Laika

Rogers essentially sells the TV rights to themselves for a fraction of a penny on the dollar.

I'd give Ubaldo 4/58 all day, every day. Too bad the Jays are so bass ackwards that they probably like Santana more and will end up giving him something approaching an Anibal Sanchez contract if they don't land Tanaka.

If Jimenez goes 2.5, 2.0, 1.5, and 1, he'd be worth $58.18MM over the next four years. Steamer projects 2.5 WAR for him in 2014. He's essentially asking for his market value here.

Depends how you define depth. The Blue Jays have a lot of names, but they don't have a lot of projectable production. Lots of names, not a lot of WARz. Dickey Buehrle Morrow Stroman Happ Hutch Drabek Redmond Rogers McGowan Nolin Dickey should be a SP2/3 and Buehrle should be a SP3/4. You can't count on Morrow for 20, let alone 32 starts. And then everybody from Stroman down probably projects to be somewhere between replacement level and a 1 WAR talent in 2014. It's a lot of junk and a few prospects. Ideally, Stroman+Drabek+Hutch+Nolin can all start in the minors AND the Jays can avoid gifting rotation spots to two of Happ, Rogers, McGowan...

wtf, announcement isn't til 11? f*** off

Olympic roster announcement in 2 minutes. I'm anticipating it a wee bit too much.

There shouldn't even be any compensation systems. Misinformed socialism failures. Well, the implemented ones surely have been. The old system: Better teams had better players, so they ended up having more free agents ranked as Type A or B. The richer/better teams got even richer. The only way for mid/small market teams to benefit from the old system was to "game" it heavily. The new system: The qualifying offer system kind of defeats the whole purpose of aiding team that can't afford to keep good free agents. The richer teams can more comfortably offer free agents an expensive QO - smaller market teams can't take the risk to the same degree, especially with borderline players. We also have the same problem as the old system in that better teams have more QO worthy players, so we end up with the better teams getting more compensation picks. Rich still get richer. Solution: Get rid of the qualifying offer system. Tie free agent compensation to what the players end up signing for, and scale the value of the compensation by several factors including: The price the free agent ends up getting, the losing team's payroll last year, the losing team's record last year, the signing team's record last year, the signing team's payroll last year. So if free agent John Doe gets a contract above or equal to X total dollars, then the signing team gives up a pick according to those ^ criteria, and the losing team gets a pick according to those ^ criteria. If the free agent gets a higher contract, then the surrendered/compensatory picks should both be of higher value. If the losing team's payroll and record were lower last season, then the compensatory picks should be of higher value. If the signing team's payroll and record were higher last year, then the surrendered picks should be of higher value. I don't really think it's that complicated. A scaled and more thoughtful compensation system would help all parties. You wouldn't get the market freeze on fringe comp guys like Morales, Cruz, Santana, etc. because the scaled compensation for them would be pretty small, assuming they don't get large contracts. There's also an effort in here to help a s*** poor team that can't afford to keep a star more than help a good rich team that chooses to let a star walk.

I mean, read this steaming pile of s*** and tell me that you think this guy has one actual source: http://www.bluejaysplus.com/racial-divide-blue-jays-clubhouse/#sthash.estM5oGt.dpbs Worse than bleacher report.

Yes they are.

The best part of this sentence is that it kind of seems like you called your hotel flexing selfy slutty. You're such a slut Connor!

Take more selfies in hotel bathrooms, foreign chicks love those.

How many 40+ surrendered home run seasons have there even been since the steroid era "ended"? How many ever? In 2002 Ramon Ortiz game up 40 bombs and still had an ERA of 3.77. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE, RAMON?

All pitchers are time bombs. Even if his bow looks weird as f***, that might just be an opportunity to get Garza on a 1-2 year steal of a contract. I mean, Napoli's knees looked like garbage before 2013 and it worked out handsomely for Boston.

Yeah seems weird. There's no obvious reason for him to still be out there aside from bad medicals or ludicrous contract demands, and the media hasn't got even a whiff of the latter.

Ubaldo and Santana are miles apart for me. K/9 career and 2013: 7.06/6.87 ; 8.27/9.56 GB% career and 2013: 39.8/46.2 ; 47.6/43.9 HR/FB career and 2013: 11.0/12.4 ; 8.7/9.0 (career = heavily Coors!) WAR career vs. IP: 19.6 in 1682.2 ; 23.6 in 1275.2 avg FBv was almost the same between them in 2013. Ubaldo is just a farrrr more talented pitcher. Stuff, profile, age, upside, downside, league/park transition concerns... almost everything comes up Ubaldo. Santana can suck eggs. He probably gets less money though, so there's that. I wouldn't even want to give Santana 40M.

There's a right price for everyone. The Jays definitely have a small market advantage with these compensation free agents. What teams do is essentially throw a $ value on their forfeited draft picks and subtract that from their highest offer. So the market value of Ubaldo and Santana is depressed by an amount that exceeds what the Blue Jays would give up in draft picks if they sign one of them, since the value of a second rounder is much less than a first. Certain teams might also overvalue their first round picks, in general, so the offers that Ubaldo and Santana have been receiving might actually be irrationally low. Maybe they can pounce on a Kyle Lohse type of situation (I thought he would get much more than 3/33 but the comp f***ed him over, and he signed super late). If we're being optimistic, Toronto has an opportunity here. They can potentially grab an undervalued asset while also using a small financial advantage, effectively putting two cherries on top of a kind of gross free agent sundae.

No, it's time to panic. Another Snider-esque developmental failure.

I could see Lawrie having a Carlos Gomez-y career arc. Unactualized talent suddenly becomes actual during some random year in his physical prime. Even if that never happens I think he'll be a consistently above average 3B. I hate to go all baseball right-wing, but I feel like anybody who doubts his defensive skills or wants to give up on his potential probably needs to watch a bit more baseball. Or, on the contrary, put your faith in Steamer. I guess the baseball left should still like Lawrie as well.

Yuni Betancourt - Blue Jays rumours... In the world of scrub collecting, AA is top dog. Mathis and Yuni are like shiny holographic charizards. Not sure there have been any more significant statistical laughing stocks in the last five years or so... Maybe Delmon. He's probably on the Jays radar too, all the time.

Tanaka > Garza >>>>>>>>>> Jimenez > Santana

Garza Garza Garza

It's too early to make definitive conclusions, but if they don't make some additions to the 2014 team then they'll have spent a LOT of f***ing capital to essentially half ass it. It will likely have all been a waste. Bringing a probable 86-87 win team into the AL East? How has that worked out for you in the past, Toronto? And they could've added bankable wins fairly cheaply with guys like Ellis, Johnson, Kazmir, etc. But now, the only half-way guaranteed wins out there seem to be costly f***s like Tanaka, Santana, and Jimenez. Trade route could still get it done efficiently though. They could conceivably get some bang for their buck with a guy like Aaron Sanchez, and spending is spending no matter if it comes in terms of dollars paid or players shipped out.

No. The time to "put up or shut up" would have been before McCann/Ruiz, Kazmir/Johnson, Ellis, etc. all signed. Clearly the Blue Jays chose to shut up.

The Vargas contract is actually pretty team friendly, despite the term. He could earn the entire thing before 2016 if he avoids injury.

He's got 26000 followers!.... too bad most of them probably DGAF about baseball.