Blue Jays sign Smoak to 1 year $1 million deal

[Spoonovic]

The club saved $2million by choosing to not tender Justin Smoak as his salary was likely going to be $3million after arb.

 

Discuss.

[Atothe]

Good deal is good

[L54]

I like this. The only non-tender I really wanted to keep.

[Chappy]

Very ninja like.

[Travis_Snider]

nice

[Mikeleelop]

something I think AA will be praised for universally

[Captain Adama]

No risk moderate reward.

[G-Snarls]

Great signing

[JaysAllMighty]

I like it, he was a first round draft so high ceiling is still possible. Cheap gamble.

[Jimcanuck]

AA top 5 GM

 

Smoak knows this might be his final chance... this could be good

[G-Snarls]

Chances he starts the 2015 season as our everyday 1B?

[burlingtonbandit]

Great job to save 2 milllion bucks there. If he doesn't work out you can always DFA him in the season. Pretty much no risk very high reward.

[Jimcanuck]

Chances he starts the 2015 season as our everyday 1B?

 

Sharing with Valencia and EE. Rotating players through DH role.

[Chappy]

Chances he starts the 2015 season as our everyday 1B?

 

Fairly high IMO. I think AA will go after a LF and/or 2B before addressing 1B. Smoak just has to be league average and this is a win.

[Stangstag]

http://i.imgur.com/lKvgfEK.gif

[GD]

AA continuing to show he's not stoopid anymore. I like this, very nice pickup and we saved $2M.

[TDotttt2005]

This is good. Very good. He'll hit well in the RC.

[Stangstag]

Hopefully he smoaks some balls out of the park for us this year.

 

Hehe....

 

I'll show myself out

[glory]

Good signing. I wonder why he couldn't negotiate a deal with Estrada in the same way.

[L54]

Fairly high IMO. I think AA will go after a LF and/or 2B before addressing 1B. Smoak just has to be league average and this is a win.

 

Yup a Smoak/Valencia platoon isn't the worst thing. Focus on LF/2B/BP.

[Angrioter]

Some Mexican posted another Smoak thread in the OTF

[LongTimeReader]

I hope he's on a very short leash, like 3-4 weeks max. Smoak was really really bad last year. BABIP was not much lower from his career BABIP either.

[TwistedLogic]

I kept thinking to myself that this might be in the cards; that they had determined with the player(s) ahead of time that they'd be able to re-sign them to a smaller dear shortly after non-tendering them, but then what confuses me is why didn't they simply do one of those "Jays avoid arbitration with Smoak" deals instead? I guess they were still negotiating? I guess that's neither here nor there at this point, good depth signing. Hoping they still find someone else to slot ahead of him, but if they can work something out in LF/2B, then it's not the worst thing in the world.

[LongTimeReader]

^AA doesn't have time for that s***, he's got just over 2 months until ST and plenty of Falafels to eat in the mean time.

[Chappy]

I kept thinking to myself that this might be in the cards; that they had thought of non-tendering them, and having a pre-determined agreement to work something out right away. What confuses me though is why didn't they simply do one of those "Jays avoid arbitration with Smoak" type deals before unnecessarily non-tendering him? I guess they were still negotiating?

 

Could have been working on a trade as well and didn't want to commit just yet. M

[RIPEXPOS]

If Smoak is our DH, I don't think it'll be in a platoon.

 

Our bench is very right handed heavy, as is our lineup, and I think that tells me that the plan is to have Pompey and Goins as our everyday CF and 2B.

[TwistedLogic]

Speaking of 2B, why has Rickie Weeks gotten essentially 0 mention or speculation so far? I feel like he could be a great fallback option to consider. Fangraphs crowd projected him for a 2/12 deal and he seems to have rebounded pretty well with the bat this past season. His defense is still pretty bad and he's always K'd a lot, but hell, at that price tag, if you can throw down a 120 wRC+, I'll take it.

 

Edit: Though he's right-handed; I don't think that should be a deterrent, but I get that the Jays FO is looking for lefties.

[LongTimeReader]

Speaking of 2B, why has Rickie Weeks gotten essentially 0 mention or speculation so far? I feel like he could be a great fallback option to consider. Fangraphs crowd projected him for a 2/12 deal and he seems to have rebounded pretty well with the bat this past season. His defense is still pretty bad and he's always K'd a lot, but hell, at that price tag, if you can throw down a 120 wRC+, I'll take it.

 

Because he looks like a hobo

[canadiansportsjunkie]

What's not to like here?

 

AA has been great throughout his time here, but I truly believe he has officially been able to have power and not someone behind him talking in his ear...

 

He's the guy who took a chance on Joey and Edwin for 1 million why not? Jeez I want one Million maybe I can be a star too AA

[TwistedLogic]

Yeah this is the first time it's ever felt like AA has been free to do whatever he wants.