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I would give serious consideration to signing Trevor Story. There are reports that he turned down a 9 figure contract offer asking that he change positions, but he's historically been very good defensively at short stop. Bo could has his choice of either moving to 2nd or 3rd base, he would likely be fine at either position with time and reps. My only concern is whether this would piss off Bo and crater the chances at him signing an extension in the future.

I think a Jays Freeman signing is still incredibly unlikely to occur given the fact the front office walked away from Semien for what's likely to be similar money and term.

Interestingly the cutter was his most effective pitch in 2020, but it was thrown 2 MPH slower and heat maps show most pitches located towards the edge of the plate. With some tweaks maybe it's worth keeping.

Vlad was working out at third base this spring with Rivera, supposedly to "air out his arm". Perhaps that statement is more of a smokescreen as the Jays are serious about bringing Freeman aboard.

At first I was pretty meh on this deal, as it felt like paying Kikuchi $36 million was completely based on potential rather than a pitcher who had experienced any type of MLB success. When taking a closer look he has produced a decent run of success in MLB over 5 months worth of starts, just split up over the covid shortened 2020 season and the first half of 2021. I chose to include the include his 2020 season stats and up until July 8 of 2021, as after that start is when the wheels really started to fall off for Kikuchi, with over half of his starts with ERA's north of 9 and several starts with ERA's of over 20. During this stretch of games he put up pretty respectable numbers over a period of 24 starts. He produced an ERA of 3.81, FIP of 4.01, K/9 of 8.96, BB/9 of 3.18 and HR/9 of 1.21. Time will tell if the fall off during the second half of 2021 was more a product of fatigue or a result of the sticky stuff crackdown, as Kikuchi's spin rates took a noticeable tumble after the ban was implemented. He looks like he will benefit greatly from a tweak to his pitch selection. According to Statcast he threw his cutter a whopping 35% of the time, but this was a very bad idea as it was hammered to the tune of a .382 WOBA with an ever higher .426 XWOBA. Conversely he threw his changeup (which other systems identify as a splitter) only 10.5% of the time, with a very impressive .192 WOBA/.194 XWOBA against. This pitch was able to garner a 39.6% whiff percentage. Perhaps Kikuchi would benefit from dropping the cutter altogether as the heat maps against show a majority of pitches down the middle of the plate and thigh high.

I'd be very hesitant to move any of the Jays top prospects for Chapman. There is no guarantee whatsoever that Chapman bounces back with the bat as his WRC+ has been declining for the last 3 seasons. I wouldn't move Pearson as he's likely at his lowest possible value at the moment due to all the time lost due to injury. I think he's going to have a very good 2022 season. I have the same feeling about Groshans as well, I think he's going to really explode in 2022. Moreno and Martinez are each potential future cornerstone players, I don't think Chapman is good enough to move this quality of player. Ramirez certainly changes the calculus of the discussion. The only guy I would make off limits to Cleveland would be Moreno. Everybody else would be imminently available including Pearson, Martinez, Groshans, Kirk, etc.

I think the biggest offensive addition the club is likely to make at this point is going to be a midseason addition of Gabriel Moreno. I would love to see an infield addition, but I'm not sure who is available that moves the needle sufficiently to make the acquisition cost worthwhile. The club was rumored to be in both the Semien and Seager sweepstakes so there should be available payroll space for another big ticket acquisition, but aside from Correa who would really be worthwhile as a free agency target for the infield? Story would be nice but he's reportedly not interested in moving off of short stop, Kris Bryant would technically fit but given the fact that he's a Boras client leads me to believe he likely won't be worth the contract he eventually receives. The trade market has some interesting names. Jose Ramirez would be amazing but I have a hard time seeing the front office moving somebody like Moreno or Martinez in return. Ketel Marte would be a great pickup but Arizona reportedly isn't interested in trading him. Matt Chapman would be a good fit, but Oakland is supposedly shooting for the moon in trade talks. Josh Donaldson would be a nice pickup but I suspect the front office isn't interested given cultural fit concerns.

