The Blue Jays have already made their big free-agent splash of the off-season, adding Hyun-Jin Ryu to a four-year deal. But there’s still a month-and-a-half left until the beginning of spring training and plenty of names left on the open market. Are there any fits that make sense?
Read More →As the Blue Jays continue to expand to various Asian markets with the signings of Japanese pitcher Shun Yamaguchi and free-agent Korean hurler Hyun-Jin Ryu, one of their newest Central American prospects, a recently signed Cuban pitcher by the name of Yosver Zulueta, is improving steadily and surely. One source says that the lanky righty’s…
Read More →Welcome to The Shapkins Defender, where I inhale your toxic screeds and spit out the fresh oxygen of optimism, like a tree that kind of understands WAR. (Just don’t ask me to explain it.) Since my last piece was super long, I’ll try and keep this one short and sweet, both because it’s still sort…
Read More →In some ways, the situation the Blue Jays find themselves in exiting this decade is the same as when they entered it.
Read More →With the Blue Jays influx of free agents from before Christmas being made official, there was some roster shuffling to be done in order to fit the newcomers into the 40-man roster. With Travis Shaw officially becoming a Blue Jay, Richard Urena was the odd-man-out.
Read More →If someone described this scene to you, you might think it was a fever dream. There’s Charlie Montoyo wailing away on a set of bongos while super agent Scott Boras bobs his head to the beat and Hyun-Jin Ryu and his wife wonder what they’ve signed themselves up for. Everything about the setting seemed made…
Read More →The Blue Jays landed their monster free agent fish in the form of Hyun-Jin Ryu, but Gerrit Cole may have been “the one that got away.” The Yankees signed the 29-year-old to a staggering nine-year, $324 million contract, and it’s hard to imagine any other team coming close to what the Bronx Bombers offered Cole….
Read More →The Blue Jays have themselves an ace. By signing Hyun-Jin Ryu the Blue Jays are making a statement that they are ready to start contending with their young core of position players. Adding a pitcher like Ryu is substantial. He is fresh off a season where he led the league in ERA at 2.32 and…
Read More →Travis Shaw was one of the better players in baseball from 2017-18. He put up 7.1 fWAR which made him the 39th most valuable position player over those two seasons, sandwiched between George Springer, Michael Conforto and Buster Posey and Mitch Haniger. His 119 wRC+ again placed him among the top 45 hitters in the…
Read More →It finally happened. The Blue Jays made their big, off-season splash that the front office had been hinting at, inking 2019 National League Cy Young runner-up Hyun-Jin Ryu to a four-year deal worth $80 million.
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