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 […]
12 days ago | 2 reads
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 […]
13 days ago | 1 read
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 […]
13 days ago | 1 read
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 […]
13 days ago | 1 read
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 […]
13 days ago | 0 reads
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 […]
14 days ago | 0 reads
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 […]
14 days ago | 0 reads
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 […]
14 days ago | 1 read
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. […]
15 days ago | 1 read
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 […]
15 days ago | 0 reads
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 […]
16 days ago | 1 read
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. Ranger Suárez is number six on Keith Law’s list, number nine […]
16 days ago | 1 read
Next up on the list is Ryan Braun. It is his first time on the ballot. I was thinking I’d skip him, but he was a better player than I remembered. A career .296/358/.532 line with 352 home runs, 1154 RBI and a 47.2 bWAR in 14 seasons all with the Brewers. He was the […]
16 days ago | 1 read
2025 was Nathan Lukes first full season in the majors at age 30. He played 22 games for the Jays last year and 29 in 2023. He certainly put in the time in the minors. Nathan played 391 games in Triple A and 213 games in Double A, plus 124 games in A-ball. In Triple […]
17 days ago | 0 reads
Barry Bonds is on the Contemporary Baseball Era ballot (or some title much like that).Barry was on the Writers’ ballot 10 times, reaching as high as 66.0% of the vote (he started at 36.2% his first time and steadily increased). And he was on the Veterans’ Committee ballot in 2023 (the year they voted Fred […]
17 days ago | 1 read
Happy Friday. We brought our cat home from the vet hospital last night (after paying quite the ransom), and he seems almost 100% now, which is great considering he was at death’s door when we took him in. We have to give him special food now (special is code for very expensive) and we had […]
18 days ago | 1 read
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 Cleens at FanGraphs, using the contracts FanGraphs suggests they will receive, and asked if we should sign them. Both Keith Law and Ben Clemens have Pete Alonso at number […]
18 days ago | 1 read
Mark Eichhorn turns 65 today. The Blue Jays drafted him in the 2nd round, 30th overall, in the 1979 amateur draft, out of Cabrillo College, CA, where he played shortstop and pitched. Mark quickly rose through the Jays’ farm system and made seven starts for the Jays as a September call-up in 1982. Unfortunately, they […]
18 days ago | 1 read
This will be Carlos Beltrán’s fourth time on the Hall of Fame ballot. He’s gone from 46.5% to 57.1% to 70.3% in his first three shots. Carlos played for 20 seasons. In 2586 games, he hit .279/.350/.486 with 435 home runs, 1587 RBI, and 312 stolen bases. His 9,768 at-bats put him 39th all-time. He […]
18 days ago | 0 reads
After four full seasons (plus nine games), with the Blue Jays, we had some to realize the good bat/poor glove description that we had been given of Alejandro Kirk wasn’t accurate. He’s tremendous defensively. And his bat? That’s seen good times and bad. With the trade of Danny Jansen, at the deadline in 2024, Kirk […]
19 days ago | 2 reads
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 Cleens at FanGraphs, using the contracts FanGraphs suggests they will receive, and asked if we should sign them. Kyle Schwarber is number 8 on Keith Law’s free agent list […]
19 days ago | 0 reads
This is the second part of my review of what went right for the Blue Jays over the past year, in an effort to learn why I was wrong in calling for a fresh start under a new front office. On Tuesday, I looked at the pre-2025 roster construction and last year’s draft. Today, I’m […]
20 days ago | 0 reads
When you post on SB Nation, we don’t want you to miss all the conversations and responses that follow. So starting today, whenever a user replies to your comment or to your post on the Feed, you’ll see a notification at the top right corner of the page. And of course, this means that when […]
20 days ago | 0 reads
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. FanGraphs has Bo #8 in their top 50 prospect list. Keith […]
20 days ago | 0 reads
This is Bobby Abreu’s seventh time on the Hall of Fame ballot. He’s been very slowly building his numbers, but much too slowly to get to the 75% by his 10th and last chance. Last year 19.5% of Writers had him on their ballot. His first time, he was on 5.5% of the ballots. Abreu […]
20 days ago | 0 reads