Thoughts on the Blue Jays at the Trade Deadline

Going a little off routine for this post here, but I was thinking of something today and it seemed to make a few valid points in my head as I was trying to make sense of the upcoming trade deadline from a Blue Jays perspective.

Now i'm going to preface my thoughts by saying I do not believe that Blue Jays ownership is cheap in anyway....The Jays are a top 10 payroll and even though there were rumors that they wouldn't have enough money to sign all their draft picks... they did!  Having said that I am just as frustrated as every other Jays fan after hearing that the Jays would not be able to each any type of salary if they did indeed make a deal at the deadline. What happened to money being there if they were in a place to contend down the stretch?  YEAH......Roger's you make me mad!



Ultimately what is being lost in all of this is that the Jays really have been historically super horribly bad at not developing it's own talent, however this is not at all the fault of the current administration.  The absolute mess that JP Ricciardi left the team's farm system in is still being felt today....Let me try to explain my POV.



AA's Blue Jays have been good a drafting and building up talent.  Typically if you are doing a good job of drafting and developing you are able to bring in your own players at a reasonable price and have them contribute to your big league team and then you can surround them with more established stars thereafter.  Unfortunately for the Jays they had to use the prospects that AA has developed to acquire high priced established stars and thus leaving the Farm system somewhat bare with many open spots that if you developed other propects correctly could be filled with that cheaper home grown talent.



Now I know the system is not bare at all, but If the Jays go about trading away prospects again this year we are going to end up in the same place we are now with little to no home grown talent on the big league roster, and ultimately forcing the team to fill holes with less then acceptable means or over priced talent that could hand cuff the team from making other needed moves.



I don't see the Jays making any moves at the deadline as I think AA and Jays know that they cannot mortgage the future of the franchise by leaving our minor leagues full of has beens and never will be's.



It's too bad really, given the state of the division right now, given that if the Jays did move some pieces they could really be a factor, but in the end I don't want to think about what the team will look like in 2 years if names like, Sanchez, Gose, Stroman, Nolin, Norris, Pompey, Pentecost,  and Hutchison aren't on it.



But what do I know.....Watch them trade for Cliff Lee, Martin Prado and Alex Rios tomorrow......

Thoughts on the Cubs/A's Deal from a Toronto Blue Jays Fan POV!

So this quick post will be a little off format tonight,  but with the deal going down tonight between the Cubs and the A's that ultimately saw the the A's end up with Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for a bunch of high quality prospects!






I will assume that anyone who may read my ramblings probably knew that the Jays have been long  watching Samardzija and have been linked as one of the teams that were in the running for trading for his services so I don't need to do any background there, anyways....I can't say i'm all that disappointed that the Jays didn't end up with "The Shark"

Here's why in bullet form!

• The Jays starting rotation has been better than any of us Jays fans would have imagined.  Sure we can assume that they would fall apart, but it's July now and we can arguably say that our rotation is the best his year in the AL East and if he brought them in who would be moved out?  Well I would assume if we did get the deal either one of Stroman or Hutchison would be the one moved out and the reason they would be out of the rotation is because we would be sending them to Chicago.
• I like the deal because neither one of Samardzjia ended up with the Orioles or Yankees.
• Right now both Wild Card teams are associated to two teams in the AL West....The same division the two pitchers just got traded to.  
• The Jays don't play the A's again this year as their season series is done!  Here's a fun fact.....The Orioles still have to play their season series against the A's
• The Jays keep all their prospects that were rumored to be asked for.  
• The Jays may turn their attention to improving their infield, bullpen and bench.

Alright...That's it for now.  I'm sure there i'll be talking about this trade again soon enough, but that's good enough for now!

5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays for June 3rd

Another quick 5 thoughts on the Jays!

1.   On Wednesday the Jays signed both Jeff Hoffman and Max Pentecost, both of their 1st round picks from the 2014 draft.  It was quite a sight  for some Jays fans as they have failed to do so with 2 out of 4 of their previous 1st round picks.  To be honest I'm not really too concerned that they missed on a few past 1st rounders since they get the pick back the next year, and looking at what they picked up instead of the picks that didn't sign they didn't end up in a bad position.  The pick they got for not signing Tyler Beede turned into Marcus Stroman and the pick for not signing Phil Bickford is Max Pentecost.  Both kids who didn't sign were High School kids and the make up picks are kids from College, which if everything turns out means they should get themselves to the Bigs quicker than high school kids who need more polish.  All in all  these 2 signings mean the Jays signed everyone they picked between rounds 1 though 10 (yeah they have some more after that, but the 1st 10 are what matters $$$ wise) pretty much finishing up a very good draft.  All that is left now is for the players to develop!



