2025 Trade Deadline

[BTS]

17 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

Which of the big pitching org teams routinely trade for relievers with long term control paying full price? 

I reject the question, on the basis that its stupid. But I'll answer the more pertinent question: how many good orgs make meaningful investments in relievers? And... its basically all of them. Look at the investments some respected teams have made in their current pens:

- The Dodgers invested 13M in Yates, 72M in Scott, 22M in Treinen, traded 3 prospects for Kopech

- The Orioles spent 8M on Dominguez, 10M on Kittredge, traded prospects for Soto. Two years ago spent 14M on Kimbrel. 

- Guardians traded Kluber for Clase (controllable!), spent 7M on Sewald. 

Etc... Good teams invest in the bullpen. They don't just rely on pulling good relievers out of their asses. Even the "pitching factory" teams like Baltimore. Toronto invested in Varland today. They used prospect capital instead of cash. That cash will be spent elsewhere. 

There's a decent chance Toronto just thinks Roden sucks. They had him slapping the ball around at AAA at almost 26 years old. We'll see how it plays out, but they've not typically been wrong in this kind of evaluation. 

[max silver]

2 hours ago, jmomcc said:

The more i look at varland.. i just don't see it. 
 

His stuff really played up in relief but he's still not even 9k/9. This is the literal first year he's been good and he's 27. He throws hard and he gets groundballs. That's nice but why is that so important in terms of getting control? 

The yankees got two better relievers for less than we paid for one. That matters way more this year. they both also have way more track record. 
 

Either spend more and get Jax who strikes out the world and has control. Or spend less and get better rentals. 

We chose the weird middle where we got control of someone with no track record and doesn't strike people out. 
 

He's essentially a slightly worse version of Fisher. I love fisher. The point is we can create our own fisher again next year. We don't need to buy control of that. 

 

This is Varland's first year as a reliever. He has a nearly 40% whiff rate curveball and I think with a bit of tweaking to his pitch arsenal he's a monster lying in wait. 

[max silver]

2 hours ago, jmomcc said:

Years of control don't matter. But track record for the next few months matter to me. You don't have to pay for the track record. You have to pay for the control. 
 

Doval struck out 12 per 9 last year with a 3.44 xERA. That's good. . 

Who gives a flying f*** what Doval did last year? 

[glory]

I think this deal comes down to what you think about Rojas and his upside/potential. Roden and France are really irrelevant here (more so France). Roden is already 26 and both the underlying numbers and the eye test look terrible. At least Barger had a history of great exit velocities in the minors where you could dream on that and his bat speed. Roden is very ordinary and looked as such in his brief time here. If he's a high floor 2 WAR player, then I don't think that moves the needle for me. So it comes down to Rojas for Varland. The Jays have been pretty good with identifying which prospects to trade and which ones to keep over the years. I think the only misstep I can think of is Otto Lopez. Otherwise they've been pretty good there. We will see. 

[max silver]

2 minutes ago, glory said:

I think this deal comes down to what you think about Rojas and his upside/potential. Roden and France are really irrelevant here (more so France). Roden is already 26 and both the underlying numbers and the eye test look terrible. At least Barger had a history of great exit velocities in the minors where you could dream on that and his bat speed. Roden is very ordinary and looked as such in his brief time here. If he's a high floor 2 WAR player, then I don't think that moves the needle for me. So it comes down to Rojas for Varland. The Jays have been pretty good with identifying which prospects to trade and which ones to keep over the years. I think the only misstep I can think of is Otto Lopez. Otherwise they've been pretty good there. We will see. 

I really like Rojas but I think he's a very real risk to end up in the bullpen given his difficulties in avoiding the injured list. Varland produced similarly dominant numbers in his stint in the minor leagues, and this could very well be a case of the Blue Jays trading a future reliever and a corner outfielder who was largely blocked by others in the system for a reliever with stud potential. I think that Varland very well may be a pitch mix tweak or two away from becoming a back of the bullpen monster.

