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......