Kazuma Okamoto and the Toronto Blue Jays are in agreement

[Jays24]

Just now, Spanky__99 said:

Structured that way, obviously.

Is there a breakdown of his cap hit per season? Just curious.  

[Eat My Shatkins]

1 minute ago, Jays24 said:

Is there a breakdown of his cap hit per season? Just curious.  

$15,000,000

$8,250,000

$17,250,000

$17,250,000

$17,250,000

[Spanky__99]

2 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

Is there a breakdown of his cap hit per season? Just curious.  

Player	Age	Service Time	Contract	AAV	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	2032
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	26.8	6.157	14 yr, $500M (2026-39)	$35,714,286	$40,214,286	$40,214,286	$39,214,286	$38,214,286	$37,714,286	$37,714,286	$37,714,286
Dylan Cease	30.0	6.089	7 yr, $210M (2026-32); deferrals lower AAV	$27,023,965	$25,285,714	$33,285,714	$32,285,714	$31,285,714	$30,285,714	$29,285,714	$28,285,714
George Springer	36.3	11.166	6 yr, $150M (2021-26)	$25,000,000	$24,166,667	FREE AGENT
Kevin Gausman	35.0	11.151	5 yr, $110M (2022-26)	$22,000,000	$23,000,000	FREE AGENT
Andrés Giménez	27.3	5.106	7 yr, $106.5M (2023-29), 2030 club option	$19,371,429	$15,571,429	$23,571,429	$23,571,429	$23,571,429	$23,000,000
José Berríos	31.6	9.044	7 yr, $131M (2022-28); can opt out after 2026	$18,714,286	$18,714,286	$24,714,286	$24,714,286	FREE AGENT
Kazuma Okamoto	29.5		4 yr, $60M (2026-29)	$15,000,000	$8,250,000	$17,250,000	$17,250,000	$17,250,000	FREE AGENT
Shane Bieber	30.6	7.097	2 yr, $26M (2025-26)	$14,555,102	$16,000,000	FREE AGENT
Anthony Santander	31.2	7.162	5 yr, $92.5M (2025-29), 2030 club option; can opt out after 2027; can void by picking up option; deferrals lower AAV	$14,314,441	$21,000,000	$21,000,000	$14,750,000	$12,750,000	$15,000,000
Tyler Rogers	35.1	6.034	3 yr, $37M (2026-28), 2029 vesting option; $9M club option if option doesn't vest	$12,333,333	$8,666,667	$13,666,667	$13,666,667	$12,000,000
Alejandro Kirk	27.2	5.047	5 yr, $58M (2026-30)	$11,600,000	$8,700,000	$12,325,000	$12,325,000	$12,325,000	$12,325,000	FREE AGENT
Jeff Hoffman	33.0	7.084	3 yr, $33M (2025-27)	$11,000,000	$12,666,667	$12,666,667	FREE AGENT
Cody Ponce	31.7	0.126	3 yr, $30M (2026-28)	$10,000,000	$6,000,000	$12,000,000	$12,000,000	FREE AGENT
Myles Straw	31.2	5.125	5 yr, $25M (2022-26), 2027-28 club options	$7,775,000	$7,400,000	$8,000,000	$8,500,000
Yimi García	35.4	10.149	2 yr, $15M (2025-26)	$7,50

[Spanky__99]

8 minutes ago, Jays24 said:

Is there a breakdown of his cap hit per season? Just curious.  

5M signing bonus and 2M + added to the remaining 3 years. Well done business.

[BTS]

8 hours ago, Eat My Shatkins said:

$15,000,000

$8,250,000

$17,250,000

$17,250,000

$17,250,000

Where are you guys seeing that his cap hit changes year over year? It should just be 15M per season, right? 

[Brownie19]

I'm pretty sure the cap hit is based off AAV guys.

Also - $7.4M for Straw is gross.

[glory]

CBT calculations are based on AAV, so Okamoto’s cap hit every year is going to be $15M regardless of what his actual salary is that year.

[Laika]

The takes on Okamoto are so divergent 

The scouts in certain stories on the signing are saying he's a 1B only in MLB. 
BA says he is maybe a decent 3B. 
There is even a scout in one story predicting that he will be a power over hit MLB player? 

He could be anything! 

.280/15 at 3B with good defense?
.250/30 DH? 

lol

[L54]

10 hours ago, Spanky__99 said:

Okamoto's cap hit this season is 8.25M, there will be another bat added for sure.

