BlueJays on verge of acquiring Josh Johnson

[BMoreKind]

uggh .... strange multipost, mirror universe strikes.

[PeteCanes]

Just wanted to drop one of the many gems from the Miami board I post on:

"I despise this team so much. The best part is they tore down the most important stadium in our lives to do so. This is like someone demolishing your child home and opening up a dildo factory powered by child labor on it. Mother of God.

As if trading away a future HOF wasn't enough. Let's keep trying. We can get worse. We can get cheaper. Never give up.

I wonder if Mike Redmond is going to have a cardboard cutout of Loria in the locker room so he can peel away a piece of his spandex roller blading shorts every two weeks when we win a game?"

[DrungoHazewood]

Just wanted to drop one of the many gems from the Miami board I post on:

"I despise this team so much. The best part is they tore down the most important stadium in our lives to do so. This is like someone demolishing your child home and opening up a dildo factory powered by child labor on it. Mother of God.

As if trading away a future HOF wasn't enough. Let's keep trying. We can get worse. We can get cheaper. Never give up.

I wonder if Mike Redmond is going to have a cardboard cutout of Loria in the locker room so he can peel away a piece of his spandex roller blading shorts every two weeks when we win a game?"

Loria's existence is a perfect storm of all of the flaws in major league baseball:

1) Hand-picked ownership of franchises. Best bid doesn't win, instead it's number of kisses on Bud's ring.

2) Territorial rights - once MLB anoints a city they almost never give up, and the whole US is already claimed by one team or another

3) Taxpayer funded stadiums - if MLB paid their own way they would have a couple dozen viable markets to move a team

4) Economic model that incentivizes smaller markets to turn a profit through microscopic payrolls and redistribution schemes

I think this is the moment that baseball in Miami stopped being viable. Their third blatant firesale in just over a decade. Absolutely nuking the core a franchise for the third time. The 1st and 2nd times they pretty well eviscerated the fanbase. The third time? Loria is explicitly telling the remaining fans and sponsors that they are IDIOTS. THEY ARE DUMB AS A BOX OF ROCKS. We're not trying! Get over it! Don't show up! Pay me your $100s of millions in tax dollars for the next 25 years and pay for my stadium, and get out of my face.

I'm a very strong advocate of not moving teams when you have MLB's advantages and setup. But that calculation changes when Bud allows a malevolent owner to do whatever he wants.

[Orioles0615]

I think everyone can agree though, the Marlins are the worst run franchise in all of sports. I mean talk about a kick to the groin to the fans.

[DrungoHazewood]

I think everyone can agree though, the Marlins are the worst run franchise in all of sports. I mean talk about a kick to the groin to the fans.

They have to be the only team I know of that got a taxpayer funded MallPark built exclusively for them, and within a year of it opening explicitly sold off all of their players. It really is the owner saying "thanks for your half a $billion, now go screw yourself."

[Frobby]

It seems to me that the Marlins had Johnson, Buehrle, Reyes, Buck and Bonafacio on their team last year and still went 69-93. It seems to me that they added Reyes and Buehrle and still finished 3 games worse than the year before. It seems to me that they had a brand new stadium, all those players, a $107 mm payroll, and still drew only 2.2 mm fans. With the novelty of a new stadium and splashy acquisitions gone, and coming off a 69-93 season, they would probably have drawn under 2 million fans in 2013 even without this trade.

Under the circumstances (1) I don't really blame the Marlins' ownership for dumping big salaries, and (2) I don't think the trade makes the Blue Jays sure-fire contenders. The Jays certainly are improved, but whether the improvements are enough to justify the salaries they just took on is quesitonable. A lot depends on the health of the pitchers who had mid-season surgery, whether Romero returns to being a good pitcher after a disastrous season, and whether Bautista continues to have wrist problems.

[DrungoHazewood]

With the novelty of a new stadium and splashy acquisitions gone, and coming off a 69-93 season, they would probably have drawn under 2 million fans in 2013 even without this trade.

Under the circumstances (1) I don't really blame the Marlins' ownership for dumping big salaries...

But now they've guaranteed that they're going to draw well under 2M. With this team's history of packing it in and going into full revenue sharing profit mode the few fans that are left have to be livid. The taxpayers just agreed to spend a giant sack of cash for a new stadium for these goons, and they repay it by immediately going into a full-on rebuild. With the folks who already signed up for several years of luxury boxes and/or season tickets, and a $25M payroll, Loria can probably gold-plate his yachts this year.

[ShaneDawg85]

I get the sentiments of fear, because if things go right, this could be problematic for the O's. However, I'm really not worried about this trade as much as others are, for a few reasons:

1. As Frobby said, this is a collection of guys who still couldn't elevate the Miami Marlins despite a brand new ballpark, and in a weaker division than ours. I know the AL East took a step back last season, but come on, it's still better than the NL East.

2. Jose Reyes has a reputation of not always playing with 100% passion and dogging it, not to mention he's locked up for several more seasons. Whose to say he's not going to do the same on a team where he's not going to get a great deal of attention, in a market that while huge the causal fan barely knows exists, and on a team that wasn't much better than the one he left?

3. Josh Johnson is a beast when healthy, I give you that. But, he's not often healthy, and if he goes down again the Blue Jays are right back at square one.

4. The Blue Jays are totally banking on this working, but if it doesn't, they're going to either be stuck with a bunch of dead weight salary, or salary they'll be looking to unload for whatever they can get, and they've traded several of their top prospects to get it. If it doesn't work, this franchise could be set back a couple of seasons for making this deal.

