saskjayfan

No deals are without risk, but no risk no reward. There are plenty of baseball players in history who played well in their late 30s and into their 40s. There are plenty of baseball players that were done at 32. Bautista doesn't rely solely on physical skills. His approach at the plate and his understanding of hitting and what pitchers try to do to him is well above average. You combine that with his physical shape relative to other ball players his age, and I think he's a pretty good gamble. He can still play the field and I have no doubt he can transition to 1st and play DH. I think he will be a premium hitter for the next 5 years.

I'm saying that a guy who relied on steriods, had hip surgery and missed a year has nothing to do with a the alex rodriguez that played in his early 30s so why are you bringing up the hall of fame. Alex rodriguez obviously has talent, but is not what he once was. Everyone expected nothing out of him prior to last year. He played way better than what everyone expected. He's just the extreme example to highlight why there's no reason to believe Bautista can't play well at age 36 or 37 or 38 or the 39 season that a broken down arod just played at.

Alex Rodriguez just had a productive year at his age 39 season after having hip surgery and missing an entire year. Age 39 would be Bautista's 4th year of his contract. i don't think Bautista is as big a gamble as some people are making him out to be. He's not a 25 mil aav player, but he's certainly a 20 mil aav player for 4 years.

both him and edwin signed deals which turned out to be very team friendly. It is tough to imagine asking them to take big discounts given this fact. The may be willing to take deferred money. This is only way they both come back

Tampa really should have the best spring training stadium seeing as how they have one of the worst major league stadium

that's exactly what I was just thinking. Now I don't have to make that post...thanks bro

Are you incapable of reading? I think Pillar should be the leadoff guy because I believe he can put up an .obp of .335 to .340. He got on base around .270 in his first couple years in cameos where he had a couple hundred plate appearances. Last year he had an obp of .314. That's improvement. His o-contact and z-contact percentages are better than league average. His o-swing percentage is drastically higher than league average. The only way you limit your strikeouts to 85 when you are swinging at so many more pitches outside the zone is if you have good bat control. Pillar is an athletic guy who makes contact. I do believe putting him in the leadoff spot might put himself in the right frame of mind make him feel that he needs to get on base more. This obviously should be the goal regardless, but athletes are always trying to make something happen. I believe their will be natural growth in his approach and plate discipline by just getting more reps. I feel putting him in the leadoff may help put him in the mental frame of mind to accelerate this process. This may not be the case. No one thought Pillar's defense or base running abilities were anywhere near the level he showed last year. I just see upside in his bat as well. Feel free to disagree with me, but go f*** yourself if you think I said Pillar should be the leadoff guy because he's fast. That's one small part of what I think his overall offensive production can be.

I know that's the thing. History shows that on the macro players do develop better plate discipline as they get more plate appearances under their belt, but some players improve very little or not at all. Some regress when pitchers figure the hitter out and others improve dramatically and there's everything in between. The big difference between Arencibia and Pillar is that Pillar can handle the bat. While Kevin swings at virtually everything, he also only struck out 85 times last year in over 600 plate appearances. He makes contact at balls inside and outside the zone far more than the average major league player. The mental side of the game is very important. The game is 90% mental and the other half is physical! Pillar has always been stashed at the bottom of the lineup. He's always been able to hack away and try and make something happen. They just wanted him to play good defense. Putting him at the top of the lineup may not change him one bit, but it maybe it would help him too. I'm not heavily convicted to this idea, but Pillar put up a .314 obp. That was an improvement over his first couple seasons. If he did improve his approach at the plate and got up to a .330 or .335 he could be a viable lead off hitter. Having speed is not a necessity for a lead off hitter, but having it is not a bad thing. It's only a month of the season. Playing leading might give Pillar a kick in the ass, it might not.

I like the idea of Pillar. I think Pillar could be a very good hitter if he learned a bit of patience. Putting him at lead off would re-enforce the need for him to take a few more pitches and take a few more walks.

who's paying bautista more 31 a year?

my wife...but she's not a baseball fan

Three more weeks until pitchers and catchers report! Man this off season has actually went by pretty quick. Being in the post season does make a difference!

i heard that Sanchez fella put on 25 pounds over the off season. I heard he developed a killer cutter and a kick ass change up over the off season. Heard he's perfected a crazy stare down that will mind f*** opposing hitters. This kid is going to be awesome!!!!!!

