Position by Position

 

With the off-season now officially half over, and myself utterly bored with what Blue Jays may or may not be doing and the relentless tabloid style all-caps headlines describing a report or a pod that actually contains nothing new, it falls to me to revise and recycle my useless opinions. 

The least I can do then is give it a slightly different form and frame. With that intent, I'll go position by position even if it's largely stating the obvious.

Catcher - nothing to say here, they will probably look at adding someone who's a marginal upgrade on Tyler Heinemann (they'd hope) to back up Kirk. That said, most of the available options don't project to be an upgrade.

First Base - the only loose talk here is the sometimes mentioned idea of Vlad playing some 3B but I feel like if they had that as a bit of incentive for him to sign an extension we'd hear more about it. They might yet pull that rabbit out of their caps but...I doubt it. I don't think that the "some" stuff works anymore though. If you want to add someone at 1b (Alonso?) then Vlad is your regular 3B. Signs are they aren't leaning that way.

Second Base - Settled. Gimenez. In the non-zero event that they move on from Bo this winter, there's still half a dozen in-house players who've played some 2B. Up to and including Will Wagner and Orelvis Martinez.

Shortstop - Bo. If he were shockingly traded likely Gimenez but if they really wanted him to stay at 2B both Leo Jimenez and Josh Kasavich are described as excellent defenders. Plus there's Clement. Some speculate about signing Ha-Seong Kim which wouldn't be irrational if someone met your price on Bo...which they won't. 

Third Base - There are only five remaining free agent position players that Fangraphs projects to reach 2.0 WAR and the best by a significant margin is Alex Bregman. His field of options is narrowing. The only teams with both the positional need and the resources to discuss his asking price are the Yankees and Blue Jays yet, oddly, neither of them seem to be heavily linked to him in the rumor mill. If you're going to risk a Springer-type outcome on a nine-figure contract you'll likely get a better return here than on an outfielder who's a liability in the field already. Absent such a signing you would expect a contest between Addison Barger and Orelvis Martinez with Ernie Clement as a safety net of sorts. As I've commented from time to time, I'm not afraid of the idea of either or both of the youngsters getting some run.

Right field - Springer seem inevitable. For me, I'd at minimum make him have to earn it. Roden, Loperfido, Barger (if not the presumptive 3B), and Clase should all go to Spring Training with the opportunity to unseat him, in my opinion. But I'm skeptical. My guess is they'll let him fail some more first. Hopefully not leading off anymore. 

Center field - Dalton Varsho, of course, when he's healthy. There's a minor uncertainty about who gets run as his most regular replacement until then. Emotionally I feel like Nathan Lukes has paid his dues and deserves a chance to take this time to prove he can do it in the majors. But on paper you can argue pretty vigorously for Joey Loperfido:

and, a half step behind him, Jonatan Clase:

In point of fact, this provokes in me a rant that's not so much a tangent as one might think. But let me hold it for half a sec.

Left Field - Those five players I mentioned earlier include three I have already alluded to, along with Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar. I've been more skeptical on both, than most. The former seems like the Springer deal without the defensive value. If you have to give him five years I'm near certain you'll be underwater on a mediocre DH in the last two, maybe three. I'd find a three-year contract tolerable - but he won't. Profar terrifies me. If they wanted to gamble something like $20 mil for 2 years...okay, fine I guess. Not sure that will be his best offer. There's also a dark horse possibility of a trade, but the only really interesting option there is Luis Robert, Jr. 

But about that rant: this front office presents itself as mostly immune to the pressures of public opinion, their valuation is their valuation. And yet, based on their minor league production, they have three entirely solid options to upgrade their OF from within in Loperfido, Roden, and Clase, as well as two fine candidates to play 3B. Yes, there's pretty intense pressure to make magic happen this year until/unless at least Vlad (you understand the impossibility of extending Bo under the circumstances) is settled but the public image is that they don't operate that way. If this is true, it would be out of character to spend bad money on an outfielder when you have actual young and cheap talent on the cusp, just because you don't want to appear cheap. If they mid dude (at best) like Verdugo just so they can give the appearance of "do something" I will riot. 

