glory

I'm pretty sure Baerga broke the Semien signing. I'm equally sure that there's no chance the Jays are signing Freeman, but Baerga seems like an actual source. Probably just trolling.

Biggio at 3B is not a good option, although I guess if it's short term until Moreno comes up, then it's doable.

Chris Taylor makes more sense between the two. I don't think the Jays can really afford too many more big FA contracts that run beyond 2025 if they want to extend existing young players. Taylor shouldn't get a huge commitment and he can play all over the field which will come in handy throughout the season. Although he hasn't played much 3B and that's where the Jays would need him to play for the most part.

I'm curious where Correa goes at this point. I was sure he was going to get that $300+ million deal from the Tigers. Who else needs a SS? The Yankees won't be giving out that type of contract to a SS when they want to lock up Judge and have a top prospect at SS (Volpe). I doubt the Astros want to go that high. The Dodgers have Turner who they can put at short, plus I doubt Correa would be too popular in LA for obvious reasons. Maybe I'm missing a team.

If Story decides to take a 1 year deal, then I think he does it with the Yankees or Astros where he can stay at SS. He'd be a great target on a one year deal, though. Still see him getting a long term deal somewhere.

They are going to expand the playoffs right when the Jays are probably good enough to make it without it.

Not surprised. Lefty who can throw in the mid 90s and misses bats at a decent clip. Pretty much the definition of the type of pitcher Atkins would give to Pete Walker for fixing.

Possibly. Atkins tried to sign Gausman last season, and could have been trying to acquire him longer than that for all we know. He may have just preferred Gausman to Ray, or maybe Ray wanted more from the Jays than he took from the Mariners. Either way, I think the Jays made the right call here. Ray just has too much potential volatility in performance for me.

The 3B free agent market sucks, and the trade market is basically gut your farm (Ramirez) or a good flawed player who is not the best fit since he K's a ton and is RH (Chapman). I legit have no idea where the Jays go to fix that hole. Alpha Atkins doesn't shop in the stop gap aisle anymore, so I don't think he's going spend money on Seager. My guess is he either blows his load for Ramirez in a trade, or sticks with internal options (depending on what the actual plan is for Moreno) and spends big on a LH bat like Conforto or Schwarber.

Considering what the Marlins gave Avisail Garcia, they might be the only team on the planet that might see Grichuk at 2/18 as a reasonable deal.

deGrom can opt out after 2022 so if he has a healthy 2022 season, then he's probably beating Scherzer's AAV next winter unless he prioritizes years over AAV. Not sure how the Mets can possibly deal with that, but Cohen is a fan who owns a team, so he clearly is going to spend until it works.

Max is definitely using the Mets to drive up the price for the Dodgers.

Berrios, Gausman, Manoah, and Ryu is a damn good top 4 on paper, and I'm sure they'll acquire one more SP.

Jays sign Gausman, 5/110 according to Passan.

I don't know what long term deals Semien was being offered as a free agent after the 2020 season, but turning whatever that was into 8/193 (his 2021 deal + this deal) is remarkable for him. Knew his value and played free agency perfectly. No chance the Jays were going 7 years. This was probably the longest deal he was going to get from a team.

7 years? Man, good for you Marcus. Bet on himself and it paid off big time.

At first glance this does seem like a bit much given his history, but I trust Atkins with relievers. With his jump in velocity last season combined with K and spin rate this seems like Atkins betting on Garcia taking a big leap forward rather than paying for what he is. Hopefully he's right.

Rosenthal suggesting the Mets still want to bring Baez back. That was before they signed Marte so not sure if it still applies, but if Baez/Lindor/Escobar is their IF, then a more interesting target might be McNeil. A LH bat who can play 2B/3B (not sure how he looks defensively), and is coming off a down season where he had a public fight with their new star.

I think this is an understated part of this off season. The Jays were in a great spot last winter when they were one of maybe 3-4 teams that was actually spending money. It made signing top free agents far more realistic, and Shatkins did the right thing by spending big when the opportunity was there. A Springer type of FA in this winter's market is likely much more coveted and would be more difficult to sign. This winter has way more teams involved, which means more competition for FA's (driving the prices up), and way more money being spent in general. Granted, the Jays should be a much more attractive team to FA's after 2021 than they were after 2019-2020, so maybe that helps a bit, but they are still in a tough position when it comes to free agency. In that scenario, maybe Rodon actually is a realistic target. It's possible that teams get scared of his medicals/injury history combined with his likely asking price (Boras), leaving him looking for a contract late into the winter. To some degree, that's how the Jays ended up with Ryu, as they were the only team willing to take the risk of giving him more than 2-3 years. With more conventional FA targets, even with the success of the 2021 season, I think the Jays are at more of a disadvantage again.

I would agree with that, but I feel like we are missing something with Rodon. The White Sox did not give him the QO. As a Boras client he was almost surely going to reject it, but even if the White Sox were afraid he would accept, why would that thought scare them? A 1/18 deal for a SP like him, especially if they wanted him to prove that 2021 was not a fluke, was pretty much a no brainer contract. The only reason not to qualify him (that I can think of) was if they were afraid of his health. Who knows, maybe this is a Ryu situation where health concerns are overblown and his market will be lessened because of it. If that's the case, then I think you might be on to something.

The issue is as long as the Rays exist in their current form, it's going to be in St. Pete with the Trop as their stadium. It doesn't appear a better stadium in a better location is in the cards. So there's really no justification to keep them where they are. A perennial 90+ win team in a market that has more baseball fans would make a killing. The Rays were giving away tickets in September just to get 10k in the stands. I'm not sure if Montreal is the answer, but at this point anything would be better than the current Rays.

Matz would have accepted the QO 20 seconds after it was offered to him.

I know it was a different GM, but this is a guy they traded away for scraps a year ago. Just because he came up in the org, it doesn't mean he owes them anything. Good for Matz. I wouldn't have gone 4 years on him, so glad he went elsewhere.

Great move for Tampa, and probably not that bad for Franco compared to other long extensions that young players usually sign. Mookie Betts made about $60m in years 0-6 before free agency. Even if you bumped Franco up to $70m, that means he gave up 6 years of FA years for $153m ($25.5m AAV). Likely well below market value if he's as good as expected, but not Acuna levels of "I'll give up my prime for a hamburger". Usually I'd hate one of the game's young stars signing with that poverty franchise, but they'll probably be in Montreal (or somewhere else) soon enough, so probably a good thing in the long run.