Offseason Roster Thread 2025-26

[Spanky__99]

22 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

Starting pitching depth is incredibly important and I simply don't think we have enough quality depth in the upper minors to be discarding Lauer for $5M.  It's not even close IMO.  I think ideally, you go into 2026 with Lauer as the 6th starter.

For sure, and he's cheap.

[Spanky__99]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Bo Bichette extended!

 

Noice. Wow... Mods sharing fake news, asshat!

[Terminator]

A 7 to 8 year deal for Bo would take him through his age 34 or 35 season. Not ideal but certainly not as reckless as other deals like locking up Bogaerts until he's 41.

So with that said, I would not mind if the team paid market value for the main stretch of the contract and then tacked on extra years at a discount to bring down the AAV. They did this with Vlad whose market rate was something like 9 for 450, but we tacked on 5 more years at 10 mil a year to get that AAV into a reasonable spot.

So say Bo wants 7 years at 200 million. Maybe he would go for 10 years at 220 million? That drops the AAV from 28.6 to 22 million, which would be great but the downside is that it carries him through his age 37 season when he's going to be ass.

So yeah, it could make the Vlad/Bo years painful toward the end, but given that we are a tax team, lowering the AAV can really add up over time. Plus, I was a fan from 1994-2014 so I can handle some lean years so long as we hang on to our stars. Seeing Halladay being claimed by the Phillies still pisses me off to this day.

Tl;DR Give Bo a 10 year contract!

[sliderguy35]

interesting that atkins made a note about already starting trade discussions for starting pitching in the press conference today. they're not going to sell the farm for 1 year of skubal, that's just not how this FO has ever operated in the off-season, but there are some interesting trade candidates out there:

1.  pablo lopez: are the twins really going to want to pay lopez $20M per year for the next 2 seasons after their recent fire sale at the deadline? i think he'll get moved over joe ryan or bailey ober because of that
    
2. kris bubic: a rental but one that wouldn't cost nearly as much as skubal. pitched like a top of the rotation arm when healthy last season, but doesn't have the same track record. the royals have a ton of upper minors pitching depth but almost nothing in the outfield. the jays have a ton of upper minors OF depth (loperfido / clase / schreck / pinango), seems like a match made in heaven
    
3. sandy alcantara: not going to re-hash all the discussion had at the trade deadline but the marlins do have a lot of pitching depth & sandy is not on the same timeline as the rest of their staff. looked like an ace again down the stretch as well (11% SwStr, 17.4 K%-BB%, 48% GB rate after August 1st).

there's some other guys that I, being a sicko, personally like & have a lot of indicators of breaking out next season that they should target (mitch spence!!! ryan feltner!!! kumar rocker!!!), but would be absolutely shocked if the jays went that way lol

[Laika]

A lot of pundits say that Bo will not age well because of his defense, athleticism, and approach. 

This is the easy and obvious argument. The low hanging fruit. 

What they FAIL to appreciate is the possibility that he becomes a slow fat 35 home run hitter when he gets older. I mean the dude hit a 442 foot tank to dead centre in the World Series - with some gradual approach changes and simply turning on the ball a bit more this is a dude who could hit a lot of homers and then you don't care as much about whether the singles keep falling in. And also the possibility that he's a very good 2B or 3B. 

What if 33 year old Bobichette is a 30 HR hitting +5 OAA third baseman? 

Adrian Beltre swung a lot!!! 

Being able to hit the ball + being able to play up the middle defense ---- these are pure baseball skills. I think sometimes in the nerd/saber analysis of players and what they are worth or how they will age or what they may be worth, people lose sigh of the forest for the trees. They'll want to value or give money to guys who walk and pull balls in the air etc. and it's just not always that easy. 

Like, look at how Trea Turner has done so far. Guy was a swing happy speedster with minus SS defense at 27 years old. 

[Eat My Shatkins]

From the presser "Jeff himself is not married to being the closer, is open to anything that makes the team better"

While I'm not big on pouring money into the bullpen (so volatile) I wonder if they take a shot at Edwin Diaz or Robert Suarez? Iglesias out there too, older but durable and still performing well.

