glory

The Jays acquired Straw a year ago and absorbed like 90% of his contract when no team on earth would have absorbed any of it. Then he went out and actually performed in addition to being a vibes/clubhouse guy on a team that thrived in part because of their clubhouse. I doubt he's in any danger of losing a spot regardless of who they bring in. My guess is Lukes is on the outside looking in right now. If they add Tucker and keep Santander, then DS's spot might be in jeopardy as well. I'm also getting the sense that Tucker is signing elsewhere. Maybe it's because we've been here before, and the Jays usually act in silence, so if there's smoke, my usual instinct is to not believe it, but we will see.

We are in the "tracking Ohtani's flight path" portion of the off season, as apparently Myles Straw posted an IG story with a photo of a personally signed Tucker jersey on it with a caption saying "anyone in Bradenton/Sarasota area know a place to get jerseys framed?", and then promptly deleted it. Obviously Jays fans aren't reading much into it on social media.

Yeah Passan in his latest article listed the players available via free agency over the next two years, and it’s pretty underwhelming. “Neither of the next two free agent classes features a hitter as attractive as Tucker, Bichette or Bellinger. The best of next winter: Nico Hoerner, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Brandon Lowe, Daulton Varsho, Randy Arozarena, Seiya Suzuki, Trent Grisham, Ha-Seong Kim, J.P. Crawford and Gleyber Torres. The top following the 2027 season: Jeremy Pena, William Contreras, Steven Kwan, Adley Rutschman, Isaac Paredes, Munetaka Murakami, Luis Robert Jr. and Freddie Freeman, who will be 38.” Rogers appears willing to shoot through the Cohen Tax, and there’s a clear window in 2026 when other teams are not spending, so go for it. As long as the deal is closer to 7 years than 10+.

If the CBA next season is mostly the same, then I think Tucker wouldn't be crazy for taking 3/150. It hedges against injury, but also if he opted out then he would enter next off-season as by far the best player except without a QO and with teams having more clarity on what the financial implications of the CBA actually are. Of course, we'd have to know what the Jays offer is to compare it to 3/150. The Jays typically work in silence, so the fact that these leaks are mentioning the Mets specifically makes me think it's for leverage reasons, but who knows. Best thing about this is that we are hopefully close to the finish line. At this point I don't care where Tucker goes as long as it's over and everyone can move on.

Murray is legit. So I guess Mets offer is 3/150.

From the article: “If the New York Mets are in the range of offering $120 million to $140 million over three years to free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker, as league sources on Tuesday suggested is the case, the question is whether that will be enough”. “Multiple industry sources suggested that a decision from Tucker, who turns 29 on Saturday, could come as early at this week”.

The Yankees have apparently offered 5/155, which Bellinger/Boras turned down as they want 7 years. No issues with Belly going back to the Yankees for that type of money.

Yeah if Clement is a 3 WAR 2B, then Tucker is by far the biggest difference making add. We all assume Santander is bouncing back, but even at his best he was a 2.5 WAR one trick pony, and now he's coming off a shoulder injury, so hard to say what to reasonably expect next season. Tucker isn't a perfect fit for the way the roster is currently constructed but they can work around that if he's adding a 4-5 WAR. Would suck for Davis Schneider to be sent down (he has options) but probably makes more sense in a Tucker scenario to have Jimenez on the bench than DS. Infield depth isn't great. Santander (assuming he's not traded) would effectively play DS's role off the bench (platoon with Barger) except the manager would actually use him in RF and DH as well, whereas the Jays don't seem to want to use DS anywhere other than LF and against LHP/specific matchups. A bench of Santander-Jimenez-Straw with DS in AAA in case of need (or traded) wouldn't be a terrible outcome.

Gausman, Bieber, Varsho, and Springer are kinda important, though. Whatever cost savings exist will have to be used to replace them or bring them back. I know logic suggests moving Santander to DH in 2027, but without Tucker, that leaves the OF as Barger and whatever Buffalo Boys are still on the roster by that point. The rotation will be losing 2 pieces plus a depth SP (Lauer). They'll have to spend next season regardless. If I'm the Jays, then I probably pay the massive tax bill in 2026 (sign Tucker) and see what happens. They are already over $300M and there's going to be a lockout, so who knows what 2027-beyond even looks like. If it's just the same CBA with stiffer penalties (which is what I think it will be) then they can scale back and try to make some trades rather than sign free agents. The Tucker contract will probably stink in terms of length (10 years for a 29 year old corner OF will age like milk) but if you want to go all in during what could be the peak of this competitive window, then this is the chance to do it.

5/175 after signing essentially 1/40 last winter after the opt out. Boras master class.

Let Varsho play out 2026 and then see what his market is. He seems like a very risky long-term bet to me, especially starting at age 30/31 (his next contract). He's not someone I'd go out of my way to lock up before free agency unless it benefits the team, and if he's a Boras guy, then an extension is not going to benefit the team. Let the market dictate what he is worth and then go from there.

I believe the Tigers were one of the teams who just lost their local TV money. There's probably a real chance that Skubal is traded, especially if he wins his arb case.

