It helps that Bauer is twitting that Toronto is a nice city.

Considering Bauer came from Cleveland, I'm sure Shapiro has an opinion on him, but I have no idea what it is.
Toronto certainly has the budget space to get a top guy who doesn't require more than 4 years.
But it's not a good market. The Mets just signed Mallex Smith, Jose Peraza,  Arodyz Vizcaino and 8 others to minor league contracts.

On the question of Vlad - I'm from Missouri.

I know what you mean, but in present circumstances, "the Show Me" state isn't exactly displaying great judgment. 

There is a photo on that article showing how he looks now - looks good, now can he keep it up until April?

Somehow didn't catch that Tyler O'Neill, a Canadian, won the LF gold glove in the NL. Always nice to see Canadians doing well in the majors.

I wouldn't take Bauer's Tweets seriously. He's likely considering Toronto (like he is every team) but he's very big on brand building and helping baseball become more popular via social media. This is his way of engaging fans during the off-season and increasing his visibility. I actually like it and hope more players start doing it. Baseball winters, with a few exceptions, have become long, boring, and uneventful. This one will be no exception. If more free agent players are out there talking to fans and making them feel apart of the process, then it's a pretty cool way to keep the fans' minds on the sport during the dull parts of the winter.

As far as whether he would be a realistic signing, hard to say. It helps that Shapiro and Atkins have a history with him. We will see how far that takes them.

If Vlad is pulling a fast one on us fans, we will still get to see what he looks like when ST starts.

He mentioned the success Tatis and Soto got due to hard work. He credits his hits to his God given ability and not hard work. After 7 pm he only drinks water. A good plan to lose weight. Hope his strength and energy is not suffering. Maybe the less eating has improved his energy. He works out at the Jays facility (maybe in the DR) so training personnel are present I would think. A great hitting Vlad that can play 3B decently translates into a Tatis/Soto type player. Wait and see.

I read somewhere that Vlad is spending part of the offseason with Bo and Dante Bichette. I don't think he will show up at spring training at 280 lbs. again.

The key to Vlad will always be comittment and not talent.

If Vlad has lost 50 lb then I congratulate him and his dedication. 280 down to 230?

Given the teams statement that they want to get a ton of value in one or two players I'd say Bauer is the biggest bang for the buck available. He'll be expensive but not as much as last winters big pitcher was (Gerrit Cole who the Jays were apparently 2nd in the chase for, offering over $300 million) but more than the Jays big gun was (Ryu was 'just' $80 million). If I was the Jays I'd be after a 2-3 year deal since he claims to want to go year to year, just because of the fact he will cost a draft pick and won't get one back. 5+ years is a massive risk for a pitcher to give out. IMO 3 years $100 million would be ideal - he makes a lot, with a COVID discount, and would be here for the same time Ryu is. 3 years to develop a starting staff.

I previously indicated I was interested in Bauer but I’m out now. Don’t like him as a person, don’t like his talk of using substances to improve his spin rate, don’t think his track record is solid enough for $100M+. Springer and Lindor (with an extension) are more interesting high-end targets.

Lots of factors here - money is always the biggest, #2 is years, #3 is how good is the team, #4 is location. Jays always lose on #4, but the other 3 they are in good shape with now. Don't see any reason the Jays can't compete on dollars per year and years is more a question of risk. Bauer wants short term deals which makes the years a minor issue.

One of the few positive memories of 2020 will have been meeting Tyler O'Neil when he came through the western KY leg of the Cardinals caravan. Good kid, loads of power, and still pretty young. I think he could become a better version of Grichuk if things break right.

Never heard Bauer say he uses substances, but has complained that 70% of MLB pitchers do use them.

Back to Awards. Teoscar Hernandez scored a Silver Bat.

Anyone who has watched MLB the past five seasons, or has been lucky enough to catch their share of Cleveland games would know Lindor is a treasure to watch over the course of a baseball season. I can't imagine any Jays fan complaining over losing prospects or truckloads of Rogers' money to have him manning shortstop (perhaps second or third base later in his career). This isn't a Jose Reyes situation either; Lindor is only 27.

Great to see Teoscar getting that award for RF'ers. FanGraphs has Teoscar as the best offensive RF in the AL this year so it wasn't just a HR/RBI thing.

Past OF SS awards went to...

