Off-Day Bantering: Fine, We’ll Talk about Not Paying Vlad One More Time

I’ve written a lot about extending Vlad (or not). It’s not really very interesting at this point, in my opinion. Whoever you blame for it not getting done, the whole situation is a bummer. The best home grown Blue Jay since Roy Halladay, a charismatic Canadian(ish) superstar, is almost certainly going to walk away at age 27.

That blame part, though. We’ve finally arrived at the inevitable anonymous leaks and sniping part of the fallout. Shi Davidi has a roundup of the leaked numbers. The takeaway: Vlad wanted a present value of $500m, while the Jays’ last, best offer had a headline value that high but with deferrals that reduced its current value to something close to $450m (the exact number would depend on structure and interest rates when the deal was signed).

Ultimately, I don’t think either side looks terrible here. Vlad wants 65% of the deal his buddy Juan Soto got. If you compare their WAR numbers to date, that’s a plausible valuation. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system thinks that would be roughly fair value for a deal that contained the rest of his productive career, provided his 2025 is as good as his 2024.

The front office, though, could reasonably argue that his 2025 hasn’t happened yet, and his inconsistency merits a discount. Plus, Soto’s deal is unprecedented. Maybe it really did reset the top of the market, maybe it was just Steve Cohen going nuts.

I would err firmly on the side of signing him, even if it represented something of an overpay. Elite hitters in their mid 20s just don’t hit the market often (before Soto, it hadn’t happened since Bryce Harper, and it isn’t going to happen again until Gunnar Henderson in 2029 if the Orioles don’t extend him). You can moneyball it by packaging good but lesser players to approximate the same total value, but Andrew Friedman left the Rays for the Dodgers for a reason: it’s much easier when you can just afford the name brand. The Blue Jays can. Plus, in a fickle TV market that at its best can top MLB in viewership, a superstar lifer gives you something to build long term fan relationships on.

It’s not up to me, of course, and ultimately Atkins and Shapiro decided to stick to their valuation as always, and came second as always. It stings when that happens even though you’re the only bidder, regardless of how financially defensible it is.

Anyway, in other downer news:

• Max Scherzer was scrubbed from his next start with a sore thumb. Which is an intensely 40-year-old injury. The club insists that this is just being extra cautious, but of course they have to say that.
• The first cuts of camp have arrived. Ryan Jennings, Braydon Fisher, and Jacob Sharp have been assigned to minor league camp, while Nick Robertson has been optioned. None of that’s a surprise. Fisher, the return for Cavan Biggio last year, did make the most of his look, striking out seven against one walk in 4.2 innings with the big league squad. If he can keep the walks down in Buffalo, he might become a bullpen depth consideration this year. Jennings (a 2022 fourth round pick) and Sharp (part of the Yimi Garcia trade return) also looked good, but they’re a year or two away from the show in the best case scenario.
• In news that’s a downer in objective terms, but not for us, Gerritt Cole needs Tommy John. That should open up the division considerably. The Yankees still project at the top, but it’s impossible to trust a rotation where 34 year old Marcus Stroman is your #4 and the guys in front of him, including Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt, aren’t exactly paragons of durability. They look like a team one Aaron Judge injury away from free-fall, and Judge is 33 and has never had back to back healthy seasons in his career.
• And to end on an up note, the team released a hype video for this season:

Not bad, IMO.