Tuesday rumours: On payroll, the pitching market, labour strife, potential infielders, and more!
This post is big enough that I don’t think it requires much of a preamble, but before we dive in let me just first, once again, thanks everybody for subscribing so far and making me feel like this endeavour is in very good shape here as I head into week number four here on Substack. Let me also remind you that I’ve got a Facebook page up and running, where I’ll be posting everything that I write. If you’re a FB user, which I am very much not, give it a like and feel free to share my stuff!
Now onto the rumours, thoughts, links, and whatever else!
On the state of the market (and the league)
Welp. Here we are again.
Last week was as exciting an off-season weeks as Blue Jays fans have had in a long time, with the signings of Tyler Chatwood, then Kirby Yates, and then George Springer. But after that flurry of activity, things seem to have slowed down again. The market isn’t moving, and we’re back to sniffing around for scraps of rumours.
It feels better to be here with Springer in tow — he’ll be officially unveiled by the team in a media conference on Wednesday — but there’s still work to be done. And, it seems, money to be spent.
How do we know that? Well, for one thing, Jon Heyman reported on Monday morning that the Jays had offered reliever Brad Hand a two-year deal worth $16 million before he chose to sign with the Nationals for one year and $10.5 million.
Taking less guaranteed money on a shorter deal makes sense in this case for Hand, I think, because all he’ll have to do next winter is do better than $5.5 million to come out better off. That seems likely at this point based on his excellent results (he struck out 29 over 22 innings in 2020 while walking only four and allowing just five earned runs), though it’s hardly impossible to think that the Jays may have dodged a bullet here.
Whatever you make of Hand, the fact that the Jays were out there fishing for one of the better relievers on the market would seem to be a great indicator of just how open the purse strings may yet still be for the Jays. Their bullpen would certainly look better with one more top quality high-leverage arm, but it’s hardly their biggest area of need at the moment. Even if it isn’t a huge amount of money, in MLB payroll terms, that they would feel comfortable going to $8 million per year with a reliever when they’ve still got at least one more starter and one infielder to add is a good sign.
There was also the matter of Michael Brantley, who spoke with the media in Houston on Monday after officially signing a two-year, $32 million deal to return to the Astros. During the session, Brantley (intentionally or not) directly contradicted Buster Olney’s tweet in the wake of that debacle, which said the Jays hadn’t come close to signing him.
One still can’t help but wonder if the leaked reports that Brantley’s deal with the Jays was finished spurred the Astros on to making one final push to bring him back, but regardless of how that went down, it appears there was money available for that too.
Clearly, then, we can expect to see more moves as spring training approaches. But for the time being the market seems to have to hit another wall.
Why are teams not simply signing the free agents who remain available to be signed? Mostly, I think, because they’re afraid they’d be bidding against themselves just to get a deal done.
On Monday, Matt Gelb and C. Trent Rosecrans of the Athletic took an extensive look through the eyes of “nine evaluators from around the majors” at the top three free agent shortstops still available — Didi Gregorius, Marcus Semien, and Andrelton Simmons — and did a good job of explaining the tricky situation the three players are in.
“While all three have different attributes, they are viewed within the industry as similar enough that no team is compelled to set the market with a contract. Teams normally don’t wait to fill a premium position, but the market has encouraged it. The supply and lack of demand mean it’s possible one of the three is not an everyday shortstop in 2021,” they wrote. “And there is no incentive for Gregorius, Semien or Simmons to settle for a one-year deal. At least not yet. None of them want to be back on the market after the season, when one of the greatest classes of free-agent shortstops will become available. Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Trevor Story and Javy Baez could all hit the open market next offseason.”
The situation is likely similar on the starting pitching front. There’s not a whole lot that separating guys like Taijuan Walker, Jake Odorizzi, Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, or José Quintana from the rest of the pack. And some of those guys will likely be best served by waiting until Trevor Bauer signs somewhere, then trying to land with any of the teams that missed out. (On that front, for a minute on Tuesday morning it looked like Bauer might have been on the verge of signing with the Mets, before Jon Heyman and Mark Feinsand both rubbished Bob Nightengale’s original report.)
