Terminator

He had one huge f***up but he also had some great deals. The Vernon Wells trade was probably a net 80+ million in surplus value.

Vernon Wells was one of his best trades. AA gets a lot of s*** and a lot of it is deserved. I didn't like his process like most others here. But I didn't mind his aggressiveness. Sometimes it would get him in trouble (Synder) but other times it would be a boon (Donaldson). Overall he wasn't a horrible GM. Won us the division and set us up for contention for the following two years after he left. Long term I'm not sure how he would have played out though.

Yeah for sure. I like Encarnacion at 3 for 65 though.

Yeah that's a good point. Doesn't mean the Vernon Wells deal was a good signing even though we didn't have to bear the brunt of it though.

Yeah it's definitely a weakness of the team. They should be a strong WC contender next year though.

I'm not trying to rehash it all and I understand that their are mitigating factors but 3 years and 33 million for Morales in a vacuum doesn't seem like a good deal to me right now. Just wait until his age 36 season when he's locked in to our DH spot.

Yeah I liked both of those signings at the time. Another FA signing that reminds me of those is Chone Figgins. I wanted him bad back in the day but as soon as Seattle signed him his numbers tanked.

Get real. He ranked 80th in baseball in wRC+. He's not a "great" hitter. He also doesn't play a position (which both limits his value and the number of teams that could even possibly have interest) and he's old. He also prevented us from resigning a superior player in Edwin. It's not a massive overpay and hindsight is 20/20 but it's clear after seeing these latest prices come in that Morales was give too much money.

Why did we give Morales 3 years and 33 million again?

Yeah Edmonds had a lot of highlights, his catch is probably one of the most played highlights ever. I think if you were in the steroid era 300+ homers just isn't going to cut it for the voters. You have to get 400+. Edmonds, Walker, Edgar, etc. all 300+ guys deserving of more consideration but none getting in.

He had a couple of years with high steal totals (along with a high number of CS too) and I think people thought because he stole 40 bags he was fast and a good baserunner. They ignore his 20 CS that year. He did have a cannon of an arm so perhaps because he had a cannon and because they thought he was fast that he must have been good at defense too? Larry Walker gets overly punished because he played at Coors Field but even factoring that in he was a better hitter. Vlad played about a full season's worth of games more than Walker did but he still finished with about 14 less WAR.

We aren't running out of time but we are running out of options. The Free Agent market is pretty pathetic at this point and I don't know who is on the trade market but it's tough because we don't have depth to trade at any position right now. I imagine whenever we approach teams about trades for OFers they inquire on one of our starters. But we only have 5 with little to no depth and next year we only have 3. We need two OFers and offense. Smith isn't a great OFer anymore but he can still hit. He bats lefty which also works well for us. He's got a reasonable contract and it wouldn't preclude us from acquiring another OF as we need two.

True but other teams don't have 0 WAR projected for their corner outfield either.

Yeah this whole offseason just screams payroll constraints to me.

I'm seeing some good things and some not so good things and that's an improvement. Good: -Bonds and Clemens rising. Makes me hopeful they eventually get in. -Tim Raines is looking good. -Bagwell looking good. -Pudge looking good. -Edgar Martinez is improving. -Mussina is improving. -Nearly 9 votes per ballot is excellent with the overwhelming majority of ballots being 10-player ballots. There are currently more than 10 worthy guys so so as close to 10 as that number gets the better we can clear the logjam. Bad: -Schilling is dropping, likely due to his political beliefs which shouldn't matter. -Trevor Hoffman has a chance this year to get in, eventually he will. He shouldn't even sniff it. -Vlad Guerrero has a chance to be a 1st ballot HoFer and Larry Walker won't ever get in. Larry Walker was hands down a better player than Vlad and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Similar sticks but Walker was an excellent baserunner and fielder and Vlad was bad at both. That said, this is only about 43% of the ballots revealed so far. All those dinosaur writers that don't know how to use the internet to post their ballots publicly could tank Raines or Bagwell.

Woops yeah that is confusing but I meant Trumbo. Trumbo is an average 1B but a horrible OF. For what it's worth I think Pearce is slightly below average in the OF and slightly above average at 1B.

What do you guys think of Steamer projecting Dahl to be a replacement level player next season?

In the OF he's worth about -10 or -11 runs. At 1B he's about a net zero. I have no clue why teams keep forcing him in to the OF.

I don't think he's half bad if a team would just simply use him as a 1B only. I don't know why teams insist on putting him in the OF. But yeah, I think we need OF more than 1B so no need for him really.

The projections don't really like him, he's basically replacement level next season. His minor league numbers are fine but they don't really jump off the page. He was always kind of at best a Top 40ish prospect or so which is fine but it's not like he's some blueblood. Last year he had a solid year in 220 AB's but he still only put up a 111 wRC+. That's pretty good I suppose for a 22 year old. I don't know he seems solid but nothing special. Am I wrong?

Why is everyone on Dahl's nuts? Am I missing something?

That's really vague. Could mean a small signing, could mean a big trade.

The Dickey move was widely panned and the Vlad move would probably be similarly panned. Not to trying to s*** on your theory but I'm not sure what has changed other than the Front Offices.

Everything left in FA (other than Bautista) is slop. But yeah I guess we won't have to overpay for that slop.

It didn't have to be this way. With an aggressive offseason the Jays would have out positioned everyone in the division (other than the Red Sox) for at least next season and possibly the next two. I have no idea what the FO is doing right now. Seems like they are playing both sides of the coin. They don't want to go all-in but at the same time they are locking up 34 year olds to multi-year deals. It's been a frustrating offseason to say the least. Here's to hoping they can pull a rabbit out of their hat before it's over.