Yelich Goes To the Brewers — And the Jays’ Bid Seems To Have Come In Second!

The dream of the Blue Jays trading for Christian Yelich is over, as he’s been dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers for a package headlined by outfield prospect Lewis Brinson, who was recently named the 18th best prospect in baseball, according to Baseball America.

On a good note, however, the fucking nightmare that was the Blue Jays trading for Christian Yelich is also over!

It’s a little unclear from this tweet, but I’m preeeeeeetty sure it was the Blue Jays who said no on Vlad. Which is to say: I’m extremely sure. (Which is to say, Mish has confirmed it.) And good for Ross Atkins for not going that far.

It’s interesting to wonder just how far they might have gone, though, isn’t it?

Could they have been offering Bo Bichette? If the Marlins are requiring Vlad in the deal in order to beat the Brewers’ offer, it certainly could mean that. Unless Miami isn’t especially enamored with Bichette and their focus at the top was Anthony Alford — who has a similar profile to Brinson, but isn’t as good.

Marc Hulet suggests that a similarly shaped package from the Jays might have been Alford, Richard Ureña, Lourdes Gurriel, and Angel Perdomo, which… maybe? I don’t know that the Marlins would have been quite so rigid, but working from that, it does seem a bit light, and does seem like something the Jays would have had to add to in order to beat Brinson, plus the other prospects who are on their way to Miami (Monte Harrison, also an outfielder, who was just ranked the 75th best prospect in the game, being one of them).

So… yeah.

What ultimately seems to have happened here is pretty much what you’d expect: the Brewers’ 2018 window is more open than the Jays, and their farm system will survive this hit better than the Jays would have if they’d upped their offer, so Milwaukee can allow themselves to make the big move that the Jays just can’t quite. Alford and the rest of those names would have hurt, but it certainly would have been OK, given that Yelich is so good, so much a finished product, and still under control himself for five years, but if Vlad and Bo are entering the mix, that’s awfully tough, and one can certainly see why the Jays would have been reluctant.

Then again, maybe the Jays don’t mind the idea of moving Bichette in the right deal — and maybe Yelich was it. Evidently there were a bunch of scenarios discussed:

I like at least that the Jays were being aggressive here — and willing to take on salary. Though it doesn’t amount to a whole hell of a lot at this point. There’s still time to go get a pitcher, perhaps, but with their attrition rate so much higher, I’m not sure if the Jays would be as willing to move so many pieces in order to get a bunch of years of control of one. Hard to say!

What we can say, though, is that I hope to hell they don’t actually do something like this:

Now, this is obviously coming from somewhere– I’m certainly not going to say that Blair is making a thing like that up — but fuck… let’s hope it’s some bad intelligence or something. And that’s not even just because I am somehow still slightly optimistic on Kendrys (and I’d hope that the Jays, who bought in as hard as they did a year ago, would also retain some optimism — especially since some of the underlying numbers would seem to be in line with what excited them so much last year). It’s because that would be an abomination of a fucking way to lower Bichette’s trade value! Like, really? The not-even-all-that-burdensome contract for Morales is something they might seriously want so badly to get out from under that they’d take that kind of a hit? They wouldn’t be better off just eating the money?

I mean, I guesssss if the freed-up cash meant a Cain (though he’s off the market now — the damn Brewers just got him, too) or a Darvish (plus you’d still get something good from the trade, just not as good) you could make it a net positive somehow. But… yeah… fuck that. And fuck the Brewers for outbidding the Jays on Yelich.

Would have been nice.

Uh… I think.