Blue Jays Discussion: 2024-25 Off-season: The free agent watch begins (and sometimes old baseball radio broadcasts)

[The Nemesis]

Unless the unthinkable happens and the Jays win the Soto lottery, I think Bregman is a nice first piece for Plan B (or realistic, non-Soto plan A). He's not what he was at his 2018-19 peak but the last 3 years he's played most of each season and been good for 20-25 HR, an OPS around or above .800, and solid enough D at 3rd.

That fills an important fielding hole with a guy who has a playable bat. Him and an OF wouldn't necessarily "fix" all the offensive problems, but they'd go a long way to lengthening the lineup so the problems that remain are coverable. Santander would be the ideal. Assuming Teoscar is set on returning to LA then Tyler O'Neill is the best of the otherwise underwhelming set of corner OF fallbacks, but signing him means living with the fact that he is best as the weak side of a platoon because he crushes LHP but is very underwhelming vs RHP.

That means next year's lineup could conceivably be something like

1) Springer (RF)
2) Guerrero (1B)
3) Bichette (SS)
4) Bregman (3B)
5) Santander^/O'Neill (LF)
6) Horwitz (DH)*
7) Kirk (C)
8) Wagner (2B)*
9) Varsho (CF)*

*LH Bat
^Switch Hitter

As much as the Jays keep popping up on lists of teams going after pitching, that's a secondary concern that can be answered from the 2nd or 3rd tier of FA arms or risky upside bets because mostly they need to add a 4/5 and maybe a couple of depth arms that can be ready in case of injury or performance based attrition. And filling out the pen is a fairly low-cost exercise in buying a ton of lottery tickets and using the spring to see which ones pay off because spending "proven closer" money is often foolish and easily destructive.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Kurtz]

Unless the unthinkable happens and the Jays win the Soto lottery, I think Bregman is a nice first piece for Plan B (or realistic, non-Soto plan A). He's not what he was at his 2018-19 peak but the last 3 years he's played most of each season and been good for 20-25 HR, an OPS around or above .800, and solid enough D at 3rd.

That fills an important fielding hole with a guy who has a playable bat. Him and an OF wouldn't necessarily "fix" all the offensive problems, but they'd go a long way to lengthening the lineup so the problems that remain are coverable. Santander would be the ideal. Assuming Teoscar is set on returning to LA then Tyler O'Neill is the best of the otherwise underwhelming set of corner OF fallbacks, but signing him means living with the fact that he is best as the weak side of a platoon because he crushes LHP but is very underwhelming vs RHP.

That means next year's lineup could conceivably be something like

1) Springer (RF)
2) Guerrero (1B)
3) Bichette (SS)
4) Bregman (3B)
5) Santander^/O'Neill (LF)
6) Horwitz (DH)*
7) Kirk (C)
8) Wagner (2B)*
9) Varsho (CF)*

*LH Bat
^Switch Hitter

As much as the Jays keep popping up on lists of teams going after pitching, that's a secondary concern that can be answered from the 2nd or 3rd tier of FA arms or risky upside bets because mostly they need to add a 4/5 and maybe a couple of depth arms that can be ready in case of injury or performance based attrition. And filling out the pen is a fairly low-cost exercise in buying a ton of lottery tickets and using the spring to see which ones pay off because spending "proven closer" money is often foolish and easily destructive.

Thing with Bregman is, while he's still productive, I wonder how much of a premium you're paying on him for his name alone. Seems very reminiscent of the Springer deal.

 

[Discoverer]

Thing with Bregman is, while he's still productive, I wonder how much of a premium you're paying on him for his name alone. Seems very reminiscent of the Springer deal.

I'm torn on Bregman. You look at his production the last few years and see a decline (137 to 126 to 118 wRC+) and that's pretty concerning as he's now into his 30s. But a 118 wRC+ is still good and the defense is still a plus, so he's still a 4 WAR player at that level.

The weirdest thing I can see is that the offensive decline in 2024 was driven almost entirely by his walk rate dropping almost in half. Everything else is pretty much right in line with what you would expect based on previous years, and not walking as much because you started chasing outside the zone a bit more doesn't strike me as an age-related decline. I don't know what to make of it, though.

He would obviously improve the team a ton for the next couple years, but I kind of worry about the kind of contract he'll get.

 

[Suntouchable13]

I'm torn on Bregman. You look at his production the last few years and see a decline (137 to 126 to 118 wRC+) and that's pretty concerning as he's now into his 30s. But a 118 wRC+ is still good and the defense is still a plus, so he's still a 4 WAR player at that level.

The weirdest thing I can see is that the offensive decline in 2024 was driven almost entirely by his walk rate dropping almost in half. Everything else is pretty much right in line with what you would expect based on previous years, and not walking as much because you started chasing outside the zone a bit more doesn't strike me as an age-related decline. I don't know what to make of it, though.

He would obviously improve the team a ton for the next couple years, but I kind of worry about the kind of contract he'll get.

If Jays really want him, I am ok with a 5 year deal which takes him to 35 years old.

 

[Ale Brew]

Bregman is an interesting case. If they sign him I’ll be happy in that it’ll help them significantly in the short term.

That said, some of the numbers being thrown out there (likely from Boras) are rediculous and I want nothing to do with.

Realistically he’s ideally a 3 yr $80M guy, but there’s probably no chance that gets him. Sounds like Boras is looking for 7 years and close to $200M.

So yeah, in the short term hell yeah, but the contract he signs likely ends worse than Springer’s.

 

[The Nemesis]

Thing with Bregman is, while he's still productive, I wonder how much of a premium you're paying on him for his name alone. Seems very reminiscent of the Springer deal.

Granted. That is a totally fair concern. The counterargument is that MLB free agency is usually so late for most players that this applies to almost anyone of consequence. Soto hitting free agency in the middle of his prime is the outlier and most of the time you're getting guys who are at or creeping up on 30 but who still want long-ish term contracts that will take them well into their decline phases. Or guys who have shown warning signs that they might already be declining and you have to weigh whether or not those are serious concerns or not. So if you want someone of consequence out of the FA pool you've pretty much gotta be fine with taking that risk and hoping that whoever you sign doesn't become a total albatross before the last couple years of their new deal. And we've seen the reaction and results to the team doing nothing in free agency except fiddling around the edges, so biting that bullet is almost a necessary evil.

I wouldn't sign him for 8 or 9 years or anything crazy like that but a front-loaded 5 or 6 year deal is an acceptable gamble that he'll still be at least a decent defender and passable hitter by the end of it or that if he falls off a cliff you've only got 1 or 2 years of suckitude to eat.

The other thing that's a plus for the Jays is that while they still have to work on extensions for the young core, the only major commitments on the books going forward are:

2 more years of Springer @ about $24m per
2 more years of Gausman @ about $23m per
4 more years of Berrios @ $19-24m per

source: Cot's Baseball Contracts' Jays salary tracker google sheet

Otherwise they're pretty much free and clear of any long-term big money risks after Bassitt's contract is up next winter with the only real potential sticking point being 3 more years of Berrios where he's had hiccups the last few years but not been in outright decline. So by the time a Bregman deal is likely to become a boat anchor they'll have already avoided or survived their current round of potential boat anchors or, worst case scenario, be on the hook for Berrios over the short term.