Cooler Heads Prevail

Its a good deal for Texas, they can afford the contract and Fielder always has upside potential on any given season. Detroit needed to cut future payroll and I'm sure that's part of their thinking. Maybe they are going to sign Scherzer now. I think its clear there just aren't many premium bats out there unless you pay the money. Bautista's value is far more then some think. Good deal for both teams.

Glad to see someone else go against the grain here and think that Johnson is no bargain at $8M. Reminds me of when we got Melky Cabrera, sure he might have worked out, but $16M for two seasons was a huge risk and sure enough Melky was a bad risk for the Jays. Mike Richards on TSN today was questioning the contracts of Johnson and Ruiz, which I thought was kind of funny because a bunch of guys on here think they are both bargains. The worst thing about these veteran wash outs is they take a key position on the team and managers will go with them long past the point they are ineffective hoping they can improve. GMs also tend to put no emphasis on replacing them either, because they make significant money and no other team wants to take on these projects when they are injured or in the midst of a bad season. Johnson I guess has some potential to pitch well ( 2011 season form, not 2010 season form in opinion ), but a month into the season he'll either be that guy with a constant injury concern built in OR he'll be a complete bust again. Blanton for example this season they just kept trucking him out there hoping for the best. Always numerous pitchers like this every year and often their teams fall out of contention quickly. You get numerous games that are hopeless after 3-4 innings.

He's not yet 40 and he's only one year removed from a Cy Young. I don't pretend to know how he'll pitch next season like some of you might, but I've already noted that Phil Neikro was a Cy Young contender in his mid 40s. And if he was 40 and it is the end of the line for all starters ( including knuckleballers ???? ), why is Colon constantly mentioned on this forum as a good target, or why were people disappointed we missed out on Hudson ? Not a lot of consistancy of ideas really, just saying. The ceiling for Dickey next year is probably short of Cy Young ( re home park ) but he could approach that again. The floor is probably what we got this year first half. Syndegaard's value went up this year. So his trade value went up too. However, it's not hard to note that nobody really got good trade value for pitching prospects this season so its basically just speculation what you can get. Really good position player prospects seem to have more market value. This might just be a random trend or maybe its teams factoring in the increased frequency of injuries in young pitchers and not wanting to gamble on them big time. Maybe I'm wrong, tell me about the best three hauls teams got for trading young pitching prospects the last two years.

There is no way you can write off the Dickey trade as horrible at this point even though it may end up being so. Dickey is only one year removed from a Cy Young, pitches a ton on innings, and has a fairly modest salary considering where starting pitcher salaries are going. The prospects they gave up have yet to make any mark in the majors. If Dickey puts in a great season next year and D'Arnaud never amounts to much more then an average catcher, it will rest entirely on Syndegaard how this deal looks. Dickey for D'Arnaud alone might still have ended being a decent trade still for the Jays, but I think Syndegaard was a mistake ( and I have a feeling Stroman will be a similar guy, so the Jays need to keep him ).

Your number is absurd and not at all realistic. You are saying its 10,000+ to 1 he has an era over 6. He hasn't pitched nearly 10,000 seasons ( lol ) and he's already done this once now. But the risk analysis doesn't require an era over 6 anyways. Johnson could get hurt, he could pitch bad, he might just pitch ok ( like a decent 3rd or 4th starter ). These are all real risks that have to factor into his value. Is there a 50% chance he pitches like a $16M pitcher ? Or a 75% chance he pitches like a $12M pitcher ? The Jays would have been foolish to pay say $10M for Josh next year ( $14M forget it that's lunacy ) when they have a cupboard full of injured pitcher projects and need a starter with a high likelihood of lasting the whole season. Padres can maybe afford to gamble where the Jays can't, and/or need to gamble because of their budget. So might be a good move for them but likely would have been a bad move for the Jays.

I really think a Bautista for Cliff Lee trade is a possibility. Some reports indicate the Phillies would like better depth in their relief pitching, so I could see a trade being something like this : (Bautista + reliever ) for ( Cliff Lee + a hitter ). Philles might have to throw in some money unless the hitter is on a favourable contract. I saw one of the Phillies that was mentioned before was on a 500K contract.

Its happened many times I just don't have an example off the top of my head. The financial situation is not at the upper limits, that's a myth. There is a fair bit of talent on the team, they underperformed last year and these kind of these teams tend to get far better the next season. As for the impact of signing free agents, Boston and Cleveland signed numerous B list type free agents last season and they both got a lot better even without adding stars. People overreact on this forum. Baseball being what it is, there is a huge unpredictability factor that plays out each year. If the Jays add one solid pitcher, one solid hitter, and a decent catcher this off season, don't count them out. It might be all they need to turn this thing around.