It’s AAV bud, not his 26 salary 

[max silver]

1 hour ago, Brownie19 said:

I'm pretty sure the cap hit is based off AAV guys.

Also - $7.4M for Straw is gross.

If Straw can recreate his 2025 season the $7.4 million is almost a bit of a bargain.

[Brownie19]

3 minutes ago, max silver said:

If Straw can recreate his 2025 season the $7.4 million is almost a bit of a bargain.

If Straw was a FA right now, nobody would give him $7.4M.  You can look at $/WAR all you want, but he's overpaid.

Luckily - payroll no longer seems to be a concerns, so we can live with it.  I'd be happily surprised if he can replicate his 2025 success.  

[max silver]

5 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

If Straw was a FA right now, nobody would give him $7.4M.  You can look at $/WAR all you want, but he's overpaid.

Luckily - payroll no longer seems to be a concerns, so we can live with it.  I'd be happily surprised if he can replicate his 2025 success.  

Straw isn't a free agent so what a team would pay in free agency is irrelevant. If you have a better way to gauge value relative to contract instead of $/WAR I'd love to hear it. I think the Straw acquisition turned out swimmingly as he was a tremendous 5th outfielder, he provided a lot of surplus value relative to his contract, and the team actually gained IFA money when taking his contract on.

At the end of the day Straw provided a ton of surplus value in his first season as a Blue Jay with $14.4 million in value according to Fangraphs. He can literally provide zero value this season and his contract would be even value to the Blue Jays in his two years with the club. He may be a little expensive for a backup player but he did a fantastic job for the team as Varsho missed half of the season due to injury. In a perfect world he'd receive far fewer plate appearances in the post season as both he and IKF were largely empty bats for the majority of the playoffs and largely dragged the offense down in crunch time.

[sliderguy35]

51 minutes ago, Laika said:

The takes on Okamoto are so divergent 

The scouts in certain stories on the signing are saying he's a 1B only in MLB. 
BA says he is maybe a decent 3B. 
There is even a scout in one story predicting that he will be a power over hit MLB player? 

He could be anything! 

.280/15 at 3B with good defense?
.250/30 DH? 

lol

i'd be pretty skeptical of okamoto hitting anything above .250 unless he somehow hits 35+ bombs. big league outfields are just too good defensively nowadays, it'd be pretty lucky to get anywhere close to the same BABIP he had in japan with how many flyballs he hits.

pulling the ball in the air consistently is an incredibly valuable offensive skill, especially when you make a ton of contact, but it's really tough to have an informed opinion without having access to more of the granular swing data / hard hit / chase rates.

you can dream on right-tail offensive outcomes like pre-washed nolan arenado / michael busch / pre-washed marcus semien but there's also a real chance he's a spencer steer / miguel vargas type player (who are ok big leaguers but not anyone you'd pay $15M per year).

ultimately it's worth the gamble when you consider how much offensive depth the jays have & the fact that they're using monopoly money this offseason, but i'm going to reserve any opinions on the player until we get more information.

[Brownie19]

27 minutes ago, max silver said:

Straw isn't a free agent so what a team would pay in free agency is irrelevant. If you have a better way to gauge value relative to contract instead of $/WAR I'd love to hear it. I think the Straw acquisition turned out swimmingly as he was a tremendous 5th outfielder, he provided a lot of surplus value relative to his contract, and the team actually gained IFA money when taking his contract on.

At the end of the day Straw provided a ton of surplus value in his first season as a Blue Jay with $14.4 million in value according to Fangraphs. He can literally provide zero value this season and his contract would be even value to the Blue Jays in his two years with the club. He may be a little expensive for a backup player but he did a fantastic job for the team as Varsho missed half of the season due to injury. In a perfect world he'd receive far fewer plate appearances in the post season as both he and IKF were largely empty bats for the majority of the playoffs and largely dragged the offense down in crunch time.

Another way to gauge value is to see what he's worth on the open market.  It's great we have a deep purse now, but paying a 5th OFer $7.4M is a terrible use of resources.

This subject doesn't require multiple paragraphs or responses either.

[max silver]

1 minute ago, Brownie19 said:

Another way to gauge value is to see what he's worth on the open market.  It's great we have a deep purse now, but paying a 5th OFer $7.4M is a terrible use of resources.

This subject doesn't require multiple paragraphs or responses either.