Others may be getting as impatient about things as Jays fans. Garrett Richards, for example, would have belonged in that group had he not signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Red Sox over the weekend. And Tanaka may be on his way off the list as well, with reports surfacing on Monday that he’s in advanced negotiations to return to Japan’s Rakuten Eagles, where he had pitched for eight years at the beginning of his career.
Tanaka’s potential exit from the market is notable from a Blue Jays perspective because there have been rumblings of some interest between the two sides. Pat Ragazzo of the Mets blog Metsmerized reported over the weekend that Tanaka was “intrigued” by the Jays’ signing of George Springer, and noted that the club has shown interest in him this season. Plus, earlier this month, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post, Tanaka’s camp downplayed suggestions that the Yankees were the only big league team Tanaka was willing to play for.
Of course, there are reasons that it may be for the best if this doesn’t work out.
One certainly couldn’t blame him for that.
A key reason that Tanaka may be more strongly considering a return to Japan now than earlier in the off-season is the fact that there no longer seems to be room for him on the Yankees. On Sunday, New York traded four prospects to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Jameson Taillon, a high-risk, high-reward pitcher who was excellent in 2018, but has thrown just 37 1/3 innings since. It’s another maddeningly “smart” move by the Yankees, who now have a full-on high-risk, high-reward rotation, with the oft-injured Taillon, Corey Kluber, and Jordan Montgomery slotting in behind Gerrit Cole, with Luis Severino recovering from Tommy John surgery performed late last February.
I put the word smart in quotation marks there because these moves look a whole lot better in the context of the Yankees’ desire to stay beneath the luxury tax threshold than they would otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to see the Jays bet on guys like Kluber or Taillon, but those aren’t the kind of moves the biggest team in the sport ought to be making.
Neither is the one they made on Monday, sending reliever Adam Ottavino and pitching prospect Frank German to the Red Sox — the Red Sox! — for a player to be named later or cash. Essentially, the Red Sox bought German in exchange for taking on the bulk of Ottavino’s salary. As a perfectly useful reliever, its likely that Ottavino will net Boston another prospect at the trade deadline, too. So that’s likely two lottery tickets added to the Red Sox’ system just so their biggest rivals can avoid hitting the luxury tax threshold.
The Yankees, a legitimate World Series contender, intentionally made themselves worse in order to save a little money. And the Red Sox, who have been giving their own fans the middle finger for over a year now, helped them do it.
MLB teams are involved in a wholly different competition than the one that’s played on a diamond. I thought this was an interesting exchange on Twitter on Monday regarding this subject, but not for what it got right.
The grade two level of understanding of communism in the quoted tweet is clearly absurd, and while I think every baseball fan understands the frustration displayed here, I don’t think I’d put it down to any kind of lack of competitiveness at the ownership level. Rogers, to use an example that’s closer to home, maybe doesn’t compete with the Yankees for baseball players as fiercely as they do with Bell for cable and internet subscribers, but as part of MLB as a whole they compete like hell with other entertainment products to separate fans from their money and to keep their costs — the bulk of which are player salaries — as low as possible. Even while in “aggressive spending mode,” as they seem to be now. Teams’ collective discipline with regard to the luxury tax makes it clear how much the bottom line means to them. Maximum profitability is their ultimate prize, and sometimes that dovetails with putting a winning team on the field.
Sadly, we saw a preview on Monday how that’s all going to come to a head when the collective bargaining agreement with the players union expires at the end of the 2021 season.
A letter was sent by the Cactus League (Arizona’s spring training “league”) telling MLB that they want to delay the start of spring training because of the high COVID-19 infection rate in the region. (Among the signees, Jeff Passan points out, is the mayor of Glendale, where the Arizona Coyotes are already operating and playing games in front of fans! Clearly these are all very serious and concerned officials.)
The union responded by noting that MLB doesn’t have the power to unilaterally delay the start of camps. Some union members, however, were not quite so restrained.
