The Shapiro & Rogers Megathread

[Wo1verine]

The Blue Jays should have some money to work with in the coming weeks, as while Atkins declined comment beyond saying that team ownership remains supportive, it’s logical to think their 2018 payroll will remain, give or take, around the $170 million spent on the 2017 club.

On the books already is roughly $88 million in guarantees to eight players – led by $20 million apiece to Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki – and nearly $54 million projected for 11 arbitration-eligible players.

Tack on an estimated $5 million for 0-3 service-time players, and that gives Atkins $13 million to play with on a payroll of $160 million, $18 million on a payroll of $165 million and $23 million to spread around at $170 million. Additional money can be freed up by non-tendering some arbitration-eligible players – right-hander Tom Koehler, with a projected hit of $6 million, is a likely candidate – giving Atkins ample opportunity to help the AL’s least productive offence and bolster the pitching staff.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-face-significant-challenge-return-contention/

If our payroll is $170M and we non-tender Koehler and Loup, that would give us $30ish million to play with this off-season.

Not sure that's enough to improve our team that features so many holes.

[Schad]

We'll need some serious bang for our buck, or we'll need to overpay in years instead of dollars. As it stands, we have the money for a second division OF, and either a mid-rotation workhorse (along the lines of Mike Leake in recent years) or a buy-low starter with a bunch of red flags.

[Wo1verine]

MLBTR has predicted the Jays sign Jay Bruce.

14. Jay Bruce – Blue Jays. Three years, $39MM. Bruce reached the Majors at age 21 with the Reds and hit 216 home runs in nine seasons before he was traded to the Mets at last year’s deadline. While with the Reds in 2010, Bruce signed a six-year, $51MM extension that included a club option for ’17. The Mets exercised that club option last winter, and ended up trading Bruce to the Indians in August. The left-handed slugger has endured ups and downs as a hitter, but he posted a 115 wRC+ with 69 home runs over the last two seasons despite a .317 OBP. Bruce has struggled against left-handed pitching, a weakness that has been exploited by opposing managers who have forced him to face a disproportionate amount of southpaws. Bruce has not generally been lauded for his right field defense since undergoing knee surgery a few years ago, but his metrics bounced back and were above average this year. Bruce turns 31 in April and has a shot at a four-year deal in the Josh Reddick vicinity. The Blue Jays, Orioles, Royals, Rockies, Cardinals, and Giants could be options if the Indians let him leave.

And: Eduardo Nunez.

35. Eduardo Nunez – Blue Jays. Two years, $14MM. Nunez has long served as a multi-position bench piece, backing up big names for the Yankees for the first four years of his career. The Twins picked him up in 2014, and he worked his way into regular playing time in 2016. That earned a summer trade to the Giants, where he settled in at third base and played a career-high 141 games. The Giants shipped him to Boston last July, where he got most of his playing time at second base. Nunez carries a reputation as a subpar defender, possibly because he’s never been allowed to settle in at one position. He’s also proven fairly injury-prone, with DL stints nearly every year. Still, he’s a useful super-utility player who has hit .296/.332/.443 in his past 1,290 PAs. The 30-year-old should be able to find a two or even three-year deal.

Plus: Tony Watson.

44. Tony Watson – Blue Jays. Two years, $12MM. Watson, a 32-year-old lefty, is behind only Bryan Shaw in total games pitched from 2012-17. He spent his entire career with the Pirates before being traded to the Dodgers this year at the deadline. Since his rookie season, Watson has never posted an ERA over 3.38, despite middling peripheral stats. Though he hasn’t always been used as such, Watson is best deployed as a left-handed specialist.

Would you guys be happy with any of these players?


Complete list here: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/11/2017-18-top-50-mlb-free-agents-with-predictions.html

[Schad]

Heh, I messed around with an offseason plan a couple months ago, and I'm pretty sure I had Watson and Nunez, only with a one-year flier on a starter in there instead of Bruce.

That seems cheap for Nunez even with his injury problems and short track record of success.

[polo007]

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[polo007]

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The city of Dunedin and the Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a 25-year contract to keep the Major League Baseball team in town for spring training.

Dunedin Mayor Julie Ward Bujalski said the agreement is significant because the city could not apply for state money until the commission approved the project.

In addition to a $5.6 million contribution from the city, the $81 million dollar renovation plan calls for money from Pinellas County and the state. The team would shoulder about $15.7 million dollars.

