Balta1701

"Sure he's garbage, but I've grown accustomed to the smell of my own garbage and would really like to sample the odors of other types of garbage."

He was first brought to the bigs by the Padres in 2017 so sending him to the minors for 2018 would have used an option.

He also had 561 PAs in 2017 and hit 18 home runs.

Avi has never hit more than 19 home runs in a season. And if you scroll through this thread, there's a decent amount of frustration. Outside of signing Machado it's a waste of $4 million. If Machado is signed then I'll petition to have a bird species renamed the Jon Jay and we'll stage a party where we celebrate the signing of the Jon Jay treaty.

You added in 3 names but you also added in 2 statistical terms that are irrelevant to the post.

The only one who would take his spot is Adam Engel, the others are either > a few months away at least (Robert) or have failed to establish themselves at AAA (Cordell, others). It's $4 million for a lateral move from Engel to someone who was just about as good as Engel last year. Aside from the aspect of an unnamed 3b, it would be nothing to get excited about, and while it's a waste of money outside that context it's also nothing to be hugely annoyed about.

Jon Jay is a veteran. Assuming he stays healthy I imagine he will be starting almost every day, because classical managers always like playing veterans every day. It really won't matter how he performs, he'll help by his veteran grindyness. And it's not like there's an obvious CF candidate at Charlotte to replace him...at least not yet.

That is not better than Cleveland's lineup.

This also guarantees that even if another OF was signed, one of them makes the opening day roster and probably starts for 2 weeks.

Much appreciated. I am also much more ok with getting good players than getting bad players who make other players feel better.

James Shields has a Royals ALCS ring and I hear he's available. That'll help our culture improve over last year.

I think it's entirely possible that a lot of his value could be in defense, but he has to hit enough for that to matter, and as you say he needs to have some power. I'm one of the ones who looked at his profile and assigned a slash line to him - based on the idea that he was ready to take Moncada's role right now and we needed to move Moncada for him even though his numbers last year were incredibly punchless. All I really hate is the notion of racing the guy because of his draft spot. Let him prove that he's a capable hitter and then we can race him upwards is all I want.

Frankly, if there's an offer of 7/$245 on the table, I wouldn't hesitate at all to add 3 years and $15 million per year to the back side, stick an opt out in somewhere, and have it be a 10/$290 deal. There's a decent chance that We'll actually want him in his mid-30s at a price of $15 mil per year.

What exactly does succeeds in ways we can't anticipate now mean? He's going to become a closer?

And when you added them to the Royals, that fixed their culture and their 2018 season was a spectacular experience. Either that, or we should laugh at the people who tell us how much more important some random veteran is to a winning culture than it is to "have good players". If having a winning culture is a thing then we need to dump Abreu because this team's culture has been trash his entire career. It'd be nice if we just never had to hear about this again, but we always will so it's always deserving of scorn.

2020 is interesting with both of them, but 2020 is by definition not "now". As long as people keep saying that "winning now" is a thing that might matter, we have to point out that even if they signed both of them there's no plausible path to winning now (other than a whole lot of guys who stank last year rapidly developing. If the MVP race order goes 1 Moncada 2 Jiminez 3 Harper and the Cy Young race is 1 Giolito 2 Lopez, ok fine then we're going to win).

No, it's not serious about winning now. We spent $13 million on Machado's friends because that was more important than winning now.

Our last 2 signings played for the Royals in the first half of 2018. That's the kind of winning culture we need to develop.

Outside of one exceptional circumstance, Jon Jay is not the difference between this team winning 60 games and learning how to win and keeping leads and building a culture. Jon Jay is not a solid part of building a team. Jon Jay playing substantial amounts of time in 2019 is focusing on the 3rd overall pick and tanking. Jon Jay played for the Royals and Diamondbacks last year - how about those winning cultures? Giving substantial amounts of playing time to players like Jon Jay is a reason why no FA should want to come here. If Machado signs, no complaints. You can drop all of this. But if you swapped out Engel for Jay last year, you'd go from 62 wins to...well you'd have a good shot at 62 wins but I guess people would feel better about our veteran culture.

He had both issues. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/nationals-journal/wp/2018/08/08/nationals-send-kelvin-herrera-to-disabled-list-with-shoulder-impingement-recall-koda-glover/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0dc33dddfc4b

Jon Jay should not be a #2 hole hitter.

I sure as hell wouldn't. One or two injuries out of Eloy and Lopez and Rodon and this roster suddenly looks like a nightmare.

2nd half of last year - Adam Engel .668 OPS, Jon Jay .619. He shoulda tried hitting without the bag, it didn't work.

I do like how I called it "Feel good" spending and you described this a "Feely" stuff

I think if you took the "Here's an outside path to 82 wins next season" threads from last month and told them that we've added $40 million to our payroll by adding Colome, Herrera, Jay, Nova, Alonso, and that catcher who isn't even worth remembering, while Subtracting Narvaez and Davidson, the people who thought we had an outside shot to compete in 2019 would spit on you. Right now, I think we've taken a 62 win team and left it in the low 60's. At least we still get to add Eloy in, that'll be a legit boost if he can stay healthy.