KingKat

It's a good system. Those are all good prospects. Glasnow *> Polanco > Hanson > Heredia for me but it's true that you could argue Hanson because of greater positional need.

I'd take Glasnow over any of them.

I never even though about Neil Walker. He's a huge hometown favourite though so even though the trade seems fair on paper, I doubt they would want to open a hole in their infield while also moving one of their most popular players.

I get Walker and Taillon mixed up all the time. Even did it when I was making trade offers to Spanky.

Really? Those are two seriously awesome pitching prospects.

That's got to be a negotiation ploy.

You're not getting any of those pakages for Bautista. The closest you might get is Prado + Miley for Bautista + Cecil.

I remember Murphy talking about how he was going to unleash Rajai's power. Davis proceeded to have a 50 point drop in OBP with no extra power whatsoever.

Jays are going to end up with nothing and then do something crazy on the trade market. It's 2013 all over again.

Sure but that's totally a moot point when you're dealing with a hitter like EE who recognizes the pitches out of the zone and doesn't swing at them. We're talking about a guy who doesn't make outs on bad pitches, a guy who is basically guaranteed to get on base if you give him four balls and you are arguing that he would have more success with more strikes thrown. You give him more strikes, yes he would get more hits but he would definitely get on base less. That's just basic math.

Not all your relievers need to be ace relievers. You can have some just average guys as long as they don't get the high leverage innings. We'll get farther with an average bullpen and a good team than the other way around. We had a great bullpen in 2013 and it didn't mean anything cause the team sucked. Bullpen is arguably the only area of depth on the team. If the team had the means to sign whoever the f*** they want, they could keep the bullpen the same but the team doesn't have that luxury so some of the bullpen depth should be sacrificed for the greater good.

Lol. You're probably right but given everything that transpired last season there's comfort in the devil you know as opposed to whatever the hell else AA has in store.

Lol can you imagine if they made a Q.O. to Oliver?

Wow even Drew. Red Sox aren't messing around. Their middle infield depth is insane.

Ignoring the question of whether or not that's true, would that even be an advantage? If you're JPA and you swing through everything then yes getting more strikes would be to your advantage (not that you ever would because there's little risk to pitching out of the strikezone to you since you'll still swing.) but if you're EE and you have impeccable plate discipline, what's the problem exactly? He hits the strikes, he takes the balls. You can't ask for more. I mean the fact that's it's so hard to get a strike passed EE probably has a lot more to do with how many balls he gets than who is hitting behind him anyways.

Johnson had all the leverage here. Although he might not get the equivalent of the q.o. on the open market, he can probably get pretty close and pitch in a better environment to boot. There was just no incentive for him to accept anything less from the Jays and guessing from the quotes his agent was giving the media, he was trying to bait them into offering it. We'll see if this turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Right now I'm thinking the Jays should have just bitten the bullet and made the damn offer but we don't yet know what AA has in mind for the offseason and whether he'll ultimately make better or worse use of his ressources. The scary possibility is that he didn't have the payroll flexibility in the first place.

It's only money. It's only one year. Those are the selling points for me.

In a vacuum I don't love it. But even in a good market, I wouldn't be so confident that AA can find better value for the money and this is actually going to be a pretty bad market. It's a choice between the mediocre option we know and whatever other mediocre option AA might bring in instead. Even though I don't think Johnson will provide surplus value, I'd actually be kind of relieved if he was Q.O.ed because the alternative is probably bringing in someone equally underwhelming and trading prospect depth for the privilege.

Well presumably there is some negotiation going on right now and I would think a pre-deadline deal is still possible but if he isn't Q.O.ed or signed by the deadline it's sayonara. Once thing that's unclear to me is whether or not that's desirable. I'm leaning towards yes.

Silver lining - AA might actually trade some of his relievers to address positional needs instead of the other way around.

O.K. not much information to put in opening post for something like this but here's is some genuine, bonafied speculation from Heyman: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24171261/jays-unlikely-to-make-qualifying-offer-to-jj-josh-johnson "The Blue Jays are said unlikely to make the $14.1 million qualifying offer to right-hander Josh Johnson, though a final determination apparently hasn't been made.The need for starting pitching is such that even Johnson's off year (2-8, 6.20) wouldn't necessarily deter them. He's still only 29, and he's a two-time All-Star and former ERA champion with the Marlins.What's giving them pause is that he finished the season inactive -- though he's said to be healthy now. Johnson was shut down with a strained right forearm and missed the final few weeks of the season, but agent Matt Sosnick said Johnson will start throwing in 10 days. Sosnick also said, "he's 100 percent healthy." With no draft choice attached to him assuming no qualifying offer is made, he might be able to get close to the $14.1 million as a free agent."

Deadline: 5 pm Eastern, November 4 Amount of potential offer: $14.1 million Principals: Matt Sosnick, player agent; Alex Anthopoulos, Blue Jays general manager

Not sure I understand the negative reaction to this. If AA is looking at under the radar guys to add to the bullpen that can only be a good sign, a sign that some of the pitchers at the front end will be moved to address greater needs. And no he's not a replacement for Janssen but that's not the idea. The idea is that you move everyone up and this guy slots in at the back-end. And since this guy has been outrighted, it's my understanding that he will only cost money which means that AA might actually be acquiring relievers the normal way instead of throwing away his positional depth (just because it worked for Delabar doesn't mean it's the right approach as Esmil Rogers beautifully illustrated).

True but at least this time he has re-established a minimal amount of skill. Last year he was coming off two abysmal potentially career ending seasons.

It's going to be quite a scramble. Most people feel like relievers not matter how successful individually are the easiest places to replace so there's going to be quite a relievers shuffle as they get first dropped and then re-acquired through the waiver draft.