[jmomcc]

5 minutes ago, Laika said:

The Rays do it all the time lol 

They literally just traded for Griffin Jax. Today. 

Griffin Jax strikes out 14/9 and is possibly the best reliever in baseball. I would also be willing to pay full price for that.

They also paid 2 million for Baker who has fantastic stuff. We paid like what... 7 times that for Varland. 
 

The yankees literally today paid almost nothing for bednar. Today. 

 

 

[jmomcc]

7 minutes ago, glory said:

I think this deal comes down to what you think about Rojas and his upside/potential. Roden and France are really irrelevant here (more so France). Roden is already 26 and both the underlying numbers and the eye test look terrible. At least Barger had a history of great exit velocities in the minors where you could dream on that and his bat speed. Roden is very ordinary and looked as such in his brief time here. If he's a high floor 2 WAR player, then I don't think that moves the needle for me. So it comes down to Rojas for Varland. The Jays have been pretty good with identifying which prospects to trade and which ones to keep over the years. I think the only misstep I can think of is Otto Lopez. Otherwise they've been pretty good there. We will see. 

i think roden has at least one 3 WAR season in him but we'll see.

[Laika]

5 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

Griffin Jax strikes out 14/9 and is possibly the best reliever in baseball. I would also be willing to pay full price for that.

They also paid 2 million for Baker who has fantastic stuff. We paid like what... 7 times that for Varland. 
 

The yankees literally today paid almost nothing for bednar. Today. 

 

 

Bryan Baker is a gas can with a 4.70 ERA over the last two years 

You jumped the shark twenty pages ago and are just being obtuse for fun now.

[jmomcc]

8 minutes ago, Laika said:

Bryan Baker is a gas can with a 4.70 ERA over the last two years 

You jumped the shark twenty pages ago and are just being obtuse for fun now.

You referenced stuff plus before so you know baker has great stuff, but you are pretending to be dumb and judging a reliever by era? 

And i'm obtuse? Lol

[John_Havok]

47 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

That's fair but just buy rentals and then spend in free agency. Because there is also no guarantee that Varland with one year of track record is going to be good next year either. Or the year after. 

Free agency isn't a guarantee to get what you want when everyone other team on baseball (except a few ) are also actively looking at those same relievers. It's also even more likely you end up with a multi-year deal with a volatile asset dragging on your payroll, or just plain hurt and contributing nothing... a true sunk cost.

I've been looking at all your replies and I understand the premise of what youre trying to say, but there are several assumptions about this team's ability to just pluck talent out of thin air and develop it, which makes it (in your view) inefficient use of prospect capital to acquire relievers with control. You'd rather the Jays gamble on the teams ability to attract and sign top FA relievers when available, or develop more internally. 

Problem is... the Jays havent been able to develop any relievers consistently on a year to year basis in the past...decade until maybe the last 2 seasons with Fluharty being the only true member of the current pitching roster fully developed internally. Yariel was already a pro Cuban pitcher so I don't really count him. Little was a successful reclamation project, so thats good too so I think its trending in the right direction, but they still aren't a pitching factory yet. Fisher is a good sign but his development was like 95% in the Dodgers system. 

So, today, I submit it makes more sense for the Jays in their current situation to not purely look at rentals and still grab a great looking controllable reliever when they can, even if the value comparison in a vacuum tilts to the other team.

If they become a reliable franchise capable of churning out home-grown relievers on a year-to-year basis, rental additions make far more sense

[jmomcc]

2 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

Free agency isn't a guarantee to get what you want when everyone other team on baseball (except a few ) are also actively looking at those same relievers. It's also even more likely you end up with a multi-year deal with a volatile asset. 

I've been looking at all your replies and I understand the premise of what youre trying to say, but there are several assumptions about this team's ability to just pluck talent out of thin air and develop it, which makes it (in your view) inefficient use of prospect capital to acquire relievers with control. You'd rather the Jays gamble on the teams ability to attract and sign top FA relievers when available, or develop more internally. 

