TwistedLogic

It wouldn't take Norris.

The point is that they could do so much better with that money regardless. If you can get a guy like Saunders for cheap in a trade, LF is covered, and then you can afford to spend that money in the free agent market, going after someone like Headley. Even if you can't get Saunders, with 50M on the open market you can probably bring in something like Lowrie (3/24?), Neshek (2/10?), Aoki (2/10?) and maybe even a Frasor (1/5?).

If the medicals look clean, he would be an excellent buy-low option. I'm not sure where he's at with his rehab, but I remember he began throwing at one point back in August, so hopefully he's ready for spring. If they pick up Crain and trade for Saunders, that also adds two more inches to the maple-boner.

In terms of relief, I don't know why nobody has mentioned Crain or Neshek yet, but both were twice as good as Gregerson in their most recent seasons, and based on the hype and the fact that neither of them notched a single save, they'll both probably cost less. Badenhop was great and threw in the AL East, Hochevar would probably make an excellent setup/swingman, and a return for Frasor, or a possible flier on Mike Adams both also seem like viable options worth at least considering. Outside of Miller, I don't think there's any decent lefties on the market; none that I'd prefer to Loup anyway. Cotts could be an interesting thing to look at, but his non-advanced numbers were downright atrocious last year. Of course all of these guys might just end up costing exponentially more than they should have, when that hideous Zach Duke contract winds up inflating the market.

It's a purely hypothetical scenario. Had they not made the Heyward/Miller trade, it would make sense for them. Just assume that there are no other factors involved, and only judge the trade itself.

It's simply because many ball players are just generally really dumb people. If they hear things mentioned in the media, as ironic as it may seem given their hate of how the media warps people's perceptions, they'll cling on to it. Whether that's the over-exaggeration of how bad turf really is, whether it's the overblown "issue" of taxes or currency exchange rates, whether it's the fear of the AL East or whether it's whatever else arbitrary reason there might be. Toronto is considered to be the 4th best city to live in, in the entire world. The crime rate is hilariously low, there's limitless city life and culture, it's a top 5 media market on the continent, it's followed and exposed to a national fanbase, there's so much to like. People just don't want to take the initial plunge, but once they do, or in 95% cases are forced to by trade, players constantly rave about how much they love to play here.

I saw this proposal mentioned in some podcast somewhere and was just wondering the general opinion behind a move like this. Kind of in the Miller/Heyward mould, though probably a lot closer, with Upton being worse than Heyward, and Hutch being better than Miller. Justin Upton Contract details http://i.gyazo.com/4c228d338500825fbc6973ac8ecafe0e.png Last three years, 2015 projection, career totals http://i.gyazo.com/075d69f860d9426dfec5040d27c32e38.png Drew Hutchison Contract details http://i.gyazo.com/8d98086e577b163c690db11eb46982f6.png Last three years, 2015 projection, career totals http://i.gyazo.com/03d914521649edfadf669a4698a419e8.png

This is the least A's signing I've ever seen. Reminds me of Friedman last year with Loney and Balfour.

Butler to the A's: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/athletics-to-sign-billy-butler.html

This was excellent. Thank you. That TMOV though.

Backloading is actually beneficial in many ways. Not only do you actually save a significant amount of money through inflation, in the case of both Reyes and Martin where neither of them has a no-trade clause, you have at least the possibility of moving the contracts and unloading a large amount of the dollars owed. You also save in the earlier years, allowing far more flexibility on the current roster, where money is always tighter.

I wonder what the availability/price tag is on Zobrist.

Has anyone seen Jays' prospect Blake McFarland's tire sculpture art? Dude uses recycled tire rubber to make life-like sculptures, it's f***ing awesome. I honestly feel like it's threadworthy, but to avoid dealing with armchair moderators, I'm just going to post it here: http://www.blakemcfarland.com/ http://i.gyazo.com/ece71878cf1116f80426da86a2120c4b.png http://i.gyazo.com/175c7cec1d02bb205da954d34a2f35a6.png Here's the MLB Network interview where I heard about it (they also talk about the new rules to make the game faster from the pitching side, like instant intentional walks and pitching time limits): http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/7417714/v36923159/mcfarland-joins-matt-and-harold-on-hot-stove/?query=Blue%2BJays

Wouldn't be surprising. I have a feeling the reliever market will take a while to develop. Everyone seems to be waiting on Robertson, and with Cuddyer signed, Robertson feels like the Cruz/Santana story of this offseason. I don't see how someone in their right mind can give out another Papelbon deal, especially when there's a draft pick attached. If he signs sooner rather than later, I feel like it'll be back with the Yankees.

