Offseason Roster Thread 2025-26

[Bob_Gratton]

2 hours ago, Jays24 said:

He was the teams best reliever for the first half of the season.  Absolutely wild that theyre cutting bait with him when hes so owed so much money.  Need to see the follow up move here but just burning money like this wasn't on my bingo card.  

Maybe he still injured? I can't believe no teams was interested to trade for him if he's healthy.

[BatFlip]

2 minutes ago, Bob_Gratton said:

I don't understand this move, because Rodriguez wasn't bad , he was one of our best relievers with Fischer, when Swanson and Green was awful.  I have more confidence in Rodriguez than guys like Garcia, Little, Francis. 

I take Garcia and Little over Rodriguez on the relief side. 

Francis is a gamble to see if he recovers form after his shoulder issues, and clearly the Jays have given up on Rodriguez as a starter option.

A big part of this move was likely a calculated gamble.  Roll the dice and see if someone would eat his salary and free up some dollars.  

 

 

[Jonn]

Pretty sure Yariel doesn’t have enough service time to elect free agency. If he gets outrighted pretty sure the Jays can put him in the minors.

Good chance we don’t see him again but he could be re-added. They just lot all confidence in him.

[Jays24]

30 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

18-20 potential starting pitchers at AAA and AA combined is a normal full roster? I don't recall ever seeing the Jays with that many before.

Lets be real, we're gonna be running close to a 300M payroll by the end of the offseason.  Its tough comparing this to how we've operated in the past since very few have gotten this budget/resources to work with.  

[Bob_Gratton]

20 hours ago, jmomcc said:

Marte would be an extremely expensive in prospects if his projection is real. His contract is cheap and a ton of it is deferred. Back of the envelope it looks like 80-100m surplus value. 

To give an idea of what that means for prospects, in 2018 dollars (when fangraphs wrote about this) a 50fv position player was worth 28m and a 50fv pitching prospect 21m. Let's increase those by 20% for inflation to 34m and 25m. So you'd need three 50fv hitters or 4 50fv pitchers to make a fair deal.

Even if Marte a very good player, will be a bad move to give all our best prospects for him. I won't include Parker for him. But a trade will likely look like Parker + King + Barger, and jays will be fleeced if do that. Better pay 200m contract to Bichette than empty the farms. for Marte. If we empty the farms,  should be for Skubal or Sknenes 

[Spanky__99]

49 minutes ago, rydermike said:

If he declines and becomes a FA, wouldnt that mean he gives up the $17M? 

No, it's guaranteed.

[Spanky__99]

45 minutes ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

18-20 potential starting pitchers at AAA and AA combined is a normal full roster? I don't recall ever seeing the Jays with that many before.

lol... I knew what you meant, it's certainly much deeper now.

[Bob_Gratton]

9 minutes ago, BatFlip said:

I take Garcia and Little over Rodriguez on the relief side. 

Francis is a gamble to see if he recovers form after his shoulder issues, and clearly the Jays have given up on Rodriguez as a starter option.

A big part of this move was likely a calculated gamble.  Roll the dice and see if someone would eat his salary and free up some dollars.  

 

 

Garcia he's injury prone and can end up  like Green or Swanson after missing so many games. Little make opponent happy to see him , especially in the last innings, when everything same lost, but Little step in to make other's believe they can come back and win the game.

[Spanky__99]

Trolololol

 

[Laika]

2 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

They can't option him without his consent, he'll end up a FA.

This might be wrong 

 

[Jonn]

8 minutes ago, Laika said:

This might be wrong 

 

It is wrong. He needs 3 years of service to refuse an outright assignment. He only has 2.

[Spanky__99]

2 minutes ago, Jonn said:

It is wrong. He needs 3 years of service to refuse an outright assignment. He only has 2.

No, he signed an IFA contract with 1 option used when they initially signed him. Last year he accepted Toronto's demotion as a favour, and to stretch him out. Options don't apply with him.

[Laika]

Just now, Spanky__99 said:

No, he signed an IFA contract with 1 option used when they initially signed him. Last year he accepted Toronto's demotion as a favour, and to stretch him out. Options don't apply with him.

This isn't an optioning though 

[The_DH]

It could be that this move takes the $$ contract and moves it to the minor leagues so doesn't count against the major league total salaries amount.  Didn't we do something like that with Straw?

[Spanky__99]

15 minutes ago, Laika said:

This might be wrong 

 

Yariel Rodríguez signed a 5-year, $32 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays in February 2024, including an $8M signing bonus and salaries escalating from $2M (2024) to $6.3M (2028), with potential performance bonuses and a player/club option for 2028, allowing him flexibility for minor league assignments in 2024 only. 

