If Donaldson is signed in offseason, at what price?

[North_of_Border]

Donaldson is playing like an MVP again. Could go down as the Greatest Blue Jay in history if he does this a few more seasons. He is very very popular in Toronto and very marketable.

He is gonna be 33 years old soon. Could he fall off the edge like Bautista. Imagine if Jose had signed the big 5 year deal. We would be heading into year 3 of a hideous contract. Which looked like a bargain a couple of seasons earlier.

If the Jays decide to keep Donaldson past next season. What kind of Contract do you sign him to? Something realistic, as he will be in Huge demand in the market. Your not gonna get him on a super discount. Remember this guy has been underpaid for most of his career. He wants to be paid, probably.

Dollar sum and years?

[Schad]

A maximum of 4 years, $120m for his age 32-35 years. A deal he almost certainly will not sign.

[dagger]

If the team believes Vlad Guerrero Jr really is an acceptable third baseman, why would we even bother?

[SharoneWright]

World Series Championships in 2021, 2022, and 2023.

[wamco]

I don't think our budget would allow us to sign him for what his market value is

[C Court]

Jays will be shopping Donaldson hard this off season. Two more home runs tonight, so he's raising his value nicely.

[Lateral Quicks]

Jays made the right call to not trade him at the deadline - with the injuries his value was likely at its low point. He's showing now that he's still an elite-tier player when healthy.

With Vlad on his way Donaldson won't be extended. But he will be traded at next year's deadline if the team isn't in it. Even a few months of 7-8 WAR player would net a very good return.

[dagger]

Donaldson is playing like an MVP again. Could go down as the Greatest Blue Jay in history if he does this a few more seasons. He is very very popular in Toronto and very marketable.

He is gonna be 33 years old soon. Could he fall off the edge like Bautista. Imagine if Jose had signed the big 5 year deal. We would be heading into year 3 of a hideous contract. Which looked like a bargain a couple of seasons earlier.

If the Jays decide to keep Donaldson past next season. What kind of Contract do you sign him to? Something realistic, as he will be in Huge demand in the market. Your not gonna get him on a super discount. Remember this guy has been underpaid for most of his career. He wants to be paid, probably.

Dollar sum and years?

Greatest Jay? I seriously doubt it after just three seasons with not even one trip to the WS. Great player, but there have been greater. Even Bautista in his prime captured the baseball world in a way that Josh hasn't.

[johanliebert]

he'll be 33 after next season. Id say 5 years..face it you will most likely be paying him big bucks when hes no longer the same player. theres no getting around it.

some of yall here..mind you who wont be paying the money always worry about that 5-6 year.

[johanliebert]

Jays made the right call to not trade him at the deadline - with the injuries his value was likely at its low point. He's showing now that he's still an elite-tier player when healthy.

With Vlad on his way Donaldson won't be extended. But he will be traded at next year's deadline if the team isn't in it. Even a few months of 7-8 WAR player would net a very good return.

how is vlads defense at 3rd? why cant josh just be moved to LF/1b or dh?

id only move him for elite prospects.

[Schad]

he'll be 33 after next season. Id say 5 years..face it you will most likely be paying him big bucks when hes no longer the same player. theres no getting around it.

some of yall here..mind you who wont be paying the money always worry about that 5-6 year.

Paying players superstar money for seasons where you can expect that they'll have declined markedly is a bad idea.

[Lateral Quicks]

Jays made the right call to not trade him at the deadline - with the injuries his value was likely at its low point. He's showing now that he's still an elite-tier player when healthy.

With Vlad on his way Donaldson won't be extended. But he will be traded at next year's deadline if the team isn't in it. Even a few months of 7-8 WAR player would net a very good return.

how is vlads defense at 3rd? why cant josh just be moved to LF/1b or dh?

id only move him for elite prospects.

AFAIK Vlad's defense at 3B is still up in the air. He's not a sure thing at 3B by any means, and his next likely position would be 1B. Hopefully he can manage a competent 3B because that would be so much more valuable to the team, though obviously his bat projects to play anywhere.

I can't see the team moving a player of Donaldson's calibre off 3B for a rookie unless he becomes a defensive liability.

[The_Hater]

If the team believes Vlad Guerrero Jr really is an acceptable third baseman, why would we even bother?

Just to play devils advocate, Vlade is 18 so Gotta figure he's 2-3 years from the major leagues even the way he's hitting in the lower minors and by then Donaldson might be ready to shift to 1B or LF defensively.

That said, I wish they would trade JD this winter but that's never been the Blue Jay way. The ghosts of Vernon Wells

[flatjacket1]

Paying players superstar money for seasons where you can expect that they'll have declined markedly is a bad idea.

Agreed but it is essentially the premium you pay for having them in their productive years. GM's don't really expect 40 year old Pujols to be good, it is a way of deferring salary and still having some leverage vs as actual deferral. (EX Pujols may get a career ending injury and the teams insurance on the contract will cover over 50% of his pay, or he may actually be worth a roster spot cutting down your need for another roster guy).

That being said it is a dangerous game to play when you are on the back end of a playoff run. Although I don't necessarily agree with a lot of you on the "full rebuild" thing yet, signing Donaldson will surely be more years than we would want to commit to for a small chance of remaining competitive 2019-2022. Also would interfere with a lot of our arb guys hitting FA.

