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I'd kind of prefer Joc here as he would have a lot more opportunities to enjoy the platoon advantage vs Soler. The Jays have plenty of right handed options on the roster to deploy against left handed pitching in the DH slot (Vlad, Kirk, Springer, Schneider etc.).

I like the idea of bringing Chapman back a lot for a deal of around $100 million or a touch less. Add one of the good DH bats on top of that and it's a decent enough off season given the lack of good bats in free agency.

I think the game 2 tomfoolery was largely a function of the team not trusting it's offense to be able to win a game on it's own with more traditional strategy and wouldn't have happened if the offense wasn't so anemic throughout the season. If there are limited dollars available I'd like to see more bats added, but if something like Chapman/Bellinger and a DH bat doesn't fit the budget then I'd be cool with a DH bat and bullpen reinforcements.

Then the team is basically s*** out of luck.

The question is whether Espinal can actually provide above average offense in any split at this point of his career. He stopped hitting completely against both splits at about the halfway point of 2022, and since the start of July of 2022 he's produced a 79 wRC+ against left handed pitching. He has actually been more effective against right handed pitchers in this time to the tune of 86 wRC+ so he hasn't even been an effective platoon bat during this time.

Yeah seems like a split personality kind of thing except both personalities are essentially the same.

I do not want to see him get 300+ at-bats next season and I’m terrified he will. They should do that then because IKF, Espinal, and Biggio all on the same roster sounds awful. I have absolutely no confidence we’re gonna get reliable production out of 2B and 3B. And LF and DH also remain a question mark. If Espinal is non tendered that likely means IKF gets more at bats in his place. Is that really what you want?

I should have been more specific in that deferrals applying to the luxury tax need to have limits if they are even allowed in the first place. I have zero concerns if a player is willing to defer money 100 years into the future but there needs to be limits of how this is applied to the luxury tax calculation.

I have a really hard time envisioning anyone handing out a Springer contract to Chapman given the boom/bust offensive profile. Although Boras seems to have a way to convince dumb owners to hand out mega deals while completely sidestepping their front offices so who knows.

I don't think anyone really foresaw the possibility of a player agreeing to defer nearly their entire salary ten years into the future. Baseball never had a player making $40 million a season on endorsements alone but there certainly needs to be some sort of limits on deferrals in the future.

Teo had a really good defensive season and has generally rated as slightly below average defensively in a corner outfield spot so he should be just fine playing nearly every day.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kirk finally got so big around the middle that it started affecting his ability to swing the bat effectively. His biggest issue is that he stopped squaring up the baseball with any type of regularity but he did show signs second half that he was starting to produce more solid contact.

By dramatically lowering their 2023 luxury tax hit by deferring a huge chunk of the salary to future years. From what I can gather this includes Ohtani, Betts, and now Hernandez as players who have accepted deferred payments instead of present day salary. How much is this lowering the Dodger's 2023 luxury tax hit as a result? I get that the "present value" of these deals is less but it just doesn't sit with me well that the total value of these deals isn't simply averaged out over the length of the actual contract for luxury tax purposes. This is allowing the Dodgers to essentially assemble a super team and not be hit with the appropriate luxury tax penalties as a direct result.

And of course a large portion of his deal is deferred. MLB needs to get a handle on this in the next CBA as the Dodgers are making a complete mockery of the luxury tax.

Kirk produced a 118 wRC+ in the second half of 2023 so he showed signs of emerging from his offensive slumber after a year or so of depressed results at the plate.

I don't think it would be terribly productive for marginal hit tool players such as Biggio and Schneider to be expanding their zones. These guys are likely a bit lacking in hand eye coordination to start with so wouldn't have the same ability to foul off borderline pitches in the manner that someone like Bo Bichette can do. If they did manage to make contact on these pitches that they know aren't strikes to start with they would most likely end up creating very weak contact leading to a probable out. The overwhelming majority of Biggio's offensive contributions come from his ability to lay off of pitches out of the strike zone, and swinging the bat more at marginal pitches would only serve to lessen his already marginal offensive output.

Varsho produced above average offensive seasons in his first 1.5 seasons as a regular so at this point 2023 is a bit of an outlier. His 2023 season's overall numbers were essentially ruined by a 6 week slump so he will need to avoid this type of thing for his numbers to improve. Kirk mashed all through the minors where he produced an average 157 wRC+. 2023 is literally the first poor offensive season of his professional career. His xwOBA values for his MLB career are as follows: 2020 .344 2021 .373 2022 .351 2023 .317 So obviously here you are acting like the guy has never been a well above average offensive performer and thus he has no track record of success. I think Springer is a pretty decent bet to experience some level of bounceback but the amount remains to be determined. He dropped 32 points of overall wOBA despite only dropping 10 points by xwOBA. The numbers have been steadily declining in a Blue Jays uniform year over year but it feels really premature to be worrying about him being completely finished as an effective offensive performer.

Drop it to something like 30 or 35 or whatever grade floats your boat. The point still stands in that is the primary reason Biggio isn't a more effective offensive contributor.

Biggio is not devoid of talent by any means. The biggest differentiator between Biggio and Brantley is the quality of the hit tool. Biggio is probably something like a 40-45 hit tool but might play a little higher than that after the mid season swing overhaul vs something like 65 or thereabouts for Brantley. Raw power is likely similar in that Biggio has a lower average exit velocity but their maximums are pretty similar, each seemed to have similar levels of plate discipline so hit tool aside I don't think they are necessarily that different in the rest of the tool set.

The mother is every bit as bad as I originally imagined if not even worse.

I fully expect the team to add a competent DH so once that happens the lineup will look quite a bit better. There are still definitely going to be some days where the lineup could look positively awful though as there is the possibility of all of Espinal, IKF and Biggio being in the starting lineup on the same day. If Kiermaier hits down to his projections and Varsho doesn't rebound the offense could be in trouble.

Having Terminator as a mod would certainly spice things up.

If a guy can reasonably be penciled in to provide well above average offense I can live with a few innings in the field here and there. I just think that Soler's offensive output has been so variable year over year it's hard to know what to expect from him moving forward. Only 2 of his last 5 seasons are actually good offensively so he carries a lot of risk. His expected stats typically look very solid but more often than not this hasn't led to good results on the field. If he takes a 3 year deal then I'd far prefer the team move onto other options.

I looked up Soler's splits for 2023 and it was 114 wRC+ at home vs 138 wRC+ away. I'm far from married to the idea of signing Soler as he's a positively awful defender and was basically a league average bat for 3 of the last 4 years. Give me JDM, Hoskins or Pederson any day of the week on sensible 1 or 2 year deals.

Rogers Center was a pretty extreme pitchers park in year 1 after the renovations. It remains to be seen how it plays long term but it's far from a given that it will be any more hitter friendly moving forward.