Starters via Trade?

 What if the remaining FA starters worth having signed elsewhere? Scherzer wants a winner (Mets?), Flaherty gets his wish to return to Detroit, and so forth. It feels like the folks covering the team aren't hearing, or speculating, enough about potential trades. To an extent, that's understandable since Ross Atkins has been loath to dip into his shallow pool of coveted (or at least somewhat appealing) assets this winter. Still, not EVERY option is going to blow a hole in the remaining prospect list.

There are two who are reportedly at least somewhat available, for the right price, who would. Dylan Cease is far and away the best option left but if the Padres got serious about that, there are multiple teams (Detroit, Boston, Baltimore, the Mets, the Cubs, even Cincinnati) who could steamroll any offer the Jays would make. Luis Castillo isn't quite on that tier but come with multiple years under contract and one would similarly assume that Toronto wouldn't be able to field the best offer (though they should of course confirm that and not just assume).

But beyond those, there are interesting options who, while not top tier, could be as useful to the team as someone like Nick Pivetta or Jose Quintina.  Take the Dodgers for example. Their projected rotation now includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Gavin Stone. Plus Tony Goslin and Dustin May coming back from losing a year to elbow surgery, PLUS Clayton Kershaw is in "please call me bro" mode. Beyond that incredible depth there's River Ryan, Landon Knack, and Bobby Miller. Admittedly Miller fell apart last year but how hard could it be to pry lose one of those depth options? Imagine, say, gambling on the recovery of Goslin (who has two years of control) or May and winning? Short of that, scoring River Ryan would be a coup. [Edit: Not that it matters any more, but I just learned Ryan is injured and likely out for the season.]

But let me move beyond complete speculation to somewhat more informed spitballing. There are some guys out there who are known to be available salary dumps. Perhaps most notoriously, Jordan Montgomery. If the Jays were willing to absorb his whole contract they could acquire Montgomery for practically nothing before sunset. Should they? Over the course of '21-'23 he had a 3.48 ERA, a 120 ERA+, and a 3.62 FIP. And not all of that can be dismissed as "sticky stuff". I'm not finding a ton of deep-dives into what went wrong last year, but this has some good points. The question here is now much of the deal do you need Arizona to eat in order to find an agreement. His contract is for $22.5 million and it seems really unlikely any team is going to soak up that whole obligation. But if you could get it down to, say, 16 and that didn't cost you too much in prospect balance? I'd take a one year risk on him over giving  Pivetta three.

Then there's Marcus Stroman. Stroman also had a 120 ERA+ over the three seasons previous to 2024, a 3.45 ERA and a 3.60 FIP. Which is almost identical to Montgomery, and his fall-off wasn't as dramatic as Mongomery's (although their FIP was similar). Moreover his contract is for a marginally more modest $18.5 million - albeit with an $18 million player option. On the other hand, the decline doesn't have as many ready explanations as Montgomery's does. Still, if the Yankees just want to move on and don't expect a big return, there's some appeal here, even more so if they'll nibble a few million off of it. The risk, of course, is if he's really in age decline and he pitches poorly enough to exercise the option.

The Cardinals are looking to shed payroll are constrained by their most appealing trade chips holding no-trade protections that they won't waive. Miles Mikolas has a big contract (relative to his production) but is in decline and would be a bad idea. Next in line is Steven Matz. The one-time Blue Jays is an interesting case. He parlayed his strong '21 for the Jays into a four-year contract with the Cardinals that has been marred by injuries and inconsistency. But take a closer look. In '22 his ERA was 5.25 but his FIP was 3.78, almost identical to his FIP the previous year for the Jays. In '23 it was 3.75 (alongside an ERA of 3.86). In '24 his strikeout rate dropped off and his ERA (and FIP) went up. He's under contract for $12.5 million which is, in the current market, a minor bargain if he's not washed. And if he's healthy enough to get at least 20-25 starts.

The Cards also have Erikc Feede under contract for $7.5 million but that's so relatively little that their (professed) money woes would have to be severe for them to trade him (albeit he was never particularly good before '24 so there is some risk) and if they did you have to think other contenders could be more persuasive in terms of return. 

