Blue Jays Discussion: Winter Meetings: Because there's no more fitting time to talk baseball than December

[hockeywiz542]

nashville—when agent paul kinzer walked out of the blue jays’ suite at the opryland on monday night after delivering face-to-face news to the club’s front office triumvirate that the club must negotiate an extension for edwin encarnacion by the start of the 2016 season — or he would test free agency in november next year — there was no suggestion of a follow-up meeting by the jays. Then the door closed.

Kinzer insisted he had not issued an ultimatum and if the jays’ star slugger was allowed to walk, that the jays would have an equal chance to negotiate with him at that time . . . Just not during the season.

“the last time, edwin’s deal was done during the season and he felt it was a real distraction,” kinzer recalled of the three-plus-an-option contract signed at the 2012 all-star break. “when we negotiated the fourth year with (former gm) alex (anthopoulos), he said that, if things were going well . . . Talks for an extension would be likely. Edwin loves toronto and he wants to play there.”

“right now, we have some other things we’ve got to take care of,” shapiro said, explaining why there is no date to continue talks with kinzer. “you’ve got 1,000 balls up in the air, and to be successful at these jobs you have to prioritize. Those (extensions) are big issues that are looming but, right now, we have to fill some spots on this team. And in order to have the best team possible, in order to ensure the best sources of revenue, the most excitement for our fans, what we need to focus on right now is 2016.

“now i think when you get to spring training, or you get past arbitration (in february), the other things that you shift to, you think, ‘ok, are there contractual issues that we need to think abut prior to starting the season.’ we’re just not in that part of the cycle right now.”

in listening to shapiro, it’s hard to believe they jays will sign any extensions prior to opening day. Too risky. To have enough money for the extensions, the jays need to win and continue canada’s national baseball love affair, which led to one sellout after another in the second half of the season. But to maintain the revenues, they need to play and to win. The jays will not have an idea on revenue streams before the season starts. And it sounds as if they will choose not to take a chance with encarnacion.

 

[The Nemesis]

Richard Griffin is a hack.

 

[zeke]

“a multi-year contract is about sharing risks and can you find that sweet spot where the player feels good about the risk he’s taking, giving up what could be out there in the open marketplace?” shapiro said. “and the club has to assess what risks exist for them — health, performance — or the other circumstances which is team performance, revenues, all the things that come together with building a team. It’s not about having one player. You have to be able to build a team.”

these guys are melting my brain.

 

[hockeywiz542]

“any long-term deal is about sharing risk,” said shapiro. “for a player that risk is what’s the market offer and am i willing to trade off to stay in a place? For a club, (there are) factors that go into player performance and health and where that trajectory goes.

“whether you can find the right sweet spot for sharing risk, we just haven’t entered into those conversations enough to know and some of that’s going to be because some of the circumstances around our team and around that decision, around defining that risk for us we just don’t know enough about that yet,” said shapiro.

Between russell martin, troy tulowitzki and josh donaldson the jays will have close to $60-million tied up in three players in 2017. To bring back both encarnacion and bautista, they’re likely looking at another $45-million unless the deals are back-loaded.

even if it’s not to everyone’s satisfaction, club payroll has increased year over year but, percentage-wise, never more than it did in the 2012-2013 off-season. That’s the year former general manager alex anthopoulos swung blockbuster deals with miami and the new york mets and payroll jumped from about $80-million to $120-million.

The canadian dollar, at the time, was at or around par. Now it’s trading in the neighbourhood of 75 cents. It’s an unwelcome complication; one type of market volatility only the blue jays deal with and, of course, cannot project.

The name of the game is winning and shapiro says the ability to keep one or both of bautista and encarnacion is dependent upon it.

“we’ve got to increase revenue and grow revenue to increase expenses and the expenses are player payroll; when it comes to a major league team that’s your largest expense, always; if we have a great year this year that’s certainly going to afford us the ability to grow player payroll and to grow expenses.”

 

[trellaine201]

The Toronto Blue Jays will become the Cleveland Indians in a few years-yikes

 

[Bad News Benning]

The Toronto Blue Jays will become the Cleveland Indians in a few years-yikes

as opposed to the Toronto blue jays of the past 20 years?

holy jump to conclusions batman.

 

[Kurtz]

Oakland is going full scorched earth. Those guys aren't even top 20 in the White Sox system.

Yeesh Oakland got hosed.

Edit: One is apparently 16 in the system. Still seems like a meh return for a guy with potential.

Don't think that Billy boy cares too much about those ratings. He just spots guys that he likes in a system and gets those guys. I mean I'm sure he could have had either Norris or Hoffman from us in the Donaldson deal, but Barreto was the guy he liked, despite the fact that he was ranked below those guys.

