keggy

Anibal Sanchez put up 2.5 wins in 2018 for $1 million as well. Anthopoulos has somehow grinded out like 15 wins on the open market for $50-60 million. The rates go down if you count stinkers like the Hamels contract, but he doesn't have many of those.

The Dodgers, Braves, and probably two thirds of the front offices in baseball would disagree with that assessment.

That's a pretty hot take outside of Toronto. Anthopoulos was recruited by two of the best run organizations in baseball and has seen nothing but success since leaving.

He doesn't have a classic shortstop's arm and he knows it, leading him to rush plays deep in the hole or with fast runners. I think he's fine at SS but could be a great 2B.

The left is Cabrera at 20 years of age as the best young player in baseball. On the right is Cabrera at 37 years of age, playing at replacement level and arguably the biggest albatross in baseball. Guerrero is 21, which one does he look closer to?

Gurriel for Clevinger would be a bigger fleecing than Lawrie+ for Donaldson.

None of these things are true. Norris was top 10-20, Hoffman was in the 20-30s, and Barreto was in the 50s. Also Syndergaard was not a top 50 prospect when he was traded. You guys are completely misrepresenting the value and variability around top prospects.

Agreed, and there's a lot of 20/20 hindsight over process being used to evaluate this particular trade. Just to add some unbiased historical perspective here: 1) Reyes was considered a borderline superstar at the time. After being traded his value cratered by getting hurt, forgetting how to throw, and beating up his wife, in that order 2) Johnson was considered a legit ace when healthy. His arm predictably fell off. He was damaged goods before the trade but so was Alvarez, who was a key young piece going back 3) Buerhle was reliable but added entirely to make the deal more financially palatable for Miami 4) Bonifacio was fast and exciting and occasionally good. He was horrible for Toronto 5) Hechavarria was a glove first Cuban SS prospect. He value was somewhere along the lines of Gurriel before he started hitting 6) Yunel Escobar had value but wrote offensive stuff about gays like 3 weeks before being traded 7) You guys are talking like Nicolino versus Syndergaard was like comparing Josh Towers to Pedro Martinez. At the time Syndergaard was a generic huge arm with good success in Low A. Many, many people argued that Nicolino was better than Syndergaard, and even more people thought Sanchez was going to be better than them both. Offering Syndergaard at the time would have been somewhere along the lines of offering Simeon Woods Richardson today. I just wanted to present these facts before the historical misinformation got out of control.

Rogers understands the commercial value in winning as much as anyone. Ownership saw firsthand the franchise value and attendance soar from our playoff run. According to hearsay Rogers also allegedly delayed the rebuild because they preferred the commercial value of a competitive product over an accelerated rebuild.

Fair enough. Agreed 100% Tellez should earn a spot.

Tellez is like 5 years younger and projected to outhit Shaw next year so I'm not entirely clear on why one needs to be banished over the other. Where Shaw's true value comes is in his positional flexibility. Dump Drury finally, let Tellez fight for a 1B/DH position, and NRI some players who can hit LHP. Also now Edwin makes no sense for this team at all. Guerrero is the worst defensive third baseman in baseball and takes days off on a regular basis. Unless we're serious about contending next year the roster spot and positional flexibility is more valuable than Edwin's bat.

I'm thinking something like Gurriel and Kay.

I would go a step further and say that a team fighting for a playoff position can't squander a valuable roster spot on a right handed platoon player with no baserunning or defensive value. He's basically Kendrys Morales who can hit lefties. If the Angels are serious about contending this year, they need to work something out with Pujols.

WAR doesn't work for pitchers who are exceptional fielders, control baserunners, and influence BABIP. Dickey was all three of these things. WAR also doesn't account for the value of the Dickey effect, which is worth at least 1 win per season. Dickey provided the value of a borderline all-star during his tenure excluding his final year.

Adding up total dollars like that without accounting for years committed, marginal wins, etc. is not an honest way to present the data. As a point of reference, the Jays have at some point acquired or resigned 3 relievers (Phelps, Oh, Howell), 2 DHs (Morales/Pearce), an OF (Grichuk), and an SP (Garcia) for $115M. Failing to non-tender Travis before 2019 and Drury before 2019 and 2020 will end up costing about $6M.

We paid him approximately 28 million over 3 years, depending on how they divided his signing bonus. He provided about 10 wins of value during this time. $ per WAR was not a thing in 2008 but this is colossal surplus value. Finally, he opted out, signed a larger contract with the Yankees for the same number of years at an older age and pitched worse.

Pillar isn't good anymore. What I find sad is that very few things would have to go wrong for him end up our best outfielder next year.

Anthopoulos has really found his free agency niche with "low-to-medium risk"/"medium-to-high reward" signings.

I don't know what the rulebook says, but coaches stealing signs is definitely frowned upon among baseball people. The only purely accepted form of sign stealing is between the foul lines, by uniformed players on the field of play. Sign stealing by 1st/3rd base coaches, managers, bench coaches, and players from the bench will often lead to retaliation against the batter.

I think this is the wisest path. Gurriel isn't going to land you an ace anyways, and mid-level pitching is affordable on the open market. I understand the desire to sell high due to Gurriel's risk profile, but our outfield is so bad I think he needs to stay on the books. Or better yet, sign pitching, sign one or two league average outfielders, and trade Gurriel for prospects.

The Jays were the best true talent team in baseball by a huge margin in 2015. They were underperforming their pythagorean record by like 10 wins and were still in line for the wildcard before the deadline. Big trades always carry risk but adding an ace to that team is a pretty easy call to me--and most people in the industry agreed at the time.

The Price trade was the correct move from the day it was made regardless of Boyd's performance 4 years later. This isn't like Gord Ash trading Michael Young for Esteban Loaiza on a mediocre team. The team was a legitimate championship contender and they gave up a blue chip prospect for a true ace.

This is by far the most important factor in this deal. Talent for talent the trade is fine but we basically absorbed a contract at open market value. This trade only makes sense if the front office thinks he will exceed his projections (which he could).

Refusing to throw on short rest or come out of the bullpen during the playoffs would destroy his reputation as a teammate among baseball people. Better players than Cole haven't refused to pitch on short rest in the playoffs (Pedro, Smoltz, Schilling), even when they had career-threatening injuries. Whether or not your personal reputation affects your payday is unclear. It certainly didn't seem to prevent Machado from getting paid.

That's all that mattered as recently as 2013.