He's not a free agent, he's a player with an already existing contract so it's not an apples to apples comparison bellyaching about what he'd cost in free agency. He's a bit of a luxury spend but he produced 1.8 FWAR/2.9 BWAR so it's little more than your biases in play here with this opinion of being a "terrible" use of resources. I'm still waiting for your reply as to the better method of evaluating player worth vs $/win by the way.

[Spanky__99]

4 hours ago, BTS said:

Where are you guys seeing that his cap hit changes year over year? It should just be 15M per season, right? 

My bad, I think I was mislead by the article on Okamoto, I derped out. My bad.

This article tricked my stoner brain, lol...
 

 

[Laika]

28 minutes ago, sliderguy35 said:

i'd be pretty skeptical of okamoto hitting anything above .250 unless he somehow hits 35+ bombs. big league outfields are just too good defensively nowadays, it'd be pretty lucky to get anywhere close to the same BABIP he had in japan with how many flyballs he hits.

pulling the ball in the air consistently is an incredibly valuable offensive skill, especially when you make a ton of contact, but it's really tough to have an informed opinion without having access to more of the granular swing data / hard hit / chase rates.

you can dream on right-tail offensive outcomes like pre-washed nolan arenado / michael busch / pre-washed marcus semien but there's also a real chance he's a spencer steer / miguel vargas type player (who are ok big leaguers but not anyone you'd pay $15M per year).

ultimately it's worth the gamble when you consider how much offensive depth the jays have & the fact that they're using monopoly money this offseason, but i'm going to reserve any opinions on the player until we get more information.

He really does not look like a contact hitter if you look at his NPB career as a whole 

Dunno what got into him in 2025 but there is obvious Yoshi Tsutsugo risk here 

One of the blogs I landed on mentioned Cody Ross as a swing / offensive profile comp? 

[Spanky__99]

Wet blanket.

[Terminator]

2 hours ago, Laika said:

The takes on Okamoto are so divergent 

The scouts in certain stories on the signing are saying he's a 1B only in MLB. 
BA says he is maybe a decent 3B. 
There is even a scout in one story predicting that he will be a power over hit MLB player? 

He could be anything! 

.280/15 at 3B with good defense?
.250/30 DH? 

lol

Since he signed with the Jays* I'd like to go on record that I think this guy has it all: power, contact and good 3B defense. He's going to make the All-Star team.

*If the Yankees signed him I would have said that he's a slap hitting DH

[Governator]

At the very least maybe it makes signing future players from Japan easier.

[Brownie19]

14 minutes ago, Governator said:

At the very least maybe it makes signing future players from Japan easier.

It's certainly nice to see some Japanese players choosing to sign in cities that aren't on the west coast...

[glory]

The 3 top Japanese players going to Toronto, Houston, and Chicago (White Sox) is at least a change of pace from the usual. I'm sure if the Japanese players available were all closer to Ohtani/Yamamoto level then they probably would have gone to the Dodgers, but whatever. Maybe the Jays create something here where they are a destination for Japanese players in the future. That World Series, as painful as it was for Jays fans, has been universally considered one of the best of all time, and it got major viewership in Japan, so the Jays were front and center there for a couple of weeks. All it takes is one major signing to get the ball rolling. 

[Terminator]

A couple of fun facts regarding Okamoto. His nickname is "The Young General" and he's the only player that the Yomiuri Giants have ever posted.

 

[jerb]

 

[ComeTogether]

His daughter picked the Blue Jays logo.  That sealed the deal.  Lol. 

 

 

Love that he spoke English to greet everyone.  

Let's hope his interpreter is not into sports gambling.

 

[bronson44]

Ross Atkins losing his hair over this offseason. He is sacrificing himself for us.

[wewlad]

11 minutes ago, bronson44 said:

Ross Atkins losing his hair over this offseason. He is sacrificing himself for us.

Too much testosterone 

[glory]

I like how the reporter asked Ross about all the Japanese talent he missed on before finally landing Okamoto, and Ross responds with "you forgot Shun Yamaguchi". He's reached a level of Boss where he can make fun of himself with the utmost confidence. 

[Spanky__99]

13 hours ago, bronson44 said:

Ross Atkins losing his hair over this offseason. He is sacrificing himself for us.

He lost 75% of that in game 7. 😓

 

[Spanky__99]

Good take from Keegan, who seems more in tune with the Jays than BNS...