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

Puckstuff

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May 12, 2010
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Naylor is cheaper than Santander while offering similar offensive production over the last 3 seasons. Only difference is it’s a 14 million dollar commitment vs likely 150 +. Neither offer any defensive value. I’d take Naylor and put him at DH over Santander, who probably should be a DH.
 
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Discoverer

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Apr 11, 2012
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Naylor is cheaper than Santander while offering similar offensive production over the last 3 seasons. Only difference is it’s a 14 million dollar commitment vs likely 150 +. Neither offer any defensive value. I’d take Naylor and put him at DH over Santander, who probably should be a DH.
I can't imagine any world in which Santander gets $150 million.
 
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Kurtz

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Jul 17, 2005
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Because Naylor doesn't really fit. He's a 1B who doesn't play good defence at first, is not a great contact guy aside from his outlier 2023 season, and has decent power but not enough of it for how little else he brings to the table.

He's a career .767 OPS, 112 wRC+ guy who's hit 30 dingers exactly once and would almost certainly be stapled to the DH spot for the Jays given that Vladdy is his superior in every conceivable way.

Yes he adds another bat, but not one big enough to really move the needle, and would probably not get nearly the attention from this fanbase if he was not Canadian.

I like the guy. He's an OK, fun player. But he's a 2ish WAR 1B/DH only player on the last year of his contract and probably looking for a raise that wouldn't be smart for the team to give him. That's not something that should get anyone excited.

He's right around .800 OPS his last 3 years. He's 27 with a low-risk contract. We don't have a DH.

Do you think this management team will be able to aquire a better DH than Naylor?
 
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LeafsNet

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Sep 1, 2024
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Looks like a really quiet off season….I really hope last season was just a blip and they somehow rebound.

That being said, the stadium itself has/is going through quite a transformation. The Jays may end up not moving at all. And I don’t think they should….that location is prime.

 

LeafsNet

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Sep 1, 2024
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Waterloo, ON
The video basically argues that the Jays shouldn’t move and that the location is already prime. Downtown, connected to public transport etc.

This proposal talks about completely changing the layout of the field, with home plate directly in front of the CN Tower.

Skydome is the only ballpark in the MLB that faces North…(didn’t know that).
1723423704387-jpeg.587658
 

Discoverer

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Apr 11, 2012
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He's right around .800 OPS his last 3 years. He's 27 with a low-risk contract. We don't have a DH.

Do you think this management team will be able to aquire a better DH than Naylor?
Yeah, he would have been a perfectly fine fit with this team.

I won't consider it a "miss" until we see what they end up doing this offseason, but Naylor would have been a perfectly fine target.
 
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The Nemesis

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Apr 11, 2005
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He's right around .800 OPS his last 3 years. He's 27 with a low-risk contract. We don't have a DH.

Do you think this management team will be able to aquire a better DH than Naylor?

He's "right around" 800 largely thanks to a likely fluke 2023 where a crazy BABIP spike fueled him to hitting like 50 points higher than his career norm. You take that away and he's in the .770s and with a wRC+ in the mid/high 110s. Good numbers, yeah but not that great for a guy that would be stuck behind Vladdy in the pecking order and in need of a new contract next winter.

Plus I don't think the intent is now nor has ever been to acquire *a* guy to be the DH. I think it will remain that the DH spot is used to cycle through other players in the lineup for half-off-days. Almost any other player that would be looked at now to provide offensive impact off the FA market is probably going to have to spend some time at DH, plus you've got Vladdy and Springer and maybe they put Bo there a bit and Kirk all getting some time to DH and get off the field. even 15-20 games at DH for each of just those 4 guys would mean 75-100 games of DH usage and now you've only got like half-a-season's worth of DH time to give to Naylor.

Again, I like the guy. And if he played literally any other position or Guerrero had asked to be traded he absolutely should've been someone for the Jays to inquire about (even though playing any other of position would've driven the price up to higher than a sack of magic beans). But we're talking about a middle-class 1B in an era where that doesn't even mean close to the same thing that it used to and where I think that like 90% of the interest in him is rooted in a) him being Canadian and b) people just want the Jays to do something (and reasonably so) so every move looks appealing.
 

Kurtz

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Jul 17, 2005
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Plus I don't think the intent is now nor has ever been to acquire *a* guy to be the DH. I think it will remain that the DH spot is used to cycle through other players in the lineup for half-off-days.

Yeah, that's not going to work. It may have made sense a couple of years ago when we wanted Springer in the lineup every day, we had Teo, we had Kirk/Jansen hitting well and wanted both of them in the lineup, etc.

We don't have that roster anymore. We don't need Kirk or Springer getting DH days. Maybe a few games for Bo and Vlad, but that's about it. We desperately need a full-time masher at DH with this roster.
 

The Nemesis

Semper Tyrannus
Apr 11, 2005
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Langley, BC
Naylor is cheaper than Santander while offering similar offensive production over the last 3 seasons. Only difference is it’s a 14 million dollar commitment vs likely 150 +. Neither offer any defensive value. I’d take Naylor and put him at DH over Santander, who probably should be a DH.
With Varsho in CF you can at least pretend Santander is halfway competent in LF and not monopolize the DH spot for one player.

The team's D is good enough that they can afford to carry one boat anchor defender in a defensively less important position like LF if it creates less hassle with using the DH spot for all the guys that are going to need it.
 
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Puckstuff

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May 12, 2010
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Milton
With Varsho in CF you can at least pretend Santander is halfway competent in LF and not monopolize the DH spot for one player.

The team's D is good enough that they can afford to carry one boat anchor defender in a defensively less important position like LF if it creates less hassle with using the DH spot for all the guys that are going to need it.
I’d be fine putting Santander out in the field full-time, but Atkins seems so ideological about only bringing in good defensive players. If they did bring him or Teo in to play the field, I’d be pretty happy, though. I agree 100% that with Varsho, we could probably get away with it. I’d still want a DH bat on top of Santander if we brought him in for the field, even if it’s a cheaper option like J.D. Martinez, in addition to a guy like Santander or Teo.
 

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