metafour

There it is. $2.6 million.

Amed Rosario is also going to Cleveland. This always seemed like a non-necessary move for us.

34 year old Yu Darvish isn't getting them Gore. Yeah right.

Sure, but you're now dumbing the draft process down into a binary equation which is entirely silly. Teams operate within varying parameters and those parameters were exaggerated this past year due to COVID. There are teams in MLB who do not deal at all with "hard sign" players even in normal years, and the overall theme of the entire 2020 draft was that "risk" was given even more scrutiny than it normally does. What ended up happening is that Wilcox spooked a lot of teams by holding his opportunistic bargaining power in a year wherein most teams wanted SAFE easy signings - including several teams that don't like being spooked even a little bit. Thus, he ultimately fell and got paid his market WORTH by an aggressive team. This is what almost always happens in situations like this when a top talent chooses to play hardball. The theme of the 2020 draft was "under-slot" - and Wilcox didn't fit into that theme at all. He was valued by one of the best drafting/talent acquiring teams in the league at $3.3 million which pegged him as a 19th/20th overall talent. This is considerably out of the range of the value of a competitive balance A pick either way, so I'm not really sure what your argument is. $1+ million in terms of draft bonus is a bigger jump than you make it out to be.

This is conjecture and not proof of anything. Wilcox was still a Sophomore and already had set a precedent on how he would handle negotiations when he turned down a LOT of money out of HS. His price tag was known which is why he fell to the 3rd round - the fact that he still got paid Top 20 money proves what his actual "worth" is. You also aren't taking into account the scaling in terms of MLB draft value when you try to downplay by stating that the difference is only "less than a million dollars". First off, the very first Comp A pick was valued at $2.365 million which is basically $1 mill less than his bonus. The last Comp A pick was worth $1.999 mill which ias now $1.3 million less. That is a significant difference in value - kind of like how a Top 10 pick is worth considerably more than the 20th pick.

Wilcox signed for $3.3 million which falls in between the slot values of the 19th and 20th overall picks in the 2020 draft. He was seen as a 1st round talent both times that he was draft eligible - out of HS, and this past season. He is worth considerably more than whatever a competitive balance pick brings back.

This actually isn't as scary as you would assume it to be. Realmuto just turned 30 and there is no reason to fear that he'll fall apart unexpectedly as he is the most athletic catcher in the league, on top of also being above average in literally every category (including baserunning) which means that he's not dependent on just his bat or just his defense to produce value. We've already seen from examples like Yadier Molina, Martin, and even Buster Posey that elite catchers absolutely can and have held their production well into their mid 30's. Russell Martin was 2 years olders than Realmuto is right now when we signed him as a free agent, and even in his final seasons he was still a 1+ WAR player (he was actually more productive than Jansen was for us this past season).

So you actually didn't present any counter arguments at all. I'm well aware that AA was offered a multi year contract, and my post even mentioned that. However, that multi-year contract would come under a rebuild. Rebuilding a team is not easy nor is it a guarantee to succeed, most certainly not in the AL East. The risk there for AA is that if the rebuild falters - he's going to be the first guy shown the door by the new President (Shapiro). So why take that risk when he also had the option to walk out on the highest of highs which would make him one of the primary options for every job opening that would come up? Your later point answers your own question: he was still in his 30's and therefore had all sorts of time to regroup and wait for a more favourable opening to come along. You state that he left because Shapiro wouldn't give him autonomy (complete BS because he gave Antonetti autonomy in Cleveland and obviously gives this current FO autonomy) and yet he willingly took a job in Los Angeles for two years wherein he wasn't even the GM, and was also working under a President (Friedman) who is quite obviously considerably more hands on than Shapiro. He took THAT job because its the most safe "transition" job imaginable - working under an elite team in the prime of their competitive window. His reputation would only increase by adding "worked under Andrew Friedman" to his resume, and thus using that he was able to turn down the Twins and then eventually fall into a dream scenario in Atlanta wherein the rebuild was already completed by Coppolela, and he just had to steer the ship into the playoffs. So instead of driving a challenging rebuild in the AL East, he was able to parlay his 2015 success into a job wherein someone else already did all of the heavy lifting for him - in an easier division to boot. Not only that, but he ALSO left because with Shapiro coming in, his path to becoming the eventual President in the Jays organization was now blocked. Yes, he could have stayed here as the GM - but unless Shapiro walked out on his own, Anthopolous would need to eventually leave anyway if he had visions of ascending in his career. Note how in Atlanta that window was already opened for him. After only two seasons with the team he was promoted to Team President - on top of retaining his duties as GM. So now he actually DOES have "full autonomy". The guy simply made a move for his own personal benefit, and he executed it perfectly. Can't even blame the man as looking out for himself should be his primary focus, and he quite clearly knows how to work the system in his favour to do so given his noted rise from the mail-room to now the President of an MLB team. All of the crap about him leaving Toronto because Shapiro wouldn't give him autonomy is window dressing that he used perfectly to maintain his public perception as the knight in shining armour, while the guys that came after him had to do the dirty work of disassembling and rebuilding an old and rapidly declining roster that had no chance of future playoff success.

