Stray Thoughts... - Here We Go Again
Tons of words on Juan Soto, Roki Sasaki, "Shi Speaks!", Vlad's Silver Slugger, some Tramuta-ization (aka the Jays' new scouting director), finding 10 wins, Katoh, Kiermaier, and a whole lot more!
It is with much sadness that I must announce to the most annoying, weak-kneed Jays fans in the world that their team is once again being linked to the top free agents on the market.
Whyyyyy? Why must these beautiful innocents be so cursed as to follow a team that actually wants to do everything it can to add top tier talent despite not being a traditional powerhouse or marquee destination? Why couldn’t they have just been born Cubs fans, or Giants fans, or Mariners fans, or something? What a nightmare.
Poor babies.
Anyway, please keep those folks in your heart and in your prayers as you read the latest on Juan Soto, Roki Sasaki, and more. Here are today’s hot stove-heavy Stray Thoughts…
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The Special Juan
Look. Nobody thinks that the Blue Jays have the greatest sales pitch to give to Juan Soto, especially considering that his pal Vladdy still hasn’t been extended by the club. But they’re going to make it, and according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, they’re going to be the first team to have the privilege of doing so.
“Soto is starting to take meetings with teams this week in California,” he writes, “and the Toronto Blue Jays will be first, according to major league sources.”
I don’t think we really need to start reading the tea leaves on what going first could potentially mean about how seriously they’re being taken—as theScore’s Brandon Wile notes, Soto said after the World Series that he’d meet any team that’s interested—but to at least some extent they are. The industry as a whole appears to be taking them seriously, too.
For example:
• On Monday, Jon Heyman of the New York Post wrote that the Jays “are viewed by industry sources as a viable obstacle to the favored Yankees and Mets, thanks to a well-heeled ownership and strong incentive to improve coming off the abject disappointment of 2024,” adding that “sources suggest they plan to be in big.”
• Dominican Republic-based insider Héctor Gómez concurs.
• “The Blue Jays still have $700 million burning a hole in their wallet, and after Yankees refuse to budge from their original offer, the Blue Jays swoop in and get their man for $630 million over 14 years,” predicted Bob Nightengale in a recent piece for USA Today.
• In the aforementioned Passan piece he lists the Jays among the biggest teams in the game—noting that all such teams have stable RSN situations, unlike half the league—and among AL East teams “that plan to spend heavy this winter.”
• And FanSided’s Robert Murray had this to say on The Baseball Insiders podcast here on Tuesday:
Obviously we've talked about the Yankees and the Mets as the two favourites for Juan Soto. I still believe that to be the case to this day. I do find it really interesting though—I have not confirmed this with anybody in Toronto, but you talk with anybody around the league, like with teams that are going to be in the Soto chase, or even not in the Soto chase, and they always believe that the Blue Jays will end up being one of the real threats. And I'm not saying that's going to be where he goes, I'm not trying to get Blue Jays fans' hopes up, by any means. But they, to me, feel like a team that could make a push, and they really could be a factor in this. I'm not going to go any further than that.
So… yeah. As much as a whole lot of Jays fans would seem to bizarrely prefer this wasn’t happening at all, it’s happening.
And you know what? Even if the Jays are getting used here, and there’s no way Soto would come to Toronto even if they make the best offer by far, don’t you want them to make it more uncomfortable for whoever signs him? Don’t you want the Yankees to be limited in other things they can do because of how much this stresses their books, if he’s going to sign for them regardless?
Let the Jays help Soto squeeze some other team for every dollar, if that’s how it’s going to be!1 And can it with the loser talk.
Ah, you say, but- but- but how will they pay for it with all that we’re hearing about their possible financial limitations this winter? Great question! I have some thoughts, actually…
Shi Speaks!
Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi made an appearance this week on MLB Network Radio’s Power Alley, with Mike Ferrin and Jim Duquette, and had a whole lot to say about the state of the Jays, their finances, their approach to the offseason, the likelihood of extending Bo and Vlad, and a whole lot more.
Since this is a paywalled episode I’m only going to go through some highlights, so rest assured there are plenty of other juicy tidbits in the parts of the show that I haven’t transcribed here. Be sure to check it out.
Are Shapiro and Atkins on the hot seat?
