Blue Jays Discussion: Off-season Pt II: It's the off-season in November!... Wait. That's normal for baseball.

[dredeye]

Does Jansen have a lot of value? Would think a pitching prospect or two added no?
Snell has 3 years left and its in division, gonna cost a bit imo

It wouldn’t be straight up but Biggio and Jansen is way too much.

 

[Woodman19]

It wouldn’t be straight up but Biggio and Jansen is way too much.

What do you think an Ace under control for 3 seasons at a good $ value and still on the right side of 30 costs?

 

[Dr.Funk]

 

[TF97]

Noted former Blue Jay and 2020 National League MVP vote receiver Ryan Tepera was non-tendered by the Cubs.

 

[kb]

Noted former Blue Jay and 2020 National League MVP vote receiver Ryan Tepera was non-tendered by the Cubs.

Ok I laughed.

 

[TheImpatientPanther]

It wouldn’t be straight up but Biggio and Jansen is way too much.

No for sure, generally asking what type of value Jansen has? Feel like he may be the 2nd or 3rd piece in any deal for a #2-3 SP.

TB needs catching so if Jansen can eat up a chunk of value for Snell, add one of Woods-Richardson/Manoah/Kloff as per some recent hypothetical offers in articles.

Having a 3 headed monster of Snell-Ryu-Pearson for at least 3 years is very tempting.

 

[TheMadHatTrick]

Sign David Dahl immediately please.

 

[Discoverer]

Sign David Dahl immediately please.

I'm not opposed to this at all and thought the same thing when I saw he had been non-tendered, but the more I look into him to he more I can't figure out what he brings to the table that Derek Fisher doesn't.

He has more major league success under his belt, which is big for sure, but I wouldn't expect much more out of him than Fisher.

 

[dredeye]

What do you think an Ace under control for 3 seasons at a good $ value and still on the right side of 30 costs?

I’m not saying he’s going to be cheap. But the cost shouldn’t be two young cost controlled position players that are legit starting big leaguers and good ones.

 

[dredeye]

No for sure, generally asking what type of value Jansen has? Feel like he may be the 2nd or 3rd piece in any deal for a #2-3 SP.

TB needs catching so if Jansen can eat up a chunk of value for Snell, add one of Woods-Richardson/Manoah/Kloff as per some recent hypothetical offers in articles.

Having a 3 headed monster of Snell-Ryu-Pearson for at least 3 years is very tempting.

It’s hard to asses Jansesns value because his bat hasn’t been good in the bigs yet. It’s not as important for a catcher but it needs to be much better than it is for him. I’d have him as the main piece. To may prefer Kirk though

 

[dredeye]

Sign David Dahl immediately please.

What happened to him last year?

 

[Woodman19]

I’m not saying he’s going to be cheap. But the cost shouldn’t be two young cost controlled position players that are legit starting big leaguers and good ones.

I wasn't attacking your statement for the record, just curious on your thoughts.

 

[Bjindaho]

I wasn't attacking your statement for the record, just curious on your thoughts.

Value-wise, Jansen and Biggio isn't far off. From a TO point of view, we'd much rather give up prospects to make Biggio value than Cavan himself.

 

[phillipmike]

Sign me up for Archie Bradley.

 

[TheMadHatTrick]

Another interesting international guy to consider.

www.mlb.com/news/oscar-luis-colas-to-petition-for-mlb-free-agency?t=mlb-pi

He would then be eligible to sign under international signing guidelines, likely during the period that starts on Jan. 15. The signing period originally was to begin on July 2, 2020, but was moved back.

Colás, who turned 22 in September, has been called the "Cuban Ohtani." He plays all three outfield positions and third base and is also a left-handed pitcher.

In 2019, Colás hit .302 with a .515 slugging percentage and 11 home runs in the Minors for the Hawks, and .278 with one homer in seven games for the NPB club. He did not pitch for either team.
In three years with Cuba’s Serie Nacional, he hit .305 and slugged .487 with nine homers. He pitched for Holguin in 2018-19, allowing one run in 3 ⅓ innings, all in relief.

 

[trellaine201]

So Biggio and Bichette aren’t good enough up the middle? Biggio will never have a steady position? He will become or is a utility player long term?

 

[Dr.Funk]

So Biggio and Bichette aren’t good enough up the middle? Biggio will never have a steady position? He will become or is a utility player long term?

I'd prefer to leave him at second but it's kinda looking like he will be an everyday utility player. Much like Ben Zobrist

 

[dredeye]

I wasn't attacking your statement for the record, just curious on your thoughts.

I didn’t think you were. It’s hard to gauge the true cost. He is certainly unique because of contract and control. It may seem like an odd statement but I’m not that sold on Snell. He had one lights out season and the rest are average.

 

[TF97]

I didn’t think you were. It’s hard to gauge the true cost. He is certainly unique because of contract and control. It may seem like an odd statement but I’m not that sold on Snell. He had one lights out season and the rest are average.

I’m with you on Snell. While he’s certainly a good pitcher, I don’t view him as the ace that many others do. Hell, he wouldn’t have even gotten my vote for the Cy Young if I had one. If I were GM, I wouldn’t pay what will likely be a premium for someone with one great season and some durability concerns. If a “big name” pitcher is to be acquired via trade, I’d target either Gray or Lynn before Snell. I wasn’t sold on Archer when the Rays were shopping him and it could be argued he was a better pitcher than Snell is at the time.

 

[The Nemesis]

Lost in all the FA talk is one quietly disappointing thing happening this off-season:

the big minor league reorganization that MLB is forcing to take place has all but certainly ended the affiliation of the Blue Jays and the Vancouver Canadians.

