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I simply don't know at this point. It's entirely possible that the speculative posts pertaining to the remaining dollars could be correct but at the same time I also see a possibility that the team could spend beyond those levels if the right opportunities are presented. Shapiro and Atkins have always been clear that they have full support of ownership to spend to add talent to the roster and it seems as though they need to present the case to ownership as required when the need to increase payroll presents itself. Atkins has always been up front about his desire to maintain financial flexibility for future years and with upcoming decisions on extensions for the likes of Vlad, Bo and Jansen I could see a DH addition being the final addition to the roster. However having said that I can also see further additions being made if certain players are still lingering on the market when spring training is underway and the dollars and term make sense.

Sorry to burst your bubble but this is still all speculative so nothing is proven yet.

That would at least be a helluva lot better than what he provided last year.

This image of Alek in the gym was posted on Reddit and I think he looks way better the shape he was in at the end of the season.

Instead of overpaying either Chapman or Bellinger what are your thoughts about paying either of what they are actually worth?

I'll certainly agree that it makes more sense to play Varsho in center field full time and that he and Kiermaier are an imperfect fit. Having said that the team received 4 wins from their center field duo last season so it's not the worst thing in the world to run with the duo again. I suspect that Schneider may receive a decent amount of playing time in left field this upcoming season so hopefully he proves his bat is legit and isn't a disaster defensively out there.

I still like Yimi as a key member of the 2024 pen and think the value he provides is perfectly appropriate compared to his salary. I think the team can let him leave in free agency and utilize the wealth of high octane relief arms to replace him in the future. None of those guys (Danner, Cooke, Zulueta etc.) are MLB tested or proven yet so there is risk in relying on any of them as primary pen options vs utilizing the best of them as depth options to cover in case of injury or underperformance.

Elite defenders with a league average bat can provide a lot of value all over the diamond. Varsho's low 2023 FWAR value is partially due to the fact that his left field defense rated as decidedly average by Statcast OAA. It remains to be seen if this was a single year statistical blip as his DRS of 11 indicates a tremendous defender. Varsho himself mentioned that left field was the hardest position for him due to the way the ball comes off of the bat, so perhaps with time he could improve in left field with more reps. He produced nearly 5 wins in 2022 playing a lot of innings in right field, so the bat played perfectly well in a corner outfield spot in the past and can again in the future.

Do you ever stop with this nonsense? STFU already, you don't know any more than the rest of us what the team's budgetary plans are so stop with the proclamations acting like you can see the future.

It's tough to make any judgments based on a tiny low resolution photo where the primary subject is wearing a super loose t shirt.

Wow that's a really optimistic Steamer projection. I have a really hard time seeing him staying healthy enough to reach nearly 600 plate appearances to start with so the projection feels pretty unrealistic.

Where did I make unrealistic offseason suggestions? Feel free to point that out. I don't know how much of the team's payroll budget remains at this point and neither do you.

Holy s*** man give the authoritative budget statements a rest already. Unless you are sitting in the team's budgetary meetings you simply don't know what kind of available payroll the team has at their disposal. You are taking a couple of completely non committal statements from Shapiro and Atkins where they left a lot of room for interpretation, misconstruing these into being definitive declarations with no room for change and then posting a constant stream of decisive statements indicating an exact payroll range that the team is going to spend within. Shapiro himself stated that the market will essentially dictate what level they spend to, Atkins has indicated that the team will potentially add only 1 player at current market values, and each of these statements leave an opening for the team to make more moves if the market shrinks to the point where the remaining mid tier free agents eventually sign for mid tier free agent dollars.

I'm team Garcia. I think he's underappreciated as a really good member of the Jays pen. He goes through periods of struggles from time to time but when he's on he's super nasty. He has one of the toughest jobs as mid inning fireman and was one of MLB's best at this job for most of the season. I think he is easily worth the $6 million he earns as he's essentially a 1 win reliever per season. Perhaps Green could do the same job but I like him in a leverage role later on in games to deepen the pen as he can take a bit of the strain off of Swanson.

Who replaces the 200 innings that Bassitt provided though? I really don't understand how there is the thought that the Blue Jays suddenly have an excess of depth after the Rodriguez signing as it's far from a given that he will even succeed in a swing man role.

