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

[Amadeus]

would you have been happier if they signed VG to a ridiculous contract that he wouldnt live up to? which will probably be the case. i understand why people are upset with management but they have to draw the line on numbers at some point.

I think the resentment stems from how avoidable this situation was. I'm talking pre-Ohtani and Soto pursuit. Those players set a new standard but the Blue Jays had every opportunity to re-sign him long term before that but they didn't, and instead, they took him to arbitration.

They screwed up. Big time!

 

[shortfuze]

Maybe they should’ve signed him years ago when he wanted an extension. It would’ve aged nicely.

Management has made the wrong decisions their whole tenure and I don’t understand how anyone can defend them. I feel bad for the fans.

but again. even back then he may have had a ridiculous number in mind. no one knows for sure. the anger for managements mistake are warranted, for some things but it takes 2 sides to get a deal done.

No, but a competent front office doesn’t get to this point anyway. They knew his number since like October. If they knew it was ridiculous back then, you have to trade him.

thats a valid point. but he can still be traded.

 

[Discoverer]

2025 Top 100 Prospects

Eric Longenhagen presents his 2025 Top 100 Prospects list, with reports for each player.

blogs.fangraphs.com

66. Jake Bloss
82. Arjun Nimmala
102. Ricky Tiedemann

ZiPS 2025 Top 100 Prospects

Running down the Top 100 prospects cranked out from the ZiPS projection factory.

blogs.fangraphs.com

47. Orelvis Martinez
51. Arjun Nimmala
60. Jake Bloss
80. Will Wagner
84. Ricky Tiedemann

Jays are tied for 2nd with the most prospects in the top 100. They are also tied for 3rd with the most prospects in the top 500.

They also had Roden and Yesavage just outside the Top 100.

 

[shortfuze]

They didn't draw the line on other contracts, but it's okay to draw the line on their superstar? These guys are lost.

do you think VG is worth 700 million? what about 600 million? paying VG anything close to that would be crazy.

I think the resentment stems from how avoidable this situation was. I'm talking pre-Ohtani and Soto pursuit. Those players set a new standard but the Blue Jays had every opportunity to re-sign him long term before that but they didn't, and instead, they took him to arbitration.

They screwed up. Big time!

youre right about that. management should always be thinking ahead. if you cant lock a player up they definitely need to consider trading him. but they can still do that.

 

[phillipmike]

No, but a competent front office doesn’t get to this point anyway. They knew his number since like October. If they knew it was ridiculous back then, you have to trade him.

Vlad said he changed his number since then.

 

[Hannibal]

Joke of a team

 

[StrictlyCommercial]

Gotta trade Vlad and Bo this year. If you get nothing, it sets you back significantly in the upcoming rebuild.

 

[jetsforever]

If Vladdy walks after this year it's gonna be hard to support this team

 

[MK78]

Gotta trade Vlad and Bo this year. If you get nothing, it sets you back significantly in the upcoming rebuild.

At this point, I would trade Vladdy before the season starts, to get the most from a team. Bo, I would let play and hope he gets back to his usual performance, but if they can't come to a deal by the deadline, trade him too, fire this front office and start fresh. It's about time. 10 years of futility with these guys at the helm, with having a pretty good team last few years, they did nothing to improve where they needed it (OFFENSE).

 

[Beaumaris]

If Vladdy walks after this year it's gonna be hard to support this team

Nonsense.

 

[habamillions]

If Vladdy walks after this year it's gonna be hard to support this team

Thats just it if you dont want to hand out the money then you have to trade vlad and bo. Cant let them walk for essentially nothing

 

[DuklaNation]

Vlad is asking for maximum value while Jays would be accepting 100% risk with mediocre upside. You walk away every time from those deals. Guy acts like he's a top 3 player in MLB.

He isn’t.

 

[habamillions]

I get the negotiations on both sides. From vlad's point of view you just had a hell of a year and you kniw the teams has money as seen by the pursuits of soto and ohtani. But from the managements pov not counting covud year nd rookie season vlad has had 2 great seasons and 2 ok seasons. Thats not a player that should get paid top 10 player in the league. I think 10 years,400mil is fair in both sides

 

[Bjindaho]

If Vladdy walks after this year it's gonna be hard to support this team

This is kinda like the 95 Jays without Green, Stewart and Delgado. They went from WS winners to falling off a cliff when the final guys walked.

 

[MK78]

From vlad's point of view you just had a hell of a year

He had a great 3.5 months. Until mid june he was hitting slap singles and had like 6 homers and his OPS was under .800

 

[landy92mack29]

Smart teams bet on their homegrown talents young and sign them long term. KC has the best player in the game signed for 10 more years(probably 13 more with the team options) at a 26.25 AAV for his 24-33 age years...and that's for a SS not 1B.

 

[mikeyz]

I think it’s time for Jays fans to give Shatkins the Nico Harrison/Cuban treatment that Mavs fans gave after the Doncic trade.

I cannot believe they f***ed this up.

 

[DuklaNation]

I would take Carlos Delgado over Vlad every day of the week. Some athletes today are delusional.

Look at Freddie Freeman's contract signed 3 years ago. Just gross

 

[WeThreeKings]

There really are people who will defend bad management teams right to the bitter end, aren't there?

This front office has delivered nothing. Not a single PLAYOFF win. In their entire tenure.. and you're gonna go with "Vladdy wanted too much and they were right to get to this point knowing they were never going to pay him what he wanted" as your management/franchise defense card?

They've botched pretty much everything since they got control and this is just the latest, high profile botching from a group that has no success to even pin it on. Even Marc Bergevin won playoff series.

 

[robertmac43]

 

[Bjindaho]

Vlad is likely to get something like a 12-14 year deal. (given his age) If you gave him 30M to top Alonso in terms of single year value, you would hit 420M.

Over 14 years, if you match Correa's AAV (tied for 10th overall), he'd be up to 466.67M.

If you matched the one above that (Lindor), he'd be at 477.4M.

Anything that suggests that he would be one of the top paid players is playing loosey goosey with that term (especially given that he's already 18th in MLB in salary this year).

A 340M deal either means that the deal is shorter (and why would he want that) or it's a foolishly bad deal (340M over 12 years is only 28.3M a year)

 

[Dr Pepper]

Embarrassing to see how badly Atkins and Shapiro botched this whole situation.

Referring to Vladdy in the past tense now, contract negotiations "not even close"? What was he asking for, a billion dollars?

In the past two offseasons we've seen the Jays make multiple contract offers north of $600 mil.

I doubt Vladdy was asking for this much, yet somehow the Jays' powers that be can't strike a deal with their cornerstone player?

Tack on that sparkling playoff winning percentage too, if it's not already there..... (.000)

 

[Senator Stanley]

But their internal numbers say they've been a .650 team.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Dislike Shatkins but this is somewhat skewed given they were taking on a shambolic corpse of a roster that was barren and didn't start to show promise until 2019.

Really all you need to shit on them is their last 2 seasons.

 

[Bjindaho]

Blue Jays strike out on chance for win-win Guerrero Jr. deal

Considering the hope that surrounded Vladimir Guerrero Jr. when he debuted in 2019, to be here right now is pretty crushing. Ben Nicholson-Smith tells what a lack of extension means.

www.sportsnet.ca