5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays - Winter Meetings Edition - (Insert Sad Trombone Sound!)

So it's the Friday after the winter meetings and I guess I should write something?......So conflicted as i'm not sure there's really anything to say since it was an extremely boring week at the 2016 winter meetings from a Blue Jays POV.

5 thoughts that I'm gonna have to stretch with....Here we go....

1. The Blue Jays signed former Blue Jay Darwin Barney to a 1 year 1.05M contract for 2016.  It's a nice little move for the Jays as it gives them a competent middle infielder to sit on the bench while they wait for Devon Travis to recover from off season surgery.  Ultimately you want your bench guy to have an extreme skill and Barney has that in his defense!  Nice deal!

2.  The Blue Jays also made another player acquisition, but this time it came in the 1st round of the Major League portion of the Rule 5 Player draft when they picked Joe Biagini from the Giants organization their 21st overall pick.  I won't pretend to know anything about Biagini outside of what I can see on Baseball Reference, but I guess the plan is to put him in the bullpen and hope that he gains s few MPH with only having to go a couple innings max and could be a replacement for Hendriks.  I don't know....Tough to see a guy who hasn't pitched any higher than AA stay the entire year on the 25 man roster, but maybe.

3. I guess it can be said that it's not really that surprising that the Blue Jays didn't end up signing any high priced relievers this past week. Truth is they don't have the $$$ left to do it.  They are going to have to settle on guys that are reclamation projects and simply hope for the best.. I little trial by error maybe!

I think it's time to realize that the team in 2016 will ultimately be a by product of "Going for it" in 2015.  Say what you will about the 2015 season, but the Jays parted with a number of pieces that may have actually slotted into the 2016 team and offered them alot of savings when it came to building their team.....So I ask this...If you could have Daniel Norris in your rotation right now and not JA Happ and then use his 12M and year to pay two relievers to shore up your bullpen would you give up having David Price for 2 months and most exciting time in Blue Jays baseball in 20 years? It's all hindsight now I guess...

4. I kinda felt bad for all the Sportsnet writers/reporters that they sent down to the Winter Meetings this year!  Good love it when they are trying to capitalize on the Blue Jays phenomenon and then they had nothing to talk about!  It got pretty bad when they were writing articles about bullpen arms that I have never heard of and how they may by a target for the Blue Jays!

5.  I found this picture of Ross Atkins the other day on the Internet.....It made me laugh...

5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays - New GM Edition - Intro of Mr. Ross Atkins

Well it was another busy couple days in Blue Jays land so that means that I am once again compelled to offer up my often misguided opinions on all those such goings on......Here there are....Like them or don't! Whatever....

5 Thougths!  Here they are....

1. So easily the biggest/most important news of the week, The Blue Jays announced that they have hired their new General Manager Ross Atkins!  I will not go overly in depth with the signing (if you really wanted some greater details on the hiring you can head over to sportsnet.ca for all the relative data that you may need on it), but my take is that I don't mind the hiring of Mr. Atkins as he is clearly entrenched in the player development side of Baseball and I've always been a firm believer that if you want to build a sustainable organization you need to make sure you are drafting and developing your own talent. If you can do that it opens up so many other doors that you can take advantage of.

What is also great with this hire is that Tony Lacava is still a part of the team.  Basically got two guys who are GM worthy working for the org still. ++++

2. Touching a little deeper on Player Development I think it was a great sign that Mr Atkins went out of his way to mention how good of a job the  staff had done previously in building up the Farm System.  Being able to send out 15 players in the matter of a week in order to drastically improve your team shows that your system has been able to draft and develop talent so well that it`s seen as valuable throughout the league.  I'm already curious to see how the team will attack the 2016 player draft!

If you ever want me to put you to sleep ask me to talk about Blue Jays philosophy regarding drafting for the past 6 years!  So good, but yet probably boring....

3. Hey we resigned Justin Smoak to a 1 year 3.8M contract!  I guess that`s ok.....Dude is never gonna light up the world but plays a mean 1st base, is a switch hitter and has a boat load of power. I think this move is more about having another left handed bat in such a right handed heavy lineup.  After the postseason that Chris Collabello had I`m curious to see how many at bats Smoak is actually going to get to start the year!

4. Josh Thole also resigned with the Jays a day after getting non tendered.  I called this one!  He doesnt have an option outside of the Blue Jays and in no way is he worth the actual 1.7M he was projected to get in arbitration, so this really makes alot of sense for everyone involved.  What I like about him only getting paid 800K is that if the Blue Jays do end up trading RA Dickey, Thole is basically thrown in a no cost to his new team!

5. David Price is a Red Sox so he can go blow himself!

Next week we get the annual winter meetings! Another great part of the Baseball off-season! Hopefully we get tons of great Blue Jays news!