glory

Ohtani going to pitch to Trout in the 9th.

If they want the last bench spot to be Bradley Zimmer 2.0 (meaning never touches a bat but pinch runs and defensive replacement), then Bernard > Lukes. If they want the last bench spot to actually contribute, then Lopez > Lukes. Maybe I'm being harsh on Lukes, but the Jays have kept him on the 40 man roster all winter and spring, and for the life of me I don't understand why. He seems completely fungible as a talent. As mentioned he would have made way more sense on the 2022 Jays with their s*** outfield defense and lack of LH bats, but I just don't see what he brings to the table for the 2023 team.

Yeah, March Madness is an institution in the US while the WBC is still a relatively new concept. Not to mention there has been a 6 year break with the WBC due to the pandemic. It's going to take time to grow it domestically. The quality of play in this WBC will certainly help though. Seeing a lot more buzz for it on social media in the past few days. Ultimately I think the goal of this is more to grow the game globally rather than just in the US.

I really hope Lopez wins the spot. Not sure what the club sees in Lukes.

It's a shame Sasaki won't come to MLB until about 2027. He'd probably be an ace now.

Agreed. They wanted a more balanced lineup, better defense, better base running, and more team control in the OF (Springer was the only OF locked up beyond 2023 heading into the off season). Hernandez and Gurriel each had only a year of control left, were both RHB, and both had issues with defense/base running. I feel like the roster fit for what Atkins wanted was a much bigger factor than personality. If Hernandez was a LHB with above average defense and the exact same personality, would they have traded him? Just to replace him with KK? I very much doubt it. With that said, I do think the Jays want to get more serious, which Bichette alluded to and the elimination of the HR jacket points to as well, but the roster turnover seems way more about specific skillsets that the front office was looking for.

I feel like calling the current team the "White Jays" would be an insult to the mid-2000's teams that JP Ricciardi built.

Varsho will definitely be the starting CF in 2024-26. His playing time there in 2023 will depend on a bunch of factors (injuries, performance of KK, etc) but I suspect he will be playing all the OF positions in 2023. If they platoon KK, then Varsho likely plays CF against LHP. On the days Springer is at DH and KK is also in the lineup, then they likely move Varsho to RF. And so on. As far as the trade, as long as Varsho is a 3-4 WAR OF that can cover CF, then I don't think the Jays are going to regret the deal even if Moreno turns into a star. Outfield up and down the organization was a weakness. They needed someone, especially at CF, long term. The fact that they got 4 years of that type of player was definitely worth the gamble, IMO. If Varsho has another gear in him offensively, then even better.

Baseball has lost popularity in the US, but I don't think that's why the WBC is not a big deal to most US fans. Baseball is a regional driven game. Yankees fans will watch Yankees games, but not really care about anything else. I think that applies to most baseball fans. I very rarely come across just "baseball" fans. I come across a lot of basketball fans who don't necessarily root for a team but they'll watch games. In baseball it's "I'm a (insert team) fan" and that's it. The only way the WBC gets viewers in the US is if they can get the 'Merica crowd who wants to see Team USA win for national pride, but I don't think the WBC has that sort of impact on the general audience. If every superstar in MLB competed in this I don't think it would make that big of a difference. Maybe if it was the actual Olympics more people would care. I can't speak on Canada's behalf but I'm sure it's the same there.

Berrios having 6/116 left on his contract is terrifying.

Lopez is probably the better player overall, but he has an option remaining and the last bench is likely to get very limited playing time. Not sure the team would want Lopez to get sporadic playing time when they can still stash him in AAA until a need arises. Bernard's skill set is ideal for a back of the bench role since he has elite sprint speed and can (presumably) cover CF. Basically a RH Zimmer except maybe/possibly/hopefully not complete ass with the bat, and if he's on the bench most of the time, it's not that big of a deal.

Bautista is a no brainer addition. Hard to believe he was on the team for 9.5 years. Didn't feel that long. I would think Encarnacion is next. As for others, I'm iffy on Wells. It wasn't like he was the best of the best like Halladay was. He was a good player in a completely forgettable era of Blue Jays baseball.

2014-17 Billy Hamilton with these rules would have been fun to watch. Prime Jarrod Dyson too. Not sure if there are many players like that in the league currently. I have no idea who the Jays internally view as the best option for the last bench spot, but curious to see if someone like Wynton Bernard with elite sprint speed gets a much longer look. A late inning guy like him will have value, especially with guys like Belt, Kirk, etc, potentially clogging up bases late in games.

Agreed, although if the pitch clock isn't visible to the TV audience, then I don't even think it will take until June for people not to notice, it might be sometime in April. People in general dislike change, but they'll get used to it. I bring this up a lot, but look at the NBA in the early 2000's and compare it to today. It's like a different game. The NBA had to make rule changes because fans were tuning out of the games that ended with a 79-72 score. Scoring might be a bit absurd today but whatever, it's a more appealing product. In a few years all of these MLB rule changes will be considered normal and no one will long for the days of 4.5 hour games that had 45 seconds of players scratching their balls in between every pitch.

Essentially comes out to 16 years, $500m for Machado counting the first 5 years of his original deal plus this extension. Crazy.

Yeah if they don't strictly enforce it then players won't take it seriously. Get all the BS stuff out of the way in Spring Training so it doesn't bleed over into the regular season.

Bearded Kikuchi breakout season.

That was only a few pitches but man that went by quick. Once pitchers/hitters get used to this, there's no doubt it's going to make the pace of play a lot better.

Looking at Orelvis' FG page, it appears ZiPS is projecting a 100 wRC+ and 2.0 WAR for him in 2023, so I would think he's definitely one of the 3.

Pearson needs to be a 1 inning reliever. Maybe stretch him to multi innings occasionally if he’s successful and can handle it but he’s not going to be a SP given his age/injury history and even a bulk reliever is probably asking a lot. I think whatever ceiling he has left is most likely to be reached as a 1 inning RP.

Agreed. As mentioned before, Chapman is a Boras client, so he's not signing an extension either way unless it's for FA type years/money, and that wouldn't make sense for the Jays. It's fine to use him for one year, hope he puts up a 5-6 WAR, and then move on. The key obviously is who replaces him. I think it's too early to give up on Orelvis but no chance I'm counting on him to be ready by 2024 even if he does bounce back, so it's really Barger or trade/free agency.

That model works for the Jays because their core position player pieces are all "cheap", relatively speaking (Vlad, Bo, Kirk, Jansen, now Varsho, previously Teoscar/Gurriel, etc). It's probably a model that is not going to work the closer we get to 2025-26, depending on what happens with Vlad/Bo long term, but it was the right direction to take with the rotation for 2020-25. The alternative would have been doing what the O's are doing now, which is seeing year 1 of Adley's service time already disappear but having no urgency to build a contending rotation around him and Gunnar. They'd rather wait for internal options to start filtering up, and maybe that works eventually, but how long will it take if it does work? Young position players + veteran rotation always seemed like the best direction to go in. It mitigates a lot of injury risk that comes with depending on young pitchers, and potentially expedites the ability to contend. The fact that they were able to get a legit ace with one of those FA contracts (Gausman) was a godsend. Hopefully in the next few years we see more internal development with SPs.