Like I said, there's plenty of time. If they don't want Tiedemann as the 5th starter, and they want White and Francis in AAA, sign whoever of Clevinger/Paxton/Montas/German/Lorenzen/Syndergaard/Wood etc... the nerds think could be serviceable.
He's also expendable in the context of the Jays having Gausman/Berrios/Bassit/Kikuchi locked in, White, Francis, Tiedeman and Macko as depth, and an entire offseason to bolster that group.
Look at that man. This is his final form. The peak alpha nerd energy that is going to casually land Toronto the biggest free agent signing in sports history.
You could make the argument that this would be the biggest free agent signing in North American sports history. Not only is he the greatest player in almost 100 years, but he'd completely transform the baseball landscape in an entire country.
There are performance incentives that could push it to 11M if he's healthy all season. But yeah, seems like he misread the market.
Actually, forgot about the 1M buyout he got. So a guaranteed 9.5M + another 2.5M in incentives available.
I just looked at Hafner's FG page for the first time in awhile. From 2004-2006 he played in 406 games and had a 167 wRC+. He was literally Juan Soto good.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/mariners-attach-kelenic-to-salary-dump-may-god-have-mercy-on-their-souls/#comments
FG predictably melting down, as they do any time a team makes a move with consideration to salary.
I think whoever signs him will be able to spread it out over longer than 10 years. Like 14/500 or something. If he ages like Miggy or Pujols it's 8-9 elite seasons. But he might just keep hitting until he's 40, like Ortiz, Big Hurt, Thome etc...
The more I think about it, the more I think a Soto extension might be on the table. They probably had plans on giving 300M contracts to Vlad and Bo, but that's not looking like it's going to happen. So why not pivot to a guy who's trending towards 1st ballot HoF territory who you can lock up at 25?
There isn't a team in the league that would give Springer 3/67.5M on the market right now. I think it's pretty clear that Toronto would dump that contract if they had a chance and reallocate the money elsewhere.