Laika

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/11/mlb-announces-draft-league-prospects-2021.html hmmmmmmm high school and college draft prospects playing against each other in a league organized by MLB which straddles the MLB draft? cool?

It's Trollosi on a podcast... I'm not that excited yet.

Sounds like the Jays might keep Vancouver and lose Lansing now? Vancouver would become a full season squad. Lansing would become an A's affiliate.

It's a chicken and egg question because in a normal market we aren't coming off a shortened season and Ray gets 33 starts to right the ship. "solid backend SP" seems unfair though. Ray was pretty good for most of 2015 through 2019. As much fWAR (more or less) as guys like Stroman, Odorizzi, Porcello, Happ, Roark. Cy Young votes one year. Just turned 29 years old. He might choose to sign a one year deal in a normal market, coming off a full bad year, given his age but I think a lot of teams would want him in such a scenario. Jesus, didn't the Angels pay Matt Harvey's corpse like $11M two years ago? After being just horrendous for a couple of years. Ray hasn't even really lost his stuff, he just lost the zone for a small number of starts and the mechanical issues are kind of apparent.

Still no report about the AAV but this could be an important one in terms of setting the market. If it's a decent AAV and this triggers a surprisingly normal SP market then Toronto's early Robbie Ray deal will look wise. Of course it could also be a decent AAV and then we look back and just say that KC overpaid.

Really warming up to the idea of Kolten Wong. I know he's not sexy but runs are runs - whether they are prevented or driven in. 2.69 fWAR per 150 games in his career but significantly better recently: 3.44 fWAR per 150 games since the start of 2017 I guess STL platooned him at times so his WAR rate might be an overrepresentation of his talent as a full time starter... but Toronto could and probably would sit him against a lot of LHP too. And he's a mid-market free agent so he would hopefully be a secondary signing. Springer + Wong and the Blue Jays have a top 5 set of position players, maybe top 3. Player(s) - rounded FG WAR projection C - Jansen/Kirk - 3.0 1B - Vlad - 3.5 2B - Wong - 2.0 SS - Bo - 4.0 3B - Biggio - 3.0 LF - Gurriel - 2.0 CF - Springer - 4.0 RF - Grichuk - 1.5 DH - Teoscar - 1.5

They want a new stadium and they don’t want to pay for the whole thing. They know public money won’t be there this time. But there is lots of private money to build condos in Toronto. Private builders team up to fund most of the project and pay for most of the new stadium in the process. Rogers holds a long term lease for the land to use it as an entertainment venue and they pay for some part of the stadium and also agree to amend to lease to bring in all these condo parties. The city just has to agree to the development and new usage and to amend the lease.

Not for me. For many people the money they would spend on a trip to Toronto is disposable income that they would just not dispose of at all if a baseball trip didn’t seem worth it.

And many of those would be not in Toronto. There’s an argument for the City to chip in, depending on the proposal. There might even be a weaker argument for the Province to help. But personally if Toronto had a better stadium I would go to many more games. I’m not doing anything alternative right now so it would be strictly additional economic activity.

Why the f*** would anybody end up on a website like this. Are you related to one of the authors?

Not a big deal to me, this is just my preferred option. I knew the rules but I just had a brain fart between the dispersal draft and prospect draft happening so fast.

I misinterpreted the cutdown / waiver draft rules during the dispersal draft. I took Filip Zadina from the prospect pool to my IR and then ended up with him + 10 prospects + 15 other skaters. Am I allowed to cut a prospect and demote Zadina? If so, I'd cut John Beecher.

Wilner sucked at PBP. He was entertaining on the call in show, though.

https://www.680news.com/2020/11/27/rogers-plans-to-demolish-the-rogers-centre-build-new-ballpark-in-its-place/ These rumours sound a bit meatier than anything in the past. Might they abandon the idea of baseball in Toronto in 2021 and start on this soon, planning to be done the new stadium by 2022?

Honestly, good for him. That's a big improvement. He's probably as fit as, say, Pete Alonso now.

I actually think this was one of his weaknesses with Toronto. They had the stars but the back end of the rosters were often a bit lacking. They got pretty lucky with avoiding major SP injuries in 2015 and 2016, I think the only one was Stroman's knee? Anthopoulos is a decent MLB GM. Creative, can be aggressive, good with the media, has turned around a farm system before. He made some big mistakes with Toronto though (Dickey and the Marlins deal) and there are valid criticisms of what he did in terms of a long-term outlook. He's overrated by the Jays fans who thought he was some wunderkind and underrated by the Jays fans who unfairly malign him for running away from some false scorched-earth franchise.

One of these players got $120 million last offseason and the other just accepted a one year QO. https://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=13431,10310 Stroman probably gets the Ryu contract, conservatively, in a normal offseason.

That's a weird one. Similar players. Both former 1st rounders flirting with bust status. Not sure I see the angle. Hoffman has an extra year of control... Stephenson was good in 2019 and his K/BB was fine in 2020.

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Toronto will never be in this position again. All the stars are aligned: - Covid economics has taken many teams out of the running for significant free agents - Toronto was relatively less harmed by Covid economics because Rogers wasn't hurt by it - Covid economics will depress FA salaries - Toronto's team is on the upswing and it makes sense to add So FA salaries will be low, and Toronto is more competitive than ever for free agents, and it makes sense for them to sign some. Shapiro and Atkins know this. It's a perfect storm of circumstances and it would be malpractice to just have a normal offseason. I expect significant additions. Even if Bauer, Springer, Realmuto, Lindor don't work out I would expect the team to make sure they land some preferred second tier talent like Turner, Tanaka, Paxton, Semien. They were aggressive last offseason and ended up with Ryu - even if they just follow that pattern we should see some responsible higher-end purchases but they might be even more aggressive for the above reasons.

Still a decent 2nd core there or on the way. Tucker and Alvarez are both dynasty pieces. Bregman locked in. They have a young SP core out of nowhere too (Urquidy, Valdez, Javier). They grow backend relievers on trees. Lots off the books after 2021. Altuve might be the only sandbag. Maybe a super skinny rebuild?

Jed Hoyer is really making it seem like Bryant or Schwarber could be non-tendered or dealt for a pittance.

Yeah they are in order. Not even sure I would want Kieboom tbh (red flags!).

You should probably just take Seager but I guess if he would do say Springer + 2 of Lux/Brujan/Kieboom the value could be there, depending on exactly how the contracts work.