• CF: Lloyd Moseby (1983)
• LF: George Bell [3] (1985, 1986, 1987)
• RF: Jesse Barfield (1986)
• LF/RF: Joe Carter [2] (1991, 1992)
• RF: Shawn Green (1999)
• CF: Vernon Wells (2003)
• RF: José Bautista [3] (2010, 2011, 2014)

Josh Donaldson was the last Jay to win one (2015/2016), while the first was Damaso Garcia (1982) with a 95 OPS+ (his 310 BA and 54 SB got it, it was a different time - just 21 walks vs 20 CS, yikes).

You don't trade for one year of a guy who is going to hit free agency unless he gets overpaid.
The market is horrible right now, but if you try to extend one guy, that doesn't matter as you're only betting against yourself.
I can't imagine any Jays fan looking to sabotage a rebuild by trading away key prospects at the last minute for one year of a guy on a slump who think he should get paid like an MVP.
This is like the Dickie trade. Lindor does not make the Jays a World Series favorite.

Lindor would make sense for the Yankees. Which is why LeMahieu is a real possibility.
If they spend the money on Lindor, they might just move Torres to second.

I was actually thinking about the baseball awards, which generally have a) a long and storied history, and b) nevertheless, an incomplete history. Take the World Series MVP - it started out as a car awarded by SPORT magazine in 1955. (The first one went to Johnny Podres of the Dodgers.) Needless to say, the World Series didn't begin in 1955. The Cy Young Award, the MVPs, Rookie of the Year - the story is the same.

Oh gosh. A deep historical dive may be coming.

The award finalists are weird.

Is Lourdes Gurriel one of the three best LF defensively? If he is, that says more about the position than him. I mean, he is fine, but hardly elite.

And as for Montoyo... wow. Top 3? How about Bottom 3? That nonsense with the post-season Pitching Rotation alone should disqualify him.

The awards are for the regular season only and Toronto wasn't favorite to make the playoffs.
Montoyo played it exactly like Cash, flipping the pitchers at the right time without looking at the performance.
That's not why the Jays lost. Ryu was bad, the defense wasn't good and the offense did too little.
Still, only the Dodgers were able to beat the Rays and it would have been smarter to go after Cleveland instead of resting the pen, but they felt like they could beat the Rays.

Lourdes Gurriel takes some weird routes and doesn't always plays the bounce right, but he's got decent wheels and a strong arm. Left field is certainly a bat first position, but there are supposed to be some good outfielders playing there.
It was done only by numbers this year, so reputation was not taken into consideration.

For a number of reasons I'd be shocked if Lindor ends up in Toronto - I'd say the Mets with a wealthy new owner wanting to make a splash and a couple of controllable shortstops to give back to the Indians is the most likely destination.

Yeah, nice as Lindor would be he really isn't a good fit right now.

Negatives: Massive contract required, would need to give up a lot of talent to get the right to pay him that money. Last year he had his lowest OPS+ ever at 102 and was on pace for a 2.2 bWAR season which isn't a $30 mil per year pace.

Positives: On the other hand, he is an excellent player in his prime (4 straight years of 5+ WAR before last year) and right now might be the cheapest time to sign a guy long term thanks to COVID screwing with team finances.

So yeah, I see both sides here. If the Jays are willing to risk $300+ million on him then go for it, not my money. But if I ran the Jays I'd probably look elsewhere unless I heard he was willing to sign for less here (lord knows why that would be, but who knows?).

right now might be the cheapest time to sign a guy long term thanks to COVID screwing with team finances.

Then why would he or his agent want to sign long term now? He'll almost assuredly get more than $20 million for 2021 in arb, maybe well over. This while current FA's will be getting lowballed. Arbitration only takes into account past precedent and player performance. There won't be a discount because every team is supposedly losing money.

I am still mulling over what Atkins said about adding an impact player. It does look like that type of player is available as a FA. He also said "could" add, which leaves the door open to trying and failing.

I think Brad Hand fits my description of high impact. He would not cost draft picks. He probably has to settle for less than the $10 mil Cleveland did not want to pay. So 1 year plus options. A proven good closer is essential IMO.

Losing a draft pick does not bother me much. We have to start taking risks to make the team better. We cannot lose our #1 (19th) pick. Don't know which round picks we would lose but we traded Kendall Williams round 2 #52 for R Stripling.

The bigger danger is getting stuck with a bad contract.

Also Hand plus Bauer for 3 years is within our current budget. I doubt we get Bauer.

A reliever doesn't fit my definition.

