max silver

Why would you think that though? Recent seasons saw guys like Belt and Turner signed who primarily played at DH as each only provided a few hundred innings in the field.

Would you mind going into a little more detail how to post Fangraphs tables to the forum? The Baseball Reference example is easy enough to follow as I had no issues finding the share and export function, but I haven't been able to locate a similar function on Fangraphs.

I believe Rodriguez's primary issues stemmed from poor command. I think he would tend to get himself into trouble when he wasn't able to locate his pitches in the strike zone. I had a peak at his splits and his numbers second time through the order were better than the first time through the order, with a lower walk rate second time through the order standing out. I surmise this was due to him only pitching through the order a second time on days where he could reliably command his pitches. His numbers third time through the order are pretty ugly, but this is a situation that rarely occurred.

Huh? The team is in the current situation with Vlad because they tried to sign elite free agents in Ohtani and Soto? I don't follow your line of thinking. What's this about Atkins chasing after Teoscar? That makes even less sense, the guy is signed and there has been zero evidence about Atkins "trying to chase him down". Why would Vlad have signed a long term deal after a terrible season? He knew the same as the rest of us that Soto was nearing free agency and as such was likely to set a new financial bar in free agency. On top of that why on earth would the club want to hand out a $300 million extension to a player that barely topped a single win above replacement in a season where he appeared in 156 games? I don't know how you are on about when you say that the team is chasing players that won't come here due to no loyalty from management (whatever that's supposed to mean), and then immediately list Max Schurzer (I like this spelling), who has literally announced as having already signed with the team. I fully expect that Vladdybacon or whatever his name is will chastise me for pointing out how dumb your post is. He takes personal offense to dumb posts being labelled as such for some reason.

I'm not so sure I said anything of the sort. Having said that the team didn't really have the necessary trade capital at the time of the Soto trade to outbid the Yankees, which essentially left free agency as the primary remaining means to improve the club. Fast forward a season later and I think the team is in a much better spot in terms of available trade pieces, but I don't have a feel for who is actually available at a price that the team is able/willing to meet.

That's a pretty rough assessment. Bassitt was a late bloomer who carved out a nice career as a number 3 pitcher in his 30's. I have plenty of respect for guys like Bassitt who carve out successful careers based on effectively mixing their pitches and using a more cerebral approach vs simply overpowering hitters with top end stuff. I think he got himself in a bit of hot water by being too forthcoming on a podcast but that's a pretty small complaint.

This season featured a much better overall crop of hitters compared to the 2023/2024 offseason. Bassitt himself mentioned how there really wasn't a very effective pivot once you moved past Ohtani. The next best options were guys like Teoscar, Chapman, Bellinger and not much else. This crop was much deeper and after Soto and presented a lot more options for team building in free agency.

If it were a choice between a combination of Scherzer and one of Alonso/Bregman vs Flaherty by himself I'd gladly take Scherzer. If it were possible to still add another bat on top of Flaherty I would take the upside that Flaherty offers all day long.

Yes please.

Basically everyone here is willing to see a new front office group brought in. The GM in particular had basically no support after the way last season unfolded. Having said that I think that Atkins still deserves credit for putting together a successful off-season so far. I'm grading his off-season based on whether he has successfully utilized the assets given to him. That's cool that you think Ed Rogers negotiated the free agent deals entirely in his own and put together a bunch of trades as well. I wasn't aware that he was an MLB general manager now.

I guess I won this debate since you literally have nothing to offer in retort.

The Blue Jays have had a similar amount of success as the Yankees and Mets over the last half decade, albeit without any post season success. Both of those teams have had payrolls magnitudes above what the Blue Jays enjoyed until this offseason. The Phillies have had a ton of post season success based on largely building their team through free agency. I would place the Blue Jays front office a tier below. You are acting like a literal single poor season negates all of what the current front office has accomplished. The Dodgers are the gold standard in MLB and heads and shoulders above everyone else.

