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

[CokenoPepsi]

The only way Rogers fires Shatkins is if people stay away from Rogers Centre. If attendance plummets to a bottom 5 team and fans need to be vocal on all social media platforms they are staying away until those 2 losers are fired.

Rogers only cares about money and they need to feel the pain.

Problem is the Jays are a national team so fans flock there in the summer for vacation and go see a game. You get fans from Victoria to St-John's in the summer. It's not like a team in Oakland where not a national but city team.

Guerrero and Bichette are gone so maybe that is the straw that keeps people away and hurt Rogers in the pocket book

If you lose they will stop coming.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[jetsforever]

Besides Vlad, what are we doing with Bichette? I'd hate to lose both guys together.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Besides Vlad, what are we doing with Bichette? I'd hate to lose both guys together.

Not negotiating with him and basically letting him go to FA after they fail to make the playoffs.

 

[HuGort]

A Tristan Casas package from Boston would be real interesting. But I don't see us trading him unless we're out of it by the deadline.

Vlad, Bo, Green, Bassist trades should build great farm system at deadline. Also allows signing 4 high end players.

I wouldn't have gave him the money neither. Vlad didn't always have good seasons. We traded better players than him and played just as well. Halladay or Delgado.

 

[Westlander]

Besides Vlad, what are we doing with Bichette? I'd hate to lose both guys together.

That may be what it comes to unfortunately. Bichette has sounded only lukewarm on staying with Jays for awhile now.
The situation sucks but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Vladdy and Bo are good but they’re not that good.
If they’re really done here then they should try to move Vladdy immediately; he’s coming off a good season and you don’t want to risk him getting hurt or something.
Bo is coming off a bad season so it may be more wait and see with him.
Either way, it’s hard to have any faith in this front office

 

[BertCorbeau]

Dark days ahead folks, prepare yourself accordingly!

 

[Thornbury]

Dark days ahead folks, prepare yourself accordingly!

I think the best approach is to ignore the team, as they deserve, until Shatkins are finally shown the door and we get qualified management on board. Until then they're In a slow death spiral.

 

[The Iceman]

Many are saying (Dan Szymborski of ZiPS among them) that this year's Jays team could be one of the best last-place-in-division teams ever.

Fits the narrative of this management.
Show up and just miss out.

This team hasn’t won anything with BO and Vladdy.
Won’t win anything without them except nicest park improvements and most overpaid fan experience.

 

[Suntouchable13]

That may be what it comes to unfortunately. Bichette has sounded only lukewarm on staying with Jays for awhile now.
The situation sucks but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Vladdy and Bo are good but they’re not that good.
If they’re really done here then they should try to move Vladdy immediately; he’s coming off a good season and you don’t want to risk him getting hurt or something.
Bo is coming off a bad season so it may be more wait and see with him.
Either way, it’s hard to have any faith in this front office

Ok, but if they were never the guys or that good then shouldn't they have traded them years ago? Isn't that the job of the front office to know what you have?

 

[Bjindaho]

9 years and the not one home grown player re-signed once they hit free agency (every single re-signed player was traded for).

Not only that, but the Jays had the 6th best free agent by previous season WAR this offseason (Kikuchi) and what would have been easily the best catcher on the market if he had been healthy in Jano.

Last year, the Jays had the 3rd best position player in Chapman plus 3 of the top 5 outfielders and Romano (who was arguably the 2nd or 3rd best reliever).

With Guerrero/Bichette/Bassitt/Sherzer/Green/Swanson all free agents, that is the equivalent to losing 8/9 position players (both Belt and Turner were DH who didn't return), 3/5 starters and 3 quality bullpen arms in 3 years.

 

[matand]

I mean in 2 or 3 years will vlad be even able to play first base with his Defense? 500m+ for someone who will only play DH in a few years ain't worth it, with bichette it all depends on how much money he wants also but he is replaceable, so trading him won't hurt us that much.

 

[Discoverer]

9 years and the not one home grown player re-signed once they hit free agency (every single re-signed player was traded for).

Not only that, but the Jays had the 6th best free agent by previous season WAR this offseason (Kikuchi) and what would have been easily the best catcher on the market if he had been healthy in Jano.

Last year, the Jays had the 3rd best position player in Chapman plus 3 of the top 5 outfielders and Romano (who was arguably the 2nd or 3rd best reliever).

With Guerrero/Bichette/Bassitt/Sherzer/Green/Swanson all free agents, that is the equivalent to losing 8/9 position players (both Belt and Turner were DH who didn't return), 3/5 starters and 3 quality bullpen arms in 3 years.

I don't see an issue with most of those. They traded Kikuchi for an absolute haul. Jansen was a bit of a disappointing return, but hard to expect more considering how he was playing leading up to the deadline. Chapman is a disappointing result given how good he was in SF. I would have liked them to have kept Romano, but hard to complain when they replaced him with an upgrade.

I see one real loss (Chapman) among that group. Next offseason could be ugly, but... we'll see, I guess.

 

[aingefan]

Shapiro saying the teams sole focus now is winning this year with Vlad (and Bo, etc) certainly limits options.
He represents the best chance at restocking with top end talent under control.
There’s no evidence yet that the FO is going all in/self-preservation mode, but there’s also no succession plan that’s clearly evident.
Maybe there’s an FO sweep before the end of the year and Rogers sweeps in to sign Vlad?

 

[Killer Orcas]

Well we can hope for one of two scenarios now. Vlad has a career year and pitching staff along with everyone else stays healthy and we bounce back big and make playoffs. Other one is we suck bad enough besides our trade chips who perform well and we fire Shapkins and bring in someone else who handles the trade deadline and re-stocks our farm. I just hope we are great or suck just missing the playoffs and not trading all our free agents would be the worst outcome.