So, Rogers will give "fiscal parameters" to the front office in their annual meeting which takes place near the end of this month. Until then, the Jays payroll is down by 10M from what it was in March. A bit more if they non-tender Shaw.

Right now, they'll just talk to agents and discuss interest. Walker seems like a no-brainer to bring back.
In some ways, he reminds me of Stroman, in others, he's the complete opposite.
He only had nice things to say about Buffalo.

It feels like Guerrero, Hernandez and Gurriel form a trio who enjoy being in the same clubhouse.
I think they should try to extend Teoscar now. Gurriel is interesting. He's on a fixed contract.
They could easily add one or two year a the end by spreading the money over the remaining years.

Noticed yesterday a bunch of PTBNL's were sent to complete deadline trades. Jays trade for Stripling was supposed to be for 2 PTBNL's, but Bbref has only Kendall Williams as completing the trade. Williams seems enough return on his own, but I never heard he would be the only one going to LA. So do the Jays owe the Dodgers another player or not?

And on the subject of Jays minor leaguers, Samad Taylor and Chavez Young are scheduled to play for the Canberra Cavalry of the Australian Baseball League. Their season starts around December 18th or 19th.

I don't know how the payroll is only $10 mil less. Ryu, Roark and Grichuk are the same. Add Stripling. Subtract Anderson and Giles. Also subtract Tulo? So subtract 9,10 and 12 to net out Tulo.

So a big $25 mil FA makes no real difference as far as I can see. Then add cheap players. Relievers and bench.

Cot's has the Jays at $90 mil for 2021 (including $15.5 mil for benefits for players such as health care, pension, etc.). That includes $4.25 mil for Shaw. The highest the Jays ever went for payroll was in 2018 - $167,138,865. So potentially the Jays have $77 million open to spend - no way they do that, but since 2012 the Jays have been above $100 million (post benefits) every year. That suggests they have at least $10 mil available without questions, and probably can go to $125 ($35 mil more than now) without trouble. To get to $150+ they'd need to make a strong case to Rogers I suspect. That means plenty of room to add a star quality player like Bauer who gives me the impression he wants 2 things - cash and a contender. Making the playoffs makes a massive difference for the Jays on that front and should help them chasing down any free agents this winter. IMO ideally they'd get Bauer and someone for 3B (either a proven ML'er like Justin Turner on a short term deal or a longer term for a riskier guy like Ha-Seong Kim)

Vlad being capable of playing even a slightly below average defensive 3B would go a long way to giving the Jays additional flexibility. If they could pry DJLM out of NY (I still think it`s doubtful he leaves there, but they should try), that would give them sufficient options and a nice offensive upgrade. I`d then pour any remaining money into getting the best singular rotational upgrade possible. If you can get a credible arm that slots in behind Ryu but ahead of Pearson, there`s a team that could contend if things break right.

The current plan, from reliable sources, is for Vlad to play 3b. Of course, plans can change if Vlad does not report in tip top shape. I believe that he is being closely monitored.

Is this a "three strikes and you go to first base" situation?  Not the way I was taught the game...

Re Bauer and substances. I think fangraphs has covered it extensively, but he basically called out the astros staff a few years agoabout their sudden rises in spin rate, and basically dared the league to do something. I think he all but pre announced he'd start cheating for a while, and then went out and posted by far his highest spin rates for a few starts. He stopped, the league didn't do anything, and eventually he went back to it. His perforance improvement followed. So he's cheating, but in a league sanctioned way. It's not like pitchers in past years didn't know more spin was good for them, they just weren't allowed to use chemical stickum so openly to help. Like so many things in mlb, it's a rule that has been neglected so long that it's become standard to cheat.

My bet is the Jays are humoring Vlad right now about 3B, using it as leverage in talks with free agents. If none of them work out and they are stuck as is then Vlad gets to play 3B in 2021 and the Jays chase down an old slugger for 1B/DH to mix with Tellez or do the old rotation thing or sign an outfielder so Hernandez can DH a lot more often. So many variables.

Moving Vlad back to 3rd allows a full opportunity for Rowdy at first and makes room for a rotating DH which is what they want. It's up to Vlad. 3B is his if he earns it. And yes, I guess he does get 3 strikes.

I see both sides of the Lindor debate (such as it is) as well. There's no denying 2020 was a bad year for him, and I would also agree that getting Lindor alone doesn't guarantee anything. It only ends up being a waste if he doesn't rebound/and or the Jays don't also improve their rotation and outfield situation.