There was some speculation that the Twins might want to shave Chris Paddack off of their payroll, but he also is making only $7.5 million so it wouldn't seem to be a matter of desperation. One way to approach it might be to offer to take Christian Vasquez's $10 million contract if you can get Paddock for minimal prospect return. Vasquez is well overpaid and hasn't been a good hitter for the last two years, but neither is Heinemann and he at least has a great defensive reputation. Paddock missed most of '22 and '23 to injury and eventually Tommy John surgery and was below average last season. as he delt with fatigue in his throwing arm (among other things) in his first full season back (which wasn't a full season, he got 17 starts). He's never lived up to the promise of his rookie year but if you REALLY thought there was something there, maybe you talk yourself into it?

Anyway, depending on the return and the cost, I would be pretty placid about any of Montgomery, Stroman, or Matz. But seriously, let's have a lot of discussions with the Dodgers.

I Stand Corrected: Making Sense of the Implications

 So. As it turns out I've been misleading myself the whole off-season. As Joshua Howsam pointed out to me, my conviction that the Jays would not go past CBT+40 because of the draft penalty was misplaced. The reason for that is that the CBT figure is calculated AFTER the season (as witnessed by the Jays having gotten under the line for 2024 with midseason trades) therefore any draft penalty would happen in 2026, not this year when they have a high pick. This realization re-sets a lot of the speculation I'd been voicing.

Even though it's not yet reflected on Roster Resource because the fine specifics have not yet been published, the current reporting is that the Santander deal defers over $30 million and results in an AAV (for the CBT) of something like $14 million. So reducing the RR total by $4.5 million puts them at a tick over $258 million. The CBA increases the tax penalty at +20, +40, etc over the first threshold of 241 million. So literally any other acquisition puts them over the 2nd tier threshold and some of the speculated pursuits which remain would likely put them over the third tier threshold.

Also, in a somewhat surprising revelation, Shi Davidi reports (presumably based on a team source) that since Myles Straw isn't on the 40 man roster, his bloated contract doesn't count towards the CBT total. Which means it would take a pretty extreme circumstance for him to ever play a game for the Blue Jays. 

Still, the implications of this week's reporting changes what I'd assumed about future spending. I'm still skeptical about Alonso and I'm basically just going to forget about Bregman, however the SP discussion gets a lot more interesting. Ben Nicholson-Smith is under the impression that Max Scherzer is their primary target for the rotation, which is... fine...I guess... in that you don't have to go longer term and maybe you get him for a contract sorta like what Verlander got, with a high risk of health problems. But if that doesn't work out, the two names that are still high on the FA lists are Jack Flaherty and Nick Pivetta. For me, between the two, I'd rather chase Flaherty. 

Pivetta is, basically, a slightly above average guy (on results, there are still those who believe there's upside but he's 32) who's been pretty consistent since the short season. Flaherty MIGHT have medical questions, but he's three years younger and when he's on has gotten better results. If you have to invest 3-4 years in one of them, I'd pay the extra to get Flaherty if his medicals are okay. Of course, they're running out of opportunities for the group of young players if they add another hitter, so it's impossible to rule out a trade. If you can get Luis Castillo, for example, you consider it although Ross has been averse to trading young guys or prospects (for good reason). 

So back to the lineup. If you look at current in-house roster, the lineup looks kinda like this:

1.
2. Bichette 
3.Guerrero
4. Santander
5.
6. Kirk
7.Varsho
8. Springer
9. Gimenez

There's not an ideal lead-off hitter on the team, and 3B is at this point a contest among young players. It seems like third is Barger v. Martinez v. Wagner and whoever wins that would fill 3B and the other outfielder/DH would involve those same guys in some sense with Loperfido and Schneider also options. If you had, for example, Wagner at 3B and Martinez to some degree as a DH, then you can plug them into (respectively) those two lineup spots I left open above. This is obviously the "if they don't sign (or trade for) anyone else" scenario.

