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I definitely prefer either of those over paying $15 million per season for Tanaka. Way more upside with the first two options, even if they have very risky injury profiles.

I wonder if Walker may be able to find another gear in his performance levels. I recall him mentioning he would like to dive into analytically inclined training methods in the future, as he was impressed with the amount of data that the Jays were available to offer him upon joining the club initially.

If the club is after a mediocre inexpensive innings eater I'd far prefer they opt for J.A. Happ. There is obvious familiarity between Happ and the coaching staff and he had a nice bounceback in the shortened 2020 season. He'll likely sign for a 1 year contract given his advanced age whereas Walker will likely require several years.

Hand looks to throw his slider about 50% of the time, and this pitch generates nearly 40% whiff rate even with the velocity drop. He really doesn't seem to be reliant on pure velocity to garner above average results.

I was a little surprised at the time that Patrick Murphy was going to be utilized as a reliever while Julian Merryweather would be a starter. However thinking back about seeing Murphy as a reliever in his short MLB stint I did have questions about his fastball command being sufficient to turn over a lineup multiple times, perhaps the changeup didn't come along enough for him to have a viable third offering. Merryweather certainly has the stuff and arsenal to be a fantastic starter but how long would it take before the inevitable injuries pop up again with a starters workload?

Same basic information is up on MLBTR, so I guess I better stop following that site as well according to your rules. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/01/latest-on-dj-lemahieus-market.html

The article mentions how LeMahieu wants close to the same contract that J.D. Martinez got, but if anything Martinez should act as a cautionary tale as to how quickly a player can decline in their 30's. Martinez is all but certain to bounce back to some degree but he had an incredibly bad year in a season that he started at the ripe old age of 32.

While that would make for a rotation with very high upside I can't help but go glass half empty and think about how badly that could turn out. If Ray is terrible again and both Kluber and Paxton get hurt and miss a good chunk of time (very likely scenario) you are left with a terrible starting rotation. I seriously doubt Cleveland wants anything to do with Grichuk, they are dramatically slashing payroll and likely wouldn't want to be adding a negative value contract to their books. Grichuk has potential to hit 2-2.5 wins in a good season, but he's much more likely in the 1-1.5 win range if we are being realistic.

Sneaky good move for sure. Just need to make sure Uncle Charlie doesn't use him as the first man up in high leverage in the playoffs again.

I'm well aware Stroman was never an option due to the fractured relationship, but the fact remains that dependable good quality starting pitching is a rare commodity, and each guy that the Jays management strikes out on reduces the options available to them. The free agent market is already basically down to Bauer and various reclamation projects, then finally back of the rotation options.

There is a finite supply of players in key areas of need. The Jays have massive holes in the infield and starting rotation, and with Kim and Lindor off the market gone are two of the top available targets with which to fill that hole. More dire is the starting pitcher market, where arguably 3 of the top 4 available free agents targets in Gausman, Stroman, and Sugano are all gone. The trade market is quickly dwindling as well, with Darvish, Snell and Carrasco all being traded away to other teams. If Jays management continues to slow play the market and stick to their value offers they are eventually going to be left fighting over the scraps.

I hate the idea of the Jays potentially wasting a year of their good young core while it's still inexpensive. If they keep insisting on making value offers to free agents there is always going to be somebody else willing to offer more money. I'd rather they overpay to some degree on actual impact players then end up having to overpay for marginal quality upgrades instead. Tanner Roark is a perfect example of overpaying for a low quality player, enough of that s***, make the money actually count instead of the possibility of completely wasting it.

I'm definitely starting to get a bit nervous about how this offseason is unfolding. It's starting to feel a bit like the Jays are getting their lunch money stolen by the few teams that are willing to spend money to improve their teams. The Padres jumped in out of nowhere and snapped up Kim under the Jays noses, and then proceeded to trade for two of the most desirable starting pitchers available on the market. Now with the Mets stepping up and trading for Lindor and Carrasco (I was admittedly a bit lukewarm to this idea, but it was still fun to dream on) there are two fewer players available to Jays management to upgrade the roster with. The dual disappointments of Gausman choosing to accept the qualifying offer and Sugano going back to Japan are also making me start to question whether this front office is going to step out of their budget conscious free agency mindset and actually do what it takes to acquire their chosen targets. I'm going to be extremely displeased if the Jays end up hanging on to their money because they are too afraid to accept some risk and actually spend it. This is amplified by how Jays management has talked up their willingness to spend aggressively to upgrade the roster, it's becoming high time to put up or shut up.

