glory

Pillar's been awesome value the past three years but he's the type of player that can go from good to replacement level in a hurry. The longer the Jays keep him, the more they are tempting fate.

I'd be a SJW for a day if it meant I never had to see Pillar swing a bat for the Jays again, but I think that's long forgotten now. I do hope this is his last season with the Jays, though. Grichuk in RF, Alford in CF, and Teoscar in LF for 2019 would be fine with me.

Can you imagine Stro's twitter meltdown if the Jays traded Pillar? Unfortunately it's not going to happen. At least not yet.

Sign me up for Garcia. Projected 2 WAR, heavy GB pitcher, and should be reasonably priced.

Batted ball profile and hard contact strikes again. This front office has a type. Hopefully some high performance magic turns him into 2017 Smoak offensively.

Yeah, Shatkins acquired Grilli and Benoit when both guys were striking guys out but couldn't find the plate. They were fixed almost instantly after being acquired. Not saying all pitchers will work out like that, but the logic is sound. If you can miss bats, then harnessing control over a SSS is doable.

Sure he can do that. I don't necessarily have an issue with a pitch clock (as long as it doesn't affect pitcher health) or instant intentional walk, but I just don't see it making much of a difference. Shaving 10 minutes off a game seems like a rather pointless exercise when the issue is a lot bigger than that. The NBA is at peak popularity despite having no parity and the games being between two and a half to three hours long with timeouts, reviews, etc. No one is asking them to lower the length of time outs and things like that to make the games shorter. Juicing the balls is a tangible difference maker. 100% behind that move. The playoffs this year in particular got a ton of mainstream attention because of the long balls and comebacks. That will help the game. Pace of play might just have to be a thing they have to live with. I don't think it will make a real difference on how the game is perceived.

They also traded for Jay Bruce before his offensive recovery, so they saw that coming as well. I'd trust their judgment. THey won't be right on everything but it's not like they signed Morales because his HR/RBI will make fans forget about Edwin. There were underlying reasons to like him, especially as he went to a more hitter friendly park. He was 9th in avg exit velocity in 2017 so he's still hitting the ball hard. I'm not even sure what to predict for his performance in 2018. It seems like maybe a tweak to his swing can make him a better hitter but he might be too old to listen to that.

See, I don't mind Manfred making changes. As much as I love baseball the way it is, in reality, the sport is very close to becoming regional and out of the mainstream eye due to how old its fanbase is, so in that sense I get why Manfred is trying to do things to appeal to millennials. The amount of times I have watched baseball with my wife (who is not a fan) and having her lose interest in between pitches is pretty damn common. I get it. My issue is the actual changes he is making. Are fans really going to care whether there is a 20 second clock? Is that going to bring young kids or women or any other demo they want to reach to the ball park? Will these changes makes black athletes choose baseball over other sports? Will this help market the game more? If the answer to all of those questions is no, then who cares? This is window dressing to avoid the real issues. I guarantee if the games were 4 hours but Mike Trout was as big a celebrity as LeBron James, none of this pace of play stuff would even be relevant. I actually think juicing the ball was a great idea. Home runs will excite kids, and it's easier to market Aaron Judge than it is to market a boring ass pitcher who just gets outs without any personality. Eventually, I do think Manfred is going to mess something up completely. Whether it be adding more playoff teams or doing that stupid extra innings thing where there is a runner on 2nd to start the inning, etc. He seems like someone who understands the issue but has no idea how to fix it, so he throws s*** at a wall.

If I were a GM trading with Alex, I'd ask for Acuna + others as well.

The Jays have pretty good depth across the board from the position player side. A major difference over the past two seasons is that a lot of the depth are actual prospects, which at least adds a bit of upside, to go along with the more established performance of someone like Solarte. A lot will depend on how good their starting position players are. Where they lack depth is in the rotation, and that's going to hurt a lot if they insist on starting the season with Biagini as the 5th starter. They need to add at least one SP option, even if it's Brett Anderson or some rec project like Chris Tillman. Build up as much depth as possible.

Jays have signed Al Alburquerque to a minor league deal.

I actually don't mind Biagini as a starter, but not as a the #5 to start the season. Let him be one of the depth guys to start with, and then let him replace someone when a need arises. If the Jays are going to allocate most of their remaining funds to an outfielder, then I guess we are looking at Gomez or CarGo. Can't see them signing Cain, and everyone else available is going to get significantly less. Gomez and CarGo are likely looking at deals at or around $8-10M, unless the market really craps out.

I fully expect them to circle back to Brett Anderson. He will probably sign for cheap, and his arm will explode within a month or two, so Biagini can start from there.

The front office was fooled by the exit velocity. Someone tinker with his damn swing so he stops hitting so many grounders, and maybe he'd actually be an above average hitter. The bat speed and the exit velocity is still there. But he's getting at an age where you can't expect too many bounce backs and he provides no value doing anything else. Save us, KC. Take the popular clubhouse guy who can help your young players during a rebuild. You know you want to.

Regardless of what the Jays have left to spend, I think it's more likely they spread it around than spend all of it on one guy. They also seem to like having some money left mid season to make additions (either improvements or using money to buy prospects). My guess is that they will get another OF, SP, and RP and then call it an off season (aside from minor league signings and waiver claims). Not sure how they can fit all three within $15m, if that's what they have left, but there will be players who sign cheaper than expected, I'm sure. They had time to work with Brett Anderson last year and he was actually quite decent in his time here so that's probably a cheap fall back. For the outfield they will need someone pretty cheap and could parade around as a starting LF at least for a couple of months. Austin Jackson might be a decent/cheap stop gap. Maybin will probably come cheap as well but there's a reason for that. Eh, I'm not really seeing a significant move being made here unless there is a trade. I'd love to see the Jays add McHugh in a trade and at least have a body for the 2019 rotation as opposed to just Stroman and pray for Sanchez to still be blister-free and actually good. Should have traded for Fiers before he was non tendered.

I believe it's a 2nd round pick and $500k international draft money. Not worth it for Cobb.

Isn't he qualified? I doubt he's an option.

Jaime Garcia might be a cheap(ish) starter on the market. MlbTR predicted 2/16 for him, which is reasonable.

Yeah, this looks like a 80-85 win team to me, with a lot more depth to overcome injuries than last season. FG has their projected win total at 83, maybe a little higher after the Grandy signing. I think that's reasonable.

Just took a look at the free agent list (holy s*** it sucks), and I’ll change my prediction of who the Jays sign next from Gomez to Maybin. Not because I want it but because it’s likely going to be a really cheap one year deal, while Gomez might be more expensive or more than one year (or both). I’ll take the cheapo off season over a Morales type signing any day.

Davidi is saying the Jays are still after another OF. It's starting to look like Hernandez and Diaz will both start in AAA, while the outfield is Granderson-Pillar-FA with Pearce/Zeke/Solarte/catcher on the bench. My guess is they end up with Gomez, but that's based on nothing.

Who is another cheap OF that won't cost much in years or dollars? CarGo? Gomez? I'd expect something like that and a Brett Anderson type to fill a rotation spot.

Word is the Jays want another OF. So Grandy in RF, platoons with Pearce (who is now a bench player), the other OF they acquire plays LF, Zeke makes $2m off the bench because we can't have nice things, and Teoscar/Diaz start in Buffalo?

Wow, nice deal. He needs a platoon mate though, and Zeke ain't it. Still, for $5m? Good clubhouse guy and still productive with the bat. Nicely done Shatkins.