max silver

Yeah I would too without hesitation. I've had a hard time gauging what Bauer's market actually looks like. Who is competing for his services right now? Most of the typical big spenders look to be missing in action this year, and it appears as though San Diego and New York Mets may be close to finished adding to their clubs at this point. Would the Jays be willing to add two big contracts in one offseason? Mark Shapiro himself insinuated they could add two elite players this offseason, so it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility. When they set somebody as a true target they look to do what it takes to bring them aboard. They've added extra years for both Ryu and Springer when other teams looked to be hesitant to do so. With an obvious hole in the starting rotation and the club having added nobody of note other than resigning Ray so far, I do find myself wondering if the front office is leaving budget space open for a possible Bauer addition. Once he's off the market I suspect the rest of the remaining free agent starters are going to sign rather quickly.

Bag lady.

I look Bauer as having produced elite seasons 2 of the last 3 years. I suspect 2019 was the outlier compared to his new true talent level. If he was hurt as he claims then he can have a pass for that season. I couldn't give half a f*** about what he did prior, that's not particularly important when players unlock new levels of performance in their career. Look at guys like Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion etc. as very good Blue Jays examples of players who reached new heights after many seasons of mediocre performance, and sustained that performance for many years afterward as well. There may be a bit of a chance for somebody to acquire an ace level pitcher on a relative bargain contract compared to years past. Look at Stephen Strasburg for example, he received a crazy 7 year $245 million contract from the Nationals despite being older at the time than Bauer is presently. If somebody can snag Bauer with the MLBTR predicted 4 year $128 million deal that's a steal in comparison (admittedly looks very unlikely at this point). Bauer's best seasons are comparable to the best that Strasburg has managed to produce, and Strasburg has historically missed a ton of time due to injury. Projection systems actually appear to like Bauer more in 2021.

Jinx!

And on top of that he gets to pick the team he plays for as well. Good deal for him all around.

Jesus man are you dense? Bauer provided almost the exact type of value in 2018 BEFORE the obvious increase in spin rates.

Lol that's f***ed up.

There's no point in even comparing who has had a better career up to this point in discussing which pitcher is a better target. Bauer has recently found another level of performance which is more indicative of his potential going forward. I'm on the fence as well about handing out a mega contract to Bauer as well, but provided ownership is willing to provide the necessary funds to continue building the roster around the addition of Bauer then I say get it done. Similar to what was done with Springer, the Jays could front load Bauer's contract as well so as not to interfere with a ability to extend the young core. Adding an elite starter to a weak starting rotation is the biggest single upgrade that's available to the club right now, with where they fall on the win curve every potential added win is massive. The Jays have several very high quality potential reinforcements in the minor leagues as well, so it's no given that all of the players on the current roster are going to be kept long term. With prospects like Martin, Groshans, Martinez, Moreno etc. there are cheap potential core players in the system which may be able to provide cheap production to the club in the future.

Trevor Bauer has no performance related red flags. Pretty much every pitcher in baseball is using something to enhance their grip, so unless MLB decides to fully crack down on everybody Bauer is going to be perfectly fine to continue doing what he's doing. Besides the alleged cheating (we have no proof, only suspicions at this point) he's produced elite results with spin rates within his typical career norms before 2020. He typically stays healthy, limits walks, provides plenty of innings, induces weak contact and racks up strikeouts. This is an elite pitcher by any measure that you want to look at. James Paxton is a broken down oft injured starter who you can bank on missing several starts every season. He is coming off of back surgery and a forearm injury in 2020, and his results on the field were terrible. There is a good chance with a full off season to strengthen up that he will bounce back, but he is several tiers behind Trevor Bauer in the ranks of starting pitchers. There is no denying that Bauer is a prick off of the field (sometimes on the field too, thinking of the ball tossed into the center field stands episode) but he's one of baseballs best starters. Signing this guy instantly elevates the Jays into true contender status. Paxton would be a nice fallback option banking on a bounceback season, but he's far from a sure thing to provide value on whatever contract he obtains. Bauer has a potential ceiling of 7 WAR with a good season by his standards, and a poor season by his recent standards would be 3 WAR. A good season for Paxton places him in the 3-3.5 WAR range, which is the lower range you could reasonably expect for Bauer.

