Farm

Although if there's one thing that might prevent run differential from directly translating into W-L, it's the strength of a bullpen...

We should have done 1/150

A fair take, but f*** it, we are fans of the Toronto Blue jays, and this is pretty exciting. Better than having Springer signed by the Marlins and then trading for him next year anyways.

This is worth more than any FA signing tbh...

Actually I think we are in a good position... Would have preferred to have been able to get Kim/Sugano (IMO international market is a good place for surplus value) Seems like we are bargain hunting (we were the one of the only teams on Sugano and he chose not to come, the offer must have been quite low considering he earned 6M USD last year) Bargain hunting is actually not inherently bad - none of us want to be saddled with bad contracts, arguably it's the best approach there is If Mets are now "out of the race" due to luxury tax considerations, that means less competition for us, and a higher likelihood our bargain hunting will be successful As long as the payroll is there (a big if), even if we are unsuccessful in bargain hunting this year, there will always be opportunities in the future The question is will there be any opportunities to use that excess payroll room outside of free agency (in NHL/NBA, payroll reducing trades are more common and more obvious), maybe there will be more opportunities given the climate.

I understand this perspective but Lourdes Gurriel was viewed in much the same way. I'd take the upside and downside for 30 million IMO.

I agree my take is a bit emotional/in the moment but personally not a big fan of trading for Lindor. In general I don't really believe in trading for players one year ahead of free agency. Of course it depends on the cost but from an asset management perspective it doesn't make sense. I think a Semien/Lemahieu signing could lessen the sting here depending on the contract. But if we are at bargain bin prices then will they pick Toronto over other spots?

This is chump change, we are giving Roark 12M FFS. 2 years 24 million for a 33 year old FA pitcher with limited upside or 30 million for potentially 6-7 years of 50 FV upside. I just can't explain it, it doesn't make sense. We aren't averse to looking like idiots acquiring Chase Anderson for 8 million or Tanner Roark 12 million (who aren't part of the picture long term and are clogging up opportunities for our "upper minors SP depth" but we are risk averse from a 5-6 million a year?) The best explanations I can come up with are either a bias against international markets or a risk aversion towards the poor optics of making a mistake on international signing, but neither make sense to me. I'm really struggling to find an explanation here; if we are willing to offer five years then offer the guaranteed ML spot. I don't feel quite as bad about this as I did about Darvish but it seems to be a similar type of mistake. In any case, the impact here is less than Darvish (Darvish seemed to be a bonafide ace at the time, the projections on Kim are clearly much less clear) but process wise this seems to be worse (blind bidding vs Kim seemingly wanting to come here). Disappointing all around. EDIT: Clearly I'm overreacting a bit in the moment. I'll reserve judgement for the rest of the offseason but at this point in time I do believe this was a mistake.

25 mill for a 50 FV and we couldn't get it done. A real shame, this would have been a fantastic signing and allowed us to focus on pitching and Springer.

Suzuno please, Asia is the way to go this year, especially with depressed market values. I would expect that a "riskier" market from Korea/Japan would be more undervalued than other ones.

Thanks for paraphrasing my 200 words into 4.

I don't like with trading for players that were previously signed out of free agency/extended at free agency values, especially during the off-season when there are good free agents still on the table. Especially this year with depressed free agency values. Donaldson was a different story because at that time he was just going into arbitration. Why not push that 160million or 190million on top tier free agents like Trevor Bauer/George Springer, and then roll the dice on upside with Ha-Seong Kim/Tomoyuki Sugano, while keeping Groshans and Martin? Having players with cost certainty like Groshans/Martin will allow us to push to that next step. We need a mixture of good players on cheap contracts with good players on expensive contracts, if we trade away all the cheap ones then we'll be left with a good but expensive team only, that can't break through to the very top, unless you can envision Rogers going super hard on payroll (sorry I wouldn't want to bet on that, I'd expect they'll take the lagging indicator and expanding payroll too late as opposed to too early). It would be like trading for Reyes/Buehrle all over again one year out of free agency, which just feels bad. I won't accept the argument that no free agents want to come to Toronto, which I think is less and less true (given politics, the ascension of Toronto as a city - see the Raptors, and that players will always go where the money is). I'd rather overpay in free agency a little bit than to give up top tier prospects like Groshans and Martin.

We need Ha-Seong Kim...

The UDFA results are a bit disappointing (at least up to now) as well. I wonder what the reason for that is as well. Location?

Right, let me assume my rightful place at the bottom.