Of course he would not have had absolute "full autonomy" - the problem here is that you are now making a hyperbolic conclusion which implies that if one does not have "full autonomy", then this simultaneously concludes that there is meddling or micromanaging going on. That is a fallacy. "Full autonomy" is a complete misnomer because no GM in baseball has absolute "full autonomy". If you want to get technical, even Anthopolous under Beeston didn't have "full autonomy" because Beeston's run-ins with Boras quite obviously meant that Anthopolous COULD NOT target his players even if he wanted to. If your lone title is "GM", then that means that you have a boss (ie: the team President). If you have a boss, then by definition you can never have absolute "full autonomy". The reason why Anthopolous left is actually very simple - he was protecting his own self interests. As it became obvious that Beeston (his safety net) was going to be replaced, the natural train of thought is to assume that the next President would want to bring in his own GM - especially when the incumbent GM (in this case Anthopolous) had never made the playoffs and thus hadn't built up any job security. Seeing this, Anthopolous rushed to actualize his "playoff push" and this resulted in a legitimately elite playoff contender which secured Anthopolous' job once Shapiro was hired, because Anthopolous had been crowned as the prince of Canada for finally getting the Jays back into the playoffs. However, the makeup of that 2015 team was fundamentally flawed for the reason that the core was built around old and declining players who were not only well on the wrong side of 30, but were entering free agency and looking to get paid. Furthermore, due to trade activity which led to that 2015 playoff run, Anthopolous had stripped the farm system of any MLB-ready difference makers which could have offset the natural decline of an aging roster - our best prospects were all in rookie ball. This meant that the only way to continue that playoff run would be to double-down with overpaid acquisitions through free agency, which would eventually lead to a catastrophic end-point. Shapiro, being an analytically driven baseball executive, would obviously not push the team down that path as that model of team building had already been exposed numerous times as foolish. This meant that a REBUILD was inevitable and Anthopolous obviously knew that himself, because he's not an idiot or incompetent. So how does this lead to Anthoplous protecting his own self interests? Simple: he could walk out on his own terms while looking like a genius while his "value" in the MLB was at his highest, take an easy job for a year or two in LA under Friedman, and then just wait for the perfect opportunity to come calling - which is exactly what he did. His other option would have been to stay here and to actualize a necessary rebuild/strip down of the roster wherein he'd have to face the brunt of going from "fan favourite" to the guy who didn't keep pushing for a World Series, which would only tarnish his public perception. He was obviously very smart and left that part to Shapiro/Atkins as he himself rode off into the sunset. He was probably also rightfully paranoid of the possibility that while Shapiro would keep him on as GM, under an inevitable rebuild he could get pushed out and replaced after 2-3 years in which case he'd now be entering "executive free agency" not as the guy coming off a near World Series appearance, but as the guy coming off of a rebuild. To rise from a guy working in the mail room to GM requires a lot of foresight and power-moves in order to propel yourself higher and higher. Anthopolous is obviously extremely good at this game. After 2015, he correctly saw the writing on the wall and left on his own terms, which allowed him to take all of the glory while absolving himself of any responsibility with cleaning up the spilled milk. Note how after he left, he took a job with an elite organization in its prime - which meant that his reputation could not in any way be lowered. Then, he took his time to make sure only to take control of an organization which was already on the rise and bustling with young talent.

