Terminator

What would the Jays’ equivalent package be?

IKF is kind of gross at 3B. BUT I would describe him more as a "primary 3B" rather than a starting 3B. If you look at Fangraph's Depth Charts, you'll see 8 players contributing to 700 PAs at 3B and they combine for 2.1 WAR. That's not great but if you compare it to other contenders, they mostly all have at least one positions like that. Some of them have an even worse black hole and some of them have multiple subpar positions (we only have one).

Yeah I'm a little worried about Turner as well. He's old and sucked against fastballs last year for the first time in his career. That said, he's been remarkably consistent over the years. He just simply doesn't have off years. So if he still has talent, it's a good bet to translate into his performance onfield. Compare that to other options and Soler has been remarkably inconsistent while JDM projects very similarly to Turner and also has age-related concerns.

5-9 isn't that bad. Steamer (aka the Bible) projects the following: 5. Jansen (110 wRC+)/Kirk (122) 6. Varsho (106) 7. Schneider (113)/Biggio (99)/Espinal (98) 8. IKF (89) 9. KK (91) I'll give you that 8 and 9 are subpar but they both bring elite defense to the table. Then you have Vlad (145), Bo (124), Springer (116) and Turner (105) which should make for a pretty formidable top of the lineup.

Going to continue to pile on Preller some more so bear with me. When middle relief talent like Wandy Peralta hits their arb years they are basically one year away from being non-tendered. Adam Cimber put up nearly 2 RA9-WAR and a 2.42 ERA in a season and a half for us. One injury-riddled year and he gets non-tendered over an arb projection of 3.2M and then signs for 1 year 1.65 Mil with the Angels. Trevor Gott seems to be in the same realm of talent as Wandy as an okay low leverage reliever. Wandy has been more consistent but Gott is coming off a better year where he put up 1 WAR and a 3.20 FIP. He was non-tendered with a 2 mil estimate and signed with the A's for 1 year and 1.5 mil. Preller just gave 4 years guaranteed to Wandy when pitchers all across the league would get non-tendered after similar seasons. Dumn.

This is typical Preller ********, just on a smaller scale. If he likes Wandy, and if you squint he isn't THAT bad, just sign the dude to a 1 year 6.5 million dollar deal. That would be your standard FA reliever overpay but it's only 1 year so whatever. But in typical Preller fashion he gave him 4 years with opt outs to lower the AAV. It just doesn't make sense to lock up a 25 man roster spot with mediocre talent like this. Preller is probably hoping he balls out and opts out of the remaining years. But he's gambling 3 years and 12 million on the 2025-2027 payroll to save 2 million this year. Dumn.

Yeah and from what we've seen so far, MILB player development is definitely a bigger concern than onfield performance. The onfield performance stuff revolves almost entirely around 3-4 hitters from last season. Heck, if Vlad alone played up to his standards the onfield performance stuff probably isn't even mentioned as a concern. As for the player development, I think the MILB system had a good year so hopefully that continues to show improvement. A lot of non-prospects turned themselves into prospects which is good to see. Hopefully that continues but we also need to see more elite talent emerge.

It was a weird season. Vlad, Springer, Varsho and Kirk sucked. But Belt and KK hit. Jansen hit. Biggio seemed to make himself rosterable after not hitting for the past couple of years. Schneider, Clement and Horwitz hit and saved the season. So it's not like everyone sucked. It was just 4 out of our 5 best hitters lol. And I think that's probably what killed us. If the Espinal's don't hit it doesn't really matter but when your top bats don't it really hurts. This is a big year for the guys who struggled and if Atkins is going to stick around they will need to hit again.

If Peralta is worth a 4 year deal then Yimi Garcia and Richards could fetch a fortune in a trade.

Are we sure that Atkins' on field performance team sucks? I don't really seem to remember anyone saying much about it prior to 2023. I suppose a lot of people were posting about how he couldn't build a bullpen but after he built the best one in baseball those criticisms are now silent. I'm not saying that it doesn't suck, it certainly could. But I would probably need to see another year of underperformance to confirm. Same thing for player development. This is a big year for Ross.

It's very comparable to most of the contenders. Definitely not elite like the Braves or Dodgers but last year we had a higher wRC+ than the Phillies and Orioles, for example. And that was with half the team hitting like complete ass.

Puke if you want but that's a top 10 offense!

Well s***...