But they seem to be set on more additions based on reporting and Atkin's comments at the presser. If they add another hitter (speculation to follow) then suddenly you're in a position in which Barger, Martinez, Wagner, Loperfido, Schneider, Lukes (not a kid but deserves some opportunity) and eventually Clase and Roden are all in the mix for limited bench work and MAYBE one regular spot open in the lineup. That's not the best use of resources. You'd tend to think "well, makes a couple of trades" but who can predict such things.

As for free agent acquisitions, you have maybe four options. Pete Alonso, whom everyone but me seems to think would be a great idea. I'm only interested here if it's very short and tempts him to opt out after this season and he's willing to get the lion's share of starts at DH. Alex Bregman who actually does fit the roster better than Alonso, if you could get him to structure a deal kinda like Santander's that's kinda front-loaded and with an opt-out it would be a win-win in that he'd lose the burden of the QO and get back in the market if he wants, or he's solved your 3B situation for the next five years. Yet there's almost no buzz connecting him to Toronto. Jurickson Profar has been mentioned, and if you're getting a guy who's similar to 2024 that would be great, and cheaper than the previously mentioned - but he's never been that guy before and the even-numbered years thing is scary. That said, if you sign him for 10 or 12 million and he flops, there's several younger guys who'd get a newfound opportunity to surpass him. Finally there's infielder Ha-Seoung Kim, who doesn't have the power profile but, like Profar, would make sense for the leadoff spot. Like Profar you can probably sign him for something around half of what Alonso or Bregman will cost.

So to game it out a bit: Sign Bregman and you can forget about any of the kids being a good 3B, Martinez might blossom as a DH, as might Barger as an OF/DH (don't sleep on Barger, his production and OBP in the minors deserves respect) and Wagner is...a better Biggio? Assuming they aren't involved in a trade of course; Sign Kim and he'd be your 3B (and more insurance against Bo leaving) with the same implications I just described for the youth;  Sign Alonso and you potentially crowd DH with veterans including Guerrero, Springer, and Santander but you make it less likely any young player gets some run in the outfield (barring the benching of Springer which I'm for but they won't) and the only room for the young players is at 3B; sign Profar and he, Santander, and Springer can be rotated through DH and 3B is in play in this scenario as well. 

Payroll? if they are, as it seems, sitting at roughly 258 now, adding Scherzer gets you to maybe 275 and either Alonso or Bregman is in the ballpark of a $300 million total. Add Flaherty/Pivetta instead and that's maybe $280 million and so you shift to Profar or Kim and still have room to sign Danny Coulombe (yes, I still have a mild fixation on him) and likewise end up at roughly $300 million.

Who the heck really knows? Yet again, there's also the non-zero possibility of trades. Gamble on Luis Robert, Jr bouncing back? I would if the White Sox would deal him. A known good add in Castillo at considerable cost in players going the other way? Take on a risk by bringing back Steven Matz (the Cards would love to shed his contract and thus the return should be minimal)? That last is a thing you only do after all the FA guys you want come off the market though.

My main conclusion is that I can't possibly have a conclusion. Feels like we'll have a lot of news to digest over the next 7-8 weeks. But it feels like Flaherty/Profar/Coulombe fits what they want to do. 

Jays' Rotations of the Future

Welp. Alas. Bitter dregs.

I can't imagine anything I can say about the utterly boring, predictable, tedious, news that the Dodgers have, again, added a star and they didn't even need to throw around big stinking piles of money to do so. It's crappy for the sport as a whole but I don't really know that there's anything for it. It's too early for my brain to reckon with "so what now?" type of speculation so let me go off on a different tangent. This was rattling around in my brain as a "counting sheep" type exercise last night.

Anyone who's follows the Baseball America annual Top Prospects lists knows that they do this little feature where they project a team's roster out several years based on who's in the system in the present. It's basically never particularly accurate because their are far too many variables to account for. But still, it's a tempting exercise, and what's on my mind is that - Sasaki's absence being what it is - there's a possibility that the Jays are not as bereft of SP options as the general narrative implies.