In all seriousness, you don't seem very intelligent to me. Not in the slightest. If you were my kid, I'd be getting you to focus more on academics and less on baseball because something is clearly wrong with you at this point.

You post this based on nothing at all. You are guessing. Has this market proven in the past that it can support a big budget team, even a top 3 budget team in the whole league ? Yes, it already happened. Anyone over age 40 on this forum is well aware of how the Jays used to operate.

You're right its all just bs and people just run with whatever they read on here. If the right players are interested the Jays could go to $170M ( under the tax of course ) and cut payroll significantly during or after next season if it doesn't work out. For example, simply not signing Rasmus long term cuts payroll. Giving away Reyes and Buerhle at the trading deadline next season would drastically cut payroll. We just aren't there yet. This team needs to push for 2014 and see what occurs. Way too much talent to give up, we have clear holes that can be improved substantially just by spending money.

I don't think the newer generation of Jays fans can relate to what the Gillick years were like, if they needed a player money wasn't an issue and the fans came out and filled the Sky Dome ( oversold the stadium almost every game ). I agree with you 100%, in our market there is no reason we can't spend like a Boston or maybe even New York. The correct strategy is spend big right now, because we have a talented core with some rather obvious holes, and we can shed payroll easily after the next two seasons for our current players if it doesn't work out. All the talk on here about saving money, budgets, free agents not being interested etc etc is largely irrelevant to the realities of Toronto baseball. Trying to do a half ass job right now will really hurt the franchise, the fan base is fed up and will not support a losing team next season, especially if it appears we didn't compete for players this off season.

I don't think Rasmus has done consistantly well enough yet to command a big long term deal, certainly not as much as Vernon Wells did and his deal didn't work out very well. If we can get someone decent for him now I'd trade him and that risk goes elsewhere. If not, just play him in 2014 ( he might be a bargain for a year ), and if he leaves well good luck to him we can apply that money to someone else ( maybe even a pitcher now; not planning on Rasmus long term allows us to carry another free agent at 10-20M per year ). I see him as a strong team member on a playoff team but not a team leader or star. Paying such players big chunks of your budget could be problematic moving forward.

For sure, but he gets this off season to fill the obvious team holes and make a good run in 2014. I think JPA gets moved or released, they try to sign two or three of Santana/Beltran/( Pick a Catcher), and consider trading Bautista for Cliff Lee plus a useful player. The last part depends heavily on their success on the free agents, what I hope they dont do is settle on cheaper older projects that aren't much better then what they have already.

If the Jays made the playoffs you'd have to shut down this forum. Only half kidding, what would people have to talk about if they couldn't s*** on the Jays on here ?

Wrong. We can go up to the luxury tax if the right guys are willing. Team has a good fan base, the owner is rich and profits if the TV content improves ( a winning Jays team would do that ). I can't get over how people on here seriously think the Jays have no money. And we can reduce our current payroll after next season EASILY if plans change.

This site is becoming a joke with the doom and gloomers. Reminds me of a lot of stock traders in 2009. Toronto is a great sports market we have better chances to create a good team then the majority of teams. We have budget space, a good nucleus, and very little long term bad contracts ( Buehrle and perhaps Reyes qualifies but we needed him ).

Really, really stupid idea.

I think this is highly likely. Lind is basically an insurance policy at this point gives them some flexibility. I really don't understand why everyone thinks the Jays won't sign a big free agent they used to do this all the time. I'd say at least 60% chance the Jays sign at least one big free agent and our team will be noticeably better on paper going into next season. Lind and Cabrera on the same team probably doesn't make much sense because they are likely both DHs now with spot duty in the field. However, if Melky is a really bad health risk ( doctors probably know ) maybe they retain Lind anyways.

