Wednesday Bantering: Smoak heading to Japan

There isn’t much for Blue Jays news again today. I’m thinking there won’t be much until mid-January, but who knows.

There is some old friend news:

Justin Smoak has signed with the Yomiuri Giants in Japan. He is to get ‘between $6-7 million, which is a nice payday. And Japan is likely as good a place as any to spend 2021.

And another old friend, Eric Thames, is also signing with the Yomiuri Giants. I’m not sure the Giants have done a lot of scouting, because they both are first basemen/DH types. And I don’t believe there is any DH in the Japanese Central League. Thames, in theory, can play outfield, in practice, not so much. Neither player hit much last year.

The Cubs are selling off anyone who makes any money. Willson Contreras is being shopped around. rich baseball owners pretending to be poor is maybe the worst part of MLB. Especially ones whose team could take their rather weak division without too much trouble.

Kaitlyn McGrath, in the Athletic, has five predictions for the Jays off-season. She doesn’t think we’ll get Springer, but thinks Tomoyuki Sugano is more likely. The one pretty sure bet is her suggestion that the Jays won’t start the season in Toronto, but will end it there. Oh, and that Vlad will get to spring training in the best shape of his life.

Can use this as an open thread for any Jays related stuff that comes up, or anything else.