Projection systems are marginally better than using the Magic 8 ball.

Olney is saying Soto will decide in about 10 days and that the Jays are a distant third. Sounds like they have the money but Soto wants to stay in NY.

Hopefully in 10 days the distraction is ended and Atkins can focus on other players.

Agreed on the 10 day thing - the sooner the better, if he ain't coming here I hope Soto picks the Mets as the Yankees work too good with him/Judge/Stanton as a core.

With no Soto what is plan B? Seems from reports it is Fried, Santander, Adames. Lets look closer.

• Fried: 2021-now fWAR: 3.7-4.9-1.9-3.4 entering age 31 season, projected at 3.2 for 2025, his FB velocity is higher now than any other time in his career. IP '21-'24: 166-185-78-174 (misssed May/June/July in '23 due to strained left hamstring, then a strained left forearm. Sucked in the playoffs though (5.10 ERA lifetime, last 3 years 3 starts 9 1/3 IP 12 ER).
• Santander: 2021-now fWAR: (0.2)-2.3-2.6-3.3, switch hitter entering his age 31 season. Mostly a RF, but has time in LF. Defensive stats at best are 'meh', could be seen as negative.
• Willy Adames: 2021-now fWAR: 3.1-4.4-3.3-4.8, seems pretty steady 3/4 WAR guy. Entering age 29 season. But he did all of that but 77 innings at SS, those other innings at 2B. Just 10 games at 3B in the minors, all in 2013 at age 17. Hrm. Still, worth digging into as he'd only be at 3B for a year most likely as I'd be surprised to see Bo re-signed post 2025.
• Corbin Burnes has also been mentioned: 7.5-4.6-3.4-3.7, entering age 30 season. Seems solid. IP have been 190+ from 2022 onward. Damn tempting too, just like Fried. Healthy, strong, consistent.
• Blake Snell is another on the list: 2.1-3.6-4.2-3.1 looks solid, but IP are 129-128-180-104. When on the mound he is damn good, but he isn't on it enough. A very scary one to sign
• Teoscar Hernández we all know: 4.0-2.9-1.9-3.5 going into his age 32 season (when many sluggers collapse historically). I'd be very, very nervous about this one, as much as we all love him. I'd be surprised if he doesn't stay in LA though.

The rest of the free agents are mostly 'meh' imo. They could be good, and I'll probably get at least a little excited about signing anyone (more fun than being disappointed). But right now these are the guys I see as ones that could get people in general excited in some way-shape-form and who could move the needle a bit at least. 1 starter, 1 hitter is my expectations right now. Plus, of course, a few relievers but those are such crapshoots I wouldn't want to predict anything. Well, beyond the Jays probably getting Yarbourgh and Garcia back - those moves should be cheap and useful at the back of the pen at the very least. My personal favorite to chase is David Robertson who at age 40 will probably only get a 1 year deal at a reasonable price - thus ideal for the Jays - plus has closing experience and setup experience.

Just checked and Will Wagner has a lot of 3B experience in the minors - 74 games, 629 innings so he should be able to handle it if Adames comes here and is put at 2B. Sadly Jimenez only has 1 inning at 3B in the minors, Schnieder 914 innings at 3B in the minors, just 17 in the majors. Of course, Clement could be mixed in with Wagner at 3B and be moved around as needed (safe to say Bo will get a fair amount of time off in 2025).

So signing Fried-Santander-Adames would be sweet and cover off pretty much all the needs. Not perfectly, but decently.

What is the cost for those 3? Via MLBTR

• Fried: 6/$156 mil ($26 per)
• Santander: 4/$80 mil ($20 per)
• Adames: 6/$160 mil ($26.7 per)

Net: $72.7 per year for 4 years, $52.7 for 2 more, about $20 mil over the estimated budget without touching the pen beyond putting Rodriguez there. Hrm. Guess we'll see what happens and what the real budget is as time goes by.

There's a lot of interest in Adames and the price reflects that he play either SS or 3B.

Wagner's arm is short for 3B which is why Houston and Toronto played him at 2B/1B. With Bregman a FA, Houston likely wouldn't have parted with Wagner if they at all thought he could hack it there.

I don't love Santander but at least he makes sense for the Jays. Adames doesn't to me. Someone will pay him like to play SS.

Agreed Adames doesn't make much sense unless the Jays plan to trade Bo before the season which also wouldn't make much sense unless they think he won't fully recover thus while his value is at an all time low right now it might go to zero by mid-season. And if Bo isn't ready to play do you feel comfortable with Jimenez and Clement sharing SS? On a non-contender they'd do, but if the Jays really want to win they need more than that.

