Stray Thoughts... - It Begins
The Most Important Offseason in Blue Jays History (TM) is officially here.
If you’re like me, the afterglow of the Yankees’ hilarious World Series defeat has not yet begun to fade. However, with MLB’s “quiet period” ending on Monday at 5 PM ET, and the league’s annual GM Meetings taking place this week in San Antonio, we have now officially reached the offseason. When the clock struck five teams could begin to sign this year’s crop of free agents, and though it would be atypical to see a flurry of major activity right away, the hot stove is already simmering. Decisions on contract options and qualifying offers have now been made, and already movement is afoot.
For example, Gerrit Cole has already exercised an opt-out, had a club option declined, and then re-signed on his original deal.
I didn’t think that kind of a move was possible under the CBA, but I guess they had their bases covered. HEYO!
Anyway, because of their mid-season sell-off, the Jays weren’t burdened by any of those types of decisions. They did place infielder Luis De Los Santos on waivers and have lost him to the Mets, picked up a Marlins reliever themselves, and annoyed a bunch of weird cranks by letting go of Génesis Cabrera—an utterly replaceable -0.5 WAR second lefty reliever who passed through waivers unclaimed (more on all of this below). But obviously that’s just a very small step toward accomplishing the huge amount of offseason work that lies ahead of them—which I don’t just say because they also still need to do things like finding a replacement for scouting director Shane Farrell, who has moved on to the Tigers, finalizing their coaching staff, and hiring for several job openings that were noted in a blog post on Monday at FanGraphs.
And some of that work could be underway quickly.
It was on November 6th of last year that the club purchased Brendon Little’s contract from the Cubs—a decidedly minor move, but one that netted them a guy who logged 49 appearances in 2024, and who has two option years still remaining. A year earlier, on November 16th, 2023, Teoscar Hernández was dealt to the Mariners. And though trades during the GM Meetings are so rare that a post about them from MLB.com's Do-Hyoung Park and Manny Randhawa this week was only able to find one notable such move since the start of 2020, they do happen. Anthony Gose for Devon Travis is one that Jays fans will remember fondly.
Though there are certain transaction sagas that I’m sure are going to drag on for months—*COUGH*—things can happen very quickly from basically this point onward, is what I’m saying. Time to strap in.
And also time for some offseason-opening stray thoughts. Quickly style!
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Quickly…
• This may be shocking to you but in a recent episode of Deranged Factor, I found myself grousing about clueless commenters. Specifically, my beef was with exceedingly loud fans who don’t seem ever understand that any time a team makes a minor move early in the offseason it’s not an expression of their absolute top priority. You know the type. People who scream “DUMPSTER DIVING!” at an utterly normal waiver claim, or get worked up about a team hiring a new hitting coach because they ought to be signing a 40-homer slugger. “JUST REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS!”
Anyway, during the segment I wondered if maybe part of the confusion was down to the fact that a lot of folks don’t really understand baseball’s offseason calendar. I mean, it’s… not. It’s definitely not. They’re just ill-tempered weirdos. But I do think that running down what the next few months will look like couldn’t hurt. Then I thought an even better idea would be to simply point everyone to the excellent offseason calendar piece that Mike Axisa has already put together for CBS Sports.
Enjoy!
• Sticking with the calendar, MLB does about as good a job as it can when it comes to filling in the gaps of their offseason with pointless busywork that will keep the league in the news fairly consistently during the cold winter months. We’re just a week away from the announcement of the finalists for the league’s annual awards, and two weeks from the announcement of the next Hall of Fame ballot. Personally, though, they can miss me with all that. Give me the transactions!
• The league, of course, also just named this year’s Gold Glove winners, and a year after being frustratingly snubbed because he split his time between center and left field, Daulton Varsho has finally taken one home. And while I try not to be someone who gets worked up about awards, when it’s guys who probably aren’t going to have MVPs or a lot of All-Star appearances to show for their career when it’s over, you have to be pleased for someone to get one that’s so beyond richly deserved.
