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The two years of remaining control for Ramirez was the exact reason I was happy that the club scoffed at the Moreno/Martinez rumors as that would have felt like an overpay. Given how badly Ramirez wanted to stay in Cleveland as evidenced by the super club friendly contract it seems he would have been very unhappy to have been traded which very likely would have reduced his desire to sign an extension with the Jays.

I believe the Ramirez/Jays rumors had the Guardians asking for Moreno, Martinez and others in a package. This was before Ramirez signed his contract extension and was prior to the club acquiring Chapman. I believe this immediately after the season where Moreno destroyed AA pitching to the tune of a 192 wRC+ so it's understandable why the team would have been hesitant to trade him at the time

Varsho ended the season on a high note as he produced a 116 wRC+ over his last 50 games, where he was hitting in the lineup at that point is completely immaterial. He more than did his part over the final third of the season, and needs to avoid the deep slumps moving forward.

It's kind of hard to blame the dude who received something like 5 plate appearances for the team's lack of playoff success.

That is certainly one possibility depending on how a certain heavyset starter performs in spring training.

Seems like he is a swingman type and is basically a high end depth starter at worst and really good setup man at best.

Rodriguez sat out the entire 2023 season so he likely won't have much of an innings base to take over as a starter straight away.

Manoah was a legitimately very good starting pitcher in his first 1.5 seasons. He may not have been a true top of the rotation ace type but he was absolutely still a good top of the rotation pitcher, just more realistically a good number 2 starter. The ERA numbers, particularly were very unlikely to be recreated as the FIP/xERA numbers trailed by a full run, but even after this correction he was still a great contributor to the rotation. His 2022 3.30 xERA result placed him 16th in MLB among qualified starters, the 3.35 FIP placed him 19th, the 2.23 BB/9 placed him 24th etc. The stuff numbers suggested some level of correction to the results moving forward as he's never really featured anything other than average stuff across the board, and as more of a pitch to contact type who relied on inducing soft contact there was also the possibility that the shift ban was going to further compound his issues against left handed hitters. Having said that I just don't think there is anything analytically that would have suggested the complete implosion that Alek suffered in 2023.

Yesh I don't know how the team will carry on without a 1.7 war catcher and 2 win corner outfielder.

Manoah also needs to regain some of the lost pep on his fastball as he's basically turned into a soft tosser that relied on command for the handful of good starts he provided.

Yeah that's always an option. The club would need to be ready to make a quick pivot if the alternative 5th starter gets lit up at the start of the season no matter who in manning the position.

And trailed him by 40 points in xwOBA. Methinks this isn't quite an apples to apples comparison here.

I think there is something to the arm/shoulder troubles that led to a lot of the downturn he experienced this season. I would hope that he was receiving bad advise from his agent or some other influence regarding the refusal to report to AAA, but ultimately he's going to need to atone for his sin. This starts with his teammates as they are the ultimate arbiters of whether he's fully welcomed back into the fold. After the giant slap to the face to his teammates and the organization as a whole Alek is going to have to earn his way back into the good graces.

I expect a bounceback season from Manoah but it remains to be seen what his future ceiling represents. It could be tough to fully recreate the levels of success that he enjoyed in his first few seasons, but even becoming a mid rotation level of starter would still provide a nice benefit to the club. I recall a rumor awhile ago that Alek suffered some sort of offseason injury that affected his ability to maintain his conditioning, but this is obviously suspect as a shoulder issue wouldn't have prevented Alek from keeping hitting the treadmill as that primarily involves the lower half of the body. I think the offseason shoulder issue messed up his mechanics and he never fully rediscovered his delivery. The command should be cleaned up once he squares away the mechanical issues, but the issue of drastically reduced stuff remains a huge concern. There is the ever present low hanging fruit explanation that he got too fat to pitch, but a shoulder issue is a far bigger indicator of the huge massive in stuff. I hope we finally hear his side of the story as it seems he very well may be convinced he was suffering from some sort of injury related issue.

