Thank you Gerry. With this new thread, the season has started for me.

Thank You Gerry. That was - wow.

In other circumstances:
I assume the Jays know which Starters are effective verses the A.L.East because very few top the list. After that there are only a few with varying degrees of success and they should want the best possible. If any decent Starter could fill the 5th Starter role on the Jays then the one-year offer should work. If the Jays need a better class of Starter, they must be pro-active and inventive with their multi-year offers.

I respect Jerry's commitment and tenure. I can't say I was a fan or that I've enjoyed listening to broadcasts since Tom's departure, but I applaud his longevity and the sincere passion he had for the job.

I can't imagine they'll let Wilner run with this now. I do, however, have all the time in the world for Siddall. Hopefully he factors in prominently.

Should be interesting.

If the on-field team isn't going to be improved significantly this season, maybe a big upgrade in the radio booth would make the games more enjoyable.

I think Alan Ashby is available (was cut from Astros' broadcasts after 2016 season.) I really enjoyed him when he partnered with Jerry.

Of course, there's always Dan Shulman...

Oh man, Ashby would be great. Played on the 1977 team too, so kind of a link to the Tom Cheek Era. (Does anybody remember listening to Early Wynn? I know I did, but it's been so long I wouldn't be able to identify his voice today).

Shulman would be fabulous.  Alan Ashby would be great also. 

I have vague memories of Early Wynn on the broadcast.  Was it me, or did he not say that much? I don't know that the strong, silent type is the ideal colour commentator. 

Count me in for Ashby. I thought he was excellent when he was here before.

What I remember most about Early Wynn was his evident dislike for Jerry, an interloper he knew had been brought in to replace him.  Early didn’t offer much by way of ‘colour commentary’, and often seemed a tad grumpy.  But he was a ‘name’ at a time when the Jays didn’t have any names to speak of -- maybe Ron Fairley.  And even casual fans in Southern Ontario had heard of the great Early Wynn.  (Early laboured a loong time to get that 300th win; then, mercifully, he retired.)  Jerry, of course, in later years always referred to his good friend, Early Wynn.

Jerry’s broadcasting sins were also his virtues.  He did love the game, and he knew a lot about it, within limits.  But his preachiness and his insistence on ‘educating’ his listeners/friends was excessive and became decidedly off-putting.  He loved to find a ‘story’, even when there was none to be found; and he’d worry away at it like a dog with a bone.  Hope he has a fine retirement.

Ashby would be excellent (Shulman would be ideal).  I do hope it isn’t Siddall, though, who’s even more of an over-explainer than Jerry was.  Siddell is bad.  I actually grew to like Jack Morris, after expecting not to.

Was never a fan of Jerry Howarth, found his voice too nasal and he was too sanctimonious for me - Also, I loved Tom Cheek's voice - haven't listened much to the radio broadcast this century - Dan Shulman would be a home run but I don't know if the pay & schedule would suit him. I think Mike Wilner would be a big disappointment - I hope the station has been scouting minor league talent as this announcement was probably not a surprise.

FYI: looked for Early Wynn broadcast and hit this game where Harry Carey is the broadcaster, the show starts with an interview with Tony LaRussa right after he got his law degree thanks in part to team owner Bill Veck. Alfredo Griffin leading off for the Jays, CF is Danny Ainge (yes, the basketball player), P is Jim Clancy. Former Jay coach Mike Squires plays for the White Sox. Lots of entertainment with old school graphics and the Sox have their shirts out (not tucked in). All in old Comiskey Park.

Jerry is reportedly one of the nicest guys in baseball

I'd like to confirm that. He was always friendly, always approachable, always helpful. Which I can't say about everyone I've met in my travels. Happy trails, sir.

Jay Burnham , who I think is the broadcaster for the Richmond Flying Squirrels has gotten a lot of pub as a top broadcast prospect - I wonder if anyone has heard him do a broadcast?

I wonder if Ben Wagner from the Bisons will get a look.

Marcus Stroman had his Arby hearing yesterday, yet no results are available. Is it possible the Jays are talking an extension?

Man, Shulman would be a dream scenario for me. I used to mute the TV and listen to Cheek deliver the play-by-play; I might actually go back to that if the Jays somehow secure his services.

Count me in as Jack Morris supporter. I just loved his diffident, grumpy-uncle delivery. I was a frequent Jerry Howarth defender on this site. I thought his strengths were underappreciated and his weaknesses overblown. But I have to admit I stopped listening to him after a while because it got too predictable, and I am excited for new blood. I don't think that's on Jerry especially. It's just his schtick got old because I'd heard it so often. One last comment: I find it odd that people call Jerry, sanctimonious. I don't think that's the right word at all. In fact, I find both Ashby and Siddall sanctimonious and I don't like either of them. Both of them, to my ear at least, are very dismissive of non ballplayers insights and both would can get self-righteous about the veracity of their perspective on the game. My dream team have alternating color guys. The first would be Jack Morris because I find his attitude engaging and his insights on point. The other would be in my opinion the vastly underrated Duane Ward. I think he has a ton of personality and even more insight and doesn't get uppity about it. He's also just way more fun to listen to than the Siddall or Ashby who strike me as scolds.

I'm going to bet they go with Wilner and Siddall this year which is okay but I'd really love them to bring in someone who had a lot of major league years. Morris and Ashby both had a wealth of stories to tell about the game and the characters who played It. I will miss Jerry, but I'm glad I won't ever have to hear about how Siddall caught a perfect game on the day he was supposed to retire.

I hope Jerry enjoys his retirement. I know I will. Looking forward to seeing/hearing who they get to do the broadcasts.

I certainly remember Early Winn's voice, how he couldn't pronounce the word "fifth", so the inning after the fourth was called the "filth" inning. I seem to remember him saying he "slud" into 2nd a few times as well. Ah, the good (bad?) old days.

so the inning after the fourth was called the "filth" inning

Ha! I remember that vividly. Wynn was from a time when you seemingly couldn't find enough ex-players to man all the colour commentary jobs so you just took anyone. I don't know why Wynn wanted to go into broadcasting (other than the paycheque, I guess). He was NOT suited to the profession. His terribleness was commensurate with the team's terribleness in their early days. It was a perfect storm of crappy.

I know this makes me the extreme minority, but I would not be upset if we see Wilner step into Jerry's shoes.  I really have never understood the Wilner hate that seems to float around the internets.  Perhaps someone can explain it to me, since it's always felt to me like a "everyone hates them at least in part because it's cool to hate them".

I know this is a little off topic, but fi you look at our bullpen who throws to Stanton/Judge back to back? Do we have that fastball slider relieve who is a righty specialist? Outside of Osuna I'm not sure I trust any of our relievers against those two in a late game situation.

Tepera has a fastball, a cutter and is apparently working on a split changeup.  He has said that he wants to move to the rotation; perhaps this is the year he gets an opportunity. 

As for Stanton/Judge, they are what they are.  But, I definitely would prefer having Osuna face them in a high leverage situation than anybody else in the pen.  It's a lot easier to make sure that happens if you are not stuck in a "9th inning save" usage mentality.  Osuna has faced Judge 7 times in Judge's young career- Judge has taken an 0 fer with 5 Ks.  The other pitchers who have had a stranglehold on him are Chris Sale and Chris Archer.  Stanton has hit just about everybody- Strasburg, Kershaw.  He's had 18 PAs against Scherzer- struck out 9 times and hit 2 homers.  I think that you just have to accept the risk of a home run with these guys...

Wanna feel good and can't make the trip to Florida?  Check out Ben Nicholson-Smith's twitter feed for early images of Sanchez throwing to Martin. 

Wynn was from a time when you seemingly couldn't find enough ex-players to man all the colour commentary jobs so you just took anyone.

So what was the excuse when they hired Warren Sawkiw? At least Wynn was a HOF major leaguer.

Sorry for the bad memories.

Mike, I started looking through splits again.....and it seems I totally forgot about Carlos Ramirez. In smaller sample sizes he got beat up by lefties and murdered righties with his fastball/slider combo. Is he the non Osuna reliever to be used as a righty specialist this year? He might have to be.

Yes, SJ, Carlos Ramirez would be my second choice against those guys- the repertoire and the deception both work in his favour.    It only carries you so far though- Marcus Stroman was hit pretty hard by Judge. 

Wanna feel good and can't make the trip to Florida? Check out Ben Nicholson-Smith's twitter feed for early images of Sanchez throwing to Martin. Yes, that was certainly preferable to the news Tulo is dealing with bone spurs in his ankle and may not be ready for the start of camp (on the bright side, there will be at least one less "showing up in the best shape of their lives" story than usual). Remind how many more years the Jays are stuck paying for those prime years he gave the Rockies?

Just read many comments from Astro and Yankee fans as to who is going to be the best team in 2018. FYI the commentators all said that their team was better. No surprise.

If you look at each division Cleveland would be handed their division due to the other teams there rebuilding. Except the Twins.

Everyone in the ALW has improved. Except maybe the Mariners.

I only see Baltimore in the ALE being weak. Boston and NYY are most likely 1st and 2nd. But I don't see the Jays and Rays too far behind them.

Due the unbalanced schedule I pick Cleveland and Baltimore to be 1st and last in the AL or close to that.

Tulo is dealing with bone spurs in his ankle and may not be ready for the start of camp (on the bright side, there will be at least one less "showing up in the best shape of their lives" story than usual)

Only bone spurs in his ankle?  Nearly the BSOHL.  Should be good to go in a New York minute. 

Yes, that was certainly preferable to the news Tulo is dealing with bone spurs in his ankle and may not be ready for the start of camp (on the bright side, there will be at least one less "showing up in the best shape of their lives" story than usual). Remind how many more years the Jays are stuck paying for those prime years he gave the Rockies?

Don't worry, he's still worth 2.9 WAR/650 no matter how much (and how long) the Jays are paying him to ride the DL.

Only if you willfully ignore every explanatory post Uglyone has ever made on the subject, some in response to you. 

Only if you willfully ignore every explanatory post Uglyone has ever made on the subject, some in response to you.

I'm pretty sure I used the stat correctly. Feel free to clarify.

No. Not another fight about how playing time matters and yes, the way I read it, Parker used the stat as it has been in the past but with a dash of snark.

Why not, as a crowd, ask what the over/under is on Tulo's PA and then figure out what to replace /650 with... PECOTA's 508 seems optimistic. Steamer's 405 seems reasonable. Fangraph's crowd-source of 467 seems plausible. That said, I'm not troubled by the dollars or the downtime, given the IF depth moves made by R Corp's FO cheapskates.

Waitaminute -- if bone spurs can get a person out of a war in South East Asia, perhaps Tulo is using the same strategy to get out of the grind of spring training? Just a thought...

Parker, you used the stat just fine.

I thought Wilner was great until the whole Cito Gaston business happened, and Wilner seemed to have been told to "put a sock in it" by the team. Afterwards, he was very different, and not nearly as listenable, IMO. That really disappointed me, because I thought Wilner had been the best Jays' analyst I had heard prior to the muzzling.

I don't mind the WAR/650 stuff, I think it helps to look at the rate at which a player was producing when he plays. How about a salary rate stat for Tulo - if he plays in 2/3 of the games, his salary RATE is $30 million per full season when he's playing (30 x 2/3 = 20 for those who don't like math). If he plays half the games, it's $40 million per season. Yikes.

The Jays play 76 games verses the A.L. East, 19 games verses each Team. This is where the Postseason gets decided, Division, Wild Card #1 or #2, or as not good enough. I remember too many years the Yankees would win the Division by a margin of little more than the number of games they beat the Jays. Being successful verses Boston and New York makes the A.L. East easier to win - fewer games needed to win. Being successful verses the entire A. L. East could give the Jays the Division. The Jays just need to beat everyone who give them a chance.

The Jays play the A.L. Central for 33 games, 6 or 7 games verses each Team.. They also play the A.L. West for 33 games, for 6 or 7 games verses each Team. Inter-League play verses the N.L. consists of 20 games verses five N.L. East Teams. Just being average or maybe just a little better verses these Teams could easily make the Jays A.L. East Champs.

saying someone is "worth" a certain war650 would be the same as saying someone is "worth" a certain batting average.


you're smart enough to decide how "proper" that usage is yourself.

saying someone is "worth" a certain war650 would be the same as saying someone is "worth" a certain batting average.

It's actually nothing at all like that, though.

But I don't see the Jays and Rays too far behind them.

Between Longo, Morisson, Cobb and Hunter, the Rays have lost 10 WAR since last year and it looks like they're more interested in cutting payroll than replacing them. I don't see the Rays that high.

it's exactly like that.

I don't mind the WAR/650 stuff, I think it helps to look at the rate at which a player was producing when he plays. How about a salary rate stat for Tulo - if he plays in 2/3 of the games, his salary RATE is $30 million per full season when he's playing (30 x 2/3 = 20 for those who don't like math). If he plays half the games, it's $40 million per season. Yikes.

I think where this ultimately leads is: $/PA ( contract / PA ), and $/base ( $/PA / slugging ?).

Would be interesting, I would imagine, but would also lead to some insane conclusions with small sample sizes. And might lead to some eye openers, if you see that each of Josh Donaldson's bases costs 5x that of Devon Travis, and yet Tulo (if he's hurt) is getting 3x per base compared to JD.. (just made up numbers). Also, a bases/650 (B650) and use that to compute the best-case scenario bang-for-buck for a contract.

For example, in 2015, Josh Donaldson had 352 total bases in 711 PA. Normalize to 650 (I didn't). Then figure out: 500k (minimum salary) / 352 and compare to $23m / 352. Conclusion: even a minimum-salary player who hits like JD (amazing!) would cost you $1420 / base. However, with his new salary, he's getting $65k PER BASE. He gets paid more for one home run than most of us do in a year.. And he's still a VERY VALUABLE player - I would say 28/30 GMs sign JD for $23m/year, if they could (thinking of the Marlins and the Rays).

For comparison, Jose Bautista was getting paid $83k/base in 2017..

Still worth this many win over replacement per 650 plate appearances?

<gallic shrug>

it's exactly like that.

Look, I get what you're trying to say, but you're doing it wrong.

Your WAR/650 stat is a way of turning WAR (an advanced counting metric that encompasses a player's entire contribution - hitting, baserunning, defense) into a rate stat.

I get it.

However, comparing it to batting average (a native rate stat that only gives a very limited view of a player's actual contributions) makes no sense.

Cito Gaston was the absolute right person for the Jays at exactly the right time and my favorite Manager. Yet he never got to be Manager on any other Team. Cito Gaston had a different way of looking at the World. Everything was a Race issue, absolutely everything. That's still something I don't understand. A lot of people got caught in it - a complete no-win situation.

It makes perfect sense.

However, comparing it to batting average (a native rate stat that only gives a very limited view of a player's actual contributions) makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense.

It totally makes sense as a snapshot. UO usually uses it to compare multiple seasons of data (and partial seasons where it's less useful). For some people seeing 5.2 war/650 might make more sense than seeing 15 war over a few seasons worth. It's hardly as worthless as you're making it out to be, even though it's totally fine to not like it.

The batting average is that, an average.
WAR/650 is not an average, it's a normalized metric.

Can they be equivalent? Sure. It's like miles per gallons vs litres/100km.
They both measure the same thing and although mpg seems more natural, litres/100km is the cross section of the fuel burned equally distributed over the distance traveled.

tbh i just find it funny that people can't deal with it.

the usefulness is obvious. there's no actual debate needed about it.

This was interesting enough to share.
https://bluejaysnation.com/2018/02/13/atkins-speaks-at-pitch-talks-on-donaldson-vlad-culture-stats-layoffs-and-more/
Explains a lot, in more detail than I'd normally expect.

