Laika

Not many qualified NPB hitters have come to MLB in recent years. There's Ohtani, but he's incomparable. Dae-Ho Lee came for one year but he was 34. Gurriel spent a season in Yoshitomo Tsutsugo's league in 2014, two years before he came to MLB, so if you want to use one guy as a projection basis he would be the one.

.220 with 23 home runs and 69 runs batted home and 3 steals

Cool if true.

Going over my depth chart. I think I'd like to trade for a SP upgrade over Eric Lauer or even an elite RP. Willing to move Jarren Duran who hit .387/.456/.543 in A+ last year as part of the deal. Can also include Clint Frazier, Christian Walker, Posey, certain others.

If only you were a mod and could do something about useless troll posters

Toronto is kind of being pinched out of the upper and middle portions of the free agent SP market. Cole and Strasburg are not on the table, Ryu probably isn't, Bumgarner is a scary thought, and who knows about Keuchel. There are lots of options left - dozens of veteran starting pitchers looking for teams. A good portion of them are reclamation project types though. If you sort by projected WAR, immediately after Bumgarner you get to guys like Porcello, Wood, Martin Perez - guys all coming off of mediocre or bad seasons. There is a lonnnnng list of these guys though. Like I said, dozens and dozens. Toronto is going to be in the Dollarama free agent SP market in all likelihood, picking their favourite two reclamation project dudes. Rick Porcello SP R R BOS 31 10.170 1.8 1.9 3 $36.0M $12.0M Martín Pérez SP L L MIN 29 7.038 1.9 1.9 Kevin Gausman SP/RP L R CIN 29 5.151 1.6 1.7 Alex Wood SP R L CIN 29 6.123 -0.2 1.7 Homer Bailey SP R R OAK 34 11.017 2.9 1.6 1 $5.0M $5.0M Tanner Roark SP R R OAK 33 6.055 2.0 1.6 2 $20.0M $10.0M Wade Miley SP L L HOU 33 8.025 2.0 1.6 2 $16.0M $8.0M Brett Anderson SP L L OAK 32 10.135 2.0 1.5 1 $5.0M $5.0M Gio Gonzalez SP R L MIL 34 10.146 1.4 1.5 2 $20.0M $10.0M Rich Hill SP L L LAD 40 10.127 0.9 1.4 1 $10.0M $10.0M Jordan Lyles SP R R MIL 29 8.002 1.6 1.4 2 $12.0M $6.0M Iván Nova SP R R CHW 33 9.024 2.0 1.3 2 $14.3M $7.2M Jhoulys Chacín SP R R BOS 32 9.054 -0.1 1.2 1 $4.0M $4.0M Matt Moore SP L L DET 31 8.000 0.5 0.9 1 $2.0M $2.0M Michael Wacha SP R R STL 28 6.062 -0.2 0.9 Jimmy Nelson SP R R MIL 31 5.107 -0.1 0.9 Taijuan Walker SP R R ARI 27 5.142 0.0 0.9 Drew Smyly SP L L PHI 31 7.143 -0.3 0.8 1 $3.0M $3.0M Félix Hernández SP R R SEA 34 14.060 -0.1 0.8 1 $2.5M $2.5M Jason Vargas SP L L PHI 37 12.114 1.8 0.8 Clay Buchholz SP L R TOR 35 11.021 0.1 0.6 1 $4.5M $4.5M Tyson Ross SP R R DET 33 8.118 -0.0 0.6 Clayton Richard SP/RP L L TOR 36 9.160 -0.2 0.6 1 $2.0M $2.0M Robbie Erlin SP/RP R L SDP 29 5.045 0.5 0.6 Andrew Cashner SP/RP R R BOS 33 9.126 1.8 0.6 Collin McHugh SP/RP R R HOU 33 6.085 0.5 0.6 2 $10.0M $5.0M Aaron Sanchez SP R R HOU 27 5.069 0.8 0.5 Julio Teheran SP R R ATL 29 7.062 1.6 0.5 Josh Lindblom SP R R KBO 33 1.151 0.4 2 $8.5M $4.3M Cody Anderson SP R R CLE 29 3.116 0.1 0.4 Jesse Hahn SP R R KCR 30 4.067 -0.1 0.4 Matt Harvey SP R R OAK 31 7.016 -0.3 0.4 Chad Bettis SP/RP R R COL 31 5.096 0.1 0.3 Jeremy Hellickson SP R R WSN 33 9.041 0.1 0.3 Edinson Vólquez SP/RP R R TEX 36 11.059 -0.2 0.3 Wade LeBlanc SP L L SEA 35 6.131 -0.3 0.3 Derek Holland RP/SP S L CHC 33 10.105 -1.0 0.3 Tommy Milone SP L L SEA 33 6.113 0.1 0.2 Trevor Cahill SP/RP R R LAA 32 10.098 -0.8 0.2 Shelby Miller SP R R TEX 29 6.093 -0.2 0.2 Ross Detwiler SP/RP R L CHW 34 7.011 -0.6 0.2 Ervin Santana SP R R NYM 37 13.123 -0.4 0.1 Jerad Eickhoff SP/RP R R PHI 29 4.028 -0.4 0.1 Wei-Yin Chen SP R L MIA 34 8.000 -0.4 0.1 Edwin Jackson SP R R DET 36 12.158 -1.1 0.1 Marco Estrada SP R R OAK 36 10.018 -0.2 0.0 James Shields SP R R CHW 38 12.125 0.0 Steven Wright SP/RP R R BOS 35 5.012 -0.3 -0.0 Rico Garcia SP R R SFG 26 0.034 -0.3 -0.0 Kohl Stewart SP R R MIN 25 0.094 -0.2 -0.0 Josh Tomlin RP/SP R R ATL 35 9.033 0.2 -0.1 Danny Salazar SP/RP R R CLE 30 5.162 -0.2 -0.3