 

Helsely as well

[glory]

I’ve learned to never read too much into an Atkins interview but him being noncommittal about Hoffman as the closer is (hopefully) good news. If Hoff wants to have Chad Green’s home run rate then let him give up dingers to backup infielders in the 7th inning rather than in the biggest moments. With that said, Hoffman himself is a good example of how risky investing heavily into the bullpen can be. If they do decide to sign a closer then I hope they guess right this time. 

[SeranthonySantander]

22 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

From the presser "Jeff himself is not married to being the closer, is open to anything that makes the team better"

While I'm not big on pouring money into the bullpen (so volatile) I wonder if they take a shot at Edwin Diaz or Robert Suarez? Iglesias out there too, older but durable and still performing well.

 

Helsely as well

Double post

[SeranthonySantander]

12 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

From the presser "Jeff himself is not married to being the closer, is open to anything that makes the team better"

While I'm not big on pouring money into the bullpen (so volatile) I wonder if they take a shot at Edwin Diaz or Robert Suarez? Iglesias out there too, older but durable and still performing well.

 

Helsely as well

Can’t afford Diaz.  He opted out of 3/57.  Don’t think they should put 20m towards a closer.

just make sure to win by more than 2

[Eat My Shatkins]

Highly unlikely but man would it be cool if after these years the Jays surprised everyone and finally pulled off a deal to pry Jose Ramirez out of Cleveland for the last few years of his deal. Dude is still a top 5 player in MLB and just imagine an infield defense with JoRam at 3B, Giminez at SS, Clement at 2B and Vladdy at 1B. Maybe he sees all his old buddies just loving life with the Jays and asks out haha

[SeranthonySantander]

Ramirez is probably more likely than Skubal 

[Jonn]

The Atkins presser didn’t really seem like Bo Bichette is any kind of priority. No we really want him back. No he’s a huge part of this moving forward. The best we got is “We will be in his market”.

[Terminator]

11 minutes ago, Jonn said:

The Atkins presser didn’t really seem like Bo Bichette is any kind of priority. No we really want him back. No he’s a huge part of this moving forward. The best we got is “We will be in his market”.

It has to be this way now. Can't say we are all in and allow other teams to drive up the price on him.

Good news is that his agent is VaynerSports, the same agent for Alejandro Kirk.

They were a football focused agency before but they bought Bo's old agent's firm and got into baseball.

Other clients are Harrison Bader and Ramon Laureano.

Hopefully his camp is just hoping to figure out what his market is and then resigning with the Blue Jays so long as they get 95% of the way there.

[Stangstag]

3 minutes ago, Terminator said:

It has to be this way now. Can't say we are all in and allow other teams to drive up the price on him.

Good news is that his agent is VaynerSports, the same agent for Alejandro Kirk.

They were a football focused agency before but they bought Bo's old agent's firm and got into baseball.

Other clients are Harrison Bader and Ramon Laureano.

Hopefully his camp is just hoping to figure out what his market is and then resigning with the Blue Jays so long as they get 95% of the way there.

Yes, its probably like “hey Bo go test the market, see what offers you get and we will try to match”

I feel like they should’ve done that with Vlad tbh, but his price probably would’ve gone up after that playoff performance.

Could also be a scenario where Jays said they only want Bo back as a 2B and ge wants to ask around if any team will sign him as a SS

[Terminator]

If he fired his agent and signed with Boras then you could expect a long winter with him signing with the highest bidder some time in February.

Since he is sticking with VaynerSports, it suggests that he's not necessarily trying to squeeze every last dollar out of whatever team he signs with. Hopefully that keeps him in Toronto.

[Terminator]

I'm just glad Bo's agent isn't multi-platinum superstar Marc Anthony

That guy bent Ed Rogers over his knee and spanked him belt to ass during the Vlad negotiations

 

[abola2121]

I wonder if Miami would be willing to accept Nimmala for Robby Snelling. I'd bet on a prospect like him having as big of an impact in the majors next year as any of the current SP free agents.