Absolutely. So, I would say if you're on the settings on the hot seat, it's definitely three or the max setting whatever is in your vehicle. And there are a couple reasons for that. I think one is just what's happening right now with this core that, if you looked at going into the 2021 season, you would've said the Toronto Blue Jays were in one of the most enviable positions of any franchise in baseball. The young core, good farm system, financial flexibility. All these pieces that you need to win. And it hasn't happened. And now the window is closing on that core. Farm system's not in a good spot. You've got a lot of money tied up, so you can't do a ton of different things. And the contractual status of not only your key players, but your key front office members and and manager are coming up.
So you've got this natural inflection point that's coming for the franchise at the end of 2025. And this off season, it's either the Blue Jays find a way to extend that window—rebuild it, fortify and adapt that core to one that has a bit more control moving forward—or taking what looks like a low probability shot at the postseason and trying to win a championship. Or it's tearing down. Those are the lanes before the franchise right now, and that obviously leads to a lot of heat on that seat.
As we’d expect, that’s a very solid assessment of the situation, though I think there are a couple things that ought to be pointed out here. One, while the probability of the Jays making the postseason with the roster as constituted today is low, I absolutely think there are ways for them to get it where it needs to be over the next few months, and that they certainly should try that. So, I wouldn’t necessarily frame it that way myself. Two, and more generally, while I think that the inflection point they’re steamrolling toward at the end of 2025 is, of course, very real, I don’t think I’d necessarily say that they’re on the hot seat right at this minute. I suppose that depends on what your definition of the hot seat is, but I’d be more inclined to say that they will be on the hot seat if they don’t hit a home run this winter. Tomato tomato.
A tear-down seems unlikely, so how much flexibility do they have to keep this going?
Yeah, that's really the million dollar question. We can try to pick apart a number based on the breadcrumbs of information that we have—and my understanding is that the Blue Jays did get under the first CBT threshold of $237 million last year. So roughly somewhere in and around there, or just under that number, is where their payroll ended up in 2024. And we have that president and CEO Mark Shapiro said that he doesn't expect either a significant increase or decrease in payroll for 2025.
So, once you combine that with their commitments and projections that are on the books for 2025, it's about roughly $210-, $211 million right now. Just doing some rough math that puts them at about $25 million of wiggle room, if you're going to say a $235 million payroll.
Shi would certainly know better than me about this stuff, but I continue to struggle with his reading of Shapiro’s post-season comments and the idea that he’d have been talking about where their payroll ended up when he said he didn’t expect a big increase or decrease, rather than where it started. It’s certainly worth noting the possibility that that’s what he meant, but why would it be?
The Jays only got to a $235 million CBT payroll because of their deadline sell-off, and clearly part of the reason the sell-off took the shape that it did was to get the club under the threshold in order to reset the penalties that being over it carries. Trying so hard to avoid those potential penalties—which include additional taxes on every dollar over the threshold, and the forfeiture of an extra draft pick and international bonus pool money in the event that the club signs a free agent who rejected his former team’s qualifying offer—doesn’t make sense if they had no intention of getting back into luxury tax territory, or if they were going to have such limited financial flexibility as to all but rule out any QO-rejecting free agents.
To make the deadline sell-off make sense, they need to do those things. Otherwise, why not pay full freight for all the guys they were trading away in order to get even better prospects back?
I mean, I suppose the answer to that question could be that they misread where Rogers was going to allow their 2025 payroll to go, or that they were being told to cut costs. But getting just barely under was clearly so deliberate that I have a hard time buying it—particularly the latter idea.
What also doesn’t make sense to me in this reading is the fact that, according to RosterResource, back in 2023 the Jays ended up with a CBT payroll of $246 million from an Opening Day 26-man-roster payroll (per Cot’s) of $210 million, and they then went into 2024 with an Opening Day payroll of $225 million.
I don't think the under-the-hood math is quite as simple as saying that they were therefore likely projecting for the CBT payroll to go up by $15 million in 2024 as well, but it just seems off to me that we'd be talking about a CBT payroll limit of $235 million in 2025, when that's $10 million lower than in 2023, the 2024 Opening Day payroll went up by $15 million, and the only reason they ended up with a CBT number south of $237 million was a very deliberate sell-off to get there. Call me overly optimistic if you want, but I have to believe that there's more wiggle room there.
Of course, with the way it sounds like payroll is being approached this winter, all of that may be moot...
Now, my understanding is, as well, that there are certain scenarios, or if certain opportunities arise for them this off season, that they can push beyond that. But I would think that those are very specific elite players—you know, Juan Soto would be there, though we can all understand that that's not gonna happen—and maybe a couple other players, or a couple other combinations of players as well.
