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.

To be honest I don't see the big issue. One side thinks Benintendi/Rendon/Betts/whoever are the better comps from a value/WAR standpoint. Another side thinks Molitor is the better comp from a stylistic standpoint. Just combine the two and have a better comp/idea... what's the big deal?

Doesn't the pool exponentially increase for the top few picks? Would have rather swept the Astros instead then!

Can someone share the BA articles behind paywall please?

The 3-0 sweep vs the Royals was unfortunate

When analyzing negotiations, an important concept is the "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" (BATNA). In this case, if there was a trade without the Mets, the next best alternative would have been a trade with another team. Easiest point of comparison would be the Bauer trade IMO, and I might be biased but I think I actually prefer the return we got. As a bad team trying to lose, selling a player with 1.5 years of control, the closer you get the deadline the less leverage there is. The difference between 1.5 years and 1 year of control is massive. If we were happy with Kay + SWR, I don't see how staying put would have been the correct move from a risk/reward standpoint. At the time there was serious concern that the Mets wanted to sell Syndergaard, which probably would have depressed prices? Looking at all return on the other starting pitchers that were traded, I just can't see how the Stroman trade was poor. 1.5 years of control is tough. That's why I don't blame the Sanchez trade. And that's why if anybody is to blame for this trade deadline, it's the ****face Montoyo and him ****ing up Gile's ****ing elbow by playing him three ****ing days in a row. That really f***ed us over. Even worse, Giles is going to help us win some games too.

Bolded the parts I found interesting below. Prices were high and stayed high (in part due to less supply, but still notable that the "low" return on Stroman didn't cause meaningful drop in selling prices.) Also interesting that buyers thought we would lower prices closer to the deadline but that didn't end up happening. Obviously Lewis would have been a pipe dream, but if the Jays had internal metrics valuing Kirilloff and SWR similarly, I can see how the trade makes sense. Maybe in the future teams won't try to low-ball/play games at the beginning of trade negotiations. Then again, that doesn't seem to be the case looking at the trades that followed.

Could you please share?

Last offseason they had pieces they could sell that could legitimately get something valuable back, but they didn't... that's a big difference. We should have traded away MORE players so that we could sign MORE players so that we could get MORE prospects back when we traded them away. Are you being disingenuous on purpose?

Pretty sure this is the type of thinking that helped us get a PTBNL for Donaldson. I really think it's a shame that we didn't sell sooner last year and this year to better prepare for the next wave with Vladdy and Bichette. It should always be Championship or bust, and it was far-fetched to think we had a legit shot during the trading deadline last year and last offseason. It's truly hard to fathom why we kept some guys so long. Ideally we could have bottomed out this year, gotten an even better farm and a top pick to boot while keeping Vlad down this year. Next year is this awkward time when we HAVE to call Vlad up, and I'm not sure we want to suck from a developmental standpoint with all this youth. Last year's 15% chance of sneaking into the wildcard shouldn't have caused us to hold onto Donaldson, Happ, and Stroman. But I think the play this offseason is to try to win and sign some free agents that have a good chance of being traded for value next year when we inevitably miss the playoffs. AKA lots of relievers and some smart starting pitching contracts.

This was excellent analysis but I'm more intrigued about the possibility of injuries to Vlad Guerrero Jr. from now to 2041.