Making a "mistake" by going off on a tirade to defend yourself in a quote that wasn't directed at you actually makes you the idiot. And I get the feeling that you know how much of an idiot it makes you, too. You feel embarrassed and that's why you're getting so defensive and bent out of shape over a mistake you made. http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/dm5000d015.gif

He isn't though, is he? He tried to imply that responding to multiple people in one post is "dumb", inadvertently and ironically proving what a moron he actually is by not realizing that multi-quoting is actually a main feature implemented in literally every forum in the world, and can be found at the bottom right of every post. "Responding to multiple people in one post" is basic forum etiquette and actually what people are supposed to do. Multi-posting for each individual response, while a popular practice here, is actually seen as spamming or post-padding in almost every other forum. He thinks that using complicated jargon and sucking his own peepee all the time makes him look like a smart contrarian, when really he comes off as a tryhard neckbeard hipster with a far bigger attachment/dependency to this forum than he'll ever be able to admit. I remember seeing someone's post here a few days ago where they were joking(?) that Moogy is Andrew Stoeten. I didn't even need to think about it for five seconds to realize what a perfect comparison it was, and how it might actually be true. Stoeten seems to have an irrational hatred towards these boards for someone who doesn't post here, so it wouldn't be surprising if he actually does.

If sociopath seems harsh, then you haven't been here long enough.

This makes sense. Having multiple accounts to agree with himself, and then idiotically confusing the two seems commonplace for a sociopath like Moogy.

Was looking for something like this.

I'm with the fangraphs writers that think that the current framing numbers are a bit exaggerated. Still, even in the most conservative sense, if you even cut those numbers by half, 6 wins from framing is tremendous.

And that doesn't even count for his framing, which probably add a couple of wins on top of that.

JP made genuinely atrocious decisions. AA has a resume of a lot of very good small decisions, with a couple major poor decisions. If he had even had a little bit of luck on his bigger moves, he'd be talked about as one of the better GMs in the game. Despite all of his shortcomings and all of the questionable decisions, I have never at any point through his tenure seen AA as a bottom-15 GM in the MLB.

If you look at the advanced statistics, he was excellent from 2009-2013. Not only were his numbers good as is, Russell Martin is one of the top players in the game when it comes to hidden value. So much of what he adds to the team isn't currently factored into the numbers that you see on a stat page. Aside from his elite level framing (where he can pull "balls" into the zone and trick the umpire into calling "strikes"), he's also high on intangibles, where he's considered to be a really good game caller, a clubhouse leader, someone who is in excellent shape (he's actually trained with GSP), and in spite of all the maple-boner jokes, he is Canadian. Something else that isn't very much talked about, is that Russell Martin is somewhat of a chameleon. Throughout the past several seasons, he's significantly altered his approach to fit the ballpark in which he's played. In 2011 with the Yankees, he posted the lowest GB% and second highest FB% of his career, an approach fitting of that backyard bandbox joke of a ballpark. In 2014 in Pittsburgh, a park that slaughters players of his profile (right-handed pull hitters), he completely flipped his approach, developing a sudden and incredible ability to use the rest of the field, evidenced by these wRC+ splits: http://i.gyazo.com/f215a42077321d6ab0f6b541d5044299.png Coming to the Rogers Center, a stadium in which righty pull-hitters thrive, it will be interesting to see if he can adjust once again, reverting to his older pull profile, or if he continues to use the opposite field as much as he did.

It feels like there's a lot more really good value options out there this year than most offseasons. I've got my favorites as usual, but I understand that there's some nice potential for under-the-radar moves out there right now (like the Travis trade) so I'm hoping that even if the Jays don't go after one of our favorites, they are still able to repair some of the chronic holes on the diamond, namely 2B. In terms of preferences, I'm with JFaS on Saunders/Headley. You can't get better value for cost than what those two players are probably going to take to acquire. With Saunders, you already know that Seattle has soured on him for whatever reason and he comes with the free added bonus of maple-boner. There's also no way in my mind that Headley makes what he's actually worth in free agency. I believe that he'll be the ultimate moneyball player for this offseason. The Blue Jays should feel even better about him than others, because they have very recent experience with a good player rebounding after a season where he dealt with serious back issues. And Headley was worth 4.4 WAR in a down year. In terms of pitching, this is the third year in a row where I'm throwing my chips at McCarthy, and I still see Kennedy as a good trade target. If they can't get someone on the higher end like that, I think they should just allocate the resources elsewhere and go with what they've got in-house. There's enough pitching depth in this organization now where you can optimistically hope for a decent 5 to emerge from the pile.

I didn't "anoint" him as this year's version of Shields. Moron. You posed a rhetorical, tongue-in-cheek question of "Stroman = Shields?" as if Shields was significantly better than Stroman in the previous season, when he wasn't. Now that you've been caught out like always, you're back to tucking your two incher between your legs and running, like always. Oh and hey, didn't you say you were done with this forum, regardless of if you were temporarily banned or not? You should change your forum handle to "Beta".