2. I get why there are people who are all bent out of shape with Edwin playing LF.  Fault me here, but i'm going to assume that most Jays fans who are confused don't know that most of the time you hid your worst defensive player out in LF.  Remember George Bell?  Yeah the guy was a total beast and if you would pick an all time team he's probably on it in LF, but he was a very very poor fielder.  I would much rather have EE play LF than 3rd base.  Edwin never really had an issue with catching the base ball (evidence with his great glove over at 1st) but it was with his trows.  Putting him in LF takes away that issue as there is much more leeway on throws out there, just needs some time to get comfortable with with fly balls!



3.  This road trip leading up to the All-Star break is going to be an important one for the team.  10 games against teams that are all playing well  and are teams that the Jays need to stay competitive with in order to keep their place within the division.  If they Jays are able to come out of this trip at 6 - 4 they should be really happy!



4. New favorite line "He Hang it, I Bang It" EE is the Best!



5.  I would assume there is going to be some moves after Today's Jays game.  Cecil will be back from the DL which I'm pretty sure means Brad Glenn will be sent back down in his place seeing how he he's been invisible since coming up.  Rumor has it that Kratz is on his way back up too, but with Rasmus's hand injury i'm not totally convinced that Mastroianni  is sent down, so i'm kinda stumped on what's going to happen.  Jays are going to be seeing quite a few LHP in the next coming days, so I would assume that whoever comes up will be a RH bat that can actually kit a little.

5 thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays for July 1st

Couple days away, but here are 5 thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays!

1.  After a horrible weekend against the Chicago White Sox it't becoming more and more apparent that the Jays current line-up is absolutely horrible at hitting LH pitching.  I've pretty much convinced myself that the Jays aren't going to make a play for anyone until we get very close to the trade deadline, but I really think the Jays need to go after either a 3rd or 2nd baseman who can handle the bat.  I've narrowed my list to Chase Headley if I had to pick one guy as I would hope that his recent struggles, pending free agency and 10M + salary may lead to some kind of reasonable return.  I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, but I would hope this is something that the Jays could work out and allow Headley to come to a hitters firendly park and really fall into his old self in time for a playoff run!



2. I guess one way to look at the past series against the White Sox on the bright side is to be happy that both the Orioles and the Yankees both lost their respective series as well and the Jays didn't loose any ground in the AL East, however the pessimist in me only sees this weekend as an opportunity lost.  It's not every weekend when you go against' a sub .500 team while everyone else in your division is playing each other.  If the Jays could have taken 3 out of 4 for the White Sox we would all be feeling a lot better about our place in the division right now, except now we could be looking back at this series in September as one of those series that defined our year!  Opportunity lost!



3. Well tomorrow is one of my favorite days down at Roger's Centre.  Canada Day!  Now we don't always get to celebrate Canada Day down at Roger's Centre, but it always seems to be a great day when we do!  In fact the Phillies series from a few year's ago that featured the return of Doc, Canada Day game and the comeback versus Cliff Lee is one of my favorite weekend's spent at the Ball Park.  Hopefully tomorrow is another day in a long line of great Canada Day games!



4. So deadspin has an article out today that featured leaked trade discussions between the Huston Astros and many other MLB teams and one of those teams was the Toronto Blue Jays!  Now one of the things that seemed to be a prevailing topic out of the article was that they trade scenarios that were being thrown back and forth seemed to be almost like two guys in a Fantasy baseball league trying to make a trade!  Well ya!  I pretty much think that's exactly how it goes...yeah i'm sure there is alot more background to the whole process, but as a part of a negotiating process i'm pretty sure each GM when approached about a player asks for more than they are ultimately willing to settle on for that particular player.  Isin't that one way to ensure that you get what you are looking for through negotiations? From a Jays POV I try not to think of it as "Really they wanted Storman and Gose for Norris but i would rather look at it as if AA was ever approached to trade Jose Bautista I would want him to ask for the entire Minor League system of whatever team was looking to get him 1st and then work towards the best possible deal that he could get, and you can't do that without asking for the moon.



Link to the article - http://deadspin.com/leaked-10-months-of-the-houston-astros-internal-trade-1597951970

5.  In another great piece of partnership marketing Roger's the Fan 590 radio station will be playing 6 upcoming Buffalo Bisons games on the Radio.   The 1st game is tomorrow, which is a day later than I was hoping since Aaron Sanchez got the start tonight, but in the end this is another great opportunity for Jays fans in the GTA to get a little better acquainted with the AAA ball club that is ever so close to it's own back yard.    For more information on the rest of the games check out the link below!

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20140318&content_id=69547952&vkey=news_t422&fext=.jsp&sid=t422