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So lets say the Jays great prospects all develop into very good players and some very elite and are thus on the cusp of contending and their contracts are about to expire then what does Rogers do? If the Jays want to win a World Series Rogers not only has to spend to keep home grown talent, but they must also spend to fill in holes via outside free agents. So unless our prospects can bring home a World Series title while still under their rookie contracts it doesn't look like one will ever arrive unless Rogers decides to go the early 90's route by re-signing talent and bringing in talent from other teams.

Who knows. Rogers does spend, if not at elite levels, so we'll see in...about seven years, and that's assuming everything goes to plan.

Schad wrote:Who knows. Rogers does spend, if not at elite levels, so we'll see in...about seven years, and that's assuming everything goes to plan.

Why does it have to take 7 years to just get to being a contender? I've seen other teams hit rock bottom and then win a World Series shortly after e.g. Cubs & 2013 Redsox. I sure wish they would of won it all in either 2015 or 2016 b/c then I wouldn't be bothered by this nonsense.

NBA Network wrote:

Schad wrote:Who knows. Rogers does spend, if not at elite levels, so we'll see in...about seven years, and that's assuming everything goes to plan.

Why does it have to take 7 years to just get to being a contender? I've seen other teams hit rock bottom and then win a World Series shortly after e.g. Cubs & 2013 Redsox. I sure wish they would of won it all in either 2015 or 2016 b/c then I wouldn't be bothered by this nonsense.

It will take seven years before any of the kids are free agents.

People we're calling out Rogers for awhile but they ended up spending when the time was right(AA/Beeston era). The 5 year cap on contracts worked as well, with the exception they were hinting at ended up being Tulowitzki,

Four years ago we traded for Donaldson, that was a good deal for us as well but the key there is Oakland is now competing for a wild card spot again 4 years later and they started this year with the lowest payroll in baseball vs the Red Sox 220+ million.

BigLeagueChew wrote:People we're calling out Rogers for awhile but they ended up spending when the time was right(AA/Beeston era). The 5 year cap on contracts worked as well, with the exception they were hinting at ended up being Tulowitzki,

Four years ago we traded for Donaldson, that was a good deal for us as well but the key there is Oakland is now competing for a wild card spot again 4 years later and they started this year with the lowest payroll in baseball vs the Red Sox 220+ million.

A's have the lowest payroll, Yankees had an opening day payroll roughly equivalent to ours, Atlanta has one of the lower payrolls in baseball, Brewers have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Increasingly, young teams are both cheaper and better; no matter what Rogers spends, our best chances to win a title will be from about 2022-2025, assuming we actually plan properly for that time frame. And assuming we're planning well, it might well come with a non-premier payroll, simply because we won't need one.

Maybe they should try to lock up their promising youngsters early. Look how cheap Tampa had Even Longoria for all those years, or even Mike Trout in LAA. It's a risky choice, you gotta really believe in the guy you pay so early but it's a possibly bargain.

Offer them long term financial security as opposed to them gambling on themselves and possibly falling flat.

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Blue Jays had an opening day payroll of over 160 M. The money was there- but the issue was how it was being spent (i.e. Tulo, Martin, etc.).

Mehar wrote:Blue Jays had an opening day payroll of over 160 M. The money was there- but the issue was how it was being spent (i.e. Tulo, Martin, etc.).

We're at the back end, often dead-weight portion, of most of our biggest contracts. Martin, Tulo (wouldn't be surprised if we pay somebody to take him next year), JD, Estrada, Happ, Morales. Lots of money coming off the books over the next year. I don't know how that money will be spent, but I imagine we'll be spending a fair chunk after the 2019 offseason. This offseason we'll likely be thrifty, grabbing some leftovers at a discount after the big dogs sign and relying on the impending addition of Vlad, and possibly Bo, to get a temporary boost in attendance before really going for it in 2020.

Schad wrote:A's have the lowest payroll, Yankees had an opening day payroll roughly equivalent to ours, Atlanta has one of the lower payrolls in baseball, Brewers have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Increasingly, young teams are both cheaper and better; no matter what Rogers spends, our best chances to win a title will be from about 2022-2025, assuming we actually plan properly for that time frame. And assuming we're planning well, it might well come with a non-premier payroll, simply because we won't need one.

