A lot of nerding out about the suspended game (Jansen playing for 2 teams etc).

At least Schneider will get to remember what its like to be on base and hit second :)

Devers just became the youngest Red Sox player to hit 200 HR with the team.

The lineup I see for the 2:05 game is
SS Bichette2B Horwitz1B GuerreroDH TurnerRF Springer (already struck out looking)
LF Schneider (on first base following a walk)
C Jansen 3B IKFCF Kiermaier
On the Boston side, Valdez is down in AAA and Jansen will replace McGuire.

It will be a chance to see Springer out of the lead off spot.

So Ryan Burr is supposed to start, or take over from Yariel Rodriguez, so is Berrios entering the game after him?

So if Rodriguez had resumed pitching and finished the game, I assume he would still get credit for a complete game, even though some innings were pitched months apart.

Some nerding out about game, besides Jansen playing for both teams, is Joey Loperfido playing two different games in two different cities on the same date, and Leo Jimenez and Will Wagner making their major league debuts, date wise, even though they've been on the major league roster for a few weeks already.

You only get the extra arm for the 2nd game, so my guess is that the Jays' original intention was to use Berrios in Game 1 and then all hands on deck for Game 2. However, with the bullpen not getting much work the last couple games the thinking changed and they could use Burr/Yarbrough in Game 1 instead.

The Jays don't have any obvious internal options for 2025 for depth starting pitchers - Yarbrough might be worth bringing back next year if for no other reason than the Jays wouldn't have to face him.

yeah no problem bringing a useful swingman like Yarbrough back.

I love that on Gameday it shows the Jays with a 36-43 record for the first game.

With lefties Devers and Yoshida coming up and another game still to be played, I'd go with Little for the 9th instead of Green.

I'd really enjoy extinguishing the playoffs hopes of the friggin red sox this series.

And improve their draft position? Don't you think that's dangerous?

Worth it. F boston.

This team doing well down the stretch on the backs of mostly young players plus 2021 Vlad reborn would probably be a good thing. There's a risk of getting a little too excited about a 2nd half run that may not be sustainable next season but the team was going to try to contend in 2025 regardless, so existing young players showing signs of being useful/potential starting pieces would only be a positive.

Brandon Eisert has been recalled for the second game.

Draft position is a crap shoot - 2 of the worst 10 teams will not be allowed a top 10 pick due to the new rules. The 65-66 Cubs are the 12th worst team in MLB thus the last one to get a top 10 pick (1/2 a game worse than the Rays & Cardinals & Giants, 1 game worse than Seattle). Jays now are 64-68 and in eyeshot of 500 and dropping out of the worst 10 status. However, remember, the best pick the Jays ever made in the draft was Roy Halladay picked #17 in 1995 (Todd Helton was picked #8 that year, the only other guy with 60+ WAR in round 1, Carlos Beltrán was round 2 (2 picks after the Jays took Craig Wilson).

Higher picks are good, but if this team gets over 500 and ends up in eyeshot of the WC in the end (9 back right now) it would help a lot in recruiting free agents (easier to sell them on 'they could push us over the top'). Plus winning is a lot more fun to watch than losing. Just ask Angel fans (I suspect they've forgotten what winning feels like).

This doesn't sound like someone who'll be willing to accept a 10/300 contract. Not someone who is the best in the world.

The team going on this mini-run is exactly why you try to field a competitive team every year.

Unless you're the White Sox.

I actually agree with Vlad that the only thing stopping him from being the best hitter in the world on a consistent basis is his mind. Nobody else has as complete a toolset as he does at the plate imo.

It’s adorable that some people think the front office should draw the line at $250m for Vladdy.

All of a sudden the Judge and Ohtani contracts (ie. 'best in the world') are the comps people are talking about. some might call this a 'market making' strategy and we'll have to see how it pans out. I was in favour of locking him up last off season and predicted him as an MVP vote-getter this year...but realistically, he and his team have always held this self-belief (or is it self-delusion? I mean...it's not that crazy, imo) and people around the league never stopped thinking about him as a middle-of-the-order, top-5 hitter in baseball (or at least top-10), perennial all-star player.

1B comps are: Harper, Miggy, Bryant. Judge, Ohtani, and Soto will give you an idea of the ballpark of how 1B contracts for elite players sit against contracts for best-in-the-world at a $/WAR level. that's going to be the calculus. I expect VGJ waits till after Soto gets done. All the more reason to sign Soto, since at bare minimum you have one of these two going forward. If you aren't willing to pay Soto, it's not like a player that doesn't hit as well, hits from the right side, carries a lot of extra weight, and all the other red flags...is going to come at a huge discount relative to those risks when all models of performance see are the #s in binary.

The only line you're drawing at that number for Vlad is directly through his name.

I get why the front office likely had Passan float the under $300 number...it looks like they're "trying" to set up a conversation. I would say that this story portends poorly for Jays fans hoping for a contract announcement anytime soon. Let's ballpark 'best in the world at $460m or thereabouts. and the team side around $300....$380 is probably a realistic number on a 10 year deal, I was thinking $360 (since that's about $500m CAD and that would be a headline). That makes him the highest paid 1B including Bryce Harper. If you just inflate the Harper deal, however, you're probably in the 390 range...might as well call that 400...is Vlad as valuable as Harper?

So...that's my ballpark guesses on the back of a napkin what's gonna get it done. Now...what Soto does will matter, and if Pete Alonso is still a Mets...there is looking like there may be a big market for VGJ next year, and every team wants power.

Barring injury, if he keeps this up, the price is just going to go up from there. Anything under $360 ought to be regarded as a hometown discount.

I wouldn't offer him more than 40 million for 10 years (400 million) or 440 million for 12 years. Might not even offer that second one. The floor is definitely the Devers contract which is about 31 million annually. Judge should be the ceiling. I'd want Vlad to sign at a discount the way Judge did. Say...325-350 million for 10 years.

The problem here is Vlad has two price points. One is if he wants to stay in Toronto to the point where he gives a discount the way Devers and Judge did. The other is if he wants to stay in Toronto at market rate in which case he will need 40 million each year if not more.

One thing is clear. Vladdy is in the driver’s seat when it comes to these negotiations. The Blue Jays need him a lot more than he needs them. And he’s only a year from free agency.

For what it’s worth, Kevin Barker says that if the front office was going to extend him, they would have done it by now.

I don’t think giving Vladdy a mammoth extension is in this front office’s DNA, but we shall see. Ownership’s opinion will no doubt count for a lot.

"For what it’s worth, Kevin Barker says"

It's not worth much.

They have the merchandise metrics. VGJ could be the type of star power to help the Rogers bottom line even with a high cost.

losing vlad would be disastrous.

and he can singlehandedly make the team interesting even in bad years.

easy decision. let him write the check.

Random question. Is Don Mattingly taking a leave from the team? I see a lot more shots of Matt Hague here in the second half of the season.

FWIW I said on this site that the Jays should make a big multi-year deal before the 24 season starts because Vladdy's perceived value will never be lower. Oh well. It's just money.

@Petey - Mattingly had shoulder surgery a couple of weeks ago.

The timing has led to the amusing notion in comments sections that his disappearance is why we're now hitting home runs.

I don't think he would have taken a hair cut (no pun intended), I'm sure it was brought up around their arbitration hearing where he got the most money of anyone to go through it. I don't think he ever stopped believing in himself as the best, or close enough. why would he leave a hundred or more million dollars on the table when he fought the team over 5...and won?

Also, AA had to set a record in IFA to pay this guy. They had to really move things around and take advantage of the Red Sox and Dodger (correct me if I'm wrong) being locked out of IFA the year he signed because they'd gone over budget the year prior on what was regarded as a stronger class outside of Vlad. Vlad was like Harper coming up...everyone knew from the time he was like 12 he was going to be a monster power hitter in the MLB. This isn't Aaron Judge being pretty 'meh' until his 24th birthday.

So...all that to say: I agree...they would have done well to secure a deal sooner than later. But, the player got in a position where he needed to silence the doubters and critics...and...I don't see too many people talking about "swing decisions" and all the other garbage from last year when it was obvious from a mile away his wrist was still messed up.

I admit I was wrong on Guerrero earlier this year - couldn't stand watching him for a while with constant bad at bats and baserunning mistakes. Just about anyone is more watchable when they hit .376/.436/.775 over 55 games - still 100 points of OPS behind Judge in the same time period somehow, but yeah, that'll play.  I still think that a huge longterm deal isn't a given - unless he unexpectedly sticks at 3B, his only path to being a top player is to be a top 5 bat. Can he consistently be a Manny Ramirez, Carlos Delgado, David Ortiz, Miguel Cabrera type - bad years are very good, good years are MVP-contention?

 I guess I'd like to know (but it's beyond my resources) how many not-great players have a stretch like his current one - 1.200 OPS for two months seems like rarified air. Bautista was there in 2011, Delgado in 2000 (over 1.300 for 58 games I found). Olerud in 1993 for more than 100 games. Might be it for this very specific criteria in franchise history unless I'm missing one with a terrible stretch. The people in the franchise should have the best insight in Guerrero, but is a mediocre front office (even with long term information) the one you want to make the choice?

I don't see too many people talking about "swing decisions" and all the other garbage from last year when it was obvious from a mile away his wrist was still messed up.

You were the only one harping on his messed up wrist. There is an article on ESPN today on what Vlad has done to revert back to his 2021 form. Nothing to do with his wrist.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40994113/vlad-guerrero-jr-blue-jays-resurgence

Well, for a Vlad deal I was at $350/15 I think, but now I'm thinking $400 mil/whatever (10+) might be needed. Only Ohtani & Trout have signed $400+ mil deals and Soto rejected that amount at least once. I'm sure the Jays are debating it, but this is a decision by higher ups - like with Ohtani where they felt the marketing value made him worth the insane dollars. $460 mil is what Ohtani got officially (factoring in deferred money) and will be Soto's goal to beat (safe to say he is shooting for $500 mil). Just 15 players have signed $300+ mil deals, 35 $200+ mil deals, 139 $100+ mil deals, but that will grow rapidly as time goes by. Note: some doubles on those lists - A-Rod signed two for $250+, Pujols two for $100+, Vernon Wells still holds the Jays record at $126 mil ($1 mil more than Springer) - both of those deals went sour at the end (Wells well before the end but AA got lucky the Angels were foolish). We will see what happens this winter I guess, and if no extension then next winter will be even more expensive if Vlad has another good year.

