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It seems like the front office just has little to no trust in Schneider defensively at second base. They all but refused to use him there in the world series, and with IKF receiving so damn many plate appearances Schneider was robbed of a chance to be a difference maker.

I think for Ernie to maintain or even build upon his 2025 season it may boil down to something as simple as avoiding a really bad early season slump. He came out of the gates terribly against right handed pitching in particular, and these early season struggles acted like an anchor to his stats for the rest of the season. Over the first five weeks of the season Ernie produced an inconceivably bad -21 wRC+ vs RHP. He never exactly set the house on fire against same handed pitching the rest of the way but he was much better at 89 wRC+, which is more than good enough to justify regular playing time when combined with the rest of his skills. Ernie was one of the guys that helped to trigger the club's offensive renaissance in May, and he was front and center in the post season with a historical level of performance. If not for a heroic catch by Pages in the bottom of the 9th inning Ernie Clement would have been enshrined within the select few post season titans in Blue Jays history.

Why should this be such an insurmountable task for Clement? He finished at 98 wRC+ last season despite an awful first month to the season and then followed that up by setting a post season hits record.

I certainly hope so, but we've yet to see how he handles hitting against professional pitching. One thing that excites me with this particular prospect is that it appears as though his dad handled all of his training up to this point and that he's never worked under the tutelage of a professional previously. If he fully leverages the resources that are now at his fingertips there is huge potential in his bat.

That was all the same topic, paragraphs weren't required. I did arrange it differently with bullet points to make it easier to read for those of us with remedial reading comprehension skills. 😜 Ultimately the Blue Jays were 4th in run scoring last season, I think the lineup as constructed will likely end up in the same overall range again. I don't necessarily expect a full recreation of the best in MLB offense over the final 5 months of regular season+playoffs, but at the same time it feels very unlikely that the team will once again be among the worst offenses for the first month of the season either so this is something that should balance out over the season as a whole. Okamoto doesn't have to fully replace Bo's contributions, but I do expect that a healthy season from Santander and Okamoto's addition will greatly cushion the blow.

I don't know if the offense is necessarily going to be that much worse, and I believe it's still going to be a real team strength for next season. Bo is a big loss, but the projections call for a 117-121 wRC+ range for him, and if Okamoto transitions well to MLB without a huge learning curve his 113 wRC+ projection seems attainable and that would replace most of what Bo provided with the stick. For what it's worth the ZiPS projections for Bo and Okamoto are an identical 118 OPS+ so this may be more of a 1 for 1 replacement. I expect a bounceback season from Santander, although it remain to be seen how much of his previous production he is able to recapture. I seem to be in the minority in that I don't expect Springer to turn back into a pumpkin, but in the case he takes a large step back with the bat I am hopeful that a better Vlad season can pick up some of the slack. I believe simply receiving better health from the position player group can also be a large difference maker, as Varsho missed half of the season, Santander had his season ruined completely by injury, and I suspect that Gimenez was largely hampered by a wonky ankle for much of the season as well which made it all but impossible to successfully implement the tweaks that Popkins desired with him utilizing his lower half more effectively. Having a full season from Barger vs struggling rookies in Roden and Wagner should help as well.

Another bat would be like the icing on the cake for a tremendous offseason. I think Bellinger certainly fits into the existing roster very nicely but I have reservations about his ability to yet again outperform his mediocre expected statistics to the same degree. I recall years ago he purposely slowed his swing down in order to make more consistent contact and perhaps Popkins and the Blue Jays hitting group could help him to unlock a little higher swing speed when he receives a pitch he wants to unload on. I have a hard time seeing a fit for Suarez as I don't expect Okamoto is anything other than an emergency option in left field as he's barely played the position professionally. The team already has a bit of a logjam at third base with all of Barger, Okamoto and Clement likely to receive reps over there, and Suarez had a tough season with the glove and appears to be declining defensively pretty quickly.

Yeah Atkins has done a very good job adding pitching to the roster at the deadline, although last season's failure to add a 1B closer type certainly bit the team in the ass eventually.

Sure it's not predictive but the next solid bat Atkins acquires at the trade deadline will be the first one in his 10+ years as GM of the team. Every offseason there's chatter about how the team can add a bat at the deadline if needed and this has yet to actually occur.

My one major complaint with Atkins trade deadline dealing has been the outright failure to add even a solid bat to the lineup. I can't come up with a single position player added at or around the deadline who actually helped with the stick, so it feels somewhat unlikely that will change to any degree this season.

I don't expect Springer to necessarily repeat his 2025 performance as there are only a handful of players in MLB you could safely project that level of offensive output. I don't know if Bautista is a great comparison, as he never found a way to reverse his own decline at the plate. He was steadily declining year over year until he was no longer a viable starter, whereas Springer actually appeared to improve his relative skill level at the plate due to the changes that he implemented. Projection systems view George from 115-123 wRC+ which is very "safe", but I would actually be rather surprised if he doesn't beat these pretty handily.

I expect a good chunk of Springer's improvements to stick. He added several MPH to his average swing speed, kept the chase rate at elite levels, adjusted his swing plane to get the ball in the air more etc. I have essentially zero concern about the 2024 bat suddenly reappearing as I think he's sustainably fixed his issues, at least in the short term 2026 context.

There are plenty of very good third basemen with similar arm strength. I think accuracy may prove to be a bigger concern although I thought Bo had largely cleaned up the throwing errors from earlier in his career so he may prove to be just fine at third base.

I don't really agree with the premise that guys like Lukes and Clement had "breakout" seasons, they were both essentially league average bats and I think they should have little issue continuing to be league average bats in the short term.

That's a weird concern given the fact that the Rogers Centre infield is largely dirt at this point. I don't imagine the short stop/second baseman would even spend a lot of time running around on the turf aside from plays where they need to come in towards the plate.

Yeah Suarez is a really tough fit for the Blue Jays with all of Okamoto, Clement and Barger being likely to receive playing time at the position.

Don't be so obtuse. A 10 year deal that settles into something $35 million AAV feels a helluva lot more reasonable than the $60 million AAV Tucker ended up receiving. On top of that the Dodgers are paying a 110% surcharge so in essence signing Tucker is actually costing them more like $120 million+ which is more than a lot of entire team's payrolls.

Does Tucker still stand to receive deferred money even if he opts out? Maybe it works as a percentage based on how many years he stays with the Dodgers or something of that sort.

The goddamn Dodgers specialize in kicking the Blue Jays and their fanbase in the nuts. They get first dibs at basically all of the free agents the Blue Jays front office are serious about signing (Ohtani, Tucker, Yamamoto, Sasaki and even Teoscar) and to make matters worse they did just enough to squeak out a world series title in a series where they were largely outplayed. FFS.

It's two free agent outfielders that the Blue Jays courted for the entire offseason until mid-late January when they finally chose their new club. Of course they aren't the same player but it's entirely pedantic to claim there aren't some obvious similarities to how this has played out.

If reports are to be believed Tucker only has 3 serious suitors at the moment so it's not like all of MLB is battling for his services.

This situation reminds me a lot of the Santander signing last season where it was rumored all off-season that the Blue Jays were targeting him.

I think this feels a lot like the Ryu deal from several years ago although Suarez has been better at avoiding the injured list.