Melky asking for$50 million. Jays offerred him 3 years $39 million

[xposbrad]

I think you're really handcuffing the payroll with that signing. Melky isn't quite worth that money. He's probably only a 2 win guy next year and 1.5 the year after.

 

This isn't your wallet. With the 32 year old Martin signing, JB heading into his late 30s, this club has no choice. They have to win this year/next, otherwise they have to retool without EE/JB. I don't see him declining for 2-3 years, he's gotten himself into shape after surgery, and he's only 30. Rogers wants to go all in, otherwise they wouldn't have signed Martin.

[Deadpool]

The thing is, if Navarro gets traded, Melky can DH some of the time. He's in LF, so it's not like we need him to play CF or SS.

 

But we need someone to play LF, that's the whole point of getting Melky. If he can't play LF then he's sort of useless to us as an everyday player.

 

Also, you can't say "you know what you get with Melky" and then use a 1 year sample size. He was pretty bad in 2013, probably mostly due to injury, but who's to say he's not injured again? Melky isn't a guy I'd be comfortable at more than 3 years, $13M AAV, and that's pretty much about the high end of where I think he helps the team more than hurting them by taking payroll away that could be used on better pieces.

[Angrioter]

This isn't your wallet. With the 32 year old Martin signing, JB heading into his late 30s, this club has no choice. They have to win this year/next, otherwise they have to retool without EE/JB. I don't see him declining for 2-3 years, he's gotten himself into shape after surgery, and he's only 30. Rogers wants to go all in, otherwise they wouldn't have signed Martin.

 

Martin, Stroman, Hutchison, Norris, Sanchez, Pompey, Osuna, Hoffman = Tons of Wins from now until the end of the times.

[Angrioter]

This isn't your wallet. With the 32 year old Martin signing, JB heading into his late 30s, this club has no choice. They have to win this year/next, otherwise they have to retool without EE/JB. I don't see him declining for 2-3 years, he's gotten himself into shape after surgery, and he's only 30. Rogers wants to go all in, otherwise they wouldn't have signed Martin.

 

(Saunders + tons of dollars + pick #30's - Happ - prospect >>>>> (Melky - tons of dollars - pick #30's + prospect

[z3r0s]

Saunders is the type of guy to bet on as well. Nice career walk rate, getting out of Safeco could help the power. I like it.

[RealAccountant]

AA has been quite decent as of late, I think based on Martin only earning 7Million next year, he has got other moves in mind. In Melky's case he may just be waiting for Melky to return to his price range. Melky will go out into the market and maybe realize that the Jays offer of 3/39 is the best that he can do. I would love to have Melky back at say 3/42 or maybe 3/39 with an option.

[Sammy225]

There is a lot of options out there that i think are better than Melky...... From the FA market you could go with Hunter, Aoki, or my personal favorite Denorfia.... All for a fraction of the cost that it would take to get Melky here with better D and great on Base Capabilities.

 

The other option is to go via the trade route with either Happ or Navarro being expendable. Happ + a B Prospect may land you Saunders.

 

Lots of other options out there that would cheaper then Melky and would not loose you as many games.

[xposbrad]

But we need someone to play LF, that's the whole point of getting Melky. If he can't play LF then he's sort of useless to us as an everyday player.

 

Also, you can't say "you know what you get with Melky" and then use a 1 year sample size. He was pretty bad in 2013, probably mostly due to injury, but who's to say he's not injured again? Melky isn't a guy I'd be comfortable at more than 3 years, $13M AAV, and that's pretty much about the high end of where I think he helps the team more than hurting them by taking payroll away that could be used on better pieces.

 

Look at Martin's stats from 2009-2013, and then look at how hard half the board is that we signed him. Melky's bad 2013 is due to injury, he's stated it and you could even see in his running/hustle last year. What was Martin's 2009-2013 due to? Injury also?

[TwistedLogic]

It feels like there's a lot more really good value options out there this year than most offseasons. I've got my favorites as usual, but I understand that there's some nice potential for under-the-radar moves out there right now (like the Travis trade) so I'm hoping that even if the Jays don't go after one of our favorites, they are still able to repair some of the chronic holes on the diamond, namely 2B.

 

In terms of preferences, I'm with JFaS on Saunders/Headley. You can't get better value for cost than what those two players are probably going to take to acquire. With Saunders, you already know that Seattle has soured on him for whatever reason and he comes with the free added bonus of maple-boner. There's also no way in my mind that Headley makes what he's actually worth in free agency. I believe that he'll be the ultimate moneyball player for this offseason. The Blue Jays should feel even better about him than others, because they have very recent experience with a good player rebounding after a season where he dealt with serious back issues. And Headley was worth 4.4 WAR in a down year.

 

In terms of pitching, this is the third year in a row where I'm throwing my chips at McCarthy, and I still see Kennedy as a good trade target. If they can't get someone on the higher end like that, I think they should just allocate the resources elsewhere and go with what they've got in-house. There's enough pitching depth in this organization now where you can optimistically hope for a decent 5 to emerge from the pile.

[Angrioter]

Bautista and Milky are training together ----> http://instagram.com/p/vjCJ3fGmHt/

 

f*** NO

[BallsDeep]

I'll be pumped if he's back. Average D but one of the top pure hitters in baseball. Its obvious Jbau and Edwin love him.

[xposbrad]

Rogers is rich, we can sign Melky. You guys need to stop complaining about him.

[Vdubfan]

Rogers is rich, we can sign Melky. You guys need to stop complaining about him.