I think Vlad is thinking like José Ramírez that being on one team for your whole career is a good thing if possible. But he won't take as big a discount to stick around as Ramirez did (7 years $141 mil). I can see the Jays feeling him out a bit in the $250-$300 mil range, but they know $350 mil is likely the minimum to get a deal done (Ohtani, Trout, Betts, Judge, Machado). I could see him wanting $361 mil just to beat Judge, or $366 mil to beat Betts.

Btw, fun games today, even if one was officially a June game :)

Swing decisions were the first thing that improved this year for vlad, right from the start and drastically, long before the power finally started showing up in June.

How quickly everyone forgets and revises their feelings from the past as if it was so clear Vlad was a .320 hitter and 5 WAR player. He's putting up more WAR this year than the previous two combined. He has looked truly awful to me for parts of the past two years. He's a different hitter now. Will this continue through September? If so then he controls everything as its video game like what he is doing currently.

Where are all the posts about Bo needing to be locked up? Next season when he's hitting .300 and on pace for 5 WAR or more we will read posters referencing rare posts proclaiming they saw the height of Bo coming and the Jays missed their chance to sign him at a low point.

These types of generational hitters with high pedigree are not going to sign when their value is low especially when they've already demonstrated elite performance at such young ages. Vlad is doing amazing things but its been two months. He hasn't hit 60 HR in back to back seasons... people need to tone it down ... what is the purpose of pointing out an opinion you had in the past that nobody other than yourself will take the time to fact check? I mean this in the nicest way. Who cares? All that matters is Vlad and Bo are both capable of MVP level performance and as we are seeing with this fluctuating roster and performances, its likely to be the smartest thing to resign both players at market rates and move on to constructing balance of the team around them.

I dont think this FO has missed anything and for all we know they've been told by Vlad a number it will take and they're not rushing into it. Whatever they think it doesn't really matter anymore. It's Big Vladdy Daddy's world and they're just in it...if he decides.

I would lock up Bo too but....i've never seen him as the kind of generational talent that Vlad is (not to say that Vlad is a lock to fulfill that talent level consistently).

Bo's hitting during his hot streaks is just as impressive to me and all he needs to reach the next level is improved defense or more power. I think the latter will come.

Credit to UO, who noticed early on this year that Vladdy had changed his approach at the plate, and that this would eventually translate into more production/power if he stayed with it. 100% correct about that.

1200 OPS for 2 months? Davis Schneider came close last year (337/464/742 1.205 over his first 27 games, Aug 4 to Sept 14), but that's all I can think of. Checked a few guys I remember having hot streaks but they weren't 1200 OPS level. Tony Fernandez in 1999 was hitting 414/491/573 1.064 on June 21st before crashing with a 244/368/329 line the rest of the way (finished 1998 with a 337/394/485 879 line over his final 114 games - quite the stretch there during a dark time in Jays history).

Note: Great 1B in Jays history for up to 25, post 25 (should've done this with my earlier Vlad post)...

• Carlos Delgado: 253/342/486 111 OPS+; post 25: 12 seasons 285/392/558 144 OPS+, injuries ended him early at age 37.
• Fred McGriff: 269/385/530 153 OPS+; post: 15 seasons 287/375/505 131 OPS+ played to age 40
• John Olerud: 297/397/486 137 OPS+ (regular at age 21); Post: 11 seasons 294/398/456 125 OPS+
• ------big drop in quality of 25 and under-------
• Edwin Encarnación: 267/346/455 104 OPS+; 12 seasons 258/351/509 130 OPS+
• Cecil Fielder: 243/308/472 108 OPS+; 9 years 256/349/483 120 OPS+ - Japan was his age 25 season (a 1.031 OPS)
• Willie Upshaw: 246/309/391 89 OPS+; post: 6 seasons 267/343/427 107 OPS+ - not in the same category as the rest
• Lyle Overbay: 12 PA, -15 OPS+; post: 12 seasons 266/348/430 106 OPS+
• Justin Smoak: 223/306/377 91 OPS+; 8 seasons 231/328/437 108 OPS+

The bottom 5 really aren't comparable to Vlad whatsoever beyond they all were at 1B for significant time here. Before today Vlad's career line was 286/361/501 137 OPS+ - basically John Olerud's OPS+, more power, less OBP, less average. Olerud was known for high end defense at 1B, Vlad not so much but unlike Olerud Vlad can play 3B when needed. Olerud was a pure 1B/DH/PH - never did anything else in his ML career (despite being a high end pitcher in college). Could Olerud be a comp? At 24 he had a WOW year (186 OPS+, batting title, but still no respect, had a 164 OPS+ at age 29, a 140 at 33). Olerud was slow - not Kirk slow, but old catcher slow (11 SB 14 CS lifetime - guessing those were 25 messed up hit and run situations with 11 times the catcher dropping the ball or having a bad throw). From 26 to the end Olerud provided 40.3 bWAR - that is worth around $360-$400 million based on what we see free agents get. 4 years of 5+ WAR, 1 in the 4's during that 11 year stretch. If Vlad follows he'd have just over 60 bWAR, about 2400 hits, and well over 300 HR. Seems a reasonable target, especially given Vlad has shown he can do a 150+ OPS+ season twice now.

Not sure why people are fixating on only the last 2 months when Guerrero has been the second-best hitter in baseball (behind only Judge) since the start of May. Granted, I have been ever the optimist on Guerrero, most recently debating his career arc in relation to Freddie Freeman with Mike G. But the thing is, even this latest run of brilliance is only a preview of what his (Vlad's, not Mike's) ceiling is going forward. Development is not linear, and after struggling, relative to his expectations, Guerrero's approach and maturity have taken a quantum leap forward, at the ripe old age of 25, or put another way, the same age Judge started his MLB career. I don't have to squint hard to see a player that will be one of the dominant players in MLB over the next decade.

#paytheman

even this latest run of brilliance is only a preview of what his (Vlad's, not Mike's) ceiling is going forward. Development is not linear, and after struggling, relative to his expectations, Guerrero's approach and maturity have taken a quantum leap forward, at the ripe old age of 25, or put another way, the same age Judge started his MLB career. I don't have to squint hard to see a player that will be one of the dominant players in MLB over the next decade."

The problem is that unlike Judge, Vlad's ceiling is extremely capped. This will be Judge's third season of over 8.7 WAR. Vlad won't ever get those totals because the difference between being a good defender at outfield and a bad defender at first is enormous. Of 197 players with at least 2,000 innings played since 2020, Vlad has had the 196th most value including last among 26 1Bman. Of the 311 players in same time period with at least 1,000 PAs, Vlad is 296th in base running value. He's been pretty easily the worst base runner/defender in baseball for years and those are things that tend to get worse. Neither of those things are as important as hitting but they do matter and it means that Vlad has to hit every year to have any value and that value will never be as high as a player who can defend. More Yordan Alvarez than Aaron Judge. Still incredibly valuable of course but also very capped and with way more risk than someone who brings value in different ways.

It's not a problem.
The Yankees have Judge producing 9.4 WAR in CF while they have a combination of Rizzo, Rice and Davis producing -1.1 WAR at 1B.The Jays have Varsho producing 4.8 WAR in CF and Guerrero 5.2 WAR at 1B. The Jays come up on top.
Also, Judge has not been particularly durable.
Judge has a 1000 hits at 32, but Vladdy is up to 868 at 25.

Continuing to run Judge out into CF is mind boggling. Mike Trout might be done, and he's a year older than Judge and nowhere near as massive.

Vlad's base running is improving. His biggest issue is not that he's slow - he moves decently once he's going. It's that he thinks he's fast. He's made a lot of bad decisions trying to stretch singles to double and take extra bases...and getting picked off. He still dances off the bases, but I don't think pitchers care. I would HOPE that he tries to run on me because it's probably a free out. He clearly wants to help the team. It's been a classic "trying to do too much" and because he has so much self-belief, it has often back-fired. I think we're seeing less of that this year. On top of that he is running hard out of the box...so he's even gonna steal a couple extra singles here and there, and might even end up stretching some doubles...

I think Miguel Cabrera is a decent comp. VGJ is entering his prime, and it's not crazy to think he can do this for entire seasons at a time. The big question is...can you rely on this level of training excellence and commitment going forward? Because it's going to cost a lot of money if he isn't fully committed to being 'the man'.

Continuing to run Judge out into CF is mind boggling.

I would think that Chisholm plays CF next year with Judge moving to a corner (perhaps LF in NY and RF on the road?). Third base has been such a disaster area this year that this was seen as Chisholm's best home. I imagine they'll address 3B in the off-season and wave goodbye to Verdugo, freeing up an OF corner in the process.

That makes him the highest paid 1B including Bryce Harper.

It's worth noting that Harper signed as a RF with his eventual move to 1B the result of injuries.

"The big question is...can you rely on this level of training excellence and commitment going forward?"

Yup, that's the $500 million question.

Vlad's performance is a big story. I expect this story to continue to dominate da Box. But there are also stories with the 29 other teams which I am following.

1) NYY lead the AL and on pace for 96 wins. Minnesota holds the 3rd WC on pace to 89 wins. 7th best team Boston is 3 games over 500 and 11th place Blue Jays are 3 games under 500.

2) The Jays can move up in the standings and get a lower draft lottery pick. I don't mind but some do I believe.

3) Our young position players have not locked up anything for 2025 IMO due to SSS and no Wow performances. But the team is winning due to Vlad & the rotation. Somehow the O is better without our traded veterans.

4) The NL is similar in their playoff race. There is definitely a contest for the 3rd WC spot.

I think it's a bit misleading to talk about Judge'z defense as a big part of his WAR.

That was definitely true when he was younger but not anymore.

His massive 2022 and 2024 seasons have been built entirely on otherwordly offense with wrc+ well over 200.

His 2021 and 2023 seasons, when he was in the offsnsive range that vlad is in now his WAR was also in a similar range as Vlad is in now.

Didn't realise until yesterday how bad the Red Sox have been at Fenway this year. At 29-37, only the White Sox, Marlins and Angels have worse home records. Whereas on the road, only the Yankees have more wins that the Red Sox 38.

And their defensive play - the 6 errors yesterday brought their MLB worst total to 98, 12 more than the second worst Nats.

