max silver

This is just more proof that you are so one sided/biased in your opinions that you'll complain even when the team makes very smart moves with massive potential upside and little to no downside.

I believe Kirk is primed for a huge season and the time was right to sign him at a very reasonable cost. He was willing to negotiate a mutually beneficial overall term and AAV which was equally sharing the risk between he and the team. He has improved his peak and overall throwing velocity in the offseason as mentioned on yesterday's game broadcast, and he has greatly improved his exit velocity in the spring as well which is a strong indicator of a potential offensive resurgence. He is basically worth this deal if he simply continues to perform as he has been, and if the offense works it's way back this deal has potential to be extremely team friendly. I'd like to think you can do better than this, but based on your entire posting history I'm not holding my breath. You are the type of poster that's constantly railing against the front office for not taking a giant leap of faith with Vlad and assuming that he would be worth a franchise player deal before coming anywhere close to earning it, so it makes little to no sense that you are complaining about the team handing a market value deal to their starting catcher who has turned into an elite defender, has typically been very durable, and the team has little in the pipeline available to replace him in the future.

Schneider said he looked good in the spring with a newly added splitter, although Barnes' overall numbers are pretty ugly aside from a surge in strikeout rate.

I think for Kirk to do substantially better in free agency he would need to regain a lot of his previous offensive form at the plate. This feels like a case of a player who spoke with actions rather than words in regards to wanting to remain a Blue Jay long term and was willing to accept a mutually beneficial/reasonable contract extension instead of trying to squeeze the organization for a contract that he hadn't fully earned.

Good thing it didn't take $20 million AAV like someone on here was insisting.

That's assuming the other depth options are actually better than Pop. I suppose this opens the door for someone like Nance to make the opening day roster.

All of Chad Green (3.21), Brendon Little (3.74), and Nick Sandlin (3.75) finished 2024 with ERAs below 3.85.

I recall that Nunez hit a ball at approximately 117 MPH off of the bat earlier in the spring. It was on the ground but I fully agree that there is some really high end power potential in his bat.

Wait where did the thumbs down button go?

Bloss has been very impressive his last few times out. He was sitting at 96 with the heater today and touched as high as 98 MPH. How earlier issues were primarily command related and that's been much better in recent outings.

Yeah this one is tough.

I'm not positive but I'm thinking that looks like George Bell.

I thought based on the limited viewings of Nimmala this spring that he has displayed a very strong arm at the short stop position.

This is just an example of a simple mind that is only capable of thinking in absolutes. Therefore there is the need to assign 100% of the blame for a very complicated scenario on team management, and none of the blame on the player despite the multitude of question marks and inconsistency surrounding this player. Not to mention the astronomical asking price that would pay the player among the elites of the sport despite this player only being a top 10 level of player in the sport at best.

I fully agree this feels way too damn close to not ultimately get a deal done. I recall rumors stated that Vlad wasn't willing to accept any deferrals which is just incredibly short sighted on his part. He still gets full value eventually and that leaves extra room to build a competitive team around him, it feels like it's nothing more than greed for him to insist to be paid that type of money at present day value only.

I semi-jokingly requested that one earlier.

I looked up Joe Kelly and he mentioned back in January that he wanted to sign with the Dodgers only or he would retire. He also mentioned at that point he wasn't fully recovered from a shoulder injury so he doesn't appear to be a realistic target. I have no idea why Robertson is still lingering in free agency though unless he's being too picky for destination and/or asking for far too much money. It feels like pitchers that sign this late more often than not have terrible seasons so hopefully the Jays can sign him up sooner rather than later.

It would certainly be nice to be able to stash Pop away in Buffalo but he's out of options. I suspect there's only one spot available between Pop and Nance, personally I think Nance offers more realistic upside of the two but neither one would be a huge loss if they were snagged on waivers.

I believe there's a pretty decent chance that Straw makes the opening day roster over Loperfido.

That's infinitely less concerning than forearm/elbow/shoulder soreness.

Yeah I suspect that falls in the general area. He ran a 181 wRC+ over the last 5 months that corresponded to a 6.9 win pace if prorated over an entire season.

I thought the reaction time looked good so far. The arm strength is obviously lacking but he's been pretty on target with his throws so far.

Oh s*** Erik Swanson's been sent to see Dr. Keithmeister. The team just signed Dillon Tate, please don't tell me that means they are out of contention for David Robertson.