Tuesday Bantering: Jays Stuff

The World Series was over for a few days, but we are still waiting for some news to talk about.

Jim Bowden, in the Athletic, had a column on three things each team in the MLB needs this off-season. Unsurprisingly, for the Jays, he says a starting pitcher, relief pitching and a left-handed bat. Of course, many of our right-handed batters hit RHP better than LHP.

If they are after a lefty bat:

And Ross Atkins talked about Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, who throws a 101 MPH fastball.

Yardbarker tells us...

The soon-to-be 30-year-old has a 2.59 career ERA in over 1,000 innings pitched. This past season, he posted an 11-6 record with a 1.89 ERA and struck out 159 batters in 148 innings.

But they don’t mention the Blue Jays possibly signing him.

The Athletic has a post with free agent and trade predictions for each of the teams.

For the Jays:

The Blue Jays will trade Teoscar Hernández. One suggested flaw of the Blue Jays is that they’re too right-handed and while hitting righties wasn’t an issue — actually, hitting left-handers was — having a predominantly aggressive, right-handed lineup might make them too easy to game plan against. Hernández is one of the most dangerous power hitters in the game but he’s a year away from free agency and now might be the time for the Blue Jays to move him to create space for a left-handed outfielder who might offer different skills than he does. The Seattle Mariners, who need offense and have some starting pitchers to spare, could be a good trading partner. -Kaitlyn McGrath

It is possible. I’d think the team will talk about Hernandez or Lourdes Gurriel with everyone and see if something works for them.

And, of course, we all think they will trade one of their three catchers. But we argue over which one. My feeling is that they will trade the one that gets them what they are looking for. Different teams will rate the three catchers differently. If a team is willing to give up a player the Jays really want and will only give him up for Kirk, they will trade Kirk. If it is Moreno or Jansen, that’s who they will trade.

All I know is, whichever one they trade, 66% of us will be complaining bitterly they gave away the wrong one, and 90% of us will complain we didn’t get enough.

About the only real Jays' news is that they have exercised the option on Anthony Bass’s contract, which was a give. $3 million dollars to a guy who had a 1.75 ERA and was over a strikeout an inning for them this year.

Ben Nicholson-Smith runs through this year’s top free agents and gauges the chance the Jays will be sighing each. Most, of course, are ‘very unlikely’, with a number of ‘Jays will have some interest’.

On Ross Stripling, he said, ‘Best guess: there will be mutual interest’, which is fair. Kenley Jansen is an interesting idea, and will only want a one-year contract. Justin Verlander? He suggests 2 years at $40 million per plus a vesting option would at least get Verlander talking.