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Why are you so fixated on this? Varsho is 7 for 8 in stolen bases this season, the foot first slide really isn't and hasn't been an issue.

Still think IKF should be put on waivers?

There's a dramatic difference in the overall totals for the amounts you suggested. On the lower end at $182 million I'd do that deal every day of the week. The upper end of your suggested range is nearly double that and Vlad simply isn't likely to receive anywhere close to that in free agency unless he returns to 2021 levels of production all the way leading up to free agency.

Who said anything about handing Vlad a $350 million contract? If he's willing to sign something commensurate with a reasonable 1B/DH contract then have at it, but I don't see anyone in baseball being willing to hand him a mega deal even once he reaches free agency.

If someone makes an offer you can't refuse obviously you have to consider it, but I'm feeling more and more like it's time to give Vlad an extension. He's morphing into a monster at the plate and it feeling more and more sustainable. He's producing monster numbers without the power, and if/when that comes he'll become the best version of himself at the plate of his entire career.

I suspect the primary reason the front office didn't make a stronger attempt to sign Teoscar was due to not having the necessary room in the budget left over. A one year deal on a bounceback candidate was the type of thing this front office has had a ton of success with (Semien, Ray, Belt, Keirmaier) so Teo would have been right up their alley if there was remaining payroll space.

On top of that Macko is experiencing a bit of a breakout season in AA.

I don't know why the team was in such a rush to re-sign Kiermaier at that point of the season. Rushing to sign Kiermaier and IKF early in the offseason seemingly limited their options to add more effective offensive players later in the season for bargain rates as a good sized chunk of the available payroll had already been spent.

Unlike you I don't feel the need to live in a reality of my own making.

You are so clueless it's truly astounding.

Looks like I got my wish this time as Gausman induced 14 whiffs with the splitter today.

He could really stand to get the splitter going at some point. To my eyes that's been the primary factor holding him back this season as he's largely gotten by with well placed fastballs in most of his better starts.

I don't think there's anyone that has seriously stated IKF was a bargain. He's easily justified the contract with his performance up to this point however so there's no reason he would be placed on waivers.

Wow bold move making a bet on something that's about as likely to happen as you getting struck by lightning.

That's far from a given. Both guys have pretty similar projections for the rest of the season and 3 year Zips projections as well.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I don't recall seeing a team so completely incapable of hitting a mediocre fastball. Even dudes with below average stuff can just pound fastballs to this club and they are completely incapable of doing anything against them.

These dudes are acting like it's their opinions that are getting them banned. It's not that hard to avoid these kinds of bans, if mods repeatedly warn everyone to stop using words that some members find to be offensive and you refuse it leads to a temporary ban. If you get banned for using offensive words, and then upon your return call out the mods while acting all indignant and pretending like it's some sort of attack on personal freedoms then it's just going to lead to another ban.

The Jays have had quite a bit of success with struggling MLB starters (Ray, Matz, Stripling etc.) but haven't had much success with scrap heap types.

I would expect that Kikuchi would likely be interested in remaining with the team but I don't know if there will be available payroll to make this happen. It's not outside the realm of possibility Manoah could make a late season return much as Ryu was able to make about a year after his own Tommy John surgery.

Hopefully he gets more of a shot than Barger did.

Unless he reins in the extreme 50% chase rate the better hit tool won't matter. If you combined Clement's hit tool with Biggio's plate discipline you would have a tremendous hitter, but each of them are so extreme in their weaknesses that it greatly limits their offensive performance.

Bo has been shockingly bad since he came off of the injured list last season. Over his last 87 games/374 PA he's produced an 85 wRC+ and 0.5 FWAR. He's been a lot better over the last 3-4 weeks but he's yet to hit a peak Bo Bichette kind of hot streak.

IKF is projected for 0.9-1.0 wins for the remainder of the season by Steamer and Zips. The primary reason he was only worth 0.6 WAR last season was because the Yankees inexplicably stuck him in left field where he really struggled. He was a butcher in left field to the tune of -3 DRS/-3 OAA in only 248 innings which had the effect of tanking his overall defensive value. It's entirely possible IKF produces close to league average offensively the rest of the season, but even if he takes a mild step back the rest of the way and is closer to the 90'ish wRC+ projected for the rest of the season that would still leave him with a career season with the bat. He's obviously not going to have much in the way of surplus value to even make it worthwhile to trade him to someone else, but he would likely be a pretty easy guy to move in trade if the team decides they want to attain a lottery ticket type of prospect in return.

IKF specifically stated he was surprised how much interest he drummed up in free agency. There's just no way he would have been signed for the type of money he received if there wasn't actually a bit of competition for his services. He signed well before the free agency freeze kicked in where the remainder of the free agency market was essentially frozen out and forced to accept bargain basement deals nearing spring training just to get jobs. I share a similar sentiment in that I had no issue with IKF as more of a utility player. Even now I'm fine with him playing every day as he's been a pleasant surprise up to this point. I do question the wisdom of how the team spent their offseason budget, and wonder what their preferred spending even would have looked like. I assume Green is someone they always intended to sign given the various available permutations of his contract, it was just a matter of choosing how long to sign him for. If they managed to snag Soto in trade would the available budget been increased to account for his addition? He would have taken up $30 million plus all on his own. I think the team was seriously interested in signing the likes of Chapman and Bellinger, and these guys would have eaten up over half of the available budget on their own as well. Perhaps Rodriguez wouldn't have been signed in this case, or the budget could have been stretched a bit further if a more expensive free agent was added. At any rate it's apparent that it was a disaster offseason. It's too bad Boras refused to move on his salary demands until well after the Jays had essentially moved on to other options to fill the roster. The offense would look a lot better with a Bellinger, JDM etc. on the roster compared to the likes of Kiermaier and Turner.