Offseason Roster Thread (2020-2021)

[Orgfiller]

Sugano has too much risk for me. If we had a stable rotation, maybe. Didn't Yamaguchi lead the NPB in strikeouts lol? Guy was throwing poo last year. Pitchers without velo are scary. What if he can't get comfortable with the MLB ball or something.

 

I would not be comfortable with 3/5ths of the rotation being Sugano/Ray/Roark. That's potentially very bad.

 

There are a lot more proven MLB names still out there. I mean, you can keep signing low-ish AAV guys but eventually you've just filled the rotation with a lot of meh.

 

Yamaguchi's NPB numbers don't hold a candle to Sugano's, that's the point. Furthermore, Yamaguchi's strikeout numbers actually did translate lol, he struck out over a batter an inning. I'm not sure it's even entirely fair to put the shortened season performance against him. He had the worst possible series of outcomes occur for someone making the NPB to MLB transition, it's not entirely surprising a guy wouldn't adapt well under those circumstances.

 

Also who said Sugano has low velo?

 

Here he is throwing 92-95 over a start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AkaFQf8wsU

[Jays24]

I agree....Kim and Paxton please......Bauer too if that's not too greedy..lol.

 

I see us only going after one more legitimate starter unless we have plans to make a trade. Feel the rotation is set otherwise.

 

1/2 Ryu and ?

3 Pearson

4 Ray

5 Stripling/Roark (whoever has the better spring takes the spot)

[saskjayfan]

Jeff Passan on Tim and Sid said that he would pick the Jays landing Springer. There is enough mutual interest on both sides to make it happen. Just need to avoid a team coming in and offering enough to change things.

 

That's sounds like the Jays are in at serious numbers and Springer is waiting to see if a team he'd rather play for matches or comes close, but he would go to the Jay if that offer doesn't materialize.

[saskjayfan]

I see us only going after one more legitimate starter unless we have plans to make a trade. Feel the rotation is set otherwise.

 

1/2 Ryu and ?

3 Pearson

4 Ray

5 Stripling/Roark (whoever has the better spring takes the spot)

 

I'd rather not see Roark or stripling in the rotation. Ray might not regain form. Injuries happen. 2 more starters for me.

[G-Snarls]

If they cram in 162 games I bet a lot of teams frequently use a 6th starter

 

That said I tjink a 162 game season is unlikely

[Orgfiller]

Well how much less is he going to get than Paxton, Kluber, Odorizzi, Tanaka, Richards, Quintana etc? I read something like 3/30M? Much rather a MLB guy for that money. They're all on the downside of the aging curve, it's not like you expect Sugano to get better. Don't have to worry about them learning hitters, or gripping his splitter, or chemistry with a non-english speaking catcher, etc.

 

Look at what Yamaguchi had to go throw as you noted, but isn't that also unfortunately a legit concern?

 

 

Guy couldn't throw anything. Had a good K/9 because the innings never ended. Look at that obscene 4 seamer, no velo or spin. Had like a .450 xwoba. I'm guessing he didn't want to throw that many fastballs but he had to because of the above.

 

Like I said, maybe if we had a stable rotation. But you're fine with Ryu-___-Sugano-Ray-Roark?

 

I don't see why we'd stop at Sugano. I'm not saying he should be our key SP acquisition, but that he could be a very good one. I'm not sure how the foreign market is right now but 3/30 would seem like a pretty decent gamble. Are any of those other guys you mentioned even that exciting at 3/30? I want nothing to do with Roark in our rotation, and Ray is probably 5 bad starts away from being moved to the bullpen as a post-opener/long reliever, although he should probably get the chance to make those 5 starts.

 

Why would signing Sugano limit us from going after a Paxton, Tanaka, etc. Obviously I'd much rather have Bauer than most combinations of those guys but if he's off the table and we're not trading for someone like Sonny Gray then we're gonna have to get creative to fill in the rest of the rotation so we don't have trash like Roark at the end of it.

[Olerud363]

If they cram in 162 games I bet a lot of teams frequently use a 6th starter

 

That said I tjink a 162 game season is unlikely

 

I can't see there not being 162 games. The owners want 100 games to reduce costs and delay until fans can come back. The players want 162. The contract says 162. It's been proven sports can go on in the middle of COVID (NFL right now, NBA in a few days). So what legal argument do the owners have for shutting it down?? Last time most everything was legally shut down, but this time that isn't the case.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue they _should_ play, or it is even a good idea, if COVID is at this level April, just saying I don't see a legal way for the owners to stop it.

[Jimcanuck]

But you're fine with Ryu-___-Sugano-Ray-Roark?

