Thoughts from a guy who likes Baseball.....Field Trip to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame!

Back on January 16th I was lucky enough to get guided tour of the Canadian Baseball hall of Fame in St. Marys with it's Director Scott Crawford.  For a guy who loves baseball like I do, I felt like a kid in a candy store with sauce pan eyes on Christmas morning for those few hours on that cold Saturday morning.

I can't really explain why I enjoy baseball as much as I do, but I do know that one of the things that I cherish is the history that is ever entangled within it.   It's easy to go through the History of baseball and understand why it's considered "America's Past Time", but for Canadians who love the game it's important to realize that within our boarders the game has had it's own rich history. If you ever have the chance to visit the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys you need to!

Here are my top 5 (no particular order) favorite things I saw at the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame!

• Home Plate from the 93 World Series -   So cool.  I can't imagine that I was the 1st person to put their foot on the plate, but I felt like a bad ass doing so!

• Tom Henke's Plaque -  Tom Henke was my idol when I was 7 years old.  When I started playing baseball I was a pitcher and I threw harder than all the other kids so for some reason my 1st coach always called me "The Terminator".   I guess this really just brought me back to being a kid! 

• Lucky Toonie Under the Mound -  I guess the guy who is in charge of Marketing for the Blue Jays and the Grounds Crew from this past year were intuitive enough to place a lucky Toonie under the mound at the start of the season in 2015 and then it was donated to the HOF.  It was pretty neat to see how beat up it got over the course of the year.

• Babe Ruth Corner -  Most people don't realize that "The Babe" had a connection to baseball in Canada so it was awesome to see a little area in the hall dedicated to Ruth.  Best thing was they actually had a replica of a Ruth Bat just to feel what it was like.  Let me tell you...I have no clue how he didn't throw a shoulder out by swinging a 54 ounce bat around. 

• Picture of Toronto Maple Leaf Stadium -  I love old stadiums and even seeing a picture of what it would have been like to watch baseball in a place like it gives me chills.  

There is so much history in the Hall that I couldn't possibly talk about all the cool things that pack the walls!  The 5 things above are simply the things that stood out to me the most. One of the most incredible aspects of this museum is that no matter who goes to visit, no matter how old/young, no matter their baseball knowledge, they will find something to connect with.  This is truly an inspiring place to visit. 

Here are a few more picture from the trip!

 

I need to say Thank you to Scott at the HOF for taking the time out of your weekend to let us wander around and ask many questions that i'm sure you've been asked before! Your hospitality was greatly appreciated. 

The trip actually wouldn't have been possible without my extremely thoughtful and loving Wife who once again went above and beyond to get me the perfect Christmas present.  Amy you never cease to amaze!  ##1WIFEEVER #REALMVP

5 Thoughts on Toronto Blue Jays Baseball! - Off-seasonTrades - They've been Storen these up!

So The Toronto Blue Jays made a Trade!  I almost forgot what it was like to have Blue Jays news that was worthwhile talking about! :)  So yes!  The Blue Jays Acquired Arnold Leon from the Oakland Athletics for Cash or a PTBNL.  Oh yes the good old PTBNL.  It's probably gonna be Drew Storen going back to the A's for this one!........Cause Drew Storen is now a Blue Jay!  Awesomeness...

5 Thoughts on the recent commotion in Blue Jays land...Here we go...

1.  So with the Blue Jays pulling the trigger on the Trade that sent good old Benny Fresh Revere to the Former Montreal Expos for Drew Storen. The Blue Jays look to have themselves quite the Bullpen!  Let's just say for fun that Aaron Sanchez is still in the bullpen come April.  Having a back end that consists of Cecil, Sanchez, Storen and Osuna we are looking at a pretty well rounded pen that could (I would like to stress the "could" part there) be among the best in the AL.

2.  Like many others I am a little sad that Ben Revere had to go in the trade, but you have to give to get and I don't think I could really see the Jays be willing to part with any of their younger talent in order to try to shore up the bullpen so unfortunately a very nice piece in Revere had to move.  Truth is I don't think we ever really got to see Revere's best asset used.  Given the construct of the Jays Lineup Revere's speed was something that never really shined...too bad..Not many more exciting plays then seeing guys steal bases IMO.

3. With Revere leaving the Band (Just actually looked it up and a group of Blue Jays are referred to as a band)  the talk among many Blue Jay Fan circles has been around who is going to take over the lead off spot in the lineup.  1st off i'm of the mind that the lead off guy only really matters in the 1st inning of a game and after that it's pretty much anybody's game.  That being said the guy who bats 1st in your line up will always get up more than anyone else on your team and I would like that guy who gets more at bats than anyone else to be one of the better hitters on team.   TULO for Leadoff!  Say what you want that he didn't like hitting there, but go back and look at their record with him hitting leadoff...Just saying

4.  With this departure there is also an opening in Left Field, but because the Jays were dealing from a somewhat position of depth the Blue Jays will look to probably have one of Michael Saunders or Dalton Pompey paroling LF in April.  I'm of two minds on this...One I think Michael Saunders is the better baseball player at this given moment and would provide the 2016 Blue Jays will a more reliable option for a season where they are "Going for it" again, however With the trade of Ben Revere, and both Joey Bats and Michael Saunders being FA's in 2017 the Blue Jays OF after 2016 is looking scary and not in a good way!  So...with that said I could also be convinced that given Dalton Pompey the year to acquaint himself again to the Major League game in 2016 could ultimately lead to a better Blue Jays team going forward.

