glory

Looks like Richards is coming in for the 7th, so probably Richards, Jimi, and Green.

Berrios looked really good today. Great sign. A little scary needing 3 innings from a depleted pen though.

This ain’t 2023 no more folks.

3 runs on 3 home runs. It would have taken 8 hits to score 3 runs last year.

Craig’s son having a game.

George Springer pulling a HR is a great sight to see.

I'm not sold on Schneider being as good as projections say he'll be, but there's a good chance that the best 2B/3B options on the team right now are on the bench. I'm guessing that's going to change as the season progresses.

Seeing the rest of the cities pumped for opening day, and then you see the Rays fans (not sure a plural is required there). It's sad.

The 2024 position player group will include Vlad, Bichette, Biggio, and Kirk in starting spots, with Jansen and Schneider on the bench. They moved two other homegrown players for Varsho so maybe you could include him in that group as an extension of the previous players. That's doesn't seem terrible. The pitching side is obviously more of a concern from a development standpoint. The "next wave" of talent should definitely be here though. I've said before, the way they acted this winter only makes sense if they plan to use their prospects during the season, as I don't think KK/Turner/IKF raise the ceiling of this team much and it's debatable how much they raise the floor, so ultimately I think that's what we end up seeing, and that's going to go a long way to determine just how feasible sustainable contention is. The fact that they got rid of Espinal and are completely fine heading into the season with Schneider/Clement in prominent bench roles is probably a good sign for that. They really need a couple of Orelvis, Tiedemann, Roden, Barger, Jimenez, etc, to turn into something within the next 2 seasons. The fact that none of them have been traded for vetrins (yet) might suggest the Jays are hoping for that. Factoring projected arb costs, the Jays could have over $100m coming off the books after 2025 (Vlad, Bo, Biggio, IKF, Bassitt, Romano, Green, Swanson). That's a lot of players to replace, but also a lot of money to play with.

Yeah whether Atkins is here or not, the team is going to try to contend. There won’t be a rebuild. The team has established that they will go after expensive free agents and they have a lot of money coming off the books in the next two years. With or without Vlad/Bo, they will try to compete. Of course they will need internal development to happen so it would be a lot easier to accomplish that if by 2026 Orelvis looks like a 3 WAR 2B, Roden is a starting caliber OF, and so on. The next two seasons will be big for the farm system as well.

I wouldn't mind if it's Pop, but I think it's likely Zulu. Pop has had a marginal amount of big league success so they probably value that more than Zulu who doesn't look like he will help the 2024 team much (barring some major development in AAA).

It’s ridiculous that the Cardinals didn’t trade one of Walker or Arenado. Instead they keep both and have Walker be the worst defensive OF in the league. Maybe they’ll put him at 1B when Goldy leaves.

Yeah, the Jays clearly wanted a LHH bat who is good enough offensively to both DH occasionally against RHP and pinch hit late in games for IKF, so while Lukes made sense from a 40 man roster standpoint, I guess the team had a specific skill set in mind that they wanted for that last spot. If Votto had been willing to "settle" for a minor league deal in February, then the Vogelbach signing probably doesn't happen. This seems to be hedging in case Votto is toast. Vogelbach/Votto on the roster only make sense if Turner is going to play the field at least a couple of times a week, so curious to see how the Jays play it. Aside from Turner, I'm sure they'll want to DH Vlad and Springer occasionally as well, which makes Vogelbach's lack of defensive ability/versatility even more glaring.

Mayza with decreased velocity is terrifying mainly because Schneider is going to use him in high leverage spots as long as he’s on the roster, so hopefully he’s either sorted out by the end of this week or if he needs an IL stint then do it now rather than later.

I would have just had Horowitz in that Vogelbach spot/role and used that time to 1) see if Horowitz was any good in a bench/platoon role, and 2) kill some time before Votto is ready.

It's only ST but he was giving up a lot of hard contact even last season when he was good, so given his pre-2023 track record, it's hard to get too confident about what to expect from him. But too early to get worried at this point. Hopefully KK is okay, but the lack of OF depth is going to be very apparent if he has to miss time. I guess Schneider would be the starting LF in that scenario, with Lukes as the backup.

Would have preferred JDM at 1/12 over Turner at 1/13, but waiting until March 21 to sign a DH probably wasn't realistic for Atkins.

Turner at 3B tonight. Schneider in LF. I wonder what would have happened if Horowitz had a good spring. Seems like they want a LHB in that last roster spot, whether it be Vogelbach or more likely Votto. If Horowitz was killing it in ST rather than putting up a .400 OPS, then he probably makes it.

This story is wild. MLB is going to bend over backwards to protect Ohtani here, most likely.

It looked like he could have been on the bubble before the Espinal deal, but after that trade, I think it's a near certainty that he makes the team unless they have another trade/signing in the works. Schneider looks like he will play LF against LHP (at the very least) when everyone is healthy.

Yeah this looks like the most likely roster heading into the season now that Espinal has been traded.

Nice move. Espinal needed to be traded so thankfully they found a taker. If the Reds took his whole salary then even better.

I guess it's possible the Jays aren't as high on Schneider as the projections say, or at least want him to work on things before they give him a spot. He strikes out a lot and he is in an org that preaches/love contact, or maybe they think the league has adjusted to him and he hasn't adjusted back yet. I hope that's the reasoning if they demote him and not an affinity for Espinal.

Honestly if they want to try Clement anywhere it should be 3B. If they get lucky then maybe they get a somewhat decent 3B option for the medium term if his bat is league average or better, and there's real upside there given his 2023 minor league numbers and bat to ball skills. Unlike IKF where you pretty much know what you're going to get.

If Clement in LF means anything, then it likely means DS is going to AAA and they plan to keep Espinal. Or at least that’s something they are considering. Then against lefties we have Clement in LF and Espinal at 2B. If there’s one thing Atkins loves, it is depth, even if it’s the most fungible depth imaginable. A tax team can punt a $2.75m contract if it means making the team better but DS has options and makes nothing while Espinal is now a vetrin who makes a real salary, so unfortunately that might be how the Jays want to operate here. Hopefully I’m wrong and we see an Espinal trade in the next few days.