• The Blue Jays do get a brief mention in Axisa’s piece, and that’s because of the draft lottery. With a 7.48% chance of landing the first pick, the Jays have the fifth-highest odds of obtaining the prize—a fact made possible because the White Sox (a revenue sharing payer that picked in the lottery last year) and A’s (a revenue sharing recipient that picked in the lottery the last two years) are disqualified from picking in the top 10. It’s a sweet situation for Ross Atkins and co. this year but, if they stumble again in 2025, they’ll be the ones finding themselves locked out of the top 10. Seems like a good reason to avoid any kind of pivot! The lottery takes place December 10th, during the Winter Meetings in Dallas.
• Speaking of the Winter Meetings, will Juan Soto have a new contract by then? Given that his agent is Scott Boras, it seems unlikely—which means it’s likely that a whole lot of Jays fans are going to be driven up the wall by at least another month of pipe-dream speculation. Which is all that anybody is saying about it, despite all the “Here we go again…” nonsense from people so scarred and cynical about last winter’s Ohtani thing that they’d evidently prefer the Jays not act like a big market team. I’ll keep saying this until someone with actual knowledge of the full story contradicts it: Surely there was a better way for Ohtani’s camp to ratchet up the leverage on the Dodgers than having their man schlep 2,000 miles for the sake of a ruse that nobody thought was particularly believable in the first place—at least not until he was “on the plane.” The Jays were taken seriously. It was good to pursue it. And it’s good that they’re pursuing Soto, too. Yes, even if it comes to nothing. Grow up.
• Of course, one lesson all Blue Jays fans are hoping the front office has learned from the Ohtani Fiasco is to have a better Plan-B. That might be the, uh, low-hanging fruit of lessons to have learned from last winter, but I do think it’s important. And, crucially, it seems to me that they’re better positioned to do something about it than most would have realized—myself included. The pursuit of Ohtani was all about having a “unicorn budget,” which to me means you’re free to stay engaged in the market as you regularly would. Then, if you somehow manage to land the “unicorn,” the money’s there and he’s such a transcendent player that you’ll be able to fit him into your plans no matter what else you did. Or, at least, that’s how it should work.
It didn’t work that way last winter, and it wouldn’t in this one if Soto was viewed by ownership as just another player. However, according to a Monday piece from Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi, that may not be the case. “A Soto deal would likely be covered under a special payroll allocation, as Ohtani would have been a year ago,” he tells us.
Well well well.
• It should be noted that Shi also tells us in that pieced that we’re very likely not in any kind of Ohtani situation here, and that nobody should be treating it as such:
“The Blue Jays won’t [make a bid so outlandish that no other team will match] but will hang around with their valuation in the event that Soto’s market breaks their way. They took a similar approach with Gerrit Cole during the right-hander’s free agency in the 2019-20 off-season, so this is low-probability stuff.”
Sure, that’s speculation, but it’s at least well-informed speculation. Better than the goldfish-brained nonsense some fans have in their heads that this front office will always misread the market, always aim too high, always get used for leverage, and always look up to find that there’s no one good left to sign. It’s also a playbook we’re pretty sure the Jays have run on players other than Cole—Corey Seager, for example.
• Speaking of that playbook, the Jays appear as though they’ll be running it on the pitching side as well. Shi’s colleague, Ben Nicholson-Smith, has a notebook from San Antonio in which he tells us that the Jays are “going to be involved in the market for starting pitching, not just relievers.” The idea there is that Yariel Rodríguez, who spent his 2022 season as a lights out reliever (1.15 ERA, 9.9 K/9) in Japan, could slide into the bullpen if another starter is added, making it “a way to upgrade their rotation and bullpen at once.”
Sure. Works for me.
