Laika

Yuck, Thole. f*** Thole. Get someone else who can actually contribute and handle the knuckleball, even if that means Martin has to catch Dickey like 1/2 the time.

They'll need Dickey's innings, probably. He is a pretty annoying presence on the roster though. The upside just isn't apparent anymore and his talent seems to balance on the precipice of disaster. Then there's the ever present issues surrounding who is responsible for catching him.

He won't be in hand though. Toronto's playoff run is going to do a lot for the team's ability to attract free agents. I think.

plenty of fish in the sea

I think I read that Buehrle had four cortisone shots this year just to make it through the season. There was also a lot of talk about Beurhle telling Stroman that he would hold the fort down until he came back, and the team seemed pretty emotionally invested in that whole thing coming to fruition with Buehrle running on fumes at the end of the season, his velocity barely hanging above 80mph, everyone hugging him after his last start like his career was over, and all that jazz. Reading between the lines, I think his shoulder is a physical mess and it's a foregone conclusion that he'll retire. Could be wrong though.

Yeah, if he accepts then so what. Not the worst contract ever. If he declines and it kills his market, then they can sign him to a reasonable 2/3 year deal. If he declines and someone else grabs him - woot woot.

$15.8 is the number

Sanchez has basically proven that he can't start games. You keep him in the pen, hopefully as an effective 2 inning guy who can throw like 80 innings in a season. Osuna you have to give a chance to start, given his arsenal, unless the team doesn't think his mechanics would hold up.

I thought the QO this offseason was going to be 15.XX?

You can't sign and trade in baseball. Teams have to wait until like, mid-June to trade someone who accepts a QO. Evaluating Estrada's true talent is very tricky. Under FIP theory he was a ~2 WAR pitcher this year, but if you believe in his ability to manipulate contact quality and live in the "donut hole" then he might be closer to a ~4 WAR starting pitcher (bWAR 3.6, RA9-WAR 4.5). Estrada hasn't really underperformed his FIP by a large amount in his career. This is basically the only year that he's done it. But, if you look at his pitch mix, through 2013 he was a different pitcher who threw ~20% curveballs. He's cut that in half in 2014/2015 and now he's 60/30/10 in FB/CH/CU frequency. And in 2014 he did underperform his FIP by a little bit. Figuring out exactly what type of contract Marco Estrada is worth is very tricky. Watching him pitch all year makes you think there's a lot going on that FIP ignores, but there isn't a large body of data to support any conclusions on that front. Either way, he's easily worth a QO at this point even if he's just a league average SP. Buehrle I expect to retire right now, after what happened with his shoulder this year and him getting left off the playoff roster. This playoff run might seem like a good way to end his career. We'll see.

I am on the spreadsheet right now and Alan / Boxy is on it as well and his colour is highlighting Corey Dickerson and I don't know what to think about it

that seems weird. why?

I don't think I could stomach Latos. Isn't Kennedy a FA? He's interesting. Need to sign two SP no matter what they do.

lol, f*** off

I also do not like Bautista. He's a diva. Still want the team to extend him though. Also, on the "move Bautista to 1B" front - his garbage D all playoffs has kind of made me more sympathetic to the movement. At this point, the guy looks like a pitcher who got plopped out in RF because of an emergency situation. Terrible routes, terrible range, terrible instincts, bad hands, bad technique. All he does well is throw.

Yes, this is why I wanted Snell first. I just needed an old geezer to rip Dinger off at some point. Having Matt Duffy stay good was unforeseen.

Blake Snell was off limits for Scherzer, lolol

But this table in this article (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-actual-versus-perceived-velocity-statcast-pitcher-data-carter-capps/) disagrees and has Young's extension as essentially normal, adding nothing to his fastball. I dunno

Perceived velocity adds something like 6mph to his fastball. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9561

#69

First 10 people to share this on twitter with the hashtag #breakingblue and the mention @breakingblueMLB get a free signed glossy 8x10 of superstar blogger Chris Carruthers wearing a turtleneck

http://www.breakingblue.ca/2015/10/20/chris-young-better-than-you-think/ read me

Agree that Pillar is infinitely likeable. I was ranking Blue Jays "stars". If we were ranking current Blue Jays, Pillar would be top 3. Stroman-Pillar-Osuna? In some order. I also really like Martin and Revere. And Edwin. And Hendriks. And Dickey.

then I have succeeded

oh I know you can't write an article about Chris Young and miss an opportunity to display a picture of the wrong guy