In terms of the current group, they control Jose Berrios for 2 more seasons, or 4 if he doesn't opt out (which I think there's a fair chance he won't). Kevin Gausman for 2 more, Chris Bassitt for 1, Alek Manoah and Yariel Rodriguez for 3 and Bowden Francis for six. If we assume no further additions (which seems unlikely but this is a thought exercise) then it is rational to think that the 2026 rotation looks like this:
Gausman
Berrios
Manoah
Francis
Rodriguez

But that's not the fascinating part. Here's the potential 2026 AAA rotation:
Jake Bloss - already had a full year here in '25
Ricky Tiedemann - coming back from TJ
Trey Yesavage - having barnstormed the others levels in '25
Adam Macko - also repeating the level
Kendry Rojas - newly arrived from AA (maybe)

That's basically all but one of the team's SP prospects in their Top 10 (depending on how you view Fernando Perez). At AA there will be Perez along with, likely, Khal Stephens.

So even if you - or the Jays - think Rodriguez would be better in the bullpen, there's multiple options to fill that spot. More to the point, you could do that AND lose Gausman and Berrios and (barring more injuries between now and then) have a choice of top prospects to step in. And three of them have been in or near the 100 Top Prospects list.

Now yes, it's not ideal to turn 2 or 3 spots in your rotation to rookies, but it's not necessarily an issue either, at least not like it would be if Lazaro Estrada (whom I like) was your best option,

I kinda like it when the up-and-coming players get a chance to have some run.

The Remaining Big Three

 The prevailing theory is that the Blue Jays are more or less forced to add a power hitting bat this off-season (while I ask out loud "what if that offense could come from Orelvis Martinez?" and maintain my opinion that I don't think they actually do have no choice but to make a big signing) and if that's true, we seem to be down to three free agent options. There are a couple of other quality hitters but if we're controlling for power specifically, there are three: Pete Alonso, Anthoney Santander, and Alex Bregman. 

Yes, I think it's a correct assessment that they really should get Vlad signed first to appeal to these guys and I further stand by my previous writing that $400 million is NOT an unreasonable neighborhood to play in. We already know the AAV has to be in the 30's - given his new arb-avoiding contract is for $28.5mm - so it seems like the main discussion comes down to years. For example, 33.33 AAV for 12 years is 400 and there's no reason to not do that. But I digress.

So, in the interest of having something to write about, it's worth a little effort to look at how the compare both in the abstract and as a fit the team's openings and needs. It's well established that, barring some significant surprise (like eating the rest of Springer's deal and releasing him, or trading Vlad) there are three openings to add offense - Left Field, Third Base, and Designated Hitter. These happen to align, more or less, with the three hitters in question. So the first order of business is to see whether there's a standout argument for any of them as a clearly better hitter than the others.

Here are some numbers from Baseball Reference. These are specifically drawn from the last three years for each.

Alonso: 131 OPS+, .826 OPS, 41 HR/162, 10.1 oWAR
Bregman: 124 OPS+, .798 OPS, 26 HR/162, 12.9 oWAR
Santander: 125 OPS+, .795 OPS, 37 HR/a62, 9.4 oWAR

From Fangraphs:
Alonso: 128 wRC+, .350 wOBA, 9.9 BB%, 22.1 K%, 8.7 WAR
Bregman: 127 wRC+, .347 wOBA, 11.1 BB%, 12.4 K%, 14 WAR
Santander: 124 wRC+, .340 wOBA, 8.5 BB%, 20.5 K%, 8.3 WAR

Obviously Bregman is getting a significant boost in fWAR from his defense which I don't know how to filter out except to cite their offense numbers which go 60.1 for Alonso, 52.6 for Bregman and 48.5 for Santander. Also the progression year-to-year for Santander is essentially the inverse of Alonso's.

Considering both sets, Alonso gets a big boost from what was a much better year in '22 than what he's done since, and Santander gets a similar inflation from his career year in '24. So the trends are deserving of attention, taken in the aggregate there's not a real separator here except that Bregman has a more well-rounded profile with a better BB% and OBP (albeit both dropped off last year) while the others are more pure power bats. but the net effect on the team, offensively, is very similar.

Is there then, a separator that goes beyond the home run output? 