If this is your last year to prove yourself, why not prove that you have AGAIN (as you did when you acquired Teo) brought in a young player with upside to fill the holes. Indeed, your whole initial claim was that you could do just that. I know that the terminally online Jays fanbase can be toxic but I, for one, would look at an opening day line-up with Loperfido in left and Roden in right along with Barger at 3B and Martinez as the DH and smile. Not because they saved money but because I'd 100 times rather root for any of those as some retread like Profar.

Starting pitcher - with Burnes off the table, there's no "add an ace" option left. The two best guys among the well-paid class are Jack Flaherty and Nick Pivetta. Both have blemishes. The former has downside risk based on his history and the latter would be trying to buy upside that usually doesn't appear at his age. Plus Pivetta has a QO. I'm not harshly opposed to either but not enthused either. 

Beyond that you might as well try to land a value play like Spencer Turnbull or Michael Lorenzen, or push for a trade for Erik Fedde (my latest hoppy horse) if you are determined to add a major league SP of some sort.

Bullpen - Here's the gap that's most difficult to navigate between what we think and what they think. If you presume, as I do, that there's a bit over $50 million that they COULD spend without paying too high a penalty, and that Bregman would take up around half of that, then how to best spend the other 25ish? Most of us would suggest that you sign a budget SP (if you really want one) like Turnbull and invest in the bullpen. But investing in expensive relievers has never been the way of this FO. So I'll acknowledge the technical possibility of adding Tanner Scott or Jeff Hoffman or Carlos Estevez... I'll also say that aspiring to a year of Kirby Yates and landing AJ Minter would be all we should aspire to as fans. Which would be helpful, to be sure.

So, in summation, me personally I'd go with the youth movement on the position player crew and if I really wanted to make a big move it would be Bregman. Among pitchers, if you added Trunbull as your 5th starter and put Rodriguez in the pen, then adding Yates and Minter would fill it out - in fact it would make you want to see if you could get something interesting for Chad Green. I'm not in the crowd that will be pissy that they didn't spend just to be spending. 

 

Collecting My Thoughts

 The punditry about the Blue Jays is making me a little crazy, most particularly in terms of the budget, and some of it doesn't make sense, in my opinion.

So let's lay out some parameters. According to Fangraphs Roster Resource the Jays CBT number as of this writing is $228,470,427. Take that, and the first tax threshold this year $241 million) and that leaves about $12 million. I don't think that anyone thinks that the Jays are going to constrain themselves to staying under that threshold. There's another penalty surcharge at threshold+20, and still another at T+40 and that one is the important one I'm guessing. See the highlighted bit below:

(I'm dissatisfied with the size of the image)

The point here is that I don't think they much care about the additional surcharge on going more than $20 million over the first threshold. As an example, let's say they spend $271 million and are thus 10 million into the second tier - that will cost them a $1.2 million surcharge on top of the original tax figure which is $20% on all spending over the 241 threshold. So on 30 million over that would be 6 million plus the 1.2 million surcharge. Thats less than Yimi Garcia is going to get paid in 2025. This isn't going to impede them making a deal they want. However, at T+40 there's a MUCH more significant penalty. Now it's $42.5% on any overage dollars but more importantly, IMO, your first draft pick next year is dropped 10 spots. So I'm going on the assumption that they will not reach $280 million. Another factor here is Mark Shapiro's comment that the next payroll shouldn't be expected to move much in either direction (which was around $250 million last April.

And yet obviously Soto would have blown that up so I think that was more an evasion of a specific answer than an actual plan. So, if you're treating the real high point as 280, then your spending money is up to but no more than $52 million. So the cold reality is that if they did in fact sign Corbin Burnes, there's no more than $20mm available for every other need which is another way of saying that you're very limited in augmenting the offense. 

Before I go further let me be clear: if this teams opening day roster had Alan Roden starting in the OF and Orelvis Martinez as your primary 3B or DH I wouldn't mourn. I'm always borderline irrational in my confidence in the best prospects even if the system lacks depth (we're told) but I'm all for giving the kids room to shine. But the premise of all my speculation so far is that they don't seem likely to take that chance.

So...up to $52 million more. Barring trades (it seems to me that there's not a lot of obvious options for adding via trade) how do you make this offense better with outside editions? Here's my Plan A:

Teoscar Hernandez - 3/69 or 4/80
As I've commented before, there's no one left on the market that's a better fit because he's one of the three best hitters left, you don't need to add a lot of risky out-years, and no one else brings they "vibes" that this team and FO desperately need. Not only do the fans love him but so does Vlad and anything you can do to make Vlad more willing to sign is very much a tie-breaker if you need one.

