Ray

3 years from now, Cavan, Vlad, Bo, Jansen, etc are all gonna be in their arbitration years. Kinda quells the whole theory of having a "cheap, young, core" when said core is getting expensive. Now is exactly the time to be proactive and add veterans on 2-4 year contracts. There's next to nothing on the books. The depressed free agent market for mid-tier players makes it even more sensible.

Some interesting tidbits from today's Prospect chat. Badler says an argument could be made for Groshans over Kelanic, and seems to love our 2019 J2 signees. Also says we're one of the better farm systems despite graduations of Vlad, Bo, and Jansen.

You do realize that a rotation of #3 starters performing up to their true talent level would be one of the better rotations in the league, right?

Ben Cherington is the new Pirates GM, per Bob Nightengales' Twitter Seems like a big hit on the front office side, but I'm thankful for all the stuff he's done here.

Giles is significantly better than Smith, no? He's probably looking at a hefty bit more.

Odorizzi has accepted the Qualifying Offer. Honestly not the worst idea. High AAV. If his 2019 was real and he repeats, he'll probably come out slightly ahead.

I'd rather Kyle Gibson than Jake Odorizzi, honestly. Will be significantly cheaper, no draft pick compensation, and Gibson has posted better xFIP's the last two seasons than Odorizzi. Sign Gibson to a $9M AAV deal instead of the $15M AAV that Odorizzi would've gotten. Use the difference towards someone like Wheeler/Ryu.

It's worth doing due diligence to see if Wheeler is open to the idea. He likely will have to change his pitch mix anyways if teams like the Yankees and Astros are interested in him. The one thing that makes him a landmine is his injury proneness. But the last two seasons have at least quieted down his inability to stay healthy.

Wheeler is so incredibly interesting: 4-Seamer: .285 xWOBA against Slider: .298 xWOBA against Changeup: .297 xWOBA against Curve: .210 xWOBA against He's legitimately a couple adjustments away from being a top of the rotation guy. He needs to completely ditch his sinker which he inexplicably started throwing as much as his 4-seamer despite getting hit hard (.337 xWOBA). He throws his curve only 10% of the time despite it being far and away his best pitch. It has a better xWOBA than Gerrit Cole's curveball. His average fastball velocity is 96th percentile in the league. So much to like there. I would gladly throw a $90M over 5 years at him.

If Fowler was going to get that $18M anyway from a team that really wanted him, that's clearly not a "Blue Jay" tax. How many times is this actually the case? If multiple teams make similar offers, the agent will use that to drive the price up even more and the team that tacks on that extra year/extra dollars will win it. If the Blue Jays are that team to add more years/more dollars, that doesn't represent an "increased super duper I hate the Blue Jays premium" that no other team would've have to have paid. That's just the regular free agent process of having to overpay. You're making it sound like all players huddle around a fire at the outset of free agency and conspire to make sure the Jays pay more to acquire their services. This isn't a Blue Jays specific thing. The vast majority of teams have to blow away a top tier free agent to actually sign them. That's kinda how free agency is supposed to work.

I'd legitimately like to know what proof there is of this 'double premium' beyond what some other teams have to pay anyways to acquire free agents. It's less this "double premium", and more the fact that we're not willing to go that extra year when other teams are. If the roles were reversed and the Cardinals were standing pat at $64M and we offered Fowler $82M (which is the contract he got), we more than likely would've landed Fowler. This doesn't represent any extra premium to me.

Don't most teams end up having to "overpay" to get free agents to come join them anyways? The Blue Jays aren't that much different in that regard. The Red Sox had to give David Price $30M more than the Cardinals to entice him to sign. The Cardinals gave Dexter Fowler that 5th year when we were standing pat at 4. It seems like more of a plain old bidding process as opposed to a subjective bias free agents hold against certain teams. Cole/other high profile free agents would come to the Blue Jays if we were the highest bidder. Us "overpaying" to get them is no different than other teams tacking on an extra year or adding more money to get their guy.

Biggio nabs 5th in rookie of the year voting. Vlad comes in 7th.