I thought Treliving was generally solid in Calgary until the ill fated Huberdeau long term deal which was signed before he ever played a game for the team. A lot of his free agent signings left something to be desired but he made a lot of pretty decent trades along the way. He had assembled a really solid team that was left in the lurch when Gaudreau left the team at the altar at the last minute and left for nothing in free agency. When Tkachuk asked out that would have been the perfect opportunity to blow things up and start over but that doesn't seem to be something that was allowed under the ownership group who would rather qualify for the playoffs no matter the chance to have success once the playoffs start. It's unfortunate that Sutter went completely off the rails last season as I think the team should have been a lot more competitive than they were given the talent on the roster.

Since you have the last 4 consecutive posts it seems that you are repeating the same thing over and over to yourself. I vote you as most likely to take over for Frenchsoup as resident crazy guy although it appears as though his ban may have ended so the competition will be fierce.

I think it's a bad idea to hand out this type of deal to a reliever in the first place. Hader in particular has been rotating between really good years and relatively poor years since the shortened 2020 season so it's far from a given what he's going to provide year over year. The outstanding quality of contact metrics easily overcame the walk issues in 2023 but given that he has been homer prone in certain seasons that is certainly cause for concern.

Yeah totally awful signing as Hader's expected home runs would go from 4 all the way to 6 playing in Houston.

The entire quote provides a lot more context vs the snippet that you replied to.

Projections aren't concrete and it's simply impossible to know what to expect from Manoah in the 2024 season. He could easily be better than the 2024 projections just as he could easily be worse. Something caused the dramatic loss in command and stuff compared to prior seasons, and whether or not Alek and the team can correct these issues to allow the stuff and command to return to prior levels will directly factor into his future potential. His ZiPS projection calls for a 4.63 FIP/1.3 FWAR in 121 innings His 20th percentile projection is 0.4 WAR His 80th percentile projection is 2.2 WAR He could easily be worse than even the 20th percentile projection if his arm/shoulder are cooked, just as he could handily beat the 80th percentile projection if the stuff and command return to previous levels. It's not like the projection systems have been particularly accurate for Alek in the past either. 2022 Projection 3.87 FIP 2.6 FWAR 2022 Actual 3.35 FIP 4.1 FWAR Quite a bit of the WAR difference is due to the larger number of innings Alek provided compared to the projections, but this doesn't change the fact that he beat his FIP projection by a rather sizable amount. 2023 Projection 3.83 FIP 3.9 FWAR 2023 Actual 6.01 FIP -0.4 FWAR The preseason projection called for Alek to continue providing top of the rotation quality innings, but something went sideways in the offseason and he featured dramatically worse command and stuff compared to his previous seasons. He made some really poor decisions as the season carried on with regards to fighting his demotion to the minor leagues and I can't help but feel this is overwhelmingly behind the opinions on the board that the team should just trade Alek for whatever instead of waiting to see if he can regain his form moving forward.

There is simply nothing concrete from Shapiro with regards to available payroll for this offseason. There is plenty of room for interpretation as well as far as what a "dramatic philosophical shift in payroll" would actually entail as well. Is this 5%, 10%, 20%, moving up to the next tier of the luxury tax, or something else altogether. Much like Atkins left plenty of room for interpretation on his own comments Shapiro has done the same thing as well. Aside from that, even if the team were actually planning to increase it's payroll there would be absolutely no benefit for announcing this to prospective free agents and opposition general managers. https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/mark-shapiro-on-toronto-blue-jays-2024-payroll-i-expect-us-to-stay-in-the-same-area-1.2019966

I think the replay rules need a serious overhaul in the offseason. I absolutely hate the replay challenges on ticky tacky s*** like the "missed stoppages" as there's simply no way to know whether a goal is even going to count any more. On top of that allowing a team to call a timeout and spend several minutes reviewing a potential missed stoppage really grinds my gears as well. Good on Keefe for taking advantage of the ability to do so but I don't like the fact this was allowable in the first place. I much prefer the baseball system where you have a specified time limit to challenge a play, although given the fact that a penalty is assessed on a missed challenge for delay of game perhaps the NHL's time limit could accordingly be a touch longer.

Kim is very similar to Varsho in that the bulk of his value is derived from his glove. Both project in pretty similar fashions as a result as players with great gloves and about league average bats.

The command and 2023 injuries are certainly concerns but the overall results are still off the charts. Despite the inflated BABIP AA opponents only slugged .286 against him as most of the hits were singles.