Christaylor, pretty sure you are part of these fights, as your dismissing people who are anti-Rogers as 'whining' comment in the other thread would indicate.  I am not the reason this 'fight' is resuming, Parker is, obviously.  However, you chose to call me out.  If you view Parker as simply having a 'dash of snark' ... I mean, you clearly aren't reliable here. 

What I don't get is people ignoring obvious trolling.  Parker is a troll, Pubster (and what\s with that comment about Esteban Loiza being your favourite person, because he got busted with coke?)  is a troll, ComeDeanByChance is a troll that seems to hate poor people, and the rest of us are too nice to call them out for their meanspirited commentary because we have some naive belief that we should all play nice. 

I don't want to be the only person saying this, nor do I want to bug the moderators, who have repeatedly indicated a preference for us to police ourselves. 

But, full stop, isn't the conversation better without trolling?  Am I completely wrong here?  I see the same people trying to kick the bees nest, over and over again, and it's tiresome. 

Thank You jerjapan, I agree totally.

Still no Marcus Stroman Arby news, nor anything else. Is he being signed long term, or are the Jays involved in a massive trade?

"the usefulness is obvious. there's no actual debate needed about it."

If you actually used it for its usefulness there would be no debate. Instead, you use it for almost everything.

I went back and found some examples:
1) This was to prove that Pompey was already basically a star player.
"Pillar: 5.4bwar/650pa
Pompey: 4.4bwar/650pa"

2)This was to prove after 2015 that Tulo was the best SS in baseball even after a severe decline in Tulo's performance (actual WAR was 2.5).

1. Correa 648pa, 4.2war, 4.2war/650pa
2. Tulowitzki 609pa, 3.7war, 4.0war/650pa


3) This is a classic example:

Hitters (WAR = average of fwar & bwar prorated to 650pa)

3B Donaldson (30): 1617pa, 140wrc+, 7.1war - RF Betts (23): 1088pa, 120wrc+, 5.6war
RF Bautista (35): 1553pa, 152wrc+, 5.0war ---- 2B Pedroia (32): 1237pa, 109wrc+, 4.6war
SS Tulowitzki (31): 1094pa, 122wrc+, 5.0war -- SS Bogaerts (23): 1460pa, 104wrc+, 3.3war
DH En’con (33): 1377pa, 143wrc+, 4.0war ----- DH Ortiz (40): 1404pa, 144wrc+, 3.6war
2B Travis (25): 246pa, 132wrc+, 6.3war --------- 3B Shaw (26): 440pa, 126wrc+, 4.7war
CF Pillar (27): 945pa, 88wrc+, 4.8war ----------- CF Bradley (26): 862pa, 95wrc+, 3.7war
LF Saunders (29): 464pa, 134wrc+, 4.8war ---- LF Holt (28): 1131pa, 96wrc+, 2.6war
C Martin (33): 1112pa, 114wrc+, 4.6war --------- C Vazquez (25): 296pa, 65wrc+, 2.4war
1B Smoak (29): 736pa, 99wrc+, 0.8war -------- 1B Ramirez (32): 1135pa, 113wrc+,1.4war

You took a 2+ year period and pro-rated WAR for it to make your case that the Jays were much better offensively than the Red Sox. If you are trying to compare the Red Sox and Jays lineup, this is an awful way of doing it because it's not remotely accurate and is actually incredibly misleading. You made Devon Travis look more valuable than Mookie Betts. Saunders is suddenly a superstar because he had 2 WAR in 263 ABs one year. Tulowitzki an elite player despite pretty obvious decline already. There are about 25 better ways to show the comparisons. ZIPS, Steamer, Previous season's #s, team WAR, WRC+ from previous season. Previous 2 seasons actual numbers, etc...

4)RH M.Stroman (24): 4gs, 6.8ip/gs, 41era-, 86fip-, 7.6awar/32gs
RH Y.Gallardo (29): 33gs, 5.6ip/gs, 80era-, 96fip-, 3.3awar/32gs

Now Stroman is a better pitcher than Gallardo but pro-rating 4 starts to 32 games is just crazy. It's like having your stocks go up 2% in one day and thinking you will make 700% this year.

5) Not war/650 but the same issue with taking small sample sizes and making absurd claims.
"Hamilton: 13.4drs/150, 20.4uzr/150
Pompey: 34.8drs/150, 27.1uzr/150"

Billy Hamilton is an elite defensive CFer and Pompey has had problems in the OF. Nobody in baseball would argue at any point that Pompey was near Hamilton defensively.


6) This is maybe my favourite:

"Here's how the "best group of young talent in baseball" has compared to our "gutted youth jays", on the field, for the record.

3B Bryant (24): 650pa, 136wrc+, 6.2war/650pa
1B Rizzo (26): 1317pa, 150wrc+, 5.6war/650pa
LF Schwarber (23): 273pa, 131wrc+, 4.5war/650pa
SS Russell (22): 523pa, 90wrc+, 3.9war/650pa
SP Hendricks (26): 45gs, 91era-, 3.3war/32gs
RF Soler (24): 501pa, 106wrc+, 1.1war/650pa
2B Baez (23): 309pa, 65wrc+, -0.8war/650pa

2B Travis (25): 228pa, 135wrc+, 6.4war/650pa
SP Stroman (25): 24gs, 77era-, 4.9war/32gs
CF Pillar (27): 750pa, 93wrc+, 4.8war/650pa
CF Pompey (23): 146pa, 88wrc+, 2.5war/650
SP Sanchez (23): 11gs, 87era-, 1.9war/32gs / RP Sanchez (23): 59.1ip, 42era-, 1.7war/65ip
RP Osuna (21): 69.2ip, 63era-, 1.5war/65ip
SP Hutchison (25): 60gs, 124era-, 1.3war/32gs"

This was after 2015. The Cubs had the 4th/1st highest WAR in baseball for players under 27/25. Jays were 16/23. Cubs were 19/16 in pitching WAR for 27/25. Jays were 22/20. Cubs got 20.2 WAR from players under 25. Jays got 5.7. The cubs indisputably had much more and better young talent. But you didn't like the facts so you created this monster of a comparison. Travis, Stroman, and Pillar all become superstars. Pompey becomes a very good everyday player. In real life, Devon Travis has a career high of 2.6 WAR and Pompey doesn't even have 150 PAs career. The Cubs wouldn't trade Baez for Travis in real life. And this is the problem. It's the fundamental dishonesty, trying to twist yourself into positions that make no sense when you look at the numbers you should be looking at or just use any common sense. And these were not hard to find. Almost every thread of any length is filled with these junk numbers that are often used to argue the most laughable things. If you used WAR/650 sparingly and it an appropriate context, nobody would have an issue with it. It's this constant stream of nonsense numbers that are the problem.

wow that is a lot of work. not weird or obsessive at all. i'm sure you didn't cherry pick the record at all, either.

and you're obviously right that war650 was useless and misleading, as it really made those jays look far better than they actually were......

.....oh wait, those jays made back to back ALCS with huge contributions from those kids when objective fans using good stats like yourself mocked any comparisons to those studly teams you were in awe of and said we had no youth worth talking about.

I guess I just got lucky that my skewed homer stat (because we all know pro-rated WAR is biased) turned out to be much more useful then the esteemed informed objective opinions of posters such as yourself.

It was not my intention to call you or anyone else out. I do feel as if there is a lot of griping about "cheapskate" Rogers it is true but I make the observation not to dismiss people but to express my exhaustion. Lastly, I made the comment about "No another fight about WAR/650" to also express my exhaustion. I feel for you in that you think there are trolls everywhere... that said, it is OK. No worries. Relax. We're all good.

Glevin, I'm confused about your dislike for multi-year comparison. It won't show a decline, but it's way more accurate than a single season comparison. This is basic math, if you are trying to compare sums with different values, put them on a comparable level. Same idea as multiplying fractions to get a common denominator. The sample sizes aren't always the best, but there's nothing wrong with the method.
Arguments can usually be made for or against something using the same numbers. To me the examples you chose contradict your statements about usefulness. I just don't understand your resistance (not disagreement, because that's valid

Happy birthday, Russell Martin!

In his honour, the February 15 birthday team:

CF Sliding Billy Hamilton
C   Russell Martin
LF Hal Lee
3B Ron Cey
RF Nate Schierholtz
1B  Mark Canha
SS  Sea Bass Gonzalez
2B  Tzu Wei-Lin

Bench- Charlie Irwin, Charlie Reilly, Bobby LaMotte, Dee Miles (no catchers though)

SP- Johnny Cueto
SP- George Earnshaw
SP- Melido Perez
SP- Jimmy Ring
SP- Joe Hesketh

RP- Ugueth Urbina
RP- Barry Jones
RP- Joe Moeller
RP- Mitchell Boggs
RP- Chuck Estrada

I just noticed that the February 15 birthday team has two players with exactly the same name and position as another long-time player.  There are two Billy Hamiltons and two Alex Gonzalezes- how many other position players are there like that?

That's a pretty solid man name team

"What I don't get is people ignoring obvious trolling. Parker is a troll, Pubster (and what\s with that comment about Esteban Loiza being your favourite person, because he got busted with coke?) is a troll, ComeDeanByChance is a troll that seems to hate poor people, and the rest of us are too nice to call them out for their meanspirited commentary because we have some naive belief that we should all play nice."

Whoa Jer, whats with all the name calling buddy.

Didn't you watch the show Narcos? Or watch tv shows like Breaking Bad? Where drug dealers are often the heros and are shown to be badass. Maybe hollywood producers are trolls?

You're the same guy that responds to posts with "Thats stupid". Isn't that just trolling?

CBDC doesn't hate poor people. He's just saying that guys like you who prefer to sit in the 500 level and not pay for more expensive seats shouldn't be making comments that other people are cheap. Totally fair point.

I am not the tone police, but I hear a siren in the distance.

UO I enjoy all your posts (including and especially those I disagree with) admire your enthusiasm and know we both want the Jays to win and each want to argue and see the team in the best light (even if the desire is unconscious).

WAR/650 is in the realm of what's referred to in my line of work (which includes teaching biostatistics) as a descriptive stat. Many are familiar with measures of central tendency such as the mean, median, and mode which are all also descriptive stats. I tend to prefer a less common measure of central tendency for my descriptive stats, the winsorized mean. I can defend my choice as being more robust and useful in many situations. I defend it. I use it. Others point out its flaws. I've also caught myself reaching for it when a median might be a better choice.

There are baseball players there is actual baseball news now -- there is plenty to discuss now that the winter doldrums are passing. Let's all be weird and obsessive about video of Breslow. Please?

for the record, war650 is far from the only stat I post, and I just as often use the projection systems (and get just as mocked for that) which I'm pretty sure all use something closer to winsorized means.

war650 is a very simple, basic, stat with all the same flaws as every other stat, but also with obvious utility. arguing over it seems silly to me. but hey, I'm not the one who keeps turning it into an argument. i didn't even bring it up here.

These young kids Breslow and Axford are in the best shapes of their lives!

"These young kids Breslow and Axford are in the best shapes of their lives!"

I disagree! Therefore you are a troll!

No jk. Love the 'best shape of their lives' stories.

Marcus Stroman @MStrooo6 6m
Lost arbitration. Is what it is. Looking forward to going out and dealing again. The negative things that were said against me, by my own team, will never leave my mind. I’m thick-skinned so it will only fuel the fire. Can’t wait for this year! #HDMH

discuss.

I think it would be in the best interests of both Mr. Stroman and Mr. Trump to put their phones away and focus on their jobs.  Somebody close to Marcus should impress that upon him, before he damages himself unnecessarily. 

Happy that the disagreements are behind us temporarily. I am sure it will return. I think "disagreement" is an ok word.

UO's posts get that kind of response from the same posters. Glevin, Pubster and Parker. I too disagree with UO. The 2015 and 2016 teams did not win the WS. So I cannot accept them as the best Jay's team. If 1985 had won the WS then that would be my best team. But that is only my opinion and I feel entitled to it. I am willing to listen to objections.

UO has been right quite a few times. I expect his successes to continue. For example Noah S leaped up the prospect lists closely after becoming a Met. I can buy that the Mets developed him or there is a bias against the Jays. So a win for UO. UO's longshot D Jansen could turn into a big win for UO and the Jays. We will see.

I loved P Hentgen. A Sanchez could turn out as good. J Guzman sure thrived in the playoffs. He got a chance. Small playoff sample size for P Hentgen, R Halladay, M Stroman and A Sanchez. C Carpenter and J Key were good playoff pitchers. Not sure about D Wells. Can't remember D Steib. I love our history of #1 pitchers.

I agree that it is best to keep what is said in an arbitration hearing private, but I wouldn't put Marcus Stroman's and Donald Trump's names in the same sentence unless they were in opposition to each other.  Stroman is basically good-hearted; Trump is not. 

#MAGA vs #HDMH

That works for me, UO.

Two spring training notes.  Devon Travis is now running albeit not at full speed (in the video on Ben Nicholson-Smith's twitter feed).  Anthony Gose is in the Astros' camp and throwing 100 mph according to Brian McTaggart. 

I agree that it is best to keep what is said in an arbitration hearing private, but I wouldn't put Marcus Stroman's and Donald Trump's names in the same sentence unless they were in opposition to each other. 

Yes, that comment of mine was a bit of a reach - I had a longer post considering the dangers of electing to communicate with the entire world prior to engaging in sober reflection that my computer swallowed up before I could submit, but shorn of that context I agree my comment looks a little unfair to Marcus.  I won't belabor the point further.

"UO's posts get that kind of response from the same posters. Glevin, Pubster and Parker. I too disagree with UO. The 2015 and 2016 teams did not win the WS. So I cannot accept them as the best Jay's team. If 1985 had won the WS then that would be my best team. But that is only my opinion and I feel entitled to it. I am willing to listen to objections."

Yeah exactly! I'm totally cool with disagreement. But if posters are going to start name calling because of disagreement then I'm more than happy to return the favour.

For example Jer knows he's the one that started name calling with me, and now I like to remind him that he's too broke to buy the good seats at the dome. Which btw is where I always sit when I go down. =)

Looks like the Orioles beat the Jays to Cashner - 2years/16m.

Stroman wears his emotions on his sleeve - I won't read too much into it - Trout was upset when the Angels renewed his contract & still signed an extension - Way back, I think it was Tom Henke who was upset at losing arbitration & that turned out ok (I think he may have left camp for a day or so as a protest - memory hazy).

Let's the O's have Cashner. His awful peripherals suggest that he is not a capable major league starter.

Cashner will be in the O's rotation. Possibly #3.

We will be able to compare him to our #3-6 SPs. Specifically for 2018 health and results wise.

"Looks like the Orioles beat the Jays to Cashner "

liberal use of the word "beat" right there.

Cashner would have improved the Jays' rotation.

Instead he is improving the Orioles' rotation.

I consider that a pretty good use of the word 'beat'.

I continue to be frustrated at a team that doesn't appear to be trying to get any better.

I meant to imply that I don't think Cashner woulda beena worthwhile upgrade.

I'm frustrated that we haven't made a big upgrade yet too. But this would have been a halfarsed one, I think. I'm glad we were beat.

The biggest objection is not being in on the two years at just $8.0 Million per. The Players option vesting just means he was healthy enough to pitch. The Jays are too fixed on limited term to get the bargains they need. I definitely don't want the Jays to sign someone who isn't effective in the A.L. East.

There is no good organizational depth chart rationale, and no defensible financial rationale, for the Jays to insist on a one-year dumpster dive for their open rotation position.

They should be able to comfortably add a Happ-type player (on a Happ-type contract).

The Jays could easily afford a multi year deal but I'm wondering if they just feel no one left is worth 3 years+

Remember, the last guy the O's signed who the Jays wanted (or we wanted them to sign) was Ubaldo Jimenez. In the 4 years he was signed for he has qualified for the ERA title just once, ERA+ of 90+ just once, FIP over 4 every year, 0.9 WAR total for $49.5 million plus a draft pick iirc.