Kelly has become a pretty good reliever during his Dodgers tenure. He would have been a nice leverage piece for the Jays pen that's big on middle and back end relief but a little light on dependable leverage arms.

The rule 5 draft has been cancelled as well, that's great news for the Jays as there was a good possibility of losing several players from the minor league system.

That ended up growing on me over time despite my initial skepticism. I really liked the 7 inning double headers, I found that to be a perfect amount of baseball to view in one day. I find watching two 9 inning games to be simply too much of a drain on my time.

Dude the players weren't the side that initiated a lockout and waited until the last possible moment to finally get serious about negotiating. There's plenty of blame to go around to both sides here.

Jesus dude step away from the ledge, there's no reason to go full hysteria mode on March 1.

Freeman is potentially a few years away from being a full time DH. I think on a similar contract Semien would almost certainly provide far better value given how much better rounded he is.

I just can't see the Jays being willing to hand out the type of money and term Freeman is reportedly looking for. They refused to pay similar money to Semien who is younger, provides more impact on the field and would be filling an actual position of need.

I recall that as well, I just don't understand closing the door on Vlad at third base given how hard he's worked to improve his fitness and conditioning the last few offseasons. Of everybody currently on the roster aside from Espinal and maybe Kevin Smith I think he has the best skillset to effectively man the position. It would open so many other ways to improve the club overall such as allowing the club to bring in a different first baseman.

I think the new fitter Vlad has all the tools to be at least an average third baseman if not even better. He possesses good agility, a cannon for an arm and a good glove as well. I recall most of his issues previously were due to his lack of mobility which isn't surprising given the fact that he was basically obese.

Jim made a funny.

I love the Zelda series as whole, but seriously f*** Zelda II, worse game of the whole series by far.

You might be thinking of baseball simulator 1.000. The players could have superpowers that really spiced up the gameplay, such as flaming fastballs, pitches thrown with a shot put or cannonball which were impossible to hit, rocket hit ability for hitters, space leap for outfielders etc.

Good for the players, this is likely the largest piece of leverage that they have available to them to get MLB ownership to actually bargain in good faith instead of trying to break the union.

Yeah this trade was being called by all the big hockey insiders.

I think Toffoli is a perfect addition for the Flames, as prior to the trade they had effective first, second and fourth lines, however the third line was a real weak link. This trade should give them a chance to roll four effective lines. An important factor here is that Toffoli is under contract for 2.5 years at a very reasonable cap hit, and he's shown no obvious signs of decline at this point. This is far from giving up a ton of assets on a rental. I just don't view Heineman as being a great prospect, I've seen it suggested he may only have fallen into the 7-8 range in the Flames minor league system, which while it's been improving lately is still a bit of a weak system.

I think it's pretty fair for both sides. Toffoli is a legitimate top 6 winger on a very reasonable contract who could play top line for Calgary if they didn't already have a great trio playing together. The first going back to Montreal is likely to be low to mid 20's so not a super high pick. From what I gather Heineman likely doesn't have a very high ceiling, and Pitlick was basically just thrown in to lower the cap hit a bit for the Flames.

Just more MLB ownership dunking on minor league baseball. I am just so disgusted by the treatment of minor league players, such as how baseball argued against the players even obtaining minimum wages for their work. It's really beyond me how they can expect a professional athlete to reach their full potential when they can't even afford to feed themselves properly, or afford to even have a proper bed to sleep in so that they can't recuperate properly. It's just so short sighted to be pinching pennies in this fashion. With the rumblings of baseball eventually moving to more of a soccer style developmental camp training methodology perhaps conditions for minor league players will eventually begin to improve as a whole.

I find it to positively ghoulish that MLB owners refuse to pay minor leaguer even their meagre regular season wages during spring training. It's shameful that it's expected that players are expected to live in poverty while attempting to train for the upcoming season.