There lies the question and the challenge. Can Adames handle 3B or can Clement and Wagner share it with Adames at 2B for a year, then move Adames to SS once Bo leaves. No idea myself. Not a good enough scout to tell you if Wagner's arm is good enough for part time play at 3B (sounds like it isn't) or if Adames could handle it. Also Adames wRC+ is just 109, 119 last year, peak of 126 in 2020. Great for a SS, nice for a 2B, but just 'meh' for a 3B and this team needs more offense right now. If you are going for defense at 3B mainly then you could just leave Clements there or sign Ha-Seong Kim (106 lifetime wRC+ but just a 101 last year, but has proven he can play 'wow' defense at 3B, SS, 2B, you name it, is coming off an injury so is expected to sign for 1/$12 mil which is very reasonable).

So what is the long term and short term plan? Adames looks good on paper, but where does he fit in? If signed where does Bo go? Do you move Bo to 3B (seems a bad idea with his arm not being the strongest at SS as is - throws at 83.3 MPH vs average SS 86.9 mph). Adames is at 88.2 for comparison. Clement 82.4, Jimenez 79.6. Yet Clement was final 3 for a Gold Glove with that weak of a throwing arm. Barger at 96.6 (RF) IKF 77.3. Vlad averaged 88.5 at 1B, they don't list what he did at 3B (not enough throws) but his arm was never a question. Wagner 79.3, Horwitz 74.9, Schneider 84.5 (OF) 74.2 (IF). The OF tends to have higher velocity - Kiermaier 93.5, Lukes 90.0, Springer 86.8 (might be time to move to LF), Loperfido 85.0, Varsho 83.7. Arm strength found at Baseball Savant btw, for those who want to dig further.

This looks bad. How did it come to this point that they're chasing Soto and dont have their core locked up?

From Ken Rosenthal:

"Perhaps Guerrero is telling the Jays, “Find some players to put around me, and then I’ll consider staying.” Perhaps Soto, Anthony Santander and other Jays free-agent targets are saying, “Sign Vlad Jr., and then we’ll talk.” In which case, the Jays are stuck between a rock and a hard place — an impossible position, but one of their own making.

If you’re Soto, you know this much: Guerrero had a .940 OPS last season and the Jays won 74 games. The Mets, Yankees and Red Sox offer a higher floor. Other teams do, too. You’re going to get your money. And you can get it from a team in better shape than the Jays."

Snell to the Dodgers for a boatload of cash... to throw 120 innings a season... Fried and Burnes prices just went up.

Its 36 million/year. Are Fried and Burnes going to pitch that much more than Snell? Its pretty much exactly what mlbtraderumors predicted and teo years less than what they expect the others to sign for.

Burnes' strikeout rates have been declining and his contact in the zone going up. He's also not a left hander.

No way I'd sign Snell to that deal. 5/$182 mil. Maybe the Dodgers feel their pen and depth will protect them. $36.4 mil a year. Phew. What a rotation - Snell, Yamamoto, Ohtani, Glasgow, Tony Gonsolin, and clear favorites to sign Roki Sasaki. Dustin May on the IL but a damn fine pitcher once healthy too.

Just read it is $160-165 mil factoring in deferrals. So a $32-$33 mil a year deal. Still more than I'd want the Jays to pay for a very injury prone pitcher, but a touch better.

I guess teams are willing to pay big bucks for 100-120 really good innings rather than 170-180 good innings. Even when healthy, Snell is only good for 5 IP per game.

I guess with the evolution of bullpens that makes sense but teams really need to start developing more quality arms that can go 2-3 innings - something the Jays have yet to do other than Francis (briefly). But that's also why I see a lot of value in milb arms like Lazaro Estrada and Andrew Bash...

I think you’re both missing the main point of his value - playoff starts. Snell is getting this money because he’s someone you can give the ball to in game 1 of a playoff series and expect to win. The Dodgers aren’t worried about making the playoffs or how much bulk they get. They want impact players for the playoffs.

I think the real takeaway from a Jays fan's perspective is that there is early movement here, and hopefully the Jays are announcing a trade or a free agent signing soon.

Yeah Snell is on another level on playoffs and when locked in is unhittable. I wonder if the forward thinking Dodgers go to a 6 man rotation.

The Dodgers are up to a 110% tax penalty. Also they still have lots of injured starters.
They will use a rotation of whoever's healthy which might or might not be Snell. 
At any rate, the Jays only play them 3 games a year.