Free agents are no lock to perform well. Sometimes they just eat cash.

Cashner last season: 86 strikeouts. 64 walks. 4.6 WAR somehow.

There have been some disastrous free agent contracts given to pitchers, and some that have worked out well.

My point is more that making a second guaranteed year a deal-breaker seems like an entirely arbitrary way to put the top half of the free agent talent pool out of reach, given that the Jays have no Top 100 types ready to join the rotation in April 2019 and given that the Jays are not the A's or Rays.

Cashner would be a significant downgrade from Biagini imo and at 8x the money. Watched him pitch a few times last year and was most unimpressed. At best, he might be a credible reliever.

Jays sign Jaimie Garcia...one year at 8 mil

Garcia contract has club option for 2019

Nice. Garcia at 1/8 is a great deal. The team option for 2019 makes it even better.

It looks like the Jays were in on both and when Cashner got the two years from Baltimore, they signed Garcia. Just a guess,though.

I like him better than cashner at least, but still dissappointed we went for bottom rotation value signing instead of impact. And he's the kind of guy that might completely implode in the AL East. but here's hoping his AL stint last year was just a blip.

2019 Team option for Garcia at 10 mil with a 2 mil buyout

There's a 2m buyout of the option year, so it's actually 1/10 or 2/18 - the jays essentially paying 2m to not gtd. the 2nd year - I like him better than Cashner, but fans will be monday morning quarterbacking these 2 signings all year depending on performances.I like that he's a GB pitcher.

BTW, jays winning both arb. cases should save them a few millions in the coming years given the cumulative effect of arbitration process.

Jaime Garcia is a Left-Handed ground ball machine who was a career NL Starter until the Trade Deadline last year. Whether he's effective or not verses the A.L. East, there too small a sample to fairly judge him. He's got enough to strike people out, but has inflated walk numbers.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garcija02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-

He could certainly see a dip in performance in the AL East, but I like the skill set (GB, good K%) and the price is reasonable.

How quickly an opinion can change...

I was unhappy that the Jays did not get Cashner.

Not any more. Garcia is better.

Steamer/Zips Avg: 27gs, 5.7ip/gs, 4.62era, 4.66fip, 1.5war, 1.8war32
Two Year Stats: 57gs, 5.7ip/gs, 4.57era, 4.40fip, 2.7war, 1.5war/32

So....5th starter through and through, as long as the league change doesn't kill him.

Although this fills the 40-Man Roster, I think the Jays are still not done yet.

Garcia is another very good move. The transcript linked to by another bauxite contains a gem about the layoffs in the FO. I hope that those changes make this off-season more representative of what this FO will do going forward than last off-season. With some health and luck, the Jay's will make it tough on the beasts of the AL East.

I'm ambivalent. I am on board with this move but I think I would have been on board with the Darvish contract minus the extra year. Given Darvish we all ll probably never thought about Toronto who, to you, are the other impact guys are out there? What contracts would you have them on?

Count me as one that greatly appreciated UO's posts and like the way he uses war650. His posts with stats are generally amongst the ones I most look forward to reading.

The criticism of these stats seems mostly over the top and inconsistent. Many baseball stats have counting and rate versions of stars, many people use either version of these stats without the red flags that some keep raising for war650. When people say someone is a .300 hitter people know what they mean, and there isn't usually talk of health brought up. When people say Ichiro gets 200 hits a year, or someone is a 100 rbi man or 30 hr guy, these are normal counting stats. 200 hits, .300 hitter, counting stats, rate stats don't really matter. Pitchers, er (count) or era (rate) we are used to. In the stat community, runs created (counting), rc27 (rate). War (counting), war650 (rate) is no different.

The criticism outlined in above posts miss what war650 is about. It is about overall position adjusted quality (hitting and defense) as a rate. I.e. how good is some one when they play.

So to respond to specific questions:

What about people who are fragile and unlikely to play full seasons (I.e. Tulo, Travis)?

By using war650 you cover how good they are when they play. If you think they'll only play half the year then when you add up the Jays predicted annual war (count) only take half the players war650. This is obvious for everyone who isn't being intentionally dense. Note if you are comparing two people on the team for who should start when both are healthy, if one has war650 of 5, but has only been healthy half their career, but the other player has war650 of 3 and is always healthy, war650 shows you the first player should play. Straight war would compare 2.5 to 3 and get the answer wrong.

What about small sample sizes (I.e. 4 gs or 150 pa compared to 1000 pa)?

Small Sample size means we have less confidence in the accuracy of the rate stat. But it can still be useful to know when we say we hope a player who was playing at 5 war650 in a small sample will be a good contributor next year what we are doing is saying we hope they keep performing at the rate they were. Contrast someone that doesn't have that for which we have the same small sample, then we might be hoping they develop a new level they've never shown. That is a different hope with different concerns. Note the sample size concern could also be mitigated by regressing to an appropriate mean, or by internationally getting larger samples (like UO often does with 2 or 3 year samples). Note also the "inappropriate" red Sox jays offense comparison UO included the sample set in his quote of the numbers. So the base sample size for the projection was right there. That helps make the use responsible and not deceptive.

What about the concern that war is too complicated or difficult or doesn't measure right so war650 is automatically suspect?

This can be a concern of some, especially because of volatility and differences in defensive metrics. A responsible mitigation is to use multiple sources of war (something UO regularly does). This helps with that. People can also use other metrics (like defense online offense only) to evaluate and provide context (again which UO does).

Again, it is easy to use and understand war650. If you want to compare the game for game quality of players when healthy war650 is perfect. If you want to adjust for your projection of playing time, that is easy (and different playing times could be result of injuries, but could also just be management decisions) and if you end up disagreeing with someone about the quality of what Tulo will give the Jays this year you can more easily determine do you disagree about his ability while healthy, or, how much he's likely to play (or both). If you want to adjust for sample size or "error bars" on war650 that is easy enough, and something we all do naturally (I.e. when we discuss will Smoak be as good this year as last, or was last year a lucky small sample).

I thought it would have been either Cashner, Garcia or Tillman.

All the decent pitchers with no compensation attached are long gone.

My gut says Garcia over Cashner.

Garcia is another 'was good then slumped' guy. 2 years ago a 161 ERA+ (over 123 IP) and a 143 back in 2010 (over 163 IP). 107 lifetime, 99 last year and 87 the year before 3.66 FIP lifetime, 3.00, 4.49, 4.25 FIP's the last 3 years (15/16/17). So his bad years are basically average level for starters. He could be great, but most likely will be meh and eat 100+ innings.

Cashner had a 138 ERA+ last year, his best in a season with 11+ IP. the 2 years before that were 76 and 86. His FIP those 3 years were 3.85, 4.84, 4.61 (2015/16/17). So basically last year he got lucky. 102 lifetime ERA+ 3.99 FIP.

I have trouble seeing how one could project Cashner as better than Garcia in 2018.

I think the Garcia contract is pretty good value for a decent 4th/5th starter. I agree that it appears the Jays were after Cashner, and when he signed with Baltimore, they nabbed Garcia. He has benefitted from playing in St.Louis - his road numbers are not nearly as good as his home numbers, so those seasons a few years ago when he was putting up sub-4.00 ERA's are a bit misleading. In the AL, with the DH, and playing in some good hitters parks for a big chunk of games, he's not going to put up great numbers, but should be an above average 5th starter.

Cashner did a great job of inducing weak fly balls last year, similar to Marco Estrada. Time will tell if he can repeat that. His contract includes annual incentives of up to $5 million per year, and the vesting 3rd year will be triggered if he pitches 340 innings in 2018/19. He's had IP seasons of 175 and 184, and last year, 167, so the vesting is quite possible if he's healthy. The deal could be as much as $41 million on a 3-year deal. I much prefer the Garcia deal.

I know a lot of people here figure Biagini goes to AAA as a starter now, but I still think he's in the bullpen, unless they sign a legit 7th/8th inning guy. After Osuna, Tepera and Barnes, there is a lack of proven quality, and Biagini can fill that role very well. Of course, there is the possibility 3 or 4 of the other candidates look great in the spring training games, and they should still have the budget to get somebody.

There weren't a lot of options, but count me out on the being excited about Jaime Garcia bandwagon. The only real upside for me is that Biagini strengthens the bullpen.

They have Carlos Ramirez and maybe Guerrieri as shuttle candidate for the pen, but if any of the guys on minor league contracts look good in the spring, they really need to have a good look at Biagini as a starter. They might have 3 starters to replace  next year.

Also, there's no spot left on the 40 roster, so if someone earns a spot, they'll have to DFA someone.

Estrada throws mostly a 4 seamer and a changeup, both with extreme backspin. He gets tons of flyballs.
Cashner threw a sinker, like a lot of MLB and AAA starters and got more than his share of grounders.  It seems like a forced comparison to me.

There are very significant decisions the Jays must make:
1) Joe Biagini, is he in AAA stretching out as the Jays' 6th Starter option. That thankfully makes Ryan Borucki the Jays' 7th Starter option. Or will John Gibbons need him more in the Bullpen?
2) Who is removed from the 40-Man Roster if another signing is needed. Either way that decision gets made in roughly the next three to four weeks or so.
3) The Jays still need a much better LHP option in the Bullpen than currently exists on the Team. Is there anyone that good still available at the Jays' price?
4) Ezequiel Carrera is in a tie for the fourth best Outfielder on the 25-Man Roster. He isn't a good defender, doesn't run well or throw well and can't relieve Curtis Granderson. Aledmys Diaz is a bigger need.

The comparison of Cashner to Estrada is that they were the absolute best in baseball last year at limiting hard contact on fly balls. Cashner was the best in mlb at 22.4% hard contact on fly balls, and Estrada was 2nd best at 24.2%.

there's no need for Biagini to sit in AAA all year waiting for injury. he'll be in the pen and then quickly stretched out when needed.

Who says Biagini sits in AAA for more than a month before coming up, either to Start or because he's needed in the Bullpen more. Either way the Jays need better options than just Ryan Borucki as 6th Starter.

I lost my post again. So I will do 2 short posts.

1st. Thanks to Michael for his well thought out and written explanation. I appreciate your effort.

So Cheers !!! I have a beer.

OK.  I like Garcia about as much as Lance Lynn.  I like Cobb quite a bit more, but he might get 4/60.  It's a typical move from the Shapiro era, cautious and relatively prudent. 

They're paying $10 million for this year, and $8 million for the option.  There's a pretty good chance that they will exercise it. 

My 2nd post. Anyone want to make predictions?

I made a minor league prediction last year Bo Bichette would start in Lansing. I am still working on this years minor league prediction.

For the ML team I predict the farm will produce a V good SP. At least half a season in the Majors. 15 starts.

I don't know who. But I have a lot of faith in the Jays farm.

Apparently, Garcia also gets $500,000 for every 10 innings pitched at 150, 160, 170, and 180, for a max bonus of $2,000,000. Pertains to the option year as well, so the contract maxes out at $22 million for 2 years.

I’d have much preferred with Lance or Cobb, especially given pitching depth issues after this year.

Beginning to wonder about the Jays ability to attract impact FAs. Since Rocket 20 years and 4 GMs ago, they have arguably had few if any high impact signings other than Canadians (Martin) and players returning to the Jays.

Was always fascinated by some industry comments about AA’s 2012 trade with Miami, a trade I actually liked. some questioned why he traded talent to acquire players that he could have simply signed a little earlier as FA’s (Buehrle, Johnson, Reyes). Maybe the real issue is that AA had realized he actually couldn’t attract talent at this level as FAs.

It’s part of the reason I was disappointed they didn’t sign Price ... he was a high profile FA who actually wanted to come to Toronto. (Of course in this case, it may be just as well they didn’t).

At the end of the day none of us will know it’s certainty if attracting impactful FAs is a major challenge. But it sure makes me wonder...

Don't know why so many think Biagini is going to the pen when the GM says otherwise.

Just tonight Atkins said that Joe will be stretched out as a starter. The goal is to build as much starting depth as possible, said Ross.He said further that if there was no room for him in the rotation at the of camp, he would likely be sent to Buffalo.

Thank You Peter.

We have 2 cheap SPs in Sanchez and Stroman. Happ, Estrada and Garcia cost money. So that is the rotation, period. Unless ..........

I can see Biagini in Buffalo until he loses his #6 status to another pitcher. Then the pen may be strengthened with him in it. But if the rotation loses someone for any reason then the #6 becomes #5. So Biagini is back to being # 6 and stays in Buffalo.

2yr Stats


3B Donaldson (32): 1196pa, 153wrc+, 12.5war, 6.8war650
2B Travis (27): 629pa, 103wrc+, 3.4war, 3.5war650
CF Pillar (29): 1216pa, 83wrc+, 5.7war, 3.0war650
RF Grichuk (26): 920pa, 98wrc+, 3.7war, 2.6war650
SS Tulo (33): 804pa, 95wrc+, 3.2war, 2.6war650
C Martin (35): 900pa, 100wrc+, 3.5war, 2.5war650
LF Granderson (37): 1160pa, 110wrc+, 4.4war, 2.5war650
DH Pearce (35): 650pa, 116wrc+, 2.2war, 2.2war650
1B Smoak (31): 977pa, 118wrc+, 3.1war, 2.0war650

UT Morales (35): 1226pa, 104wrc+, 0.4war, 0.2war650
UT Solarte (30): 955pa, 105wrc+, 3.7war, 2.5war650
OF Carrera (31): 635pa, 86wrc+, 0.9war, 0.9war650
IF Diaz (27): 761pa, 111wrc+, 2.9war, 2.5war650
C Maile (27): 262pa, 29wrc+, -0.1war, -0.3war650



SP Happ (35): 57gs, 6.0ip/gs, 77era-, 7.3war, 4.1war32
SP Sanchez (25): 38gs, 6.0ip/gs, 75era-, 4.7war, 3.9war32
SP Stroman (27): 65gs, 6.2ip/gs, 86era-, 7.3war, 3.6war32
SP Estrada (34): 62gs, 5.8ip/gs, 98era-, 5.7war, 2.9war32
SP Garcia (31): 57gms, 5.7ip/gs, 109era-, 2.7war, 1.5war32
SP Biagini (28): 18gms, 4.9ip/gs, 129era-, 0.4war, 0.6war32

RP Osuna (23): 138.0ip, 69era-, 4.3war, 2.2war70
RP Biagini (28): 99.1ip, 80era-, 1.3war, 0.9war70
RP Tepera (30): 96.0ip, 79era-, 1.1war, 0.8war70
RP Barnes (28): 79.2ip, 82era-, 1.0war, 0.8war70
RP Loup (30): 72.0ip, 91era-, 0.6war, 0.5war70
RP Axford (35): 86.2ip, 109era-, 0.1war, 0.0war70
RP Breslow (37): 49.1ip, 113era-, -0.2war, -0.2war70
RP Ramirez (27): 16.2ip, 61era-, 0.3war, 1.3war70
RP Mayza (26): 17.0ip, 156era-, -0.1war, -0.3war70

Like the Garcia signing. That's peanuts for a guy who has a track record. I would put biagini in the bullpen because I think he is needed and I don't think that the buffalo approach is better. But it looks like the FO disagrees.

Overall I quite like this off-season. Very little to criticize while keeping all of our future flexibility.

Re- WAR/650

It's only valuable when 650 PA is a realistic possibility. Like Donaldson last season. Very useful tool to verify that he still played at a high level despite the injuries.

Far less useful when 650 PA is unlikely (i.e. a platoon hitter or either of our MIs).

If Biagini pitches well in Spring Training, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to start the season with a six-man rotation. Failing that, I would like to see sent him down to Buffalo as a starter and first man up should he be needed. He showed enough promise last year as a starter to warrant a longer look this year.