 

[Bjindaho]

I don't see an issue with most of those. They traded Kikuchi for an absolute haul. Jansen was a bit of a disappointing return, but hard to expect more considering how he was playing leading up to the deadline. Chapman is a disappointing result given how good he was in SF. I would have liked them to have kept Romano, but hard to complain when they replaced him with an upgrade.

I see one real loss (Chapman) among that group. Next offseason could be ugly, but... we'll see, I guess.

The issue isn't that the specific players.

The issue is that a decent chunk of the best free agents came from here. If the Jays lose Vladdy and Bo, you could argue that they've downgraded at 8 positions in 3 years (barring a Varsho bump), in the rotation for a few spots, and in the pen.

Even losing every single one of those guys, if the Jays had traded Bo before last year for a huge haul, they would be in a significantly better position (25th in fWAR from 2020-2023).

The issue isn't that they don't re-sign guys so much as that there is no way to backfill because there are no great free agents at their positions of need and they trade players for partial value.

If you don't move anyone and lose both Vlad and Bo, then you could have:

Loperfido - Varsho (pending FA) - Springer (pending FA)

Clement - Gimenez - Wagner - ?

Kirk (pending FA)

Gausman (pending FA) - Berrios - Francis - Manoah - Rodriguez

Sandlin - Garcia (pending FA) - Hoffman

as the guys for 2026

with top FA in the OF being: Tucker, Schwarber, Bellinger (opt-out), LouBob (option), O'Neill, Mullins
top FA for 1B are: Guerrero, Alonso (opt-out), Naylor, Diaz (option), Goldschmidt
top FA for 3B are: Bregman (opt-out), Suarez, Muncy (option), Urshela
top FA for SP are: Cease, Gallen, Lugo (option), King (mutual option), Flaherty (opt-out) with more varying options
top FA for RP are: Diaz (opt-out), Williams, Helsley, Yates, Munoz (option), Iglesias

Note: for every position outside of SP, I stopped at the first guy that isn't really a great option as a FA add. The SP market could be very deep.

Assuming that players that could opt-out either don't or re-sign with their current club, the best free agents at weak spots would be Naylor, Bregman, any of the SP, then the RP would be far more expensive than the Jays would normally entertain.

This is a full offseason ahead of time and some of those guys won't be available.

What is scary is that the next offseason, if guys like Heim and Garcia get signed, the best bats available could be guys like Springer and Kirk. Again, there are a lot of arms that could be free agents, but there's no guarantee that they make it there and there are definite tiers to the free agent starters.

 

[Scotianhab]

How much would Kyle Tucker cost in free agency?

I rather pay him $350-400 mill than $585 mill for Vladdy.

Why would star players sign here with Vlad & Bo leaving? It won’t happen.

 

[Bjindaho]

Why would star players sign here with Vlad & Bo leaving? It won’t happen.

If you can't afford Bichette and/or Vladdy, you can't afford Tucker.

He's 13th in fWAR since 2021 but is coming off a massive 2024 (4.2 WAR in 78 games). Projected over a full year, that would put him within 1 fWAR of Soto and Ohtani.

If he repeats that, he could beat the Soto contract.

 

[Woodman19]

As much as it sucks to lose Guerrero I don't think a DH is worth $500 million. Still this shouldn't have even been an issue had we dealt with it in a timely manner.

 

[MK78]

Shapiro saying the teams sole focus now is winning this year with Vlad (and Bo, etc) certainly limits options.

They have to say that, otherwise if they publicly said that we are looking to trade him would put them in a disadvantage.

I guarantee they are looking at it and taking calls on Vladdy right now, Bo they may be holding off to see if he has a good couple months then dealing him at or before the deadline.

 

[Bjindaho]

As much as it sucks to lose Guerrero I don't think a DH is worth $500 million. Still this shouldn't have even been an issue had we dealt with it in a timely manner.

A DH?

Again, he was average in 100 innings of 3B last year. At first, he was approximately average in DRS. There have been clear points where he has played through injuries (he gets banged up in a game, then his range goes south but they keep playing him at 1st and don't let him heal properly).

Most of the perspective of Vladdy is based entirely on the Jays doing a terrible job at managing any knocks he suffers. If a guy is banged up, he should DH for a bit to heal, but the Jays throw those guys in the field and let what could be a 1-2 week recovery potentially turn into a season-long lingering problem. This has been true of Springer, Vladdy, Teoscar, and Bo (last year).

 

[Stringer Bell]

Be really interesting to see what kind of year Vlad has. Could you imagine he hits 270 this year? Do the offers on the open market change?

 

[MikeK]

It's going to be a major Franchise changing season this year. A lot of big names on expiring contracts who're likely not coming back. This team has been grossly mismanaged and Rogers needs to decide if they want the current management group around to make the big deals we're undoubtably going to see. This team is going to look drastically different next season. We're going to see a lot of trades before this season is over.

 

[Discoverer]

If the Jays lose Vladdy and Bo, you could argue that they've downgraded at 8 positions in 3 years (barring a Varsho bump), in the rotation for a few spots, and in the pen.

What positions to you see them as having downgraded from 3 years ago to now? Because I see three, but I also see three obvious upgrades. I don't see the rotation as being any worse (outside of Manoah collapsing) and the pen is a toss-up.

 

[Stephen]

I think the best approach is to ignore the team, as they deserve, until Shatkins are finally shown the door and we get qualified management on board. Until then they're In a slow death spiral.

They almost need a Baltimore Orioles style franchise rebirth. Let it go to crap and jump on the bandwagon again in 2030 when there’s signs of life from this radioactively bad management team.