Oakland is amazing. Chapman is having a 6.5 fwar season, am sure you're aware, only making 500k,

BigLeagueChew wrote:

Schad wrote:A's have the lowest payroll, Yankees had an opening day payroll roughly equivalent to ours, Atlanta has one of the lower payrolls in baseball, Brewers have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Increasingly, young teams are both cheaper and better; no matter what Rogers spends, our best chances to win a title will be from about 2022-2025, assuming we actually plan properly for that time frame. And assuming we're planning well, it might well come with a non-premier payroll, simply because we won't need one.

Oakland is amazing. Chapman is having a 6.5 fwar season, am sure you're aware, only making 500k,

I'm thinking: Devon Travis, Kevin Smith, and Thomas Pannone oughta be enough to snag him. That covers the used-to-be-a-prospect utility infielder, low-minors SS, and low-ceiling innings eater that Oakland craves in return for a superstar 3B with many years of control remaining.

BigLeagueChew wrote:Oakland is amazing. Chapman is having a 6.5 fwar season, am sure you're aware, only making 500k,

2018 salaries of the top 7 position players in baseball, by fWAR:

Mookie Betts - $10.5m
Mike Trout - $34.1m
Jose Ramirez - $2.8m
Alex Bregman - $599k
Francisco Lindor - $623k
Matt Chapman - $548k
Manny Machado - $16.0m

And pitchers:

Jacob deGrom - $7.4m
Max Scherzer - $22.1m
Chris Sale - $12.5m
Patrick Corbin - $7.5m
Gerrit Cole - $6.8m
Trevor Bauer - $6.5m
Aaron Nola - $573k

Only 5 of 14 making more than $10m in 2018. The average salary is $9.2m. Only one of the hitters and two of the pitchers has enough service time to have reached free agency: Trout, Scherzer and Sale. Only one of them has actually experienced free agency in Scherzer.

There are 43 players making $20m or more a year...only Trout, Scherzer, Verlander, JD Martinez and Freddie Freeman are in the top 20 in either pitcher or batter fWAR.

Baseball is a young man's game now, and younger players are (comparatively) cheap. Until baseball fixes its rather weird payroll structure, it's incredibly important to stockpile kids. Thus the frustration with our failure to convert the vets into good, young talent.

Skin Blues wrote:I'm thinking: Devon Travis, Kevin Smith, and Thomas Pannone oughta be enough to snag him. That covers the used-to-be-a-prospect utility infielder, low-minors SS, and low-ceiling innings eater that Oakland craves in return for a superstar 3B with many years of control remaining.

I'm in, conveniently he's not arb eligible until 2021.

Schad wrote:
2018 salaries of the top 7 position players in baseball, by fWAR:

Mookie Betts - $10.5m
Mike Trout - $34.1m
Jose Ramirez - $2.8m
Alex Bregman - $599k
Francisco Lindor - $623k
Matt Chapman - $548k
Manny Machado - $16.0m

And pitchers:

Jacob deGrom - $7.4m
Max Scherzer - $22.1m
Chris Sale - $12.5m
Patrick Corbin - $7.5m
Gerrit Cole - $6.8m
Trevor Bauer - $6.5m
Aaron Nola - $573k

Only 5 of 14 making more than $10m in 2018. The average salary is $9.2m. Only one of the hitters and two of the pitchers has enough service time to have reached free agency: Trout, Scherzer and Sale. Only one of them has actually experienced free agency in Scherzer.

There are 43 players making $20m or more a year...only Trout, Scherzer, JD Martinez and Freddie Freeman are in the top 20 in either pitcher or batter fWAR.

Baseball is a young man's game now, and younger players are (comparatively) cheap. Until baseball fixes its rather weird payroll structure, it's incredibly important to stockpile kids. Thus the frustration with our failure to convert the vets into good, young talent.

Young mans game even for pitching? Are the days of finding a experienced 200 inning reliable starter gone now?

BigLeagueChew wrote:Young mans game even for pitching? Are the days of finding a experienced 200 inning reliable starter gone now?

I mean, there are some (I missed Verlander on the original list, and he counts, mostly). Not too many in the upper echelon, though. There are 25 pitchers with 3+ fWAR at the moment; 17 of those are in their age-29 season or under. 8 are 30+. Fair number of average to above-average starting pitchers in that age range, but 'reliable' and 'starting pitcher' don't always go together.