I'm in the camp of starting Biagini in AAA. If they view him as a starter, then let him develop into one without having to worry about flip flopping roles continually. I highly doubt the five starters will stay healthy all season so Biagini in AAA for a little bit is not the end of the world for him. He will be back up.

I think Biagini depends on what others do in spring. If the Jays have 7 strong for the pen then send Biagini to AAA to work out as a starter, if he stays down all year so be it. If needed in the pen he can shorten up a whole lot easier than stretch out.

The pen right now is... (using FanGraphs depth charts)
Osuna, Tepera, Barnes, Loup, Carlos Ramirez, Tim Mayza, Matt Dermody. With Taylor Guerrieri, Thomas Pannone, Jake Petricka, John Axford, and Craig Breslow on the outside looking in. Phew. Lots of guys down there, but you need that.

As to the 6 man rotation idea - I disagree with it in April especially since normally there are extra days off in April but lets see... 3 days off in April, 5 days off in May, 4 in June, 7 in July (including AS break), 3 in August, just 2 in September. So a 6 man rotation isn't s nuts as I thought since days off are now more spread out outside of July.

There's virtually no chance they go with a bullpen like that, with 3 lefties, so put Petricka or Axford, say, in there instead of either Mayza or Dermody. A pen of Osuna, Tepera, Barnes, Loup, Ramirez, Dermody and Petricka/Axford just doesn't sound good enough to me. If Ramirez can perform like last year it would make a big difference, but I still think they need somebody. If it's not Biagini, they need to get somebody.

A 6 man rotation means that you are taking 5 starts from each of your best 5 starters and giving them to your 6th best starter. Doesn't sound logical to me. Plus, you either have to go to a 6 man bullpen, or you lose another position player from your roster. Not going to happen.

Like the Garcia signing. A good price for a good back-end starter. I'm expecting around 150 innings and around 2 WAR. There were probably only 3-5 pitchers I liked more than Garcia as free agents (about 5 I liked about the same) but that says more about the class than it does about Garcia. Darvish and Arietta were never going to happen. Cobb is intriguing because of his potential to bounce back to where he was a few years ago but he was no better than Garcia was last year and is going to get paid a lot more. Don't know that Lynn is any better than Garcia and will also get paid more. Garcia does K guys at a good clip and gets a lot of groundouts. The rotation of Stroman, Happ, Sanchez, Estrada, and Garcia is pretty decent.

I'd go with Biagini in Buffalo. He has the stuff to be a starter and if he could develop into a rotation piece, that's just more valuable than a reliever. Anyway, I have a lot more faith in being able to find decent reliever than I do guys who can start. Every year, teams pluck relievers out of nowhere who are good. Starters are much much harder to find.

Cashner seems heading to a huge regression, especially in a division with many parks that are though on right handers and without his trademark beard.

Biagini's only good stretch as a starter were his first bunch of starts after moving over from the pen. the more he started the worse he got, and his stint in buffalo didn't help him come back and be a better starter.

sending him down to buffalo doesn't make him a better starting pitcher.

what it does do, though, is weaken the bullpen significantly.

The facts that he was good in his first 7 starts and then struggled in the next 4 is an argument for giving him more preparation, not the other way around. Back in September, he was murder against Baltimore but could only limit the Yankees to 6 runs in 10 innings, which is actually not that bad. Hopefully, improved outfield defense will help this time around.  His only bad start was against the Twins.

Realistically, he goes back to the pen when the other Buffalo pitchers beat him to the rotation.

I agree. He's had 22 career starts above AA. More time in Buffalo could develop him further and help his consistency. I don't see any trend from the game logs that he was only good early. While he would probably make the bullpen better, I think it would be marginal.

Beginning to wonder about the Jays ability to attract impact FAs. Since Rocket 20 years and 4 GMs ago, they have arguably had few if any high impact signings other than Canadians (Martin) and players returning to the Jays.

Said this very thing about a year ago. The Jays just don't sign impact American-born players.  It might take a long (4-5+ year) stretch of being really good in order to entice FAs to come here.

With Biagini I'd say stretch him out and see if he can be a good starter in 2019 and beyond as the Jays have a shortage for those years right now, plus he wants to start and did have that good stretch to begin last year. Lets see if he can grow on that and become a solid #3 or decent #4.

As to free agents, back in the 80's it was an issue - outside of 92/93 it always was a big issue. Funny how winning back to back World Series and having a manager who players loved and a sold out home park with the highest payroll makes players want to come. Even then it took a record contract for Morris to come, and the other free agents were DH's.

Just another argument to extend Donaldson.

Back to Biagini, he was great in May when the Jays played their best baseball of the year, but had difficulty fighting his ways out of jam when trailing or following a misplay which pretty much captures the rest of the year. Seems mostly mental.  Practice might help.

At any rate, April is always a crapshoot. I'm expecting one of the Non Roster Invitees to make the team, but I'm not sure who gets pushed off the roster.

"The facts that he was good in his first 7 starts and then struggled in the next 4 is an argument for giving him more preparation, not the other way around"


hmm, I don’t see how that logic works.

there is nothing that suggests that being in the pen would hurt his ability to fill in the rotation for injuries. there is nothing to suggest that starting in buffalo would help him be a more effective fill in.

In fact, the only evidence we have suggests the opposite is true.

So why are we hurting our bullpen based on nothing?

Definitely in the Biagini in Buffalo camp, will need additional starters so he will get an opportunity if he pitches well - also would like Carlos Ramirez to start in AAA to polish up his skills and be ready for the inevitable big league opening - so hopefully the Jays sign a reliever or the minor league veterans signed have strong springs.

"Said this very thing about a year ago. The Jays just don't sign impact American-born players. It might take a long (4-5+ year) stretch of being really good in order to entice FAs to come here."

just a couple years ago, major free agents like price were interested in signing here, while free agents loke happ and estrada were rushing to sign here without even really testing the market.

ah,the good old days.

I really don't see the huge difference in the pen between Biagini and whoever they use in his place. The team has a ton of options, both internally and via minor league signings. If they feel Biagini has a chance to be a back-end starter, then they need to commit to that role for him, even if it means spending time in Buffalo as depth.

The pen looks shaky on paper, but it did last year, too. Relievers are unpredictable year to year. I have no problem going into the spring and seeing which of Guerrieri, Ramirez, Mayza, Dermody, Alburquerque, Petricka, Axford, Breslow, etc, can win the remaining spots. Plus, they might have some money left over for a Joe Smith type of signing (1/3 type of deal), but not exactly sure what they have left to spend.

If they view Biagini as a SP, then use him as a SP.

Heck, I remember when the Jays could sign players like A.J. Burnett and B.J. Ryan!

I mean, most every team uses their #6SP in the bullpen. I don't really understand why we need to do something different, when our bullpen is shorthanded already.

Garcia's career splits by time through the order:
1st- .236/.293/.345  (K/W- 3.18)
2nd- ..265/.319/.403 (K/W- 2.69)
3rd- .288/.346/.441 (K/W- 1.88)

He has faced over 1000 batters in each situation.

I'd use Biagini as the second half of a tandem with Garcia.  I know, I know.  Way too radical. 

The argument about Biagini seems a bit silly, since the answer is quite clear: the Jays will decide at the end of the pre-season, based on how their bullpen is looking at that point. If the bullpen looks like it needs him, they will put him in the bullpen. But if they sign another experienced reliever (which is likely), and if other fringe relievers are looking unexpectedly good, they won't need Biagini so desperately in the bullpen and they'll probably send him to Buffalo.

It's too early to debate the question in any detail, since there are too many unanswered questions over the next few weeks as the Jays make their final bullpen acquisitions (probably one free agent, plus a couple more on minor-league deals) and as the Jays get a much closer look at their younger pitchers and new acquisitions. A lot can change in the next few weeks.

On the question of the 40-man roster and who to drop if another pitcher is acquired: Dwight Smith Jr. seems to be the obvious choice, since the Jays outfield is looking very crowded at this point, both in Toronto and in Buffalo.

The next to be dropped from the 40-man roster, if two new players are acquired, would probably be Gift Ngoepe, since the Jays have acquired two additional major-league infielders in the period since his acquisition.

And then there's Zeke Carrera, who might be traded to make room in the outfield.

So it won't be too hard to drop three players from the 40-man roster if spots are needed.

just a couple years ago, major free agents like price were interested in signing here, while free agents loke happ and estrada were rushing to sign here without even really testing the market.

Those guys were all Blue Jays at the time, or previously. I didn't include that caveat upthread but I did mention it in my original post on the topic....The Jays haven't had much trouble extending players who are already here, or have had the experience of being Blue Jays before, but getting players (especially from the states) here as "major" free agents who haven't been Blue Jays before seems to be very difficult. I don't know if they're just not offering enough money or there's a persistent anti-Canada bias but they just don't get those guys. In fact, signing a guy like Jaime Garcia to be a fifth starter is about as major as it gets for guys like that.

Jaime wasn't waiting around...he's good to go this morning...

Biagini has an issue with maintaining his mechanics. When he struggled last season his mechanics were off and he did have some very short starts. His mechanics were a bigger issue when he was starting although when he came out of the rotation and back into the bullpen, he was not pitching as well as he had before he was a starter.

I know Biagini has been working to get more consistent, but putting him in the rotation is a high risk strategy for the Jays. If he shows in the spring that he could be a starter then the Jays could well send him to Buffalo to lock down his mechanics. Gibby will lobby to have him as a reliever.

In regard to the six starters, there is probably a 30% chance that one of the starters will not be ready to go at the start of the season so you need some insurance. Who would be the next in line? Borucki, Pannone or Guerreri? I know Mike Green's preference.

Jason Vargas to the Mets.

If the Jays view Biagini as a RP, then put him in the pen. If they view him as a SP, then keep him as a SP. That's my stance on it. As mentioned, you want Biagini to be able to repeat his delivery and not have any issues with mechanics. Keeping him in one role would be ideal in doing that.

Interesting that Garcia, Cashner, and Vargas all signed within 24 hours. The Jays were linked to all of them at one point. Looks like Darvish signing was necessary to get the non-Boras SP market going. Where Cobb and Lynn go and for how much will be interesting to watch for.

How does his role effect his mechanics?

Who would be the next in line? Borucki, Pannone or Guerreri? I know Mike Green's preference.

FWIW, as Gerry could guess, Pannone at the start of the season.  I like Borucki as much as Pannone at this point, but I definitely think he needs a little more time.  The answer might be different on May 1. 

This is my view as well.  Sign another depth RP for the bullpen and see if you strike gold.  If you need to, you can always bring Biagini up.

Now if they wanted to go back and get Brett Anderson again and have him be the 6th SP at AAA, and have Biagini in the bullpen, I wouldn't be opposed to that idea either.  But that's only if you view Biagini as a RP full time.

good on shapkins for at least getting imo the best of these #5 pitchers (garcia/cashner/vargas/etc), and on the best contract too.

Just as an aside, can someone please make the case why an investment in Lance Lynn along the lines of what he is reportedly asking for makes more sense than Garcia?  I don't really see a ton in the profile or projections to suggest that Garcia is that much worse than him, and he gives you much more flexibility financially.

Even Cobb.  I mean, I'd prefer Lynn or Cobb to Garcia, slightly, but not at twice the price for twice the term.

Rare as it may be, I have to agree with uglyone here. I don't believe that there is an advantage to developing a pitcher at the AAA instead of in an MLB bullpen.

How does his role effect his mechanics?

I am not sure if the change in his mechanics is related to starting or not. But, in general, starters throw more in the game as therefore they get more tired. As your muscles tire they are less likely to operate as your brain intends. Some relievers are in the bullpen because they cannot maintain their deliveries as they tire. There are many pitchers who are fine for four or five innings but then struggle. This is often due to fatigue and their role as a starter.

Joe Biagini is a Major League Starter, who needs to get better. The Jays think he can be special. Chances he breaks with the Club as a Starter are too good. John Gibbons may really need him as a Reliever, but the Jays need him as a MLB-experienced Starter more, better than he was last year. Even though I really, really want him as a Reliever, I believe he's needed more as a Starter.

THE BIG QUESTION:
Ideally a Team wants their 6th Starter to be an actual MLB-experienced Starter. If Biagini's not the 6th Starter, who is? I like all the moves the Jays have made, a much better class of talent acquired than in the near past. In-house, the Jays don't have an MLB-experienced Starter, better than Joe who's not already in the Rotation. With all the Minor deals/Spring invite Players signed there's no one as good as or better than Biagini is. They are generally not available, usually pitching somewhere else.

Jevant, I think they're definitely worth twice the price, personally.

Last 2yrs

Cobb: 34gs, 5.9ip/gs, 100era-, 101fip-, 97xfip-, 2.3fwar, 3.0ra9war, 2.5awar32
Lynn: 33gs, 5.7ip/gs, 81era-, 113fip-, 110xfip-, 1.4fwar, 3.7ra9war, 2.5awar32
Garcia: 57gs, 5.7ip/gs, 109era-, 105fip-, 95xfip-, 3.1fwar, 2.3ra9war, 1.5awar32

Projections

Cobb: 25gs, 6.0ip/gs, 4.09era, 4.22fip, 2.0war, 2.6war32
Lynn: 29gs, 5.7ip/gs, 4.15era, 4.39fip, 2.1war, 2.3war32
Garcia: 23gs, 5.7ip/gs, 4.59era, 4.58fip, 1.3war, 1.7war32

Especially Cobb, who isn't as reliant on beating his peripherals as Lynn is. I would definitely have preferred ante-ing up for Cobb.

Not sure why Garcia's projections are that much worse than either guy, especially considering the last 2 years (of which Garcia has been healthier).  I don't really see that different a pitcher there, at least, not markedly so historically.  The projections are far rosier to the other two, and I'm not sure I follow why.  Strange that Garcia's FIP is suddenly about to get a lot worse than either guy, despite being comparable for the last 2 years.

They should be able to comfortably add a Happ-type player (on a Happ-type contract).

Well, actually having these "Happ-type" players available would certainly make it easier. Happ did not have a QO attached, which is a significant factor. For the Biue Jays this year the QO would mean giving up a high second round pick as well as giving up international bonus pool money. There's more than salary for them to consider.

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/blue-jays-continue-sneaky-good-offseason-with-jaime-garcia/

I agree with that article. Even though I disagree 100% with the team building philosophy they've employed, I have to say all the moves this offseason have been pretty dang good for that philosophy.

If they had just managed to make one legit impact add on top of these moves (or in place of one), it would have really been a flat out great offseason. That being said, they did seemingly try to Yelich (and rightfully balked at the final price), so at least they were thinking that way too...and there's still a chance that something is in the offing still.

Well, actually having these "Happ-type" players available would certainly make it easier. Happ did not have a QO attached, which is a significant factor. For the Biue Jays this year the QO would mean giving up a high second round pick as well as giving up international bonus pool money. There's more than salary for them to consider.

That's a fair point, CBDC.  Let's see what happens with Cobb, Lynn and Arrieta.

I agree with the article too. The Jays are full of players who might either help them contend or might get them a few lottery ticket prospects back in July if the injury bug has hit again. I posted a few days ago that half of the 2017 PAs (and 1/3 of the starts as well) went to replacement level or below players. Just avoiding that will make the 2018 Jays much better. I think "technically not eliminated until late September" is more likely than making the playoffs, but there is a good team here if things break right.

I can see why the front office would do it this way too, because there is a lot more flexibility to make trades with this roster.

Good article from fangraphs. I also think the Jays have had a 'sneaky good' off-season.