Pinellas County would fund $46.5 million with money from the Tourist Development Council bed tax, a 6 percent tax allocated to marketing and capital projects.

As part of the agreement, Florida Auto Exchange Stadium in Dunedin would be modernized to feature some of the amenities found at other spring training facilities in Florida. The ballpark would be equipped with a 360-degree concourse, a tiki bar, expanded team store and 6,000 fixed seats.

Dunedin city officials hope to have the stadium renovation project done by opening day of spring 2019.

[polo007]

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The Toronto Blue Jays organization has thrown its support behind the city's Rail Deck Park vision, while councillors took the first step Tuesday to zoning the air above the downtown rail corridor as park land.

The Toronto-East York Community Council approved the recommended zoning changes, which would affect some 21 acres of space between Bathurst Street and Blue Jays Way. That decision will now to go the full city council.

If approved, the zoning would also be an obstacle to the property developers that own the air rights and had hoped to put a mix of condos, offices and park space on the site.

Coun. Joe Cressy, who represents the area, says he still believes the condo proposal won't happen because the rail corridor represents the last available space to build a signature park downtown.

"Fifty years from now, when Rail Deck Park is built and we're out there watching the Blue Jays game on the Jumbotron from a giant, new central park, nobody's going to be sitting there on the grass saying, 'Gee, I wish we'd built nine towers here instead of this park,'" Cressy told CBC Toronto.

He also welcomed the Jays' support, which came in a letter to councillors. The club says the park would "significantly enhance" the experience of millions of fans who catch a game at Rogers Centre every summer.

In addition, the Jays organization suggested extending the park further east, to the John Street bridge.

"Any time the Blue Jays are on side, you know you're doing OK," Cressy said.

Mayor John Tory is also a major proponent of the plan.

[polo007]

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Sportsnet How is the team better now than at the end of 2017?

Mark Shapiro Ross (Atkins) and our baseball operations group acknowledged that last year the combination of challenges in depth and versatility along with a mature position-player club created some weaknesses for us. This year, we’ve got more depth, we’ve got more versatility and that, in combination with the progression of our own players leads all of us to feel like we’re in a much better spot to handle what lies ahead and some of the unknowns.

SN In the past you’ve said an ideal roster is balanced between players at the beginning of their careers, in the middle and the end. Is there an ideal way for you to allocate dollars across the roster?

MS Building a baseball team is not an intellectual exercise. So much of the answer is dependent on situation and circumstance. You never know where your best players are going to be. You’re excited to have those guys and always want to pay those guys top dollar, so if your greatest player is Josh Donaldson, than I would say we should pay $23 million to our third baseman at whatever age. So, the answer is to build the best team possible in an efficient, flexible way that allows you to adjust to the things that lie ahead. But there is no formula — we just need to build the team that gives us a chance to contend, compete and play for a championship.

SN Shifting gears to the business side, you guys faced a dual challenge in selling tickets from both a price increase and coming off a difficult 76-86 season.

MS I don’t think the challenge was from the ticket-price increase. Most other teams in professional sports raise ticket prices, regardless of winning or losing. The Jays had not done that so that’s why there’s some reaction. Other teams in Toronto had done that. We just hadn’t. We’re trying to correct that and the only reason to do it is to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox.

The only reason.

SN You’re trying claw back some of the money that exists on the secondary market and bring it to the club.

MS Absolutely. If you were to look at the ticket prices from all 30 major-league teams, we need to get revenue in line with our market, we need to be a reflection of the Toronto marketplace. We’ll still be able to offer the most affordable major-league ticket in the market, we think. We still think we’ll provide the most value. On any given night, you can still buy a very affordable ticket for a family to come and see a game. The bulk of the increase is in the luxury seats, not in the seats that are affordable for the everyday person. It’s misleading to look at a bottom-line increase and say, “They increased ticket prices.” We increased certain ticket prices, we didn’t increase all ticket prices.

SN Are ticket prices closer to where they should be in the Toronto market?

MS I would think some tickets in the most desirable locations will continue to be increased. But I don’t think we’ll have years where you see all ticket prices increased.

[Skin Blues]

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"Blue Jays are in favour of eliminating all other real estate competition for the land they plan to use for a new park, laying the groundwork for another sweetheart stadium deal to replace the SkyDome which they got essentially for free"

Shocker!!