Joc Pederson - 1/13(ish?)
You may have noticed I never mentioned this guy before Horwitz was traded because the best skill of each was basically the same. We already had a potential DH vs. RHP who might well still have upside. But they don't have that guy anymore. Pederson as the strong side of a DH platoon would potentially be a big boost to the offense even if he doesn't replicate his 2024 line. Plug Orelvis in as the other half of the platoon (and hopefully play him at 3B whenever Pederson is in the game) and this will bring a lot of production to the line-up. There remains the difficult question of who leads off but you could line it up like this:

Bo
Vlad
Teo
DH platoon
3B (Martinez/Barger)
Springer
Varsho
Kirk
Gimenez 

Alternately, you could be really bold and lead-off Gimenez to maximize the value of his speed, but that's bold confidence in his potential rebound. That's a big upgrade on where they stand right now. Even if it's not a league leading offense. So you've spent potentially $36 million out of that 52. 

With $16 left (and a fair possibility that they'll want to leave a cushion of 6-7 million for July trade additions) you can maybe sign another needed reliever (Seawald?) or two depending on the price of any given guy. But the best starter you can afford in free agency is maybe Michael Lorenzen (Lance Lynn might come in under 10?).

Bottom line - I don't see them both significantly boosting the rotation AND the offense. I'm not sure which will end up being augmented but even with the most generous payroll assumptions, it's just not possible.

The Matter of the Blue Jays' Bullpen

 [Amended] It's probably best to begin with a disclaimer about budget assumptions. Mark Shapiro indicated the budget would be something like what it was last year. Last year that was just under $222 million before the addition of the other budget lines that count towards the CBT tax threshold. Altogether that put them into the low 240's and, at the time, around 4-6 million over the first threshold of $237 million. 

It is reported that at the trade deadline they managed to shave that down under that line so, if true, that resets the clock and saves them from potentially paying a steeper penalty as for crossing the line in a second consecutive year. This year the first threshold is $241 million and the best estimates of current obligations suggests that the team has about $40 million to spend before crossing that line, although we have no indication they feel obliged to stay under it. Still, we'd only be guessing about how much more fits within Shapiro's "about the same" description.

So for the purposes of this unfounded speculation I'm going to suppose that apart from unicorn budgets they would try to stay under $50 million total additional commitments. Understanding for this thought experiment, that they're not spending the whole budget on the bullpen. Such an exercise is effectively crippled by the reports of them playing at the top of the SP market. Does that mean they'll commit half or more of their available budget to sign Burnes or Fried? Does that mean there's a budget exception (as with Soto) to sign one of them? Who the heck knows? I can only assume that if they want to add a SP and a bat that it throttles the idea of spending eight figures to add Tanner Scott or Jeff Hoffman (despite my "bring back former prospects" bias). So how might they build a (potentially - after last season you can't assume on anyone) worthy bullpen with a limited share of the budget?

Part of the answer is that you make trades, but since it's effectively impossible to predict such a trade, I'm speaking here in terms of free agency. 

Second caveat: there are a LOT of available relievers and major league teams have access to an insane amount of data that doesn't show up in stat lines.  I'm not even very good with publicly available stuff like spin rates and so forth. So my opinion is likely worth very little to anyone who is. Still, I like to write stuff about my team so here we are. Also, I'm going to set aside the aging guys who had surprisingly good years like Kirby Yates. Would I be at all surprised if he or someone like him is signed? No. But it only takes a superficial glance at these guys to understand that they'd be candidates. Not sure how much I'd be able to add. 

Top Priority:

Michael Soroka - assuming that they don't want to pay the price for a "proven" closer, this is probably the best upside play on the market. When the White Sox moved Soroka to the bullpen his season turned around completely. They used him often in a multi-inning role (16 games, 36 IP) which might be where some teams see his value, and some might want to try him as a starter again but if he was this good in longer outings you have to be tempted to use him at the end of games, though not confined to only one inning necessarily. In this (smallish) sample of 36 IP he struck out 60 (that's 15/9 IP) and had a 2.75 ERA/FIP while holding opposing batters to .189/.303/.291/.594 with the only blemish being a too-high walk rate of 5/9 IP. One might speculate that with more space between him and injury he'll recover his previous lower walk rate (it was 2.4/9 coming into 2024). He's going into his age 27 season.