Returning to the subject of Springer, I don't think there's much to be gained by trading him. Outfield depth isn't a strength, there's nobody knocking down the door to take his spot.

And while his wRC+ has seen a fairly consistent decline from his peak, his final two years in Houston (152 over 2019/2020), his xwOBA tells a less dramatic tale:

2019: .400
2020: .405
2021: .361
2022: .342
2023: .332
2024: .334

I think this is a better measure of his talent level, and it suggests he's still an above-average hitter this year (league-average is .316), which combined with average defense and modestly-above-average baserunning, should make him a perfectly decent player. Of course, next year may be when age truly catches up to Springer.

The problem Springer exemplifies is not that there are a bunch of sub-par players on the Jays, but a lack of true standouts. There's Vlad, of course, and one can hope Bo bounces back, but there is a general dearth of outstanding players on this team. I like a lot of the younger guys - Wagner, Loperfido, Barger, Jimenez - but they all look more like solid regulars than all-stars. Ditto the starting rotation, which lacks an ace now that Gausman has begun to decline. The lack of star players outside of Vlad makes it really hard to construct a playoff team next year.

I wouldn't want to pay anything to dump him, that's for sure.

Swapping him for a similarly overpaid innings eating pitcher might not be the worst idea though.

They have another star player, but everybody seems to want to run him out of town based on internet conjecture that he doesn't want to be in Toronto.

Bichette has been a very mediocre hitter dating all the way back to ~June of last season (basically a full calendar year). Given the repeated leg injuries and extended decline in hitting, its hard to really know what to expect out of him moving forward.

to be fair, Gabriel mentions the real possibility of Bo bouncing back in his post there.

I don’t mind Springer being on the team and batting in the lower part of the order, if the front office can improve the overall production in the lineup. But I think John Schneider will be tempted to use him as the leadoff hitter based on his veteran credentials and if he thinks that is what the front office wants.

Metafour, give your head a shake. You're using a 6 month rolling window to grade Bo and ignoring his career numbers beyond that. Surely any player including Vlad would fit the description of "extended decline," if using a 6 month rolling sample during their worst performance.

Vlad in 2nd half of 2023 and beginning of 2024 he had an OPS around .752 ... an "extended decline" from his earlier pace and a massive fall from his 2021 numbers...

Why would Schneider think that's what the FO wants?

I generally like the idea bad-contract swaps, but starting pitcher depth doesn't seem like a problem with the emergence of Francis and Rodriguez, and the trade for Bloss, and the Jays do get a reasonable number of innings from their starters.

This is not to say there couldn't be a trade of Springer that would make sense, just that it would have to be more creative. And this front office hasn't been terribly creative, so I fully expect to see Springer in right next year, which - as I intimated above - doesn't seem to be something to fear in any event.

Springer has been the team's best leadoff option for about two months now.

Schneider’s statement to the media when questioned about the Berrios pull in WC2 suggests that Blue Jays on-field decision are made with some level of direction or influence by the front office. He said: "You can sit here and second guess me, second guess the organization, second guess anybody."

To me, “second guess the organization” suggest that Schneider did what the front office indicated they wanted him to do.

IMO, by far and away the biggest problem for next year is the bullpen. Chad Green is the only reliever under team control next year who has been worth more than 0.1 bWAR. Half the negative WAR relievers have been dumped, but 6 will be on the 40 man at seasons end. Will Romano return to previous years levels? Will Swanson?

Springer needed nearly 700 PA's to get a ~2 WAR last season, and it will be the same thing this season. If he were an everyday CF then you could live with the declining bat, but in RF with the amount of playing time he figures to get, it's a weak spot. He's hitting more weak contact and more GB's than the last few years. Even if you think he's better than his numbers suggest (xwOBA), what's the ceiling on that? League average? And that's assuming he maintains that at age 35/36. At least if Loperfido stinks they'd have no issues with reducing his playing time. That's not the case with Springer.

I'll concede maybe I was a bit harsh on the "dump him" take, even though I'd still be fine if they decided to go that route assuming there's some tangible cost savings, but would still look to move on one year early. I don't think the Giants would do it, but Springer plus maybe something else for Robbie Ray would be the type of deal I'd look into. I'm sure there's an overpaid SP somewhere with similar term/AAV that could work.

To me Schneider was referencing the analytics department, which is organization. As much as some want to think the decision came from Atkins or Shapiro, that makes no sense.c

SK,

You don't need to show everyone that Springer is terrible to justify trading him. I think it's a good idea you have to want to trade him for another piece that helps this team more but pointing out his deficiencies and wishful thinking to move on from him just highlights the likely level of interest that another team would have. Another Tapia for Grichuk type of deal that is nothing special to see.

* 1. Gausman (34): 26gms, 5.8ip/gm, 102era-, 95fip-, 98xfip-, 2.3war/32gms
* 2. Berrios (31): 27gms, 6.1ip/gm, 93era-, 119fip-, 105xfip-, 2.1war/32gms
* 3. Bassitt (36): 26gms, 5.6ip/gm, 110era-, 99fip-, 103xfip-, 2.0war/32gms

* 4. Rodriguez (28): 15gms, 4.0ip/gm, 108era-, 108fip-, 104xfip-, 1.2war/32gms
* 5. Francis (29): 229gms, 3.3ip/gm, 100era-, 109fip-, 96xfip-, 0.9war/32gms

* 6. Bloss (24): 3gms, 3.9ip/gm, 173era-, 187fip-, 116xfip-, -2.7war/32gms
* 7. Manoah* (27): 5gms, 4.9ip/gm, 92era-, 126fip-, 101xfip-, -0.3war/32gms
* 8. Tiedemann* (22): ---


Obviously we'd need a bounce back from a couple of the top-3 and/or a breakthrough from someone else to actually have a good starting staff, but even then I think another dependable arm would probably be a good idea.

And having the extra SP depth move into the bullpen is a nice help to the awful bullpen too.

hypobole, I never said the decision came from Atkins or Shapiro. I suggested that it may have come from the front office — which of course would include Atkins and Shapiro and all other staff including analytics personnel.

In any event, it seems unlikely that Atkins had no idea that pulling Berrios early on was being suggested/recommended by his staff to Schneider, as that was an important decision at a critical point in the season.

should say 22gms for Francis, not 229.

For fun I checked 'Hard Hit' at FanGraphs (95 mph or more). For hard hit % Vlad leads the Jays at 55.9%, #2 is Will Wagner at 51.7%, then 2 guys in the 43% range - Bo & Vogelbach. In 2022 Bo was at 50%, 44.9% last year so a bad trend, but hopefully not an impossible one. Who is barreling it? Vlad #1 14.3%, 10%+ also for Schneider & Jimenez with Springer at 9.9%.

So that looks good for Jimenez and Wagner - both showing some of the raw skills needed to be stars. However, that didn't help Schneider or Vogelbach this year so clearly not a be all and end all.

Loperfido is an oddity - 63.8% medium speed, #1 on the Jays (Kiermaier the only other one to play here with a 60% rate this year). For soft contact Biggio was #1 (30.9%) with top current Jay being Serven (26.9%) then Barger (25.3% - in August is at 26.8% for soft, sure wouldn't have guessed that).

Dalimon, Bichette has been consistently struggling at a much more significant rate than Vlad ever did. These are his rolling per-month wRC+ figures:

Jun 2023: 100 wRC+
Jul 2023: 138 wRC+
Aug 2023: 66 wRC+
Sep/Oct 2023: 98 wRC+
Mar/Apr 2024: 65 wRC+
May 2024: 106 wRC+
Jun 2024: 53 wRC+
Jul 2024: 2 wRC+ (9 games)

Over a full calendar year going back to last season he has had a total of one month of good hitting (July 2023). I'm well aware what his career numbers are, but to pretend like the above isn't concerning is silly. Over that time frame he has also injured the same leg something like 3-4 times. The concern to me is that the offseason between 2023 and 2024 did nothing to "reset" him: he finished 2023 horribly, and was immediately horrible for all of 2024 before his injury.

These are Vlad's rolling per-month wRC+ figures over the same time-frame:

Jun 2023: 118 wRC+
Jul 2023: 110 wRC+
Aug 2023: 99 wRC+
Sep/Oct 2023: 134 wRC+
Mar/Apr 2024: 99 wRC+
May 2024: 166 wRC+
Jun 2024: 172 wRC+
Jul 2024: 201 wRC+

To pretend like Bichette's struggles are the same as Vlad's is hyperbole. With Vlad, you still saw months of good (or great) hitting sprinkled throughout, and he really only had two months of "bad" hitting. Even if you push the sample back further you will see a 95 wRC+ month in May 2023 (bad), but a 148 wRC+ month in Mar/Apr 2023 (great). With Bichette it has more or less been month after month of significantly declined hitting.

I'm not suggesting that Bichette is permanently broken, but the Jays only have him for one more season, and given the last ~6 months of game-time plus repeated injuries (again, to the same leg) are you really going to pencil him in as a sure-fire "star player" next season? Its not as easy as just saying "well he will bounce back because look at his past history" because if that were the case, then why didn't he bounce back in 2024 after a really pool 2nd half of 2023?

Springer

* Season Total: 516pa, 99wrc+
* Since May 1: 388pa, 105wrc+
* Since June 1: 300pa, 112wrc+
* Since July 1: 197pa, 115wrc+

Kirk

* Season Total: 291pa, 90wrc+
* Since May 1: 213pa, 102wrc+
* Since Jul 1: 139pa, 112wrc+
* Since Jansen Trade: 94pa, 136wrc+

It doesn't actually matter, but fun to look at some guys since the trades:


Good, Full Time

* Kikuchi: 5gms, 5.6ip/gm, 72era-, 87fip-, 75xfip-, 3.5war/32gm

Good, Part Time

* Kiermaier: 41pa, .320bip, 91wrc+, 4.8war/650


Ok, Full Time

* Falefa: 93pa, .286bip, 72wrc+, 0.7war/650
* Jansen: 45pa, .259bip, 101wrc+, 0.0war/650

Ok, Part Time

* Pearson: 7gms, 1.6ip/gm, 59era-, 112fip-, 103xfip-, 0.9war/65gm
* Richards: 10gms, 1.3ip/gm, 103era-, 101fip-, 143xfip-, 0.0war/65gm


Bad, Full Time

* Biggio: 88pa, .262bip, 85wrc+, -1.5war/650
* Turner: 80pa, .264bip, 81wrc+, -2.4war/650

Bad, Part Time

* Garcia: 10gms, 0.9ip/gm, 156era-, 183fip-, 132xfip-, -2.0war/65gm
* Mayza: 5gms, 1.0ip/gm, 132era-, 131fip-, 108xfip-, -1.3war/65gm



Kikuchi and Kiermaier the only ones giving performances that we miss. Though I guess you could include Jansen in there as he'd still be a nice upgrade over Serven.