On the hitting side, it's even more stark: among players with 3+ fWAR, 39 of 47 were under 30 on July 1st.

Schad wrote:

BigLeagueChew wrote:Oakland is amazing. Chapman is having a 6.5 fwar season, am sure you're aware, only making 500k,

2018 salaries of the top 7 position players in baseball, by fWAR:

Mookie Betts - $10.5m
Mike Trout - $34.1m
Jose Ramirez - $2.8m
Alex Bregman - $599k
Francisco Lindor - $623k
Matt Chapman - $548k
Manny Machado - $16.0m

And pitchers:

Jacob deGrom - $7.4m
Max Scherzer - $22.1m
Chris Sale - $12.5m
Patrick Corbin - $7.5m
Gerrit Cole - $6.8m
Trevor Bauer - $6.5m
Aaron Nola - $573k

Only 5 of 14 making more than $10m in 2018. The average salary is $9.2m. Only one of the hitters and two of the pitchers has enough service time to have reached free agency: Trout, Scherzer and Sale. Only one of them has actually experienced free agency in Scherzer.

There are 43 players making $20m or more a year...only Trout, Scherzer, Verlander, JD Martinez and Freddie Freeman are in the top 20 in either pitcher or batter fWAR.

Baseball is a young man's game now, and younger players are (comparatively) cheap. Until baseball fixes its rather weird payroll structure, it's incredibly important to stockpile kids. Thus the frustration with our failure to convert the vets into good, young talent.

Agreed, but most of the league has caught on to this. We are seeing smaller returns for vets across the league. I wish they would have traded JD to the cards in the off-season, but I suspect the return would not have been very impressive.

Schad wrote:Who knows. Rogers does spend, if not at elite levels, so we'll see in...about seven years, and that's assuming everything goes to plan.

The spending better come well before that. If a nice young core of major leaguers is in place in 2020-2021, they should spend to supplement it/plug holes. Whether that's through free agency or wisely trading prospects for established major league talent with higher salaries. Let's not waste Vladdy et al's prime.

Lateral Quicks wrote:The spending better come well before that. If a nice young core of major leaguers is in place in 2020-2021, they should spend to supplement it/plug holes. Whether that's through free agency or wisely trading prospects for established major league talent with higher salaries. Let's not waste Vladdy et al's prime.

If you look closer at Schad's posts, it supports the idea that spending doesn't actually mean you're helping your team. In fact, there is a pretty strong argument to support the idea that the best kind of spending in terms of actually building a winner is in NOT paying massive salaries to aging players and instead "spending" the hit you take at the box office by not having "name" players that casual fans have heard about and moving them for prospects. You won't win every trade, but on the aggregate you usually will come out ahead now.

Hingsight is 20/20, but had the Jays traded their vets for prospects last offseason, they probably wouldn't actually be any worse this season, and might have even been better had they gotten a player or two that helped more than their batch of guys that barely played, and played poorly when they did play. But at the same time, that particularly outcome isn't so outlandish as to have been inconceivable last offseason. The Jays could have traded their aging former stars for younger players/prospects and actually NOT sacrificed their chances at winning this season. The only thing they were really hoping to influence with that decision was butts in the seats, hoping fans would pay to see aging former stars more than they'd pay to see younger players they'd mostly never heard of given that the team's odds of actually competing were going to be slim either way.

Lateral Quicks wrote:

Schad wrote:Who knows. Rogers does spend, if not at elite levels, so we'll see in...about seven years, and that's assuming everything goes to plan.

The spending better come well before that. If a nice young core of major leaguers is in place in 2020-2021, they should spend to supplement it/plug holes. Whether that's through free agency or wisely trading prospects for established major league talent with higher salaries. Let's not waste Vladdy et al's prime.

Some spending certainly will, however you have to be mindful of the annual raises due to the young players, too. Sure, do it as the Astros have...their payroll has increased sharply the past two years, but they've been mindful not to commit too much long-term money, because they will need to pay some of their younger players soon.

Conversely, you have the Red Sox, who opted to take on a huge amount of salary, and consequently face some difficult decisions after 2019. Now, their young talent and exorbitant payroll has allowed them to have a pretty nice window regardless, but they haven't really gotten value for a lot of that money.

We already saw that Chris Davis contract that the orange birds had signed, and they traded Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop. Our neighbour are doomed because of that contract.