So it’s like the Ohtani thing, where they’ll have one budget with Soto and one without?
Yeah, that's essentially the way it's set up. And you know, I did report that last year, and that's the same case this year. But I do think there are a couple options beyond Soto. And I don't know the specific names on that, and I don't know if maybe that's just if they can get, you know, two or three specific players, or two or three players from a group of players—something along those lines—where they could exceed that.
But, you know, it's really interesting, because, I just got home from the GM meetings, and just the different conversations that I've had with agents and other executives. You know, there's this one stream where it's like, “Yeah, the Jays are gonna be super aggressive, they're gonna try to make all these things happen.” And then there's this other stream where they're going to be very cautious, and they expect them to act later in the off season. And that may be tied to those two permutations of budget, I guess we could call it. So they are a team that's I think really trying to assess what is realistic for them. And then they could have two very divergent off seasons depending on what opportunities are going be real for them.
There has been a noticeable thread throughout Shi’s reporting and informed speculation lately that there may still be some chance that they pull the plug on the whole thing this winter. You can certainly see that here too. Feels unlikely, and it’s very much not how the front office has been posturing, but if the horses aren’t out there for them—if they’re simply not going to be able to add enough projected wins for being all-in on 2025 to make sense—it wouldn’t be the craziest idea to bite the bullet and pivot.
I mean, I’d hate it. I think it would make the way that they handled the trade deadline a fireable offence. I think people are stupid to be already wishing for it. But he’s probably right to leave open the possibility that it might become the correct play.
Is Soto the same draw for Rogers as Ohtani though?
Oh, I think Ohtani’s just so unique in so many ways, right? Like, I looked at Ohani last year for anybody, not just the Blue Jays, that that was more sort of like a merger and acquisition as opposed to a player signing, because he’s literally his own empire, right? He's literally a business. And I think, like, you know, the Blue Jays were preparing as if like they were going to have this whole other subdivision, like an Ohtani subdivision, had he ended up joining them. And I assume the Dodgers, to some degree have done the same thing.
With Soto. I think it's that on a smaller scale. And if you think about what he does from a baseball perspective, and that you're really buying his prime, which he's just starting to touch right now, you're buying a unique opportunity. It's not as global an opportunity as Ohtani was, but it's still a pretty significant presence in the Latin American market—something they already have with Vladimir Guerreo Jr., and historically they have had with some of the players that have been Blue Jays over the years. So, I think that there's obviously enough juice there to make it happen from a business perspective. But I don't also feel like people think that this is a realistic possibility. I think this is, you know, the Blue Jays just kind of hanging around in case everybody else collapses and, you know, they happen to be the last man standing. But I don't think they really believe that they're going be the prime destination or anything of that sort.
Completely reasonable! Cry more, “please don’t waste your time” weirdos!
A chance still for Bo and Vlad extensions?
Yeah, I would think that there is a chance with Guerrero. I think first off, your assessment on Bichette, I think, is bang on. There are too many factors on both sides that make finding common ground really difficult. But that's not the case with Guerrero. And I wonder how much Vladimir Guerrero Jr may want to see where Juan Soto goes—maybe the Blue Jays want to see where Juan Soto goes too—to help frame that conversation. Guerrero will be getting to free agency a year older than Soto, I believe, or at the same age, and will obviously feel like, “OK, well this is a natural comparable for me.” And does Soto reset the market for that type of player?
I think you can look at certain players who have gone into a free agent year and turned down extensions—like Aaron Judge, he made, 68% more by betting on himself having a big year in his walk year and signing in free agency versus taking an extension offer earlier. How much of of that is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is willing to give up, and how much discount do the Blue Jays want for signing him early as opposed to waiting until he gets to free agency? I do think, ultimately, if the Blue Jays want to keep this core, or some of this core together, or to keep this window open, it's pretty hard to envision how they do that without Vladimir Guerrero Jr. here long term. But, you know, we will see ultimately where it lands. But I think those are the dynamics that play. If there is enough reason to think that the sides can get together, Guerrero in a perfect world, I believe, would want to be with the Blue Jays longer term. But the deal's got to be right for both sides and that's where it could get tripped up.
That’s pretty much where it is, I agree. On both players.
OK, I think I’ll leave the transcription there. And I’ll add that Sirius XM in Canada sees to have a four month free trial going on for users that sign up for their limited, app-only service—which includes MLB Network Radio. Pretty good time of year to do that.