 

Ryu - Pearson - Richards (?) - Sugano - Ray would be fine with Stripling, Roark and ? for depth, given the power of the offence.

[Olerud363]

I can't see there not being 162 games. The owners want 100 games to reduce costs and delay until fans can come back. The players want 162. The contract says 162. It's been proven sports can go on in the middle of COVID (NFL right now, NBA in a few days). So what legal argument do the owners have for shutting it down?? Last time most everything was legally shut down, but this time that isn't the case.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue they _should_ play, or it is even a good idea, if COVID is at this level April, just saying I don't see a legal way for the owners to stop it.

 

I guess the owners point would be that without fans there isn't enough money to pay those salaries and they could declare some type of emergency.

 

How are NFL and NBA paying the salaries?

[Ray]

Sugano has too much risk for me. If we had a stable rotation, maybe. Didn't Yamaguchi lead the NPB in strikeouts lol? Guy was throwing poo last year. Pitchers without velo are scary. What if he can't get comfortable with the MLB ball or something.

 

I would not be comfortable with 3/5ths of the rotation being Sugano/Ray/Roark. That's potentially very bad.

 

There are a lot more proven MLB names still out there. I mean, you can keep signing low-ish AAV guys but eventually you've just filled the rotation with a lot of meh.

 

I’m not saying Yamaguchi is good, but 15 of the 23 runs he gave up all season were condensed in 3 separate outings. He had a stretch there where he looked like a good long man, but the blowups were mega bad and skewed his numbers a bit.

[Jimcanuck]

I wouldn't even waste a roster spot on Roark lol. Pearson's gonna throw like 50 innings max next year.

 

Ryu - ____ - _____ - Ray - Sugano - Stripling - Pearson.

 

Obviously you'd have to relax on position player spending.

 

If you are paying Roark throw him out there when the game is out of reach, abuse his arm to the max

 

Pearson closer to 100 innings IMO

[G-Snarls]

I guess the owners point would be that without fans there isn't enough money to pay those salaries and they could declare some type of emergency.

 

How are NFL and NBA paying the salaries?

 

Not sure

 

But NBA and NHL are both going to play fewer games this year

 

They had the playoffs months later than usual so they don't have much choice I suppose

 

Baseball OTOH started late but ended close to the usual time

[G-Snarls]

A shorter season but with fewer off days and more double headers to keep the game count up would definitely increase the strain on pitching and require larger rosters and more frequent use of 6 person rotations

[Laika]

Yamaguchi was significantly worse in NPB than Sugano:

 

(Sugano on the right)

 

3.75 vs 2.63 RA9

0.8 vs 0.6 HR/9

2.54 vs. 4.58 K/BB

1.24 vs. 1.03 WHIP

 

Sugano has never had a BB/9 over 2.1. Gooch never had one below 2.7.

Completely different pitcher archetypes. Sugano is a pure SP who can pitching and control the zone.

Gooch wasn't even a starter his entire career in Japan; he is a pitcher with shotgun command but effective secondaries (at least they were in Japan).

 

It's silly to try to project a player based on one comp anyway, but if you're going to you don't just comp two completely different types of pitchers.

 

It's silly to look at positive comps too but at least Sugano's numbers are a lot closer to Maeda or Tanaka's in NPB.

Note that even Kikuchi's career NPB stats are worse at a glance than Sugano's...

[Laika]

Sugano and all the recent Japanese pitchers to come over. NPB stats.

 

Is it possible he has the best command profile of any of them?

 

[Laika]

When MikeM says "there are a lot more proven MLB arms out there" I don't think he realizes how quickly the SP list thins out. To me it's Bauer, big gap, Tanaka and the risky Paxton, big gap, and then a bunch of players who you can clearly prefer Sugano to consider cost.

[Jays24]

I'd rather not see Roark or stripling in the rotation. Ray might not regain form. Injuries happen. 2 more starters for me.

 

Oh I totally agree but we're already paying Roark 12 million so we're stuck there. I'd bank on Stripling more but we have to hope one of them has a bounce back year. I believe both will be in a contract year so there's always a chance.

[G-Snarls]

Oh I totally agree but we're already paying Roark 12 million so we're stuck there. I'd bank on Stripling more but we have to hope one of them has a bounce back year. I believe both will be in a contract year so there's always a chance.