FO did a real good job at the deadline. Heck, we've already gotten comparable contributions from our trade returns even now:


* Wagner: 37pa, 116wrc+, 3.5war/650
* Loperfido: 76pa, 92wrc+, 1.7war/650
* Yarbrough: 6gms, 2.3ip/gm, 64era-, 92fip-, 96xfip-, 2.7war/65gm

"You don't need to show everyone that Springer is terrible to justify trading him."


I never said Springer is terrible. As of now he's a league average-ish corner OF bat making $25M. He's bad value moving forward, and at his age not a good bet to be better than a 2 WAR type, but there are still ways to utilize him where he could be valuable. I just don't think the Jays will use him like that (more rest, fewer PA's, etc). Another team might.

Bo Bichette (calf) has rejoined the #BlueJays here in Boston. pic.twitter.com/k7BjK0wPcV

— Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) August 27, 2024

Since June 25th:

Springer (221PA) .266/.336/.538
Kirk (147PA) .289/.347/.422

Horwitz (215PA) .234/.316/.394
Varsho (188PA) .235/.316/.386
Clement (200PA) .260/.285/.427

The Jays have been "more watchable" because their good players have been producing. I look forward to Bichette's return.

Isnt it a bit weird they dont send Bo down for a few rehab games? Maybe I missed them.

Seems like a good opportunity for him to bash the heck of a few A ball pitchers in DUN, then a few games in AAA, and get some mojo back.

He is going to.go on rehab "soon"

"The Jays have been "more watchable" because their good players have been producing."

yep.



Last 14 days

* LF Loferpido 39pa, 199wrc+
* 1B Guerrero 55pa, 198wrc+
* CF Varsho 45pa, 150wrc+
* SS Jimenez 37pa, 150wrc+
* 2B Horwitz 46pa, 139wrc+
* RF Springer 56pa, 138wrc+
* C Kirk 44pa, 126wrc+
* 3B Clement 50pa, 125wrc+
* DH Barger 43pa, 106wrc+

* IF Wagner 33pa, 80wrc+
* OF Berroa 13pa, 55wrc+
* C Serven 14pa, 27wrc+
* UT Schneider 27pa, -37wrc+

Team: 128wrc+ (#2 MLB)


August

* 1B Guerrero 98pa, 227wrc+
* SS Jimenez 69pa, 143wrc+
* CF Varsho 86pa, 141wrc+
* 2B Horwitz 88pa, 124wrc+
* C Kirk 78pa, 123wrc+
* 3B Clement 93pa, 104wrc+
* LF Loferpido 71pa, 98wrc+
* RF Springer 92pa, 87wrc+
* DH Barger 61pa, 78wrc+

* IF Wagner 37pa, 116wrc+
* C Serven 23pa, 73wrc+
* OF Berroa 20pa, 68wrc+
* UT Schneider 49pa, -31wrc+

Team: 116wrc+ (#6 MLB)


Last 30 days:

* 1B Guerrero 121pa, 253wrc+
* CF Varsho 102pa, 133wrc+
* C Kirk 89pa, 127wrc+
* LF Barger 77pa, 120wrc+
* SS Jimenez 86pa, 107wrc+
* 3B Clement 114pa, 106wrc+
* 2B Horwitz 110pa, 100wrc+
* RF Springer 110pa, 97wrc+
* LF Loperfido 76pa, 92wrc+

* IF Wagner 37pa, 116wrc+
* OF Berroa 32pa, 68wrc+
* C Serven 33pa, 31wrc+
* UT Schneider 63pa, -24wrc+

Team: 116wrc+ (#6 MLB)

Trevor Richards DFA'd by the Twins.

I'll say what I said back in spring training - I really don't think that Rodriguez has a pitch/way to get major league hitters out regularly. His FB appears to be his best pitch and his secondaries are poor. I think that he might be best suited to the pen when he can throw as hard as he can for an inning. A potential Yimi Garcia replacement.

The general view in the off-season seemed to be that Yariel was best suited to be a reliever.

The Twins announcer described Richards as a 3-pitch pitcher. Fastball, change up and wild pitch.

Well, we out-him them; we out-pitched them; and we lost by three. Sometimes it just doesn't work out. Of course, making three outs on the basepaths makes it harder.

Kinda felt like Febles was trying to help his old team out tonight.

Rodriguez looks like he's fighting his back again. But he also looks like the type of pitcher that's an ok 4/5 starter against weaker lineups... more of an AL/NL central kind of arm. Or a decent 6th/7th inning reliever.

Rodriguez has done well overall imo 4.82 ERA after having a full year off of baseball, and being a reliever the year before that makes it impressive. Right now I'd have him penciled in with Francis as #5 for 2025 with a goal of finding a stronger pitcher than Kikuchi for #4 (ideally a #1 potentially) although I'd certainly take Kikuchi back if the price is right.

So, Trevor Richards is back on the market - wouldn't be surprised if the Jays take him back once he clears waivers. Cot's indicates the Twins ate all of his salary too - around $700k. Kiermaier has done well in LA (92 OPS+), IKF meh (75 OPS+), Turner ugh (75 OPS+), Pearson has done well (11 1/3 IP 3 ER, 2 BB 10 SO), Jansen solid for the Sox (94 OPS+), Garcia ugh (6 ER in 9 IP 4 BB 7 SO, 3 holds plus a blown save), while Kikuchi has been excellent for Houston (28 IP in 5 starts, 10 BB 35 SO 140 ERA+). A mixed bag for the ex-Jays I'd say. Pearson the only one I fear could make the Jays look bad due to the 2+ years of control the Cubs have - if he keeps this up he could be a solid setup man or even a closer for them.

Still, I love what we've seen from Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner so far. Both looking like key pieces for 2025 and beyond while Jake Bloss was seen as the #1 piece in that deal and should get a shot in 2025's rotation at some point. I suspect the Kikuchi deal won't look as bad as the Expos 1989 Mark Langston for Randy Johnson (HOF)-Gene Harris (nothing)-Brian Holman (about 8 WAR for Seattle) deal, but it could look really bad for Houston if Kikuchi goes elsewhere after 2024 or goes back to being the guy we all held our breath on.

Yariel should ditch his curveball and throw his split finger more. Especially against left handers.

At least for Houston, Kikuchi has now made 5 starts, and they've won all five of those games. He's doing what they needed in a tight race. Can't stand the Astros but glad to see him succeed over there.

The Bichette talks during the game had me rolling my eyes."the hitting won't be an issue" "He had a rough start"
He might be able to play 3 weeks but I'm not expecting much.
He's been searching for his timing for over a year now.

When the season ends the Jays will know their payroll situation in regards to the salary cap. IMO Vlad is the big variable and that will take up a lot of the off season.

I don't see any 40 man crunch. There may be some Mitch White type pitchers. They will be treated like he was if pitching like he did. The FO could be creative and go into the rule 5 with just 35 players. Then pick 2 players and later sign some low level FAs.

Any good FA will want a 3+ year contract. I don't know if the FA wants that or who is available at the correct price. Jake Flaherty is probably too expensive and probably wants more than 3 years. So back to Kikuchi for 3 affordable years $45mil/3. If so then be creative and trade Bassitt for prospects and save some money. Or just trade Bassitt for another Bloss type pitcher.

I see 2025 as a year to allow many young position players to get experience and fight it out for playing time. They all have options. And also be competitive.

Bo returns to the dugout. The team loses.

Coincidence?

Well yeah. Possibly. Who knows. Bo has almost certainly done something to piss off the baseball gods.

He needs to follow Vladdy's lead and get a damn haircut.

While I am definitely superstitious I cannot believe that Bo is a factor in losing games. But who really knows.

They spent a lot of time talking about Bo missing being part of the team but all the shots I saw were of him alone or interacting with coaches - no teammate interactions despite the long time away...

Had Lukes not gotten hurt, he might have made the ideal caddy for Springer.   The way this roster is set up with so much versatility, and this recent influx of lefty hitting, we should be able to maximize a player like Springer next year.  Lukes (or whomever) gets the pinch running, defensive replacements, match-up based pinch hitting. 

Like they are trying to do with the rotation, going with six guys.  Rest for the vets.  Rodriguez increasingly feels like the ideal 6th guy to me, perhaps an old school long-man / spot starter role.  But he's got that crazy repertoire, and I imagine the team wants to work with him in the offseason to refine things.  He had a Visa issue apparently and missed that chance after signing last year. 

I sure hope Kikuchi wants to come back, but I'd also be okay rolling with what we have, Francis 4th, Rodriguez as the 5th man in a mix with Bloss, Macko and Teidemann.

They need to add to the bullpen either way, but if the right starter isn't there, this is the offseason I'd consider spending big on the pen.  I really hope to get some clarity on pitching options down the stretch.  Let's see what Danner can do.   Get a look at Bloss and Macko.  Maybe even Wallace or Estrada from AA?

Green is the one lock next year.  Romano, Cabrera ... it's pretty grim after that...   Brendan Little has two more option years and should be an 8th/9th guy ... Pop is out of options and likely time at the end of the year.  Swanson is a DFA risk on a team with better depth, not here.  Burr has depth value with his option next year.   Eisert is a placeholder. 

I don't expect greatness from our high minors depth, but certainly we could get valuable role-players and depth for next season lined up, and these new guys (well, the hitters, at least) are fun to watch!

Remember Paul DeJong who absolutely sucked in his short stint with the Jays( 3 hits in 44 at bats)? Well, this year he has 23 home runs and a .748 OPS with Chicago White Sox and Kansas City.

The idea of trading Springer for a similary overpaid innings eating pitcher makes a bunch of sense to me i think. Somebody here mentioned a guy like Taillon and that would work. I'm sure there are other similar ones.

