BigCecil

“Just look at that nut scratching aggression. He worked on scratching his nuts in winter ball. He has come into this spring much more determined to scratch his nuts well this season and I’m certain he will.”

Love the fresh start of ST and we have a WBC this year. Its great to see what Kooch is throwing and Pearson go upstairs to K JD with 101...the new rules impact etc etc. But holy f*** the Spring narratives are nauseating 2 games in. I have to mute sound. Makes me crazy. As these commentators struggle to fill airtime now, as 3 weeks into the season this will all be a distant memory. Remember '22 Greg Bird? By contrast Matt Carpenter was nowhere last Spring and had a 217 wRC+ during the actual season with the Yanks.

Happy belated 50th Birthday to my bud and most glass half full die hard Jays fan I know! Look forward to catching some games together this year hopefully.

Bit tired of this Manoah stuff online. We mostly all loved Stro in '15 when he was beaking off coming back from injury, until we didn't. It just got to be too much and then his performance waned as well. Manoah attracts a lot of attention. I like the guy and his arm but I'm not sure he is he/we think he is. The notion by some that he is "big and strong" means he is durable is ridiculous to me. Pearson is also "big and strong". With the shift changes and the stuff will we see some regression? I have a novice understanding of his pitching analytics but I'd be curious what others think about his upside/downside??

I like this deal. Lets hope he can make it back down the stretch healthy and give us the equivalent of a major trade deadline upgrade without having to move anyone.

Fair perspective. I get the argument. On a one year deal I don’t think he was a massive overpay, juxtaposed against the term/aav we ended up signing to backfill him with Bassitt, and the expensive market. Would have been ok with it. I don't discount Swanson. Very solid. I meant in addition to him. In exchange for Teo's bat in a win season, it was necessary getting a RP back is minimum that in quality/control. Would like to see another arm of that ilk added.

Happy with this FO work this off season FWIW. Things I'd like to have seen or see: At least 1 swing and miss arm in pen. Less balls in play is a good thing. More reliable 5th than White/Kooch Wish we would have qualified Strip Signing our young stars to reasonable deals long term (lotsa luck) But almost every team has holes and weakness even before the 5th spot SP. Its going to be interesting how our pen shakes out with the shift elimination, as constructed. Losing Moreno's control/potential and Teo's bat for '23 sting but the FO has done a good job clawing back that value. I'm pretty excited for the season now.

Solid signing in this heated market. Assuming he is healthy it gives us the strongest bench options I can remember. We have a couple of legit LHH bats now.

True. I am pretty fascinated to see what this FO does on any extension attempts for Bo and or Vlad. With the '23 market, I'm not convinced the FO and player(s) decide to get anything done. Things could change in the market, so at this point in their service time, the FO is likely going to be patient and bet it comes down. I could be totally wrong of course.

Ya, and winning. The whole Pujols leaving STL always sticks in my mind. It was a huge thing at the time and massive debate, but Cards fans after the fact, are thankful someone else took that hit. Then they just got to enjoy the encore goodbye tour.

Really though do they care that much? How much of a motivator is that? The business of the Red Sox would take some hit but its so large and successful they can make moves like they did with Betts and Xander not really skipping a beat. Whats the real cost of moving on from even Devers too, to the business? Honest question - I don't know that answer. Just musing about the calculation. FO and ownership know that there its all about winning and if they win the fans support them. The do well financially even when they arent great. If they don't win much, it doesn't matter if they have Devers or not, the fanbase is up in arms. He might became a focal point of the criticism if gone, but if they suck the fanbase will find other criticism topics, even if they pay him or don't.

This trade is legit debatable which is a sign of a pretty good trade. My bud in Scottsdale thinks we for the best of it lol. The Moreno control length & current cost, and the reasonable probability that he is a stud on O and D matters. LGJ is not legit much of a factor for all the reasons mentioned. But its easy to see why FO made the move for us for LHH and improved D . Not hard to muse that both Moreno and Varsho both have upside in their games from what we have seen. I also wouldn't be surprised if LGJ sees some power resurgence in '23 and is a 2 WAR player. Not bad for his cost.