After the post season he just had, I think he would have done well, but tough to say given what the market has looked like so far. Teams aren't spending big on the existing FA's, but I think Vlad at age 26 would have been valued differently.

Yeah as I said in the other thread, if that's actually his expectation, then I think he might be available for a 1+1 type of deal in February when no team comes close to that figure. No chance any team gives that to him as a SS, never mind as a 2B.

I know, just stating that Heyman is a shill for Boras, so what he says about stuff like this should take that angle into consideration. I don't recall if it was Heyman or Sherman, but there was a "Tucker doesn't like baseball" narrative thrown out from one of them recently. A lot of it is probably just BS.

Heyman is a known stooge for Boras, so who knows if that's true, but if Bo really thinks that highly of himself, then I feel like he's a massive pillow contract candidate in a month or so.

Yankees fans were so excited too. Crazy to think that the Jays are now becoming what the Yankees used to be, and Yankees are counting pennies and firing international scouts.

If Taters is ok with being more of a bench bat when everyone is healthy, then I think keeping everyone with Tucker, while not the most sensible roster construction, could still work. I think the biggest issue is that the team would be painfully low on infield depth. As of now they have Clement/Gimenez at 2B/SS. Beyond them, DS can play 2B but the team rarely plays him there. Jimenez is out of options. They have Kasevich in AAA who is coming off an injury riddled 34 wRC+ season in AAA. They should be fine at 3B between Okamoto, Barger, and Clement. It's the middle infield that feels a bit dicey, and you're probably looking at two below average offensive starting players at 2B/SS to begin with.

I like how the reporter asked Ross about all the Japanese talent he missed on before finally landing Okamoto, and Ross responds with "you forgot Shun Yamaguchi". He's reached a level of Boss where he can make fun of himself with the utmost confidence.

Yeah which is why the 2028 media rights deal for MLB is so important. That's billions of dollars on the line for the next 5-10 years. Having a lockout that bleeds into the regular season in 2027 not only takes away gate revenue (which as you said is how they make a lot of their money), but also devalues their brand as they head into a media rights negotiation. The NBA can have a lockout next season if they wanted to because they have an 11 year, $77B media rights deal with NBC/Amazon/Disney in their pockets. MLB doesn't have that luxury. They probably want to get that type of massive media deal, and then worry about the salary cap stuff later. Which is why I think a lot of this is just hot air. Players don't want a salary cap, and owners have way too much to lose if they miss games.

There's a lot of distrust between owners and players in MLB. I don't think they can figure out a salary cap system unless one side (the players) completely folds, and that's probably going to take a lost season like what happened with the NHL. The last time the NBA had a lockout that led to missed regular season games (2011), it was because allegedly the majority of teams were losing money and the players were getting a larger share of the revenue split. I haven't looked too deeply into MLB's financials, but I'd be shocked if either of those things were true in MLB right now. I'm sure some teams are in the red (or claim to be) but I doubt it's wide spread especially with revenue sharing and no salary floor, and I'd be surprised if the players were getting even 50% of league revenues at the moment. I don't even think a salary cap/floor system would benefit most of the owners. My guess is there will be harsher penalties for going over the CBT in the next CBA, and little adjustments here and there, but I'd be very surprised if it bled into the regular season. MLB and ESPN had a divorce recently, and when MLB had to sell ESPN's rights elsewhere, they made sure those rights were only for 3 years so that all of their national and international rights expired at the same time (2028). I don't think they do that if they thought they'd miss games in 2027. Imagine missing parts or all of 2027, and then trying to sell a package to Netflix or Amazon for the rights in 2028-29. Owners aren't stupid, but maybe I'm just being cautiously optimistic. Would hate to lose games obviously.

The owners offered a cap and floor in the last CBA negotiations, which I believe was $180M/$100M respectively. The players will never agree to a cap, and the owners would never agree to a floor without a cap that is acceptable to them (closer to $180M than $300M). Even if they agreed on a cap/floor system (they won’t), there would still be the issue of owners not wanting a high floor and players not wanting a low cap. It’s a dead end. On top of that there’s the issue of splitting revenue and what actually counts as baseball related revenue, which the owners would without question manipulate to their advantage. So the question becomes are both sides stupid enough to miss games over this when the league is generating $12b in annual revenue and have all their national/international media rights expiring in 2028? Feels like this will end exactly how it did in the last lockout, where we miss Dec-Feb, and then they magically figure something out in early March.

Literally every move the Jays have made this winter has come out of no where. The fact that they are so involved with Tucker according to the MLB talking heads makes me think it’s not happening either.

The 3 top Japanese players going to Toronto, Houston, and Chicago (White Sox) is at least a change of pace from the usual. I'm sure if the Japanese players available were all closer to Ohtani/Yamamoto level then they probably would have gone to the Dodgers, but whatever. Maybe the Jays create something here where they are a destination for Japanese players in the future. That World Series, as painful as it was for Jays fans, has been universally considered one of the best of all time, and it got major viewership in Japan, so the Jays were front and center there for a couple of weeks. All it takes is one major signing to get the ball rolling.