2024 Toronto Blue Jays Season Thread

[flambers]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

So is Vladdy signing or what? This is the only news that kind of matters.

Yep. it will be interesting to see. Not allot of time left for the signing.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by flambers

Almost every move,

Going into the off-season with neither Bo or Vladdy signed, and thinking they could at track a big name player? Clearly there are issues within Toronto... Why would high end players want to choose Toronto?

Wasting time on Soto,

Targeting players who clearly had no intention to sign


I would be curious from management, what is the plan?

I truly believe the team was in a good position a few years ago pretty much at the start of covid. The prospect pool looked to be coming along, but then Atkins started making large trades of these prospects. The two prospects for one guy back started killing them. The Barrios trade worked out and you could say others did too, arguably, but when they were highly touted at the time and you were giving so many of them up, it really banked on this team having the ability to win ahead of its time. I think they simply gave too many prospects up too fast and when some of those deals didn't work out, you didn't have the prospects to call up. Prior to that Atkins was terrible at trading declining assets for something (Bautista, Encarnacion, Donaldson, etc). He seems to be willing to dump prospect capital too easily at one point. Recently he seems to have dealt Kikuchi for a good return but those type of deals should've been done before, and he should not have given up so many prospects so easily. Now that they've done renovations, I really believe it's about piecing together a team to just compete. But a tear down will happen at some point if this team doesn't perform. Bo is almost certainly gone, and Vlad seems to be a wildcard. When you hear Kevin Barker speak (he's married to Hazel Mae), he thinks Vlad will be gone too. He may have the inside track on that. I can't argue with that theory given the Santander signing as a backup in case that were to happen. I do want to see a retool though.

[flambers]

Agreed, with the Jays, I think its a full rebuild.

However, not with the current president nor the current GM.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by flambers

Agreed, with the Jays, I think its a full rebuild.

However, not with the current president nor the current GM.

Even the staunchest supporters would guess they’re on borrowed time. With the Santender and Scherzer signings they’ve bought themselves some goodwill and runway so perhaps May or something may be early for at least Atkins departure, but I truly think it’s a matter of time. He’ll almost certainly be gone by September. The lineup has holes and too many question marks currently. I do think Shapiro will be kept because he can deal with ownership but I think he should go. It was his job to oversee Atkins and he didn’t do much of that because of the renovation. Not sure why he was excused fully when both were his job.

[flambers]

It will be interesting, to see how this team performs.

Would guess they are going to struggle,

Bull pen has issues, I like the starting pitching however they have to stay healthy,

Hitting is going to struggle, George is declining, Varsho is hurt,

Key is will Bo rebound, will the catchers hit, can the new 2nd baseman generate offense?

[browna]

Atkins and Shapiro are perfect for the Rogers group by being non controversial and are well versed in corporate speak.
They have and can control the narrative, while deflecting all these questions about the roster, plan, and their own performance away internally to the satisfaction of Rogers the owner.

I agree Shapiro would have the trust of Rogers, having enacted the renovation process, so he's given more than the benefit of the doubt from Rogers, so that means Atkins rides along shotgun if Shapiro says so, and all the outside fan and press noise about mismanaging the last 2 offseasons is anger and frustration by people who don't know baseball, and that's good enough for aloof Rogers.

And yes, this past off season never got started right. It all should have started with, one way or another do, something with Vlad and or Bo.
Vlad being the key after a great 3/4 of a season last year, had ties with Soto, is well like by players around the league. But he seemingly got ignored by the Jays as a priority.

I am sure Vlads camp had some numbers the Jays didn't like, but he is the face of the franchise, and agents and players seeing the face of the franchise being treated as a secondary concern by the franchise,bnot even used in the pursuit of Soto, sends out bad vibes and a bad message.

It didn't help in any pursuit of free agents to leave his situation in the air, and obviously doesn't help the likelihood of taking care of him in the future. No stories of "Vlad is waiting to see what they do, and will take less if they build the roster up around him by being active in FA" that would lead you to believe that him and the owners are on the same page.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I'm actually curious...what do you feel he mismanaged this offseason?

The only thing I can think of is that Vlad doesn't have a contract yet.

The straw move was terrible.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by flambers

Almost every move,

Going into the off-season with neither Bo or Vladdy signed, and thinking they could at track a big name player? Clearly there are issues within Toronto... Why would high end players want to choose Toronto?

Wasting time on Soto,

Targeting players who clearly had no intention to sign

I would be curious from management, what is the plan?

The only legitimate one to me (and it is a big one) is that Bo and Vladdy are still not sorted with spring training a week out.

"Targeting players that had no intention to sign" is the most annoying argument to me. It's easy to say Burnes, Soto, Alonso, Sasaki are a waste of time...but what was really wasted. Not like it prevented them from talking to other free agents, or making other moves since the market as a whole was waiting for those moves.

I'd much rather they try to take those homerun swings even if it has a 1% chance of happening instead of just going "Woe is me they will never sign here".

