TwistedLogic

If we're talking just 2014, I go Burnett, Garza, Niemann, Capuano. In terms of actually signing the player, where you're considering the years beyond just this season, I'll take Garza over Burnett, with the other two following in the same order.

Yes, because even on a 5-year deal, a 25M aav is f***ing stupid for a guy that's never pitched in the majors.

Syndergaard and d'Arnaud are not relevant to your point of "trading valuable long-term assets for recently signed free agents" because they weren't involved in the Miami trade. Henderson looked replacement level at best when he was traded, and thanks to Beeston and Rogers and the PR disaster, Yunel was going to be ditched regardless. This was a trade in which you'd at least get Reyes back.

Based on?

Based on?

Screw you http://i.imgur.com/RN70TUF.gif

Please name all of the 6+ year deals that were made this offseason that the Jays should have paid more to acquire themselves. Of course you can. Rational thoughts are unwelcome here.

May I ask why, according to you, the answer to: Q: "Would you sign Mike Trout for more than five years" is: A: "We are not a big market team, we cannot afford Tanaka" ?

Meh whatever. I guess I did a mental shuffle since Levine's been accused of both in the past month or two. Tampering on the Mike Trout comments and collusion on the A-Rod case.

It simply isn't true that the Blue Jays don't comment on other team's players? No actually that is very much true, because they are not allowed to comment on other team's players.

The most BS answer of all time? http://i.imgur.com/FA2CI9v.gif That is the exact answer that they should give. If a fan is moronic enough to ask a GM or club president about another team's players, they deserve to get thrown out of the stadium, let alone given a generic answer. Commenting on the contracts of players on other teams is rightfully regarded as collusion. Go look at the backlash Randy Levine received for his comments about Mike Trout in the wake of the Robinson Cano signing.

This is the case with every single player that ever hits free agency. By the time a guy becomes a free agent at the likely age of 29-31, if he was a star, he will command a contract that will likely have a poor back-end of the deal. If you think it's great to walk away from a long-term contract at age 29, then you're basically against ever signing any elite free agents. That's fine of course, that basically makes you operate like the Rays, but that strategy will not work for every team the way it does the Rays. Again, an opt-out in this particular deal is not good. The argument of having a bad back-end of the deal works for guys that have contracts that end at 37 years old. In this particular situation, a straight seven year contract (age 25-32) is more valuable than a seven year contract with an opt-out after 4 years. In both situations, if the player sucked, you're stuck for seven years, but since players don't generally fall off cliffs from 29-32, in the event that the player turned out to be a superstar, you get only four market value/below market value years, as opposed to seven. At that point, yes, you can walk away, or you can choose to renegotiate, but those are still three good years that the payer had in his contract that you will not receive. Opt outs basically just tell the player "If you're s***, we'll continue to pay you, but if you're good, you can leave". They almost never make sense.

Not on a 7 year deal for a 25 year old. If he was good enough to earn that kind of money though his age 29 season, chances are high that he would continue to be of similar value for the next three years. The risk of the "back-end of a contract" comes into play on long term contracts signed by typical free agents, who hit the market between the age of 29 to 32 (which is where Tanaka would opt-out). Knowing the Yankees, if Tanaka is good enough that he does opt out, they will very likely retain him (similar to the Sabathia situation). In that case, they will have paid him market value from his age 25 to 29 seasons, and then again from his age 29 to 33 seasons, and still get stuck with the actual s*** back-end years, which now instead of 29-32 will likely be his age 35-37 seasons. This whole thing is basically like having an elite prospect, but paying him ridiculous money from the day he signed, rather than getting the league min years, cheap arb years, and then having to make that commitment after he proved himself.

This makes me wonder, what is the policy in the MLB on cash-for-player trades? I know smaller players are often traded for "cash considerations", but would assume a bigger deal of straight cash wouldn't be approved by the commissioner. If it were ever allowed, would a team like the Yankees be able to acquire a player like Jose Fernandez off the Marlins for something like 150M cash?

Good. An opt-out clause on this contract is just f***ing absurd. There's absolutely no upside to this deal. If everything breaks right, you're paying the guy like a bonafide ace for the next few years and then he either leaves or gets a raise at age 29 (an age at which guys will be commanding contracts upwards of 200M by then), and if he flops, he refuses to opt-out, and you're f***ed for seven years with a guy that is disgustingly overpaid and holds a full no-trade clause.

Like the Jays moves last year locked them as #1 in the division? I would probably still take the Rays and Red Sox over the Yankees. With Infante, Baker and Garza, I would have taken the Jays over this current Yankees team as well, though that of course is all smoke now.

Damn... two B+ or higher prospects? Was it last year or the year prior where he rated like eight of our prospects as B+? Edit: Yep, 2012. http://www.minorleagueball.com/2011/11/30/2601596/toronto-blue-jays-top-20-prospects-for-2012 Rated eight prospects as B+, that didn't include Sanchez or Osuna, and it was before Stroman was drafted.

http://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gifhttp://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gif

That's how I felt when I found this site, though to be fair, it was only a few weeks old at that point. As for your question about what rotation I'd pick between the '11 Phillies, '13 Tigers and '14 Dodgers (w/Tanaka), I'd take the Tigers easily. That might be the best rotation I've ever seen since I went from casual to hardcore baseball fan.

This is a ******** f***ing favor for the Yanks. Why would they? The players association benefits greatly from this. A-Rod is an outlier case, there are very slim chances that there will ever be another case similar to this again (player with an alleged PED past that gets involved in a massive PED scandal, and is being paid near $30M by the richest team in baseball, that is also desperate to re-allocate that salary amount on other players). Since they will likely never have to defend a similar case in the future, it only makes sense to me that they wouldn't mind throwing A-Rod under the bus, while getting big contracts for several other players because of it (Beltran, McCann, Ellsbury, Tanaka).

Not that I give a s*** about hunting, but juts for the record, he used a bow.

That is a very peaches and cream way to paint it. Deadspin flat-out admits that the whole thing was to make a farce and a mockery of the Hall of Fame voting. When Le Betard decided to get on board with them, he accepted their motive as his own by proxy.

This doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the Blue Jays. Sounds like it's a deal for the media department. Think ESPN and Fox signing broadcasting contracts.

I lol'd at the title, but this is probably as far away as you can virtually get from "thread-worthy".

Without using reason, rationale or any form of statistics and based purely off of shameless, homer bias: yes - first ballot.