5. There's a rumor that also birthed into the world on Friday night that the Jays could be looking to trade RA Dickey!  Come on....I really can't see the Jays trading RAD.  Looking at their SP depth I can't see them counting on any of them to be able to give them what RAD has in regards to innings over the past 3 years!  Yes he's not the guy we all wanted him to be when the Blue Jays acquired him, but we needs guys who can pitch innings and given how the front office has handled themselves this off season so far I can't see how they would acquire someone to fill the role that RAD provides them...But hey I'm wrong a lot.

....Let's all agree that we are all Happy that the Blue Jays acquired Storen and not the other closer in Washington!

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!

5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays - Hey It's November and stuff has happened edition

Hey!  How's it going?  Good....So.....The Blue Jays have pretty much been the busiest team so far in Major League Baseball in terms of actually getting things done!  Nice to see that they are keeping with the philosophy of not letting other teams dictate their off-season path.

5 thoughts on things so far!

1.  The Blue Jays signed JA (Don't call me Jay) Happ to a 3 year 36M contract on Friday night!  Lots going on with this signing as it undoubtedly has a whole bunch of ramifications behind it.  Yes it is alot of Money for JA Happ, but all mediocre pitchers get more money than they actually are probably due. If you're really angry about it, your just mad that this means that the Jays are not going to resign David Price and that's ok, but the Blue Jays were never going to resign David Price anyways....so get over it.

2.  The Blue Jays made a trade with the Oaklands where they sent Liam Hendriks to the A's for one time Blue Jays Jesse Chavez!  This is one of those trades that make you go hmmmmm, but the Blue Jays were in desperate need of some SP depth and this in one way give them an extra arm that has been able to throw innings with some kind of regularity over the past 2 years. That being said he was doing it in Oakland which isn't exactly the same as doing it in the AL East.  If the Jays are able to make another deal to add to their starting rotation and that moves Chavez to the Bullpen in a long relief role where he can be used as insurance for other SP during the year I think this deal ends up giving the Jays the depth that they will need to make it through the year!

3. On another note the Jays were quick to resign 2015 breakout star Marco Estrada to a 2 year 26M contract!   I don't think there's really any negative to this contract as it stands right now!  Dude got a nice raise and a bit of security and if he is even 75% of what he was last year the Blue Jays will end up with a nice deal in this one!  Yay team!

4.  With the way the team stands right now I wouldn't be surprised to see the Blue Jays turn their attention to cleaning up the Bullpen for 2016.  Right now we won't have Hendriks, Hawkins or Lowe back so that leaves some fairly big holes to fill and who knows they still may want to push one of either Sanchez or Osuna to the rotation.  The question on how to build the Bullpen in the offseason is always the tricky one!  I'm not a fan of throwing muliple years and big money to bullpen arms since they tend to flame out way too often, but If they Jays plan on going into a season where they'll be competitive they better make sure they get some lock down arms back there!  +1 for bringing back Mark Lowe!

5.  Rumblings are starting to come out that the Blue Jays are close to signing their new GM in the next week or so!  Very exciting times indeed.  I won't pretend to really know any of the front runners outside of Lacava, but the I will say that I hope either Lacava or Ross Atkins are the guys to get it.  I think Lacava more from a consistency stand point and he's proven to be competent so far in his handlings, but on the Mr. Atkins front, I want someone who is going to be comfortable in his new surroundings and the connection with Shapiro will definitely help there and I also like that he is routed in a player development!  Let's face it.  this GM role will be remarkably different than the GM role that AA had and I think if we can get a guy who is about scouting an development of players it's a good thing!

One last thing.....I get that people are a little angry with Rogers/Shapiro right now about the state of the SP rotation/budget going into 2016, but please remember that this is a direct result of "Going for it" in 2015.  The Jays had to tear down the Farm system in order to do that and regardless of how you want to think the Blue Jays are to be run, they still need to be a club that drafts and develops it's players and signing middle of the road starters for 2-3 years is a matter of giving the team time to build back up their farm system!

Peace Out!

5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays - Shapiro said some stuff edition!

Mark Shapiro was introduced today to the media as the President and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club and he said some stuff!

Yesterday I went over a few things that I was hoping we were going to hear about in Shapiro's 1st public appearance as the leader of the Jays, so today i'll give 5 quick thoughts on some of the things that he talked about on this 1st day on the job!

1. As he pretty much had to Shapiro started out the press conference speaking about Alex Anthopoulos and had to deal with about half of the questions thereafter being ones about AA and how things went down. For me in both of these insistence's I think he did a great job of talking to the topic and providing enough detail/respect to the topic that I expected.  I really think we all should just move on.  AA isn't coming back and it does nobody any good to keep dwelling on it.