[Schad]

Paying players superstar money for seasons where you can expect that they'll have declined markedly is a bad idea.

Agreed but it is essentially the premium you pay for having them in their productive years. GM's don't really expect 40 year old Pujols to be good, it is a way of deferring salary and still having some leverage vs as actual deferral. (EX Pujols may get a career ending injury and the teams insurance on the contract will cover over 50% of his pay, or he may actually be worth a roster spot cutting down your need for another roster guy).

That being said it is a dangerous game to play when you are on the back end of a playoff run. Although I don't necessarily agree with a lot of you on the "full rebuild" thing yet, signing Donaldson will surely be more years than we would want to commit to for a small chance of remaining competitive 2019-2022. Also would interfere with a lot of our arb guys hitting FA.

Pujols is an excellent example of the problem when paying for past performance. It's not just 40 year old Pujols who won't be good: it's likely that his production will exceed his contract in exactly one year of his ten-year deal, and even then he didn't exceed the AAV. If all goes according to plan and you get a little lucky, you're merely looking at a **** contract for the last couple years, but you don't always get lucky. Old players are scary.

[sule]

They might be waiting out the market to see if GM's are going to be as conservative with years and dollars as they were last year. They may be willing to roll the dice on that scenario to see if Donaldson can be had back at a reasonable amount of years. Unlikely, but it seems that may be the way they are playing out the market.

[flatjacket1]

Pujols is an excellent example of the problem when paying for past performance. It's not just 40 year old Pujols who won't be good: it's likely that his production will exceed his contract in exactly one year of his ten-year deal, and even then he didn't exceed the AAV. If all goes according to plan and you get a little lucky, you're merely looking at a **** contract for the last couple years, but you don't always get lucky. Old players are scary.

He is a weird situation though, because the drop off was right away. Between 2012-2016 he was worth 55.2M to Fangraphs (This year -14M thus far) and was paid 100M over that span. The 5 years leading up to that he was "worth" (dollar figures on Fangraphs) 222.1M.

It is also worth noting that a replacement level 1B doesn't exactly grow on trees. The positional value hammers them. The bottom 10 teams at 1B in the league average 0.49 fWAR so far this year, compared to a "skilled" position such as CF where the bottom 10 teams average 1.28 fWAR (a 261% increase). fWAR is great but I would argue unfair in some situations, this being one. Aging curves also seem to hit guys harder who play positions requiring athleticism, as hitting value tends to decline slower.

The backload also helped the team, which people also tend to forget. 5.4M/10 years level vs 20M/1 year is the same amount after factoring is alternative investments (such as one of the businesses these multi-billionaire owners have). Backloading allows the capital to be used elsewhere in the meantime, deferring to a time with some increase in inflation (and thus decrease in purchasing power).

I would argue that the 2012-2016 stretch by Pujols was expected to be worth 170-200M by the team, a surplus value of 70-100M. Obviously the performance would drop significantly after the first 5 years of the deal, but a team like LAA not being a top salary team figured they would send the cheques during the rebuilding phase. It wasn't exactly a terrible deal the day is was signed, but in hindsight, yeah it was pretty darn bad. The real risk that people run is the fact that it is extremely concentrated on that one players success. For example, if the Happ deal didn't work out we would call it a bad deal. If a Donaldson deal doesn't work out, it is such a significant chunk that even if the risk of it not working out is less, the max drawdown is more.

As I said before, Donladson doesn't make sense for us. But long term deals for teams wanting to compete sometimes make sense. It's really a case by case basis.

[I_Like_Dirt]

If all goes according to plan and you get a little lucky, you're merely looking at a **** contract for the last couple years, but you don't always get lucky. Old players are scary.

It's just an amazing coincidence how that luck started to turn when they started testing a little more rigorously for PEDs. I'm sure it will even out eventually. Right?...

[Schad]

If all goes according to plan and you get a little lucky, you're merely looking at a **** contract for the last couple years, but you don't always get lucky. Old players are scary.

It's just an amazing coincidence how that luck started to turn when they started testing a little more rigorously for PEDs. I'm sure it will even out eventually. Right?...

Yeah, it has changed a tad. In 2000, there were 24 hitters aged 35 or older posting at least 1 fWAR, 8 posting 3+ fWAR, and 4 posting 4+ fWAR. This year, there are 6 players at that age posting 1+ fWAR, a grand total of 2 posting 3+ fWAR (and barely scraping that), and none will clear 4 fWAR. 30 is the new 35.

[Schad]

On the aging curve, part two...it's really eye-opening if you look at the 2012 leaderboard of guys who were 29 or 30 then, and then skip ahead to this season when they're all 34 or 35. The top 20 hitters when they were 29/30 produced 84.2 fWAR in 2012...five years on, the top 20 hitters from that class have produced 24.3 fWAR. Of the 16 players who managed 3+ fWAR at 29/30, only 1 is still above that threshold at 34/35. Only 18 are even above replacement level.

One other thing: Jose Reyes was in the top ten of that class in 2012. He's in the top 10 in 2017, too.