But again, I doubt any big ticket free agent is coming here, which again, circles back to my reasoning for going all in for a Lindor trade which at least gets a potential 5 win player here to close the gap with the Yanks and Rays. An un-Reyes like willingness to switch positions might mitigate the risk of him being an albatross contract.

So, five members of the Dodgers organization have tested positive for COVID 10 days after the World Series and MLB announced that Justin Turner will not be disciplined for his actions. As this is an awards thread, I think we need a new award for selfishness and thoughtlessness. The opposite of the Clemente award- maybe it should be named the Turner award but other suggestions are welcome. We also need an award for gutless management, and Manfred definitely has an early lead in the race for the first winner.

With respect to the Turner situation, I place most of the blame on MLB and Manfred for completely neglecting to come up with any way to manage that situation and not taking the most appropriate steps to protect public health and stop Turner from returning to the field.

I certainly don't think that Turner is without blame, but I'm more willing to cut him slack for making a poor decision in the moment, given that this is the pinnacle of what he's worked his whole professional career for and given the World Series disappointments he's had to endure. It's a very human impulse to want to go out there and celebrate with your friends and teammates. If he did that after a regular season victory or winning the Wild Card series, that's one thing, but I find it understandable why he got caught up in the moment after winning the World Series.

To me, the onus fell on MLB to tell him immediately to return to the hotel/more effectively isolate him and, failing that, unequivocally tell that he wasn't allowed to return to the field. Unfortunately, nobody made that call.

So, uh, Alex Cora is managing the Red Sox again. Wow.

From Manfred:
"Turner believed he received permission from at least one Dodgers employee and that an unidentified person incorrectly told him that other teammates had tested positive, "creating the impression in Mr. Turner's mind that he was being singled out for isolation"

Anyone actually believe this? Turner and Cora are just part of a lengthy list of liars and cheats. I've gotten to the point that I'm so inured to this, I can't even feel the slightest bit of outrage. Eye rolls and head shakes are about the most extreme emotional response I can muster.

Alex Cora is managing the Red Sox again

What better time for Boston than to squeeze that into an otherwise elsewhere-focused news cycle?

Anyone actually believe this?

The giveaway was when you said "From Manfred".

Except this is one of the few instances where Manfred was actually truthful. He's just repeating Turner's claims.

I thought I heard on Effectively Wild that the five positives were not people in the bubble (so not from Turner)

Apparently there are now 9 Dodger organization people who have tested positive.  There were definitely people in the organization other than players and managers celebrating on the field after the win. 

Well, as expected Montoyo finished 3rd in MOY voting (2 first place votes, 10 2nd, 7 3rd), Cash won. Mattingly won in the NL.

Are Cox and Cito the only 2 Jays managers with 1st or 2nd place MOY finishes?

Dodgers employee can be mean anything. Was it the GM or the manager? Was it a batboy?

My take on all of this is that the players union had not given approval for sanctions related to protocol violations.
In Cleveland, it's the team that took action, not MLB.
Consequently, the only thing MLB could do is lay blame which would not have generated positive press.
So they decided it was best if Turner could offer some weak excuses and everybody move on.

Good question...

• John Gibbons: 4th (2015), 7th (2005)
• John Farrell (won with Red Sox 1 year after leaving us, 6th in 2016)
• Cito Gaston: 2nd (1989), 3rd (1991, 1993), 4th (1992), 5th (2010), 6th (2008) - crazy how often he did well but coudn't win
• Carlos Tosca: 7th (2003)
• Buck Martinez: never got a vote
• Jim Fregosi (twice got votes before a Jay, 2nd his best in 1993)
• Tim Johnson (6th in his only year 1998)
• Jimy Williams (4 times named including a win after his Jay years - won in 1999, 2nd in 1998, 7th in 2000, 4th in 2001) only his first year in Boston he didn't get votes while there.
• Bobby Cox: won in 1985, 4th in 1984, 3rd in 1983 (also won 2 times with Atlanta 2004, 2005, while named 14 other times with them, 2nd twice, 3rd 5 times)
• Bobby Mattick & Roy Hartsfield never got a vote
• Gene Tenace & Mel Queen both were temporary managers for the Jays during Cito's time (Queen to replace him for the final few days of 1997, Tenace covering while Cito had a herniated disc in 1991).