Come on man, don't intentionally be obtuse. Both of Atlanta and Baltimore still wanted to sign Hoffman as a reliever, just at a reduced rate compared to if he were signed as a starter. It was recently reported that the Royals were serious suitors for Santander but the Blue Jays were too far along for him to really consider their offer. Scherzer held a showcase for teams with plenty of teams in attendance to watch him throw. It's pretty disingenuous to suggest nobody else was interested based on how desperate teams tend to be for innings out of their rotation. He received a nearly identical deal to comparable aging rotation arms such as Verlander, Cobb and Morton. An effective offseason is going to consist of a combination of trades and free agent signings. The Blue Jays have accomplished plenty of both. Blue Jays ownership could not acquire players on their own without an effective front office to make it happen.

Are you going to make the same claims about the Mets, Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers, all who spend more than the Blue Jays? The Blue Jays market size is comparable to those clubs, and aside from the Dodgers you can't exactly deny that those teams have largely been assembled by their ownership groups allowing their front offices to spend maximum money.

And conversely you'll go to extreme lengths to avoid giving even a shred of credit to the front office when it's deserved. It's obvious that you made up your mind a long time ago that nothing the front office accomplished could ever be good enough for you, and the tact of literally giving 100% of the credit to ownership is just more of this. This was most apparent when you went well put of your way to s*** all over the Santander signing and not allowing posters to simply be happy about a much needed infusion of thump. That's a massive wet blanket move that is nothing more than you refusing to give credit where credit is due for reasons that I can't really understand. The current front office hasn't been perfect by any means, but it's nothing more than sour grapes to refuse to acknowledge when they make effective moves. I think that ownership deserves credit for opening the pocketbook, and the front office deserves credit for infusing a ton of talent into the roster. The off-season wouldn't be effective without both sides concurrently contributing in their respective areas.

You haven't been here very long and as such you don't the posting history of certain individuals on the previous board prior to the move. This dude has done nothing but complain for the last few years including some really odd posts such as literally wanting to take a deuce on Ross Atkins face. I have no issues with discussing baseball opinions but I also expect opinions to be backed up with some sort of actual reasoning and not be exclusively filled with nothing but hyperbole and nonsense that's easily refuted with basic facts. That extends to you when you make silly statements about how the current front office is the worst in the history of Toronto sports. Make serious statements and you'll be taken seriously, make statements that belong in the Sportsnet comment section and you'll be treated accordingly.

It's maybe not quite an epic offseason yet, but it's getting awfully close. I'd already hand out an A- rating based on how much talent has already been infused into the roster.

Do you even like the Blue Jays? Even in the midst of an epic offseason you are still grousing and acting like a giant turd. I get the feeling you are incapable of being happy about the team no matter what they do.

I think the only reason the team even bothered using Moreno at any positions instead of catcher was due to having 3 MLB starter quality catchers on the roster, vs Moreno being some kind of actual super utility player candidate. He's yet to play a single inning at anywhere other than catcher since he debuted into a catching logjam situation.

Yeah Bo said publicly that he wants to remain with the Blue Jays long term. I think the hangup could actually be whether the front office wants to sign him to an extension vs Bo wanting to remain a Blue Jay based on his actual words.

How charitable of you. The team owner opens up the pocketbook to supplement his team and of course you are acting like it's a bad thing instead of giving him credit for finally spending like the big market team that the Blue Jays are.

There's a newer poster here that said Atkins was literally the worst GM in the history of Toronto sports.

I believe it was confirmed that it does count against the CBT ledger, although I saw this posted from a few twitter dudes I'm not terribly familiar with.

This would be one of those situations where any further additions to the payroll become far more expensive than the initial sticker price would suggest. As a hypothetical situation if Alonso were signed for a straight $28 million salary for the 2025 season, I assume the team would be taxed at 12% for the first $8 million up to the second tier of the luxury tax, at a total of approximately $1 million. The tax would ramp up to 42.5% for the remaining $20 million, adding another $8.5 million in tax dollars to the ledger. If my thinking is correct this would bring the total financial outlay to nearly $36.5 million after tax. I can only assume that deferrals would be utilized to bring the tax dollars down to a more reasonable level.

Yeah Moreno is super versatile. That's fully backed up by the whopping total of 9 innings he's played at positions other than catcher, all of which occurred in the 2022 season while still a Blue Jay.