Problem is... the Jays havent been able to develop any relievers consistently on a year to year basis in the past...decade until maybe the last 2 seasons with Fluharty being the only true member of the current pitching roster fully developed internally. Yariel was already a pro Cuban pitcher so I don't really count him. Little was a successful reclamation project, so thats good too so I think its trending in the right direction, but they still aren't a pitching factory yet.

So, today, I submit it makes more sense for the Jays in their current situation to not purely look at rentals and still grab a great looking controllable reliever when you can, even if the value comparison in a vacuum tilts to the other team

That's not quite what i'm saying. I'm saying we paid a lot for control of an asset that is inherently more variable than other types of asset. We overvalue reliever control essentially. 

Unless someone is absolutely elite. 

I think what people really disagree with is that roden and rojas are a high price. But they really are two of the better prospects traded today. 

[Ball4Life]

Fine work by Ross. He gets moves done that aren’t always highly anticipated by the fans and media. It’s called doing your homework. I like Rojas but he’s a pitching prospect. I’ll take Varland.

[Terminator]

That first Shane Bieber start is going to be so much fun 

[G-Snarls]

17 minutes ago, Terminator said:

That first Shane Bieber start is going to be so much fun 

Damn right

Must watch TV

[Carlos Danger]

Just landed from 19hrs of travel.

Where is the fnnnn bat!????

[Jays24]

1 hour ago, Terminator said:

That first Shane Bieber start is going to be so much fun 

If everything goes according to plan and he starts after 1 more rehab start... it'll almost reach the David Price level of excitement for me.  Probably not so much for casuals though.  

[max silver]

26 minutes ago, Carlos Danger said:

Just landed from 19hrs of travel.

Where is the fnnnn bat!????

Sitting on the injured list.

[max silver]

10 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

If everything goes according to plan and he starts after 1 more rehab start... it'll almost reach the David Price level of excitement for me.  Probably not so much for casuals though.  

That's just adorable that you are referring to other Blue Jays fans as casuals. 

[Masterbather]

So with everything that happened, and a deadline that I personally am satisfied with...

I still think we need Manoah to return to a starting caliber postseason pitcher this year.

I know it still might be a long shot but I'm holding out hope. His presence could really lengthen that playoff rotation and allow us to go nose to nose with the best rotations out there. Unless he sucks of course. Fingers crossed.

[jmomcc]

2 hours ago, BTS said:

I reject the question, on the basis that its stupid. But I'll answer the more pertinent question: how many good orgs make meaningful investments in relievers? And... its basically all of them. Look at the investments some respected teams have made in their current pens:

- The Dodgers invested 13M in Yates, 72M in Scott, 22M in Treinen, traded 3 prospects for Kopech

- The Orioles spent 8M on Dominguez, 10M on Kittredge, traded prospects for Soto. Two years ago spent 14M on Kimbrel. 

- Guardians traded Kluber for Clase (controllable!), spent 7M on Sewald. 

Etc... Good teams invest in the bullpen. They don't just rely on pulling good relievers out of their asses. Even the "pitching factory" teams like Baltimore. Toronto invested in Varland today. They used prospect capital instead of cash. That cash will be spent elsewhere. 

There's a decent chance Toronto just thinks Roden sucks. They had him slapping the ball around at AAA at almost 26 years old. We'll see how it plays out, but they've not typically been wrong in this kind of evaluation. 

Roden isn't a slap hitter. 
 

i'm fine with investing in the bullpen, i think they overpaid in this instance because i don't believe 5 years of control is actually relevant for most relievers. Especially ones with half a season of track record. 

Treating reliever control as the same as starter and position player control is stupid, its a mistake. 

[max silver]

8 minutes ago, Masterbather said:

So with everything that happened, and a deadline that I personally am satisfied with...

I still think we need Manoah to return to a starting caliber postseason pitcher this year.

I know it still might be a long shot but I'm holding out hope. His presence could really lengthen that playoff rotation and allow us to go nose to nose with the best rotations out there. Unless he sucks of course. Fingers crossed.