That position is also corroborated with Shapiro's time in Cleveland as well his highly publicized fundamental belief in structuring a front office by creating a "think tank" of highly qualified collaborators. Even the way you worded that - Shapiro whispering into Atkins' ear about what to do - does not reflect the way in which our front office operates. You forget that up until a year ago, the front office also had Tony LaCava and Ben Cherington who are both about as qualified as Atkins is at carrying the "GM" title, also in the room. That also completely bypasses people like Mike Murov, Joe Sheehan, and even Andrew Tinnish who also exert their own influence such that even regardless of Shapiro's alleged input, Ross Atkins HIMSELF is not the Emperor at the helm. It seems entirely counterintuitive to suggest that all of these guys are paid a salary to do what, act as mouthpieces for a guy who publicly took himself out of "baseball operations" a decade ago? If you actually read about what he focuses his time on - going past the parameters of the "President" role to essentially represent the team as an Owner - then you'd know that there would be no time for him to micromanage to the level that this conspiracy theory suggests. And that is literally what it is - a conspiracy theory. I've literally read on here in one form or another that Shapiro dictates who we draft. He dictates free agent signings. He dictates any and all baseball trades. All without any burden of proof, and a mountain of evidence to suggest otherwise (including hearsay from people OUTSIDE of the organization). I'm kind of surprised that I haven't read yet that he's secretly feeding managerial decisions through an ear piece to Charlie Montoyo, because he seems to have found the magic key to operating on a 72 hour day, while everyone else on the planet is limited to 24 hours. How else could he supposedly perform all of these duties?