A sip of Sasaki…
There is, of course, a free agent who would comfortably fit into any team’s budget—provided they have a good bit of international bonus pool money available and/or are willing to back out of any of the illegal handshake agreements they have with 14-year-olds in Latin America—and that’s Japanese ace Roki Sasaki.
It was announced back on Saturday that his team, the Chiba Lotte Marines, have begun the process of posting him, which will soon allow him to sign with an MLB team.
Sasaki is a 23-year-old, flame-throwing starting pitcher who owns a 2.02 ERA across four NPB seasons and 414 2/3 innings. He's struck out 524 in that span, while walking just 91 and allowing only 16 home runs. And, according to the Athletic’s Eno Sarris, his fastball-splitter-slider arsenal is “top shelf stuff, on par with any pitcher who has come over from Japan.” Though he adds: “even if it’s down a little.”
Yes, there are theoretically red flags here. Sasaki’s velocity dipped a bit in 2024, from 98.9 in 2023 to 96.9, according to Eno. He’s also never logged more than 129 1/3 frames in a season, and lost innings in 2023 due to an oblique injury and in 2024 to fatigue.
Yet despite these facts leading to some durability concerns, he’s still a no-brainer for any front office to be heavily in on—and the Blue Jays are indeed being counted among those.
That’s because Sasaki is taking the Ohtani route to the majors, heading to North America before his 25th birthday, which means he won’t be considered a full free agent and will only be able to receive a minor league deal and a signing bonus from out of his new team’s international bonus pool.
The wrinkle here is that the current international signing period ends on December 15th, and most teams have already spent their allotments. Pools reset at that point, and then the 2025 period officially begins on January 15th. It’s not yet clear when Sasaki will be posted, and therefore which class of international amateur free agents he’ll be a part of. The more lucrative move would be to wait, but clearly money isn’t at the top of his mind here.
If he does wait, or does want as much money as he can land right now, it could be bad news for presumptive favourites in the Sasaki Sweepstakes, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Per MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo, L.A. has the most money remaining in their 2024 bonus pool, at just over $2.5 million. However, several teams will go into the 2025 period with bonus pools just over $7.5 million, and teams are able to trade to add bonus pool money, just as long as they don’t exceed their original allotment by more than 60%, according to the Jeff Passan piece I linked to earlier.
Of course, as I mentioned above, teams already have plenty of those illegal handshake agreements in place, which complicates things even more—and measns that whoever can offer Sasaki the most may indeed be the team most willing to ruthlessly abandon their deals with a bunch of teens, which perhaps won’t reflect so well on that particular organization.
Could a detail like that potentially motivate Sasaki’s decision? The fact is… we really don’t know.
Longtime NPB reporter Jim Allen tweeted back on Sunday, after the news broke, that because of “Lotte's authoritarian restrictions on media access to its players, I've never spoken with Sasaki, so I have less than no clue to his thinking.”
That is not exactly true, though, as he also tweeted that a “source close to Sasaki” told him that “a small-market team with a solid development setup and plan could be the best destination.”
Passan, in a different piece from the one mentioned before, suggests something similar.
Los Angeles will be linked strongly to Sasaki, but assuming he will go to the Dodgers is premature. While the presence of Sasaki's Samurai Japan teammates Ohtani and Yamamoto in Los Angeles is advantageous, the attention they bring -- and the media horde that follows them -- adds a different element than other teams.
Throughout the 2024 season, MLB presidents of baseball operations and general managers were fixtures at Sasaki's starts. Sasaki is close with right-hander Yu Darvish, whose team, the San Diego Padres, figures to be a potential landing spot. Both New York teams have extreme interest in Sasaki, though he could opt for an organization with pedigree and experience (the Cubs), a team in an international city (the Blue Jays), one whose past success with Japanese players still resonates (Darvish started his career with the Rangers) or those whose reputation for bringing the best out in players might appeal (the Rays). Plenty of other franchises can -- and will -- make strong appeals to Sasaki once he is posted.
Among those executives to have seen Sasaki in person is, of course, Ross Atkins.
Jays fans about to get Tramuta-ized
Here on Tuesday, SNY's Joe DeMayo has a report—since confirmed by BNS and Shi—that the Jays have made Marc Tramuta their new amateur scouting director, replacing Shane Farrell, who moved to the Detroit Tigers earlier in the offseason.