I get that people want the O's to make moves in general, especially when their divisional rivals do something big and that on the surface could pay dividends. But, keeping up with the Jones' is irrational, foolish, and shouldn't force the Orioles to deviate with the plan that they've had since DD came on board and from what they feel will best get them where they want to go. If the deal works for Toronto, we may have another headache in our division, that's nothing new. But, what Toronto does is irrelevant to the Orioles, and shouldn't force us to do something that wasn't already in the works. If it does, then we're not in as good of hands as I'd believed.

[DrungoHazewood]

I get the sentiments of fear, because if things go right, this could be problematic for the O's. However, I'm really not worried about this trade as much as others are, for a few reasons:

1. As Frobby said, this is a collection of guys who still couldn't elevate the Miami Marlins despite a brand new ballpark, and in a weaker division than ours. I know the AL East took a step back last season, but come on, it's still better than the NL East.

2. Jose Reyes has a reputation of not always playing with 100% passion and dogging it, not to mention he's locked up for several more seasons. Whose to say he's not going to do the same on a team where he's not going to get a great deal of attention, in a market that while huge the causal fan barely knows exists, and on a team that wasn't much better than the one he left?

3. Josh Johnson is a beast when healthy, I give you that. But, he's not often healthy, and if he goes down again the Blue Jays are right back at square one.

4. The Blue Jays are totally banking on this working, but if it doesn't, they're going to either be stuck with a bunch of dead weight salary, or salary they'll be looking to unload for whatever they can get, and they've traded several of their top prospects to get it. If it doesn't work, this franchise could be set back a couple of seasons for making this deal.

I get that people want the O's to make moves in general, especially when their divisional rivals do something big and that on the surface could pay dividends. But, keeping up with the Jones' is irrational, foolish, and shouldn't force the Orioles to deviate with the plan that they've had since DD came on board and from what they feel will best get them where they want to go. If the deal works for Toronto, we may have another headache in our division, that's nothing new. But, what Toronto does is irrelevant to the Orioles, and shouldn't force us to do something that wasn't already in the works. If it does, then we're not in as good of hands as I'd believed.

There's a lot of truth there, but the assumption has to be that the Jays are now an 80+ win team, on par with the O's, and with a lot of offseason left to further improve. The O's had a million things come together in ways that are unlikely to repeat, including a very weak year for the division, and they need to step up and take advantage of their position and new revenues in sensible ways.

[glenn__davis]

Really a high-risk / high-reward trade for the Jays.

I'd say there's about a 50% chance it makes them merely a better team, a 25% chance it makes them a contending team, and a 25% chance it is a disaster. How much of a disaster would depend on how well the prospects they sent back pan out.

But certainly it looks like the road to contention for the AL Wild card just got that much tougher for teams in the East.

[ShaneDawg85]

There's a lot of truth there, but the assumption has to be that the Jays are now an 80+ win team, on par with the O's, and with a lot of offseason left to further improve. The O's had a million things come together in ways that are unlikely to repeat, including a very weak year for the division, and they need to step up and take advantage of their position and new revenues in sensible ways.

You won't hear any disagreement with me on this point. Granted, I do think some very small things will help, like getting anybody for second base so the position isn't a black hole, having Manny for a whole year (hopefully), some bounce back from Hardy, having a healthy Markakis, Hammel, etc. I also agree on stepping up via sensible ways, but trading Dylan Bundy for Stanton, as proposed here, is not one of them. There are viable, smart, and realistic options out there that the Orioles can pursue to improve what they already have, provided they believe what they have is viable going forward. What the Blue Jays did, or what anyone else does, though, shouldn't have any bearing on that.

[paulcoates]

If this doesnt make you want to throw up, I dont know what will

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tQJ2iJ0-ErOo_z9G3xKSQ9g&output=html

[waroriole]

Buehrle has 3/48 left on his deal:

'13: 11M

'14: 18M

'15: 19M

Reyes has 5/92 left on his deal:

'13: 10M

'14: 16M

'15: 22M

'16: 22M

'17: 22M

[LookinUp]

There's a lot of truth there, but the assumption has to be that the Jays are now an 80+ win team, on par with the O's, and with a lot of offseason left to further improve. The O's had a million things come together in ways that are unlikely to repeat, including a very weak year for the division, and they need to step up and take advantage of their position and new revenues in sensible ways.

This was true for the offseason regardless of what the Jays did. The Angels, A's, Rangers, Rays, Yankees, Tigers and White Sox are all contenders with no further moves. The Red Sox (assuming they're active) and now Jays can both be contenders. The list of teams who are not contenders in the AL is shorter than the list of teams who are. That means the O's need a good offseason, regardless of what anyone else does.

An early in the offseason mega deal only changes that calculus because it happened sooner than later. It might be the biggest, but it's certainly not the last move that will make it harder (on paper) for the O's to compete next year.

[ShoelesJoe]

Josh Johnson is a beast when healthy, I give you that. But, he's not often healthy, and if he goes down again the Blue Jays are right back at square one.

Was Johnson hurt this year? Because when you look at his home/away splits his numbers weren't all that great. Both he and Buehrle had ERAs in the four and a half to five range in road games, and dropping them into the AL East I have to think those stats will probably get worse in the long run. Looks to me like both of them were pretty mediocre this year, but the numbers still looked good due to the effects of playing their home games in a great pitchers park.