[polo007]

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Hardly a day goes by without a fan, writer or executive citing the Astros and Cubs as examples that rebuilding works. They aren’t wrong. The two most recent World Series champions follow in the footsteps of the post-1997 Marlins, post-2007 Athletics and post-2008 Indians as rebuilds that resulted in either a World Series appearance or a sustained run of playoff appearances beginning four-to-six years later.

But for every successful rebuild, there is another that doesn’t have the happy ending of a champagne shower and a banner.

With a full one-third of MLB teams now in some stage of a rebuild, not all of them will become the perennial playoff contenders and future champions they aspire to be.

Here is a look at some past teams that rebuilt and didn’t end up with any playoff appearances to show for it, and what the executives who oversaw those rebuilds say they learned from their experiences.

1. If You’re Going To Rebuild, Go All In

2. Maximize Your Trade Return

3. Be Prepared To Acquire A Final Veteran Piece When You’re Ready To Compete

4. Don’t Rely On Pitchers To Be The Backbone Of Your Rebuild

5. Timing Is Essential So That Players Hit Their Ceilings Together

[dagger]

I'll stick this here.

Bowden makes five "big predictions" for 2018.

A Donaldson trade is one of the five.

5. Josh Donaldson will be dealt to the Cardinals or the Phillies at the trade deadline.
The Toronto Blue Jays would like to keep Josh Donaldson and sign him to an extension, but the reality is that they’re not going to be able to. The game's best prospect, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is soaring through their farm system, with some analysts believing he’ll be ready as early as next season to take over third base. So Donaldson's expiration date has now been set for this offseason. However, if the Blue Jays are not contending by the trade deadline, to let him leave for a draft pick is just not good enough. That means he’ll most likely be dealt by late July. The interesting part is that most contending teams don’t need a third baseman: Just ask Michael Moustakas of the Kansas City Royals who, after hitting 38 home runs last season, had to sign a discounted, one-year, $6.5 million deal back with the lowly Royals.
The Dodgers have Justin Turner, the Diamondbacks have Jake Lamb, the Brewers have Travis Shaw, the Cubs have Kris Bryant, the Nationals have Anthony Rendon, the Astros have Alex Bregman, and the Indians have José Ramírez. That leaves the Cardinals and Phillies as the only true candidates (I’m not including the Yankees, who prefer Manny Machado) for a Donaldson deadline trade. The Phillies keep hoping that Maikel Franco will turn the corner or that Scott Kingery will have a breakout year. More realistically, neither will be the type of impact, middle-of-the-order bat that Donaldson provides. If the Phillies are in the wild-card race, that could be an interesting trade partner for the Jays. The Cardinals, meanwhile, have always had interest in Donaldson. If they’re in the playoff race as expected, they’ll need one more bat to throw behind Marcel Ozuna to put them over the top. It’s only a matter of time before Donaldson has a new home, and my bold prediction is that it will happen in July with one of these two teams.

[Skin Blues]

I doubt the Phillies have any interest. Kingery is up for good, and chances of both him and Franco being bad this year, and also being in a playoff race, are slim. The Cardinals also have Jedd Gyorko, who is every bit as good as Jake Lamb and Travis Shaw. Plus, Carpenter has played some 3B this year and that would free up 1B for Jose Martinez, which is basically the only spot they can put him to get his bat in the lineup. I don't see a lot of options, here. Last thing they need is another 3B.

I can see the Yankees doing it since it'll only cost them prospects, and the cash will be only $7M or something like that, possibly allowing them to stay under the luxury tax threshold while also adding a superstar for a playoff push. And lord knows they have a ton of prospects to work with. Trading for Donaldson in 2018 and signing Machado in 2019 aren't mutually exclusive. Whether or not both teams will be open to trading intradivision is another story, though I don't see a reason not to, at least from the Jays' side.

[Schad]

I doubt the Phillies have any interest. Kingery is up for good, and chances of both him and Franco being bad this year, and also being in a playoff race, are slim. The Cardinals also have Jedd Gyorko, who is every bit as good as Jake Lamb and Travis Shaw. Plus, Carpenter has played some 3B this year and that would free up 1B for Jose Martinez, which is basically the only spot they can put him to get his bat in the lineup. I don't see a lot of options, here. Last thing they need is another 3B.

I can see the Yankees doing it since it'll only cost them prospects, and the cash will be only $7M or something like that, possibly allowing them to stay under the luxury tax threshold while also adding a superstar for a playoff push. And lord knows they have a ton of prospects to work with. Trading for Donaldson in 2018 and signing Machado in 2019 aren't mutually exclusive. Whether or not both teams will be open to trading intradivision is another story, though I don't see a reason not to, at least from the Jays' side.

