glory

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.

Grossman signed for 1 year, $2m with $3m in potential performance bonuses. Would have fit in nicely with the Jays but based on those terms it looks like path to playing time was a factor in his decision. Looking like one of Lopez, Lukes or Bernard is going to get that final spot on the bench, unless I'm missing someone.

The Jays are going to have to hope someone in the minors that is currently in the fringe category turns into a serviceable SP option. Thompson, Francis, Hatch, etc. Out of that group Thompson might be the most likely given what he did in 2021. The depth might look a little better in the middle of the season with Tiedemann, Zulueta, Robberse, etc, getting closer to the big leagues but with SP prospects there is just too much risk to count on anything (injury, performance, etc).

I think India can grow to be a baseball/MLB market. It's going to take some time/investment, and some representation, but I feel like its similarity to cricket (bat to ball) is probably a good thing. I believe I read that MLB opened an office over there a few years ago so I'm guessing they have started building an infrastructure already. I feel like India and China have real potential to become stronger baseball countries, as well as the UK which they have already gotten into.

Saw this posted yesterday. Curious to see what happens.

I don't know if the focus is to shorten the game time as much as it is to make the games flow better. Without a clock, there's simply no way to control how long a game goes, but a 3 hour game with less dead time in between pitches, more action, etc, is a far better entertainment product. That's the goal. The 3 outcomes that the league wants to increase are triples, doubles, and stolen bases. The bigger bases + cap on pick off attempts helps with the SB's, and I would think the shift ban is going to help with the 2B/3B, or at least BABIP. Combine that with a pitch clock, and I think the games should flow better overall. At least until the Rays find a way to exploit the rule changes. The thing I've noticed watching baseball with casuals/non fans is that the one thing that gets their eyes off the TV screen and onto their phones the fastest is the time in between pitches. The pitch clock is long overdue. If they just did that and kept everything else the same, even that alone would have improved things. I do think the other changes are a positive though. We will see how it looks on the field. I'm guessing there will be an annoying period where there will be excessive balks and automatic balls/strikes due to pitch clock violations. Hopefully that doesn't last long. Most curious to see what the pitch clock does to velocity. I agree, limit the number of pitchers a team can employ and it will make a difference.

Based on the roster as of now (assuming the Jays don't sign Grossman), I think I'd lean towards Bernard too. With the rule changes on pick off attempts, stolen bases are going to go up, so Bernard's speed will come in handy as a pinch runner, and if he's a CF defensively, then he'll obviously have value there as well. Basically a RH version of Zimmer, though hopefully not as helpless at the plate. If he hits his Steamer/ZiPS projection offensively he'd be more than serviceable as a 4th/5th OF, though it seems a little optimistic. Lopez has options, and while I don't think his upside is all that high, the Jays might prefer to have him get regular PA's rather than to sit on the bench as a pinch runner/defensive replacement.

Kikuchi gives up a lot of home runs and hard contact, and now the fences have been brought in a bit. I don't think it's going to end well for him, but maybe there's some Pete Walker magic in there somewhere. I agree it's better to give him a shot to see if he's salvageable in the rotation. Can't turn back time and give him a 1 year deal like he should have gotten last year, so try to make the best of it. Mitch White with better OF defense might be a solid #5 starter/swing man. Either way I hope the top 4 in the rotation are as durable as they appear to be.

I don't see this as a hot take, but I think we are going to look back at this trade deadline as a defining moment for the Raptors over the next 5 years, and not in a good way. A team that was practically begging for a rebuild/retool gets this instead. They still have their 2023 pick, but that 2024 pick has very limited protection, so a 2024 tank doesn't look likely, and all of FVV/Trent/Poeltl are free agents after this season, so the Raptors will basically have to be a tax team to keep this same group together + a 2023 pick that will be closer to middle of the pack than top 5 in all likelihood. Even if this team makes a run, it's likely going to be the play in tournament for the right to see who gets to have their asses handed to them by Milwaukee or Boston in the first round. Not fun.

My guess is it is a 3 year deal so that his arbitration years are covered and they don’t have to go through the whole song and dance for another 2 years after this one. If it’s a deal that extends to his FA years, then I’d be shocked.

This is definitely being done to bring stolen bases back into the game. Obviously improving the pace of play is a big factor as well, but steals have basically been eliminated from the game now and it's one of the more exciting plays in baseball. Pinch runners are going to have a lot more value now, and a catcher's ability to throw is going to become a lot more valuable as well.

Manoah is coming off a top 3 Cy Young season and he has a career scrub telling him to hit the gym on MLB's main network. I could understand why he'd be annoyed. If it was Pedro Martinez saying that, then Manoah's reaction probably would have been different.

Excessive pick off attempts do slow the pace of the game down a lot, so I'm glad that has been capped, but man it's going to be strange to see how it looks in reality. Between that and the pitch clock, some pitchers are in for a rude awakening this season.

The Werth for Frasor trade was so irritating back then. If I recall, coming off his big 2003 season, the Jays saw Reed Johnson as a starting OF for 2004, so the expectation was to have a Cat/Wells/Johnson OF. Obviously, that meant Cat needed a platoon partner, but instead of keeping Werth and using him in that role, they trade him for Frasor and have Simon Pond (a LHB) as the backup OF. It looks worse in hindsight knowing what Werth turned into, but such a horrible use of assets by JP. Reading this thread and being reminded of the Ash and JP years has officially depressed me. Those of us who lived through it and are still here deserve a lot of credit.

Varsho with a 132 wRC+ is one of the best players in baseball. Would love to see it happen, but I'll take the under on that one.