It's certainly an impossible year to get a good handle on what the market actually is for anybody given the glacially slow pace up to this point.

I'm just saying I wouldn't be overly surprised if his AAV approaches the $15 million range. The last two years the reliever leaderboard is basically Hendriks, then several wins behind are guys like Nick Anderson and Brad Hand. Hendriks isn't terribly old, his command is immaculate, he's historically had good health, and his stuff ticked up substantially in 2019.

No actual good starters have signed yet, only guys who had ugly seasons or don't have enough of a track record to earn a larger contract. We simply don't have enough data to make conclusions as to what the top reliever on the market is going to sign for in comparison. Hendriks has been a 3.5+ win reliever for the last two seasons, the man is going to get paid. I'll make a guess myself and say he'll bring in 12/36.

If I were Hendriks I would fire my agent if I ended up signing for that amount before spring training starts. The guy has found another gear the last two seasons, although given that nobody wanted Brad Hand for free on waivers for only $10 million who even knows what Hendriks ends up receiving for offers.

Hendriks is far better, and wouldn't require giving up a draft pick either. I'm not so sure the free agents at the top of the food chain are going to end up seeing massive covid discounts.

Missing out on Kim throws a wrench in how I would have liked things to proceed. Under the $50 million payroll scenario I would have added Springer, Kim and either Sugano or Odorizzi.

That's a very good point. I've wondered perhaps if Groshans could be moved to the outfield if necessary if there's not room on the infield once he's ready for MLB. I think another potential reason is that it's a bit difficult to find players with the requisite tools to play plus defence in the outfield who are also capable of actually hitting a baseball. So many of the raw toolsy prospects who are drafted as outfielders end up fizzling out in the minors, or can't hack it as major league regulars. Just for Jays instances alone Socrates Brito is a recent example, Anthony Alford comes to mind, DJ Davis is another who couldn't hack it in the lower minors.

Take a gander at MLB Pipeline's Blue Jays top 30. If you assume Martin plays infield Conine was basically the Jays top rated outfield prospect, this makes what is the arguably the minor league system's greatest weakness even worse. I just really dislike the idea of dumping prospects before they've even had a decent chance to fail and then subsequently make the necessary adjustments to maximize their talents.

The Robbie Ray trade was a good example of a "lightning in a bottle" trade done right. Travis Bergen was the return, a 27 year old with mediocre stuff whose likely ceiling was middle reliever if everything clicked for him. You can argue Conine was a bit overage for A ball but if I'm not mistaken he was about 21 to start the season in Lansing in 2019, a little old but nothing crazy. He still managed to club 22 home runs in only 80 games and produced a 169 WRC+. With a profile that likely fits nicely in right field if he can get the strikeouts under control he can be a productive major league outfielder. This is in very short supply in the Jays system. For what it's worth MLB Pipeline views Conine as a 45 FV prospect. I would have been fine with giving up an actual prospect for a returning player who wasn't a short term rental and mired in a super deep slump.

Griffin Conine is the number 18 prospect on the Marlin's top 30 according to MLB pipeline. Not a top 10 can't miss prospect by any means, but a prospect nonetheless.

I'm familiar with the idea, but typically when you make a trade of that nature you aren't giving up an actual prospect, it's more of an org guy that gets shipped out. Maybe Conine ends up being an org guy in a few years, but I don't think it was necessary to throw him away in a trade with a high risk of completely failing. One of the major weaknesses in the Jays minor league system is the lack of good outfield prospects, sending out one of the few interesting players they had for a month of a backup shortstop seemed short sighted. If the front office thought Villar was a good fit for the club they could have had him for free at the waiver deadline the at the previous waiver deadline, they didn't need to give up an asset to acquire a month of a player having the worst season of his career up to that point. Reports out of Miami were that Marlins management was happy to be rid of Villar due to selfish play as he was making a lot of boneheaded forced mistakes on the field, and that continued after the trade. The Jays were working hard to clean up the unforced errors on the basepaths, and Villar came in and instantly started running into outs on the bases with reckless mistakes.

Villar really didn't do anything right in 2020, the trade just seemed doomed to fail. Villar put up career worst exit velocities and barrel percentage, as well as having suffered a rather substantial amount of sprint speed. Without producing value on the bases Villar loses much of his overall value on the baseball field. Combine a player who was having a far below average season at the plate and sprinkle in a smattering of defensive miscues and you are left with a terrible baseball player. Part of what bugs me so much is that I thought that Griffin Conine was one of the Jays more interesting outfield prospects, flawed for sure but still with some plus tools.