Pete Alonso - He's 29, and durable, which are points in his favor. On the other hand, he had an astonishing rookie year and has been more-good-than-great since. He ramped up again in 2022 to a 146 OPS+ but in each of the two years since his OPS+ was slightly below what they got from Horwitz last year (his fWAR was 2.1 compared to 1.9 for Horwitz). If you say "screw it, all I'm interested in is balls over the fence" then a guy who's surpassed 40 three times in six years is on your radar. 

But he doesn't play a position of need, and he's not very good at it, yet it seems like he'd be resistant to signing to be the primary DH (and they dare not antagonize Vlad by asking him to) and he thinks he can get six years which has "Springer 2.0" written all over it.

Alex Bregman - by the "over the fence" metric, he's on a lower level. His one outlier power year was in 2019. His slugging % since that year is 24 points below the career numbers for Santander and far below Alonso (even without Alonso's rookie year he's over 50 points ahead). However, Bregman's career wRC+ is actually a bit higher than Alonso's (135 to 131) and well ahead of Santander's (113). This derives from his better plate discipline both in terms of limiting strikeout and a noticeably better OBP. 

Here's the hidden factor when focusing on power: Bregman was said to have meddled with his swing in the offseason and took several weeks after Opening Day before he worked out the problem. From May 9 through the end of the season (112 games) his OPS was .838, his slugging % was over .500 for the first time since 2019, and he homered at a pace that would have totaled 36 over a full season. If you think THAT is the bat you are buying, you feel a lot better about signing him. Plus, he's the only one of these candidates with plus defense and he fits more cleanly into the team's needs. The downside is that he's still expecting at least six years and the most expensive contract of the three. 

Anthony Santander - this comes down to how much you weigh his platform year against his prior career. Whether you take the two seasons immediately prior, or four, you get a guy who's more-good-than-great across the board. He was a 115 fWAR over that span (129 in '24) and played 3 times as many games while hitting twice as many homers. There's a real risk of paying for peak value here and never getting that value in your lineup. As a DH primarily, he's useful but the Jays have reportedly offered four years and even that is too long IMO. He's almost certain to get overpaid (all these guys could arguably get more than they will end up providing). 

Different people will come to different conclusions. The most reliable power is Alonso but a shorter contract to mostly DH (like Rys Hopkins signed last year) isn't likely to land him and more than that risks real downside. Santander is also best employed as a DH, but do you want him for four years if he's more of a 25-30 homer guy than 40+ (which seems likely)? He'd be an improvement but enough? Bregman brings more balanced and consistent offense, with a potential power upside depending on how you read last season, and quality defense at a position of need, while costing more in AAV and term. He has downside risk in the out years similar to what the Cardinals are now dealing with concerning Nolan Arenado (but won't have a contract THAT big). 

Between the three, I still come down on the side of Bregman. Both of the others seem to me to have more downside risk in the more immediate term (Bregman's would be more on the back half of the deal) and without bringing defensive value could be more of a burden.

To be fair, I should note one more possibility. Jurickson Profar had a wRC+ last season higher than Santander ever had, better than 4 of 6 Alonso seasons, and better than anything Bregman has had since 2019. However, he's been wildly inconsistent alternating good years and awful years for seven straight seasons. 

In 2024 he had 4.3 fWAR, again, better than any season from Santander or Alonso except the latter's rookie year and similar to Bregman's number in each of the last three years. He's not the same home run thread but his slugging was the equal of Alonso's in '24, better than Bregman's (on the whole season, but not in the smaller sample) and almost as high as Santander's. Even though he terrifies me (the alternating years thing) you can probably sign him for 2 years at an AAV around half of what the Big 3 are looking for. He's also a defensive liability but if you're a believer in whatever changes he made to get last year's outcome, and you don't/can't sign any of them, you wouldn't spit on this play as a mostly-DH. Still, in terms of public/pundit perception, there's no way to frame it as "we added some power to help out Vladdy." Honestly, more like a potential leadoff hitter.

Indeed, you could afford Bregman and Profar for around $38-40mm in combined AAV (I say Bregman because the other three are similar defensive liabilities). Depending on how much you want to reserve for any further pitching additions.

Who knows how long this rumination will last before it's obsolete? This is the sort of stuff you read when the news cycle is intolerably slow.