2. I think it's very safe to say that the organization is in for a big change!  Shapiro remarked for the need of structure, process and collaboration.  I can't comment on whether or not these things were present or not in the previous admin, but I can't see why you would comment on it rather vigorously if your assessment of the team that it was something that was noticeably missing to the point to comment on the need for it. 

3.  One interesting comment I took form the the press conference was when he mentioned that the organization's direction is determined by the resources that they have access to.  It's interesting to me as Shapiro has had to use the draft as their main focus in building their team in Cleveland since they wouldn't have the same financial commitments that would be available to Shaprio and the Jays in Toronto.  This tells me that Shapiro clearly knows that he will now be able to spend some $$, but still needs to respect the need for the team to develop it's own players.  Should be fun to see how he goes about it since it's not something he's been able to oversee before.

4.  Great to hear that John Gibbons is going to be back in 2015 and it's just as great that Tony LaCava will be the interim GM for the Org.  In a time that we will probably be seeing a bunch of change within the organization it's going to be very important to ensure that there is some sort of consistency.  Knowing what you have and how you've done it is just as important as knowing where your going!

5. I'm not sure if it was actually mentioned in the Press Conference or not, but I know it was mentioned in an interview there after, but Shapiro mentioned that his Family would be moving up to Toronto and his kids would be transferring to school in the area at the end of the school year!  I know this may seem like a non issue since there has been tons of Toronto Sports executives who have chosen not to live in Toronto but I think it should be taken note of since it's actually very telling on how Shapiro plans on making this a LONG standing job for him and he is going all in.

Huge Props to Shapiro for rocking the Poppy today!

Oh BTW, I think Shapiro did a great job in his opening Press Conference!  Really appreciated his approach and hope that people give him a chance to work without a net so to speak!

5 Thoughts on the Toronto Blue Jays - The Mark Shapiro Era Begins....Day 1

As of today Sunday November 1st, the Toronto Blue Jays are now officially in a new era! It's going to be an interesting time to say the least  over the course of the next few weeks as we start to get an idea of where Mark Shapiro plans on bringing this franchise.

Now I'm not sure, but I imagine that we are going to get a news conference on Monday with Shapiro and to be honest I unfortunately think that because of the nature of what happened with AA in the last week we aren't going to get as much of an outline of where this club may be heading simply due to the media choosing to shift questions towards the AA situation rather than where the club is going!

Here are 5 things I actually hope we cover in some way in this possible news conference!

1. Draft & Player Development! - I am a firm believer that teams that build through the draft and are able to cultivate their own players are organizations that are successful.  DUH.  The Blue Jays started out as an organization that did this and was successful through player development, but there were a number of dark times (COUGH JP RICCARDI ERA) that things looked bleak.   When Paul Beeston took over and AA was brought onto be the GM the team refocused on building up the farm and really put this team in a place that not only would they have home grown players on their major league roster, but still have enough prospect currency to make moves when it counted to bring in established veterans to compliment cheaper home grown players. Not only did they do this through the MLB player draft, but they also had a huge focus in Latin America.  I hope that we will see Shapiro keep a player development focus and continue to have the Blue Jays organization as one of the organizations with the most Scouts in the Majors and continue to ensure that they bring in Coaches to their farm systems that can help develop players.

2.  The organization has made huge strides during the latest Beeston era in expanding the Blue Jays brand in Canada but also in places like Buffalo!  The relationship in Buffalo may seem like an obvious partner, but it takes a smart leader to understand the tangible benefits of having your AAA club so close to it's Major League Ball club and how you can expand the growth opportunity by utilizing a fairly large market to it's advantage. I still think the push to get the Vancouver Canadians as a Jays affiliate was very underrated move on the Org's part. I hope Shapiro is smart enough to make mention of these ventures and ensuring that they are going to be expanded on going forward. 

3.  I think the 1st thing most fans who read up on the Shapiro hire found out that he has overseen Stadium renovations in Cleveland and we all should know that the Roger's Centre is in need of a bunch of reno's to bring it up speed with the rest of the facilities in the MLB.  I imagine things like Natural Grass and new seats may be covered, but I am hoping we get some real details on what plans are coming for the concrete jungle!

4. If you've ever been to the Blue Jays spring training facility you know why there is need for an upgrade....holed up..upgrade is too mild.....The Blue Jays facility in Dunedin needs a complete overhaul!  There are many reasons why Beeston was trying to get a new deal with the Town of Dunedin before he left office. Whatever the plans for the Spring Training facility are i hope we are able to get an idea of where they may be heading with it. 

5. This is a given and is only really a discussion point since last Thursday Alex Anthopoulos decided that he didn't want to be the Blue Jays GM any longer, but I hope we get some direction on who will be the acting General Manager of the Blue Jays (Tony Lacava) and whether or not Mr. John Gibbons will be back at the helm of the Blue Jays next year (who knows with the way Gibbons contract is structured).  

Sure Mark Shapiro's 1st press conference is going to be interesting, but i'm hoping that there will actually be some time to figure out the plans for the organization going forward.