The Giminez trade is a good trade to me, they got a guy who finished 6th in MVP and had a 7 WAR season in 2022 on the cheap in hope he can bounce back and at worst he's an elite defensive infielder. The exact type of move a team with big salary expenditures should be making to try to take advantage of smaller market teams looking for cost savings.

They also got Sandlin in the deal which brings a new wrinkle to the bullpen.

Santander on a 5 year deal that actually came in below lots of the projections for his contract was good work.

Jeff Hoffman was a decent signing, even with the injury concerns.

Scherzer is a fun signing even if he's probably too old to make a huge impact.

[flambers]

While Jays were chasing these key UFAs, (Soto etc)

I assume all other plan's were on hold, waiting for the outcome?

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by flambers

While Jays were chasing these key UFAs, (Soto etc)

I assume all other plan's were on hold, waiting for the outcome?

That seems dangerous to assume.

If I'm not mistaken they made the Gimenez trade right in the middle of Soto and Burnes signing with other teams.

And MLB free agency as a whole is weird in that nothing generally happens until those top guys have signed. The mid-tier guys wait until the stars have been signed.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

The straw move was terrible.

What was so terrible about it?

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

What was so terrible about it?

Unnecessary money tied up with someone who isn't worth his contract and has little chance to live up to it. I'm pretty sure if you asked any team to take that contract on with nothing coming back, all would decline. Atkins gambled and lost on that for no reason.

[Inferno]

There should be no denying that they goofed up the Straw trade.

It's pretty obvious it was made to to get more money to give Sasaki and could have been put on hold until he committed which is what LA did.

[SuperMatt18]

They goofed it up - but think they were also trying to put pressure on Sasaki.

Dodgers were still trying to make the room under the International FA cap, and Blue Jays added to the pressure by trying to make an even bigger offer to Sasaki, while also removing a potential option for the Dodgers to deal with.

In the end it didn't work but in the end if Rogers is okay blowing money trying to be aggressive in a scenario like that then I'm not going to be too mad about it.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by bluejays

Unnecessary money tied up with someone who isn't worth his contract and has little chance to live up to it. I'm pretty sure if you asked any team to take that contract on with nothing coming back, all would decline. Atkins gambled and lost on that for no reason.

What did they lose? There is no salary cap and it didn't stop them from signing Santander or Scherzer and it didn't stop them from reportedly being in on Alonso and Bregman.

His contract sucks but if they're willing to spend who cares?

It's not like Straw is completely useless either. He's decent depth who can play above average defense in all OF spots and is also an above average baserunner with solid speed. Might come in handy.

I'd agree if his acquisition was holding the jays back from doing other things, but clearly it's not.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

What did they lose? There is no salary cap and it didn't stop them from signing Santander or Scherzer and it didn't stop them from reportedly being in on Alonso and Bregman.

His contract sucks but if they're willing to spend who cares?

It's not like Straw is completely useless either. He's decent depth who can play above average defense in all OF spots and is also an above average baserunner with solid speed. Might come in handy.

I'd agree if his acquisition was holding the jays back from doing other things, but clearly it's not.

Brad Zimmer. We have berroa?

[flambers]

Jays watch their luxury tax limits.

It was an odd move. Dodgers did it correctly,

[flambers]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

That seems dangerous to assume.

If I'm not mistaken they made the Gimenez trade right in the middle of Soto and Burnes signing with other teams.

And MLB free agency as a whole is weird in that nothing generally happens until those top guys have signed. The mid-tier guys wait until the stars have been signed.

I don't believe it is dangerous to assume, Jays in my view have a salary cap.

They had to wait until they knew what was happening before they went in what ever directions they had planned

Gimenez clearly was the plan,

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

What did they lose? There is no salary cap and it didn't stop them from signing Santander or Scherzer and it didn't stop them from reportedly being in on Alonso and Bregman.

His contract sucks but if they're willing to spend who cares?

It's not like Straw is completely useless either. He's decent depth who can play above average defense in all OF spots and is also an above average baserunner with solid speed. Might come in handy.

I'd agree if his acquisition was holding the jays back from doing other things, but clearly it's not.

It may have been the difference between getting Bregman and not having enough to do so. Plus this guy is locked in for several years. It's simply not an ideal situation to be in to have useless contracts on the books for specialty players. We have defence in spades, and we don't need that money tied to a pinch runner, I'd argue.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by bluejays

It may have been the difference between getting Bregman and not having enough to do so. Plus this guy is locked in for several years. It's simply not an ideal situation to be in to have useless contracts on the books for specialty players. We have defence in spades, and we don't need that money tied to a pinch runner, I'd argue.

"It may have...."

Imaginary horribles again

We don't have OF defense in spades and Varsho starts the year injured after surgery.

Again, obviously it wasn't a good deal, but people constantly flipping out over it and calling it "terrible" is a massive over reaction to things they've made up in their heads after they missed out of Sasaki because he chose to go to the Dodgers.

The deal has clearly not held them back from continuing to sign players and attempt to sign even more.