Tramuta is familiar with the Jays, having joined them last year as Special Assistant, Player Personnel. But he’s actually even more familiar than that, having been with them from 2003 to 2012. A Ricciardi guy!!?!?! (Or, perhaps one could surmise, a Tony LaCava guy?)
According to a 2016 press release, Tramuta served as National Crosschecker for the Jays from 2003 to 2013. He was obviously well-respected in that role, having won the club's Al Lamacchia Award, which is given to the scout who best demonstrates work ethic and perseverance, back in 2007. Before that he’d been with the Orioles from 1996 to 2003.
From 2012 until last October he’d been in the Mets organization, first as Assistant Scouting Director under Tommy Tanous. When Tanous was given the title Vice President, International and Amateur Scouting in late 2016, Tramuta was promoted to Director, Amateur Scouting—the job, if not the exact title, he’ll now hold in Toronto.
In Baseball America’s farm rankings update back in August, the Mets system (which, of course, still has plenty of Tramuta's fingerprints on it), ranked 10th, and was especially lauded for its pitching development. Partly, according to a piece from SNY back in May, that's because Tramuta reached a point back in 2021 where he felt he needed to change the club's philosophy with regard to pitchers, feeling that they had been relying too much on projections and drafting high schoolers too heavily—a decision, he says, that also put the scouting department “more in alignment with what player development was doing.”
“There’s a wave coming,” says Tramuta of the state he left the Mets in. “And then another wave that people aren’t even aware of yet. I’m not there anymore but I’m proud to see some of our work is coming to fruition. There’s a really good group of scouts there and you’re going to see some really good results.”
It is obviously difficult to parse what any one guy was responsible for when we're looking at what are ultimately black boxes here, but that all seems pretty good to me—and makes Tramuta sound like a guy well equipped to deal with some similar challenges that the Blue Jays currently face.
“A lack of coordination between the departments played a significant role in the failure to develop homegrown pitching for a time, according to various people I spoke to in the organization," writes SNY's John Harper.
Ahem.
Anyway, the list below—which comes via a 2023 piece by the Athletic’s Tim Britton—could certainly be worse, I think. (And if you find it underwhelming because you’re expecting to see home run pick after home run pick, I’ve got some bad news about how hard a job this really is)…
Quickly…
• The Blue Jays announced here on Tuesday that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has won the second Silver Slugger award of his career. Wow, sounds like a guy they should probably sign to a very long contract extension!
• For more on Sasaki, check out Simon Sharkey-Gotlieb’s excellent primer on his free agency for theScore.
• Sticking with theScore, Travis Sawchik took a look into Ross Atkins' recent comments that "You could make the case that we have 10 wins within our roster right now to close (the gap)." This is something Jays fans undoubtedly groaned at, and not even just because it was Ross saying it—because here was Ross saying it again. Ugh.
But is he right? According to Sawchik... kind of, yeah. Steamer projects the players on the Jays' roster to be 9.7 wins better, by WAR, than they were in 2024, with the biggest gains coming from Bo Bichette (up by 3.1), Alejandro Kirk (up 1.1 because Steamer really seems to believe in his bat), having a full year of Will Wagner (up 1.3), José Berríos (up 1.0), and the bullpen regressing back to being not horrific (a 2.7 gain for Jordan Romano, Brendon Little, Erik Swanson, and Zach Pop, who combined for -2.0 WAR this season).
Obviously this doesn’t mean the team can rest on its laurels, but the idea some fans have that this is a true-talent 74 win roster because that’s the way things broke in 2024 is simply not good analysis. Not that it’s meant to be, I suppose.
• An addendum from Travis:
• On a similar note, MLB.com’s Mike Petriello looked at all 30 MLB rosters as they stand right now by projected WAR, and found the Jays tied with the Royals for 12th in baseball, seventh in the AL, at 40.8. Only the Orioles and Astros were above 45.0 among AL teams, so they're very much within reach of the top of the league if they have a strong offseason and a couple things break right for them on the field. Big ifs, for sure, but hardly insurmountable ones. And, listen, I'm not trying to put lipstick on a pig here. It's not great, and this isn't where anyone wants this team to be. But they're good enough to have some genuine hope for, if anyone actually wants to stop being miserable for a second to try and see it.
• Speaking of miserable Jays fans, another thing I see a lot of from them is projecting their feelings about the organization onto others—like players, who they seem convinced view the Jays through the same jaundiced eye as they do. Not so, according to Kevin Kiermaier, who spoke glowingly about his Blue Jays tenure recently with the Star’s Mike Wilner.
