Orgfiller

The Jays weren't trying to pay Kyle Tucker $100M in 2026 after accounting for the luxury tax hit. There's not many teams that can get away with what the Dodgers and Mets are doing. The former are printing money with Ohtani and their TV deal, and the latter is a rich ******* who spends for fun. Rogers doesn't quite have that luxury, as profitable as the Jays have been over the last calendar year.

Yeah I think the Okamoto addition effectively rendered a Donovan acquisition moot. Good player and cheap, but for the acquisition cost you might as well roll out with Ernie and Barger who may be just as good.

I can't believe the Vlad contract doesn't even look that unreasonable already. If he was a free agent he'd have the Mets trying to pair him with Soto as a Pete Alonso replacement, and the Dodgers probably bidding for him for shits and giggles to replace Max Muncy. Probably gets 70M AAV for 5 years or creeps up on the Soto deal.

I'm not sure there's many teams in the league that can get away with the contracts the Dodgers and Mets are offering some of these guys. Even with the luxury tax being a factor, the Mets and Dodgers are spitting in the face of it and willing to pay more than double per dollar in those short term high AAV deals. This made sense when these deals were given out to starters particularly older ones, but for mid prime star position players this is pretty unheard of. Lowering the CBT hit by artificially lowering the AAV with more years is still something a lot of teams would likely prefer over paying significant premiums for the luxury tax.

How much does Dylan Cease get if he’s still available in free agency at this point? 3/140? Ross Atkins and team with some excellent timing locking him down early to reasonable terms.

This is probably a good thing, if we drive the price on Bellinger way up and the Yankees end up on an awful deal.

They literally signed the top FA starting pitcher, the KBO MVP and arguably the top NPB bat available lol. Even Rogers can't afford to carelessly spend money like this.

Bichette at third base is going to be an absolute adventure. Lindor gonna hate his life having to cover for that.

These AAVs are insane. Teams are just completely forgoing the back end of the bad contracts and throwing out silly values for the short term. Bo basically made half of what he was projected to get over 8 years in a 3 year deal.

No, lol. All of those guys are fringy (at best) at third, they would look awful in the middle infield. Bo for all his defensive flaws still has a decade of experience at the hardest defensive position that isn't catcher, it's not surprising he can look passable at 2B over a small sample size. Their range would be exposed, Barger's cannon of an arm wouldn't do him very much when he's seeing balls roll past him up the middle.

Wouldn't be a Blue Jays offseason without a fake MoccBomb

Ah, that changes your post quite a bit lol. In that case I agree.

Suarez starts since becoming a full-time rotation mainstay (age 26 season onwards): 2022 - 29 GS 2023 - 22 GS 2024 - 27 GS 2025 - 26 GS He's never pitched an entire season while being fully healthy, and I don't expect that to suddenly change starting in his age 30 season unless you know something I don't. He carries quite a bit of injury risk, even relative to the usual injury risk that all pitchers do. He's also lost over 2 mph of velo since 2023.

I mean, not exactly a hot take since he was the top available FA starter lol. The competition is: Sonny Gray (Sox) Ranger Suarez (Sox) Johan Oviedo (Sox) Shane Baz (O's) Zach Eflin (O's) Ryan Weathers (Yankees) - lol Cody Ponce (Jays) Shane Bieber (Jays), arguably since he was already on the roster so wasn't "added" to it per se Steven Matz? (Rays) The Sox have by far improved the most on the pitching side, and it doesn't even compare to the 2/3 the Jays added.

I like Ranger Suarez a lot, but his injury history and declining velo are great indicators for this hopefully being a terrible contract that could look awful as soon as the third season.

I'm certain his market is suppressed because he is/is viewed as a headcase. Doubt we'd add someone with such character concerns to the good vibes team they've been trying to continue assembling.

