TheHurl

There's a draft pick tied to Melky

My buddy Mike who is on this board but never posts. I'll try and get the whole story from him. It's just one of those things that sounds like something Lawrie would do...so I believe it.

I wonder how many stories about Brett will come out now that he's gone. I'll start with one...Hit a pillar (not the player) in the RC parking lot doing donuts in his car. While on the DL for his Oblique too.

If the prospect traded is not much to the current team...Jays should rather have a 1 year guy than tied to a LF for 3 or more. Dexter in a spot where he's going to see more FB's could BABIP his way to a similar line as last year with a RC power upgrade.

I missed this, he gave a big f*** you to ESPN in his first tweet back.

Lowrie makes sense too and would have suggested him if I thought he'd come here on a 1 year deal. But it's likely a 3 year investment and I'm not sure about that. Why is no one talking about Kenta Maeda? Is he not getting posted this year now?

Velocity is better, change up is better ... I see no reason to believe that. I was comparing it to Milone's 2012 season when his change was really effective.

Willing to do a WAR or ERA wager on this one (small amount of cash or a fun board wager) on next year or future if anyone wishes.

Because I didn't say he'd pitch great. I do think he'll have a low ERA.

Still think the priority should be a 2B that can play multiple positions...and hit. I've said it before Valbuena is still such a good fit for this team. Projected to go 240/.330/.388 but can play 2B and LF. The team has 8 current projected players who are 29 or older and zero depth behind their big 5 players. No team can replace 3-5 win players but as it stands right now the Jays would be replacing Bautista, Reyes, EE and Donaldson with likely below replacement level players. Having a Valbuena cover potentially 2B, but also allows the Jays to have Travis as the replacement to injuries to Donaldson, Reyes or Bautista (with Pillar or Dirks moving to RF and Travis or Valbuena to LF). It's not optimal but it would be better than right now. I just don't know what Valbuena costs us (they asked the Yanks for Severino last year). As for starters. The Jays are way better off waiting it out with what they have. If everyone they have pitches well enough, it puts the Jays in a great position to move one to fill a hole or then upgrade the staff. Not everything needs to be done in the off-season...sometimes knowing exactly what you have is important.

The guy is a lefty flyball pitcher with a great change and shows flashes of K's. Those guys thrive in Oakland. I'm going to guess his ERA splits will look similar to 2012 Tommy Milone's were in Oakland (before Milone's change up deserted him, keeping people off balance in Oakland is huge as a lot of foul off attempts end up as outs). My 2015 ERA projections for Nolin are 2.75 in Oakland, 4.35 on the road. For an overall 3.45 over 120 or so innings.

Everything I've read about Donaldson is that he's completely honest, to a point where a team/fans might think of him as outspoken. Very much like the Jays already have with Bautista. And believe me with Donaldson's backstory (Daddy in prison until 2013, every male role model on his Fathers side dead or in prison, discarded as not going to make it many times. Even the way he asked them to try him at third in training camp when Sizemore got hurt), it's a Sportsnet 30 minute special ready to happen. The guy is a work ethic machine and if things go badly on a PR side, all the focus will go on to how hard Donaldson pushes and is pushing everyone else. Much like Dickey at the start of 2013, the guy is your PR golden boy.

Next move...bringing PJ Walters back. Donaldson's best friend. Got to keep the new guy happy.

I'm willing to say that Nolin will out-perform Sanchez this season, and probably right up until they are both Arb eligible.

I'm old, have a 3 hour total commute to a full time school program, 28 hours of work, 12 hours of volunteer, 1200 fantasy pools and an occasional drinking/gambling problem. Yet I still find time to post...all on a message board for a team that I don't cheer for. Your next excuse please! Welcome back though

We still hear the stuff with the Marlins trade as not a big deal cause the players that went back didn't do that much (which I just don't get). At least in this case with the trade I don't see "winning" or spending as the only way out. Donaldson was number 17 on Fangraphs trade value chart, he'll still have that value later. Speaking of the fangraphs trade value. Donaldson was 28 spots higher than EE. Could you imagine if we got this kind of return for EE? There would be a witch hunt on the Danforth

don't you think he should have to prove himself again? He wanted meaningful games in September. He left in August and then comes back with the Martin signing. Someone make a poll to see what FatCow has to do to get back into the boards good graces

Got to say this will entertain me when all these moves are being made by the Yankees, Jays and Red Sox...then we see the Rays and O's challenging for the division title (okay the O's contending again will not entertain me one bit). Not sure if you are off the Ray Train now and back on the Souvlaki Food Truck in Toronto (f*** you Boxy we didn't want you anyway)

Relievers, relievers, relievers.

no it cannot...it's been proven it cannot. What's been proven is that off season hype sells season tickets. That office is going to be a buzz tomorrow and right up until Christmas. Even if the Jays don't win s*** this year, 2012 proved that off season hope makes money on ticket sales.

Macier and Travis

It's funny how everyone is talking about the A's like they have no zero chance of being a playoff team. Then again people talk that way about the A's every year.

actually I had forgot that (I do remember now that it happened while I was in Vegas). I really wanted to see him go through the Arbitration process.

You haven't watched Donaldson play a lot have you. He's just as max effort as Lawrie. He's just so much slower that you don't notice it. He was hurt in September and the A's had to lasso him a bit so not to aggravate the injury.

Beane is a believer in projections. It's that simple, he's not going to do the whole "he can't stay healthy" thing. He's going to say what does he produce in a healthy season. If Lawrie gets anywhere near the projections the deal makes sense for Oakland. Projections take away the bias...Toronto fans one way or another have a Lawrie bias.