From @CraigMish on Blair's show: -The Marlins were willing to do Vlad Jr. for Yelich straight-up. -The Jays were countering and were offering to take back salary in exchange for a lesser prospect package -Mish says he doesn't buy the Morales story
More Intriguing Stuff On The Jays’ Pursuit of Christian Yelich
Photo credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 26, 2018, 19:32 EST
I missed this stuff this morning, but I think it’s definitely worth your consideration:
The way I read Mish's reports here: Bo Bichette probably wasn't being offered for Yelich, either. The Jays wanted to take on salary instead of sending their high-end prospects, but the Marlins decided they needed prospects, not salary relief.
This is pretty much exactly what you want to hear if you're a Jays fan, to be honest.
It also leaves an open question of just how much money the Blue Jays still have to spend for 2018 -- it sounds like they were willing to add $15M+ in salary here.
Also:
I never heard the name Morales once this entire time.
I’m with BVH here in that this is precisely what you want to hear if you’re a fan of the Jays. The Jays may not exactly be a free-spending club, but their payroll is very healthy, and they damn well should be using whatever financial muscle they can afford to push around clubs trying to go cheap. This idea obviously wasn’t quite the same as the Drew Hutchison-Francisco Liriano deal, but the principle is similar: using another team’s desire for salary relief to make a favourable deal for themselves.
It’s a shame it didn’t work — to have acquired Yelich without giving up Vlad and Bo just because the Jays were willing to take on a bunch of salary in the form of someone like Martin Prado or Starlin Castro, either of whom would have had utility to the club anyway, would have been a serious coup — but given that the Marlins did so poorly, and looked such utter fucking shitheads, in essentially giving away Giancarlo Stanton for salary relief, one can understand why they didn’t. Miami actually did well in this one, unfortunately.
Gah!
And then, of course, we have the Morales thing. For those who don’t remember, last night Blair tweeted that he’d heard the Jays would be willing to deal Bo Bichette in the event that a team would take Kendrys Morales with him. I didn’t ever think that was about the Marlins, seeing as they’re clearly not looking to take money back.
Thing is, it, uh, didn’t really make any damn sense for the Jays to be doing that with any other club, either.
And I think what Mish is telling us about what the Jays were trying to do here suggests that we shouldn’t worry about it too much. The Jays wanting to get Morales off the books badly enough to be offering Bichette to anybody? Seems like the opposite might be true: they’d take money back to avoid losing a potential future cornerstone like that.
We obviously don’t know for sure what the Jays are really thinking — on this or any number of other things (like, was the availability Yelich a unique circumstance, or are the Jays still looking to add another outfielder? Is Kevin Pillar’s place on the roster safe?) — but it sure sounds OK to me. On this one, at least.
Breaking News
- Why re-signing Bo Bichette must be the Blue Jays’ top priority this offseason
- 4 prospects who could help the Blue Jays in 2026
- An overview of the Blue Jays arbitration-eligible players this offseason
- Carlos Delgado, Don Mattingly among eight players featured on 2026 HOF Contemporary Era ballot
- Reflecting on Game 7: How the Blue Jays lost a heartbreaker