I completely agree that you absolutely have to develop elite talent within your own system to compete for championships. However supplementing talent via free agency is crucial as well. Washington Nationals did it with Howie Kendrick and Adam Eaton. Red Sox did it with JD Martinez and David Price. The Astros developed an incredible roster and supplemented it with Charlie Morton and later Michael Brantley.
Free agents are great because they don’t cost assets and only cost money, which as we all know Rogers has a lot of, but the Canadian dollar doesn’t help us. However those teams I listed above were really able to supplement their rosters with talent via trades because of their immense pools of prospect talent. The Red Sox adding Sale, Kimbrel, Porcello. Astros adding Cole, Verlander. Also the Dodgers adding Betts via trade.
The Jays are in a great position to do both, add players via free agency due to their financial flexibility and through trades because of their immense prospect capital.
I say go for it and grab Springer and Realmuto and trade for Lindor and accelerate this rebuild. Why not. We have loads of talent coming up the pipeline.
The Astros and Nationals are good comparisons. They’re not an unlimited budget team like LA or Boston, and the free agents you reference for say Houston were cheap reclamation (Morton) or veteran on short, value deals (Brantley). Cole and Verlander were acquired in trades on good contracts. Now Verlander was signed to a rich extension, but only for two years.
Springer is a budget buster looking for term and big dollars. Not worth it IMO especially when the owner is a public company and has to make long term profitability for its shareholders a priority.
I'm in the same boat. The part that really bothers me about Bauer is his mouth. You either love the guy or hate him. Why does a teammate have to be so polarizing? I put Scherzer up there as well, with Bauer the slight tier below. Anyway, Bauer I read was anticipating a $150MM contract. Good luck to any team giving that away to a pitcher.
Has Bauer changed his mind from doing one year deals for the rest of his career? 30M for one year is a good gamble.
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"We don't even know who our best player is yet. It could be any one of us at this point." - Peter LaFleur, player/coach, Average Joe's Gymnasium
In the latest chapter of Trevor Bauer’s unconventional trip through free agency, the right-hander revealed in a video that he had a call set to talk with the Blue Jays — specifically mentioning that he planned to talk with their pitching coach (Pete Walker) and high performance coach (presumably VP of high performance Angus Mugford).
While many fans have had some fun with the fact that the Blue Jays have been linked to virtually every free agent on the market this winter, Bauer’s meeting with them is still plenty notable. Few clubs are expected to be major spenders this winter, but Toronto is among the likeliest teams to sign a major free agent. The Blue Jays’ current $84MM projected payroll (via FanGraphs/Roster Resource’s Jason Martinez) is about half the franchise-record $163MM, set back in 2017.
Amongst the pitchers reportedly being shopped are Carlos Carrasco out of Cleveland, and Kyle Hendricks of the Cubs. Both would garner a Darvish type of return, which was a decent rotation starter and four prospects between 10 and 20 organizationally.
If the Cubs are really desperate to shop Kris Bryant as well...
Kyle Hendricks (three years/14) and Kris Bryant (one year/18.6)
for
Trent Thornton (four years of control), Teoscar Hernandez (three years of control), CJ Van Eyk, Otto Lopez and Kevin Smith.
That pushes Vlad into 1st base/3rd base relief, Rowdy into DH/1st base relief, Davis or Fisher into RF. Starting rotation of Ryu/Hendricks/Ray/Pearson/Roark.
Very little risk and not a lot to give up.
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"We don't even know who our best player is yet. It could be any one of us at this point." - Peter LaFleur, player/coach, Average Joe's Gymnasium
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Hendriks would be a nice little pickup for the bullpen. He’s had a pretty interesting career before really finding his groove in Oakland the last season and a half. He also pitched quite well for the Jays in 2015.
Sorry to bump this again and make people think something has happened, but at the very least we will find out what happens with starting pitcher Sugano today, as his posting deadline is today. Jays are rumored to have interest, many think there is a good chance he just goes back to Japan. His upside is a good #2 SP, but more than likely a bottom rotation starter.
Overall, the speculation is just ridiculous at this point. Heard Rosenthal say the other day that he'd be absolutely shocked if the Jays didn't land AT LEAST one big name free agent, if not more. Then yesterday Morosi was on Tim and Sid saying he thinks the Jays will most likely strike out on all of Bauer, Springer, Realmuto and DJLM. SO both ends of the spectrum there.
Conspiracy theory here, but what if MLB has made a mandate to wait until the Super Bowl is done. By that point they would have a much larger percentage of the average sports fan's, and more importantly, media's focus.
Lindor was a cool dream but not sure it was ever realistic. To take out of the top end of their farm system for a 1 year player, who i think would be hard pressed to sign long term, never really made sense to me. I don't think the Jays are there yet.
I think the Jays are going to get someone, simply because at some point these FA are going to want to get paid and the Jays are one of the few teams with the flexibility to do so. Money will eventually talk as the season draws closer.
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