Gyorko's perfectly fine, but Donaldson's still a substantial upgrade. No doubt that move potentially falls by the wayside if they use Carpenter at 3B and get good production from Wong at 2B in Gyorko's absence, however.

[Skin Blues]

I doubt the Phillies have any interest. Kingery is up for good, and chances of both him and Franco being bad this year, and also being in a playoff race, are slim. The Cardinals also have Jedd Gyorko, who is every bit as good as Jake Lamb and Travis Shaw. Plus, Carpenter has played some 3B this year and that would free up 1B for Jose Martinez, which is basically the only spot they can put him to get his bat in the lineup. I don't see a lot of options, here. Last thing they need is another 3B.

I can see the Yankees doing it since it'll only cost them prospects, and the cash will be only $7M or something like that, possibly allowing them to stay under the luxury tax threshold while also adding a superstar for a playoff push. And lord knows they have a ton of prospects to work with. Trading for Donaldson in 2018 and signing Machado in 2019 aren't mutually exclusive. Whether or not both teams will be open to trading intradivision is another story, though I don't see a reason not to, at least from the Jays' side.

Gyorko's perfectly fine, but Donaldson's still a substantial upgrade. No doubt that move potentially falls by the wayside if they use Carpenter at 3B and get good production from Wong at 2B in Gyorko's absence, however.

Yes but Donaldson is a substantial upgrade for most teams. The Cardinals are the last team that needs a 3B upgrade since they have not one, but two 3B already that are each 2+ WAR players, plus Wong for 2B. Makes no sense. The Phillies I can see if Franco sucks again and they're in a playoff race. But in the slim chance they're above .500 in July, chances are guys like Franco or Kingery will have played way over their head to get there. And if in this imaginary universe the Phillies are playoff contenders, then why not the Padres, Braves, Rays, etc. The D'Backs have nobody at 2B, so in theory they could at least think of sliding Lamb over there since the skills translate between those positions. Donaldson would be a big upgrade over Shaw, who probably can't play 2B very well, but it's still a net positive over whatever Jonathan Villar will give you there. I just don't see why these Cardinals rumours keep perpetuating, when they already don't have room for all of their infielders.

[Schad]

Mostly, it's the fact that the Cards were actively kicking the tires on Donaldson for roughly forever. Wong might've changed the calculus there, I dunno, but they seemed to view it as a prime candidate for an upgrade through at least 2017, and were being linked to him through at least the Ozuna trade by the media types that don't tend to invent stuff.

[Skin Blues]

It might make sense from the Cardinals side if they also trade Gyorko and/or Carpenter as had been rumoured in the offseason, because we could have used those two in 2018, too. But that doesn't make sense for the Jays if they're trading Donaldson due to being out of contention this year, since most of the surplus value in Gyorko/Carpenter will be used up by the end of 2018.

Who knows what will happen as the season goes on, though. Some teams will contend that were supposed to suck, some teams might lose their 3B to injury, etc. For a guy that hits like Donaldson, it's not hard for somebody to shoehorn them into the lineup. The interesting thing to me will be what happens with Osuna/Stroman/Pillar. Hard to know what kind of offers they'd get for those guys but they're gonna start getting expensive, and I don't have high hopes for the long-term performance of any of them. Could probably mix Sanchez in with them too, depending how his season goes.

[polo007]

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[polo007]

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What makes this process so frustrating is that it’s needless. Everyone knows the Jays are terrible (which is why Stroman got a pass for rubbishing his own team). The bosses must know it, too. Refusing to admit something is not the same thing as refuting it.
But there has never been a more forgiving time in sports for bad franchises. The word “rebuilding” has become a sort of compliment.

A sudden outburst of transparency might delight people – “Yes, we are terrible.” Then again, having waited so long to give it a try, it might enrage them.

So we will continue on as we have: pretending things are getting better by talking up a bright future that might never arrive; putting all the weight on one 19-year-old kid; hoping things break just right, but not taking a single risk that might help matters along.

The irony here is that this approach doesn’t buy you more time. Every franchise executive has a five-year mandate, give or take, in which to prove it can win. A lot of wild flopping around at the end buys you a season or two more, but it eventually ends the same way.

All the Parliament Hill approach does is embolden the next regime to go the same, overcalculated, overcautious route. Then you wake up one day and you haven’t made the playoffs in 20 years.

[Scott Hall]

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