The owners haven’t even tried particularly hard to disguise their bad faith tactics — something they’re able to get away with more easily when people with big platforms insist that both sides are equally bad. Take, for example, the issue of the universal DH, which was discussed in Ken Rosenthal’s Monday morning piece for the Athletic (which, it must be noted, argued in favour of delaying the start of the season).
“Both the league and union seem to agree a universal DH is a good idea, in part because pitchers, if prevented from hitting, no longer could get injured swinging for a hit or running the bases,” he writes. “But the league, viewing the creation of 15 DH jobs as an economic gain for the players, wants a tradeoff.”
In case you missed the problem:
This is where the owners’ competitive energy is being directed.
Still thinking about third base
Nobody actually believes that the Jays are going to give Vladimir Guerrero Jr. everyday at-bats at third base, right? I could certainly see them allowing him to play there sometimes as a reward for the work he’s put in this winter getting himself into better shape, but I have to believe that he’s still more in the 1B/DH mix than he will be at third. With Rowdy Tellez also in that mix and Bo Bichette close to entrenched at shortstop (now that Francisco Lindor is no longer an option), that leaves on Cavan Biggio and Santiago Espinal as options for second and third base (assuming, as I wrote in last week’s mail bag, that the Jays probably won’t consider moving Lourdes Gurriel Jr. back to the infield).
With apologies to Espinal, this means that the team is surely in the market for at least one starting infielder. And, with apologies to Biggio, they should really probably be in the market for two.
Adding Kolten Wong to play second and someone else to play third would be an excellent way for the Jays to improve their defence while allowing Biggio to move into a super utility role, giving Charlie Montoyo the ability to give players at multiple positions a rest while also the ability to shield Biggio from unfavourable matchups (i.e. pitchers who throw especially hard).
As mentioned above, there is a trio of shortstops, Didi Gregorius, Marcus Semien, and Andrelton Simmons out there just waiting to be signed. Personally, I like Gregorius the best out of that group — a lefty bat and the most consistent offensive performer of the three — and Simmons, whose all-glove value would be diminished by asking him to move to third, the least.
I also like the idea of snapping up Gregorius, provided he’s willing to move to third, better than some of the other options the Jays may or may not be looking at out there. His ability to play shortstop to give Bo Bichette a rest, or in the event of injury, is another huge plus. (For what it’s worth, in commenting on the Jays’ supposed interest in Simmons, TC Zencka of MLB Trade Rumors suggests having Bichette slide over to third — a possibility, but one I’m not convinced the Jays would explore given Bichette’s clear preference to stay at short.)
There are, however, other options in the more straight-up-third-baseman category. And the fact that potential playoff teams like the Reds, Phillies, and Twins could offer any one of these guys a starting shortstop gig means that the Jays may have to turn their attention elsewhere.
One guy who is just a regular ol’ third baseman, Justin Turner, remains an option for the Jays, according to a Monday tweet from Jon Heyman. They are “in the mix,” at least, apparently. However, it seems more likely that he’ll end up returning to Los Angeles. The Dodgers “appear to prefer a 2-year deal,” Heyman writes, but Turner is looking for more in what might be the final deal of his career.
The Jays seem to have to pay a penalty of an extra year to get just about anybody, so they’d likely have to go to three years to beat the Dodgers for Turner’s services, which is tough to see them doing. Turner turned 36 back in November, and it’s not like the Jays are exactly lacking for guys who may end up needing to move into a first base or DH role in the near future.
The other name we keep hearing in this regard is Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant. And the rumblings about him and the Jays just keep on coming.
I’m not sure how informed that speculation could possibly be, given the anonymous official’s lack of involvement in any talks on the matter, but OK! The dream, of course, would be for the Jays to also manage to land right-hander Kyle Hendricks in such a trade (and in doing so spark a full-on revolt on the north side of Chicago).
A deal of this sort makes so much sense for the Jays that even the phony rumour mongers are starting to take notice. That’s when you know it’s big!