This is interesting.
http://toronto.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/02/16/pulling-a-fast-one-have-the-blue-jays-found-a-new-market-inefficiency/

The FO has done a good job playing both sides. They can pivot in direction pretty easily based on team performance. If the team is in contention, then they should be able to make upgrades without hurting their main prospect pool, and if they are out of it, then they should in theory have a lot of veteran trade chips at the deadline. "Raising the floor" has been the narrative for this winter, but it's an accurate description. This team is much better equipped to handle injuries than last season (by a significant margin). I'm still nervous about the SP depth, especially if Biagini becomes a RP again, but Borucki/Pannone have legit big league potential, which is already a step up from the trash the team was relying on last season in AAA.

Boy Richard I hope that article is right and the Jays have found a market inefficiency. If so then the Jays should be in good shape as the hotshots work their way up to the majors.

I hope the article is correct but it smacks of confirmation bias. How many "not weird fastball" pitchers did the Jays run out there? I suspect quite a few.

Of all the Pitchers A.A. traded why was Aaron Sanchez the one he kept? Of all the people the Jays could have drafted why was Marcus Stroman picked? A.A. went out of his way to acquire J.A. Happ. The New Guys resigned him. Acquiring Marco Estrada for Adam Lind was not an appreciated move at the time. Yet something made these Players worth acquiring when options were many. If the Jays find some success, Teams will copy them. If the Jays have big success, everyone will copy them.

I think it will be good for Osuna to have another Mexican pitcher around every day.

Right after the World Series finished, the Blue Jays made their only Waiver Claim of this Offseason. On the 6th of November, Blue Jays claimed 24 year-old RHP Taylor Guerrieri off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays. I thought not much about it because he couldn't be that good, if Tampa had him on waivers. Then a little bit later I checked his numbers. He appears to have been very successful everywhere he's been, except he seems a wee bit injury-prone. Of course going from 78.0 IP in 2015 to 146.0 IP in 2016 seems excessive. Did it create the injury that causes him to only pitch 9.1 innings in 2017?

That gets us to today and who could be in the Bullpen. Ross Atkins asked Guerrieri if he could become a Reliever and he wasn't told no. I like Taylor Guerrieri better than most of the Offseason Minor signing/Spring invite Pitchers. If he can pitch up at the Major League level, should he start with the Team in the Bullpen or would he be an early callup? It would be very nice to have another multi-inning Reliever.

Of all the Pitchers A.A. traded why was Aaron Sanchez the one he kept?

According to a number of reports, the reason was luck. Jays supposedly offered the Marlins the choice of Sanchez, Syndergard, or Nicolino. Bad choice (so far) for Miami. eg: https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/1015803-report-marlins-skipped-sanchez-syndergaard-in-2012-blockbuster-deal

This was just posted.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/al-east-notes-tillman-jays-stroman-betts.html
The gap between 5th Starter and 7th Starter is acceptable if Joe Biagini is filling it as 6th Starter. Too much of a chance he'll be needed as a Starter and too much pressure to put on someone else that soon.

The team building philosophy is interesting. They are not opposed to acquiring elite talent.
They determine a value for any acquisition and they walk away if the cost is greater than this value.
Does it mean that they'll always be beaten on free agents? No, but it will happen often.

They Yankees were upset when it turned out Othani had no intentions of coming to New York.
Most free agents have no intentions of coming to Toronto.

Looking ahead, I don't see too many prospects that needs to be added at the end of the year.
No reason to trade a bunch of prospects for one guy's last 2 or 3 years.

Just looked up Nicolino's stats...career MLB K/9 rate of 3.8, K% of 9.7%. Oof. That's freakishly low.

Don't the Jays have 3 Mexican pitchers now.....Osuna, Estrada, Garcia.

Interesting scottt about how the 40 man roster will shape up after the season.

I guess 3-4 prospects may be added before the rule 5 draft.

Looking at the current 40 man roster I see 13 possible deletions.

Expiring contracts. Fringe value prospects and players. Players that have burned their last option.

I would not be surprised if 2 deletions happen during ST.

Ack.  Grief when attempting to paste in a quote.  Let's try again without the quote.

My Saturday Globe and Mail has an article (behind the wall) on 5G technology in Toronto.  Rogers is installing it into the RC as a test bed- it's a perfect place to do it because Rogers owns the building, there are 50,000 people there on a good day and lots of concrete to interfere.

Nerding out at a ballgame isn't my favourite thing to do, but it is going to become more possible.  I suppose if you are going to the game alone, it might enhance your enjoyment (some of the time).

Let's hope that fans use it in September to peek in via video to on other games that have playoff implications for the Jays. I often go to games alone and while the bandwidth is generally decent enough at Fenway to listen to the Jays, but not watch. This is both a good move for fans and a good marketing play by Rogers to get folks to adopt next-gen tech.

Definitely a good idea.  Leveraging what you have for another purpose, like Loblaws did with PC products. 

The Jays must clear a 40-Man Roster space to bring in a Reliever. One of the best remaining options is Trevor Rosenthal a Scott Boras client. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rosentr01.shtml but he's likely to be expensive. Trade-wise, https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/01/top-60-trade-candidates.html there is a better class of Reliever available, but each will be expensive in their own way. I'm not sure who the Jays are interested in. The first move in clearing space off the 40-Man is easy, it's the next one that hurts.

Oh’s deal with the Rangers is apparently off. He’s a reliever the Jays were rumored to be interested in. Not sure why that deal is off unless it’s injury related.

Totally way off baseball here but it is a question that I have that's not easily googlable -- the PC product line is reminiscent of Trader Joe's products. Given the protectionism around grocery and food I've wondered if Loblaws nicked or was merely inspired by what TJ does...

Back to baseball from that tanent -- I wonder if the NAFTA renegotiations fail if there will be any negative effects on the Jays. I can imagine currency movements and work visa arranged getting more complicated but anything could crop up.

President's Choice started in 1984 about a year after Dave Nichol started the Insider Report, which turned out to be helpful in marketing the products.  At the time, there was one Trader Joe's store in Pasadena, California.  I went there in 1986. It was great, but it wasn't the same scale of operation as Loblaws at all.  Except it had lots and lots of wine! And great value on pistachios.

Curious to see the Watson contract. Rumoured to be worth as much as 14M over 2 years but only count 2M against the salary cap.

Oh's deal could have required Translators, their accommodations, salaries and even more. At some point the Rangers said no.

Oh's deal could have required Translators, their accommodations, salaries and even more. At some point the Rangers said no.

I don't think this would be the issue. That would be at most 150k And that would be super generous. More likely a health issue or a disagreement over terms.

Suggestion: a 10 bold predictions thread along the lines of what fangraphs does.

Could be jays related or MLB wide.

I like that. The bold prediction.

Aaron Sanchez had an amazing 2016, but he battled blisters the entire year (his words). Aaron Sanchez had a disaster of a 2017, battling blisters the whole year (his words). Yet at some point he was finally shut down for the Season because of a finger injury that got missed. Perhaps an April injury? When he has a blister-free year that should end the blister issue. Until that does happen, he will be battling blisters and turning in amazing year after amazing year, that's who he is.

Twins get Odorizzi.

I don't understand what the Rays are doing. Trading for Cron and releasing Dickerson?

Sorry. Designating. Still. I don't understand the move.

I guess they DFA'ed him (Dickerson) as a way to start trade proceedings with someone? No way he goes unclaimed, I would imagine.

Would he be the last piece in the Jays' outfield

Geez, how weird. Must be to speed up a trade. Dickerson hit 282/325/490 for a 120 OPS+ last year with solid defense in LF*. He slumped in the 2nd half but for just under $6 mil with 2 years of control entering his age 29 season that seems like a guy you'd want to hold onto. 100+ OPS+ every year but his rookie when he had a 98. I'd hope the Jays put a claim in.

The * by his defense is due to FanGraphs putting him with a UZR/150 above 0 but BR has him as a negative every year for defense.

Baltimore has first claim and I think they have a full 40-Man, but might not. They need Starters more that anything else. The Jays have next claim and have a full 40-Man and only $4.0 - $6.0 Million let to spend. They'd need to move Carrera and Pearce and let Granderson be 4th Outfielder. Or they could just trade Pillar.

He had .995 Fld% in Left last year and he was also an All Star. Standard Fielding stats say he a good defender. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dickeco01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-

Great job by the Giants to sign a quality reliever like Watson and structure the contract so they stay under the luxury tax this year, which resets them for the 2018/2019 off season free agents. The contract could be worth as much as $21 million if the 3rd year option is taken, and all escalators are reached, but it only counts as $2 million this year because the escalators kick in next year.

Quite a series of moves by the Rays today. They really have saved a lot of salary, sending Odorizzi to the Twins for a half decent SS prospect, designating Dickerson, while picking up Cron to take his place. Saves them about $10 million in total. Odorizzi has decent career numbers at first glance, but when you factor in the great pitchers' park, and look at his road numbers, he doesn't look so good. Dickerson had the benefit of Coors Field for his first 3 years, had a mediocre 1st season in TB, and then had a great 1st half last year before coming back down to Earth in the 2nd half. He's not a great fielder, doesn't have much speed, and has virtually zero power against left handers. Looks like TB is getting rid of some middle of the road players in order to save money. Not a new story for them.

The situation with Oh is interesting. I thought he'd make a nice target for the Jays. Would be nice to know the injury that prevented the deal.

Hosmer apparently gets 8 years at $18 million from SD, so the long term deals are still there for the young free agents. Hosmer's deal covers his age 28-35 seasons.

Hosmer contract is going to be brutal and it is a strange one for the Padres who are the worst team in their division. If the Red Sox sign Martinez, I get it. Their windows is right now even if they have to pay for it a few years down the road but this makes zero sense. Royals caught a break that he didn't re-sign with them.

Yeah I don't get what the Padres are doing. I've never thought Hosmer was that good. He's not actually going to improve the team that much, imo. Eight years and almost $150M. Yeesh.

That Hosmer deal is a solid rebuttal to the whole "baseball teams are getting smarter" narrative.

Hosmer makes no sense for the Padres. Not sure why they wanted him at all, much less for eight years. The Boras guys will end up getting good contracts despite all the collision talk.

Now it’s time to begin the pipe dream of waking up one morning and reading that Morales has been traded to the Royals.

Five Years at $20.0 Million per; an opt out at age 33, or an additional three years at $14.0 Million per. The Padres have a much better idea of what they are doing that we know.

Tampa Bay didn't get much from the Odorizzi trade except salary relief. The Dickerson dump was more salary relief. I wonder if Alex Colome is of interest to the Jays. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/colomal01.shtml

" despite all the collision talk."

It was just an accident waiting to happen.

Hosmer typically alternates between good and replacement level.
There's so many 1B type still on the market like Duda and Morisson.
Maybe it's because Hosmer isn't good enough to be booed on the road like Bautista.

Dickerson bring echoes of Saunders to mind. All-star in the first half, replacement level in the second half. That happens to a lot guys.
Baltimore probably jumps on him.

Last year the Rays scored 1 run more than the Jays.
So they drop Longoria, Morisson and Dickerson. 

This Offseason still has miles to go. Miami is not done trading their players. Apparently Tampa Bay is unloading their Players. Free Agents don't really stand a chance. Scott Boras has most of the remaining top Free Agents as Clients. Not many will get their price baring Spring Training injuries.

It will be interesting to see how Donaldson's next contract (or extension) compares with the Hosmer contract. If age-28 Hosmer (Steamer projection for 2018: 2.6 WAR) can command 8/144 on the open market, then what will the high bid for age-33 Donaldson be?

Donaldson is the more talented player by far, but he will also be about five years older when he signs than Hosmer is now. If Donaldson stays healthy and has (say) a 6 WAR season, maybe 6/180 or possibly a bit more? His age is obviously a known quantity; what we don't know is how healthy he will be over the next half-dozen years, and at what rate he will decline.

That Hosmer deal is a solid rebuttal to the whole "baseball teams are getting smarter" narrative.

It's a solid rebuttal to the whole "the Padres are getting smarter" narrative, anyway.

I'm not really sure it says anything about the 29 teams that DIDN'T sign Hosmer to that contract.

Other than that they were smart enough to not throw that kind of money at a player of Hosmer's pedigree, I mean.

Can Donaldson get a 6/180 on an open market? Possible for those that might miss out on Harper or Machado. That type of contract cripples a team on the back end. At most, I think Donaldson is signable for 3 years plus a team option for year 4. Pay to be scaled back each year.
1st Year: $30 M
2nd Year: $28 M
3rd Year: $20 M
4th Year: $22 M Team Option
3/78 or 4/100 should be the sensible deal for both sides. But you know someone might throw insane term and average annual salary at JD.

Ross Atkins said something to the effect of trying to sign a Starter to be a Reliever. Best guess is he's after Chris Tillman!

Maybe the real test is the gate numbers with Donaldson as the face of the franchise.
They probably do 5/125 and that's probably not enough.
Health is the primary concern so they can add bonuses based on PA.

Stroman is also talking extension and it would be nice to see something done.

This is very interesting.
https://www.bigthreesports.com/nate-pearson-blue-jays-prospect-jim-czajkowski/
Apparently the Jays now have four Untouchables, Players who can be on the 2019 Roster.

The AAV on the Hosmer deal is what's most interesting .... while I still don't love the move, he's getting less than he would have last year or the year before, and less than I worried he would.   If agents and players want mega-commitments in term, the AAV reduction is the market's adjustment. 

I have to admit, a bunch of you guys around here have been talking positively about the FO's moves this offseason, and I'm coming around to the value of the approach - decidely unsexy moves that raise the floor more than the ceiling, at discounted prices.  Individually, pretty boring.  As a whole, pretty effective - the Fangraphs article was the final argument that convinced me, but props to the posters who argued that this was the way to go.  I'd still rather have a ninja move or two, but this is certainly a safe, smart approach. 

Speaking of signing a starter to be a reliever...I missed this one last week, but the Phillies signed Drew Hutchison last Thursday to a minor league contract with an invite to ST.

I wonder if we had interest and whether the agreement was to keep him as a starter. I've always felt Drew's FB/SL combo would play up big-time with another 1-2 MPH on the FB.

Randal Grichuk has been fighting for his MLB life with every at bat since being called up just to get enough playing time. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grichra01.shtml He was always competing with three other good Outfielders to get playing time and kept on a short lease. Even after his big 2015 year, it wasn't enough. He was still competing for enough playing time with the others.

This year he's been told he's the Jays' regular Right Fielder so he isn't primarily concerned with Playing time. I can't see any reason why he can not easily repeat his 2015 Season, or at least come closer. But that wasn't why he was brought in. He hits for big power. He runs very well. He has a strong and accurate arm. He gives above-average defense at all three Outfield positions, with Right Field being his best position. Compared to what the Jays got here last year, he is a huge upgrade.

Just in.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/blue-jays-notes-smoak-biagini-estrada-granderson.html

Most teams are definitely smarter now. The Hosmer move is probably the most baffling I can remember recently because I can't even see the logic behind it because it just makes no sense. As for Donaldson, what he gets will depend on what he does this year. If he goes back to who he was 2 years ago, he will probably get a monster 5 year deal. If he misses games or declines, teams will likely see that as a start of a trend and he will get a lot less.

Carlos Ramirez is a finished product. He has 2 plus pitches and will probably never learn a 3rd one.
He's already 27. Looking at what happened with Sergio Santos, I'd like to have him throw all his pitches at the major level, just in case he develops arm trouble down the road from throwing all those sliders.
Ramirez alone could make the bullpen remarkable.  

I think Carrera is gone before the year start unless someone hits the DL early.
They need to keep Ngoepe as Solarte isn't a shortstop.
With a healthy Travis, I imagine Solarte gets a couple start at 2B and a couple start at 3B while Donaldson DH. He could also get the odd start in left field, which really makes Carrera redundant.
The one guy who needs to start less is Martin. He only played 111 games on 2013 and that's when he managed his highest OPS.