Don't get the old man riled up! Kawasaki was not an impact player. Most payers on minor league deals or being paid next to nothing have very little impact on a team. They spend most of their time in the minors. Any player replacing kawa in this role will have almost no impact on the Jays team winning. Those overjoyed are that Kawa is gone seem to lack a sense of humour.

thank god we got Barney instead of Kawasaki. Our chances of making the post season are now drastically better with this upgrade!

They both deserve more than 20...revenues are going up and salaries are too. Edwin on 4 years 37 mil was unbelievable.

I think the point was to elicit nasty responses from other posters.

I don't see why a relatively young player would have any significant decline in his defense or base running abilities outside of an injury situation. Kevin Pillar hit .278 last year with a .314 on base percentage. He doesn't take many walks. The unique thing is he only struck out 85 times. He rarely strikes out either. Pillar never met a pitch he didn't like. He swings at far more pitches outside the strike zone than the average player. He also makes contact with more pitches outside the strike zone, as well as inside the zone, than the average player. He has good bat control with almost zero patience. He did however show more patience last year relative to his previous 2 campaigns. I don't know why people are ignoring the upside to Kevin Pillar. He has a lot of strength and bat speed. He has a team of patient players to learn from and he showed moderate improvement himself last year. If he continues to develop better plate discipline and gets himself into better counts he is good with the bat. He could be become a very good offensive player. Maybe he just is what he is already as an offensive player, but I'm not convinced he can't improve his approach. 860 major league plate appearances is not very much and player's with that amount of appearances usually see growth in their approach and swing as they get more opportunities.

the comment of signing jackson is useless without attaching a price at which you want to sign him. I would prefer cespedes is dollars don't matter.

real nice to be able to spend 189 mil a season. Imagine where the Jays would be if they could add 60 mil to payroll.

signing a player who will play the first year of a 200+ million dollar contact at the age of 33 probably is not the wisest of deals. I would not be surprised if Donaldson is traded next off season though so it won't be the jays making that offer anyways.

for someone who throws out advanced stats, that's a pretty casual fan comment. Advanced stats is all about creating runs or preventing them. The Jays were leading the league in run differential at that point. Their record was .500 at the time, so they were certainly unlucky...no? They were within a couple games of a wild card birth. The trade was hardly a hail mary. A hail mary works less than 10% of the time. Given the state of the Jays team at the time of the trade they were likely favourites to at least grab a wild card birth. If they were 50 and 50 with a negative run differential they wouldn't have made the trades...

lol....i was being facetious. The magnitude of AA's most successful moves were equal to his mistakes. The haters like to dwell on the mistakes and ignore the Donaldson, wells trades. The team last year was historically good. There's only been 6 times in the past 115 years where team with the best run differential had 100 more runs than the team in 2nd place. The Bautista and EE signings were key to last year. Many of the haters hated the bautista signing when it was done. Those that preach to others that they are casual fans and do not know what they are talking about absolutely hated the bautista signing. I guess even the most knowledgeable baseball minds like the one's that post on bluejaysmessageboard are wrong from time to time. Why would AA make mistakes if these people make mistakes?..lol He won the executive of the year award voted on by other baseball executives. Do a few haters on an internet board know more than the baseball executives in the game? I don't think so. Is a team with the league MVP, Tulo, Martin, a dirt cheap front of the rotation arm in Stroman, pillar, goins, travis, Sanchez,Hutch, pompey, osuna, colabello going into 2017 going to be the phillies of this year. I don't think so. Is Tulo going to any way resemble Ryan Howard in 2017? Not bloody likely. Ditto for Martin. AA and his team drafted a ton of talent in his tenure and none of the guys in the farm are going to work out? Pentecost, Alford, reid foley, harris..etc....they are all going to be duds? I don't think so. Haters like Glory...gonna hate.

he just said he's planning on moving to cali after the school year and he also said he has an out clause in his contract which would allow him to accept a GM role.

what was AA good at?