Snell is great when on and healthy, but that is barely over half the time. I'm guessing between Snell and Glasnow they hope to get 1 full time starter. Both rarely go over 130 IP (last year was Glasnow's first time over 130 at 134). Yamamoto threw just 90 IP last year, and Ohtani, of course, threw 0 IP. Hmmm.... can see why they signed a guy but boy Snell sure fits into that 'lets hope he is healthy come playoffs' category. You'd think they'd chase someone who can actually throw 200 IP at a half decent level just to give their pen a break. Glavin Stone led them in IP last year but is out for a chunk if not all of 2025 due to injury. Boy the Dodgers sure do chew up their arms don't they? Or do they just go after high power and when they blow out it is a meh for them.

None-the-less, Snell is going to cost them over $65 mil a year when you factor in the payroll tax. Yikes.

Seems to me that LAD is financing poor teams with their Luxury tax payment. I wonder how much TB and Pittsburg get from the league. TB makes the playoffs often enough and Pittsburg is in their playoff window with the arrival of Skenes.

"Snell is going to cost them over $65 mil a year when you factor in the payroll tax."

Meanwhile the Ray's payroll is projected to be $78 M. And that includes $8M for Wandering Franco and $2 M retained for Margot.

Genesis to the Mets on a minor league deal.

I would have liked that for the Jays.

Genesis to the Mets on a minor league deal.

No doubt he is happy to be away from the Jays' Land of Confusion.

Snell will be the 37th player on the LAD 40 man list.

Seems a bit early for Genesis to settle for a minor leagues contract.
I suppose he has release options and an agreed MLB salary.
He was making 1.5M last year.

The thing about Cabrera is that he isn't any good and he's never been any good. Was worth giving him a shot to see if you could get more. They couldn't. I'd much rather they try out some other guys than trot someone like Cabrera back out there.

He isn't any good but he was a stand out on this team's bullpen.

"He isn't any good but he was a stand out on this team's bullpen."

No, he wasn't. For Jays relievers with at least 30 relief innings (9 guys), he was 7th in WAR, 7th in K/9 IP, 8th in BB/9 IP, 8th in XFIP. He had a pretty good ERA but that doesn't mean much when underlying numbers are bad.

Provide the numbers of the rest of the bullpen please as a comparison to show how bad Cabrera was against the other options.

Also, what matters more for registered performance? Underlying numbers or actual numbers? I wonder...

There's very little value to me in comparing him to players not on this team. When the competition is Little and you can sign Cabrera to a minor league deal it's excessive to dismiss Cabrera as bad as if there is no place on this team for that.

I literally gave his ranking VS. Other Jays bullpen options and he was near bottom in everything. Go to fangraphs, filter by Blue Jays reliever and look at numbers. Cabrera was bad even for Jays bullpen. Jays sign Michael Stefanic who has hit very well in AAA but never hit in the majors. Like these kinds of minor league signings though. Seems like kind of guys Jays can do well with a potentially turn into a utility piece or something.

Not sure why there is a need to throw Genesis under the bus.

1) As pointed out in the initial post, projections are a guess, at best
2) RP vary widely from one year to the next. He could be great next year (or worse)
3) Its a minor league contract. Getting a guy with an ok MLB track record and good stuff on a minor league deal is a good outcome for the Mets.

It's not projections. Cabrera was bad statistically in almost every way. For relievers with at least 20 innings with the Jays last year, Cabrera was 11/13 in WAR. For relievers with at least 30 innings he was 7/9 in WAR. He has thrown 275 innings in his career with a 4.70 XFIP and 1.97 K/BB ratio. His career FWAR is 0.1. BWAR it's - 0.3. He signed a minor league deal early in the offseason because nobody was going to give him a major league deal. He isn't good and the Jays were right to move on. Kind of baffled how many people think Cabrera was decent because of a flukey ERA.

We don't think he's good we just know that Trevor Richards, Ryan Burr, Nate Pearson, Zak Pop, Erik Swanson, Tommy Nance, Tim Mayza, Mitch White, Jordan Romano, Luis Frias, Yerry Rodriguez, Jose Cuas and Paolo Espino are all mostly worse and that's your current bullpen and on a minor league deal Cabrera would cost less and he's a lefty.

I don't subscribe to WAR as an explain all measurement.

Like any statistic WAR has its useful insights and its limitations. I think with the limited sample size relief pitchers inherently inhabit this is especially true. A couple grand slams in a meaningless moment can obscure an otherwise steady season of work. Or the opposite. Chad Green looked like a bargain until September, for instance.

