John_Havok

Agree, I just temper my expectations of Drabek since the quality of AAA free swingers compared to the bigs is pretty large when it comes to being selective. It's a good sign though for sure

That's a decent feather in your cap and for the blog right off the hop. Very good work!

Drabek must be out of options by now too I would think. Drabek 4 and McGowan 5 would be pretty interesting in a morbid kind of way. Adding another starter could keep McGowan in the pen and Drabek as the 5.

Assuming they all deserve it. Remember that OF of Marisnick, Crouse and Knecht that was looking good a few years ago, now two of which are repeating levels and are pretty much in bust category with the other still lacking a legit hit tool for the Marlins. Full season ball has a way of weeding guys out pretty quick.

Welcome to the board. 1. Just... No. JPA cannot be allowed to try an rebuild value in a year that AA is trying to contend. It defies all logic. He should ether be traded for whatever they can get, or non-tendered. And to your thoughts about a defensive specialist being the solution, but then saying to bring up Jimenez after JPA is gone? Jimenez is exactly that. A light hitting defensive specialist, so you're somewhat contradicting yourself. Again, in a year that AA clearly means to contend, you need a proven catcher that the pitching staff can have confidence in, is a decent defender and at the very least can get on base at a respectable rate. 2. If the tumour thing is really the culprit of his poor play last year, then maybe he won't be a problem. But you'd only trade him if the jays are out of contention. If they're right in the middle of it and melky is hitting well, trading him probably wouldn't make sense. 3. See #2, minus the tumour angle. Rasmus could also very easily play LF with Gose playing CF if Melky is DHing more. This would assume that Lind would be traded at some point. And with a LHB heavy outfield, you would definitely want a RH hitting 4th OF that can handle CF every once in a while. 4. Contending years are no time for experiments to see if young players can handle a position. Even in limited sample we can see that Goins can handle 2b defensively pretty easily, but there's big time questions with the bat. Izturis is a good bet for a bounceback season and really, unless the Jays find a 2b via trade or free agency, the job should be his, with Goins either playing everyday at Buffalo, or as a bench guy. 5. Gose yes, Sierra... He's a meathead with no baseball IQ. Bench guy at best, and maybe he can be that RHB 4th of, but again, In a contending year, I'd rather see someone a bit more proven with a track record of hitting LHP very well. Losing Sierra to waivers would not be a a loss that matters. 6a. If the Jays are out of it and no chance of competing this year or next... Yeah time to think about it and kick start a full rebuild. 6b. Agree. AA paid too steep a price for a guy who could barely hold his own in the NL as a 5th starter, so he should be a mop up guy. Too bad he's making too much money to provide any value in that role. Good riddance. Let Jenkins provide mop up duty for league minimum. 7. No way the rotation, as it stands is enough to put this team in the playoffs unless everything goes 100% right. Dickey and Morrow would both need to perform like 1s or 2s and not get hurt, no erosion of skills from Buerhle, with 2 of Stroman/Hutchison/McGowan/Redmond(vomit)/Nolin throwing full time innings but again not getting hurt since the other guys would have to be in Buffalo waiting to jump into a spot if anyone got hurt. With MCGowan out of options, and big time questions if he can even handle a starters workload without his arm falling off mid-pitch, you'd have to plan on having someone taking his spot at some point. It's practically essential that AA lands another SP via trade or free agency to have any chance of competing, even if everything goes right, let alone when someone gets hurt. Chances are if he lands someone via trade, one of those other arms will be going the other way.

There's a lot of potential there, but no real blue chippers and nobody on that list that will play above Low A with the exception of Norris. There's a lot of depth in the low minors, but that's not really translatable to a high ranking system without top end talent

I guess they don't want to give up their first rounder for Drew.

With further gutting, bottom 7 for sure. If he doesn't trade Sanchez or Stroman, maybe 15-18.

I see what you're saying but that's mainly segregation based on whether or not you agree or disagree with someone. I would prefer a better ignore feature where I don't see a giant message letting me know. Or even a sticky thread inviting newbies to lurk a while first before posting to get a feel for the board and it's personalities so they know how to start off without being perceived as nothing more than a cheerleader

Yeah I only had three teams on my dartboard for that toss, Rangers, Red Sox and Yankees, and I came up rangers. My darts aren't proving very prophetic so far

"Kyle Boddy is the owner of Driveline Baseball and Driveline Biomechanics Research, both in Seattle, Washington. At his facility, he's melded statistical analysis, strength & conditioning, prehab/rehab, and advanced biomechanical analysis concepts to develop improved efficiency, durability, and fastball velocity of baseball pitchers. He is the author of The Dynamic Pitcher, a comprehensive book and video set dedicated to developing elite youth baseball pitchers." And if the Jays had any brains, they'd be hiring guys like this to be a part if the organization. Biomechanics is still a largely unexplored area of baseball scouting and development.

The problem is all those threads that were full of gold turn into piles of s*** when a guy got banned since all his posts disappear. By far the most epic thread was that guy who said goodbye to himself because he forgot to log out of one of his accounts and posted in his own goodbye thread

I made that mistake once in a drunken stupor, was going for tuna and ended up with Friskies. I was one very confused the next morning, not to mention the cat.

No, I had a beer with him a few years ago in Saskatoon but not a peep since.

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

This reminds of that Simpsons softball episode. This next clip is probably apt illustration of Cano skill vs Ang, Ang being played by Homer Simpson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-PgpbcLsiU

I believe you mean synopsis, my Dominican friend.

It's really quite interesting when you think of the star power that is in the Eastern Conference, Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin, Stamkos, Tavares, 7 of the top 10 scorers in the league are in the East.

He's a subpar defender and an average bat, with less years of control and between him and Salas, cost more money. Bourjos is younger, an elite defender in CF and probably puts up 3-4 WAR without even having anything better than an average year with the bat., with a better than average year with the bat, he's in the 4-5 range. I just think they could have found a 2 WAR 3B and a decent pen arm for less than a 3-4 WAR CF, but a big part of this is probably the Angels completely undervaluing Bourjos more than anything.

Would now be a good time to mention that there's not a single team in the Eastern Conference that would be in a playoff spot if they were in the West? I know it's early enough that it won't keep up all year but at the 25% mark of the season, I think it's still pretty noteworthy.

Love this deal for STL, further cementing their status as a well run org. Thet get younger, better, more inexpensive and get a prospect to boot. And the Angels make yet another puzzling move that really doesn't help their team and adds money.

I get what your point is here, but wouldn't you rather have AA "took a chance" with moves that made a bit more sense and not severely cripple the farm system in trading for old players with large overvalued contracts? Spending money doesn't mean much if you spend it poorly while simultaneously setting the long term health of the franchise back.

In Soviet Russia, bikes ride you! - Yakov Smirnoff

No s***. Shouldn't have made it past the second post

Trade is Fielder + 30 million to the Rangers for Kinsler. After adjusting for the money changing hands, the Rangers get Fielder for 7 years/138 million and Detroit ends up with Kinsler for 4 years/62 million and the 30 million that they sent to the Rangers