John_Havok

Not to mention Nver knowing when Lind's back was going to keep him out of the lineup for 2 weeks, then play 5 games, then gone for 2 weeks, then play for 5, then gone for a month etc

I don't hink anyone has said they are "fine" with the LF and 2b positions as they are, more so they realize that aside from further gutting of the farm, there not a lot of options out there via trade, and free agency is never a guarantee you get who you target, and you can't just target a guy and just blindly throw money at them until they sign. Lowrie would likely be a better option at 2b than anyone on house, but where's the guarantee that he even want to to play here? Sure trading for Upton for LF would be wonderful, but are you gonna give up 2 top end prospects for 1 year of the guy when he's all but guaranteed yo go to FA for 2016? It's highly unlikely you are able to put star calibre talent at every spot on the diamond. You also didn't mention Devon Travis as part of the 2b puzzle.

I think Hochever would be a savvy addition. Sure he's coming off TJ, but in a pen role he was dominant in 2013. Pretty insane strand rates but still would likely be very good.

I don't imagine too many are familiar with the Alpha Flight series.

Name your targets for cheap that are available right now that can actually reliably strike out batters when you need it. And no, I'm not trying to be obtuse or cheeky, I'm just looking at the list of FA relievers and aside from the very top end, not seeing a lot.

I agree he could be, but the rest of pen is really short on strikeout potential don't ya think?

The top end is nice, but there's a lot of chaffe to get rid of too, like Tolleson, Valencia, Hague, Thole etc. Right now, it appears a Dirks/Mayberry platoon is the LF plan with Pillar as the odd man out an injury. It would be my guess that they want Travis to be the 2B but we'll likely see Izturis start the year there with Goins on the bench and Travis in AAA, OR Travis starting with Izturis on the bench and Goins in AAA. Smoak DHing with Navarro as the backup catcher. My guess is that they Jays would want the following to happen: C - Martin 1b - Edwin 2b - Travis SS - Reyes 3b - Donaldson LF - Dirks/Mayberry Jr CF - Pompey RF - Bautista DH - Smoak Bench: Navarro Mayberry Jr/Dirks Izturis Pillar/Goins Just a guess on the bench there as I don't know if they would carry a 5th outfielder or another IF backup. With Pillar you'd have your CF back and pinch runner, Izturis can back up any IF position as can Goins defensively though I'd really hate to see Izzy at SS for any length of time... Tolleson is basically DFA fodder at this point IMO. Could also just use Pillar as the other half of the platoon in LF and just use Mayberry as a power-off-the-bench option.

No ... they really wouldn't. Sure some teams prospects are better than other teams prospects, but that's why teams have their own people to evaluate them prior to a trade. If 2 years from now, the Marlins were in the midst of trade talks with Stanton to the Jays ( just using as an example) and the Jays had 3 top 50 prospects that they were willing to give up (again, pure hypothetical) and the Marlins evaluators loved them more than any other package of prospects being offered to them, do you really think they would think to themselves "gee last time we traded with these guys the prospects just didn't work out, so maybe we should re-think this and take a different package of prospects that our own evaluators don't think are as good?" Just... no.

Yes, but the back end of the pen is still questionable. Who are they going to use as their main guys? Cecil and Loup are really the only consistent relievers from last year. Delabar was all over the map, Jenkins and Redmond are long men, Rasmussen was nothing special, who knows what Drabek would do... after that, your names are Hynes, Hendriks, Burns, Estrada, Schultz, Tepera and Sanchez, though having him out of the pen again would probably be a waste. There's really no standout strikeout guys in that list and that's what this pen is in dire need of.

Main needs fore the club now... Front of the rotation SP, LF, and pen help. I think between Izturis, Travis and Goins, the Jays really aren't focusing on 2b right now.

Never would any GM trade an MVP calibre talent because of Twitter. /thread

No GM in the world would stop doing business with a team just because they traded once and the prospects didn't pan out. It's not like their team didn't get to see the prospects beforehand and basically choose the ones they wanted, and they also usually have them for their final minor league development years. if they did t think the prospects were good enough, they wouldn't have agreed to the trade.

I only saw a few minutes of the game... Was it a good effort but just came up short or just Dallas clearly being the better Team?

Looking for some left handed-ness in the starting lineup now, right now there's Reyes, Navarro, Pompey and Navarro likely to be traded.

Popular opinion amongst A's fan is pretty much outrage that one of Pompey, Norris or Sanchez was not in the deal with Lawrie.

And there was literally no heads up on this until it happened.... No rumours about Donaldson being in play... Nothing about LAwrie being shopped....

Just saw this scrolling along the ticker on SN west.... Kinda hard to wrap your head around but getting Donaldson is huge. The package we gave up.... I'm pretty okay with it.

Blow a few saves, inflate ERA over small sample = you play for the Rays next year for peanuts while likely providing outstanding value.

Boras always slow plays his big free agents.

Major sin by a writer.... Using words like "vicissitudes" in an article. It's like day 1 in Journalism school, you don't use words that 90% of your target audience don't know the meaning of. all it proves is how arrogant the writer is.

This just in, Kevin Barker on Tim and Sid, when speaking about the chances of Xander Bogaerts being traded says he's a good young, player, lots up upside at short stop, but he's a lot like Ryan Goins in then uncertainty of the bat. Yip, you heard it from Barker. Bogaerts is comparable to Ryan Goins. How is this guy employed?

Hi Kevin Durant. reasons why this will happen? 1. He grew up liking the Raptors. 2. Masai Ujiri 3. Want to go down in history? Be the centrepiece of the first Canadian NBA team to win a championship. Play to that ego. 4-10. MASAI f***ING UJIRI

And good god the west is stacked. 8th place team is 10-6 and every top 8 team is on a winning streak

Loving watching this team right now though. Seems that no matter what's going on in the game, they just shrug it off and know they have control over the situation. In seasons past, you could see it on the court that when something went wrong, they were beat. Now, no big deal, we got this.

I'm as on board with the Raps as anyone, but before I go over the deep end, I really want to see how they play against Dallas. Yes they beat Memphis, but their whole team was sick and had no depth that night, so while they still won a game thye should have one, I don't quite have the Raptors at the top of the heap yet. Play a good game against Dallas, Portalnd, Houston, Golden State.... and I'll be fully drinking the Kool-Aid