Can't wait to see who is raking in 4 days.

If Zeke does go. What is the deadline for only paying him a fraction of his arb amount. 1/6 I believe.

I don't know how many of our Arb guys are vulnerable.

Frees up a 40 man roster spot for a possible reliever. Zeke may stay on a minor league deal if that is the best he can do.

I am interested in seeing how the FO deals with this potential surplus of depth.

What is the deadline for only paying him a fraction of his arb amount. 1/6 I believe.

Sometimes 300-400K is a lot of money and sometimes it's not. It's a lot when you and your ace pitcher can't agree on a fair contract and you are willing to risk alienating him by criticising him in an arbitration process. It's not a late when you decide that maybe you don't need 6 outfielders after all.

To people smarter than myself, I'm sure this all makes sense.

nope, doesn't make sense to us either, chuck!

I am sure nobody is confused by my post. Also no confusion about $400,000 not being a lot.

The confusion is in why the $400,000 difference in Arb figures is not split as used to happen fairly often in the past. It now seems to be policy by all/most teams to go to a hearing. Which can be upsetting.

Is "File and Trial" still a mystery? I thought the system was well understood.

Thanks Richard. I did not know that that there was a deadline to negotiating.

I remember many odd cases from the past. The best to me was Marge Schott's, lets flip a coin. Done in the parking lot. I don't know who won. The player I think.

I remember the Expos M Grissom, I think, saying he had to listen to the Expos representative tell him for 3 hrs how terrible he was.

I was surprised by what Stroman said. File and trial is all about presenting comparables. Apparently they still justify why those comparables were chosen by depreciating there own player. That's unreasonable.

Every Team tries to save as much money as possible in everything, that's just Business. Ideally every cent saved increases the caliber of the next Player acquired, or increases the money available at the Trade Deadline - ideally.

why do players even go into those hearings?

Agreed uo. The stuff said in those hearings is nasty and insulting.

In Stroman's case he always tried his best. He came back to help out in 2015. An amazing feat. He really lives up to his self pride and high standards.

Having a cell phone and twitter is like wearing shoes. His tweet was not that bad IMO. I mean he was disgraced.

The official wording is that the both player and team plead their cases. I can't find any information as to whether it's just a formality that the player is present (since the agent likely does all the talking) or if it's an actual requirement. It could be that the player wants to be present simply because it's his career and his earning power at stake. As well, if it's not an actual requirement for the player to be there it seems unlikely the agent would try to dissuade the player from attending, since a rift between the team and the player probably benefits the agent's commissions in the long run (player is more likely to test free agency if he's angry at the team bad-mouthing him at the hearings) and I doubt the team would be allowed to weigh in on it one way or the other since it would likely be viewed as some kind of conflict of interest.

The part that bothers me is that some players act like they're shocked the team would try to make a case against them... I mean, what did they THINK the team was going to say at the hearing? If the team had a "he's worth whatever he's asking" stance, the case would never be going to arbitration in the first place.

In Stroman's case, he likely retracted those original tweets on his agent's advice, ie. "don't whine in a public forum because it could contribute to being labeled as a distraction or a bad makeup player, which will hurt your value when it comes to free agency."

The arb hearing in entirely on Stroman's agency. They could have settled.
Besides, Stroman did not complain about the process when he won last year.

It seems the players is required to attend the arbitration hearing.

Tillman back to Baltimore for 3M plus up to 7M probably based on innings pitched.

No pitch clock this year.

2.05 minutes between inning for a locally televised game and 2:25 minutes during nationally televised games. Can somebody clarify which Blue Jays games count as locally televised? I'm guessing all the games against Boston and New York will have the longer ads.

Donaldson saying that extension talks with Jays are "not there" and he will now focus on season. He added that he expects to become a FA .

Sounds like the jays are not even interesting in seeing if there's any common ground. Sad..... very sad. Should have traded him in the off season then.

Logic says all Sportsnet games are locally televised. If also on an American Network, that might qualify as a National broadcast. Either way, 20 seconds of commercial time earns a lot of money.

Anyone interested in Tim Lincecum as a Reliever?

I'm not sure that follows from the news that they are not going to talk anymore. It will look like a sound move if they get a good prospect at the deadline and Vlad looks as if he can handle 3B. Given that's a possible future -- how is this sad? JD deserves to get paid and the Jays FO needs to do what's best for the team long-term. Historically, 3Bmen can break down quite quickly.

Just a few names and a subjective age at what their last useful season was:

Matt Williams 33
Troy Glaus 31
David Wright 30
Robin Ventura 34


Not perfect comps, but none of them had the wear and tear of spending years wearing the tools of ignorance in the early years of their careers.

Sad that it seems that they are not interested in even finding out what JD wants.

If the preliminary discussion shows the Jays being interested in only three years and the Donaldson Team being interested in five or more years, you are not on the same page. I’d break off all negotiations as well. I still think that a three year $100.0 Million contract offer would get the interest back up. Might need Rogers to step in here.

The other JD, Martinez, is nearing a deal with the Red Sox.

It was always the best roster fit among the FTAGACs (franchises that actually give a crap). The number of teams that are part of that community appears to have dwindled.

The Jays got the best years of Donaldson's career, have one year remaining where he is projected to be elite, and will lose him when he's going to require a huge contract + likely to start declining. I don't see the issue. As we have seen firsthand with Bautista, players who think they can beat father time usually lose and lose badly.

It's not really surprising.  Shapiro and Atkins have been pretty clear that they like to spread around risk.  They would be more likely to sign up Guerrero Jr. or Bichette after a year of solid major league play to a 7 year contract with a couple of option years, than to sign a great 33 year old player to a 5 year contract.  It's not an unreasonable position to take even if it isn't what I would do. 

Sounds like the Jays are factoring decline while Donaldson feels like he can go another decade.
That didn't work out for Bautista. If he puts on an MVP season he's probably getting a crazy contract, but then again the Jays probable makes the playoffs. It's a reasonable gamble.

The Orioles tried to trade Machado, who does have another decade and the return wasn't there.
There's too many teams racing to the bottom to make any type of rebuild work.

Donaldson wants 7 years. 6/180 could do it. That's Pujols/Cabrera territory.

they were never signing donaldson.

Here are the team payrolls to date.  Basically, every team is under the cap but the Red Sox.

The Blue Jays have spent $156 million, more than $30 million under the cap.  Let's say Cobb wanted 4/60.  Would it have been so bad to give him 20, 15, 15 and 10?  I know that the club in the golden years had a rule against giving pitchers 4 year contracts, but the rigidity of the rule seemed (and seems) unwise. 

Martinez to red sox.

5yrs x $22m aav, but frontloaded with an opt out after 2yrs.

And another one bites the dust. D'Backs plus the Martinez hole with a 2 year deal for Jarrod Dyson.

Dyson at 2/7.5 is a crazy steal - probably a better deal than Granderson, who I thought was a great pickup by the Jays.

Give Donaldson the seven year contract he wants. Two years at $70.0 Million with an opt out: followed by one year at $30.0 Million with an opt out; followed by four years at 60.0 Million; for a grand total of $160.0 Million. Chances are excellent he uses the second opt out.

Atkins said he was after a Starter to be a Reliever for his Bullpen. Leff-handler Brett Anderson is a possibility because they have a very good idea of how his stuff would play. Lefty Jeff Locke has had two dreadful years as a Starter, but might thrive as a Reliever. Did the Jays give Tim Lincecum the guaranteed contract?

"Donaldson wants 7 years."
did JD or his agent say this or is it just speculation by bored internet writers, to use the term writers rather loosely.

Saw a comment today that Donaldson thinks he can "bring rain" until he's 39 or 40. Sounds to me like what Jose Bautista was saying a couple of years ago. You can understand a star player thinking he can defy the aging process, but it very seldom happens. Looks to me like Donaldson is thinking along the lines of at least a 6 year deal, which would include his age 38 season, and maybe 7 or 8 years. I imagine that next year, Harper and Machado are going to get a long deal like that, given how young they are, but teams just aren't doing those really long deals for guys Donaldson's age any more. I'm not surprised the Jays and Donaldson are not on the same page at this point, and I expect that Donaldson is not going to get the length of deal he is after if he hits free agency. So maybe he stays with the Jays when he sees that other teams are not offering him 6+ years.

Look at J.D. Martinez, who is only 30 years old. He is a somewhat comparable hitter over the last 4 years (WRC+, and he only got a 5-year deal, despite being 3 years younger than Josh will be, and it's not exactly at huge numbers, although there is the opt out option. Donaldson, of course, has much more value as a defender, but his range is declining, and his defense is only going to get worse. Maybe he's a 1st baseman by year 2 or 3 of the new contract. My guess is that he's over-estimating his market value in the current climate, and that he may end up staying with Toronto even if he becomes a free agent.

If you're a glass-half-full type, you can look at Beltre as a possible comp for Donaldson. Beltre has been very productive throughout his 30s (posting between 5 and 7 WAR in each of his age-33 to age-37 years, and 3.7 bWAR in 94 games at age 38 last year).

Dyson at 2/7.5? Sign me up. The evidence that management is getting a lot smarter is weak. A heckuva 4th outfielder and pinch-runner is worth quite a bit more than the 3rd man in the pen.

The Dyson contract is definitely a huge steal. Wish the Jays could have got him for that, or even a bit more, and dumped Zeke. Of course with free agency it always takes two to tango. It's a broken record, but having $11M available to spend right now instead of having it tied to Morales could have done wonders for this team, especially in this market.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Jays end up circling back on Oh, depending on how his medicals look. The low base/incentive driven deals for free agent relievers is a smart move given how unpredictable they can be.

at the moment, zeke likely isn't on the team.

dyson's a 34yr old coming off seaaon ending hernia surgery whose bat is really tough to keep in the lineup, despite the defense.

This is what I could find.
https://bluejaysnation.com/2018/02/19/the-jays-and-josh-donaldson-talked-extension-didnt-get-anywhere/
www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/josh-donaldson-putting-extension-talks-aside-focus-2018/
https://www.tsn.ca/donaldson-expects-to-hit-free-agency-1.1004171
https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/opinion/2018/02/19/blue-jays-make-an-offer-donaldson-could-refuse.html
https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/video/donaldson-puts-focus-on-season/c-1875104083
http://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/toronto-blue-jays/josh-donaldson-shuts-down-contract-extension-talks-with-blue-jays

Richard,

Blue Jays aggregator website does all the links for you. Just google bluejaysaggregator

I do, but not everyone likes to do everything for themselves. Atkins and Shapiro will never see eye-to-eye with Donaldson and his Agent on a contract. The only way Donaldson stays needs Rogers to step in. 3 Years and $100.0 Million will do it. If he says no, then ask him why he needs the guarantee against getting hurt, getting old and getting bad.

Donaldson is saying they disagree on his valuation when he's 39, 40.
That's 7-8 years.

Vladimir Guerrero was replacement level at age 36 and out of baseball after that.
There's only a couple of guys who have been great past 37.
It's not just performance, you have to factor in health.

Next year is going to be another interesting off-season.

Donaldson believes in his heart that he can be productive at age 39, but it was only two years ago that Jose Bautista was in a similar position in the last year of his contract.He was musing about getting 30 million a year on his next contract,was lucky to get 17 million from the Jays last year and, at this point, doesn't even have an invite to spring training.

If he is really looking at a 7 year contract, it is time to trade him.

It seems reasonable to me, that ownership and Shapiro have a "to do list" and use it to achieve their goals.

Many fans and media are trying to figure out this list. It is interesting and enjoyable to think along with them.

The FO cannot tell us everything. If they say something and some/most fans like what they say it gives a positive feeling. eg get younger and more athletic. Try to compete in 2018.

Donaldson may continue to be very productive in his 37-40 years but the age curve analysis says unlikely and I agree the the Jays should not be the team to pay very expensively to find out - My guess is that if he has a strong healthy season, he will probably get a 5 yr deal from one of the losers in the Machado sweepstakes (my guess is the Phillies) - I'm only ok for up to a 3yr deal.

Thanks for the links Richard

I'd go heavier on the AAV to get fewer years, but I don't think Donaldson would go for that. Ideally the Jays would have traded him already and still tried to piece together a 2nd WC team in 2018 (the competition aside from the Angels doesn't seem all that good), but for whatever reason (likely Rogers) it did not happen. So at this point it seems the logical end game is to trade him at the deadline if the team is out of it, or let him walk as a free agent if the team is competitive until the end/makes the playoffs. Getting suckered into a long-term deal (5-7 years) on a player who will be 33 at the start of his next contract is not something the Jays should be doing.

Let's hope the Martinez contract turns out as well for the Red Sox as the Ramirez & Sandoval contracts did - I remember how excited their fanbase/media were when those contracts were signed.

Martinez to me is a more inconsistent, more injured version of EE.

looks like fangraphs has officially folded in the zips into the projections.

they now have angels/jays projected within one war of each other, a good 5-6 ahead of the next best twins, but a good 7-9 behind the yanks/tribe/sox.

replace one of our offseason adds with a legit impact add, and we'd be projected as clear faves for the final playoff spot.

J.D. Martinez home and road wOBA the last 5 years:

Year	Home wOBA	Road wOBA
2013	.241	.324
2014	.389	.394
2015	.378	.367
2016	.434	.337
2017	.502	.354

He does hit the ball hard, but the park in Boston may not actually work in his favour.  Last year, he did most of his damage (by far) to centerfield and to right field.  Boston isn't the best park for that.  They will however get to DH him, which is a plus.

If Donaldson is determined to get a big 7 year deal then the Jays are smart to turn him down. Yeah, it sucks to not have him after this year but I sure don't want to see the Jays spend $30 mil a year on someone who is a negative WAR player in 5 years when they could be in the the thick of it with Vlad and Bo in their primes.

Fangraphs' Depth Charts Projections (now with both Zips and Steamer)


2B Travis: 445pa, 102wrc+, 2.7war650
3B Donaldson: 644pa, 141wrc+, 6.3war650
1B Smoak: 630pa, 116wrc+, 2.3war650
DH Morales: 560pa, 105wrc+, 0.7war650
LF Pearce: 455pa, 108wrc+, 1.4war650
RF Grichuk: 525pa, 103wrc+, 2.2war650
C Martin: 448pa, 100wrc+, 3.8war650
SS Tulo: 546pa, 97wrc+, 2.6war650
CF Pillar: 630pa, 89wrc+, 2.8war650

UT Solarte: 210pa, 104wrc+, 2.5war650
OF Granderson: 441pa, 107wrc+, 1.5war650
OF Carrera: 140pa, 84wrc+, 0.0war650
IF Diaz: 182pa, 91wrc+, 1.4war650
C Jansen: 160pa, 83wrc+, 2.0war650


SP Stroman: 32gs, 3.72era, 4.3war32
SP Happ: 29gs, 4.09era, 3.1war32
SP Sanchez: 23gs, 4.15era, 2.8war32
SP Estrada: 31gs, 4.68era, 1.9war32
SP Garcia: 21gs, 4.50era, 2.1war32
SP Biagini: 16gs, 4.55era*, 2.4war32* - numbers inflated by being mixed in with RP IP
SP Borucki: 6gs, 4.93era, 1.1war32

RP Osuna: 65.0ip, 3.10era, 1.7war65
RP Tepera: 65.0ip, 3.95era, 0.7war65
RP Loup: 55.0ip, 3.63era, 0.7war65
RP Barnes: 55.0ip, 4.31era, 0.4war65
RP Biagini: 30.0ip, 4.55era*, 0.0war65* - numbers deflated by being mixed in with SP IP
RP Ramirez: 45.0ip, 4.97era, -0.3war65
Everyone else replacement level

I can see the Jays doing well if our good players are healthy enough. Our defense is much improved in the OF because fly balls have a better chance of being caught this year.
Our depth is improved in all position areas.

