Terminator

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.

Trade seems ok for both teams. As far as it relates to the Jays, we just aren't as motivated to get Polanco because we have a need at 3B and he's 2B. Mariners can just slide Rojas/Urias combo over to 3B and everything fits. If we got Polanco, 3B is still broke and we've got a glut of options at 2B. We could have made it work but it wouldn't make sense to give up a package like that for another 2B.

Yeah and to add Arizona was clearly one of the teams in on the ~10 mil DH's as well. So we might not have gotten Joc, but he does take Arizona out of the market. The musical chairs will continue and we'll get one eventually.

Best bat moved at the deadline was Pham who probably ends up blocking Schneider, thus causing us to miss the playoffs altogether.

With a good spring it could happen.

Imagine starting 3B Josh Donaldson taking Stroman deep at Yankee Stadium

Correct

I guess there is a scenario where we sign a DH only, Horwitz gets pushed to AAA, Barger shines in ST and beats out the other glut of infield options to start the season as the everyday 3B? Seems a lot less likely than Horwitz's various paths to playing time.

Well if we really are in "one bat only" territory and Chapman ends up being that guy then we may not have the luxury to sign JDM.

He makes some sense as he provides another option at 3B. But at this point in his career is he even a better 3B than Schneider? They are both probably awful but if Schneider is comparable then it kind of kills the argument to bring Turner on board.

Chapman would be a good fit. And I know you guys are going to hate this but if we brought him back a DH signing wouldn't be totally necessary. Horwitz is a lefty who projects for a 113 wRC+. It might be worth giving this guy a half season of ABs to see if he can do it. If not we can make a deal at the deadline. Chapman at 3B frees up IKF to play all over. He can play plenty of 2B which frees up Schneider to DH more (who also projects for a 113 wRC+). IKF could also be the 3rd Catcher which would allow the team to feel more comfortable to bat Jansen (110 wRC+) and Kirk (122 wRC+) in the DH spot more. Now compare the above names with everyone's favorite DH targets like Soler (projects for a 119 wRC+) and JDM (107 wRC+), both righties.

Josh Donaldson, on the other hand, now that's a guy whose former team should bring back. He's got 80 games and 15 homers in him before his calves explode for one final time.

He seems pretty cooked. I read somewhere that they are trying to do him a solid. He has almost no chance to crack the Guardians but by letting him pitch in ST he can try and show some improvement and land with another team who has bigger SP needs.

BNS and Zwelling are probably right but there's a chance they are being fed info from the FO who would like to sign remaining free agents for as cheap as possible. Whether that's Soler or even Chapman, they could be signaling that it's time for the remaining FAs to lower their asking prices if they want to sign with the Jays. And whatever threshold they want to be under, I don't think it's really THAT big of a deal if they go slightly over as the penalties only apply to the overages right? So the penalties just don't amount to that much money if you are 1-3 mil over. Though they do likely want some wiggle room for in-season adds which could play a factor.

What is this unhinged rant about?

Starting Pitchers need to average more than 65 innings per year during their career in order for me to count it as significant. Sorry Tyler.

I wouldn't say this is a 100% done deal just yet but this guy is somewhat credible and lots of other reports are that it was close. Takes a DH off the board but also takes probably our main competitor out of the DH market so overall this is a good thing I would think. It would have been bad if some team that was unexpected to sign a DH jumped in and got him.

It's crazy. The other day I posted a clip of him in high school. He and Davante Adams were both WRs on the same team and Joc Pederson was actually WR1. These guys specialize and their training changes their bodies. In baseball, this is partially due to neglect as well.