Your entire viewpoint on this topic is problematic for a wide range of reasons. Ultimately, you are juggling two separate premises and presenting them as "fact", when in reality an actual analysis of both premises would tell you that neither of your positions are as convincing as they are in your own head. 1) Overstating Shapiro's Tendencies in Cleveland and Applying them to Toronto I don't know why this position keeps resurfacing, but Shapiro's actual role in baseball decisions is nowhere near as heavy footed as message board posters make it out to be (if it's even there at all). I don't know if everyone saw the recent media blurb about his potential candidacy for the Mets' Presidency, but one of the comments was striking: Shapiro actually represents Rogers at Owners' meetings, a rare occurrence for any President/CEO in baseball. The significance of something like that is simple: his position has long transcended that of "baseball GM" and now more closely mirrors that of "baseball Owner". Its literally been a decade since he was last a GM, and yet his name is brought up continuously as if his personal moves or positions 10+ years ago in Cleveland are a driving factor in what this organization believes/does today. This is a silly narrative which has already proven to hold zero weight. For example, a few years ago I had multiple people on this board telling me that the Jays wouldn't target HS players in the draft because that wasn't Shapiro's history in Cleveland. That position has proven to be false. The Indians under Shapiro also held very little position and commitment in the IFA market, and that too has proven to not carry and transfer over to his time here in Toronto wherein the team is one of the most active in that market year in and year out. Even if you look at his time in Cleveland, once he became President and handed the GM reigns over to Antonetti, he actually gave him autonomy to make his own moves. This has been documented in moves such as the blockbuster Ubaldo Jimenez trade in 2011: Shapiro openly stated that he would not have made that trade himself, but yet he didn't block Antonetti from making the deal. The indication of that is obvious - as he has transcended past "baseball operations", the caveat of "what would Shapiro do" is long irrelevant. The way he operated in Cleveland is an entirely different animal because that franchise has its own limitations and parameters - we witness this even TODAY as the team is currently juggling the idea of shipping out their franchise player - a 27 year old in his prime. Obviously, the positions that one can make as "President/CEO" significantly changes with the organization under which one holds the position. One would not operate as the CEO of Microsoft in the same manner as they would had they been the CEO of some computer-startup. As such, the fallacy that you are committing is to comb through his past in a completely different market, and then carrying those positions forward today as if there was a 1-to-1 translation. Cleveland has considerably more razor thin margins, and thus they must hold a position that represents those unique parameters. If what you believe is true (past predicts future regardless of organization), then Andrew Friedman would not have done ANYTHING that he has done in his time in Los Angeles, as he was not making those moves in Tampa Bay. The Andrew Friedman example presents a more exaggerated scenario, but that exaggeration proves the point entirely: a smart baseball executive will change his position depending on the environment. The only point that you can make about Shapiro is that his viewpoint is that the goal should be to field a consistently winning team. That position in no way indicates that the team will be risk averse, and it is the position of basically every smart/well-run organization in the MLB. 2) Misappropriating "Win-Now" Moves and Their Hypothetical Importance Your entire position on this topic began with the fundamental conclusion that if one is in a competing position and DOESN'T unload their future in order to "win now", that another team will do so and it will result in them edging your team out and winning the title. While this conclusion seems to make sense on paper, it actually doesn't seem to hold much truth in baseball as you appear to want to believe. You have been challenged on this point by more than one person and have not really responded in any way to the truth that what you are proposing in reality has NOT actualized in the way that you claim. Your own example of Anthopolous going "all in" at the 2015 deadline is proof in itself: not only were we a better team on paper than the Royals were, but we also made more "win now" moves at the deadline than they did - and we still lost. Today we talk about how the better team didn't win that series, but that is the entire point: baseball has so many more variables than a sport like basketball does, and as such the real truth seems to be that planning your team around moments of going "all in" seems to be a less optimal strategy than trying to build a team that makes the playoffs for 10 straight seasons - because the ACTUAL championship predictor seems to be the number of playoff appearances itself. I'll bring up the Dodgers once again, because they prove this point entirely: if you look at their blockbuster and trade-deadline moves from the past decade wherein they were an elite level team basically every season, you will find that they actually made a plethora of significant "win now" moves that in fact did not, as you predicted, secure them the championship: 1) Hanley Ramirez in 2012: a 4+ WAR addition that performed as such in LA when healthy, ultimately didn't push them over the top. 2) Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett in 2012: mega-blockbuster deal, still didn't push the Dodgers over the top. 3) Yasmani Grandal in 2014: added a player that would go on to play at a 4-6 WAR pace for LA, still didn't push the Dodgers over the top. 4) Rich Hill and Josh Reddick in 2016: a combined ~4-5 WAR added at the deadline, still didn't push them over the top. 5) Yu Darvish in 2017: this was the move that was billed as THE move that would finally win them a World Series as the team was a heavy favourite even without Darvish, ultimately still didn't push them over the top. 6) Manny Machado in 2018: superstar level performer added at the trade deadline to an already World Series favourite roster, still didn't push them over the top. As as you can actually see, the notion of "buying" your way to a World Series is actually much more complicated than: team A and B are both very good, team B makes more win-now moves at the deadline and therefore beats out team A. It took the Dodgers almost a full decade to actually win the World Series, and that was with moves almost every single season that under "theory" should have given them the title. Of course, that isn't actually how baseball works. Now, the conclusion here isn't that you should never make those moves as the need to improve your team with current MLB performers is always an obvious necessity, but the caveat is that this must be done while also never leveraging yourself out of future playoff appearances. The Dodgers did this masterfully, as while all of the above "star" acquisitions came and left, they maintained a core group of young stars on their roster and elite prospects in their system which were PIVOTAL in them ultimately winning the World Series in 2020. They never actually leveraged themselves out of the future, what they actually did was maintain a window of contention long enough for the "randomness" of baseball to swing in THEIR favour. Their team could have won the World Series in any and ALL of the past 3-4 seasons as they possessed the talent to do so, but it never happened. The longer and more often that you can keep rolling the dice, the more likely it becomes that the winning combination falls for you. Even Anthopolous came to this conclusion: after selling the entirety of our future competitive flexibility to "win now" in the years leading up to 2015, he has been blasted by Braves fans for NOT doing "enough" the past two seasons. Consistency and steadiness ultimately wins this race, NOT bullish and uncontrolled explosiveness.

Cano got popped for Stanozolol which is one of the most easily detectable and known steroids in sports. It seems like he's just a complete idiot, or he was taking something that was marketed as something more 'designer' and it turned out to be Stanozolol instead (ie: his dealer/doctor f***ed him). The vast majority of guys who are doping in sports and getting away with it in this age are all on designer steroids that are altered at a miniscule level to pass detection - remember that testing will ALWAYS lag behind what is actually available on the market. It always kills me when these guys with a hundred million dollars in the bank pop positive for something from the 1970's or earlier that your average bro from the gym is on LMAO.