• As mentioned above, the club’s bullpen overhaul has already begun—in a somewhat odd and mildly surprising way—with Cabrera’s departure. Thing is, while the strikeout celebrations and 3.59 ERA in 2024 will be missed, Cabrera was below replacement level by both versions of the metric. Certain fans seemed not just puzzled but upset by this decision, but it’s really not very difficult to see why the Jays have moved on. His strikeouts disappeared, the walk rate he seemed to get under control after moving over from the Cardinals in mid-2023 regressed, he was homer-prone, he can't be optioned to the minors, and his arbitration projection was $2.5 million. That's obviously not a huge amount in baseball terms, but the aforementioned Brendon Little offered almost exactly the same in terms of numbers, but is optionable and years still from arbitration. The fact that Cabrera at that price was passed on by all 29 other teams is really all you need to know, but why should that stop clowns from making this into a “Ross is stupid” thing?
• Michael Petersen, newly claimed on waivers from the Marlins, could be part of that overhaul—though, as Keegan Matheson tweeted on Monday night, "we could still be 20 transactions away from their 2025 bullpen.
Petersen began 2024 with the Dodgers, pitching extremely well in Triple-A (1.64 ERA, 12.0 K/9) but struggling in the majors both in L.A. and in his brief spell with Miami, after having been claimed in early September. He's a fastball/cutter guy whose four-seamer averaged 97 mph this year, which at least gives the Jays' pitching lab something to work with. Maybe more interesting is his career path: born in London (the real one), he moved to California at a young age and ended up being drafted in four straight years before turning pro with the Brewers back in 2015 (oh yeah, he's 30 btw).
• Could the financial component of the Cabrera move be bigger than I’m suggesting here? In his latest, Shi seems to believe that’s possible—largely because of Mark Shapiro’s comment that payroll likely won’t see a big increase or decrease from 2024.
“As things stand, FanGraphs’ RosterResource projects the Blue Jays at a CBT payroll of $211 million for 2025, with $115 million in guarantees to seven players plus estimates for arbitration-eligible players and salaries for pre-arbitration players,” Shi writes. “That would give GM Ross Atkins some $20 million to $25 million to work with this off-season if that 2025 payroll estimate is accurate, which might help explain the Blue Jays’ decision to put Genesis Cabrera, projected by MLB Trade Rumors to earn $2.5 million in arbitration, on waivers, with the lefty electing free agency after clearing.”
Thing is, as Josh Howsam quickly pointed out on Twitter, these figures assume the club will have a payroll that doesn’t move much from where they ended 2024, not where they started it. At first they were on course to be quite a bit higher—over the CBT threshold, in fact—and only got under because of the deadline sell-off.
• Shi also notes in the piece that the Jays appear to have indeed managed to get below the CBT threshold. That’s meaningful less because it means that they avoid overage costs, and more because it lowers the penalty they’d have to pay for signing free agent who has rejected a qualifying offer. Tax-paying teams forfeit their second- and fifth-highest draft picks and $1 million in international bonus pool space if they do so, whereas teams that don't pay luxury tax and don't receive revenue sharing, which is the group the Jays now find themselves in, will lose only their second-highest pick and just $500,000 from their bonus pool. Anything that reduces the barrier to the Jays signing a QO-rejecting free agent is good!
• Still, we’re not talking about a ton of payroll room to work with here. One way to acquire more would, of course, be to trade away someone who makes a bunch of money while simultaneously replacing his production from elsewhere. Easier said than done on both fronts, but maybe not impossible. I mean, if the Vernon Wells contract can be moved, I’d like to think just about any contract could. But times have changed, and the likelihood of an Arte Moreno coming along and forcing his GM to make such an obviously bad transaction seems rather low. Apologies to the folks who are desperate to see George Springer gone, but I highly doubt that’s going to happen. I doubt any sort of straight payroll dump is going to happen here, if I’m being honest. But one name that could be interesting in this sense is Bo Bichette. Obviously his recent performance might make a deal untenable, but there’s a parallel here to the Teoscar Hernández situation two winters ago.
Now, I’m not sure that the best move a club that unequivocally needs to do everything in their power to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. signed to an extension should be trading away a guy that he’s obviously very close to, but—unpopular as it would surely be—isn't there sort of a case for taking a cheap, controllable high-end reliever, a solid prospect, and around $15 million in savings to spend elsewhere in exchange for one year of Bo? (I know it sounds weird but, sorry, it worked out really well the last time.)
