been so much trashing of Toronto and the Blue Jays in the US media in recent months. Everyone is piling on Atkins and Shapiro. I want the organization to get its reputation back (and then some). It’s tiresome always being a runner-up.
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dalimon5 - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 08:42 PM EST (#455350) #
You aren't getting any endorsements in LA. Also one of the worse orgs for pitcher health. If he goes to the Dodgers to be the 4th or 5th starter that's crazy. Padres all the way.
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John Northey - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 09:22 PM EST (#455351) #
The thing that could kill the Padres is the messy ownership issues - if he values stability then that place could be the last he'd want to be. I can see pluses and minuses to each of the 3 finalists. Still, it is fun to see the Jays have a shot at this late point, and outlasting the Yankees and the rest of the AL.
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Marc Hulet - Monday, January 13 2025 @ 10:48 PM EST (#455353) #
I would 100% say Padres but the ownership issues and financial issues are very prominent... they're constantly making deals and then trading off players.

I haven't heard anything about Sasaki craving endorsements until today.

I stick with Dodgers. The recent visit is great news but I remain skeptical that the (desperate) Jays are more than a player to push up the value offered by the Dodgers and Padres.
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Marc Hulet - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 09:23 AM EST (#455357) #
For anyone with an Athletic subscription, there is an excellent background piece on Sasaki, including how he survived a tsunami that took the lives of his father and grandparents.

It also touches on how he threw a ton of pitches as a youth (as many have), a back injury in high school that almost ended his pitching career, and shoulder issues last year.

All of those things above help explain why he decided to come to the MLB early and turn away from potentially receiving $500M deals in 2 years. Life is short and there are no guarantees in baseball.
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uglyone - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 10:41 AM EST (#455360) #
Scott Mitchell @ScottyMitchTSN · 17m The trail of Sasaki bread crumbs I’ve been following for years includes Frank Herrmann.

unfortunately this makes me a bit cyncial - that kind of connection could well explain why Sasaki gave the jays a courtesy call, while not actually meaning that he wants to come here.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 11:08 AM EST (#455362) #
Jays likely just being used for leverage as a good landing spot with good money and lots of endorsements but not LA...

There is a theory from a newish blog that the Jays are being given more credit by Sasaki because of their familiarity and success as an organization with the splitter.

https://jayscentre.com/news-rumors/toronto-blue-jays/a-theory-sasakis-splitter-kept-the-blue-jays-in-the-running-r2244/
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Ryan Day - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 11:32 AM EST (#455363) #
If Sasaki's agent was just trying to drive up the bidding - which is pretty limited as far as guaranteed money to begin with - there'd be no reason to tell the Yankees, Cubs, and Rangers they're out.

After the past two off-seasons, I imagine most other teams just start laughing when someone says they have a "serious offer" from Toronto.
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ISLAND BOY - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 11:53 AM EST (#455364) #
As Marc Hulet mentioned, when Sasaki was 9 years old the was an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter Scale with a resulting tsunami in the region where he lived. Around 18,000 people were killed in the disaster so maybe Sasaki might be wary of going to an area where wildfires are common and earthquakes can happen. I thought it would be a slam-dunk that the Dodgers would end up getting him, but now I'm not so sure.
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SK in NJ - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 11:56 AM EST (#455365) #
I don’t think this is a leverage play. For one thing it’s international money so the difference in his signing bonus will probably be negligible, and secondly as mentioned if he wanted to use teams as leverage for whatever reason then the Yankees or Mets would have made more sense. There’s really no reason for Sasaki to use the Jays for anything.

I still think he ends up with one of the Cali teams, but the Jays getting this far is likely due to whatever they presented to him.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 11:56 AM EST (#455366) #
Is this the most fascinating free agency pursuit ever? Reminds me a lot about Tanaka and Darvish pursuits when it was relatively new territory.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 12:02 PM EST (#455367) #
I wasn't thinking that the Jays would be used as leverage in terms of money, though I do think that money is a big part of this beyond baseball salary. I was thinking about a team being used as leverage to try to get more asks and guarantees from your actual desired destination. Playing time, rest, personal catcher etc.

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greenfrog - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 12:25 PM EST (#455370) #
I think Sasaki is going to have pretty much all his requests granted, and that all this has already been discussed and worked out.

Teams 2 and 3 are likely just backup in case things somehow go sideways in the next week with team #1.
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Marlow - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 12:34 PM EST (#455371) #
I think San Diego is likely the team to beat. From Jeff Passon's article, it said that after visiting Toronto, he went to visit San Diego on the weekend. Yu Darvish is there and will be a good mentor to him, as he learns to adapt to the North American culture and probably will be a resource to help him to process the tsunami trauma.
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greenfrog - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 12:44 PM EST (#455372) #
If Darvish proves to be the deciding factor for Sasaki, San Diego’s decision to sign Darvish to a six-year contract in 2023 will have been well worth it.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 01:00 PM EST (#455373) #
greenfrog, if your Sasaki, where do you think you start for the Dodgers in the playoffs?

