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!
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