[Jimcanuck]

1 minute ago, abola2121 said:

I wonder if Miami would be willing to accept Nimmala for Robby Snelling. I'd bet on a prospect like him having as big an impact in the majors next year as any of the current SP free agents.

No they definitely would not.

[abola2121]

9 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

No they definitely would not.

He would still be an easier trade target than Skubal at least.

[Jimcanuck]

3 minutes ago, abola2121 said:

He would still be an easier trade target than Skubal at least.

Yes, but the Fish will move Alcantara and Cabrera before White and Snelling.

Jays would be smart to go after Alcantara

[Spanky__99]

22 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

Yes, but the Fish will move Alcantara and Cabrera before White and Snelling.

Jays would be smart to go after Alcantara

Not to mention the Marlins just acquired him for Hoeing and Scott. 

[Jonn]

26 minutes ago, Jimcanuck said:

Yes, but the Fish will move Alcantara and Cabrera before White and Snelling.

Jays would be smart to go after Alcantara

No they need to be aiming much higher.

[Rimar]

3 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

For sure, and he's cheap.

No sure about Lauer to be sp, he will be more useful in bullpen.  Anyway Atkins said he want to sign a good starter for long term,  because Gausman and Berrios will test free agency next year. We also need youngsters sp, and so far only Yesevage fit that need.

 

[Rimar]

3 hours ago, Terminator said:

A 7 to 8 year deal for Bo would take him through his age 34 or 35 season. Not ideal but certainly not as reckless as other deals like locking up Bogaerts until he's 41.

So with that said, I would not mind if the team paid market value for the main stretch of the contract and then tacked on extra years at a discount to bring down the AAV. They did this with Vlad whose market rate was something like 9 for 450, but we tacked on 5 more years at 10 mil a year to get that AAV into a reasonable spot.

So say Bo wants 7 years at 200 million. Maybe he would go for 10 years at 220 million? That drops the AAV from 28.6 to 22 million, which would be great but the downside is that it carries him through his age 37 season when he's going to be ass.

So yeah, it could make the Vlad/Bo years painful toward the end, but given that we are a tax team, lowering the AAV can really add up over time. Plus, I was a fan from 1994-2014 so I can handle some lean years so long as we hang on to our stars. Seeing Halladay being claimed by the Phillies still pisses me off to this day.

Tl;DR Give Bo a 10 year contract!

We should do what Dodgers do, and overpaid giving deferred money. If we can get a guy like Skubal or Sknenes,  u make him the best paid pitcher in mlb, 50-60M annually with deffered money ofc. The same with Schwarber, 40M annually with deffered money. Rogers can afford such contract 

[Jonn]

Swingman are incredibly valuable. They mostly just end up in the Rotation because of injuries naturally but going into the year knowing you have a guy you can use in multiple roles including starting is invaluable.

I feel bad for Lauer sometimes but he really is best utilized in this role. He would start on many teams though.

Putting a Cease or Amai at the top of your rotation is just too hard to pass up on. Skubal feels more like a dream. Red Sox seem like the team to give into the Tigers demands. I would think the Dodgers would just wait until his Feee Agency.

[Rimar]

4 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Nah.  WAR is WAR regardless of where you get it.

Bichette playing 2B instead of SS, it's like Vladdy moved from 3B to 1B.. Also Bo make good defensive play despite he was injured at 2B . Can say the same about Barger, he's better when he play RF than 3B.

[Jays24]

Hot take - Bo will be a gold glove finalist if he played at 2B.  People dont realize the difference between SS/2B in terms of difficulty.  

[Eat My Shatkins]

5 minutes ago, Rimar said:

Can say the same about Barger, he's better when he play RF than 3B.

I thought it was the opposite??

[L54]

8 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

Hot take - Bo will be a gold glove finalist if he played at 2B.  People dont realize the difference between SS/2B in terms of difficulty.  

I think everyone recognizes this and that’s why it’s been a topic of discussion for like three years 

[Jays24]

4 minutes ago, L54 said:

I think everyone recognizes this and that’s why it’s been a topic of discussion for like three years 

Switch it to a "cold take" then lol