Dick_Pole

If that's the case then they better be prepared to move out of North America. You're either freezing and digging out of snow, sweating and thirsty or running from a hurricane on this continent. Honestly Toronto has some of the best weather North America has to offer when you consider relatively normal temperatures and no worries of natural disasters.

The article does have a point though. If you f*** up part of your job in the past (the Miami and NYM trades) but manage to stick around long enough and do something to make up for it more recently (develop and not trade the other guys and actually have 4 decent rotation prospects for 2015-16) then don't you deserve another shot to continue on the new path? Let's just say this...AA is VERY lucky with the progression of Stroman and Norris this year...and let's just hope them and the other guys don't turn out how JPR's pitchers turned out.

Nice, I like how you put his win-loss record in first, so all the advanced stat nerds will take a dump right then and there in their office chair.

In 2022 we will still be talking about Drabek, reaching at straws that he'll one day return to his 2018 form, the one year he was a plausible #3 starter. He'll have a career just like McGowan. Hell, if we're lucky we'll still be talking about McGowan by then and his 30 IP of ok relief pitching and 2 DL stints a year

Assuming we are bound by the same amount of playoff teams and rounds I would have the 2 divisions winners get a "bye" then the final three teams have a round robin tournament with the top two teams facing the division winners. In the fairly likely event all three teams go 1-1 the tiebreaker goes to the first and second WC so WC #3 is really at an incentive to get to #2 during the season. Or make it two games each so all three teams going 2-2 is a little less likely. But the simpler format would be just to go back to 2 WC spots, but I doubt baseball is willing to revert back to less playoff spots.

Although I love the idea of the Expos, I don't know how much you think he can do. The will for a baseball team has to come from the city and at least one rich inhabitant to take care of the glaring issues...like a decent ballpark for instance. The good thing about that or a western Canadian team is the nonsense about the Jays being "Canada's team" would go away and the half-hearted fans like you who cheer for the team by default because they happen to share the border would cheer for their own team instead. I don't mean to be derogatory by that comment either. I liked the Expos growing up too, but if the Jays were the ones that were lost and only the Expos remained, I'd cheer for them, but the Toronto team would be the one with my true loyalty. The Expos would never be "Canada's team" in my eyes. So why should the Jays be that for Habs and Canucks fans? Same idea with the Raptors.

How would a pitch clock work with runners on base? Reset if they throw to first? I agree with the pitchers having to face a minimum of three batters and the one time out per AB. I disagree on banning the DH and the current PED penalties are just fine. I think this new commish will see an expansion sooner rather than later. It's been 17 seasons. Team values have gone up, TV deals up, salaries up...just in general a lot more money has been given to the MLB. I know there are a couple of teams not thriving in their current location, but the idea of 32 teams appeal to me as I love the symmetry the powers of 2 afford us. It just makes division splitting so easy (preferably 2 divisions of 8 teams in each league).

http://www.values.com/inspirational-stories-tv-spots/99-The-Greatest

Enough with your lover's quarrel. You two remind me of one of those movies where the prisoner meets his bitch on the outside after they are both released, and the bitch is no longer such a pussy as he was while in jail.

Cole Hamels?

There is not going to be an ace added to this team. The only way it kind of makes sense is if you trade two current starters, say Dickey and Happ or Hutchison and somehow turn that into an ace. The Jays have good depth and if you exclude MB, you're paying something like $20M combined for Dickey, Stroman, Happ and Hutchison or Sanchez. That's pretty good. I am of the opinion that Happ will be the incumbent for the #4 spot and he has earned that right so it is his to lose. The Jays need to focus whatever resources they have on padding their razor-thin, injury-prone but elite-when-healthy lineup. If you have a stacked lineup you can get away without having an ace. It worked just fine in 1993.

Nonsense. One session of a higher period of work doesn't destroy an arm (maybe it does for blisters like Al Leiter)...and even if it did, then maybe he just wasn't cut out to be an MLB pitcher and it's best this happens now then in the middle of next year where the Jays are scrambling to find a replacement.

I had no issue with trading Olerud. Never a bad idea to trade from the strength, and the Jays were on a tail end of a 20 year run of always producing all-star 1B thus making the free agent-to-be 1B redundant and the fan base was very well versed in this idea. So trading Olerud made a lot of sense from a team strength perspective and PR perspective. What was irritating was how little they got in return for him and that those idiots actually paid a good chunk of his salary on top of that. Trade Olerud for a real second basemen, put Fernandez at third and Sprague on the bench and you have one of the best lineups around

To be fair to Ash, he also made one of the best trades in the team's history...Jose Cruz for two mediocre relievers. Cruz was a very good player over the years but at the time he was considered a top blue chip prospect. Regarding Clemens, there was that alleged handshake deal with Beeston that after 2 years Roger could request a trade and I think the Yankees were on that very short list. Ash's hands were tied there and didn't get a bad haul back considering the circumstances. It was trading Wells for Sirotka that was so embarrassingly bad. Regarding Olerud, it was everyone's favorite manager Gaston that allegedly forced his hand there. It was a terrible trade and he should have gotten a lot more than Person, but he probably doesn't trade Olerud in a normal circumstance where he isn't such a pushover.