[mphenhef]

Just now, Spanky__99 said:

No, he signed an IFA contract with 1 option used when they initially signed him. Last year he accepted Toronto's demotion as a favour, and to stretch him out. Options don't apply with him.

They didn’t option him.  They DFA’d him and eventually outrighted him when he wasn’t claimed.  Since he hadn’t been outrighted before and has so little service time he cannot elect free agency.

[mphenhef]

2 minutes ago, The_DH said:

It could be that this move takes the $$ contract and moves it to the minor leagues so doesn't count against the major league total salaries amount.  Didn't we do something like that with Straw?

It counts for luxury tax even if they are in the minors.  That was an erroneous report that Straw’s salary wouldn’t count.

[Terminator]

When it comes to Yariel's contract status after the DFA

[The_DH]

4 minutes ago, Terminator said:

When it comes to Yariel's contract status after the DFA

Correction: somebody knows, just not any one of us.  There's a reason and a purpose.

[Spanky__99]

6 minutes ago, mphenhef said:

They didn’t option him.  They DFA’d him and eventually outrighted him when he wasn’t claimed.  Since he hadn’t been outrighted before and has so little service time he cannot elect free agency.

Hmm... could be, I vividly remember that his contract is guaranteed though. But as you say he cleared waivers and outrighted than that makes sense.

[Terminator]

Based on BNS's tweets it seems like Yariel will remain in the org and cannot elect FA.

But if he makes the team eventually and then gets outrighted again, he can elect FA, even if he doesn't have 3 years service time because previously outrighted players are given the option to elect FA.

Quote

If the player clears outright waivers, he may be assigned outright to the Minor Leagues. However, players with more than five years of Major League service time can reject an assignment to the Minor Leagues, and players with more than three years of Major League service time, or who have been previously outrighted, may reject the outright assignment in favor of free agency in lieu of the assignment.

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/designate-for-assignment

[Spanky__99]

4 minutes ago, Terminator said:

Based on BNS's tweets it seems like Yariel will remain in the org and cannot elect FA.

But if he makes the team eventually and then gets outrighted again, he can elect FA, even if he doesn't have 3 years service time because previously outrighted players are given the option to elect FA.

https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/designate-for-assignment

Thank you. That's an expensive minor leaguer.

[Terminator]

So I think he's now on Buffalo and can be called up one time. He doesn't have options (as Spanky pointed out he was an IFA and signed with options for 2024 only) so if he's DFA'd again, he can elect FA (even though he doesn't have 3 years service time).

So if I have this right, then this is a nifty little move. Either way, it frees up a 40-man spot and:

• If he gets claimed, then his money is off the books.
• If he doesn't get claimed, you can stash him in Buffalo for one call-up only. We could stretch him out and have him as a depth starter or he could be depth for the pen as well.

He wasn't claimed, so we are operating under bullet point #2. He's now some decent depth.

[Eat My Shatkins]

Smart move then to free up a 2nd spot on the 40 man. Hopefully they have a couple of signings coming soon then.

[Laika]

He's more useful in Buffalo. It allows them to potentially carry an additional asset into the season. The contract being bad has this one upside of nobody else wanting him so they could force him down lol 

[The_DH]

maybe they'll try stretch him out.  Starter #8 or 9 or whatever

[Terminator]

So one question I have is what happens if he is traded now? I assume that the same rules would apply so his new team wouldn't have to add him to the 40-man either.

If his velocity looks good in Spring Training, and the acquiring team wouldn't have to add him to the 40-man right away, I could see the Jays possibly finding a trade partner.

Anthony Kay just got 2 years, 6 mil AAV after all. 

But I suppose we wouldn't have to trade him in that scenario either. If he's looking good we could just keep him as a depth starter.

[Eat My Shatkins]

6 minutes ago, The_DH said:

maybe they'll try stretch him out.  Starter #8 or 9 or whatever

That was my original thought as well, then I went a saw how many starters they have down there already.

[Spanky__99]

13 minutes ago, Laika said:

He's more useful in Buffalo. It allows them to potentially carry an additional asset into the season. The contract being bad has this one upside of nobody else wanting him so they could force him down lol 

Yeah, basically.

[Eat My Shatkins]

At what point do the Jays have to make a decision on Bastardo? Since he's a rule 5 pick he has to be on the 26 man roster, but when is the deadline line for that? End of spring training?