Roster moves R Us.
Dale Murphy is another who looked like a sure Hall of Fame choice, in the middle of his career, but his numbers fell off a cliff soon after he turned 30. He played 18 seasons, most of them with the Braves, then three with the Phillies and one with the Rockies. He came up as […]
Donny Baseball is an interesting case: his career lasted only 14 seasons. At his peak, he was great, one of the very best players in baseball for a few seasons, but back problems brought his stats down, so he doesn’t have the counting starts that get you into the Hall. I’m guessing that his time […]
Not a surprise, but the Blue Jays are putting José Berríos on the trading block. They would have to pick up some of his contract. He is to receive $18,714,286 next year, and $24,714,285 in each of the two years after, with the possibility of performance bonuses on top. But then, if the Jays thought […]
I’m going to go through the players on the Contemporary Baseball Era Player ballot over the next couple of days, because they are voting on the weekend. Jeff Kent had his 10 tries on the regular ballot, his last one in 2023. He was on 46.5% of the Writers’ ballots, that time, the high point […]
11 years ago today. The Blue Jays traded J.A. Happ to the Mariners for Michael Saunders. Happ had been with the Blue Jays for 2.5 seasons since he came over in a big trade with the Astros. We sent Francisco Cordero, Ben Francisco, Joe Musgrove, Carlos Perez, David Rollins, Asher Wojciechowski, and Kevin Comer to […]
The Blue Jays have signed Cody Ponce who pitched in the KBO last year. Cody went 17-1 with a 1.89 ERA and was the KBO’s MVP. He’s a RHP, 31 years old. He adds to a deep starting rotation, unless they see him as a reliever. He played for the Pirates in 2020 and 2021. […]
The Jays signed Max Scherzer to a one-year contract in February of this year. For one-year and $15.5 million. At 40, it wasn’t bad money, even for a future Hall of Famer. In 2024, he started nine games for the Rangers, and, since the Jays had a number of starting pitchers, they could afford to […]
We’ve been doing this for several years now. We reviewed some of the top free agents, as rated by Keith Law in The Athletic and Ben Clemens at FanGraphs, using the contracts FanGraphs suggests they will receive, and asked if we should sign them. Munetaka Murakami is number 12 on the FanGraphs free agent list […]
It’s Andruw Jones’ ninth time on the ballot. In his first six times, he received 7.3%, 7.5, 19.4, 33.9, 41.4, 58.1, 61.5% and 66.2 last year. He’s closing in on the 75% needed, but he’s on his second last chance. Jones came up with the Braves at the same time Vladimir Guerrero, Sr. did for […]
The Jays traded for Andrés Giménez (along with Nick Sandlin) on December 10th, 2024, sending Spencer Horwitz and Nick Mitchell to the Guardians. Mitchell played A-ball for the Guardians, hitting .273/.386/.370 with 30 steals. The Guardians flipped Horwitz to the Pirates. He hit .272/.353/.434 for them, with a 1.6 bWAR. It wasn’t universally loved. Giménez […]
Torii Hunter had a much better career than my memory told me he had. He played 19 seasons in the MLB (though he played just seven games in the first two, so they shouldn’t count). He played in 2372 games, had 2452 hits, 353 home runs and a .277/.331/.461 batting line, good for a 50.7 […]
Félix Hernández was a right-handed pitcher who played 15 seasons in the MLB, all with the Mariners. This is his second time on the ballot. Last year, 20.6% of Writers voted for him.His career numbers are 169-136, with a 3.42 ERA in 419 games and 418 starts. In 2729.2 innings, he had 2524 strikeouts and […]
Former Blue Jays player Otto Velez turns 75 today. The Jays picked Otto up from the Yankees in the Major League expansion draft in 1976. The Jays were awful that first year, finishing with a 54-107 record. They didn’t get much better in the years Otto was with the team. But he was pretty good […]
I’m going to skip a couple players who are on the ballot for the first time: Gio Gonzalez pitched 13 seasons in the majors, with the A’s, Nationals, Brewers and White Sox. He had a 131-101 record, a 3.70 ERA in 344 games, 328 starts and a 29.8 bWAR. He had a stretch where he […]
Next on the list is Edwin Encarnación. You know him. It is his first time on the ballot. He played 16 seasons in the MLB for the Reds, Blue Jays, Cleveland, Mariners, Yankees and White Sox. He had a .260/.350/.496 line with 424 home runs, 1261 RBI and a 35.3 bWAR. And, of course, he […]
Yesterday, I started my overview of what I’d propose to do with the Blue Jays off season. Since that post, nothing of consequence has happened. In that post we took care of the boring stuff, talking about baseball players. Today is the fun bit: gory accounting details (plus some prospect chat). Payroll Parameters The Jays […]
Jon Heyman is reporting that the Jays signed Dylan Cease to a seven-year, $210 million contract. At least he spells his first name right. Cease will be 30 at the end of December. Ben Clemens figured he would get five years and $31 million, so he was a little light. He averaged 97 mph on […]
You could get whiplash going from Roger Clemens to Carlos Delgado. One is an asshat and one is just a great person. Anyway, Delgado was a one-and-done on the Writers’ ballots. He was on 3.8% of the ballots, which is pretty much criminal. The reason? He protested the war in Iraq by not standing during […]
46 Years Ago Blue Jays shortstop Alfredo Griffin won the AL Rookie of the Year Award. Or co-Rookie of the Year, he and John Castino of the Twins tied in the voting. Griffin hit .287/.333/.364 with 21 steals (16 times caught) in 153 games and had a 2.5 bWAR. It was a poor year for […]
For the last few years, I’ve run a series in late November or early December looking at the Blue Jays off-season and trying to work through what I would do if I were the GM. As we established last week, it’s a good thing I’m not. It’s still a fun exercise, though. In previous years […]
The next one up would be Shin-Soo Choo, but even though he had a good 16-year career, I don’t think many would see him as a Hall of Fame type. Choo played in 1652 games, hit .275/.377/.447 with 218 home runs, 157 steals and 782 RBI. He played in one All-Star game and got MVP […]
The Jays signed Eric Lauer as a minor league free agent on December 20th of last year. It was such a momentous signing that we didn’t even have a post about it. He spent a month with the Bisons (5 starts, 4.50 ERA) and then, April 30th, the Jays called him up. He had been […]
This year is Mark Buehrle’s sixth time on the ballot. His vote started at 11.0%, then 5.8%, 10.8%, 8.3% and back to 11.4% last year. It doesn’t look like his numbers are going to grow. Buehrle is one of the most interesting choices on the list. Mark was never the best pitcher in the game. […]
It is snowing. Real snow. Thankfully I don’t have to leave the house for a couple of hours. I don’t know how it is anywhere else, but the drivers here have all summer to forget how to drive in the snow. Then the first snow of the year happens, and it is like we don’t […]
The Rangers and Mets made a big trade: The Rangers get Brandon Nimmo (plus $5 million). The Mets get Marcus Semien. Semien is 35 and has $72 million and 3 years left on his contract. Nimmo is 32 and has 5 years and is owed $101.25 million. Apparently the Mets want to improve their infield […]