00:00The Toronto Blue Jays and the Blue Jays are filling out what seemed to be a weak point for them at points in their World Series run that finished a game short.
00:09They go and get Tyler Rogers, the submariner who is in his mid-30s, signed a three-year $37 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays.
00:18This guy's fastball sits 84 miles an hour. It does not matter because this guy is the Chad Bradford and Moneyball Ironman that Major League Baseball needs.
00:30And in a game that is fixated on velocity and spin and vert, this guy bucks every single trend that there is in Major League Baseball.
00:40And oh, by the way, he threw pretty much every game last year and had an ERA right around two.
00:47This guy, I think, led Major League Baseball in appearances last year.
00:51So they get someone that is durable and they get someone to match with Jeff Hoffman and Louis Varlin.
00:56This was a heck of an add to Toronto's bullpen.
00:59Oh, I love it. And also just balances things out, man.
01:02It was an adventure last year and it still is kind of set up to be an adventure from a command perspective.
01:07Like Jimmy Garcia walks a lot of guys.
01:11Brendan Little walked as many as anybody in Major League Baseball last year.
01:15You look at even Hoffman at points like the command could be frustrating.
01:19And I think that's why the Louis Varlin acquisition was great.
01:21But just to be able to add another guy.
01:23And I mean, when they had Sir Anthony Dominguez in the fold last year, too, that's one of the higher qualified walk rates.
01:27Also, just a strike thrower, right?
01:29A guy that you can bring in and and get ground balls.
01:32And they're going to miss bats with with these other guys that they have.
01:35I think it's a perfect equalizer in this bullpen.
01:39And, you know, I continue to applaud the Blue Jays who, you know, I want I was I've been waiting to figure like to see when fans are going to start to complain about the Blue Jays spending too much now, too, because they're they're getting up there now and starting to pluck every, you know, big time free agent.
01:54It doesn't look like they're done.
01:55And then even filling in in between with these reliever arms, I love the idea that a team that made a lot of money in playoff revenue.
02:03And this is sometimes where the corporation owned teams can be a little bit more encouraging at times.
02:09There's pros and cons in both ways.
02:10But I think they see the money, they see the revenue and they say, let's let's reinvest back into the products here.
02:16And I'm glad they're doing it.
02:17And this was this isn't just spending to spend, though.
02:20This isn't just the hangover.
02:21We almost won.
02:22How do we compensate?
02:23I think this is a great fit for that bullpen, given the volatility that you have with many of these relief arms.
02:30It is funny because you see a couple of different ways that corporation baseball teams are run where you have Toronto putting money back into the product when they see positives come through.
02:40Atlanta was all about employee retention, right, where they see the exciting, you know, fun new employee and they make sure to retain.
02:47And which is good, too.
02:48It is.
02:48It's too much.
02:50Almost too much, though.
02:51But I like that.
02:52That's if you're going to build a fan base and sustain a fan base, that's going to help.
02:58That's the way to do it.
02:59But they really weren't spending much in free agency before this go around.
03:03And they signed Mike Yastrzemski, who we're going to talk about a little bit later on in the show.
03:06They signed Robert Suarez.
03:08Why would Atlanta start doing this right now?
03:11Does it make any sense to you or not really?
03:13What?
03:13To start spending in free agency?
03:14To start spending on free agency, like getting a setup guy on a three-year deal and he's getting 15 a year.
03:19I think there's a couple things, I think.
03:22And I'm curious what you think here, too.
03:23Having, you know, you got to watch this team up close and personal plenty this past season.
03:28But things needed to get shaken up a little bit.
03:31I think that's clear.
03:32And like you have the core of the guys that, you know, are not going anywhere because of the aforementioned pre-arb deals that we talked about.
03:39But I just think that there needed to be some – I think they tried to get a little too cost-efficient and effective with it going into last year.
03:47And I think it bit them in the butt.
03:49And I think even fans were frustrated because they didn't put themselves in a position to have a parachute in case things went wrong, right?
03:56If everything went right, they didn't have this litany of injuries and all these things, the Braves were probably right back in the playoffs.
04:01But they didn't really bolster their situation much at all in case guys do go down.
04:07And we have had several Braves nightmare scenarios over the last couple years with injuries.
04:11So to just bolster things up I think is huge.
04:14And you don't have to give out $100-plus million.
04:16We were begging them to sign, you know, Ha-Sung Kim last year.
04:20And they ended up acquiring him anyways and giving him the little audition.
04:23I thought they'd bring him back.
04:24They ended up not doing that and making a savvy move for Dubon.
04:27But I just think being able to even spend a little bit here and there in free agency is something that they didn't really do last year and I think helps in a big way this year.
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