* 1. Gausman
* 2. Berrios
* 3. Bassitt
* 4. Springer Trade
* 5. Rodriguez/Francis/Bloss/(Manoah/Tiedemann)

* 1. Romano
* 2. Green
* 3. XXXXXX
* 4. Swanson
* 5. XXXXXX
* 6. Rodriguez/Francis/Bloss/(Manoah/Tiedemann)
* 7. Rodriguez/Francis/Bloss/(Manoah/Tiedemann)
* 8. Cabrera/Pop/Danner/etc.

MLBTR reports that Anthony Gose was DFAed for the 3rd time this month for the Guardians.

Three innings, six hits and an 8.10 ERA.

Thinking about our rotation for next season, I think if the Jays really mean to have a rebuilding year, then they shouldn't sign anyone, and instead use the final two rotation slots to sort out which of Francis/Rodriguez/Bloss/Macko/Manoah/Tiedemann are going to be valuable contributors for 2026 and onward. Tiedemann and Manoah probably won't be back at full strength before mid-summer, but the Jays should at least get Manoah at least back before the end of 2025 and will want to give him MLB starts if he has a smooth recovery.

But if the Jays wish to keep the playoffs in view, I think they need a front-of-the-rotation arm. A Jack Flaherty, Blake Snell or Max Fried if not Corbin Burnes. Someone you can slot in as a playoff starter, and who is a substantial improvement on what you might expect from our depth options mentioned above.

The other SP with 2/36 left on his deal is Taijuan Walker, but the Phillies don't need a RF/DH with Castellanos and Schwarber locked up.

Castellanos (2/40) actually makes Springer's contract look okay. I can justify trading George for Nick (save 5MM/season for the CBT calculation, Castellanos would be easier to cut and he's been a slightly better hitter) from the Jays perspective, but there's no question that with a blank slate you'd take Springer because of the baserunning and defensive value.

There's certainly a part of me that would be amused to hear Dan say "there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run."

Looking around the league at the catcher position, it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that we re-sign Jansen. Jansen may be hard pressed to find any role as a #1/1A catcher, with Miami, the Cubs, and White Sox as the only clear options. And if I'm one of those teams, I might be looking at Carson Kelly or Travis D'Arnaud (if his option is declined - unlikely), and Jacob Stallings has had a resurgence.

For Jansen, the biggest issue for his FA case is that he has regressed on both sides of the ball in 2024. His ISO has dropped almost 100 points, with his worst wRC+ since 2020, alongside a -8 DRS. He's still a good blocker (97th percentile), but 12th percentile in CS above avg, 30th percentile in framing, and 23rd percentile in pop time. His xBA and xSLG, hard hit %, barrel %, and EV has dropped each of the past two years.

Let's look at recent FA catcher deals. Last year, no catcher received more than a 2-year deal, with Garver getting 2/24 and Caratini 2/12. Garver was already spending 2/3 of his time at DH, and was coming off an .870 OPS, two years after putting up an .875 OPS. In 2023, Willson Contreras received 5/87.5, Vazquez 3/30, and Narvaez 2/15 (that sure didn't work out). 2022's belle of the ball was Yan Gomes, with a 3/19.

As much as I love Jano, if his current 2024 stats hold it seems unlikely he'll get a 3-year deal or a guaranteed starting role, with his bat no longer carrying him. In the end, the best place for him to be might be back with the Jays, even if it's on a 1-year and he wants to test FA again after attempting to re-establish value (though I think a 2/10 to 2/12 is not out of the question).

The curse of the Bo-bino continues

2025 will be an interesting year - do you go for it and spend hundreds of millions? Pre-arbitration the Jays are at $135 mil for 2025 - Vlad will be around $30 mil, Romano $10, Varsho $10, Kirk $5, Swanson $4, Cabrera $2, hard to say for the 1st year guys (Espino, Manoah, Clement, Burr) so lets say $1.5 per on average ($6 mil total) that puts us at roughly $202 mil for about 16 players, 10 minimum is $8 mil roughly so $210 mil as a starting point. $241 mil is the first luxury tax area, Then $261/$281/$301 for the assorted tiers. Given how the Jays have acted recently I see $250-260 as the max they'll go. That leaves $40-50 mil available for free agents/trades. I suspect at least half will go to the pen (get 2 solid setup men to go with Green & Swanson), the other half to getting a 3B or LF or DH depending how the Jays feel about their in-house options. Loperfido I'm liking more everyday - solid defense, a sweet swing that looks like he'll be a Shawn Green type of player - solid D/solid O (last 12 games 325/372/650). Wagner/Horwitz/Schneider/Martinez should hold down 2B nicely (just need 1 to be solid). Barger's past 10 256/268/539 suggests potential but he needs to learn how to take a walk - improve his pitch recognition and the sky is the limit (of course that applies to most players outside of Biggio & Schneider). Mix Barger with Clement and 3B might be good in 2025 but I'm not 100%, nor should the Jays be.

For those who hate our current president/GM we were THISCLOSE to it being a heck of a lot worse. This article from 2015 details how Rogers was hard after Kenny Williams of the White Sox. That winter Williams signed Melky Cabrera for LF who had a 98 OPS+ (recovered a bit the next year to a 118 before being traded the next year for 2 minor leaguers who never reached), Adam LaRoche as a DH a 78 OPS+ (then retired), Emilio Bonifacio UT a 10 OPS+ in just 82 PA (then released), David Robinson was a good closer for a year+ (traded for crap), Zach Duke a good setup (again, traded for crap), but their deal for Jeff Samardzija who had a 79 ERA+ in his only year there (left via free agency) and cost Bassitt & Semien & two more guys is an all-timer on the 'ugh' list.

The other candidate was Dan Duquette - who 'led' the O's to a 47–115 record in 2018 before being dumped and hasn't been a GM or president since - that record btw is worse than the Jays have ever done, even in the expansion years (max losses 109 in 1979).

Phew, dodged 2 big bullets there imo.

DeJong was signed on the cheap as a rebound guy who could be traded for a prospect.Even with the homers he barely cracked a .700 OPS and the return for him was minor league reliever in A+ ball.Power is good but not if the player strikes out a lot and doesn't walk.

Buck mentioned that the young hitters were not walking as much as in AAA.
He attributed that to the better MLB pitchers. I think it has more to do with the umps calling the strikes.

It won’t happen (Rogers won’t be outbidding Steve Cohen and the Yankees) but the Jays are in an ideal spot on the position player side to just put all their resources into Juan Soto. They have a bunch of high floor, non star depth pieces that they could plug into other holes, which normally wouldn’t be that appealing, but if you have two legitimate superstars (Vlad/Soto) plus another player with 4 WAR upside (Bo), then having a bunch of 1-2 WAR players making the minimum around that could work. Or they could trade Bo to save some money and fix other holes, and plug Jimenez/Clement at short.

I guess we can dream for a few months before reality sets in.

Berrios & Gausman gave us a lot of good games. Bassitt not as many but quite a few. All innings eaters so a good threesome for 2025. Francis, Rodriguez and Bloss will get a chance to step up in 2025. So I am comfortable with the rotation.

I expect money will be thrown at the pen to make it stronger in 2025.

Our young position players will compete for playing time in 2025. I don't know how many successes we will get. But we have a large quantity. Growing pains would hurt us but I expect that. With Vlad, Kirk, Varsho and Springer we have 4 regulars. I don't count Bo because he may not be on the team. Clement should help.

We need to save money for the trade deadline.

I can see myself enjoying 2025.

Soto would be a great match with the Blue Jays. He might actually be a better signing than Ohtani, given his young age. I hope Rogers makes an aggressive bid for him. It might help to have VGJ talk to him about the upside of playing in Toronto.

I'm in the camp that other teams will outbid the Jays for Soto and wouldn't be surprised if he ends up back with the Yankees on a massive contract. I'm wondering if Pete Alonso might be a more realistic target?

What is the upside of playing in TOR over NYY?

Being able to let your sideburns go?

For some players who dont like the limelight maybe TOR is a good spot, but by all accounts Soto likes attention.

I really dont see the Jays dropping $300M+ on Vlad. There is no way they drop $700M + on Vlad and Soto

greenfrog - agreed that to sign Soto we need Vlad to be the front person chasing him. Mix in a few high end ex-Jays like Bautista & Encarnacion and maybe even George Bell, Alfredo Griffin, Manuel Lee, and Juan Guzmán (if they are still positive about their Jays experiences) to show him that the Jays have a long term interest in players from the Dominican and have counted on them all along. Toronto isn't a fair weather friend to players from the Dominican, but a long time investor. We all known raw dollars will be #1, but #2 could be comfort within a city/team and Toronto should be well ahead of NY in that category for a player from the Dominican. For raw competitiveness the Jays should be there with the Mets easily (made playoffs once since 2016), but the Yankees are the Yankees when it comes to that.

Now, given the kids we have ready/almost ready to play the OF right now is spending $50 mil a year in LF the best idea? Probably not. But none of the kids for LF have a 100 OPS+ this year in the majors, all have shown signs of being able to do that but none are currently doing it. Soto & Vlad both could share DH time with Springer to allow a kid or two to play often and keep them all fresh. It'll be a tough set of choices to make this winter, and none are 100% in the Jays control - they could offer the most but Soto decides he enjoyed his time as a Yankee and wants to stay there, or the Mets could make him an insane offer in the Ohtani area, etc. Bregman at 3B would be the next guy to chase - yeah, Clement, and Barger are nice but lets be real, neither is likely to have a 4 WAR season anytime soon. But Bregman most likely will resign in Houston, plus is on the wrong side of 30. Still nice to think about. Teoscar/Santander/Conforto/O'Neill all are nice options for LF/DH but not hard to imagine any playing worse than some of our kids might (all 30+ next year) - Santander is my #1 choice of that group (switch hitter, currently an Oriole).

Agreed with Ducey. Every team has their own spending philosophy. Even Vlad may be too expensive for the Jays. But I still have hope.

Jays can easily afford Vlad. One star is very affordable for them as they have shown they can sustain a $200+ mil payroll. $30-40 mil for 1 player on that is extremely workable. It is going to the Dodgers level (Betts/Freeman/Ohtani = $103 mil a year locked in for the next 4 years for payroll tax purposes). Mix in $54 mil a year for Yamamoto & Glasnow also for the next 5 years and your up to $157 mil per for 5 years for 5 players leaving roughly $100 mil for the other 21 players on the ML roster before hitting the 2nd playoff tax or about $5 mil each with a minimum near $1 mil. The Dodgers are forecast to pay $89.6 mil in payroll taxes this year. Wow. For a team only up by 3 over Arizona who is spending less than half of what the Dodgers are.