That covers every manager the Jays have had. 1 win by Bobby Cox (2 won elsewhere), 2nd only by Cito, 3rd by Cox, Gaston, and Montoyo.

It's pretty close between Montoyo and Renteria.
Montoyo wins by not getting fired.
Renteria was hired to tank.

The Red Sox re-hiring Cora has been inevitable since the moment he was suspended. Roenicke was the definition of a one-year replacement who could be jettisoned after the season finished.

There was no attempt to fill the position beyond the extent of Cora's suspension and the Red Sox never distanced themselves in any meaningful way from Cora.

The most galling thing is that the Red Sox are trying to sell it was being a fresh managerial search and that Cora wasn't the favourite when the search began. Which is completely contradicted by every action they have taken since the suspension and every rumour floating around since, basically the day he was suspended, which suggested the Red Sox wanted to bring him back.

I hesitate to give the Astros credit for anything whatsoever, as their narrative that they are the victims and are being unfairly targetted only adds to the disdain I feel towards the franchise. However, they never made any pretense of bringing Luhnow or Hinch back. The optics of them doing that would have been worse than the Red Sox rehiring Cora, but I never read any reports that suggested they seriously contemplated bringing them back (maybe I missed some).

Cy Young - Ryu 3rd (4 (2nd), 7 (3rd), 5 (4th), 4 (5th))

Past Jays...
Winners: Pat Hentgen (1996), Roger Clemens (1997/8), Halladay (2003)
Close but no cigar: Dave Stieb (4th, 5th, 2 7th despite being #1 in pitcher WAR 3 times), Jimmy Key (2nd), David Wells (3rd in 2000), lots of others with votes but not top 3 (Stroman, Happ, Romero for example).

Saw an idea somewhere I liked about awards this year. Instead of AL/NL, they should have split East/Central/West awards. You look at the NL Cy Young. Bauer and DeGrom had similar numbers but the central was so much easier than the East. DeGrom had 0 starts against a bottom 10 offenses. 5 starts against top-10. Bauer had 8 starts against bottom-10 offenses, 1 against top-10. In a season with so few starts, that makes an enormous difference.

That makes sense, Glevin.  Quality of competition was difficult to measure this year, but there was reason to believe that the Centrals were not in the same class as the Wests or the Easts. 

AL MVP Award announced. Jose Abreu won, he was tied with LeMahieu for 1st in player bWAR (Ryu and Beiber were higher). Top Jay was Teoscar Hernandez (11th with 1 9th place from a Tampa writer and 6 10th place votes), then Ryu (14th with 1 8th and 1 10th place votes - both from mlb.com writers). No Toronto writer put a Jay on their ballots (Ben Nicolson-Smith from Sportsnet, and Gregor Chisholm from the Star).

Ex-Jay gets a 10th place vote in NL MVP contest. St. Louis beat writer responsible: "Oops".

Hard to believe he accidentally did that. Weird to see Ryan Tepera get an MVP vote. 3 holds, 1 blown save 0 saves, not exactly a wow season.

Meant to vote for Trea Turner. Not making any accusations, but it's always best to be sober when using drop down menus.

Ken Rosenthal reports on twitter that Kim Ng will be named GM of the Marlins.  Now that's good news we can use more of. 

Agreed 100% Mike - About 20 years after she should've had a job but at least she is getting the chance. You see so many mediocre guys get shot after shot, heck even Dave Stewart got a shot (Arizona 2014-2016) after his horrid stretch as an assistant here (called Godfrey racist for not making him GM, he was key to the disaster trade of Woody Williams and others for Joey Hamilton (Williams got 18.0 WAR after being traded, 7.9 in the 3 years after the trade vs Hamilton's 0.3 over those same 3 years after signing a big deal after the trade all based on Stewart's glowing recommendation - that was the only trade we knew Stewart was key on, as it was talked about a LOT at that time).

Defining Dave Stewart by a single trade - talk about your small sample sizes!

(Not that I was a fan of his front office work, here or in AZ).

Stewart was more due to what little I knew of his work (for assistant GM's the knowledge is limited). Doesn't help that the GM he was under was Gord Ash - easily the worst GM we had here - took a championship team and got them to last place. Had a few great first round draft picks (Halladay, Wells, Rios) but screwed the pooch on trades (David Wells off a 20 win season for an injured pitcher, the desperate trades done in 99-01 as he tried to save his job, hiring the wrong Johnson as manager before 1998, etc.).