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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

yeah, it could be done ... but I'm not giving up Tiedemann for 1 year of Soto. Plus it would probably require other pieces added, salary taken on, etc.

If you take Ricky out of the equation, we may not have the pieces to get it done, unless they're really high on Manoah.
 
Ohtani wanting to keep negotiations quiet is imo his Van Halen Brown M&M’s test, to see if he can trust other more important things won’t leak about him & his teammates during a season, I suspect.

….which does make me wonder if the Dave Roberts faux pas could be a bigger blunder than one would think, at first glance. 🤔 🤞🏼 🍀
 
my first instinct would be the Jays are being used as a foil here...but players on Ohtani's level don't really need to do that stuff.

why is he coming here over the Dodgers though...?
 
Volcanologist said:
my first instinct would be the Jays are being used as a foil here...but players on Ohtani's level don't really need to do that stuff.

why is he coming here over the Dodgers though...?
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Sick of living in Hell-A?

Or wants to get out of there before the big one hits and LA turns into Arizona Bay?
 
Volcanologist said:
my first instinct would be the Jays are being used as a foil here...but players on Ohtani's level don't really need to do that stuff.

why is he coming here over the Dodgers though...?
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On one hand, Ohtani is obviously in the driver's seat and doesn't need to do "that stuff".

On the other hand, the Dodgers probably feel like they would be bidding against themselves above a certain contract level and without at least the appearance of competition at that salary level, they would never go above it.

If after all of this noise he ends up choosing the Dodgers, my bet is going to be on this process being about the latter hand and not the former and his agent was just creating leverage to drive the price tag up even higher from the previously chosen destination.
 
Volcanologist said:
my first instinct would be the Jays are being used as a foil here...but players on Ohtani's level don't really need to do that stuff.

why is he coming here over the Dodgers though...?
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He seems like a meticulous fellow and as this is his last big baseball decision, he's not leaving any stone unturned

Toronto is not LA but it's also not Toronto from 1986. It's a pretty great place, especially if you're wealthy. Don't let Uncle Dennis make you think differently.
 
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CH1 said:
He seems like a meticulous fellow and as this is his last big baseball decision, he's not leaving any stone unturned

Toronto is not LA but it's also not Toronto from 1986. It's a pretty great place, especially if you're wealthy. Don't let Uncle Dennis make you think differently.
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Also, Canadians tend to let the attitudes of American athletes temper their view of playing in Canada. Foreign athletes simply don't look at Canada the same way Americans do and we've already seen enough examples of American athletes choosing to be in Canada. Vince, Kyle, Demar all signed big contracts here. Halladay, Clemens, Canseco, Springer, Gausman, etc etc on the Jays side of things. The guy likely to end up the best player in Leaf franchise history is quite famously not from here, etc.

With international athletes I think it just comes down to basic shit. Money, weather (not a big issue for a baseball player at all), organization, travel, quality of the city compared to other league cities, etc.

I was watching some of Gil Arenas' podcast last week and they were talking about NBA media markets and they started ranking them. I expected his panel of all American former NBA players to completely overlook us, but Toronto came up immediately after the big markets (LA, NYC, Chicago) in the conversation and they considered it the 5th-6th biggest media market in the NBA to play in. Attitudes are changing.
 
for someone originally from Japan, Toronto has a number of IMO obvious advantages over LA (or most other American cities).

dunno if that'll be enough to woo Shohei, but my initial complete dismissal and skepticism about us being seriously involved has definitely dissipated with each passing day.
 
LA has way more Japenese folks than Toronto, so idk.. I think he'd feel more "at home" there. But we could sure use a strong injection of Japenese folks in the city. They are some excellent human beings.
 
Wayward DP said:
for someone originally from Japan, Toronto has a number of IMO obvious advantages over LA (or most other American cities).

dunno if that'll be enough to woo Shohei, but my initial complete dismissal and skepticism about us being seriously involved has definitely dissipated with each passing day.
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Yeah, even my original stance has softened a bit. I think Shatgers is as serious as they're capable of being about wanting him, and I think Ohtani is honestly considering Toronto's offer and market as an alternative to his 1st choice.
 
The cynic in me knows that Ohtanis agent needs at least one team to use to drive up LAD, but would you really fly cross country to a facility to keep it up?
 
Preston said:
LA has way more Japenese folks than Toronto, so idk.. I think he'd feel more "at home" there. But we could sure use a strong injection of Japenese folks in the city. They are some excellent human beings.
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I think he'd be pretty familar with what LA has to offer him by now overall. Anaheim is in "LA" for all intents and purposes. Anaheim is like Brampton or Oshawa is to Toronto.
 
MyNameIsJonas said:
The cynic in me knows that Ohtanis agent needs at least one team to use to drive up LAD, but would you really fly cross country to a facility to keep it up?
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We're probably talking about a difference of what...20-80M dollars over the life of the contract? Fucking right he would take a 4 hr plane ride if they're playing a ~50M dollar game with the Dodgers.
 
Also, Ross Atkins of all people has come off as a calm, cool, normal human being when addressing questions this week as well as respectful to the process
 
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