This trade is ok. I can see why we did it for sure, and why AZ fans would like it too. Just funny to me - a couple years ago this Board was all about Moreno the untouchable. Endless discussion. Kind of like Pearson was, and now Tiedemann. We give Gabby 73 PAs in the bigs and decide he has little offensive upside and is a dispensable noodle bat. Then we come up with all kinds of reasons why Varsho has upside offensively - we value his D but tend to overlook what D upside Moreno might have. We value Varsho control but Moreno has more we gave up, at the same time arguing the FO is not a window team and is building a long term sustainable winner. Would have preferred moving Kirk but for next year FO probably doesn't want to lose his O too with Teo dealt for RP because of the window. Hope Kirk loses 20 or more. Rossplaining is thick in here. I liked LGJ, but he is a 1-2.5 WAR player who isn't very expensive right now. Good for AZ. Enjoy those routes in the OF! I'm fine seeing him and his D move on, even though I do think he can rebound from his power drop last year. I'm also happy to see the whole pineapple thing and clubhouse clique rearranged.

From the guy who never says the Jays lost until the last out? lol. I thought it was over too. What a game for the ages. Not a big soccer fan but have been watching World Cups and Euros since '78 or so. That was one of the best finals in any sport Ive seen.

Been a great WC. Very sad to see it end. Mixed feelings about Canada's showing but overall they were as good if not better than expected. I'm left with what could have been if we got at least a point vs BEL and Atibe's header vs MOR was a couple inches lower etc etc etc. Lots of upsets but 2 of the best in the Final the way it should be. I'm not crazy about either team. I like ENG and DEN. But my Mom is from Argentina and Messi is Messi so at 35 I hope he gets to hoist it.

Thats all fair. Whats now market wise could easily change a year or two out. Even without the spending frenzy this off season I still think its a long shot. Just wiht the way the FO operates and what Bo/Vlad and as importantly their Agents think they can command deal wise. Will be interesting regardless.

Yep. Hell Kooch 3/36 might even be a bargain in this market. If you can put put fog on a mirror, have a pulse, and have gotten a MLB bat out as a SP before, the bidding starts at $10M AAV lol.

Stevie Wonder can see what these deals are intended for. It still leaves a long term liability while it solves an immediate problem. That will impact future rosters for some teams presumably (unless in future they all turn into Cohens) and it’s not great for the game brand to have too many over priced declining players slogging away. You only get so many Pujols 2022 dead cat bounces to milk.

Loathe this direction in baseball. Even though its not my $. Mind boggling to me. After the sugar high, we are going to end up with a bunch of Miggy light players with big deals fans resent all around MLB. Playing out the string on the Fat Elvis Tour portion of their careers. Bo & Vlad are both likely not extending - which means we will have to lose them pre FA walk year - if we want to extract any future value.

Ya, its exploded. Don't think many saw it coming. I didn't. Makes a QO to Stripling look relatively cheap in hindsight. Given the market its a reasonable deal.

9 pages already for a pretty expensive depth move (I hope). We are starved for Jay’s news.

Jesus. Baseball has gone f***ing insane…again. We won’t be extending Bo or Vlad I don’t think. Maybe Manoah given we can share some risk still pre arb. AA is a genius for locking up that core at the AAVs and terms he did it at, even before this spending spree.

Yep. We jumped the gun on Roark. No need to repeat that history.

Yep. Felt better about one quality season from the guy only, after I listened to Sarris's deeper dive into his combo of quality stuff and command on The Drive Time podcast from yesterday. Was also surprised he rated him higher than Montero. The relievers market has jumped off the ledge. Such a fickle beast the ol' pen. As far as Pearson if ever there was a year we could use a dead cat bounce from him and/or Merryweather, '23 is it.

I'm kind of in the middle on all this. I don't like the HR jacket much but I don't mind it. I find most fans love the joking around and comradery in the dugout when we are winning and loathe it when we aren't. We heard a lot of talk at the end of the '21 season after their September "almost made it in" run about how great they all got along and how you could see this in the dugout with them joking around all then time. I'd like to see less of it when we are doing/playing poorly myself, but I don't get too upset over it. 162 games is a grind. I find I get much more upset about mental errors, poor baserunning, very lackadaisical play etc. It happens on every team at times, but there is never really a good excuse for it at this level.