• Hmmm. I don’t think this makes nearly enough sense to even be typing it, but I’ll note here that the Brewers are losing shortstop Willy Adames to free agency, and just declined an option on their elite closer, Devin Williams, who will now go to arbitration ($7.7 million projection per MLBTR). And ESPN’s Jeff Passan says “he’s a trade candidate, too.”
• Speaking of MLBTR, they’ve just released their list of the top 50 free agents, with predictions, and… oh…
• Keep in mind here, four writers made predictions for each of the 50 players, and the only player to have even two predict he’d go to the Jays was Yates. WE’RE HAVING FUN!
• FanGraphs also has their list of the top 50 free agents. No predictions, though. But both pieces are excellent primers for the massive disappointment that’s surely ahead of us.
• In the FanGraphs piece, Ben Clemens has Santander just one slot ahead of Teoscar, but adds that he expects that the former Oriole will get a bigger guarantee, adding, “and I want the other side of that trade every time.”
Me too, Ben. Me too. And, frankly, short of Soto and/or a Vlad extension, I don't think there's anything that could instantly zap some consumer confidence back into the Blue Jays' fan base than actually getting a Teoscar deal done. Do it! Do it early! Overpay! Give us something!
• Sticking with FanGraphs, the 2025 Steamer projections have been released! And while you certainly shouldn’t be taking these as gospel, they do give some insight into how an industry that really, really fancies its projections is seeing things. In which case that’s great news for Vlad (5th best hitter in MLB by wRC+), Alejandro Kirk (120 wRC+ somehow), Spencer Horwitz (123), and Will Wagner (117, on par with Bo Bichette). It also maybe indicates why we're hearing about the Jays being in on starting pitching. *COUGH*
• Speaking of, Will Sammon and Katie Woo of the Athletic report from San Antonio that the Jays have been “floated” as “potential suitors,” among several other teams, for Blake Snell by an “industry source,” “depending on cost.” Exciting times!
• That last tidbit crossed my monitor thanks to Ben Turner, who does an outstanding job of aggregating various Jays-related rumours in his feed this time of year. You should all be following him on Twitter. Or… well… you probably shouldn’t be on Twitter at all. It’s a nightmare of garbage endlessly circling the drain at this stage. But if you’re just the kind of freak who can’t turn away from that, like I am, give Ben a click.
• Another one via Ben is a tweet from Inside Halos that passes along a post from Yahoo Sports News Japan saying that the Jays are among five clubs showing interest in 27-year-old left-hander Shinnosuke Ogasawara. His strikeout rates have dipped considerably over the last two seasons, from an 8.7 K/9 in 2022 to 7.5 and then 5.1 this year, but he produced a 3.12 ERA and has a 3.67 mark over 190 starts all with Chunichi Dragons. Sure!
• Other minor moves announced by the Jays on Monday: Alek Manoah, Jordan Romano, Daulton Varsho, and Will Wagner have all been reinstated from the 60-day IL. Those moves, and the acquisition of Petersen, necessitated some 40-man juggling that saw Cabrera's departure, Luis De Los Santos being claimed by the Mets (literally more value than Cabrera you angry freaks!), Luis Frías clearing waivers and becoming a free agent, and Emmanuel Ramírez being D'd FA. Whatever will we do without them?
• Oh, and speaking of offseason primers (weren’t we?), Scott Mitchell has an excellent, Jays-specific one up at TSN.
• I’ve seen some Jays fans balking at the reported price tag for Soto, which is expected by some to be in the $700 million range. Lol. Lmao.
• No qualifying offer for Tyler O’Neill? Have the maple-dicks awoken from their fainting spell yet?
• Lastly, and speaking of the maple factor, it’s cool to see Dasan Brown winning a minor league Gold Glove for his work patrolling centre field for the Vancouver and New Hampshire this season. This award covers the entire minor leagues, so that is obviously some elite defence he’s bringing—though the bat, of course, remains a work in progress. (📷 @BlueJays).
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