 

[mikebel111*]

Considering what Oakland gave up to acquire Lawrie, you would think he would have been given more than a year to reach his potential. The optics of the Donaldson trade from their standpoint are even worse now. In essence, they gave up the AL MVP for scraps.

but but but all hail Billy Beane

 

[mikebel111*]

wait a minute I thought the Jays were not doing anything to fill weaknesses?

We signed Barney and if I recall we didnt really have a utility man, well we just filled it.


And looks like we are in other players as well in terms of relief pitchers.

But I was told management isnt't doing anything to improve the team. This isn't right what is going on. Somebody tell me what is it cause I feel not sure what is happening.
So maybe they are actually trying to get some players to help the team after all. I know such a foreign idea!

 

[metafour]

these guys are melting my brain.

With logic?

Bautista will be a 36 year old free agent. Yeah bro, lets give him $20 mill a year for another 3-4 years because surely he's still going to be an elite offensive player throughout that period (he actually won't). He's already beyond useless defensively.

Neither Bautista nor Encarnacion should be in this team's long-term plans.

 

[hockeywiz542]

According to Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun, the Toronto Blue Jays were interested in signing pitcher Trevor Cahill as a free agent.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/12/09/teams-calling-about-availability-of-jays-hutchison

The Jays spoke to reliever Trevor Cahill, 27 (1-3, 5.40 in 26 games combined between the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs) before Cahill signed with Cubs pending a medical.

 

[rdawg1234]

With logic?

Bautista will be a 36 year old free agent. Yeah bro, lets give him $20 mill a year for another 3-4 years because surely he's still going to be an elite offensive player throughout that period (he actually won't). He's already beyond useless defensively.

Neither Bautista nor Encarnacion should be in this team's long-term plans.

Bautista was the most key player in that 1st series, otherwise we wouldnt be talking about the ALCS....

by no means should he get a 4 year contract as you can see some signs of breakdown but why not 2 years? 17-20m?

EE deserves 3-4 years being only 33.

I really dont like that we are already talking about trading away players that were huge in our first playoff run in 22 years.

 

[metafour]

Bautista was the most key player in that 1st series, otherwise we wouldnt be talking about the ALCS....

by no means should he get a 4 year contract as you can see some signs of breakdown but why not 2 years? 17-20m?

EE deserves 3-4 years being only 33.

I really dont like that we are already talking about trading away players that were huge in our first playoff run in 22 years.

You are letting emotion blind you. Cool, Bautista did well in the playoffs. While long overdue, we really don't need to build a shrine to commemorate MAKING THE PLAYOFFS.

EE may "only" be 33, but if you look at his plate discipline metrics you will see inklings that he has already begun to decline, with a downward trend appearing in each of his past three seasons. He's also a guy that isn't known as a hard worker when it comes to his body, and he's been getting hurt at an increasing rate.

Keeping more than one of them is foolish IMO. Neither guy can play a position anymore.

 

[Grand Volcan]

Bautista was the most key player in that 1st series, otherwise we wouldnt be talking about the ALCS....

by no means should he get a 4 year contract as you can see some signs of breakdown but why not 2 years? 17-20m?

EE deserves 3-4 years being only 33.

I really dont like that we are already talking about trading away players that were huge in our first playoff run in 22 years.

Both Baustista and EE will get 20m+ for 4 years easily. Possibly more depending how well they do this season.

Look at what similar FA's got. If Víctor Martínez can get 68/4 years Bautista will easily get 80/4.

 

[The Nemesis]

Rule 1 with contracts is that you should never pay for what a player has done. You pay for what they're going to do.

Everything Jose Bautista has done for the Blue Jays is amazing. But none of it. Not the bat flip, not the Texas series win. Not the years of 40+ HRs. none of it matters on his next contract. If some team wants to give him a bunch of money because he was awesome from 2010 onward, more power to them. But it's stupid to tie up money beyond what you believe a player is worth in the here and now because of past performance.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Bautista wants to finish his career in Toronto too, so the whole "20 mil for 4 years from somebody else" thing may not matter depending on how serious he is.

I said it before and i say it again; i think Encarnacion is as good as gone come next offseason. He took less money the first go round and has outperformed his pay. He could easily double his money imo. Or maybe not. Who knows.

 

[Grand Volcan]

Bautista wants to finish his career in Toronto too, so the whole "20 mil for 4 years from somebody else" thing may not matter depending on how serious he is.

I can see him giving up a 5-10% AVV to stay here but he would never give up contract years. I also feel he's a player that would only take market value, especially when you consider how underpaid he was with his current contract.

With his rapidly degrading defensive value, I think it's time to move on after this season.

