Jays Winter Meeting Re-Cap

This past week we were treated to the MLB winter meetings.  4 days of crazy baseball rumors and coverage.  It's kinda like July1st in Hockey, but only a lot better.

Going into this year's meeting the Jays had done almost an entire off season of work already.  It lead me to think that they couldn't really be up to a whole lot at the meetings,  seeing how they covered most of the bases for next season already.  We'll my preconceived notions have become a reality as they pretty much just showed up, much like a employee showing up at the yearly work Christmas party. You just really don't want to be the only one not there.

They picked up a backup catcher off waivers, signed a pitcher who retired 2 years ago, lost a 3b in the rule 5 draft and picked up 3 minor leaguers who will probably never make it to the show.  Not a whole not to write home about....But we did see the Jays involved in a number of rumors over the course of the week.  Most of them revolved around RA Dickey, but as we all know if the Jays are involved in a public rumor it probably aint going to happen.

I did however really enjoy Sportsnet's coverage of the meetings. They had pretty much all they're Baseball writers down at the meetings and even had Jeff Blair along with Dirk Hayhurst hosting a radio show all week long.  One thing I did pick up from all the great coverage was how obvious it was that Alex Anthopolous does not like the format of the Winter Meetings. It seemed like all week he felt the need to control expectations and remind everyone that more than likely nothing was going to happen.  I could totally see how a guy who wants deals to be keep as quite as possible could hate the concept of winter meetings, where baseball "Insiders" are there by the hundreds and possibly lurking around every corner as well as rival clubs running all over the complex playing offers/deals off on another.  It almost seems like Alex's style is better suited to deals that take some time to put together, not something that is put together in 4 days.  If the Jays end up announcing any trade/signings during the rest of the off-season, something tells me the ground work probably would have been started at the winter meetings!

The meetings were not as exciting as I was hoping they could have been, but i'll take 4 days a great baseball talk any day!