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Home/away splits are pretty dramatic though, for 2020 home/away split was 256/98 WRC+, for 2019 it's less extreme but still shows a big discrepancy at 157/116 WRC+. I would imagine that will factor into the kind of offers that he ultimately receives as it seems his offense is largely a function of Yankee Stadium.

They backed up the talk of adding payroll last offseason by picking up Ryu, Roark and trading for Anderson, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

If reports from the offsite training facility are to be believed SWR also saw his stuff uptick nicely in 2020, where he has been touching upper 90's velocity and sitting mid 90's if I recall correctly. Combine this with the plus plus command and you have the makings of a potential star.

Semien has only had one above average offensive season in his entire career, whereas LeMahieu has transformed himself into a star during his time in New York.

Both the club president and general manager are on the record stating the opposite to be true, so I'll avoid the doom and gloom viewpoint until the results of the free agency season dictates otherwise.

My mistake then, I was under the impression it was a much shorter time frame than that.

I suspect his ego is going to end up getting in the way of making a sensible decision here. I think the free agents should have at least a few days to survey the market before making a decision on whether to accept the qualifying offer, it makes it such a crapshoot for the players.

Same thing happened with Ryu in September of 2019 and he bounced back just fine for most of 2020.

Yup self congratulations are the best kind after all.

I was pretty ticked off about that trade at the time it was made. Hendriks had his breakout in the bullpen and was immediately shipped off for a mediocre swingman. I certainly can't claim to have foreseen him becoming the next incarnation of Mariano Rivera out of the bullpen but I never liked that trade to begin with.

If only we could go back in time and reverse the Liam Hendriks for Jesse Chavez trade, that seemed like a disaster right from the start, and it's only gotten worse over time.

I'm not so sure his career FIP has much if any bearing at this point. The guy is 34 years old and has barely seen the field the last two seasons. Is a 26 year old (or thereabouts) Clayton Kershaw a good comparable to a 34 year old guy in terms of ability to come back from injury? Maybe he comes back and puts up a 3 win season or maybe he's one more lost season away from retirement, impossible to say.

Jays still have to operate under a budget though, I'd hate for them to waste money on roll of the dice reclamation projects. They've spent real money and brought in broken starters, lousy depth guys, and mediocre innings eaters recently. Names like Jaime Garcia, Tanner Roark and Chase Anderson all spring to mind, I'd much rather they take the $10 million or whatever and put it towards an actual quality starter like Tanaka instead of throwing money down the drain on super risky reclamation projects. A rebuilding club like the Red Sox have nothing to lose in taking risks on guys like Kluber so they can turn them into a possible prospect at the trade deadline, but the Jays are closer to being competitive.

Bauer would be an awesome pickup for sure, but the Jays have enough talented young starters in the upper minors that I'd rather the club give them a shot than bring in a reclamation project like Kluber.

I'd say hard pass to Kluber, there's a very good chance you would get nothing out of the guy. Add $10 million or whatever for the possibility of no value to the $12 million for no value from Roark and you are starting to waste a lot of money that could be spent on some players you can realistically expect to get some performance from.

Missing in the free agent starting pitcher discussion is the qualifying offer. Which of these guys are eligible and likely to receive one, and which of them is actually worth giving up a draft pick for? Bauer (assuming he's eligible) is a lock for the qualifying offer and that won't deter any buyers. If I were the Mets management group I'd saddle Stroman with a qualifying offer as a way to return the favor for opting out the instant he came off of the disabled list. I doubt any of the other remaining starting pitchers are worth sending a qualifying offer to though as some of them would be likely to actually accept it like Odorizzi did last off season (likely a big mistake on his part).

Totally baseless assumption.

Adams had a nice run of success at high A and AA in 2019, he looks like he might have some potential with the bat. The high strikeout numbers are a bit of a red flag though.

Both guys scare me with their injury histories, Paxton in particular with the back injuries and forearm concern that popped up this season. I bet Odorizzi is kicking himself for not taking the Jays offer last offseason, I'd be curious to see how far apart the two sides were. He may be a decent bounceback candidate if he's willing to take a pillow contract to build some value.

I had checked out the home/away splits as well, they are pretty weird when you take a closer look. For some odd reason he struck out far fewer batters on the road than at home. Away from home he was beat up a few times by the Dodgers and the Rockies, so no real shame there given how good the Dodgers offense is and how hard it is to pitch at Coors Field. It's far too short a sample size to make any definitive statements after only 10 starts but I really don't think he would just magically revert back to mediocrity just because he'd be pitching in the AL East. I see a pitcher that looks to have improved his stuff and tweaked his repertoire for maximum success, this likely isn't the same pitcher he was when he pitched with the Orioles.

MLBtraderumors.com has a survey up asking about whether you would prefer to sign Stroman or Gausman as a free agent. My knee jerk reaction based on past performance for each pitcher led me to immediately pick Stroman, but after taking a look at Gausman's 2020 numbers I was very tempted to switch my pick to Gausman. He had a really nice (partial) season for the Giants. He managed to up his fastball velocity by over a full MPH and also increased his 4 seam spin rate as well, so it appears his stuff has ticked up a bit. He managed a big jump in his K rate, improving his previous career best 10.03 K/9 up to 11.92 K/9. The biggest change I can see that may explain his newfound success is a marked change in pitch usage, he's basically dumped his slider the last few seasons and gone exclusively fastball/splitter. You really can't argue with the results, 3.62 ERA/3.09 FIP/3.49 xERA. I think he's likely to be more successful going forward than Taijuan Walker and would prefer the Jays take a shot at signing him for the rotation. I don't think he'll require a very long term deal due to lack of sustained success in his career, maybe 2-3 years gets it done.

Jays historically have to overpay for free agents anyway so that's already factored into any free agent signings no matter where they end up playing.

I don't think Bo would have any issues moving off of short stop for an established MLB player, he basically said as much when the Jays were linked with Didi Gregorius. Hard to say how he would react to being asked to move for a rookie with no MLB experience however.

Yeah there would be plenty of at bats to go around for Grichuk. Gurriel is pretty injury prone so he seems to be a lock to miss a chunk of time, and Teoscar is a guy you'd want to DH from time to time to avoid him bungling plays in the outfield where possible.

I get the feeling somebody will make him an offer with so many zeros attached that he can't refuse.