 

The problem is you clearly don't understand how baseball works. And you use batting average as the only way of measuring a baseball players value.

[TwistedLogic]

Look at Martin's stats from 2009-2013, and then look at how hard half the board is that we signed him. Melky's bad 2013 is due to injury, he's stated it and you could even see in his running/hustle last year. What was Martin's 2009-2013 due to? Injury also?

 

If you look at the advanced statistics, he was excellent from 2009-2013. Not only were his numbers good as is, Russell Martin is one of the top players in the game when it comes to hidden value. So much of what he adds to the team isn't currently factored into the numbers that you see on a stat page. Aside from his elite level framing (where he can pull "balls" into the zone and trick the umpire into calling "strikes"), he's also high on intangibles, where he's considered to be a really good game caller, a clubhouse leader, someone who is in excellent shape (he's actually trained with GSP), and in spite of all the maple-boner jokes, he is Canadian.

 

Something else that isn't very much talked about, is that Russell Martin is somewhat of a chameleon. Throughout the past several seasons, he's significantly altered his approach to fit the ballpark in which he's played. In 2011 with the Yankees, he posted the lowest GB% and second highest FB% of his career, an approach fitting of that backyard bandbox joke of a ballpark. In 2014 in Pittsburgh, a park that slaughters players of his profile (right-handed pull hitters), he completely flipped his approach, developing a sudden and incredible ability to use the rest of the field, evidenced by these wRC+ splits:

 

http://i.gyazo.com/f215a42077321d6ab0f6b541d5044299.png

 

Coming to the Rogers Center, a stadium in which righty pull-hitters thrive, it will be interesting to see if he can adjust once again, reverting to his older pull profile, or if he continues to use the opposite field as much as he did.

[Angrioter]

Rogers is rich, we can sign Melky. You guys need to stop complaining about him.

 

Hermano, you must focus on reality. We're building a 135-145 M roster, let Melky walk. 13 AAV = Headley?

[Deadpool]

Look at Martin's stats from 2009-2013, and then look at how hard half the board is that we signed him. Melky's bad 2013 is due to injury, he's stated it and you could even see in his running/hustle last year. What was Martin's 2009-2013 due to? Injury also?

 

Melky from 2009-2013 7.3 fWAR (with 2 seasons of negative fWAR), Martin from 2009-2013 12.1 fWAR (with 0 seasons of negative fWAR).

[TwistedLogic]

Melky from 2009-2013 7.3 fWAR (with 2 seasons of negative fWAR), Martin from 2009-2013 12.1 fWAR (with 0 seasons of negative fWAR).

 

And that doesn't even count for his framing, which probably add a couple of wins on top of that.

[TwistedLogic]

Try 12. 113.1 runs from 2009-2013 by BP.

 

I'm with the fangraphs writers that think that the current framing numbers are a bit exaggerated. Still, even in the most conservative sense, if you even cut those numbers by half, 6 wins from framing is tremendous.

[RealAccountant]

I don't see any logic to "think" they are exaggerated. The value of an extra strike over a ball is easily calculable and the skill of doing this is one of the fastest stabilizing skills in baseball.

 

This makes a lot of sense to me. How do they determine how one catcher gets a strike call over another. Like whats the mechanism behind differentiation.

[BigBounceyBlueBalls]

Question: can we do or afford to do the following, can you sign Suzuki and Denorfia to 5-7 million dollar minor league contracts with invites to spring training? Depth for minors if they don't make it or depth in the minors case pompey can't go to start or injuries happen?

 

Can you ever do this? Rule preventing it? Would both players be open to it?

[TwistedLogic]

Regressed Probabilistic Model with PitchFX with umpires, count, pitch type, batter height, batter side, and pitcher "framability" accounted for.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22934

 

Was looking for something like this.

[RealAccountant]

I always felt jays were foolish and short with Jose Molina. I rememeber back in 09/10 how much better Morrow, Romero, Cecil would pitch with Jose Molina vs. JPA or John Buck. This confirms it.

[jays76]

I got a feeling the Melkman will be back and 3yrs at $45mil (if it goes that high) wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Jays are going for it with this brief window it looks like..

[TwistedLogic]

I got a feeling the Melkman will be back and 3yrs at $45mil (if it goes that high) wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Jays are going for it with this brief window it looks like..

 

The point is that they could do so much better with that money regardless. If you can get a guy like Saunders for cheap in a trade, LF is covered, and then you can afford to spend that money in the free agent market, going after someone like Headley. Even if you can't get Saunders, with 50M on the open market you can probably bring in something like Lowrie (3/24?), Neshek (2/10?), Aoki (2/10?) and maybe even a Frasor (1/5?).

[jays76]

The point is that they could do so much better with that money regardless. If you can get a guy like Saunders for cheap in a trade, LF is covered, and then you can afford to spend that money in the free agent market, going after someone like Headley. Even if you can't get Saunders, with 50M on the open market you can probably bring in something like Lowrie (3/24?), Neshek (2/10?), Aoki (2/10?) and maybe even a Frasor (1/5?).

 

I would agree with you if we didn't sign Russell Martin, I get what you're saying with the value portion and spreading the money around but for me that signing signified we are going for it now. I realize there's a lot of critics with Melk's defense but I thought he played really well last year and it was a great bounce back after getting healthy. The length isn't bad at 3yrs and the money isn't outrageous, we're in a critical time right now to go for it with JB & EE in their prime.