I think if we’re arguing about Genesis Cabrera for crying out loud, it’s clear we all want the Blue Jays to do something already or make their direction clear, just to know where we are here in the wilderness. Personally I kinda like their chances at Soto more than most (like a 1/5 chance) but I worry they pivot back into their value shopping once that likely doesn’t work out.

They can make some clever buy low moves, pray on some dead car bounces and I won’t be surprised to see the 2025 squad win 83-86 games. Which… I don’t think is quite good enough myself.

(And yes I wrote “dead car bounces” as a typo but screw it I like the visual idea of it)

Well, the Jays got their free agent - infielder Michael Stefanic signs a AAA deal with the Jays. OK, maybe not the big one, but hey it is something. A guy with a 69 OPS+ lifetime but 3 of the past 4 years had a 900+ OPS in the minors (833 the other year). 2B/3B who has played a touch at SS (553 innings) and LF/RF (40 innings) and 61 innings at 1B. Basically a super-sub for Buffalo who might be the next Ernie Clement, and has less than 1 year ML service time thus would be around a long time if desired. Solid AAAA acquisition imo. You always need a few of these, and sometimes they actually help the ML team (see Clement - 50 OPS+ pre Jays, 100 since coming here, negative bWAR pre, +4.5 here in 168 games) although the vast majority never get called up, let alone help the ML team.

Stefanic is essentially a Clement starter pack, as mentioned, albeit with less athleticism, less versatility, less power (believe it or not) and has zero minor league options left. Ernie at least had two option seasons left when he arrived... I'd also feel better about trying to turn Stefanic into something useful if Matt Hague was still here... Probably some insurance for when Leo Jimenez or Orelvis Martinez gets traded.

Ugh. A 5'9" 2B with no power and inflated PCL numbers. He hit less than .200 vs RHP.

I guess he could play vs LHP, but as he has not played SS in forever he isnt a fit as the infield sub.

A minor league deal, so fine. But I'd like something more to dream on than that.

Too bad Davis S can't get his stuff together and hit LHP. He would be a good platoon with Wagner/ Horwitz at 2B. Right now that looks to be Jimenez.

Yeah, don't see Stefanic as more than AAA foder to be honest, but it is fun to dream of what could be rather than on what is.

Speaking of which... if the Jays were to make a Big Deal ala Fernandez/McGriff for Alomar/Carter what would it be?

My bet is a Vlad/Bo mix of some kind (perhaps with a starting pitcher) for someone big or a couple of big ones - wonder if San Diego is frustrated with Tatis Jr after the PED suspension and 2 solid, but not 'WOW' years mixed with the $313 mil they still owe him. Doubt it, but who knows eh? They'd also want to clear out Xander Bogaerts I'd think ($229 mil owed and he had a 1.2 bWAR season last year). SD gets 2 young stars who have just 1 year of control/pay owed for 2 big long term contracts getting off the books. Manny Machado is also on that expensive list $316 mil still owed and is entering age 32 season. Yikes. It'd be a short term for long term deal, allowing the Jays to not worry about bidding wars. Vlad/Bo for Tatis/Machado - $629 mil is a LOT of money, but it'd cover RF/3B for a long time while SD has to deal with no real local TV deal - 40k subscribed to their streaming option - it was $99 for the season, so $4,000,000 raised - yikes, that is nothing. They had a $60 mil/year deal before the big US TV bankruptcy hit - so a loss of $56 mil a year roughly (before factoring in other revenue from games on local TV that MLB sold without figures released, or costs of producing the games). Getting Vlad & Bo would give them a year to figure it all out before needing to negotiate/lock in new contracts. I wouldn't expect it, but it is fun to speculate.

FYI: for teams desperate to cut costs I'd first look at all the ones who have no TV deal - MLB will broadcast games for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins and San Diego Padres - meaning their games will be streamed mostly which won't raise enough to pay for 1 solid reliever let alone a Soto type. Also the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals are on the margins and might need to have the same status, as are the Seattle Mariners. 6 more teams had their deals most likely cut in size as part of the bankruptcy hearings - Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays. That would explain the Cardinals talking about cutting payroll which is unusual for them to be open about. The Florida teams are always in trouble though.

The Angels clearly didn't worry about it, nor will Atlanta or Detroit I figure as all 3 have strong fan bases thus probably got decent deals still. Gotta figure most of these teams won't be in the deep end of free agency though, and will be looking to clear payroll if possible, but most likely short term payroll not long term (sigh... so much for my Tatis dream).