General 2017 Blue Jays Discussion Thread

[MikeM]

Blaming AA for Bautista when Shapiro re-signed him is kind of silly.

[Krylian]

It's tough to blame Shapiro when Tulo, Bautista, Martin and Travis have sucked. That's AA's core. Hell, the AA guys he's let walk either haven't played (Price) or are stinking up the joint as badly as the guys still here (Edwin and Saunders).

AA may have brought most of the guys in but Shapiro decided they were good enough to keep, even when the writing was on the wall last season and you could see them getting older, and not better.

[Krylian]

Blaming AA for Bautista when Shapiro re-signed him is kind of silly.

I'm still hoping Bautista turns it around so we decline the option, qualify him, and have someone else sign him...and get that 1st rounder that I wanted for him this off-season.

[z3r0s]

I think that ship has sailed with the new comp system no?

[Bobthe4th]

I'm still hoping Bautista turns it around so we decline the option, qualify him, and have someone else sign him...and get that 1st rounder that I wanted for him this off-season.

Under the new rules you can't qualify a player twice so that's not an option.

[Atothe]

12 games in, no time. Lol

[Atothe]

All I got to say is, JD is a complete asshole for trying to play when he was hurt

[BTS]

I generally agree with your sentiment, but this post is lame. If Shapiro was THAT convinced that Travis and Bautista would have sucked he would have traded the former for other useful players and not signed the latter. Plus all of this board's favourite whipping boys Smoak, Carrera and Goins are all fully on the shoulders of the new regime for having stuck it on this roster this long. Martin and Tulowitzki are all AA's doing, but no new front office in baseball comes into a job with a completely clean slate.

You can blame the lack of MLB-ready prospects on AA, and you can give full credit to the new regime for supplementing Sanchez and Stroman with good contracts to fill out one of the best 1-5 starting staffs in the league. But the lineup is all on Shapiro and Atkins.

They're playing the hand they were dealt. I don't think anyone thought it was ideal to enter the season with a core of 30+ year old guys and no prospects close, but nobody would have been convinced that any of them, individually, was going to fall of a cliff in a given season. My point is that this team's eventual failure is going to happen because the core AA built around aged out with nothing in the system coming to replace them. If Martin, Tulo, Travis, and Bautista hang on another year the team should be alright. If they fall off a cliff... well, we're seeing what that looks like. I hate that Smoak, Goins, and Carrera are on the team, but no amount of peripheral additions is going to make up for a mid-30s core that's hitting free agency and/or seeing steep decline one after another.

[BTS]

Blaming AA for Bautista when Shapiro re-signed him is kind of silly.

It's not as simple as blaming someone for Bautista. It was the right move to bring him back for 1/18 or whatever. Neither AA nor Shapiro should have traded him. The problem is that, more generally, the entire core of the team are old guys on free agent contracts, and it's impossible to predict when these guys are going to hit a cliff.

[Spanky99]

I guess there's been no word on Happ, yet? Man, we're fucked.

[MikeM]

It's not as simple as blaming someone for Bautista. It was the right move to bring him back for 1/18 or whatever. Neither AA nor Shapiro should have traded him. The problem is that, more generally, the entire core of the team are old guys on free agent contracts, and it's impossible to predict when these guys are going to hit a cliff.

The entire core of the team is not old guys on free agent contracts. AA actually only brought in two, those being Tulo and Martin.

Unless you are upset that he acquired Estrada and Shapiro re-signed him?

Otherwise, I'd add Donaldson, Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pillar and Travis to the core. Obviously none of them are old guys on free agent contracts.

Shapiro actually added Bautista and Morales who are both old guys on free agent contracts. And you can throw in Grilli, Joe Smith and Howell if you want. He did also sign Happ who is an old guy on a free agent contract.

[CrackerJack]

The entire core of the team is not old guys on free agent contracts. AA actually only brought in two, those being Tulo and Martin.

Unless you are upset that he acquired Estrada and Shapiro re-signed him?

Otherwise, I'd add Donaldson, Stroman, Sanchez, Osuna, Pillar and Travis to the core. Obviously none of them are old guys on free agent contracts.

Shapiro actually added Bautista and Morales who are both old guys on free agent contracts. And you can throw in Grilli, Joe Smith and Howell if you want. He did also sign Happ who is an old guy on a free agent contract.

yeah, and who would've preferred that AA didn't sign Martin and didn't do the Tulo deal?

[Terminator]

If we resigned Donaldson we could re-tool instead of rebuild. The problem is we don't have many trade assets outside of him and not many prospects coming up. The thought of tearing this thing down and taking 4-5 years to rebuild it hurts my heart though.

[Jimcanuck]

If we resigned Donaldson we could re-tool instead of rebuild.

I don't know. By the time there are enough good supplementary pieces Donaldson might be shit.

Would be like having a Trout on a shit team.

[TBJ12]

AA may have brought most of the guys in but Shapiro decided they were good enough to keep, even when the writing was on the wall last season and you could see them getting older, and not better.

The writing was on the wall while they played in the ALCS? How about when they swept the Rangers in ALDS?

[burlingtonbandit]

If we resigned Donaldson we could re-tool instead of rebuild. The problem is we don't have many trade assets outside of him and not many prospects coming up. The thought of tearing this thing down and taking 4-5 years to rebuild it hurts my heart though.

I think you could compete by 2019 and be good by 2020. They'll have lots of money to spend don't forget.