I’d rather the Jays keep their prospects and sign Taijuan Walker and Didi Gregorius, or pay a minimal cost to take Sonny Gray and Mike Moustakas off the Reds’ hands (Luis Castillo would be even better than Gray, but then we’re not talking about minimal cost), but the Cubs thing works too.
Hopefully something happens soon to un-jam this jammed-up market and we can finally have the kind of whirlwind week that last week looked briefly like it was going to turn into.
Links!
Speaking of last week, the Jays’ big signing, George Springer, will be introduced on Wednesday at 1 PM ET via a conference call that will also include Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins, and Charlie Montoyo. Per Ben Nicholson-Smith, the aim is for the call to air live on Sportsnet.
Let’s not forget that Colorado’s Trevor Story is a truly outstanding shortstop who may also be in play this winter, as he enters his final year before free agency. Of course, because it’s the Rockies, the whole situation there is naturally a mess, as this Buster Olney tweet makes clear:
The Rays and the city of St. Petersburg are talking about redevelopment plans at Tropicana Field, according to a report from Mark Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. All of the discussions are apparently taking place with the understanding that the Rays still want to proceed with their split-season plan that would see them also play in Montreal. So, basically, this still doesn’t make any sense.
FanGraphs readers placed Scott “GBOAT” Rolen at the top of their crowdsourced Hall of Fame ballot, which is pretty cool despite the fact that it appears unlikely that he or anyone else will get in this year.
Chris Henderson of Jays Journal does a good job of taking a look at the pros and cons of the Jays trading for Kris Bryant.
Pitcher List has put together an extensive, uh, list of trade candidates that the Jays could or should look into. Some different names than the big ones we used to hearing about — definitely worth a read.
Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star looks at how the doubters, including himself, were proved wrong by the Jays’ ability to land a high-impact free agent in George Springer.
Elsewhere in the Star, over the weekend, before the Yankees made their move for Jameson Taillon, Laura Armstrong took a look at the pitching market and how the Jays’ next decision on that front could change the entire outlook in the A.L. East.
“Before we opened negotiations with anybody, I was attracted to the Blue Jays — the excitement of a young team and where you see that trajectory going, it definitely caught my eye,” an excited Kirby Yates told reporters, including Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun, over the weekend. “I was definitely interested in being a part of it, to a team that’s trying to push really hard to go to the next level.” Hell yeah, baby.
Also back on Friday, ICYMI, the Jays announced a minor move, sending reliever Héctor Pérez to Cincinnati for a player to be named later or cash. This freed up a spot on the club’s 40-man roster which they then used to officially add George Springer
Shaun Doyle of Jays From the Couch takes a look at who should lead-off for the Blue Jays in 2021, and lands on Cavan Biggio. That’s probably not who I would personally take for that spot — George Springer has been at the top of the Astros’ lineup in 77% of his 3,567 career plate appearances and I trust their judgement on such matters. But as long as Biggio keeps producing the same rates as he has so far in his big league career, there’s no sense in moving him out of that slot.
Marc Carig, Brittany Ghiroli, and Patrick Mooney of the Athletic surveyed 23 MLB agents, and eight of them said that they expect there will be a labour stoppage following the 2021 season. In better news, 15 of them did not say that!
Also of note in the survey is the fact that the Jays were ranked among the places that are the worst to play in, based on all the usual factors: travel and the border, worries about taxes, and, of course, the turf. On that last subject, it’s worth noting that back in December, Mark Shapiro told reporters that the Rogers Centre is being fitted for new turf that will offer them “additional safety opportunities.” Hopefully they find something that is a little more forgiving on players’ bodies.
Lastly, an interesting one from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News, who tells us about how the Buffalo Bisons are mourning the passing of talk show host Larry King, who died on Saturday at the age of 87. What’s the connection there? King was a big proponent of Buffalo baseball, would have joined the club’s ownership group had they been granted an MLB franchise — he even narrated the video pitch that was presented to the NL’s expansion committee in 1990.
RIP to a legend.
"Nobody actually believes that the Jays are going to give Vladimir Guerrero Jr. everyday at-bats at third base, right?" I mean... couldn't they?