 

[PJJ]

Bautista can DH in place for EE then

I also think we don't really need EE either, Tulo can fill that #4 hole. It'd be too expensive to keep all of Donaldson, Tulo, Bautista, and EE on one team. And I wouldn't move Donaldson out of the #2 spot after the season he had

 

[Le Cobra]

These clowns are ruining the Jays...the revenues...gimme a break...the fans will support a team that is taking risks...the management are doing everything they can to crush Jays' fans' spirits.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Mitchy]

I remember in May and June when the majority were calling for AA's head, but after the TDL, everyone and their mothers were fans of AA...

 

[The Nemesis]

These clowns are ruining the Jays...the revenues...gimme a break...the fans will support a team that is taking risks...the management are doing everything they can to crush Jays' fans' spirits.

No, the fans will support a team that wins. A team that takes risk and blows it would be something like the BJ Ryan/AJ Burnett Jays who unloaded a boatload of cash on a pair of relatively poor investments, and then watched the team basically burn down around them after 1 good year. The Jays took a risk and when it failed, fans bailed. The 2013 Jays took huge risks, and it worked for basically the rest of the off-season, generating buzz and getting hype. Until things came apart on the field and all those fans who apparently want to see risk started turning on the team and calling them failures for taking so many stupid risks with their trade capital.

Management is not "trying" to crush Jays fans spirits. It's not like they sit in their high tower, looking down on the plebs with a goblet of brandy in their hands and twirling their Snidely Whiplash handlebar moustaches evilly while they imagine all the poor, poor (bandwagon) Jays fans who are quitting on the team because they didn't spend $200m on David Price or Zack Grienke or whoever else. The idea that this is some intentional push to alienate anyone is as laughable as it is mind-bogglingly incomprehensible. What they do appear to be doing is creating a team with a better cost-controlled base and an attempt to rebuild the stockpile of useful assets to help the team achieve sustained success. Kind of like what Alex Anthopoulos had to do when he first started out as the GM (and coincidentally, got crucified by the same fans that later hailed him a hero for last year, and have turned around to crucify the new regime), except this time new management got handed a pretty solid team for the here and now with no immediate need for a tear-down. So they have to split the difference a little bit.

Because honest to god, if they went all in for another year or two and didn't come up with a World Series, when the inevitable required rebuild comes, the same fans calling for a bigger all-in push in the moment right now would raise just as much hell then, asking why the team wasn't prepared to weather the inevitable down cycle that any contiguous roster eventually has.

This team can still win right now. It needs to fix a few smaller things, but that's apparently being worked on. Maybe everyone who's brandishing their torch and pitchfork should just calm down and let things play out before rushing to judgement. Maybe?

 

[hockeywiz542]

another issue is the weakened canadian dollar and its growing gap against the american greenback. Shapiro insisted the 2016 payroll will be higher than that in 2015, but when asked if that is partly because the same amount of u.s. Money is more expensive now than last season, he replied: “the exchange rate has a factor on expenses.â€

as things stand now, the blue jays have an estimated $135 million committed to their roster. For 2017, they have $67.5 million committed to four players, $53 million on the books to three players in 2018, although josh donaldson will be making major money in arbitration those seasons and that needs to be considered, too.

If the payroll doesn’t rise substantially from the $135-$140-million range it’s believed to be at right now, the blue jays will have a very hard time shoehorning in both bautista and encarnacion.

encarnacion’s representatives made it clear to the blue jays that he doesn’t want negotiations extending into the regular season. Ideally, neither he nor bautista has to deal with the distraction while trying to help defend the american league east championship.

Additionally, the closer a player gets to free agency, the less incentive he typically has to sign an extension without learning how the market values him.

“we’ll be respectful of a player’s wishes, but we’re not going to be black and white,†shapiro said of encarnacion’s deadline. “so we may say, ‘hey, is there an ability to revisit it for three days over the all-star break when you’re not playing? Is that something you want no matter what?’ that’s one of the reasons agents exist, to deflect that from a player. They’re going to know their player. So we’re never going to set rules that are so rock solid that we can’t reconsider them if it benefits both parties. The underlying desire is always going to be to keep a player like that here.â€

the blue jays kept both bautista and encarnacion in toronto the last time they approached free agency with what turned out to be very club-friendly deals.

Bautista’s contract signed in february 2011 will pay him a total of $78 million over six years, while encarnacion’s deal agreed to july 2012 will pay him a total of $37 million over four years. Both are believed to want to stay, but neither is likely to offer a major hometown discount.

 

[hockeywiz542]

 

[Grand Volcan]

That's ridiculously better offer than what the Nats gave him. He really must have not wanted to come to Canada.