Demar Derozan was the Raptors' Joe Carter. A sports franchise can only have one Joe Carter. Kyle Lowry is the Raptors' Jose Bautista.

Marte is real good and if Pittsburgh wants catching prospects Toronto has them. Jansen, McGuire, Moreno, Kirk, and Adams. I don't think Toronto will be super into it though. Marte with the option exercised is 2/$24. Trading prospect capital to pay Marte that much and then have him leave might not make sense. I think Toronto would be more inclined to just get a one year stop-gap bat from free agency. Marte is a real nice finishing piece on a competitive team but is he what Toronto needs? Brett Gardner might sign a one year deal for $10M. Avisail Garcia is a cheaper/worse FA option. Kole Calhoun, Corey Dickerson... there are options that wont cost prospects so won't sacrifice any potential future.

How about they just cancel the winter meetings? Who cares about making them interesting

f*** off everyone else!!!

Buddy you've been asleep at the wheel since you were borned

Watched the video too I will harm myself if Toronto does not get Nick Gonzales and Josh Lindblom

Couldn't tell you - we kissed hello/goodbye

I will cream my pants

f*** the Red Sox have a terrible farm system.

I had a dream that Josh Lindblom came over for dinner and we talked about his spin rate over spaghetti and meatballs. Can't get this guy out of my head!

That's a fun hypothetical. Pujols' contract only has two years left but he does have that 10 year "personal services" thing tacked on the end of it and who knows how a trade would affect that. But I imagine that the Angels would basically have to give up Jo Adell to make the value even out.

The top ~7 on their depth chart were all 28 years old or younger. Hamels just has to eat a bunch of regular season innings, protect the kids a bit and take some of the pressure off them, and not suck. Anything in the playoffs would be gravy but look at what Wainwright just did.

None of the contracts seem horrible in a nutshell (some might be bad, I dunno) but the cumulative impact and bang-for-his-AA-bucks just seems so underwhelming.

Yeah that's not great.

Trade you all my good players for s***** picks then ghost on everybody

I've watched extensive video of Josh Lindblom all morning long, expertly analyzing his mechanics and repertoire, and I am convinced without any shred of doubt that he is an above average MLB SP, closer to Miles Mikolas than Merrill Kelly. I would bet my life, family, career, and reputation on this. If Toronto does not sign Josh Lindblom I will stop posting on this board and retire from my baseball career, unless he somehow gets an AAV of $10M or more from some other team then it's all good because I was right and they just got outbid by some other team that was hot as f*** for him.

The stats the last three years are substantially better. Merrill was at 2.0 fWAR in 2019, good for 48th among qualified SP and 67th among arms with 100+ IP. That is definitely closer to #3/4 SP performance. He did not pitch like a number 5. He's about as good as these free agent SP: Gausman, Miley, Martin Perez, Porcello, Hamels, Roark, Bailey, Wood, Gio Gonzalez. Perhaps that's a #5 SP on a 95 win team. Signing a guy like Lindblom to a deal like 2/$8 or 3/$9 or whatever is precisely how you leverage knowledge (scouting and data) to get the rare surplus value deal on the FA market. Toronto should sign him if they think he's any good (they might not). I agree with you though that Lindblom should be signed along with a better SP. There aren't many options in that gap though. If we assume Cole, Strasburg, and Wheeler (at this point) are not realistic options and you are left with Ryu (probably doesn't want to come to Toronto) and Keuchel. Bumgarner might get an albatross contract and is not trending in the right direction. So it's basically Keuchel or bust!

Merrill Kelly in the KBO 3.86 ERA, 7.9 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 0.8 HR/9, 1.309 WHIP. Lindblom in the KBO 3.55 ERA, 8.2 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 1.0 HR/9, 1.19 WHIP * this includes five years - he was much, much better the last three years Merrill Kelly was a boring 2 win pitcher in 2019 Lindblom > Merrill Lindblom > Kyle Gibson? We will see! Please sign him

The goods on Lindblom: fastball seems to be mostly 90-92.5 but I saw one clocking at 152 km/h offspeed stuff looks sick sign him up