max silver
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Everything posted by max silver
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I think the club is finally positioned to catch the big fish again on the position player side. The last time they attracted the top of the market was the George Springer acquisition I think the club is really well positioned to become a Dodgers of the North and bring aboard Kyle Tucker.
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I don't think you properly appreciate how dominant Helsley has been historically. He was MLB's 2nd most valuable reliever by FWAR from the 2022-2024 seasons, and even with the poor showing last year is still tied for 5th place among relievers from 2022-2025. The stuff is fully intact and it's pretty well known that he was tipping his pitches last season so he's a prime candidate for positive regressions.
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I don't agree with this in the slightest. The Blue Jays have a giant Bo Bichette sized hole in their lineup right now and that easily warrants a Bo/Tucker acquisition if they want to replicate the lineup depth they enjoyed during the 2025 season. You could say that maybe Santander will bounce back at least somewhat but maybe this is cancelled out by a touch of Springer regression, and Barger is still a little bit of an unknown etc. This team is in the middle of a competitive window and I don't think it's time for them to rest on their laurels and not maximize the strength of the team as I believe the team is very well positioned to land top free agent targets given the extended playoff run.
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That was just absurd, as the team was one of the contenders for Soto and had a lot of other holes to fill. On top of that the team was a reported finalist in the Alonso sweepstakes as well so I think there was even more money available than what was spent.
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Kwan is a nice player but I just don't think he represents enough of an upgrade over a Nathan Lukes/Davis Schneider platoon to justify the acquisition cost. If you knew you were acquiring the 130 wRC+ guy as he was in 2 of his 4 seasons then he's an awesome fit, but if you are acquiring the dude who was a 99 wRC+ bat in 2 of his 4 seasons he loses an awful lot of shine.
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Yeah I recall thinking that Rogers was dramatically underpaying the team for the TV rights but supposedly MLB determined it was fair market value. As long as ownership gives the team the necessary funding to run a top tier organization in all facets this doesn't boil down to anything more than a Rogers accounting procedure.
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And 11.2% k rate last season. Arenado is a slap hitter now and may have well been swinging a pool noodle as his quality of contact is in the crapper in recent seasons. I think he's a prime candidate for the old man swing out of your shoes to trade some extra strikeouts for extra thump kind of approach at this point of his career.
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Let's see if he passes the notoriously difficult Oriole's physical.
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That's just Shi's opinion and Shi doesn't seem particularly plugged in with the Blue Jays front office most of the time. I think the chances the team doesn't add another legitimate bat are very slim at best so fingers crossed Shi is just stating yet another incorrect guesswork type of opinion like past offseasons.
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I'd rather just take my chances with Berrios bouncing back personally. The Blue Jays can run a well above average platoon of Barger and Clement at third base and receive excellent combined value, and Arenado has been dreadful with the stick in recent seasons. I do recall seeing it mentioned that Arenado intended to work at Driveline this offseason to improve his swing speed so maybe he can bounce back a bit, but it's a risk that I don't think is worth taking as I think the Blue Jays would most likely be worsening the third base position just to save a little bit of future payroll.
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Steven Matz is another veteran hurler who the Blue Jays helped to turn around his career.
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I fully agree with these points. The AJ Burnett comparison is interesting as I believe even when healthy he also had issues with losing focus during his starts and would tend to have things snowball on him at times. From what I can gather from the various disgruntled Padres fans I've seen posting at the Athletic Cease has the same kind of focus issues where he'll be cruising and suddenly lose his command. I am hopeful that the Jays can help Cease to find another gear whether that's fine tuning his command, improving sequencing/pitch selection or even adding another pitch to his repertoire. He's an exciting addition given the premium stuff he possesses so fingers crossed he can develop into more of a number 1 during his time as a Blue Jay.
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Absolutely. Rogers has stepped up big recently, including the Covid offseason where they still allowed the front office to add talent despite the uncertainty surrounding the sport. I believe there was an extra $30 million laying around in the couch cushions last offseason as the club was deep into negotiations with Pete Alonso as spring training was nearing so I think there should be plenty of wiggle room to continue adding impact players as the opportunity arises. I think it's just a perfect storm opportunity to add top tier talent given the current trajectory of the club and improving view point among the players and agents.
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I don't think the total contract outlays are a huge deal provided the club can fit all of them under a yearly payroll allotment. I think this is a good offseason to load up a bit as Gausman and Springer's deals expire after 2026 and this gives the club a chance to acquire their long term replacements while running a higher payroll for a single season.
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I think that Tucker is the preferred target on the position player side but Bo makes a lot of sense given the lack of draft pick and international free agent penalties.
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Cease threw a 77 MPH changeup last season so you might be onto something. 😁
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I do tend to believe Bo when he says he wants to win a world series with Vlad, and with how painfully close the team came to winning it all I'd hope he puts his money where his mouth is and be willing to come back on a fair market value deal. Hopefully there isn't a team willing to blow away the rest of the market on a dramatic overpay as this front office has been pretty unwilling to dramatically overshoot their valuations aside from tacking on an extra year/adding a bit of extra deferred cash.
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Cease did have a rarely used changeup last season that garnered elite results so perhaps it could be a useful pitch for him if used more frequently. He had crazy 20 MPH separation between his 4 seamer and changeup but he threw all of 34 of them exclusively against left handed hitters.
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I wonder if we could potentially see a Bieber extension mid season if the command bounces back sufficiently. The long term pitching outlook has changed dramatically compared to last offseason.
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Yeah it's still going to matter a lot. Kirk is elite at converting borderline pitches into strikes and this isn't going away with the challenge system. Given the low number of available challenges per game I only expect the egregious calls are going to be challenged.
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I think the front office has been more than willing to splash this kind of cash going all the way back to the 2020 offseason, they've just had a bit of difficulty in convincing the cream of the crop/upper tier free agents to take their money most years.
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That's probably a stretch given Berrios' downward trajectory but I think if the Jays ate a bit of salary the deal in movable.
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This is exciting news as Cease was my preferred rotation target with Imai coming in 2nd. Hopefully this gives Tucker a little more motivation to sign with the Jays to create a bit of a super team heading into 2026.
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Stop trying to gaslight everyone else here by pretending you didn't write what you actually wrote. Just own the mistake and move on, it's really that easy. This is quickly turning into a Grant kind of situation where he says something foolish, gets slammed for it, refuses to budge and doubles/triples/quadruples down on the silly statement and loses what little remaining respect he still had. Don't be a Grant, one of them is more than enough.
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I think the bolded part is the only reason people have been giving you grief. I'm guessing it more or less dawned on you that Bo could actually be lost in free agency or something of that sort, but the front office can't just assume that they are going to retain Bo in free agency and need to work on contingencies until they actually acquire some targets.