“I loved my time (with Toronto),” he said. “It was absolutely precious … I hope I’m able to be a part (of the Jays) forever in some capacity … They gave me the world. I feel like even though I was there for a year and a half, I feel like I just love it. I feel like they love me.
“I love them.”
• I would be remiss here if I didn’t point out the more eye-catching quote from Wilner’s chat with Kiermaier, however, which had a decidedly more negative bent.
“There’s levels to everything,” Kiermaier said. “The Dodgers are on a different level. Like the advanced scouting reports from a position player standpoint, I was blown away in our first meeting (after reporting to the team) in Oakland.
“It was just so on point and just everything we needed. The way the coaches went about it and blew through it and just gave us all the information we needed, it was like poetry to me, in a way. I (had) never been a part of a meeting like that.”
There’s really no way to spin that positively for the Jays, except maybe to note here that there are 28 other teams that are also behind the Dodgers on this and everything else—including Kiermaier’s former team, the cutting-edge Rays. Also worth noting is that Davis S. Popkins, the Jays’ new hitting coach, cut his teeth in the Dodgers organization before the Twins plucked him out of High-A to become their MLB hitting coach just days before his 32nd birthday.
(Also worth noting that at this time a year ago the Dodgers were still licking their wounds after getting swept 3-0 in the NLDS by an 84-win Diamondbacks team that played at a 73-win pace in the second half of the season. Yes, folks. They’re a crapshoot.)
• Sticking on the staffing front, Gosuke Katoh, who opened the season with the Jays back in 2022 and announced his retirement as a player last week, revealed over the weekend that he’s accepted a position in the Jays’ front office. Little is known about his role as yet, but… neat!
• More minor notes: MLBTR catches, via the MLB.com transactions log, that Emmanuel Ramírez, a right-hander who the Jays claimed via waivers from the Marlins in early September and then immediately sent to Buffalo, has been released. He had been designated for assignment last week when the club claimed right-hander Michael Petersen, also from Miami.
• And another: Ronald Blum of the Associated Press reports that MLB's Super Two cutoff has been set at two years, 132 days of big league service time. That's up 14 days from last year's number, and affects a couple of Blue Jays: Ernie Clement and Zach Pop. MLBTR already had them projected to go through arbitration, with salaries of $1.7 million and $1 million respectively—provided they're tendered contracts (which, at least in Pop's case, may not happen).
• Back to that first Passan piece for a second, as he notes that on Max Fried, “Toronto is in.” He also adds the Jays to a list of teams that could compete for the services of Yusei Kikuchi “if they whiff on the bigger names.”
• A name the Jays have been linked to that makes me think, “Oh, when they say the Jays are in on everybody they mean the Jays are in on everybody”: Ha-Seong Kim. This is from almost a week ago, and comes by way of Benny Fresh, but still… the glove-first shortstop coming off of labrum surgery in his throwing shoulder? The Jays had a ton of interest in Kim when he first came to North America, and he can play anywhere on the infield, which they have a real infatuation for, so it makes a little bit of sense. But, I don’t know, man. IKF vibes.
• I mentioned the Cubs earlier and… yeah… all of this:
• Imagine deciding that the way you’re going to cover Toronto Blue Jays baseball is by providing validation for every single one of the fan base’s worst instincts. Do better!
• Nice stuff from Chris Georges of Blue Jays Nation on potential 2025 breakout candidate—or trade chip—Alan Roden.
• Speaking of prospects, down in the AFL, apparently the Blue Jays are trying to make “Iowa Meat Truck” (aka 1B Peyton Williams) a thing. And, honestly? I’m here for it. (Though, I must admit, I’m slightly more here for Adrian Pinto socking 414 foot, 107 mph dingers in the AFL All-Star Game).
• A tiny bit of housekeeping: It appears as though approximately 48.1% of the world is moving over to Bluesky this week, so I feel I should remind everyone that I’m already on there. Be sure to give me a follow if you are too, and expect to see more activity from me there as long as it continues to look like it really is going to take off this time.
• Lastly, in case you missed it, the latest edition of my subscriber exclusive video series, Deranged Factor, is free for all to watch. Check it out, and if you enjoy it—or, honestly, even if you don’t—please consider becoming a paid subscriber!
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Yeah, yeah, maybe that will backfire and set the market for Vlad even higher than it already is, but so what? Your favourite team going after the best players is a good thing.