I think it's far more likely that Gausman rediscovers his ace form vs Manoah morphing back into a post season level starter this season. 

[max silver]

5 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

Roden isn't a slap hitter. 
 

i'm fine with investing in the bullpen, i think they overpaid in this instance because i don't believe 5 years of control is actually relevant for most relievers. Especially ones with half a season of track record. 

Treating reliever control as the same as starter and position player control is stupid, its a mistake. 

I believe you are dramatically overreacting here. Varland offers the rare pen combination of elite stuff and command and presents a ton of upside. He's already produced a full win above replacement with 1/3 of the season left to go and has a shot to be the team's best reliever for the next 5 seasons. I see elite closer potential in this guy, and if he doesn't reach that level he's likely a fine setup man moving forward. For what it's worth baseball trade values lists this trade as a tiny overpay in favor of the Twins with Varland being the most valuable piece involved. This is Varland's first year pitching primarily out of the pen and outside of potential injury I see no reason to expect him to suddenly turn into a pumpkin. Rojas and Roden have proven literally nothing in MLB and neither of them are the sort of sure fire studs that you seem to be suggesting. 

[Masterbather]

2 minutes ago, max silver said:

I think it's far more likely that Gausman rediscovers his ace form vs Manoah morphing back into a post season level starter this season. 

Why not both? I don't know if Gausman will go all the way back to his ace form, he is in his mid thirties, but if he can continue to pitch even a notch or two below that, it would be a welcome boost. 

Manoah is in his prime. The potential is still there. Again, I'm not expecting it but I'm not giving up hope either until I know there's no hope.

 

[max silver]

3 minutes ago, Masterbather said:

Why not both? I don't know if Gausman will go all the way back to his ace form, he is in his mid thirties, but if he can continue to pitch even a notch or two below that, it would be a welcome boost. 

Manoah is in his prime. The potential is still there. Again, I'm not expecting it but I'm not giving up hope either until I know there's no hope.

 

Gausman will obviously need to put up more than 2 ace level starts but his last 2 times out were very encouraging. He carved up the Yankees with an elite fastball that day and followed this up with the elite bat missing version of his splitter against the Giants. I'm particularly encouraged by the improved splitter movement as this has largely been missing the last few seasons. 

I believe it's far more realistic for Alek to return to this type of form next season. At this point he's only about 13 months out from surgery and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he struggles a bit with command. On top of that he's the team's 7th rotation option once Bieber is good to go, and barring injury from one of the first 6 starters it's possible he doesn't even make his way back to the 26/27 man roster at any point this season.

[jmomcc]

17 minutes ago, max silver said:

I believe you are dramatically overreacting here. Varland offers the rare pen combination of elite stuff and command and presents a ton of upside. He's already produced a full win above replacement with 1/3 of the season left to go and has a shot to be the team's best reliever for the next 5 seasons. I see elite closer potential in this guy, and if he doesn't reach that level he's likely a fine setup man moving forward. For what it's worth baseball trade values lists this trade as a tiny overpay in favor of the Twins with Varland being the most valuable piece involved. This is Varland's first year pitching primarily out of the pen and outside of potential injury I see no reason to expect him to suddenly turn into a pumpkin. Rojas and Roden have proven literally nothing in MLB and neither of them are the sort of sure fire studs that you seem to be suggesting. 

If they were sure fire studs, this would be an insane overpay. Why would you trade surefire studs?

I think its just a normal overpay. I don't know if Varland will suddenly turn into a pumpkin but i do know that it is pretty common for relievers to turn into pumpkins and its really hard to tell before hand if they will or not. The range of outcomes is pretty massive. 

Also, there is absolutely no way he is an elite closer striking out 8.6 per 9. We could tweak him but its always hard to see that happening when the twins are already so good at that. 
 

We did this before. We paid a high price for zach pop because he had control. That control was not relevant in the end. Yes, Groshans was a bust, but we could have traded him for something else. Pop also had great stuff. 

edit: also we could have got more swing and miss this year for a smaller price. I feel like we prioritized control over immediate this year impact. I would much have preferred two nasty rental than one controlled for a long time when who knows with relievers. 

