Blue Jays Re-sign Scherzer

[John_Havok]

22 minutes ago, max silver said:

The two sides were $1.35 million apart. It's too bad neither side was willing to budge a bit as there was likely a middle ground available but alas that wasn't the case.

1.35 million is like what... 0.4% of their CBT. I get that ya cant just pay every guy whatever they demand just because they made the finals last season .. but it seems like this was a weird hill to go to battle over.

[The_DH]

I like Scherzer a lot but I don't think he'd work as a reliever -- he has to prepare himself mentally a lot on the days he pitches.  It wouldn't work in relief.  

[Jimcanuck]

3 hours ago, max silver said:

The two sides were $1.35 million apart. It's too bad neither side was willing to budge a bit as there was likely a middle ground available but alas that wasn't the case.

Lauer isn't worth finding a middle ground for.  Bad business for a team to be splitting the difference with replacement level players.  With those guys, its take it or leave it.

[max silver]

3 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

Lauer isn't worth finding a middle ground for.  Bad business for a team to be splitting the difference with replacement level players.  With those guys, its take it or leave it.

Lauer was nowhere close to being a replacement level pitcher. That does a massive disservice to how effective he was in multiple roles for the Blue Jays last season. 

[Jimcanuck]

6 hours ago, max silver said:

Lauer was nowhere close to being a replacement level pitcher. That does a massive disservice to how effective he was in multiple roles for the Blue Jays last season. 

8 seasons, 6.2 WAR.  His command of his 92 mph fastball in 2025, and .267 BABIP against, may or may not hold.  Projection systems are skeptical, projecting 0.1 to 0.3 WAR.

[max silver]

5 hours ago, Jimcanuck said:

8 seasons, 6.2 WAR.  His command of his 92 mph fastball in 2025, and .267 BABIP against, may or may not hold.  Projection systems are skeptical, projecting 0.1 to 0.3 WAR.

ZiPS projects Lauer for 1.1 FWAR in 108 innings which is right in line with his 2025 season, although you appear to have conveniently ignored that projection as it doesn't fit your "replacement level" narrative. All of the other projections view him primarily as a relief arm with minimal starts under his belt. He's not a high end arm by any means but he's still a valuable piece to the overall pitching puzzle as a dude who can start and relieve as needed. 

[John_Havok]

6 minutes ago, max silver said:

ZiPS projects Lauer for 1.1 FWAR in 108 innings which is right in line with his 2025 season, although you appear to have conveniently ignored that projection as it doesn't fit your "replacement level" narrative. All of the other projections view him primarily as a relief arm with minimal starts under his belt. He's not a high end arm by any means but he's still a valuable piece to the overall pitching puzzle as a dude who can start and relieve as needed. 

suffice to say that projections systems are going to have more difficulty with a guy like Lauer depending on their weighting of recent performance vs older performance when there is a large gap where he pitched elsewhere. Error bars are probably a bit more pronounced. 

I like Lauer as a backend guy, given he's more of a command guy than a stuff guy and his margin of error is much smaller. He's a guy that's going to ride the babip and HR rate roller coaster at the end of the day since doesn't walk a bunch of guys, and doesn't strike out a ton either. 

[Brownie19]

On 2/27/2026 at 6:35 PM, John_Havok said:

1.35 million is like what... 0.4% of their CBT. I get that ya cant just pay every guy whatever they demand just because they made the finals last season .. but it seems like this was a weird hill to go to battle over.

I mean - the "judge" sided with the Jays, so it's Lauer who's overvaluing himself.  The Jays did the right thing.  Ross ain't no beta b*tch.

[John_Havok]

25 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I mean - the "judge" sided with the Jays, so it's Lauer who's overvaluing himself.  The Jays did the right thing.  Ross ain't no beta b*tch.

At the end of the days its immaterial really. I don't blame him for trying to get every cent given his age and his career arc. At the same time though, if he wants a bigger multi-year deal as a starter in 2027 and beyond, then he needs to just keep his head down and pitch his ass off when called upon. 

Like, what's the expected contract term and value for a 32 year old backend starter anyways? 

[Brownie19]

30 minutes ago, John_Havok said:

At the end of the days its immaterial really. I don't blame him for trying to get every cent given his age and his career arc. At the same time though, if he wants a bigger multi-year deal as a starter in 2027 and beyond, then he needs to just keep his head down and pitch his ass off when called upon. 

Like, what's the expected contract term and value for a 32 year old backend starter anyways? 

I'm sure anything above $15M would be life changing for him an his family.

[John_Havok]

5 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

I'm sure anything above $15M would be life changing for him an his family.

something like Steven Matz got this year? 2/15 ?

[Terminator]

On 2/27/2026 at 4:35 PM, John_Havok said:

1.35 million is like what... 0.4% of their CBT. I get that ya cant just pay every guy whatever they demand just because they made the finals last season .. but it seems like this was a weird hill to go to battle over.

Milking Lauer for a million bucks isn't a huge deal in itself, but it's a good thing for the team to win the odd arb case.

It shows players that the Jays can and will take you to arb and they have shown that they can win the cases. So players better bend some during settlement negotiations or they may end up losing.

Could save the Jays millions in settlements over the coming offseasons. 

[ComeTogether]

On 2/26/2026 at 12:50 PM, Laika said:

Here's the back story