Guerrero and Varsho would love to have you as their arbitrator, John. Their raises will likely be around 5MM lower.

I have the Jays' projected '25 payroll at around 182MM right now.

The upside is getting paid more money for more years. That is why clients hire Scott Boras. Did ARod want to move to Dallas? I don't know - I do know the cheques cleared...until they didn't and ARod was the largest unsecured creditor when Hicks went bankrupt.

The Yankees are crying poor. Is that a negotiation tactic? We will find out. All the Jays, or Mets, or anyone need to do is pay the guy enough money. Boras has shown that to be the case repeatedly.

All things being equal, players will go to where they want to be. If the Jays were still offering Chapman the same deal they had on the table in the summer when his market tanked over the winter...he's probably still here.

I have no idea where Soto wants to play, but the Jays are stupid to let him stay in the AL East. They have the third richest ownership, and they have the payroll space to do it, and they're more or less conceding the next few years to the Yankees while their stars are still stars. Meanwhile Vlad and Soto are the same age and will be centrepieces of lineups for a decade. I call it the Ronco office of baseball management: (*everyone*) set it, and forget it!

92-93 - I prefer to overestimate what players will get when doing a payroll estimate - that way worst case is the Jays have what I guess to spend, ideally more. However, $5-10 mil won't be the difference this winter. It is who is the big one they chase down? Last winter was a flop with Justin Turner getting the biggest per year deal ($13 mil), IKF the biggest ML deal ($15 mil over 2 years), and Yariel Rodriguez the biggest deal overall ($32 mil) handed out by the Jays.

This winter they hopefully sign someone for over $100 mil, ideally 2 someones for over $300 mil each (Soto and Vlad). After them in the $100 mil category is Bregman, then the sub $100's would include Santander/Teoscar/etc. Corbin Burnes would be fun to steal from Baltimore but he is on his 4th straight year of worse ERA+'s (started at 216 in 2020 so he had room to drop to his current 118. Roki Sasaki from Japan would be sweet but is sub 25 so will get a smaller deal and will probably pick a west coast team based on past history of Japanese players. The DH/1B crowd is interesting but I'd wait until the end of the winter and see if any are kicking for a cheap deal - Alonso, Walker, JD Martinez, Pederson, Goldschmidt, Hoskins, Eloy Jiménez, etc.

The more I think about it, the more I figure the Jays will go cheap again (do a swing for the fences with Soto more to make him more super-expensive for the Yankees or Mets). There are so many good LF/DH/1B options out there that waiting and seeing might be the smart move if you can't get the 'WOW' factor with Soto. I can more see them chasing Soto and a couple of the top pitchers early on, then sitting back and waiting for the dust to settle before snipping up a couple of decent relievers and a DH who can play either LF or 1B (O'Neill being the most likely imo to get the Canadian feel good story again).

The only way to get Soto to Toronto is offering more than the rest of the field. Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? No. I don't know if being a Yankee will trump money for Soto. Maybe it will if the money is even or close but Soto strikes me as someone who wants to get paid more than anyone else. Any contract the Jays offer him that would entice him to come over will likely approach what Ohtani got (obviously with more years to lower the AAV), and that's assuming Steve Cohen and his billion dollar art collection won't just match/exceed any offer.

I think Rogers will end up ponying up for Vlad. I doubt they'll be in the running for Soto, although I'm sure Morosi will tweet about the Jays interest a few times.

Here is the other problem chasing Soto. He is going to do what Ohtani did, which is to wait out the market to squeeze every drop of salary he can. Its the Boras way.

And then the Jays wind up missing the market on their backup plans for a slugger.

If the Jays wanted they could follow the current CLE model. They have Ramírez signed longterm for bigger bucks. They also have Gimenenz signed longterm behind him for big bucks. That is not looking like a wise decision so far as his OPS+ is well below 100 now.

Then they surround them with smart pickups and young players on the position side.

It would put pressure on the Jays farm system, but they have shown some ability to ID young professional players. A trade of Bo could further enhance the pool.

The Vlad and friends model could work, but again its a waste of time if they cant draft and develop well. Its also a risk with Vlad if he starts eating too many of those peanut butter sandwiches going forward. From what I have seen on TV, he REALLY likes them.

There aren't really any sluggers worth signing to multi-year deals outside of Alonso, so missing out on that market would be a good thing.

"There are so many good LF/DH/1B options out there that waiting and seeing might be the smart move if you can't get the 'WOW' factor with Soto."

Yes, that's the thing. If it doesn't look like Soto is a possibility (he probably isn't), there are plenty of ways to upgrade the team that are much better than Justin Turner. There is some excellent positional flexibility on the team right now that allows for us to look at upgrades in different ways.

Heck, you don't even have to go after those positions in FA directly. I'd love to see us kick the tires on Ha-Seong Kim. I'll take gold glove defense at short and enough speed to be a lead-off hitter (not that they'll ever move Springer off of the leadoff spot, for reasons). That frees up Bichette as a tradeable asset.

"They also have Gimenenz signed longterm behind him for big bucks. That is not looking like a wise decision so far as his OPS+ is well below 100 now."

OPS+ not withstanding, he is 5th in fWAR among second basemen between 2023-24. His defense alone will make that $15m/yr look pretty good when all is said and done.

The fat part of the bell curve of the number of Bowden Francis Cy Young’s is moving to the right every start. 4 now seems a pessimistic outcome.

Development is not linear Exhibit A: Rich Hill, a man who reinvented himself multiple times and pitched more major league innings at ages 37-43 than 25-36.

Wow. Francis is having a breakthrough season. It will be interesting to learn more about how he elevated his game, and whether this is something Pete Walker helped him with.

The 2025 Blue Jays are certainly looking better as a result (if Francis can stay healthy and maintain these gains).

Even though he's throwing less, I hope Francis continues to throw his curveball to try to get the feel back. It was his best pitch last year, but the spin rate and break has been reduced. If he gets that back, he'll be a force to be reckoned with having three strong offerings.

F Boston

Nice night when the Jay pitchers in total throw 95 pitches. Francis they were playing it safe with thankfully at 70 - he probably could've done the 8th and 9th but best not to push too much. Cabrera did a solid 12 pitch inning, and Green a 13 pitch 9th. That's 4 straight 7+ IP games for Francis, max of 3 hits, max of 1 run allowed in any of those starts. Boy, that Kikuchi for Francis trade sure worked out... er... OK, that wasn't the trade but for the rotation in 2024 it worked out that way. 5 starts, 34 IP 9 H 4 R 4 BB 39 K's 3 HR 1 HBP team is 4-1 in those starts (left with a lead on Aug 7, pen (Burr) blew it). Kikuchi 5 starts, 28 IP 18 H 11 R (9 ER) 10 BB 35 K's 4 HR 0 HBP team is 5-0 in those starts. Francis won't be a free agent until after 2029. Dang that Rowdy Tellez (0.1 bWAR since traded away) deal for Francis and Richards just looks better by the day.

Atkins has his issues, but trades ain't one of them (at least I can't think of any ugly ones offhand - his pre-2020 record was 'meh' but this year was 'wow' imo).

“ Atkins has his issues, but trades ain't one of them (at least I can't think of any ugly ones offhand”

If this was meant to be cheeky, I lol’d. If not, I suspect many posters would have preferred if that statement came with a trigger warning.

I am trying to see if Atkins has blown any trades and if he ever made big trades. "Big" trade is an exchange of pretty good/established ML players that are not relievers unless the reliever is a good closer.

Grichuk cost a reliever and a prospect. Grichuk brought us a prospect and Tapia. The Tapia trade can be considered a loss for Atkins.

JA Happ for Drury and McKinney. Loss for Atkins.

Tellez for reliever Richards and prospect B Francis. Tellez had 21 Hr in 2019 for the Jays and 35 in 2022 for Milwaukee. So a massive loss for Atkins.

By my definition Atkins has not made any big trades just bad trades. The above trades was all I could think of.

Actually the Varsho for Gurriel and Moreno (V high on top 100 list) was an actual big trade. I don't know who won. Both teams traded from surplus areas. IMO Gurriel & Moreno helped Arizona more than LF Varsho.

The purpose of the Grichuk-Tapia trade wasn't a swap of talent, but to swap for an expiring contract and get out of Randal's awful extension a year early.

Tellez did show a power surge in Milwaukee after the Richards/Francis trade. But his career 35 HR outbreak in '22 still only produced a near replacement/bench player level 0.7 bWAR.

Although an understandable "reallocation of assets" trade, the Varsho deal is looking like a fairly sizeable loss right now. Varsho and Moreno have been of roughly equal value over the past two years but Moreno had two more pre UFA years (i.e. cost controlled years) at the time of the deal. Those two years are worth a lot and if Varsho and Moreno end up being roughly equal players then the Jays will have lost that deal badly. All of that also ignores that the Jays traded one year of Gurriel on a reasonable contract as well in that deal. Varsho needs to be appreciably better than Moreno over the next two years for that trade to be anything other than a big loss.

I would not say the Tellez trade was a loss.

Atkins traded a redundant 1B with an OPS+ of 64, and a 30th round pedigree. He put up .4 WAR with the bat in MIL and was let go to free agency after 2.5 years

The Jays got 4 years out of Richards that was pretty uneven (-.9), Jay Harry, and 1.6 WAR so far out of Francis, who seems primed to be at least an average starter, and isnt a FA until 2030.

On the salary front Tellez was paid $1.9M and $4.95M while Richards made $1 M, $1.5M, $2.15M and Francis is making $748,000.

More generally Atkins:

Robbie Ray with $ for Bergen (home run win)
Merrifield for Castillo/ Taylor (W)
Berrios for Austin Martin and Woods Richardson (HR)
Chapman trade (HR)
Tapia and Pinto for Grichuk (Meh)
Dickerson and Cimber for Panik and McInvale (W)
Stripling for Noda and Williams (Noda had a big year after being a FA) (w)
Pop, Bass, Duran for Groshans (w)
Matz for Winckowski, SRF and Diaz (w)
Sawnson and Macko for one meh year of Teo (about even)
Fisher for Biagini, Sanchez and Stevenson (many thought Stevenson would be the killer - not so far). I will say a small loss as Fischer was SOOO bad
White and De Jesus for Frasso and Brito. Frasso is a top prospect but broken. (L)
Liriano for Teo and Aoki (w)
Hutchison for Liriano, Harold Ramirez, McGuire (w)
Lane Thomas for cap room (L)
Stroman for Kay and Woods Richardson (L)
Grichuk for Leone and Greene (W)
Happ trade (L)

Obviously I dont remember all the trades. Most were guys of no use for other guys of no use.