Jays notes I could find 2:11 Blue Jays Eh?: Your thoughts on Gage Stanifer and Johnny King, could Johnny king be #2 behind Yesavage in a few years? 2:12 Brendan Gawlowski: More to come on Jays (hopefully) this Friday but… I think King is going to be a pick to click for me when Eric and I do that post next month. No. 2 is stretching it but that’s a good pitching prospect. 2:42 CB: Hey Brendan. Excited that you’re going to be doing chats! What did you think of Arjun Nimmala’s season in Vancouver? 2:42 Brendan Gawlowski: Very encouraging. Lovely hands at short, think there’s a real breakout possibility at the plate as he continues to get stronger. 3:25 JT: who’s your favorite DSL pop up guy from last year? Marconi German? 3:27 Brendan Gawlowski: I dunno if he’s a popup guy exactly but Toronto is top of mind and Juan Sanchez is certainly intriguing. Also, please read to the end of that list for the Elaineiker Coronado blurb. Delightfully weird profile. 3:29 Zwayne: Which team’s specific development competency is the most underrated right now? As in, the Mariners and Pirates have great pitching dev or the Dodgers and Red Sox are great at improving bat speed, etc. 3:31 Brendan Gawlowski: Probably the even more granular aspects would qualify as ‘most underrated.’ Toronto’s ability to get guys stronger; Milwaukee’s ability to get wild college arms to throw strikes

Lot of low end talent going back to Miami, and while I think it’s dumb to sell on Weathers like this, he’s also just injured all the time. Probably would have been better off just waiting to see if he had a healthy first half of the season and sold high.

Ponce was not signed to be a 6th starter and Okamoto was not signed to be a platoon guy. Both these guys will be mainstays in the rotation and lineup respectively. If you think Okamoto was signed to be a low stakes number 7-8 hitter I have some news for you. As one of the best hitters in the NPB and with the contract that he signed, he's expected to be a key contributor in the middle of the lineup.

But why

Heading into his age 33 season, with consecutive 90 wRC+ years and sub 1 WAR. Platoon corner only OF with passable but declining defense. Yikes, it's not looking good for him.

Harris II's biggest issue is he's a total free swinger, less so the contact quality or ability to put bat to ball. He's a Javier Baez esque chaser, consistently among the worst in the league. Your name pretty much has to be Bo Bichette to make this kind of swing tendency work consistently, which requires like a 70+ grade hit tool.

It's really hard to find an elite defensive CF who isn't also a black hole at the plate. The ones who do are all 3.5+ win players. See Cedanne Rafaela, PCA, Andy Pages last season. A star example of this is Byron Buxton when he's not broken, Julio Rodriguez, Luis Robert before he crashed. These guys are extremely valuable. Elite defensive CFs who can't hit are more common, but they're not quite as good. Victor Scott, Brendan Doyle, Kyle Isbel, Michael Harris, Denzel Clarke. None of these guys cracked 2 WAR last year, and they need to sustain best in the league type defense to even stick around in the MLB. Myles Straw was out of the league in 2024 because his hitting was horrendous, and he projects for a 70 wRC+. You genuinely just can't live with that on a full-time basis from anyone whose name isn't Patrick Bailey and they're leaps and bounds the most valuable defender in the sport. Even Ke'Bryan Hayes who accumulated the fifth most defensive value last season, was only worth 1.4 WAR because of his putrid 65 wRC+.

The power is real in the sense that, yes he has the ability to hit for extra base hits when he connects well. But his hit tool and plate discipline is going to really limit him from being much better than league average ish. That's fine, and valuable over a full season while he's also providing elite defense. But I think last season's power output, particularly in the HR department, was a bit of a mirage and unlikely to be repeated unless he really cuts down on the K rate, and he probably doesn't come anywhere near a 120 wRC+ without that or really improving his plate discipline. His HR/FB% was >20%, he did reduce his pop out rate which is a positive development, but his K/BB was awful and the OBP was sub .300 for the third season in a row. I'd be ecstatic if he's a 100-105 wRC+ power bat who runs the bases well when he infrequently reaches, but I have a hard time seeing him improve on that, and the projection systems seem to agree this is who he is.

Will he? The glove first guys don't tend to get paid in FA, and he needs to prove that he can sustain last season's power output over a full year while not crashing out from his worsening K/BB rates. Does Varsho get more than Okamoto's 4/60 in the open market right now? Maybe, but does he get much more than that?