Kloffenstein and Martinez are firmly in the second tier right now for me, but each guy with a solid minor league season under their belts could quickly reach untouchable status as well. Potential for each guy is massive, Kloffenstein in particular has me very excited as I think he has a good shot to be a top of the rotation monster. He's very motivated to make that happen as well. https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/blue-jays-kloffenstein-salvaged-2020-development-covid-league/

At this point of their respective careers they are nowhere close in value, regardless of how you view their careers up until now. Bauer is more than a one hit wonder, he had an elite season in 2018 with the Indians. He produced 5.8 FWAR/BWAR in only 27 starts. Let's surmise that he was able to make the full 32 starts that season , that extrapolates to 6.9 WAR. That is a pretty similar pace to his results in 2020, which would extrapolate to 7.3 WAR over a full season. The elite results in 2018 were attained without the suspicious spin rate increases as well, so it's not like he needs to use whatever grip enhancing substance(s) he was likely utilizing in 2020 for elite production. For what it's worth his spin rates look to have been improving every year since the Statcast era began. Bauer looks to have broken out in 2018 and hit new levels of performance. In 2019 he has gone on record saying that he was dealing with injuries for much of the year, as he was negatively affected by partially torn ankle ligaments and back spasms which affected his mechanics. Despite that he battled through the season and still managed a very respectable 3.3 FWAR in 213 innings. Looking at the fangraphs pitching leaderboard for the last three seasons he ranks 6th among starting pitchers. This is a pitcher that induces soft contact, piles up strikeouts and has typically been pretty healthy throughout his career. The man is in the upper echelon of MLB starters, and he is going to be paid accordingly. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=&rost=&age=&filter=&players=&startdate=&enddate=

Simeon Woods Richardson would be close to untouchable for me as well. The players I would consider moving him for would be viewed as untouchable by the organization they belong to as well, rendering the whole thing moot. The only other guy in the Jays minor league system I'd consider on the same level would be Martin, everybody else would be eminently available for the right return.

Grichuk is one of the more active Jays players on Twitter, but he's probably busy gorging himself on ice cream seeing as how he lost his starting center field job.

Rumors have it that the Jays refused to include Gurriel in a potential Lindor trade, so it seems unlikely they'd include him in a trade to the Cubs.

I would imagine there's a good chance Severino should be back at some point in 2021, but perhaps the Yankees are super cautious with him and really limit his innings upon return.

The Yankees starting rotation has amazing upside. Cole/Severino/Kluber/Taillon is awesome. There's a really good chance a bunch of their rotation misses time due to injury, but if they can have even 3 of their top 4 going into the playoffs they will be in great shape.

They seem to have the magic pixie dust that they sprinkle onto hitters, but I don't recall them having quite as much success when it comes to starting pitchers. It definitely doesn't help that they've played in an absolute bandbox when it comes to the pitching side of the equation.

From listening to interviews with the front office they sound like they are very high on Moreno, but with the glut of catchers on the 40 man roster one of them likely needs to be moved out this offseason. Adams and McGuire are the most expendable of the bunch, but neither of these guys likely has much in the way of trade value.

I guess in a way for Jays players it's to their financial benefit to play a portion of their games in Dunedin this season given the massive difference in tax rates between Ontario and Florida.

Success rates for single Tommy John surgeries are pretty decent, but I'd be wary of trading long term assets for a player who's undergone a second Tommy John procedure. This has apparently been studied, and the results aren't great. https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=187606

That certainly could be the case, my assumption was based on articles that listed Connecticut as "home" for Springer, which could simply be referencing that he grew up there. Texas certainly changes things dramatically for him, that changes to 37% federal + 0% state income tax, vs. the combined 46% in Ontario.

From a quick lookup, assuming that Springer resides in Connecticut, state income tax maxes out at 6.99% vs 13.16% for Ontario, so that's a nice difference on its own. Federal tax rates between the two countries look to be similar, with Canada maxing out at 33% vs 37% in the US. If my thinking is correct combined Springer would pay about 46% total tax in Ontario vs 44% in the US, so it's maybe not that big of a difference either way.

I wouldn't want anything to do with Moustakas and his inflated contract, that's a serious hand grenade. What in the actual f*** was Cincinnati thinking when they handed that out? If you're lucky Moustakas provides 5 or 6 wins over the remaining length of his deal, there are far better values to be had in free agency this year.

Earning starter money has to be nice for sure, but at some point you would think guys would get tired of constantly rehabbing injuries instead of being on the field competing.

You would have to think that at some point in would be in Richards best interest to switch to the bullpen. However he's a guy who's pitched less than 200 innings combined out of the last 5 years as a starter, and still obtained a $10 million guarantee, so I can see why he would continue attempting to start.