glory

The Jays apparently "checked in" on Richards already, but he'll have a ton of options on either better teams or teams with better stadiums/divisions where he can boost his numbers. The Jays are a tough sell for rehabbing Sp's.

Happ makes the most sense if he’s willing to come back. Likes the city/team, history of top performance in the AL East, and won’t require more than 2-3 years due to age. No pick compensation attached either. The Yankees love him though so I’m guessing he ends up back there.

I'm tempering my expectations for Pearson for this reason alone. I'm going to enjoy whenever he is on the mound, but I truly hate pitching prospects so I'm keeping my expectations about as low as possible.

Maile is not the one you'd be opening up a spot for, it's Jansen. Having Martin as a back up catcher is a waste. He can start somewhere else (on a contender) and doesn't have many more years left in him. Do him a favor and let him start somewhere else rather than back up 50 games on a rebuilding team. I think if enough money is eaten up he could bring back something useful. Pillar is diminishing returns. He's not as good defensively as he used to be but is the same s***** hitter. Eventually that's not going to be a 2 war player, and I'd rather just move on now when maybe he has a tiny bit of value while putting Grichuk at CF. Plus, if Shatkins waited two weeks to call Alford up in Sept for super 2 reasons (as Davidi mentioned) then they probably have plans for him at CF reasonably soon as well. Morales can probably be kept as a bench player, especially if they trade Smoak and hand the job to Tellez (having a vet to back up would be useful). Tulo I don't expect to ever play for the Jays again, either due to injury or being let go, so this is a moot point. It depends. Someone better in 2019 or someone better from 2019-2025? That's what we should be determining. If we trade Pillar and put Alford at CF (as an example), yeah, we probably lose a win or two in 2019 depending on how Alford does, but who cares? The objective would be to develop him for future seasons. Anything he gives in 2019 would be gravy. There are many layers to this, not just wins in versus wins out in 2019. I never said pick up 2 Sp's or 2 Of's. Picking up one Sp is what I expect, and maybe one cheap gamble (Garrett Richards?). I only mentioned adding one OF as having Grichuk at CF, a new OF in one of the corners, Billy McUpton in the other, and Teoscar at DH is an option that is worth exploring if they choose to go that route. Trading Martin, Smoak, and Pillar for something of reasonable value shouldn't be too difficult. Morales and Tulo will have to be dumped, which I don't expect to happen with Rogers owning the team, but who knows. Shatkins made 8 trades at this past trade deadline. Moving a few more vets shouldn't be asking too much. It's not like I'm expecting top 10 prospects out of it.

So does Pompey get traded to Atlanta to join AA or Miami to join his brother?

Because the Jays need to spend this year finding out who, if anyone, from the current roster can be counted on to be a keeper during the Vlad years. They can't find that out if 4-5 spots are taken up by marginal value vets. It's not about trade value. Marginal vets have little value in today's market, but that doesn't you hoard them just because you can't trade them for something great. Some times opening up a spot for someone else to play is where the value is, even if he is someone I don't particularly care for as a prospect (Tellez, who Shatkins obviously likes as a prospect for some reason). Trading Pillar could also mean signing an outfielder in a pretty good FA market for outfielders, if they chose to go that route. It doesn't have to be all young guys. Or maybe they identify a potential long term piece in a trade somewhere. Either way, this year should be used to see who can be a long term asset. The place to add vets is the rotation because pitching is so unpredictable that the young pitchers will likely get an opportunity anyway (injuries, performance, etc).

If they go all in on the youth movement for the position player side and add pieces to the rotation, then it probably still won't be enough to seriously contend, but might make it entertaining all year. Get whatever you can for Smoak/Pillar/Martin/Tulo/Morales, and roll with a position player roster of Vlad (after 3 weeks), Jansen, Grichuk, Drury, Gurriel, Tellez, Hernandez, McKinney, Diaz, Maile, Pompey (if they decide to keep him), and maybe sign/trade for another outfielder to replace Pillar's outfield spot (ex. trade for an arb eligible Grichuk type that another team has given up on, or sign a vet stop gap). Use DH to rotate the young players around. Young players means high variance. They'll need a bunch of things to go right but 2019 is a transition year anyway. Try to be as good as possible so that the timetable is moved up.

Apparently they will listen to offers for anyone except Lindor and Ramirez.

Vlad and Jansen are projected to be our best position players. The young position players coming up through the system is this team’s saving grace.

Kershaw taking that deal might be a sign that he knows his days as an elite pitcher are over. No way he settles for that otherwise.

Kershaw's deal is 3/93.

Looking at the 40 man roster, seems like Mark Leiter Jr is the next logical player to drop.

Knowing Boston, that fan was probably aiming for one of the black players on the team but hit the trophy by accident.

Mirage Ten Straight Balls Biggio better get a good nickname.

Yeah I don't think having announcers that educate viewers on advanced stats is going to make much of a difference. MLB has an older fanbase. The game itself is by design slow and methodical. Younger audiences have sport attention spans and a ton of TV options. It's just not the type of sport millennials are going to get behind unless the league can market its stars better. You will never hear NBA broadcasts talking about PER and win shares, even though they exist in the analytic world of the sport. Millennials flock to the NBA regardless. There are deeper issues than dinosaur play-by-play men. Buck can be replaced by Brian Kenny and it wouldn't really make any difference, other than to people like us.

I'm just guessing but I think they'll be active in free agency either next winter (if Rogers pushes for it) or more likely the winter before the 2021 season. I think they want to integrate as many young players as possible and then make the free agent splash(es) to supplement them. Similar to what the Cubs did with Lester prior to 2015. The team is not there yet. I wouldn't mind adding a top free agent if the price/term is right, but not expecting it this winter.

As much as I like Shatkins, I don't think there's any chance they use free agency right now unless they get a reasonable mid-tier player (think Happ three years ago). Shapiro has openly said he hates free agency, and the Jays will have to grossly overpay to add a top free agent. I don't see this front office doing it.

Poor Solarte is going to have his option declined (already done) and be non tendered in a span of a month.

One of Brantley, Cutch, or Pollock would be nice, but not expecting a big OF signing.

That’s actually a really good trade. As mentioned I’d take one of their overpaid relievers to balance the salaries if need be. That’s the type of deal Shatkins needs to pull off.

Yeah, if Smoak is traded then Tellez likely takes over at 1b (Shatkins seems to like him). I think they view Drury as a 2b/3b. Once Vlad is up for good I expect Drury at 2b, Vlad at 3b, and Gurriel at short with Diaz as the super sub.

I'd prefer to move him now. I wouldn't expect much back regardless (league shits on first basemen now), but maybe we get a bit more back for a full year of Smoak as opposed to two months. I think the M's would be interested, though their farm system is trash. Rockies could use a 1b too unless they are going to continue doubling down on the Desmond signing.

If we trade Stro, it should be for players with many years of control so they can fit with Vlad's timeline. If we are acquiring shorter term players (1-3 years of control), then it doesn't make sense to use the only assets that might be able to get young/controllable/high upside players in return. Better off acquiring Gray to pair with Stroman (if possible) and then see what happens.

Stroman for Gray doesn't make any sense. We'd only be adding a year of control (unless his demotion in '18 added a year), which won't really mean much for the team as is. It would make more sense to try to acquire Gray without giving up Stroman, that way either we get lucky and the team becomes good earlier than expected, or we have two trade pieces that we can trade some time in the next 1-2 years at hopefully higher value. Of course, the Rox might insist on Stroman, but I'd see if they would take Sanchez first (no guarantee he's even a Sp long term). I agree though I think a deal can be had here with the Jays and Rockies.