[BB17]

35 minutes ago, max silver said:

That's just adorable that you are referring to other Blue Jays fans as casuals. 

Say what you want about any poster on here but mostly everyone here is 90x smarter than the “casual” blue jays fans. You the really casual fan who knows basically nothing about the team, and then the casual fan who actually follows the team somewhat and goes to their fair share of games and even those people really don’t know much about baseball.

I go to quite a few games and the conversations that happen around me make you want to puke. And that’s in decent seats close to the game. Go to one of the standing room areas or the 500 level and it’s just drunk morons not even paying attention to the game.

[Stangstag]

12 minutes ago, BB17 said:

Say what you want about any poster on here but mostly everyone here is 90x smarter than the “casual” blue jays fans. You the really casual fan who knows basically nothing about the team, and then the casual fan who actually follows the team somewhat and goes to their fair share of games and even those people really don’t know much about baseball.

I go to quite a few games and the conversations that happen around me make you want to puke. And that’s in decent seats close to the game. Go to one of the standing room areas or the 500 level and it’s just drunk morons not even paying attention to the game.

I can’t believe how many people pay 0 attention to the game. A few weeks back we had 2 young boys/teens sitting behind us (not sure where the parents were) and they literally were playing Fortnite on their iphones the entire game. I don’t think they watched a single pitch. Like… why?

[max silver]

20 minutes ago, jmomcc said:

If they were sure fire studs, this would be an insane overpay. Why would you trade surefire studs?

I think its just a normal overpay. I don't know if Varland will suddenly turn into a pumpkin but i do know that it is pretty common for relievers to turn into pumpkins and its really hard to tell before hand if they will or not. The range of outcomes is pretty massive. 

Also, there is absolutely no way he is an elite closer striking out 8.6 per 9. We could tweak him but its always hard to see that happening when the twins are already so good at that. 
 

We did this before. We paid a high price for zach pop because he had control. That control was not relevant in the end. Yes, Groshans was a bust, but we could have traded him for something else. Pop also had great stuff. 

edit: also we could have got more swing and miss this year for a smaller price. I feel like we prioritized control over immediate this year impact. I would much have preferred two nasty rental than one controlled for a long time when who knows with relievers. 

Zach Pop is a legitimately terrible comparison player for Varland and isn't someone you should be bringing up to outline why attaining Varland is so bad. 

 

[Masterbather]

1 hour ago, max silver said:

I believe it's far more realistic for Alek to return to this type of form next season. At this point he's only about 13 months out from surgery and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he struggles a bit with command. On top of that he's the team's 7th rotation option once Bieber is good to go, and barring injury from one of the first 6 starters it's possible he doesn't even make his way back to the 26/27 man roster at any point this season.

7th? Depends, his performance will dictate where he is in the pecking order. Obviously I don't want him in the rotation unless he's better than the other guys. He has the talent to be better than just about everyone in our rotation. We just don't know if it'll be a Jekyll or Hyde version of Manoah because he has been both in his career.

I remember having these conversation's about Stroman in 2015. Exact same type of conversations, people wrote him off too then he ended up being the number two pitcher in the postseason behind Price.

Aren't we basically asking Bieber to do the same thing? We're asking Bieber to immediately return to form after a major surgery. He's basically on the exact same timeline as Manoah. 

[DonJays]

2 hours ago, Masterbather said:

So with everything that happened, and a deadline that I personally am satisfied with...

I still think we need Manoah to return to a starting caliber postseason pitcher this year.

I know it still might be a long shot but I'm holding out hope. His presence could really lengthen that playoff rotation and allow us to go nose to nose with the best rotations out there. Unless he sucks of course. Fingers crossed.

The chance of Manoah contributing this year has to be less than 1 %. Guy is likely cooked. Perhaps next year he can make it back but he ain’t playing for the jays this year