On the whole this area is a strength for Atkins. The drafting and player development, not so much.

"the Varsho deal is looking like a fairly sizeable loss right now."

I think it's looking like only a minor loss tbh, and even that's only really because Varsho had a complete off year offensively last year which looks like some pretty bad luck.

Moreno was of limited value as long as Jansen and Kirk were on the roster.
Moreno was the trade of a top prospect for an establish player.It's hard to trade prospects for prospects or vets for vets.
The deadline trades were vets for prospects.
If they trade Jansen earlier, they don't get a centerfielder back.
They most likely get prospects or a player at the end of his contract.

Ironically, Varsho was himself a catching prospect.
The goal was to move Springer out of center.
They got KK to play center but it was only a 1 year contract.KK wanted to play on grass, but the Jays had the best offer by far.
Now, if KK was a long term solution in center field, they could have kept Moreno and traded Jansen for prospects.
KK wasn't interested and wasn't able to maintain his production anyway.
CF is a position that is best filled with young players.
Boston has found themselves a good young CF.  He's 27. For how long to they expect him to be a 8-9 WAR player?

Was the Berrios trade actually a HR? I like when the team gets better, but Woods-Richardson has been very effective this season, throwing 117 innings with a 3.85era thus far. And that's for the MLB minimum.

I haven't seen much of a difference between Varsho's seasons, he's been basically the same hitter since he got here. Their catching surplus has quickly become a weakness. They'd be in a much better spot going forward had they never forced the trade and just used Kirk/Jansen as the DH last year.

My post about Atkins trades explained them 1 way and subsequent posts by others explained the trades in other ways. All were very good explanations and valuing IMO.

The Jays making the Berrios trade and Seattle making the Luis Castillo trade are similar and very valuable. Both teams received needed help to be successful. Seattle played meaningful games until the final game last year and this year are still playing meaningful games so fan interest still exists regarding the playoffs. The Jays catching Houston means nothing but catching Minnesota would be meaningful possibly.

The Jay's do have a deep rotation. J Schneider could turn into a genius.

Fisher for Biagini, Sanchez and Stevenson (many thought Stevenson would be the killer - not so far). I will say a small loss as Fischer was SOOO bad
Stevenson was traded to Houston.
Houston flipped him to the Rays in a deal for Austin Pruitt.The Rays flipped him to Oakland in a deal for Bethancourt.Oakland traded him for cash to the Giants who let him go on waivers to the Phillies.
He has played 23 games for Oakland, 6 for the Giants and 7 for the Phillies. Career -0.4 WAR at a defensive position. He's 27.
Lukes completely replaced Stevenson for the Jays. He was a minor free agent.
No loss there.

If they use Kirk/Jansen as the DH last year they don't make the playoffs.

Part of the Berrios value is the health. They recognized that and extended him.
Berrios has never missed a start.

Varsho:

* 2021: 315pa, .286babip, 9.5bb%, .190iso, 100wrc+
* 2022: 595pa, .269babip, 7.9bb%, .207iso, 106wrc+
* 2023: 581pa, .256babip, 7.7bb%, .169iso, 85wrc+
* 2024: 475pa, .266babip, 9.5bb%, .191iso, 100wrc+

Pretty easy to see the difference in Varsho last year tbh.

And for the record, Kirk grades out much better defensively at C than Moreno does.

Sawnson and Macko for one meh year of Teo (about even)


Absolutely not. Hernandez had 1 year of 1.9 WAR while making $14M. Swanson was great last year and Jays still have him for cheap and Macko is a legitimate prospect. I'd do that trade every day of the week. Anyway, the problem with the idea of w vs loss is that most of the trades are pretty small so differences are small. Is losing Lane Thomas for cap room a bad move in retrospect? Sure but Thomas is a 4th OFer so...meh. Could they have gone for something different for Happ? yes, they should have but most likely they would have got a pitching prospect who flamed out.


There were 3 trades he made that I didn't like from the outset. Trading Frasso, trading Oliveras for Solarte, and the Happ trade. (What they have in common is trading talent/potential talent for mediocrity.) The truth is that none of those trades were all that bad. In fact, to Atkins credit, there hasn't been a single trade which has been terrible or fans need to think about and regret and there have been a few that have been fantastic (getting Teoscar, getting Ray, Chapman, and I'd say the Tellez trade is looking that way too). It's one of the things that is so frustrating because this front office has been so good with trades and good with free agency but just hasn't been able to draft/develop properly which has been a killer.

"No loss there"

Yeah, nothing for nothing.

But the front office talked up Fisher as a 5 tool prospect. When he played he was just terrible. He tried to catch a fly ball with his face, and had multiple other misplays on defense. They DFA'd him after 1.5 yrs and he was out of baseball in 3 years after the trade. Near the end with the Twins he was playing CF and let a guy score on a sac fly from second

Their evaluation was so off they deserve a L on that trade.

I was talking about with my own eyes, uglyone. But I'll play your little game:

2023 23.2k% 87.8ev 112.5maxEV 20.3ld% .302xwOBA
2024 25.9k% 86.3ev 110.2maxEV 14.3ld% .263xwOBA

Woods-Richardson hasn't missed a start this season.

Teoscar is already at 3.0 WAR and has been well worth a qualifying offer that he likely would have accepted. That has to be a part of the equation. Desperate for offense, the Jays chose to double down on playing 2 CFs instead.

Hey you're talking to the one jays fan who kept saying SWR was a way better prospect than all the rankers claimed. (also that Austin Martin was not a legit prospect!).

That being said, SWR is maybe getting a bit lucky this year with his opponents posting a .261babip (also a pretty low hr/fb%). He does have the kind of tricky approach that might be able to consistently get weak contact, but then again he's never really posted low babips in the minors - .308babip over his milb career, and around there for each individual level too. But then again he's always been young for his levels so he might be able to improve on that.


Let me take a look to see if SWR was just a hot start or not...

* Full Season: 5.1ip/gs, 95era-, 98fip-, 107xfip-
* First 10gms: 5.1ip/gs, 71era-, 87fip-
* Last 13gms: 5.1ip/gs, 114era-, 107fip-
* Last 6gms: 4.8ip/gs, 139era-, 132fip-


Seems like his performance has been coming back down to earth, but still an excellent season for a 23yr old rookie.


But Berrios has been pretty darn good for us over his 3+ full seasons here, without missing a start:

* 103gms, 5.8ip/gs, 102era-, 105fip-, 99xfip-

So why didn't Seattle give Teo a QO? Maybe because he'd gone from 3.8 WAR in 2021 to 2.8 WAR in 2022 to 2.1 WAR in 2023.

Seattle's poor decision shouldn't factor into the equation. They are getting nothing from RF and DH.

What is very important is that Atkins had to make trades out of necessity. The necessity was to make the playoffs. He snuck in or was squeezed out in 2021,22,23.

For 1/2 a season of Hicks he gave up Kloffenstein and Robberse that may hurt but Hicks helped get us in the playoffs.

The Frasso trade probably hurts but I have not given up on De Jesus.

92-93 you're arguing Berrios trade isn't as valuable as many think and you're sighting less than one year of performance from SWR and ignoring over 3 years of performance from Berrios (also not factoring his career performance). You're focusing on the trade from a standpoint of what is more valuable right now, 3 years in? Thats not fair as you're punting the performance and value received from the first 3 years of the deal and also assuming recency bias will carry forward (ie SWR will be a safe bet to continue his 2024 form for the next few years).

Teoscar same thing, you're valuing the decision two years ago to trade him based on his 2024 WAR counting stat with the Dodgers. Recency bias that ignores his 2023 performance and Swanson's '23 performance as well as Macko's development. You're also using related roster moves like the signing of KK which did not work this year as a value ranking to the trade but it is not related to the trade.

I think most pf us, myself included would agree with your criticism but as a critique of the overall roster construction rather than devaluing the grades of the trades based purely as player performance and assets.

bpoz - you gotta be trolling with that Tellez trade a massive loss - Tellez has had 1 decent season, 1 horrid one (got him released) and a meh at best one this year. Since leaving he produced 0.3 bWAR (partial season), 0.7 (his big 35 HR year), -0.6 (got him released) and -0.1 (this year). Obviously no sane person would reverse the deal that sent him away for Richards (very useful middle man for a few years) and Francis (looking like a very good starter now). For a 30th round pick in 2013 Tellez has worked out quite well.

That 2013 draft by the Jays was a weird one - highest bonus was to Tellez (30th round), 2nd highest to Jake Brentz (11th). The 1st round pick didn't sign (Phil Bickford) and never produced (0.3 bWAR - 37 ERA+ this year for the Yankees). Highest WAR goes to Kendall Graveman, $5k 9th round pick tied with Matthew Boyd (75k 6th round), but the most useful for the Jays was Danny Jansen (16th round 8.7 bWAR). Tim Mayza was also in that draft. AA had some oddball drafts - from his massive number of extra picks early on to this one where round/bonus/talent didn't match up at all. AA's draft only had 10+ WAR from Marcus Stroman (2012), Kevin Pillar (2011), Joe Musgrove (2011), Anthony DeSclafani (2011), Aaron Nola (2011 DNS), Kris Bryant (2010 DNS), and Noah Syndergaard (2010). 2 great DNS guys and a lot of talent in 2011 plus Stroman & Syndergaard. Did he just have a great luck year in 2011 or did he fire some scouts after that year for some reason?

Now, for the draft Atkins has sucked. Bo, Biggio, Manaoh and that's about it. Not one guy from 2021-now has reached, just 1 from 2020 (Austin Martin -0.8 bWAR for Twins). Now, Horwitz (2019), Barger (2018), Schneider (2017) all have the promise of more but just Bo has reached 10 bWAR with Biggio & Manoah the only others to crack 5. Ugh.