Pitching is always an unknown. Ours looks as ok as everyone else except the Astros.

Regarding fangraph's projection, I suppose if they are 70% accurate that is not bad of a projection.

They have listed 7 SPs which takes into account the need for more than 5 SPs. Their list of 7 will start 158 games which accounts for the unknown factor which makes sense.

I suppose they anticipate about 3 teams in each league not having any chance. Detroit, maybe KC.

...replace one of our offseason adds with a legit impact add, and we'd be projected as clear faves for the final playoff spot.

Did we remember how truly bad Jose Bautista was, in almost every single category of comparison? Even Pearce and Carrera were better. Did we remember who pitched when Aaron Sanchez wasn't Aaron Sanchez? Bunch of guys named Who. They were terrible at best. Do we remember how ineffectively Francisco Liriano was until traded?

If you don't consider the return/additions made to be impact adds, please consider they could be worse.

The batting order looks ok. Travis/others playing 2nd base leadoff. Donaldson #2. Grichuk #6.

1) Aaron Sanchez said last year he's had a blister issue his entire career. It wasn't until 2017 that it became a problem. Was it an earlier finger injury than was actually discovered that started the problem. The baseball was very different last year, did it cause the problem? Or was it both? Aaron Sanchez could very easily generate 10-11 or more wins for the Jays in this Season.
2) Even at his present age Curtis Granderson is a better defender than Ezequiel Carrera and a much better hitter. Having Curtis in Left limits the exposure of Steve Pearce to the Pitchers he can hit very well and makes Carrera redundant. They should easily generate another 2-3 or more wins for the Jays.
3) Jaime Garcia is a much better choice for 5th Starter than was expected. By pushing Joe Biagini and Ryan Borucki down to 6th and 7th Starters respectively make this Rotation very solid. It gives those below them even more time for experience. This one move could generate at least 1-2 more wins for the Jays.
4) Adding Yangervis Solarte and Aledmys Diaz should keep Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki and Devon Travis fresher and perhaps playing longer. Either way, their acquisition is a huge upgrade on the prior options. This could be huge, any where from 5-15 or more wins for the Jays.

The Jays could very well challenge for the Division title with what they've done, but being successful within the Division makes everything that much easier. The Jays will play each Team in the A.L. East 19 times, but they need to be no worse than 10-9 against every Team. I think they can and should do much better. Neither Baltimore or Tampa Bay are competing this Season so dominating here is a must because Boston and New York will. The more games the Jays can possibly win verses Boston and New York the closer to the Division title the Jays get. It's that simple, just not that easy.

Health and Luck are relevant. They tend alternate between extremes on a regular basis but the frequency of the changes are never consistent. However, there will always be a change. Prior to 2015, the Jays were experiencing a period of years of excessive injuries/poor health and rather sad luck. In 2015 and 2016 everything changed, the magic happened. The Team was healthy both years and unbelievably good. It will be a long time before the Jays have an Offensive powerhouse like they did in 2015. The Pitching carried the 2016 Jays despite the offense. The 2018 Jays should have a Pitching Staff at least as good as 2016, if not better. Their Offense should be at least that good and maybe a bit better.

Devon Travis seems to be moving well in his recovery, now looking comfortable in the field.  Tulo is a little behind. 

notes from twitter, via Atkins:

- still says he thinks he can sign Donaldson
- says adding relief pitching is very likely still
- says backup catching might be something to look at but not urgent.

The Jays basically want a fair and equal sharing of Risk from the Donaldson camp.

Have to agree on all 3 points from Atkins.
1) Donaldson - he hasn't adjusted to how the market has readjusted itself. Heck, I don't know if I fully understand the new values as relievers go up to $10 mil a year for middle men and stars are now $20-25 mil a year for 5 years or less. Next winter will be interesting, but for a guy entering his age 33 season no more than a 5 year deal will be there, most likely a 3 year max with vesting options given this winter. If I was in his shoes I'd be trying for a 5 year from the Jays right now (including 2018) at $25 mil a year.

2) Relief pitching - adding more is always happening. Just watch the waiver wire over the next few weeks all the way up to mid April and a lot of good options could shoot through as teams hit tough choices.

3) Backup catching - a couple of prospects are close and cheap backup are always around. Yeah, the Jays have sucked at finding good ones the past few years but that might be bad luck as much as anything. Net value isn't high for having a top backup vs a poor one.

Getting suckered into a long-term deal (5-7 years) on a player who will be 33 at the start of his next contract is not something the Jays should be doing.

Concur. Donaldson's not getting a 7 year deal (certainly not from the Jays, and probably not from anyone).

I don't expect the Jays to do much waiver-wire stuff with a full 40-Man Roster. There will be a decision made on Ezequiel Carrera's future with the Team soon enough. Buck Martinez was on the Jeff Blair and spoke about Gift Ngoepe. http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/jeff-blair-show/feb-20-buck-martinez-on-josh-donaldson-situation/ He thought he was very good.

Waiver claims happen when you have room or have dross to clear. I expect the Jays to go after their choice, not someone else's rejects.

I can't agree at all with the view that Donaldson isn't going to get a 6 or 7 year deal, or that the Jays shouldn't give him such a deal.

Assuming he puts up a 5.5 WAR season this coming year (the low end of the projections), and with normal aging, you're still looking at a guy who is projected to be about a 2-WAR player at the very end of a seven year contract. There's no question he's going to get a longer contract than Lorenzo Cain and J.D. Martinez.

I don't know how you can possibly, with any confidence at all, decide that a player is going to be a 2 WAR player at 39 years of age, especially when it's 7 years in the future. Bautista, for example, was a 6.1 WAR player at 33, a 5.1 WAR player at 34, a 1.0 WAR player at 35 and a -1.7 WAR player at 36. Players can age very rapidly in their mid-30's. Sure Donaldson COULD be a 2 WAR player at 39, but he COULD also be a -1.7 WAR player, or worse. It's that risk that teams are shying away from, and rightfully so, IMO. There are a lot more star players who are out of the game by the time they are 39 than star players who are still good players at that age.

Donaldson's value hinges on what he does this year. He could be worth anything from 8 WAR to 0 based on health. He might hold its own with the bat, but his defense is going to drop. The loss of defensive value is what made Bautista useless. Donaldson has a complex swing with lots of moving parts. He's been able to get locked in, but he's also had slumps like anyone else.

Meanwhile the Yankees get Brandon Drury to cover their infield losses. Looks like the type of moves the Jays have been doing, but I prefer Solarte. The Rays ship out Souza. That's about 15 WAR dropped from last year's team. They look like a 70 win team to me.

When's the last time it was fun to head out to Tampa? 

Tampa's cost cutting is showing how little value teams are getting from punting seasons. The rays have given up very three first division MLB regulars and gotten very little in return.

Starters: Rotation:
Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, J.A. Happ, Marco Estrada and Jaime Garcia make up a very good Rotation in this Division, perhaps comparing well even in all of Baseball. When talking about health, the entire Division needs to be included in the discussion as they are no more luckier than the Jays to not have significant health issues.
Starters: Primary Backups:
Joe Biagini, Ryan Borucki, Taylor Guerrieri and Thomas Pannone are the most likeliest of the Pitchers to be called up and probably the most advanced. I think it's much more likely Guerrieri is in the Bullpen than Biagini would be. Biagini is needed much more as primary callup. There hasn't been this much ability available to the Jays nor as good a group as this is in a very long time.
Starters: Additional Backup:
Deck McGuire, Sean Reid-Foley, Jon Harris, Chris Rowley, Luis Santos, Jordan Romano, Francisco Rios are some of the closest available Starters the Jays have should the need arise. Not everyone will be need but someone should be ready enough if the Jays needed to dig this deep. Right now providing for the Parent makes it harder to develop all the rising talent. It's good problem to have.

I don't think the Yankees are going to get much from Drury. He has played all 3 of his seasons in pre-humidor Chase Field, a tremendous hitters' park, so his overall numbers are really distorted. His home OPS is about .900, and his road OPS is about .650, a terrible number. Yankee Stadium is great for lefties, but not nearly so much for righties. One thing you could say from a NYY viewpoint is that he is quite young, and may still have some development in him.

BTW, speaking of the new humidor in Chase Field, for those of you in fantasy pools, make sure you downgrade the D-Backs hitters, and upgrade their pitchers. The humidor they are going to be using this year is likely to have a big impact, as the air is very dry in 'Zona, much more so than for Coors Field, the other park to use a humidor.

"I don't know how you can possibly, with any confidence at all, decide that a player is going to be a 2 WAR player at 39 years of age, especially when it's 7 years in the future."

People take these very rough calculations way too literally. There were 6 players 38 or over last year who had at least 100 PAs in all of baseball. They combined for a total of 2.4 WAR.

Look at Pujols and Cabrera. Probably the two best offensive players of their generation. Pujols was done at 36 and Cabrera looks done at 34. Or, look at it this way. Players who were 32, 7 years ago. By WAR: Andres Torres, Furcal, Byrd, Hudson, Scott, Pierre, F. Sanchez all had a WAR over 2. All were out of baseball years ago.

Projecting a player, any player, to be valuable in their mid to late 30's is a bad idea. Projecting any player to have any value in their late 30's is crazy. I understand Josh feeling he can beat the odds, these athletes are driven, confident people and it's part of what makes them great but the Jays should pass if he wants something beyond a few years.

The story from the Ray Tank is that they are receiving surplus value from trading Souza, including 2 PTBNL who are not throw-ins.

What's left is a team that will not hit many homeruns, although the pitching could be decent.
The opposite of the Orioles.

Alex Cora is on record saying Hanley Ramirez is Boston's first baseman and their no. 3 hitter.
He's 34 and has had 2 bad seasons in the last 3 years.

Bautista was a late bloomer and he faded early. I think that's part of the trends.
Beltre played 77 games in the majors at 19 and he's still productive in his late 30s.
Just like it took Donaldson a long time to put it together, it's unlikely he can keep it together once his body starts slowing him down.

"People take these very rough calculations way too literally. There were 6 players 38 or over last year who had at least 100 PAs in all of baseball. They combined for a total of 2.4 WAR."

Not considering survivorship bias will bite you every time.

Realized that this comment looks like it was directed at you Gelvin -- just making clear that it was not, just the extrapolation people make from those 6 players.

So TB is rebuilding. All the off season moves should weaken them a lot on paper anyway. The fan base will not cause problems I expect.

This is TB's way, which the Jays or rich teams like Boston can never do.

Every non ALE team should check out TB's 40 man roster and their minor league rosters because they should have massive quantity. Trading for prospects and using the draft will give them a big base of prospects.

Projecting Josh Donaldson is really tough.  Between age 27 and 31, he had 3270 PAs with an OPS+ of 144 and 37 WAR.  I ran a Play Index for players who played at least 60% of the time at third base and had over 2500 PAs and an OPS+ between 135 and 155.  I got 5 players other than Donaldson- A-Rod, Mathews, Rosen, Tony Perez and Heinie Groh. Perez and A-Rod had some decent years in their late 30s, but didn't average 2 WAR/ year. Mathews, Rosen and Groh did not.  If you expand it to OPS+ between 130 and 160, you get also Mike Schmidt, Wade Boggs, Ron Cey, Scott Rolen and David Wright. Schmidt was great to age 37.   Boggs consistently delivered 2-4 WAR from age 35-39.  Cey had some good years in his late 30s; Rolen did not.  David Wright has, of course, been injured and isn't a good bet to deliver much.

Anyways,  it doesn't really matter how much you deliver at age 37-39 if you're looking at a 7 year contract.  It's about how much you deliver over the entire term.  So let's try to give it a shot as of today.  Donaldson has been durable than most of the other third baseman.  If you set the minimum PA bar at 3000, you get Schmidt, A-Rod, Mathews, Donaldson, Perez, Rosen, Cey, Boggs.   The other 7 have produced WAR between age 33-39 as follows:
Schmidt-32.4   , A-Rod-17.5  , Mathews- 10.1, Perez- 13.4, Rosen-0, Cey- 13.1, Boggs- 26.8. 

 I'm confident that neither the Rosen nor Schmidt scenarios are very likely at all but if you average both in, it doesn't change much. The seven other third basemen averaged 34 WAR during the age 27-31 period and 16 WAR between ages 33-39  I think you can safely project Donaldson, as of today, for 12-20 WAR over the 7 years.  If he wants to do better than that, he'll need to up his chicken intake. 

Do we have a current $ per win number?  Here is a fangraphs article on it from July, 2017, but I suspect the projected numbers will be lower after the 2017-18 off-season (thanks to the effect of the very small increases in the payroll tax threshold).  It looks to me like something between $10-12 million per WAR over the 7 years from 2019-25 is reasonable.  If you choose a conservative $11 million and use 16 WAR for Donaldson's projection you end up at about 7/176.  If that's the kind of number Donaldson is looking for, it's not crazy. 

I'm convinced the number is not crazy but I am also unconvinced Jays' chances of resigning him go down substantially by waiting and watching in 2018. Waiting also leaves the possibility of a trade mid-season (after which he could still re-sign -- if handled delicately). If he has a monster year the number is unlikely to go up much. If he is injured (I can't get past the wear and tear he put on his body as a C) then the Jays will know the most about his health going forward and have the best information of any team bidding.

Add to that we'll all have more evidence whether Vlad Jr. can handle 3B. Basically, to sum up, I have no problem moving on and forgetting the recent news that talks have ended. It's of little to no consequence for the team moving forward.

If I were to give a breakdown of a reasonable salary by age for Donaldson, it would be:
33- $40 million
34- $35 million
35- $30 million
36- $25 milion
37- $20 million
38- $15 million
39- $10 million

5/150 or 7/175.  It's funny.  My numbers haven't changed really over the last year. 

The 2012 Season was the turning point for the Toronto Blue Jays under Alex Anthopoulos and Paul Beeston. This is the year the Jays lose their best three young Starters in less than one week, June 11th-15th - basically gone from the next 12 months or more.
This is where the current Blue Jay Team started. The Replacements pitched well enough and the Offense carried the Jays over the next 38 games to a 19-19 record, 51-51 overall (J.A. Happ, amongst others, was acquired around this time). The Jays were still within a couple of games of the Wild Card. Then they lost significant Hitters to injury (Bautista and others) and fell away from the chase.
Up to this point the Jays followed the Tampa model fairly well (the Jays had more money available). A.A. knew he needed a quality Starter and a big Bat. He has two contract offers basically accepted. Paul Beeston veto's the 6-year deal A.A. has with Anibal Sanchez https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/sanchan01.shtml ( the right idea?) which turns out to have massive far reaching aspects to the Jays. The Hitter, who wasn't mentioned, pulled out of the offer/deal citing not wanting to play on turf. He took a shorter deal for less money with another Team.

We all know what now happened next. I personally think Josh Johnson needed to be babied more than being depended on. If he's just 80% of what he was in Miami the Jays make the Postseason. But what happens here gets Anthopoulos and Beeston fired. Enough said.

"If I were to give a breakdown of a reasonable salary by age for Donaldson, it would be:
33- $40 million
34- $35 million
35- $30 million
36- $25 milion
37- $20 million
38- $15 million
39- $10 million"


I don't think is reasonable at all. It's a massive overpay. Forget Schmidt who was not really very much like Donaldson and look at Donaldson's B-reference comps. Not a single one of them had any success after 34 years old. You are making it seem like there are two likely outcomes for Donaldson and it's in the middle, but it isn't in the middle. The odds are way on one side for Donaldson starting to decline in the next year or two and not being very valuable for much longer after that.

