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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.

I think the far and away biggest concern with Snell is they typical lack of innings he provides. He has only averaged about 125 innings per season for his career so it's lunacy that he expects to receive ace level dollars.

The weirdest thing is they basically have the same personality, where Frenchonionsoup posts a steady stream of nonsense, gets told to politely go f*** himself, and then Magoo or whatever his name is white knights for his alter ego.

It's obvious why the two of you are a package deal so the bolded part is certainly correct.

Albert Pujols probably used the same supplier for his own fake birth certificate.

And the team played him away from his most valuable defensive position the majority of the time.

That's exactly how you would want them to operate. It's worth it to splash maximum cash on the true premium free agents but then reach a sensible limit on the mid range guys.

I like Kim a lot too. He was one of my preferred targets the offseason where he chose to sign with San Diego and it sounds like he would have signed with the Jays had they been willing to allow him to refuse minor league assignments. I think he would be a perfect Bo replacement should Bo leave in free agency as Kim could be extended for a lot more reasonable amount compared to Bo. I have no idea what he would cost in trade but I don't think he would come cheap given how the Padres are trying to compete and he's a massive bargain at only $8 million for his final season. Maybe something like Schneider and Barger could get a deal done. MLBTraderumors has a recent post about this as well. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/01/trade-candidate-ha-seong-kim.html

BJMB rules are a lot different than those you would expect to see followed in general society. Although general decorum in society as a whole has gone down the shitter in recent years as well.

Hopefully he enjoyed his time with the team enough that just matching the other offers is sufficient to bring him back into the fold.

Vlad just posted the second lowest ground ball percentage of his career so that's not so much of an issue at this point. Vlad and the team need to determine how to turn the 95th percentile expected statistics into actual production and he can return to being a much better offensive performer. I recall reading that his barreled baseballs were travelling something like 20 feet less through the air compared to previous seasons, so perhaps his batted balls had too much topspin for optimal distance. His expected statistics support something in the range of 140 wRC+ even with the relative struggles of last season. I think the team and Vlad are likely stuck with each other for the next season at the very least. I see no way that the team would be able to extract appropriate value in trade for Vlad given the inconsistency of his career and the salary he's been commanding through arbitration. I am very hopeful of a huge incoming season given the offseason spent training in Florida but it's up to Vlad to finally prove he can be the type of hitter his natural talent suggests. He has hundreds of millions of potential future earnings on the line at this point so it's up to him to finally prove he's going to be worth it.

That's a load of s***. Vlad has typically been a very good to great offensive performer while in the DH position. Even ignoring his scintillating 2021 season Vlad has averaged 125 wRC+ over the last two seasons. He's one of the few players that doesn't seem to have his numbers crater offensively when sitting on the bench all game in between at bats either. DH Production 2020 137 wRC+ 2021 146 wRC+ 2022 116 wRC+ 2023 131 wRC+ He is projected for a 144 wRC+ in 2024. Compare this to the better available DH bats: Soler 119 wRC+ Pederson 118 wRC+ Hoskins 116 wRC+ Martinez 106 wRC+ Go back the last two years and here are the wRC+ leaders at DH with a minimum of 500 plate appearances (this should capture guys who mostly man the DH position: Alvarez 172 Ohtani 159 Harper 139 JD Martinez 126 That's a grand total of 4 primary DH players in all of MLB who produced an average wRC+ value higher than Vlad the last two seasons. He's absolutely strong enough with the bat to be a primary DH, I just don't necessarily think that would be wise to make a full time position switch at this point of his career.

He has a career 105 wRC+ as a DH in 652 plate appearances. That's not awful by any means but on a team with an obvious opening to add more offense they can do a lot better than that. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/george-springer/12856/splits-tool?splitArr=41&splitArrPitch=&position=B&autoPt=false&splitTeams=false&statType=player&statgroup=2&startDate=2002-01-01&endDate=2023-11-01&players=&filter=&groupBy=career&wxTemperature=&wxPressure=&wxAirDensity=&wxElevation=&wxWindSpeed=&sort=-1,1

This is certainly an interesting discussion. I looked up each of these dudes splits in their latest good offensive seasons, and it seems like the total offensive value was essentially a wash. Pederson provided approximately equal offensive value in approximately 75% of the plate appearances so it's possible the team would be better off with Pederson and maybe Vlad in at DH vs lefties and come out ahead offensively. I'm not sure if my methodology for comparison holds up as these occurred in different seasons but the values are weighted so hopefully it's at least semi legitimate. 2022 Pederson vs RHP 21.1 wRAA vs LHP 0.7 wRAA total 21.8 wRAA 433 plate appearances 2023 Soler vs RHP 6.6 wRAA vs LHP 13.8 wRAA total 20.4 wRAA 580 plate appearances Soler absolutely clobbered lefties in his 135 plate appearances as he produced a 181 wRC+. Hitting in the top of the Blue Jays lineup he could still reasonably expect a similar level of playing time against left handed pitching when compared to top of the order Blue Jays hitters such as Vlad (124 PA) and Springer (144 PA) although adding him to an already right handed dominant lineup could limit the willingness of opposition managers to deploy left handed pitching against the team.

Don't get me wrong I have no qualms with trading either of these guys but each of them provides enough value commensurate to their respective salaries and are rather inexpensive such that removing them just opens up new holes that the minor league system might not be able to fill right away.