As part of the reorg, MLB has set that there will be 6 and only 6 levels of minor league ball: AAA, AA, High-A, Low-A, "complex" leagues (GCL and extended spring training stuff, it seems), and Dominican Summer League. To accomodate this, several existing leagues at levels like short-season-A and Rookie are being disbanded or merged and bumped up to different play levels.

This includes the Northwest League, which is being turned into an (apparently) 6-team High-A league.

Given that the goal of this shuffling is to create better geographic situations for MLB parent clubs (ie keeping teams relatively close together) and that the Jays already have a High-A team in Dunedin who uses their spring training facility, there's pretty much no avenue for Vancouver to remain affiliated with the Jays and the C's will instead likely end up as the brand new High-A affiliate of some random NL/AL West team.

That's gonna hurt attendance as a big part of the draw was for fans out west to have some connection to the Jays.

Also the idea that the NWL is going to be full-season April-September baseball playing in Vancouver/Washington/Oregon in small outdoor parks is profoundly stupid. They're gonna have so much fun when there's like a 50/50 chance that any given April/May game gets rained out and they suddenly have to jam a ton of extra games into June-September to make up for it. It's the bloody reason the league was short-season in the first place.

Can you tell I'm kind of pissed about this?

EDIT: No sooner do I write the above that I find out I might be wrong.

According to a Keith Law (BOOOO! ) article on The Athletic, the full league shuffle is as follows:

Law: Minor league musical chairs continues, for better and for worse

• the Cal and Florida State Leagues are being dropped from High-A to Low-A
  
• The Northwest League is bumped from Short-Season A to High-A
• The Midwest League and South Atlantic League are bumped from Low-A to High-A (the leagues are also possibly split and some of their teams will be redistributed to other leagues)
• The Pioneer League is being demoted from Short-Season A to an Independent league that will allow limited intake of affiliated MLB players from MLB clubs
• The Appalachian League and NY-Penn Leagues are being dissolved to eliminate redundancies and to accommodate a new "Draft League" meant to showcase draft-eligible players.
  
• Fresno, part of the AAA PCL is apparently being demoted to the Low-A Cal league because of travel distance between it and other PCL clubs.

The bump up of the MWL and demotion of the FSL means that the Jays now have 1 different Low-A team (Dunedin) and two previous affiliates at High-A (Vancouver and Lansing).

Via an article in the Vancouver Province (ugh), A's beat reporter Susan Sussler had previous reported that Oakland was looking at taking the Vancouver affiliation since they're on the west coast, but apparently that has fallen apart and they are now looking at Lansing instead. She also claims that indications are Vancouver would stay with the Jays. Perhaps someone in the Jays' front office lobbied hard to keep the unique Canadian connection of the Jays/C's even if it violates the whole "geography matters" part of this realignment plan. If that's true it would mean the new Blue Jays org affiliation chart is:

AAA: Buffalo
AA: New Hampshire
Hi-A: Vancouver
Lo-A: Dunedin
Other: GCL Jays, DSL Jays

Removed: Lansing (promoted to hi-A and reaffiliated with Oakland), Bluefield (folded along with the rest of their league.

the NWL being full-season is still really stupid though.

 

[Bjindaho]

So Biggio and Bichette aren’t good enough up the middle? Biggio will never have a steady position? He will become or is a utility player long term?

Biggio and Bichette are actually decent defensively.

The old school of thought was starters and subs which led to a lot of replacement level players playing significant innings.

If we can get a Lindor/Segura, then we can rotate everyone (outside of catcher) through the DH spot every 8th day, essentially giving them all a half day off without a weaker lineup. This greatly reduces the innings played by backups.

If we add an OF and don't remove one (making Teoscar DH), our first sub off the bench is Tellez and Biggio allows us to rate our position of need to DH or 1B)

 

[Bjindaho]

Another way of looking at that is take all of Shaw and Panik's at bats and give them to a combo of Teoscar, middle IF acquisition, Springer/Bradley, Tellez, Vlad, and Biggio.

 

[Cloned]

Another way of looking at that is take all of Shaw and Panik's at bats and give them to a combo of Teoscar, middle IF acquisition, Springer/Bradley, Tellez, Vlad, and Biggio.

I think the more exciting thing is giving all of Roark’s innings to an actual pitcher.

 

[Discoverer]

I’m with you on Snell. While he’s certainly a good pitcher, I don’t view him as the ace that many others do. Hell, he wouldn’t have even gotten my vote for the Cy Young if I had one. If I were GM, I wouldn’t pay what will likely be a premium for someone with one great season and some durability concerns. If a “big name” pitcher is to be acquired via trade, I’d target either Gray or Lynn before Snell. I wasn’t sold on Archer when the Rays were shopping him and it could be argued he was a better pitcher than Snell is at the time.

Yeah, I don't really get it either. Snell is a really good pitcher on a great contract, but an ace that you send out multiple cheap, young, valuable, high-ceiling pieces for? No thanks.

Snell has two seasons in his career where he's surpassed 2.0 fWAR (4.8 in 2018, 2.7 in 2019) and was on pace to fall short of that mark in 2020 (0.6 in 11 starts, or a 1.8 fWAR pace). He has ONE season where he surpassed 2.0 bWAR (7.1 in 2018), though he was on pace for 3+ in 2020.

He has one undeniably elite season under his belt, and outside of that it's been a mixed bag of mostly mediocre results. But it sounds like the asking price is what you would expect to pay for a proven ace with a long track record of dominance, and that's not Snell.

 

[Bjindaho]

I think the more exciting thing is giving all of Roark’s innings to an actual pitcher.

Roark is still a Jay.

Also, he is by far the biggest victim of pitching most of the year in a AAA stadium.