John_Havok

Yep. Jeff Kent was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, as revealed by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee tonight. Kent received 14 of a possible 16 votes from the Era Committee, easily topping the 75% (12 of 16) threshold needed for induction to Cooperstown. Of the other seven candidates under consideration, Carlos Delgado was the next-closest candidate with nine votes, and Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly each received six votes. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela all received less than five votes.

Or even more likely... if he's doing well prior to the the deadline, he gets traded so a) they don't have to pay his buyout, and b) actually recoup something for him rather than most likely nothing. one of those low risk, potentially good rewards kind of a play.

There will be a little kicking...

Mutual options are almost never picked up. One side or the other almost always walks.

I really think people need to move on from this love affair with Bassitt.

I'm going to try and avoid sarcasm here. F*ck no.

2 years, 5 milllion per season with a 2 Million buy out on a mutual option for 2028 of 10million, plus 1.5 possible in incentives over the first two years. Good for Kay I guess. White Sox playing in the kiddie pool of FAs which is probably where they should be

My guess is, the same teams that would be in the running for expensive FAs will be, and the cheaper teams won't, like usual. It's hard to guess at what the teams that were over the 2nd threshold this season will do... did they want to get under the 2nd level to avoid additional penalties for going over that threshold for multiple years? I don't know. Some speculate the Yankees are trying to get under that 2nd level and won't be a big player this offseason. Maybe there's a chance a team like the Cubs decide to get off the wallet and open it up a bit... Astros and Rangers appear to be not willing to add significantly. Boston could very well make some moves I think. Detroit should be... but yeah there's a lot of guessing and speculation involved. Braves could add, but are probably somewhat limited given AA's reluctance to pay market value for literally anyone. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Minnesota, KC, Tampa, Athletics, Miami, Cincinatti, Colorado, Arizona, Cleveland are all firmly on my list of "no chance they add the biggest names" list. I don't consider Helsely to be some massive splash indicative of a spending spree by the O's, especially given their garbage rotation - more like a move that they just spent almost their entire offseason budget on a closer they'll probably be shipping out at the deadline. White Sox are unlikely to be in play on any big name just based on the fact they are terrible and nobody wants to sign there. Teams that you can never really count out of spending money, Angels, Giants, Padres, Seattle is a bit of a wildcard as they are in my tier of "should be spending but probably won't" but it wouldn't surprise me to see a decent addition. I don't have much of a read on the Cardinals other than they suck right now and probably won't add big names via FA, even though they could.