 

At least one of Ray/Roasrk/Stripling should have a bounce back year

[Jays24]

At least one of Ray/Roasrk/Stripling should have a bounce back year

 

I think we'll be counting on 2 of them as our 4 and 5 starters. The odd man out goes to the bullpen to be our long guy/6th starter

[G-Snarls]

I think we'll be counting on 2 of them as our 4 and 5 starters. The odd man out goes to the bullpen to be our long guy/6th starter

 

Agreed

 

I susoect we'll get someone to fill out the top 3 with Ryu and Pearson and rely on these 3 to fill the back end

[Orgfiller]

When MikeM says "there are a lot more proven MLB arms out there" I don't think he realizes how quickly the SP list thins out. To me it's Bauer, big gap, Tanaka and the risky Paxton, big gap, and then a bunch of players who you can clearly prefer Sugano to consider cost.

 

This, I think Sugano is anywhere between the most to third most valuable SP available after Bauer in the open market. He might very well project to be exactly as good as Tanaka, and I have to imagine is less of a health risk than Paxton is.

[Ray]

A dream offseason would be:

 

- Signing Ha-Seong Kim as 3B/SS/2B

- Signing George Springer for CF

- Re-signing a mid-tier starter like Taijuan Walker, or signing Jake Odorizzi.

- Sign a Brad Hand or Liam Hendricks

 

Those moves will cost you, what, maybe $50M-$60M in total AAV? We added that much in payroll last offseason, and we didn't even really expect to be competitive this year.

 

I get the appeal for trading for Lindor and extending him, but the above moves will cost you just money instead of forfeiting prospects and subtracting from your major league team.

[Jays24]

A dream offseason would be:

 

- Signing Ha-Seong Kim as 3B/SS/2B

- Signing George Springer for CF

- Re-signing a mid-tier starter like Taijuan Walker, or signing Jake Odorizzi.

- Sign a Brad Hand or Liam Hendricks

 

Those moves will cost you, what, maybe $50M-$60M in total AAV? We added that much in payroll last offseason, and we didn't even really expect to be competitive this year.

 

I get the appeal for trading for Lindor and extending him, but the above moves will cost you just money instead of forfeiting prospects and subtracting from your major league team.

 

I agree with all your moves but would replace Kim with trading for Lindor lol. It would probably only cost about 10 million more per season than signing Kim since we would also be sending out some sort of contracts too in a trade.

 

Obviously that would hurt our prospect capital but its worth it. All that would cost around 70 million which is asking for a lot in one offseason so its probably wishful thinking.

 

Side note... Feel like we've all been regurgitating the same stuff for over a month now. People already complain about baseball being slow on the field, why do they need to have offseasons like that too lol.

[Spanky99]

If they don't re sign Tanaka then I'm even more worried about his elbow

 

They don't have the money to get both DJ and Tanaka(Cashman basically said as much on MLBN), there's likely a bunch of guys pitching with a partial tear in their arm.

[Spanky99]

The good thing about this is that there is a deadline to sign him (Jan 1). So we will know within 2 weeks whether he's a Jay or not. Not sure what Sugano's date is, could be a week or later. So if the Jays have interest in both then shouldn't be too much longer to find out what the end result is. The other FA's might bleed into Feb/March.

 

Sugano is the 7th of January.

[Spanky99]

Jeff Passan on Tim and Sid said that he would pick the Jays landing Springer. There is enough mutual interest on both sides to make it happen. Just need to avoid a team coming in and offering enough to change things.

 

Yes, I watched that as well, that would be fantastic, Passan is a good insider too, be right Jeff!

 

Video of Passan on Springer...

 

https://www.sportsnet.ca/videos/shows/tim-and-sid-video/

[Sammy225]

May i ask why there are so many people that are so down on Ross Stripling after 1 bad year. As far as i am concerned Ryn/Pearson/Stripling are my only locks right now in that rotation. Stripling as a strong Middle Rotation starter for a contending teams for the last 4 years. Hard to read a guy after last season.

[G-Snarls]

May i ask why there are so many people that are so down on Ross Stripling after 1 bad year. As far as i am concerned Ryn/Pearson/Stripling are my only locks right now in that rotation. Stripling as a strong Middle Rotation starter for a contending teams for the last 4 years. Hard to read a guy after last season.

 

I like Stripling too

 

His breaking ball is nuts when it's working

 

I liked the trade. I also like Ray but he's more of a wildcard. Between the two of them there's a lot to like

 

Roark, well, ummmm....

[G-Snarls]

He's getting paid 12M so we have to use him I guess

 

Glad Anderson is gone

 

We still another 1/2 level starter

[THANOS]

He's getting paid 12M so we have to use him I guess

 

Glad Anderson is gone

 

We still another 1/2 level starter

 

Sign Sugano or Paxton imo.

 

Sugano/Paxton, Springer & trade for Lindor (LGJ & Hiraldo)