Seems like the Pirates are down to two people for their GM position: Ben Cherington and Matt Arnold. I really hope Cherington ends up staying. It won't be a disaster to lose him or anything, but a lot of Red Sox fans were attributing their 2016-2018 success partly because of the foundation he set. Hard to pin down exactly what he's done/did for us so far, but more smart people in the front office is always good.

My bold prediction is that we'll sign Hyun-Jin Ryu. 4 years, $64M. No QO attached so we won't be losing a draft pick. Has the upside of a #1, but also has a safe floor as a mid rotation starter. Won't cost an arm and a leg due to durability concerns and age. MLBTR has him tabbed at 3 years $54M to the Rangers. I think we'd have to go the extra year to get him, but I think he'd be worth it. It's not much more than the contract Alex Cobb got from the O's a couple years ago.

Having an actual player be the Executive Director of the Players Union always seemed like a terrible idea. It's a job meant for Labor Lawyers. Any true baseball fan with a modicum of legal experience would probably be better than him (i.e. Laika)

Julio Teheran non-tendered.

The Brewers also declined Eric Thames option for next season so he’s a free agent. Bring him home?

Cardinals come to mind. Missed the postseason 7 times in the last 20 seasons. After Pujols left, they didn’t necessarily have that superstar Bo/Vlad type but still made the postseason 4 years in a row. Even the last 3 seasons where they didn’t make the postseason, they were still in the wildcard hunt until the end. They’re just a well rounded team top to bottom.

Vlad already looking more trim?

It's moreso about the fact that they've been rebuilding for a long time now and don't have much to show for it talent wise. They don't necessarily have that young, cheap, controllable core like the Cubs and Astros had during their World Series runs. Nola is great, Hoskins is meh. Odubel, Nick Williams, Franco, Vince Velasquez, Pivetta, Andrew Knapp all suck. We'll see what happens with Kingery, Hasely, and Eflin, but they're likely not going to be franchise players. The true core of that team are high priced free agents/older acquisitions like Harper, McCutchen, Realmuto (final year of arbitration), Segura (close to $50M left on that contract). They've shoehorned themselves a little financially. They don't even have a great farm system either, so if they want to truly compete, they're going to have to spend even more money going forward. The Twins started rebuilding around the same time as the Phillies did in 2012. They're sitting pretty with a great young core. Polanco, Rosario, Kepler, Berrios, Buxton, Sano. They've been to the playoffs twice already since then and are in a great financial position going forward. NL East is a harder division for sure, but the Twins are inherently a better built team for the long term.

The Phillies have had a tirefire of a rebuild. Their drafting since their rebuild has started has been absolutely horrendous. 2012: -1.6 WAR from drafted players 2013: 1.8 WAR from drafted players, the bulk of which is from JP Crawford who they traded for Jean Segura. 2014: 23.5 WAR, 19.6 from Nola and the rest from Hoskins. Top heavy draft. Nola is great, but Hoskins future value is limited due to his defense 2015: 1.6 WAR from Scott Kingery. That's it. Drafted Cornelius Randolph with their 10th overall pick who turned out to be a complete bust. 2016: -0.3 WAR total from all draftees, all from Cole Irvin. Wasted a #1 pick on Mickey Moniak who is turning into one of the bigger busts in draft history. 2017: 1.7 WAR from Adam Hasely who looks pretty decent. Spencer Howard can also be good. On top of that, their committed payroll for next season is already $171M and $190M counted towards the luxury tax. They still have big holes at 3B and at least 2 SP's.

Unnoticed is probably the wrong choice of words, but Strasburg has definitely been underrated during his career, relatively speaking. 8th best FIP and xFIP in baseball last 3 seasons. Better than Verlander.

Strasburg is very likely to opt-out, if only to get a couple more years tacked on to his current deal. He has 4 years/$100M left. Any team would give him more given he's only 30. Looking over his career stats, he's actually put together a very good career thus far. 112-58, 3.17 ERA, 2.96 FIP, 2.4 BB/9, 10.6 K/9, 36.7 bWAR. The hype for him as a prospect was absurd so that's probably why he goes unnoticed, but he could put together a HoF case in the upcoming years.

Don’t have a subscription unfortunately.