The nature of baseball is that there is no such thing as "buying" a World Series by "going all in". The Dodgers have been an elite level team for literally a decade and they only now won a World Series. The "simple" statement would be to say that they won because they sold prospects and bought Mookie Betts, but that assumes that they did literally nothing in the previous ~9 years which isn't the case at all. They made other moves and additions in previous years and never won, how come? Probably because of randomness and the fact that making the biggest splash rarely actually secures your team the World Series. The nature of baseball ACTUALLY seems to imply that your goal should be to stretch your playoff window as long as possible. The longer the window, the more likely that you actually "hit" on one of those postseason appearances. Here's the thing about the Dodgers: they could have moved guys like Seager and countless other young players in "win now" moves several times over, but without those players they don't win it in 2020.

I don't know if you saw this, but a Washington State school district just revealed an equity study which now groups Asians WITH "white people" in an obvious attempt to inflame the supposed gap LMAO. So if there's anyone on here who is Asian...congrats guys, you're now "white".

Shulman didn't raise anything past pure conjecture. "He's a strong personality and I'm not sure thats what they want to bring into the clubhouse". As far as I can tell Bauer's "personality" has never had any clubhouse implications. There's a guy currently in the clubhouse (Grichuk) who has gotten into open spats with former players (Stroman) and opposing players (Anderson). They also brought in Ken Giles and his "personality". It would seem to me that one of the most analytically driven teams in the league (the Blue Jays) would be naturally interested in THE most analytical pitcher in the league. Maybe they actually don't like his "personality", but nothing Schulman said is backed by anything more than typical baseball media/analyst jargon. Trevor Bauer is not Marcus Stroman. The difference between those two is that Stroman seems like the type that leverages the fanbase against their own team's front office which absolutely no team likes, on top of being insufferable to deal with in the clubhouse with his "look at me" bravado. Trolling idiots on Twitter is not the same thing.

He got frustrated and hurled the ball where absolutely zero fans are sitting. If thats your example of "on field problems", then I'm not sure what to tell you. Yes it was incredibly childish to lose his emotions like that, but imagine using that as your logic for not signing one of the best pitchers in the game...

Its necessary because the "YAAAAS QUEEN" "meme" is among the lamest and cringiest memes of the past decade. Issa joke. YAAAAAAAAAAS!

YAAAAAAAAS QUEEEEEN! Girl poooooweeeeer! J/k; she seems like a good candidate.

Uhm, what? Literally no one said that they "aren't made for baseball". The claim, which is an obvious one, was that they don't have a MONOPOLY on the genetics required to become professional baseball players. In basketball and football, they absolutely do. The NBA and NFL aren't predominantly black because only black people want to play basketball and football - they are predominantly black because the fundamental nature of those two sports require physical tools that blacks of West African genetic origin just so happen to EXCEL at. Baseball is a significantly more mechanical game which means that brute "athleticism" is less important for success - it has far MORE variables. This makes it a considerably more egalitarian sport - which is why you see elite players of all genetic ethnicities in high quantities. More specifically, baseball is not a sport which enforces maximum importance on the lower body - hence Billy Hamilton can run in the outfield for days, but the fact that he can't hit makes him a role player. Put it this way: if you trained Usain Bolt for a year or two, you could probably build him into at least a good NFL WR because his athleticism and explosiveness is a 1-1 match between sprinting and playing football. The same can NOT be said about giving him a bat and asking him to become an MLB player. Being an elite sprinter doesn't mean you can hit an MLB pitch. It doesn't mean that you can catch a football either, but that in itself isn't a particularly difficult thing to learn.