Long article on Imai from MLB.com, pretty interesting. What to expect from Tatsuya Imai? Here are 5 MLB comparisons Whichever team signs the 27-year-old right-hander will certainly hope Imai follows the Yamamoto career trajectory. But when it comes to his actual pitching, Imai doesn't do the same things Yamamoto does. And he doesn't need to. Imai -- who had a 1.92 ERA and 178 strikeouts in 163 2/3 innings for the Lions in 2025 and now wants to take down Yamamoto and the World Series champs in MLB -- can be a different kind of nasty pitcher from his countryman when he arrives in the big leagues next season. Let's find some comparisons for what Imai might look like in the Majors. 1) He has a pitch profile like Luis Castillo This is what Imai's pitch arsenal looked like last season in Nippon Professional Baseball (the data comes from this handy NPB pitcher profile app): Imai has three main weapons: his fastball, slider and changeup. He throws those pitches from a low, sidearm release point, which gives his fastball and changeup a lot of horizontal movement -- both averaged about 15 inches of arm-side run in 2025 -- while his slider has more tight vertical break. (You can see a thorough breakdown of Imai's pitch shapes from pitching analyst Lance Brozdowski here.) That stuff makes Castillo, the Mariners' three-time All-Star starter, a natural comparison for Imai: a low arm slot right-hander with mid-to-upper 90s fastball velocity, a fading mid-80s changeup and a sharp mid-80s slider. The current version of Castillo has a lot of parallels to what you might see from Imai in the Major Leagues in terms of arm angle, velocity and movement. Yuri Karasawa over at JapanBall, who offers a treasure trove of insight on NPB players, recently noted in a video breakdown of Imai that Imai and Castillo have a very similar pitch profile. And given Castillo's success as a workhorse with Seattle, that's a good thing for Imai. If you're looking for a higher-end all-around comp for Imai at the Major League level, Castillo is the type of pitcher that best fits the bill. Sep 24, 2025 · 2:11 Luis Castillo strikes out 10 over 7 1/3 innings 2) He has a style like Max Scherzer When it comes to how Imai deploys his pitches -- on top of just what his stuff looks like -- there are some other interesting MLB pitchers who take a similar approach. One of them is Scherzer. Imai is fastball-slider dominant, especially against right-handed hitters. Over 90% of Imai's pitches vs. righties last season were four-seamers and sliders. Then he adds his offspeed pitches vs. lefties, going mainly fastball-slider-changeup (with some splitters mixed in, too). Those three pitches made up over 90% of Imai's offerings vs. lefties, and if you include the splitter, that's nearly everything he threw to opposite-handed hitters. Scherzer is a good example of a big league right-hander who has that type of approach with a similar arsenal and an arm slot on the low side (though Imai's will likely be lower still). We're talking about the present-day version of Scherzer here, but even that version of Scherzer just had a postseason resurgence for the Blue Jays. Scherzer is also four-seam and slider heavy vs. righties, with those two offerings accounting for over 70% of his pitches in 2025, and he's fastball-slider-changeup heavy vs. lefties, with those three pitches making up over 80% of his usage. Oct 16, 2025 · 1:57 Max Scherzer strikes out five, earns win in Game 4 Imai wants to attack hitters in the same locations as Scherzer with those pitch types, too, most notably with the high fastballs that Scherzer is famous for. Imai said recently: "I focus on throwing a rising, high fastball from that low release -- almost like I’m driving it upward from below." Pitchers like Castillo, or even Jacob deGrom, also have approaches like Imai generally, but Scherzer is all four-seamers, while Castillo throws a lot of sinkers. Scherzer's stuff at this stage of his career is more like Imai's, while deGrom is more sheerly overpowering. But we're just going for the same type of platoon pitch mix here, and this is what you'll likely see from Imai. 3) He has a fastball like Joe Ryan Let's get into some comparisons for Imai's individual pitches, not just his arsenal as a whole. We'll start with the fastball. Eno Sarris for The Athletic has taken a look at this already, using Imai's velocity and movement data and assuming he'll have an arm angle around 20 degrees, which would be among the most sidearm out of MLB right-handed starters. Castillo's name once again comes up, but the strongest comparison is to Ryan, whose four-seamer is a big-time strikeout pitch for the Twins right-hander. Ryan got 109 K's on four-seamers alone in 2025, making him one of just four pitchers with 100-plus strikeouts on those heaters. Ryan, like Imai, throws his fastball from a low slot (he had a 26-degree arm angle in 2025) with very similar induced rise (14 inches, the same as Imai) and run (13 inches to Imai's 15). Imai's fastball has the potential to be like Ryan's, which would make it a very effective MLB-caliber heater. But there's also an X-factor for Imai in MLB: his velocity. Imai sat at 95 mph in NPB in 2025, but he showed the ability to dial up his four-seamer much higher than that. In the Majors, pitchers tend to throw at their max velocity more often -- "emptying the gas tank," so to speak -- so there's a chance Imai's velo could even tick up, which could make his four-seamer an even bigger swing-and-miss weapon. 4) He has offspeed variety like Paul Skenes Imai's slider is his best secondary pitch, generating a 46% swing-and-miss rate in 2025. But his offspeed is more interesting in what it shows about how Imai has tried to evolve as a pitcher over time. First of all, it's noteworthy that Imai features a changeup first when he goes offspeed, not just a splitter, which is the signature of many Japanese aces, including Yamamoto. Imai does throw a splitter, though, and has increased its usage in recent seasons as his strikeouts have also jumped up. And he now throws a new "Vulcan" changeup with a different wide grip, which he added during the 2025 season after learning it from one of his teammates. (The Vulcan changeup is sometimes classified as a sinker.) Here's what those three offspeed pitches look like coming out of Imai's hand, as captured by Karasawa in his breakdown for JapanBall: The fact that Imai throws three different offspeed pitches -- which all yielded whiff rates over 40% last season -- reflects a quality that is increasingly prevalent in MLB today: the ability to throw multiple pitch types within the same pitch group, whether it's multiple fastballs, multiple breaking pitches or multiple offspeed. In 2025, the "Year of the Pitch Mix" in Major League Baseball, pitchers did that more than ever before, as they try to create an edge by expanding their pitch arsenals. Still, there are not a ton of Major League starters who throw both a changeup and splitter, let alone three offspeed variations like Imai. Paul Skenes is the biggest and best example of someone who does, featuring both his splitter (aka, the "splinker") and a separate changeup. There are also a handful of others like Seth Lugo, or Yu Darvish, although they tend to use at least one of their offspeed pitches much more sparingly amid their sea of different pitch types. Shota Imanaga also threw both a splitter and changeup more regularly like Imai as a rookie in 2024, but he phased out the changeup in 2025. Facing left-handed hitters in NPB last season, Imai threw 16% changeups, 7% splitters and 4% Vulcan changes. It will be interesting to see how he mixes and matches those varieties of offspeed pitches to attack Major League lefties. 5) He has a backwards slider like Trey Yesavage There's one last unusual quality Imai has: That slider, his No. 1 secondary, often has "backwards" movement. In other words, Imai's slider tends to move toward his arm side -- left to right -- rather than breaking to the glove side like nearly every other slider in professional baseball. And his slider can be very nasty. One of the only MLB sliders that moves like Imai's is Trey Yesavage's. And we just watched that one dominate in the 2025 playoffs. The Blue Jays rookie phenom delivers the ball nothing like Imai. Yesavage has one of the highest over-the-top release points in the Majors, while Imai will likely have one of the lowest. But their sliders share that one rare quality. If Imai's slider keeps that same movement profile in MLB, it could add some deception against Major League hitters who aren't used to seeing sliders break that way. But it also could make the pitch something of a wild card. We'll just have to wait and see.