The thing I'd like to know about IKF is how did the Yankees playing him in the OF last year affect his WAR last year? And how does it affect his projections for this coming year? IKF has hit exactly 82 wRC+ in 2021 and he put up 1.6 WAR. He hit exactly the same in 2023 while playing mostly the OF (where his bat doesn't play AT ALL) and he put up 0.2 WAR. Does his 2024 projection think he's playing the OF again? It kind of seems like it as his Defense score is 0.5. If you adjust his projection so he's playing mostly at 3B (where his defensive metrics are elite), some SS (where he gets a huge positional boost) and 2B (mix of both), his projection would be much better right? 2023 was a really funky year for him so it makes him look a lot worse than he is. I'm hoping he could put up a 2 WAR Maikel Garcia-like season this year.

I thought my JD dreams had died with the Turner signing but you guys are helping keep them alive. 15 homers in 80 games before his calves explode and then Turner and the slap hitting IKF can handle the other 80.

Walkoff homer in a Game 4 sweep against his old team the Dodgers

I think the reason this may come across as underwhelming is because Turner's ceiling is lower than Soler and JDM's. We all love ceiling but there is something to be said for being as consistent as Turner is. Add in a sprinkle of positional flexibility and I am talking myself more into this signing every minute.

I was at the game but I missed it and I'm still pissed about it. I had a friend in town and he got me piss drunk the night before. I was up getting a little hair of the dog when Horwitz decided to blast one 450 feet. Still blaming my friend for this.

Yeah Espinal's days are definitely numbered.

Steamer has a huge hard on for him. I'm not quite that high but he had one hell of a year last year and may have unlocked some power along the way (9 of his 10 AAA homers came in his final 175 ABs). But that was a glass half full of Kool-Aid take anyway. The glass half empty is that Horwitz sucks and won't play and that Turner is older than dirt and we only signed him because he was the only one willing to take our cheapskate offer.

Ok if you guys want a little Kool-Aid here you go: -Reasonable one year deal. The other options likely wanted more years and $$$. -The positional flexibility is nice for a DH. League average-ish 1B and hopefully he can chip in some at 2B and especially 3B. -His numbers might have been dragged down by injury. His worst two months were April (he took a ball to the face in ST) and September (clearly hobbled through a heel injury). He was slashing .287/.357/.488 through the first 5 months of the season until an awful Sept. -Turner seems like the type of late career veteran that the Jays can squeeze the most out of and they should have a better plan in place for him over Boston. Shooting for 120 games and sitting him more against hard throwing righties would be a good start. -The positional flexibility and a lighter workload for Turner provides a nice 250-300 AB role for Horwitz, an MLB ready lefty bat that projects to hit righties better than Soler and JDM. A Turner/Horwitz 65/35 split at DH probably projects just as well as Soler and better than JDM.

I am in the whelmed to slightly underwhelmed range but I'll probably be able to talk myself into it. I think Soler and JDM's power potential would have made for a more fun signing. I don't think Steamer has much to do with it though. JDM projects slightly worse via Steamer. If you go by Zips then Turner blows him out of the water.

We've got a Baerga bomb saying that we've signed Turner Carlos Baerga y Me Gustan Los Deportes (@carlosbaerga09) • Instagram photo WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM 693 likes, 21 comments - carlosbaerga09 on January 29, 2024: "🔥Se Rumora en Toronto que Justin Turner llegó a un acuerdo con los Toronto Bluejays y de hoy a mañana ya estará en contrato con ellos 🔥. @mlbnetwork @jonmorosi @jeffpassan @espn_beisbol @espn @enriquerojasespn". "It is rumored in Toronto that Justin Turner reached an agreement with the Toronto Bluejays and will be under contract from today to tomorrow"

Mariners are also going to feel the effects of constantly trading relievers to try and patch the holes in their lineup. Trent Thornton is currently listed as their 7th inning guy on Roster Resource lol.

I get trading Suarez. His 3.2 WAR was defensive metric-fueled fugazi. Seems like the bottom could fall out on him any year now. On top of it they've got Luis Urias who is younger, cheaper and projects similarly. They seem a little cash strapped (or so I thought until they sent Manny 7.5 mil) so getting rid of Suarez and his salary made sense. But in this infield market I have no idea why they rushed to trade Suarez for a couple of turds in what amounts to a straight salary dump. Seems like Suarez could have gotten them something. Very Dipoto like move.