Snell
Yamamoto
Glasnow
Gonsolin/Sasaki
* Ohtani returns and Sasaki becomes a 4/5 starter?
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 02:46 PM EST (#455374) #
Sasaki meeting the Dodgers on today which includes their players. Reports say Manny Machado and Yu Darvish were part of the Padres meeting over the weekend. I wonder if the Jays had any players over the weekend meet Sasaki for the pitch and if so which ones.
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Marlow - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 03:41 PM EST (#455376) #
The Jays do not have anyone of note committed beyond 2026. I am guessing that Springer and Gausmann probably would jump in if asked. Vlad Jr, who knows his level of English. Bo is a definite no. Reading between the lines, Scott Mitchell seems to suggest that Frank Hermann has that relationship with Sasaki established back in 2020/2021 when Sasaki was a rookie. We can only hope that Sasaki looked up to Hermann as a mentor back then.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 03:56 PM EST (#455377) #
Osuna also was teammates with Sasaki. Foul Territory today talked about Kikuchi having very positive experiences with the Blue Jays and Toronto.
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John Northey - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 04:31 PM EST (#455379) #
For the Dodgers Sasaki would be the #5 starter, and come playoff time he'd be in long relief - baring injuries which the Dodgers get plenty of (FanGraphs has 3 TJ's and 2 shoulder injuries on their roster right now) Ouch.

Plus, of course, the Dodgers are expected to resign Clayton Kershaw at some point.  They could have a 6 or 7 man rotation without Sasaki.  For MLB's sake it is far better if he signs anywhere else.  Of course, that means here or SD.

FYI: FG has their  2025 International Prospect Rankings and Scouting Reports up - Sasaki at a 65, no one else over 45+.  Top Jays pick is Crisopher Polanco at #8 (SS 17 years old, 45, $2.5 mil).  Then #28 Juan Sanchez (SS 17.3 years old, 40, $1 mil).  That's it for their top 50. Of course, international rankings are a massive crapshoot as these kids are super-young and few have faced anything like they'll see in the pros.  FWIW SD has #15 Deivid Coronil (SS 17.3 yrs old, 40+, $900k) and #27 Jhoan De La Cruz (SS 17.2 yrs, 40 $2 mil). The Dodgers have no one on the top 50 list.  So the Dodgers clearly have the biggest incentive right now (zero backup plan if they fail to sign him - they already lost 2 possible guys they were going to sign, neither in the top 50).  I suspect the Jays and Padres will both try to get Sasaki to sign for less with the promise of more cash coming so they can sign others as well.  I'd hate the Jays to lose a top 10, but would happily do so to get #1. FYI: they had Vlad as a 45 before he signed, ranked #4 - Yadier Alvarez was #1, a pitcher last seen in AA in 2022.  Juan Soto was #20, rated a 40, Fernando Tatis, Jr. unranked but one of many 35's - 3 WOW players but just 1 ranked in the top 10.  So yeah, this is a major crapshoot.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 05:29 PM EST (#455380) #
Before the ink, before the cheer,
The silence hums, the moment near.
Roki waits, with quiet grace,
A storm of dreams in one bold place.

The whispers rise, the rumors swarm,
The calm before the signing storm.
A future carved in every line,
As Roki’s name, the stars align.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 05:31 PM EST (#455381) #
"make me a poem about calm before the storm signing Roki Sasaki"
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Michael - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 05:44 PM EST (#455382) #
In the land where the maple leaf proudly sways,
We dream of glory for our Toronto Blue Jays.
This offseason hums with electric thrill,
As whispers of Roki drift over the hill.

A phenom from Japan, just twenty-three,
With a blazing fastball that defies gravity.
He carved his name in the NPB sky,
A perfect game to make legends sigh.

The Dodgers and Padres loom in the fight,
Yet we dare to hope under Toronto's light.
For what is baseball without the bold?
A game where hearts chase dreams untold.

Imagine the mound at Rogers Centre’s heart,
Roki in blue, a brand-new start.
With Vlad and Bo, our cornerstone crew,
What heights could this team pursue?

Locking up Bichette and Guerrero's fire,
Building a dynasty to inspire.
Roki’s arm paired with our northern pride,
Could turn the tide, the doubters defied.

So we wait, and we dream, as fans often do,
Of championships painted in royal blue.
Come to the Six, Roki, hear our plea,
And carve your name in Jays’ history.

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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 07:30 PM EST (#455383) #
I used chatGPT
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JB21 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 07:47 PM EST (#455384) #
We can tell.
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Michael - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 08:44 PM EST (#455385) #
Yeah, so did I dalimon5. My prompt was:

Roki Sasaki is a 23 year old Japanese professional baseball starting pitcher who is coming from the NPB to sign to a major league team this offseason as an international free agent. The three final teams in consideration are LA Dodgers, SD Padres, and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays are probably the longest shot of the three, but they are the team we are all fans of and want to root for. Make a poem about the anticipation waiting to sign Sasaki, and if useful bring in any of his past history, or any thoughts of success for the Jays in the near future, or how this might pair with their other offseason moves or with signing either Vlad Guerrero Jr or Bo Bichette or both long term.
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dalimon5 - Tuesday, January 14 2025 @ 09:00 PM EST (#455386) #
Michael I assumed your post was real. Couldn't remember if the poems from another thread were in the same thread as the ChatGPT talk or separate.
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