Rodriguez produced great numbers in his final season in Japan. 2022 1.15 ERA 9.9 K/9 3.0 BB/9 54.2 innings I like Rodriguez a lot as a member of the bullpen as his numbers as a reliever were stellar in his final season in Japan. His numbers as a starter were a bit more middling as he ran into issues with the long ball. I would guess that the Jays would intend to use him as a long man out of the pen/swingman, but they also have Mitch White who is out of options who will likely be given an opportunity to see if he can build on his impressive run to end the season. White was sitting mid to upper 90's with his heater and was carving up opposition batters. In his last 7 starts he produced an impressive 1.89 ERA/3.21 FIP. Command was seemingly a bit of an issue as he walked 3.78/9, but something to keep in mind is that the league was using a combined ABS/challenge system behind the plate where the strike zone was reportedly the size of a postage stamp. White made this a bit of a non issue however as he managed to strike out 11.61/9. Hopefully if Rodriguez is attained he can be sent to the minor leagues in case White continues to impress in spring training, and this would allow Rodriguez to build up his innings base after a year away from baseball to allow him to serve as a depth starter later in the season if required. He has a Fangraphs page which doesn't have terribly exciting projections with role appearing to be that of swingman: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/yariel-rodriguez/sa3023349/stats?position=P

Yeah this could be the ultimate baseball dynasty family of all time with how many of his progeny are signing with major league clubs. Although up to this point he's probably been creating generational child support payments.

I suspect the team would have zero interest in trading Bo before the 2024 season, but if they managed to re-sign Chapman and swing a trade for someone like Adames or Kim then Bo could certainly be moved when his value is at it's highest and the team might even be better off for it depending on the type of return they were able to receive. Perhaps something like a good young right handed outfielder could be acquired, or a good young starter, several nearly MLB ready prospects etc.

I don't think it would be anywhere close to that dire if Bo were to leave in free agency. It certainly wouldn't be ideal if Bo leaves and the team received only a draft pick but this isn't the hard capped NHL where cap space and asset management has the same degree of importance.

Ah my response was a little poorly worded. Laika mentioned that Nimmala was basically Orelvis Martinez, but Nimmala has a shot to be a really good short stop defender so I took the next step to say that Nimmala could end up as a similar offensive prospect to Orelvis but with a shot to be plus defender.

That would certainly depend on whether they can find a suitable replacement. Guys like Adames and Kim are free agents next offseason and are dudes who could provide around 80% of the total value for something like half the cost.

That's certainly an optimistic timeline for a guy still getting his feet wet but would be just in time for Bo to leave in free agency. That would be just like how the Astros allowed Correa to leave for greener pastures when they had a ready made replacement in Pena.

Orelvis martinez who has a chance to be an above average defender at short stop is a really nice prospect.

It will be interesting to follow whether the club is able to coax more power out of these players with training at the PDC/hitting lab. I don't know if it's ultimately a better approach to target more dudes with raw power but contact issues in hopes of taming down the strikeout issues or if it's more productive to target the hit tool dudes and try to maximize their power output.

I can't say I particularly agree with the whole notion of Bellinger having 3 s***** years in a row. His 2020 covid shortened season numbers are pretty decent when prorated to a full season of play. He produced 1.4 FWAR in only 56 games which corresponds to 4.2 FWAR in a full season which is reduced from his peak but still very solid. The expected stats were pretty stout as well with a .374 xwOBA vs actual of .337 so over a full season of play this most likely would have balanced out a bit.

I guess that just depends on whether you think the 2023 version of Cronenworth is what to expect moving forward. His expected stats were basically the same in 2022/2023 except the results in 2023 were far more indicative of the underlying numbers. He very well may be a worse version of Biggio moving forward except he'll be earning twice as much in 2024 and is locked in for another 7 years. I certainly don't have any interest in a player of this ilk as this contract is far more onerous than the mistake extension the club handed out to Randal Grichuk. Maybe the Jays could send Biggio back to offset the money a bit but the Padres would really be kneecapping their return if Cronenworth were included in a Kim deal so the whole thing feels a bit unlikely. One of the few teams that's been including bad contracts to save money has been the Red Sox and I can't really think of a lot of other teams that have been lessening the prospect return from trades in this fashion.