That's really hard to guess at unfortunately. We know what the luxury tax levels are, what we don't know is Rogers willingness to go over and above the 2nd or 3rd threshold, or what the general feeling is on how the luxury tax may look different in the new CBA. There's a lot of moving parts and variables we fans just don't have access to. What I do know is Rogers and the FO has always maintained as revenues grow, so does payroll. We know revenues are way up this year, so an increase in payroll should be a reasonable expectation. How much that increase will be is up in the air. For me personally, without knowing 90% or more of the whole picture, I say they should spend, spend, and spend some more and take their chances that the new CBA won't be any more detrimental to big spenders than it is now.

Hard to say. Some teams will be conservative about it, some might take some risks and try to take advantage of current rules that may be removed or modified. If I had to guess, one contract rule that will probably be explored is the use of deferrals, and while deferring money will still be allowed, the number of players on a roster receiving deferred money might be capped and perhaps the total deferrals cannot exceed a certain % of total payroll (something similar to NHL limits on retained salary) If I was a rich owner and I thought that rule was coming, I might be persuaded to tack on as many deferrals as reasonably possible now to get grandfathered in.

The structure for Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason bonuses is based on a revenue-sharing pool derived from ticket sales, with teams receiving payouts based on their advancement in the playoffs. The World Series champion receives the largest share of the pool at 36%, followed by the runner-up with 24%, and other teams receiving progressively smaller portions based on how far they advance. The pool is formed from 50% of gate receipts from the Wild Card Games and 60% from the first three games of the Division Series, and the first four games of both the League Championship Series and the World Series. The total pool is distributed to the 10 postseason teams, and each team then decides how to allocate its share among players, coaches, and other personnel through a vote by players who were on the roster for the entire regular season. (some internet site so it's guaranteed to be accurate) Translation, ownership gets 50% of all the gate receipts for all their home games, the other 50% goes into a pool and gets split up to all post-season teams. The bonuses are not a set dollar amount.

Maybe an option that triggers with him reaching come IP threshold in 2026

"rarely allows HRs" - incoming massively high career rate of HRs allowed incoming. Thanks Kenny,

In a vacuum, yep. However, filling an area of need also weighs on that decision, along with clubhouse chemistry as we know the Jays value. For the Jays specifically, they need to evaluate whether the extra money and years for Tucker which fills a bigger positional need going forward vs Bo being a pretty great hitter in his own right, costing less money, and already has the clubhouse chemistry in place. Some of this will also depend on whether he is willing to play 2b as his primary position. That.... or put your balls out there, sign both of them and, Diaz, and Imai to big deals with massive deferrals, knowing this is going to be cracked down on in the next CBA, and tell the rest of the league to start signing cheques or get left behind.

with the uncertainty over a labour stoppage though, there's a case to be made for getting something done first.

For sure. The revenues that Rogers other business divisions make off the Jays wouldnt even be something that goes into Jays revenue. I can't even begin to wonder what the real value of the Jays is to them

That is one factor yes. The Jays get paid very little (comparitively to other big markets) from Rogers for their TV rights.

Nothing is off the table right now. Rogers is primed to sink even more serious capital in this team to try and win the series next season before the inevitable lockout

Yes...but, are operating expenses for an MLB team wildly different from franchise to franchise? All the perennial non-spenders st the bottom of that list are either so bad at business theyre expenses are off thar charts.... or, they could absolutely afford to spend more on payroll and field better teams, but they choose not to.

backloading doesn't matter for CBT purposes, but deferrals do. Santander has deferrals and his CBT hit isn't prohibitive at all. Could he still be dumped if possible... sure.

Well.....based on the below, it may not have been your intent to imply it... but it's not a reach for someone to infer it. "Is there someone out there that is such a fan of the Brewers that they will (1) buy the team by making an offer the current owner cannot refuse, and 2) increase payroll at the expense of personal wealth. If there is, the Brewers would have been sold yesterday." But, if that was not what you were getting at, cool.

Just seemed from your post you were insinuating the Brewers were being run at a loss, which is why nobody wanted to buy them.

Not sure why you'd think the Brewer's aren't making money. Without revenue sharing... yeah I could see that. For the most part, billionaires don't own businesses that are not profitable unless their last name is Cohen.

Pegging isn't new to me friendo... but it might be for this board. *cough* Agree with your general though process, though i think the 3rd peg will likely be filled via trade rather than FA signing. I think we are going to see a trade that nobody sees coming to fix that