I don't think you appreciate how few players, even great players retain their value into their mid-30's. You know who the best player 34 and over was last year? Nelson Cruz. There isn't a single player who was 34 or over last year I'd want to be paying $25M a year for and that would be year 2/7 for Donaldson. Baseball is skewing younger and younger and players are starting to decline earlier and earlier. You could have written the same thing about Bautista two years ago and found some comps that showed him aging well. If this is the contract Donaldson wants, I'll let him go be an albatross somewhere else.

He might hold its own with the bat, but his defense is going to drop. The loss of defensive value is what made Bautista useless.

Hi Scottt. Can you clarify? Bautista never had great defensive numbers. He had ONE positive dWar season - 2009, the year BEFORE his big breakout. After that, the best he got was a 0.0 dWar, all the others negative. His last 4 seasons were dWar: -1.3, -1.1, -1.4, -1.4 - pretty consistent. His oWar in those years was 6.7, 5.4, 1.8, -0.9

Did you mean to say the loss of OFFENSIVE value is what made Bautista useless? Because he really didn't change much defensively over his Jays career - it's the OFFENSE that fell off the table in 2016 and 2017, which is what made him useless. If he keept putting up 6.7 or 5.4 oWar, then his defense would have been acceptable/liveable (not desirable, but not enough reason to bench him).

There are very, very few players like Donaldson.  Actually, now that I think of it, none.  You've got a player who was a catcher who did not succeed behind the plate, moved to third base and was the second best player in baseball from age 27-31.  The BBRef comps are mostly useless- Kevin Mitchell, David Justice, Phil Nevin...These guys were never remotely close to the best player in the league over a 5 year span.  Jose Bautista and Al Rosen are useful reminders that players sometimes crap out at 35 or earlier, and Rosen, of course, made my list.  However, Rosen had his last good year at age 30 and by 31, Rosen was already only an average player.  Donaldson is already way ahead of him and probably as far ahead of him as he is behind Schmidt. 

I suppose you could argue that Donaldson should not be expected to have the durability of Schmidt or Boggs because he does not have the same history for as long.  It's a decent argument.  If you want to say that Donaldson should be expected to produce 12 WAR rather than 16 WAR over the 7 years, there is an argument for that, too. 

Hi Glevin,

It's a big stretch, imho, to assert that Donaldson is going to age worse than the well-established aging pattern. Doubtless players decline faster than in the steroid era, but we can look beyond that at a broader range of players, which is what the aging curves do.

None of Donaldson's B-ref comps were nearly as good a player as he has been at ages 27-31. (Bautista is somewhat close). No wonder they didn't continue producing in their late 30s - they were all vastly inferior players.

Donaldson has produced ~35 WAR from age 27-31 while playing a mid-level defensive position (2B, 3B, CF). If you look for similarly good players (28-42 WAR over those ages, playing a mid-level defensive position, last 40 years), you see a number of similar players: Boggs, Schmidt, Utley, Cano, Biggio, Chipper Jones, Beltran, and Scott Rolen. You could add Jeff Bagwell as an unusually athletic 1B as a comp, but I'll stick to my parameters.

Their ages 33-39 WAR: Boggs (26.8), Schmidt (28.4), Utley (13.8, one year left), Cano (10.7, first 2 years), Biggio (15.9), Chipper Jones (29.9), Beltran (14.4), Rolen (14.9).

The worst outcome from the above players, if we assume an average value of $9m/win over the period, is a value of $126m; if you have a 7/175 contract, that is hardly crippling. The average outcome from that set (excluding Cano) would be worth $185m.

I don’t understand why some people are so anxious to pay full value (if not more) for the WAR that Donaldson might provide over the next half-dozen years or so. When the Jays finally became great again, it was because they had players like Bautista, Donaldson, Travis, Pillar, Stroman, Sanchez, and Osuna at well below WAR cost. Even if Donaldson ages reasonably well — a big if — at 7/175 and at the Jays’ current payroll level, the team would more or less be treading water, and they would have to be that much more creative at finding low-cost/high-talent players, in an era where all teams, rich ones included, are learning to deploy their resources more efficiently.

I do think that it's a good idea to have some continuity on a club.  I'm not criticizing management if they don't want to spend 7/175 for Donaldson.  They could just as easily decide that they want Stroman around for the next 7 years, and they would have to pay for that too (but less).  What I don't agree with is an approach of always trying to beat the $/WAR value.  You have some players who get paid relatively little in their pre-arb and early arb years, and you have others who are paid more or less market value for their work.  Hopefully, you can have a few who are around and are the face of the franchise for a long period. 

greenfrog,

Speaking only for myself, I've been mostly writing in response to those who have said it would be foolish to go to seven years for Donaldson, or that he isn't going to get such a contract. At 7/175, it wouldn't be a great deal, but it would be defensible. I wouldn't be upset if the front office decided not to go that far, especially if Vladimir Guerrero Jr. convinces us this year that he can start his MLB career at 3B.

The attempt to find good comps for Donaldson is admirable. I'm not so sure we're looking at the right players, though. Guys like Schmidt, ARod, etc. were very good much younger than Donaldson. I'd be more interested in seeing the remaining careers for guys like Bautista who didn't become good until much later, as was the case with Donaldson. There is the problem of whether you include guys from the steroid era as well, especially those who were rumoured to be users. Edgar Martinez is somebody who didn't become good until about the same age as Donaldson, and he aged very well. Bautista, of course didn't. Those are the types I'd be interested in.

Boggs, Edgar, Chase Utley, Brian Giles and Bautista all had late starts.  It is unusual.  Clemente didn't start to hit until he was 25, but played regularly from age 20.

By the way, there have been 66 major league players at any position who had more than 3000 PAs and an OPS+ of greater than 130 during the age 27-31 period.  The top 10 by WAR are Mays, Musial, Morgan, Hornsby, Gehrig, Bonds, Williams, Boggs, Yaz and Aaron.  Donaldson sits 18th and nestled between Cano and Rickey Henderson.  Donaldson was better at age 27-31 than any of the other late bloomers, save Boggs. 

FWIW, subjectively I think that Donaldson will get closer to 20 than to 12 WAR for the age 33-39 period.  He's likely to be more durable than Utley, Giles and Bautista (in my view), and to hit well, but not as well as Boggs and Edgar in his late 30s.  I'm a big believer that the players who age the best with the bat are the ones with the top-notch contact ability (Edgar, Musial, Williams, Boggs).  I think that he will field well enough to stay at third as Boggs did, and hit well enough to move to first base or DH as others have done. 

Yeah. I should have written about Bautista lack of defensive value.
The argument holds, though. Donaldson 's defense will erode with time even if the offense doesn't 

The worst possible outcome is David Wright. Clearly the risk will be much higher on the team that will sign Donaldson than on the Bringer of Rain. The one way to mitigate that is with a lower base pay and performance bonuses. Maybe a front loaded contract with an opt out would help because players are so scared to live up to their contract. Tanaka didn't opt out. Price isn't opting out. I don't think Martinez will opt out if he's a DH.

The Jays may also need to set aside some long-term funds in anticipation of extending Guerrero Jr. and Bichette. On balance, I would probably prefer to see the team find a way to keep those players (assuming they stay on their current trajectory) into their early 30s rather than allocate a large portion of the payroll to Donaldson over the next seven years.

I love Donaldson, but I think continuity can be overrated. The Yankees are doing just fine without Cano, for example -- as are the Cardinals without Pujols. And the Tigers probably have some concerns about the upcoming continuity they have with Cabrera (-0.2 WAR in 2017):

2018: $30m
2019: $30m
2020: $30m
2021: $30m
2022: $32m
2023: $32m
2024: ($8m buyout of team option)

Mike, your idea of guys who control the strike zone lasting better sounds plausible. Lots of examples of that. On the other hand, there are guys like Pujols - he's a guy who had great contact ability, 7 straight seasons .327+ AVE. with very few strikeouts. So far he has played the 1st 4 of his age 33-39 seasons, and has produced 8.1 WAR total, with last year being negative 1.4. He could very well end up with somewhere around 5 or 6 total WAR for the 7 years.

I looked at couple of other former players who fit that bill, Rod Carew and Tony Gwynn, and they both lasted very well, accumulating WAR in the high teens from 33-39. A much older player who had a very high average with few strikeouts was Paul Waner, who had a great season at 33, a very good one at 34, a good one at age 36, and very little else, although he played until 41. He had 17 WAR from 33-39, most of it in his age 33-34 seasons.

Donaldson, of course strikes out far more often than those guys, and doesn't hit for anywhere near the average, but has way more power. Bautista had similar K rates, averages and power to Donaldson, when Bautista was in his peak years. The averages were a bit lower, but Jose did hit over .300 once, which Donaldson has never done. I really like the comp of Bautista to JD.

"It's a big stretch, imho, to assert that Donaldson is going to age worse than the well-established aging pattern."

You know what the real well-established aging pattern is?Players decline very quickly in their mid 30's. Almost all players at every position at every skill level. There are literally no players in baseball above the ages of 34 who are worth what you want to pay Donaldson until he's 39. The ideas of $/WAR and average decline of 0.5 WAR are very general and rough. People are way too attached to them as if they were some scientific fact. (People are way too attached to WAR's accuracy but that's another thing) a 5 WAR player is not going to get paid $50M a year. The highest paid player in baseball made $33M last year. If someone produced WAR of 2, 2, 1.5, 1.5, 1 would you want to give them a 5/$70M contract? Not even close.

The problem you have with the comps is that you are choosing your own careful chosen criteria. Why is WAR between ages 27-31 for "mid-level positions" the factor in seeing how someone will age? Is there any known specific correlation for that? Why not take SS like Tejada or corner OFers like Bautista? Why not take Pujols who was a very athletic 1Bman? Why not take Miguel Cabrera who played over 300 games at 3B during this 27-31 period? Where is ARod? Why are your parameters for similarity better or more accurate than Baseball Reference's? You complain that they took inferior players and you took almost only superior players. Who not take career WAR? Why not take WAR for all players age 30-31. Why not take players whose WAR declined 3 straight years from 29-31. Why not take players who had X WAR aged 24-31. You literally took the only possible criteria that would come up with a result that made it likely that Donaldson would age well.


Let's say Rolen is a decent comp (not really-better defensively, worse offensively) than Donaldson. How much would a team pay for that value aged 33-39? he had WAR of 3.4, 5.2, 4.1, 1.6, 0.6, 0, and 0 (retired last 2 years). How much would a team pay for that period? You're talking about 3 valuable years and 4 where the player will be massively overpaid. Having four empty years on a big contract is a killer. This is why the Jays are looking at a 3 or maybe 4 year deal. You really think the worst possible outcome for Donaldson is $126M of value? The worst outcome is a quick decline and a complete albatross of a contract and it's a very real possibility.

Donaldson loses a lot of value if he has to move from 3B. The worst 1B/DH are guys on the tail end of long contracts while good hitters like Logan Morisson, Reynolds, Dudas and Adam Lind are unsigned.

I don't know why Cano always gets dragged into the conversation.
Cano wasn't old when he went on the market and the Yankees would have been better with him.
They could have extended him early on by overpaying him. It would have been a good move.
Ellsbury was a terrible move. They Yankees is one of the few franchises that can shrug off such a bad move without suffering for half a decade. And it's not like the current Yankees system was build on tanking. What they did well was sign free agents and trade them for prospects. The Marlins formula. The opposite of what AA did.

No FO big shot likes to be fired but it happens. Probably due to their team underperforming.
Some bigshot names would be T Epstein, A Friedman, Douquette, Dombrowski, Cashman and Shapiro. The Detroit and Toronto guys have less pressure to win than the others. A lot of pressure to smaller market guys in SF and St Louis because they are committed to a "win now" window/win curve.

They only have so long of a survival rope.

Detroit is in full rebuild at this time, but we can guess how long their fans will be patient.

Toronto is in the last stages of win now. Actually maybe the last stage of win now and rebuild now also. We have plugged every hole to win now ie depth and at the same time held onto and added to the future core. Sanchez and Grichuk possibly are future core guys. The farm which looks good has to fill out the rest of the future core.

Detroit got into the playoffs many times, maybe 5 times in the last 8 years by winning a weak division. Cleveland spoiled that. The now have expensive players like Cabrera left over from the past success. X Tiger Verlander.

Detroit should have a small payroll now I think.

"The ideas of $/WAR and average decline of 0.5 WAR are very general and rough."

Maybe so, but I haven't seen any evidence that they are inaccurate.

"There are literally no players in baseball above the ages of 34 who are worth what you want to pay Donaldson until he's 39."

Not so, in the worst season for older hitters in recent memory both Nelson Cruz and Adrian Beltre exceeded that standard.

Rolen is probably the worst comp on my list - he had a known major injury going into his 33-39 years.

I chose my criteria before knowing what the results would be, for what it's worth. Nobody seriously suggests that performance from more than 3 or 4 years previously adds anything to predictions of future performance, so I limited my sample. I did not take "almost only superior players" - Boggs and Schmidt were better than Donaldson over the sample, Utley slightly better, but Beltran, Biggio, Cano, Jones and Rolen were all significantly worse.

"Not so, in the worst season for older hitters in recent memory both Nelson Cruz and Adrian Beltre exceeded that standard."

Neither of those guys landed a seven-year contract.

Signing someone long term revolves around Health/Injury History as the primary consideration. Donaldson's injury in early 2017 is not of long term significance and wasn't from one of the "danger areas". Very, very few people have a health record like this at any age, let alone just at his.
Signing someone long term revolves around the Defense and how long he's likely to continue being/staying useful. At his present age he's still an exceptional defender and that isn't fading any time soon and it won't be fast. Very few people are this good defensively and most of them are younger.
Signing someone long term revolves around the Offense and what to expect going forward. He's an MVP, being of that caliber before his award and staying at that caliber after the award. Very, very few people are of this consistency or even of being this good. You don't forget how and adjustments can be made.
Signing someone long term revolves around a Team's Budget and the long term effect it will have on the future of the Team. Question abound. Can the team afford the contract? Should they sign the contract? How can they not? Who's coming up next? Is there the will to make it happen?

After this year, Tulo will be 34, will have made 125M and will be guaranteed another 34M.
Donaldson will be 33, will have made 57M and will be signing for at least another 125M.

It is difficult for me when young Jays fail. C Rasmus and T Snider. But is happens a lot.

Grichuk or T Hernandez seem to be the RF for the next 4 years.

bpoz - checked Cot's to see how far down Detroit has gone.
Currently by the 'tax tracker' they are at $138,389,600 factoring in all salaries and benefits, etc. that need to be factored into that. Raw payroll (which is what we normally talk about) is at $125,895,000 (factoring in minimum salary guys and Prince Fielder and Verlander who they are still paying $6 and $8 mil a year to this year and next with Fielder still being paid in 2020 - ouch).

Last year Detroit ended with a $207,204,947 payroll for their 40 man on closing day ($199,750,600 on opening day). That included $19.5 mil to 3 guys who didn't play with them at all in the 2017 regular season (Fielder, Mark Lowe, Mike Pelfrey).

So yeah, they dropped drastically even with that money going to guys no longer there. They owe $30+ mil a year from now until 2023 to Miguel Cabrera plus an $8 mil buyout for 2024 (who had a negative WAR last year - ouch and is entering his age 35 season, double ouch) and $24-25 mil a year for 2018/19/20 to Zimmermann (0.3 WAR last year entering his age 32 season after a 0.2 the year before). Boy did the older Illich sign some bad deals near the end...guess he knew he wouldn't be around for the end of them so why not.

Snider hasn't been in the majors in 2 years but hit for a 690 OPS in the PCL in 2016 and 807 last year (including time in Vegas). Ouch. He looks so promising at first but entering his age 30 season he will be lucky to get any more ML time. Just over 5 years of service time now so at least he'll get a decent pension. 10 years maxes it out at over $100k a year plus full medical (very big deal in the USA, think they get that for just reaching the majors for a day).