Hate to break it to you but Santana is the kind of signing(s) that usually propels the Red Sox or Yankees ( pre luxury tax issues ) to the playoffs. I don't remember Dempster for example being considered a good acquisition for the money last year, and I think Santana will be better then Dempster. We can all hate on the influence of money on winning, but if the Jays don't play ball on at least one overpay this season they won't be competitive. I'd like to see Santana here, because its only money, unless we can bring in Cano/Choo/Beltran + good catcher and need the budget dollars for them. Santana isn't necessarily the best option, but all the negative talk on here is overdone and we lose NO prospects signing him. Almost everyone the Red Sox signed last year was criticized for being expensive, older veteran, not quite right etc. But when you took a solid underperforming nucleus in 2012, added several useful players who knew their roles, and had some huge bounce back years from a couple of pitchers they won everything. Its not impossible for the Jays to do the same thing. They have a very strong offensive nucleus. They have pitchers who could surprise in 2014 ( eg Dickey, Morrow, Stroman, Hutch, Rogers ). The main difference between these two cases is we are definately short one starter ( I'm assuming Morrow and Hutch are unreliable and Rogers is our 5th guy ). Santana may not be everyone's sexy exciting choice but he might look good trotting out every 5th game versus the kaleidascope of fill ins we had to use when our guys went down in 2013.

The key point for me would be distinguishing the true "quality" closers versus everyone else. I agree signing mediocre even average closers to longer term expensive deals is bad business. The hard decisions are where you draw the line on what is quality. I never would have signed BJ Ryan for example, I felt bad about his contract and Burnett's contract before they ever pitched for the Jays. Neither guy really got the Jays going. The realities of baseball ( some closers do get big money ) suggest this forum isn't entirely realistic on this topic. What I would say is if we took some of the consensus ideas that get repeated often ( eg closers are easily replaceable, replacement players shouldn't get roster spots, ... ) and started putting red marks on every baseball GM that broke these rules of thumb, there wouldn't be much of anybody left without a red mark. Perhaps supply and demand means you have to overpay big somewhere to win. Janssen is great because he's been consistantly clutch and fairly cheap. Unless somebody wants him bad, you just let him pitch in 2014 and be happy.

It went right over your head that despite all the new closers this year that there is still a strong free agent market for the same. And I'll add one point, the nature of the position is almost every year you get guys who suddenly become effective in the role for a year maybe two, then they lose the job. The guys who have legit value and are not easily replaced are the guys who succeed in the role on a longer term basis. Let's see how some of these new guys do in two years time. Rivera by the way was always considered to be a potential closer even in the minors. I drafted him in my fantasy league before he made the Yankees. He was the last guy on my extended roster of 40 at a $2 salary. His main bio at the time was huge velocity. And one of the hardest things to find in our pool was a reliable closer at a decent price. Because there weren't enough to go around.

There are several reasons guys become relievers, and they aren't always about lack of skill. How easily replaced closers are is not something open to debate, because we have actual real results to determine this. The fact that numerous teams in baseball ( including good teams like the Tigers ) have been unable to find a reliable closer, and that large contracts continue to be signed for perceived "top end" closers, suggests that high quality closers are not easily replaced at all. I'd love to see how many pitchers have tried the closing role the last 5-10 years and their success rate in keeping the job. Because simply having the role for a year maybe two with sporadic success does make you easily replaced but that's not what I'm talking about.

What I noted is on this forum all we ever hear is about how easily replaceable closers are and trying to dump Janssen and his $4M year but this year's free agent closers are going to sign for a lot of money.

You are correct there is no way for us to know unless we are the Jays doctors. It would not surprise me if Dickey has a good season, that Stroman cracks the team, and one of the other guys ( eg Morrow/Hutch ) pitches ok the first half. I still think Rogers is fine as a 5th starter ( or first fill on an injury ) and Happ was actually a pretty good long relief guy in the past ( if Gibbons ever let these guys do it ). Add all that up and what the Jays need is one reliable healthy starter, but they shouldn't panic and do a huge overpay if they can get a great hitter with the same money. If we add one decent starter, I think the pitching will be better then expected and if the injury gang goes down again we could do a midseason trade to fill one void if our bats keep us in contention. The economics of pitchers at this point could be scary expensive, but I'd be interested in what E. Santana costs, or a couple of the older vets like Tim Hudson might cost on a short deal. Again, I'd only take someone with a really healthy arm and I'm not sure what the status of all these guys are. Another possibility is try Cecil as a starter again ( I like that possibility more then McGowan ). Last possibility is they don't get anywhere with acquiring pitchers, the doctors tell them that most of their injured pitchers are unlikely to be good, and at that point I'm sure its Bautista for a starter.

Great news that they didn't QO Johnson. Gives me some renewed hope that AA can think rationally and not hang onto his mistakes hoping they can rebound. Should be interesting to see what kind of money Johnson attracts in the real world versus the guessing here.