The Sox paid him $3 million last year and you'd be getting a good deal at twice the price for '25. You could load up some incentives for appearances and saves and if possible lock him up for more than one season. At his age and with his pedigree it's a chance I'd take. Late reporting suggests he's getting offers as a starter which might put this out of reach.

RH support:

The team already has Green and Swanson so this is the one part of the 'pen that's not in panic mode But one of the better options to add via free agency (without shopping at the top of the market) is Paul Sewald. He got paid $7.35mm last year by Arizona and he took a bit of a step back from the previous three seasons which were successful and consistent. Mainly driven by allowing more contact and posting a slightly lower K rate. But over the previous three years combined he had a 2.95 ERA, a 135 ERA+, and 12.2 K/9 over 189.1 IP. It will be his age 35 season so it's hard to speculate about salary and term but I'm going to suggest he should fall in that same 7-8 million range. The problem here is whether he'll prioritize situations where he's first in line to close.

Edit to add: I overlooked Andrew Kittredge, Chris Martin and Tommy Kahnle. From 2021 to 2024 Kittredge posted a 2.48 ERA over 174 IP with a 3.62 FIP and a 165 ERA+ and The Athletic notes that his 38.9 percent chase rate was the best in baseball. Martin is going into his age 39 season, which would normally suggest caution, but he has possibly the most elite ability in the league in one valuable skill - man doesn't walk ANYONE. His career BB/9 is 1.2and it hasn't been higher than 1.5 in any season since 2018. It's not just an odd skill either, his ERA is 2.82 in almost 200 IP since the short season. Kahnle has had one bad year (2018) since 2016 and he had a 2.11 ERA in 2024 and if I'm fair, I'd rather sign either of than Sewald. I'll also offer a nod to the idea of bringing back Yimi Garcia if he's healthy. There are a lot of worse options.

LH Needed

The one to chase here is AJ Minter. He's had one off year in his career and that was in 2019. Since then he has a 2.85 ERA (2.84 FIP) and a 151 ERA+ over 243 IP. He put up 10.8 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9 and kept the ball in the park. One might quibble that he had a really low BABip compared to the rest of his career but that's really picking the nits. He made $6.2 million in Atlanta last year and he's no secret so he might be the most expensive guy I've mentioned. You'd probably need to go 2 and maybe 3 years to get him, something around 3/25 maybe? They should. 

A less expensive alternative is Danny Coulombe. He made 2.3 n Baltimore last year and they declined a $4 million option for 2025. But that was cheaping out unless they know something we don't. He did lose three months to injury last year but he pitched in the majors in September. Over four seasons ('21-'24) he posted a 2.75 ERA (3.17 FIP) to support a 148 ERA+. He has good ratios, keeps the HR rate down and isn't just a lefty killer. On the other hand he also had an outlier BABip in '24 of just .179 for whatever that's worth. Adding three of these would cost you somewhere between $17 and $23 million next year depending on which lefty you sign.

And yes, BTW, if someone is going to sign Tim Mayza to a minor league deal it should be Toronto. He wasn't a beast for the Yankees by any means but he wasn't a mess. They have, obviously, a better conception of WHY he was so bad for the Jays last season and whether there's hope for a rebound, so this might just be sentimentality on my part - but stranger comebacks have happened.

I guess the takeaway here is that once you get away from the expensive closer options, the overstuffed market isn't saturated with guys who inspire a ton of confidence that they're the answer to Toronto's bullpen situation so don't sleep too long unless you're confident in some helpful trades. On that point, while it's foolish to guess at trades, a line that got my attention is a youngster on the Marlins' roster named Andrew Nardi. The 26 year old lefty put up an ERA was an unpleasant 5.01 but he has a career K/9 of 12.4 (12.7 in '24) and his FIP was 3.33 so the ERA is likely very misleading. This is the kind of guy that you'd expect a team like the Jays to look at trading for. Robert Garcia, a slightly older lefty who pitched for the Nationals would be a similarly appealing target. Such under the radar guys are scattered around the league, sometimes playing for a team who'd rather turn that guy into, say, Leo Jimenez or Davis Schneider or some such.

We'll see.