IFA has been better - in this respect he is like Gillick - lousy drafts, great IFA and trades. IFA 2016: Kirk, Moreno, Gurriel - all 4 are home runs, plus Otto Lopez & Steward Berroa. 2017: Leo Jimenez; 2018: Orelvis Martinez; 2018: 2 reached but did nothing (Yosver Zulueta, Shun Yamaguchi - biggest bonus to Rikelbin De Castro); 2020: nada; 2021: Manuel Beltre the bonus baby (20 now in A hitting 241/338/333); 2022: meh; 2023: Enmanuel Bonilla bonus baby (186/257/299 in rookie ball). Hrm. The more recent ones not showing a lot of hope but pre 2020 has produced. These take a LOOOONG time to produce outside of oddities like Vlad.

Read my comment again, dalimon5. I wasn't arguing anything, just merely speculating that perhaps the Berrios trade shouldn't be given the same HR grade as the Chapman one. I have, and always will be, staunchly in favour of trading prospects to make the team better. I was the one saying at two straight deadlines that they should be trading Tiedemann.

"Teoscar is already at 3.0 WAR and has been well worth a qualifying offer that he likely would have accepted. "

Thats all 20/20 hindsight.

SEA was paying him $14M for an OPS+ of 108. He was 2.1 WAR. His K rate was 31%. His defence was bad. He would have for sure taken the QO of $20M because the industry was down on him. Thats why he just got a 1 year deal with LAD.

It was pretty reasonable for SEA to let Teo move on. The Jays would have too.

Teoscar had issues hitting at Safeco (not exclusive to him). His road numbers last season were right in line with his post breakout career. Trading a middle of the order bat for a non elite reliever and a lottery ticket is awful asset management.

Teoscar not getting a QO was widely seen as a surprise.

What did we enter the 2023 season with again, when we decided not to lose Teoscar?


CF Kiermaier
RF Springer
LF Varsho
3B Chapman
SS Bichette
2B Merrifield
1B Guerrero
DH Belt
C Kirk

OF Biggio
IF Espinal
C Jansen


weird thing is we didn't even have a full roster of position players going into that year.

who broke camp that year as the 13th position player? Luplow? Lukes?

eventually Schneider came up out of nowhere but we were pretty much playing a man short before that.

Actually John N I was not trolling but your conclusion was good based on how you see things rather than how I see them. The 21 Hr went with 54rbi but .227avg and the 35hr went with 89rbi and .219Avg. So some value IMO. Richards was a useful reliever. Not a closer and never became a closer. 35 hr in a future season is a little predictable when he got 159 more ABs (career year). He also played for a contender in Milwaukee who just missed the playoffs. I did not want to consider Francis because I figured he was just a throw in that was not that highly thought of. But he was having a good minor league season in 2021. 2022 was V bad but he figured out a lot in 2023 and given his chance in 2024 he became excellent. Right now I think we got very lucky with Francis. In comparison What we got for Stroman and gave up for Matz, some were higher valued prospects than Francis IMO. This all based on prospect evaluation at the time.

I do like the way you follow the history of a player we traded for and then traded out for someone good. Like D Huchison for F Liriano (R McGuire was probably the centerpiece but not sure). Liriano for Teo was the biggest value in this string of trades.

This discussion got me down a rabbit hole of putting together a list of every Jays trade since Atkins took over, and assessing it with the lens of whether it had a positive impact, negative impact, limited/no impact, or in progress. It does not include waiver transactions - just trades.

This methodology takes a franchise level long-view, so as an example, the Matt Chapman trade is listed as 'too early to tell', on the basis that Gunnar Hoglund is still in the A's system. We know this trade was positive for us at the time, but that falls outside this methodology. It does not account for if the player was later packaged - just the individual transaction on face value.

Out of 139 trades, I ended up with 81 limited/no impact, 17 positive, 9 negative, and 31 in progress.

Generally, I didn't classify any mid-season trades of an expiring contract as a seller as negative even if the return didn't pan out, because it didn't have a negative impact, just lacks a positive one if the return doesn't pan out (i.e. Happ).

On the flipside, if the Jays grabbed a player at the deadline in a competitive season who had a noticeable negative impact down the stretch, it graded out as negative (i.e. Feldman, Hand).

I have notes on all these but this will already be a long comment so I'll leave those out.

Negatives:
Scott Feldman for Lupe Chavez
Trent Thornton for Aledmys Diaz
Joel Payamps for nothing
Gio Urshela for nothing
Edwin Jackson
B.J. Upton for Hansel Rodriguez
Juan De Paula, Alen Hanson, Derek Law for Kevin Pillar
Brad Hand for Riley Adams
2017 Intl Slot Money for Lane Thomas

Positives:
Robbie Ray for Travis Bergen
Jason Grilli for Sean Ratcliffe
Santiago Espinal for Steve Pearce
Dioner Navarro for Colton Turner
Teoscar Hernandez, Nori Aoki for Francisco Liriano
Sam Gaviglio
Jason Adam (in)
Whit Merrifield for Samad Taylor, Max Castillo
Ross Stripling for Kendall Williams, Ryan Noda
Adam Cimber, Corey Dickerson for Joe Panik, Andrew Mcinvale
Anthony Bass, Zach Pop, Edward Duran for Jordan Groshans
Bowden Francis, Trevor Richards for Rowdy Tellez
Francisco Liriano, Reese Mcguire, Harold Ramirez for Drew Hutchison
Joaquin Benoit for Drew Storen
Taijuan Walker for Alberto Rodriguez
Aledmys Diaz for J.B. Woodman
Randal Grichuk for Conner Greene, Dominic Leone

The transactions I had the hardest time with involved the SWR chain that you guys are discussing. There is an argument that in the end we gave up 1.5 years of Stroman for half of the prospect package to get 1.5 years of Berrios; but we did re-sign Berrios. Stroman didn't pitch in 2020 (the 2nd year), so in the end, the trade was for half a season. Of course, from 2021-onwards, which is outside the contract range, Stroman has outperformed Berrios. SWR is having a good year and outperforming Berrios in 2024, but it is too early to grade the long-term impact of that trade overall.

Of course, all of this is subjective and probably has inconsistencies. There's nothing empirical about it. I just thought there was value in approaching it from a different lens than just "trade good/trade bad".

Yep, that point was made repeatedly that offseason, no hindsight required. That team still needed Teoscar’s bat; KK was nothing resembling an everyday player, Springer’s durability ended up being a surprise, and Belt had been seriously hurt in the 3 previous seasons. They still decided to trade their 3rd best hitter for a reliever. It was a frustrating cost savings move.

Teo's road numbers last year were spiked by a crazy high .389 BABIP.

Lukes up, Berroa down.

The difference between Berroa and Lukes is negligible. Though the Jays lineups are already listing quite lefthanded.

I suppose it's also a factor if Loperfido is still available or not.

I assume this must be some reward for Lukes signing his minor league contract or tempting him to re-up again next year after getting outrighted.

It's hard to see any future for Lukes in the org as he's simply aging out and got hurt at the worst possible time,.

i'd bet on Lukes being much better than Berroa tbh.

The Teo trade is looking worse in retrospect, in part because Swanson has completely cratered. Part of the perceived benefit for the Blue Jays was the four years of control over Swanson.

However, it’s worth mentioning that Swanson was a good reliever last year and Teo only had one year of control at the time of the trade (and he wasn’t that great in 2023). Teo would probably be playing for a team other than the Blue Jays in 2024 in any event.

There is still a non-trivial chance that Macko ends up being a decent starting pitcher, so the books are not yet closed on the trade — just as the books weren’t closed on the Tellez-Francis/Richards trade a year or two ago.

Amusingly, Berroa has 2 DRS and 2 OAA in only 66 innings in RF. He's provided the 5th most defensive value among RF (to be expected - most RFs are not good fielders).

He has good enough defense and speed to be on the bench in the majors. The problem is that this team doesn't get as much out of that type of role as other teams might, given we have Varsho in CF.

Joel Payampos for nothing

I see Payamps - who pitched rather well for the Jays (2.70 ERA in 22 games, ERA+ of 167) - is described as a negative. Is that for acquiring him on waivers, or for losing him to another waiver claim?

@Magpie - The July DFA where he was picked up by the Royals (so the latter).

He was having a completely fine season and has since gone on to put up 3.2 bWAR which is solid for a reliever.

It's not a dramatic loss; but still a negative.

Wasn’t Payamps in the system when the Blue Jays traded for Brad Hand? Might have been better promote Payamps (which sounds like an Elon Musk app) instead.

Although, to add to that, Payamps' 3.2 bWAR would be more between 21-24 than any reliever who was on the Jays between 2021-2024 not named Chad Green or Jordan Romano in that same timespan.

@greenfrog - Payamps was traded July 21, 2021. The corresponding move was calling up Ryan Borucki. Brad Hand was acquired July 29, 2021.

We played a lot of relief pitcher musical chairs.

Expanding on things a bit further, here are the fWAR rankings between 2021-2024 among current and former Jays RPs:

17th - Liam Hendricks (preceded Atkins' tenure - Chavez trade)
25th - Jordan Romano
28th - Jeff Hoffman (preceded Atkins' tenure - Tulo trade)
48th - Jason Adam
58th - Yimi Garcia
67th - Daniel Hudson
72nd - Chad Green
80th - Erik Swanson
84th - Aaron Loup
87th - Tim Mayza
89th - Joel Payamps
91st - Bryan Baker
92nd - Jesse Chavez (the eternal!)

Zach Pop now has a -0.6 fWAR, the worst for the Jays in that timespan.

Thanks Kelekin for for a really good trade history.

Payamps had a 5.02 FIP with the Jays. He was a mediocre reliever who walked too many guys and didn't K enough for first 4 years of his career but figured something out in Milwaukee and became a decent reliever. This is going to happen a fair bit. Relievers get churned all the time and some will go on and be OK somewhere else. Doesn't mean you need to hold to all of them in case they do figure things out.

Teoscar wasn't good last year and pretending our offense would have been saved or even different because we had a guy with a 107 WRC+ instead of the much much better fielder with a 104, WRC+ is just silly. The trade was good because Teoscar had 0 surplus value last year (Kiermeier had about $15M in surplus value) . Even if you think Swanson is a wash which I don't, Macko is a legitimate prospect and getting a real prospect for what is essentially zero value is good business.