Brownie19

I'm good with this. If Santander opts out, then this means he's been raking for the Jays and this will have been a great signing. An opt out after his age 32 season still seems somewhat unlikely..

That's exactly how I feel about it. I actually thought Toronto would have to pay a lot more to get Tony. We've seemingly gotten Tony and Hoffman for reasonable deals so far. Even a broken clock is right twice a day though...

How sad is that?

I can see that being true, but also

I think the Tony Taters signing opens up more possibility that the money is there to spend. It may even open up the possibility that Ross wanted the $2M in international bonus pool money to sign more prospects to help (even if it's just marginally) strengthen the farm system (signing the guys LA won't be). If Rogers have the purse wide open and $5.5 AAV for Straw doesn't restrict them from buying elsewhere - then sure, I can find a little logic in there. If we stop here because we're not out of money, then I really don't get it.

hopefully the Athletic is just trying to fill their quota...

You need to factor in that he's going to lose 10 HRs a year simply because he isn't facing the Jays anymore. Although if he hits the O's the way he hit the Jays, he'll immediately become a fan favourite.

This is certainly what some fans wanted. They wanted us to add power. We got our power hitting LFer and a closer. Another bat another starter and let's see if the armchair GM's got it right. We may not be that far away from a Santander, Alonso, Scherzer, Hoffman, Gimenez, Straw offseason if Rogers has lost their marbles and wants to burn cash and assets. It would be incredible interesting for this board if that's how this offseason concluded.

If that happens, I think the majority of the blame falls on Rogers. It seems they want butts in seats in 2025 and have kept lame duck Pres/GM on-board to execute that direction. A lot of positives with Rogers, but they're going to run this like a business, not a keeper fantasy team. Good bantering with you Rusty.

If he's spoken to all the typical playoff teams and nobody is currently interested (or able) to add him, then I could see him taking this route. Playoff teams may come looking for him at some point if/when injuries strike.

I'd actually be quite surprised if that were the case. It would be pretty pathetic to play Straw over Loperfido and Clase - even Berroa. He's going to just have to come clean, explain why they wanted that international money, or what the angle was, and live with the backlash. I don't see anyway he can spin this to suggest they really like Straw and wanted him as depth for the Varsho injury. Like even if they also announced that Varsho will be out of the season (or it was a career ending injury) - it still makes no sense given all the other in-house options we have.

That or they decided if they failed to get Roki, they'd be rebuilding anyway and it won't matter. Perhaps they were trying to block LA from being able to acquire the international pool money they needed and expected that Philly wouldn't help LA out like they did? It's extremely hard to find logical explanations LOL.

I tend to agree. I came to that conclusion early in the offseason. I don't like Vlad and Bo doesn't want to be here. It's over. Pull the pin, get new leadership, re-stock and start over. Washington had to do this recently and now they're on the way back "up". Takes 3-4 years.

That was primarily evident last offseason, otherwise, free agency has actually been one of his strong suits (I also wonder if there are GM's who consistently read the market correctly or not). No matter how much hate there is, there is still "a chance" he's reading this offseason perfectly right now...we won't know until it's over. Getting Hoffman for 3/$33M already looks genius. If the market collapses like it did last year (Chapman, Snell, Belly) he might be able to swoop in and make us a wild card team (not that I think that's the best decision for the franchise). But yes, I'd suggest there's a very small chance that happens and I do not want him as our GM. He's probably still in the fetal position, crying like a baby because he didn't know he could wait and trade for Straw AFTER Sakaki confirmed where he was signing. Or maybe he knew he could wait to trade for Straw and there's some angle we just can't see or understand right now (if I had to guess, it was to block the Dodgers in some way). Maybe he knows that landing Sakaki was really the only way to change the short term fate of the franchise and doing absolutely everything possible to land him was in fact the right and only move and without him, it doesn't matter if we have Straw or not because we're f*cked either way. Who knows.

Yes - we're all aware of that. Adding 2 power bats could also make things worse. There are a lot of different variables right now and I appreciate that fans are restless - especially in the wake of a Sakaki/Straw situation.

1/2 the population being stupid shouldn't be a surprise.

Literally everyone agrees with this. You can believe it's time for a new GM, while also appreciating there's a lot of information we aren't privy to that may change your perspective/opinion.

That's actually a great question. You don't hear Buck say "and there's Edward Rogers in attendance today" with a camera scanning to him in a booth very often (ever?). I wonder how Owners/groups who aren't really "baseball guys" evaluate and decide who they hire to run the organization. Given how much we considered Kenny Williams - there should perhaps be concerns with the process.

100%

LOL. I guess if you look at who's leading Canada and the US - it's fair to question if there's any job a 7th grader couldn't do better.

Go Bills! Incredible game.

That is an insane rumor. Makes zero sense, but I don't hate it. Guy is a HOFer.

There are pretty well documented changes he made to improve his command the past 2 season. His stuff is filthy.

You agree?