I think by around March the FA cupboards were getting pretty thin and people here were resigned to the fact that AA probably didn't have much maneuverability with respect to payroll and were hoping for at least one upgrade, but doubting two. It was split pretty evenly between SP and a MIF. The SP side rationalized that 162 games of Goins, Izturis or Kawasaki were tolerable but the team really needed an innings eater. My argument was that we were looking at least at 200 games due to injury. Of those three (with Tolleson replacing Izturis) and with 47 games left and two positions to fill (maybe Lawrie gets in 10 games at the end of the season if they are still in the hunt), those three guys plus Izturis are going to add up to over 250 games and that assumes Reyes lasts all season. And that doesn't count Francisco and his 85. Add in his pretty useless last 40 or so games and the Jays approach 300 games of scrubbish MIF. Of course the Jays got neither SP nor MIF so the argument was pointless anyways. But I would hope that now fans and the front office view a middle infielder as the #1 priority now and headed to the offseason by a long shot. The Jays lack a true ace which is very hard and costly to acquire, but as far as the five guys in there right now, you can't point to one and say "we need him out of the rotation now". If Happ is the #5 guy, he easily deserves an MLB roster spot based on 2014 performance over the guys who are going to play 2B/SS/3B for the rest of the year except Reyes.

Everybody who disagreed with myself (and others) when I said the Jays needed Drew or some equivalent infielder instead of a pitcher in the spring...I hope it has finally settled in that the combo of Lawrie and Reyes are not reliable for anywhere close to a combined 300 games each year.

If you're caught with any s*** there it's a long prison sentence. Cuba is the safest place for any tourist to go. Dictatorships are awesome....too bad it's a commie one.

f*** Chris Davis, the entire 25-man roster of the Orioles, immediate 50 game suspension Screw it...entire 40-man roster....can't leave anything to chance.

Tony Rasmus reminds me of Doug Ford. Someone being a mouthpiece and making excuses for/defending a relative in the spotlight. Every man must speak for himself.

Ugh. Those two are at odds with roster moves too many times. If you hire a manager, leave him some autonomy over the 25-man roster. If he thinks he can work around the infield until Lawrie is at full power then let him do it. It's not so much that they are on the same page, but it looks like they draw straws or play rock paper scissors or something. AA shoves Rogers/Santos down Gibbons' throat, he balks at it and wins so those two get the old boot. This time AA wins and they bring up Lawrie even after Gibbons talks to the media, espousing the opposite approach. It just looks like a poorly or at least inefficiently run organization, but this is not news to anyone really.

If only Jesse Litsch was still with the team...I'd love to see you put together a gingystache

As long as it's not to the AL East, I couldn't care less. The east is in perfect balance right now...pure zen...we don't need the BoSox and some other team f***ing that s*** up.

That's probably his biggest issue. An interesting theory behind that is the timing of expansion. After the 60's expansion from 16 to 24 teams, from 1969 to 1992 only two teams were added while the pool of talented players expanded into Latin America. So a relative lack of standout players from the 80's was due to the talent pool catching up to the amount of MLB roster spaces available making it harder for players to stand out. Then in 6 seasons the number of teams expanded to 30. So in the 90's and early 2000's there were 100 extra roster spots that wouldn't go to players before 1992. So a bunch of very good players got to pad their stats against the bottom 100 and become great players. Now that there hasn't been any expansion for 16 seasons, and none in the near term plans, I wonder if we're reverting back to a time where it becomes harder for players to stand out above their peers. There's been a lot of factors to consider that makes such an assumption difficult, but I would it just plain awesome if someone did a study that proves that s***** pitching from expanded 1998 rosters had a bigger impact on home run totals than steroids.

Might have had an impact, however Jack Morris and Eddie Murray were also disliked and fared much better than Lofton.

While I'm in ranting mode: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wellsda01.shtml http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/morrija02.shtml Wells: 3439 IP 239 wins 108 ERA+ 58.1 WAR from fangraphs (to keep GD happy) Morris: 3824 IP 254 wins 105 ERA+ 52.5 WAR Not only that, but Wells has the more deserved hype as a big game pitcher with the playoff stats to back it up and a Yankee hero. Same surly attitude as Morris. But Wells drops off first ballot and Morris hung around until the end. The only thing I can explain it is old school dinosaur bias against more recent players. That and stereotyping Raines = Lofton = Coleman = Pierre = not Hall worthy.