MS
1%er
Unless the deal is an overpayment I would keep Pillar. As it stands now the Jays likely need to fill two outfielder spots. Trading Pillar would make it three.
Agreed. You can't get rid of everyone and there are only so many young players coming up. Pillar is the least of this team's problems right now, as frustrating as his hitting with men on base might be.
Meh, these guys could've got us to the playoffs with bad contracts & trading away top-prospects. Instead they decided to build for the next 10 years, and have an impressive young core to work with:
Stro, Sanchez, Osuna, Travis, VGJ, Bo.
Also, if JD/Dirty/Russ/Devo were healthy all year together, this is a playoff team.
All of those guys save Bichette are AA acquisitions.
I wasn't a massive AA fan and some of his major acquisitions (Tulo, Reyes, Dickey) were awful moves at a massive future price, although he did make up for it with other hits (Donaldson, great drafting of young pitchers). But Shapiro/Atkins right now ... it's hard not to be underwhelmed. They've basically sat on their hands and brought in a bunch of old, crappy replacement-level players to fill out the roster while doing little else. JA Happ is really the only significant good move on the MLB squad.
That they haven't traded away quality prospects is a good thing ... but it's not really much of an accomplishment either.
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On another topic, the absurd statlines for Ramirez and Jansen at AAA are a terrific sign, as both of these players have come from absolutely nowhere in the 2nd half of the season to be likely September callups and possible young roster players for next season. Neither would have been top-30 prospects in the organization in April and now both are probably top-5 or very close.
Jansen's transformation from a guy who hit .218 in A ball in 2016 to a guy slashing .500/.591/.917 in AAA with 1 K in 44 plate appearances in 2017 is frankly astonishing.