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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.

I'd wait to see how Vlad looks this season before handing Hoskins a full time first base position. Vlad and Hoskins generally have produced similar defensive metrics aside from Vlad's poor 2023 showing. Aside from that Hoskins is coming back from major knee surgery so playing him in the field everyday is a remarkably bad idea.

What would be wrong with someone like JD Martinez, Rhys Hoskins or Joc Pederson? I want an above average bat DH type added and all of these could reasonably be expected to supply a similar amount of overall offense to Soler. The team has Vlad who is a 30 home run bat, Bo, Springer and Varsho who can be expected to produce 20-25 home runs, and Jansen who is a 15 home run bat with potential for more if he finally stays healthy. Schneider might be a 15-20 home run type of bat as well depending on playing time. But this is a team with zero power to you? Ok then.

It's a small sample size alert kind of situation but Biggio looked entirely competent at third base last season and it's fully backed up by the metrics.

From what I can gather CBD is really prone to reacting with a lot of different medications. I'd wager that combining CBD oil with anti-psychotics would be rather counter productive.

Yup time to tuck tail and run away.

Let's compare what each of Moreno and Kirk had accomplished in their respective careers with nearly identical levels of playing time up to the point of comparison at the point where Moreno currently sits. Moreno 453PA 104 wRC+ 2.4 FWAR Kirk 451 PA 143 wRC+ 3.7 FWAR I think Kirk is a more talented hitter with a higher offensive ceiling and right now he's arguably the more complete defender as well. Much like was the case with Moreno Kirk's numbers receive a massive boost from a hot streak, but the duration and strength of this hot streak far more impressive and likely to be reproducible in the future compared to what Moreno produced. Moreno 92 PA .349/.413/.627 179 wRC+ 8.7% BB 19.6% K 0.4 BB/K .400 BABIP 35.7% HR/FB Kirk 172 PA .361/.448/.639 211 wRC+12.2% BB 9.3% K 1.31 BB/K .352 BABIP 23.3% HR/FB There are a lot of indicators that outline how Moreno's hot streak is going to be very difficult to replicate, including a sky high .400 BABIP and unsustainable 35.7% home run to fly ball rate. A lot of Kirk's success was driven by elite bat to ball skills as evidenced by the superb 1.31 BB/K ratio, and far more reasonable BABIP and home run per fly ball ratios.

It doesn't really seem as though Shapiro stated that the team was going to have waves of impact talent specifically, just a steady stream of prospects available in the minor league system. After the initial wave in 2019 this has largely slowed to more of a trickle, but the system is actually back to the point where there is actually a wave of talent nearly ready to be infused into the major league roster. With continued development the next few seasons could potentially see the graduation of 3 above average position players, a top of the rotation type of arm, and a lot of high octane relief options to allow the team to build an inexpensive bullpen aside from a fewer expensive options at the back of the pen. https://www.thestar.com/sports/blue-jays/shapiro-s-blue-jays-rebuild-starts-with-deep-farm-and-strong-stomach/article_b99c8ef2-c66d-584b-acaa-81b336021128.html

There is definitely a greatly increased possibility that this is a window team but this if far from determined. To avoid this a lot of things will need to go right in the next few years though. Manoah, Kirk and Vlad will all need to show that 2023 were speed bump years for them and not a regular occurrence. A few of the minor league players from the pool of Tiedemann, Orelvis, Barger and Roden will need to morph into above average regulars at cost controlled league minimum salary levels, and they will possibly need to add an impact player in next year's offseason to offset the impending free agency of Vlad and/or Bo should neither of them be retained. There is a ton of money coming off of the books in the next 3 seasons and Rogers has given the club the possibility of spending to luxury tax levels to purchase free agent reinforcements as needed so there is ample opportunity to add more talent as needed from free agency to supplement the team.

Interesting comparison offensively but Outman appears to have the not so insignificant advantage of being a fantastic defender in center field.

This is very well stated. The Blue Jays definitely need to improve the minor league system but too many people are acting like it's completely devoid of talent which simply isn't true. There is a lack of potential impact talent compared to better systems as too many of the Jays minor leaguers seem to fall into the 45/45+ bracket (Fangraphs) or largely top out in the 50 bracket (MLB Pipeline) with very few players currently grading higher than this. This has somewhat hampered the team's ability to trade for players to supplement the roster as it removed them from contention for the services of elite players such as Juan Soto both when he was traded initially and when he was traded earlier this offseason. The 2019 team saw the biggest infusion of talent with Bo, Vlad, Romano and Cavan graduating, and it seems like there are people that expect it should be like this every season based on the "waves of talent" statement from Shapiro which was a stated goal. The team has basically been graduating one quality prospect from the system in each season since the rebuild finished. I haven't compared graduation numbers from other teams as I don't follow other team's systems as closely. 2020 saw Kirk and Espinal graduate, 2021 saw Manoah graduate, 2022 saw Moreno make his major league debut, 2023 saw the debuts of Schneider and Horwitz, and 2024 has potential graduations of Tiedemann with Barger, Martinez and even Roden as possibilities.

To me it read like the woman was effectively pimping out her daughter. It's entirely possible that's not the correct conclusion. In retrospect it's not "worse" than what Franco was doing but this woman completely neglected her duty to protect her own child and instead chose to profit by becoming complicit and covering up the activities of a pedophile for money. At the same time by not going to the authorities she allowed Franco to continue victimizing other young girls as well. As a father to a young daughter I'm just as disgusted by the mother's actions if not even more so.

The mother deserves far worse.