It isn't an absurd argument at all. The MLB had 31.9% "Latino" representation in 2017, and "Latino" also obviously includes non "Afro Caribbean" players. So even WITH an entire region that has a lot of people of West-African genetic origin who almost only care about baseball athletically, the amount of genetically "African" players (ie: African American + Afro Caribbean) is still not a "dominant" representation like you see in basketball or football. Yes there is a considerable amount of them because no one said that they possess NO genetic predisposition to be good at baseball, but its a much more egalitarian distribution because they don't have a monopoly on the genetic tools required to be good at baseball. Use some common sense: the vast majority of African Americans in basketball have no place on a baseball field. The last data-point I could quickly find (2017/2018) put the average height in the NBA at 6'7. Where in the f*** on a baseball field does 6'7 fit? SS? CF? C? There is some truth that height = velocity in pitching, but even in that regard there is no shortage of tall white people in America. The reason why they aren't in the NBA is because they lack explosiveness at that height. That doesn't mean that they can't throw the ball extremely hard however. You'll see the same thing with football where there is a huge demand for tall, THICK, and explosive players players on the OL and DL. That tool-set once again offers little to no value in baseball. A 6'5 300 pound man can basically only DH or play 1B. And that again is fully dependent on whether or not they even possess the hand eye coordination to hit the ball. That "skill" isn't a requirement at all to be a dominant OL or DL.

Has anyone stopped to consider that not every African American can be a professional athlete? If that subset of the population is grossly overrepresented in the NBA and NFL (which they are), then that overrepresentation has to be pulled from somewhere. The MLB's 8% African American demographic is in fact actually much closer to America's overall African American demographic (~13%) than either of the other two major sports. The real reason why the African American demographic in baseball more closely resembles the actual demographics of the country is simple: the requisitory athletic predispositions in baseball (ie: hand eye coordination for hitting and and the mechanics of throwing a baseball for pitching) are not things that African Americans have a genetic dominance over. They don't have superiority because baseball is so highly mechanical and the "gifts" required are not skewed so heavily in their favour, unlike in basketball or football wherein their height and lower-body explosiveness advantage gives them a massive advantage. As I'm sure everyone knows, being 6'4 with a 40" vertical doesn't really do anything in baseball. Both basketball and football are essentially governed by this height/size/explosiveness ratio which is more or less useless in baseball unless you can actually hit the ball. The nature of baseball actually makes it much more genetically "fair" than the other two major American sports. That is why you can see elite East Asian players in the MLB, and zero of them in the NBA and NFL. NBA basketball is in fact hugely popular in China and even in Japan/Korea - the fact that they have virtually zero representation has nothing to do with lack of interest.

Of course, but they've already set the precedent and therefore this should only logically follow suite. There WILL be a "champion" crowned for this 60-game season; it seems silly to then turn around and say that 60-games isn't enough to determine the draft order for next year.

Why is that f***ed up? They literally just decided the playoffs based off of 2020 standings. They have already decided that this is to be a "full season", therefore the draft position should follow the same line.

Wrong. They correctly concluded that a 1st round compensation pick for a team that had depleted its farm system and was heading for a rebuild (the pick which turned into Nate Pearson by the way) was worth more TO THE FUTURE OF THE TEAM than bringing back Edwin Encarnacion for his age 34+ seasons on a team that wouldn't even be competitive. At no point in time did they conclude that Morales was a "better player" or anything of the sort. Morales was literally just a f***ing stopgap on a transitioning team, how is this concept hard to understand? The POINT is that Morales at $30 mill + Nate Pearson made more sense for the state of the team than bringing back Encarnacion for age 34-38 seasons on a team that had no chance of competing. By the time the team would be "good" again (ie: now) Encarnacion would already be useless to the team. And in reality they were absolutely correct in their interpretation: take away Morales and insert Encarnacion and those Blue Jays teams STILL come nowhere near even sniffing the playoffs. Yes, Morales didn't even end up being worth anywhere near $30 million himself...but the point that you all miss is that the team was shedding longterm payroll and rebuilding, so in reality Morales' $30 million didn't even prevent them from doing anything (and from Rogers' perspective throwing Morales' $30 million in the trash is still saving money comparatively to paying $80+ million for Encarnacion on a non-playoff team).

No, they just knew what Edwin was gunning for and made sure to offer less because he was insistent on testing the market after being on a team-friendly deal during his entire peak here. It was very obvious that they wanted to move away from the Bautista/EE "core" due to their age and the fact that they knew the team needed to be retooled. It sucks that they had to throw out a token offer for semantics instead of just saying "we want to go in a different direction", but thats basically what they had to do considering the climate they walked into which was extremely irregular.