TwistedLogic

For some reason, that isn't hard to believe.

Sounds about right

So after a January in which you failed to make a single useful post, we move to February, hoping that there may yet be a redeemable quality buried deep within the confines of your dark, hollow soul.

Exactly my thoughts when I read that post, lol.

This feels like the first sober post that BBBB has ever made in his life, and it is by far the scariest.

Wut.

If Shields is willing to sign for 70/4, there will be a s*** ton of other teams in on him and he'll pick somewhere that is a lot more desirable to play than Toronto. Speaking of which, whenever Shields signs I'm fairly certain that he'll receive the largest contract ever given to a free agent after February 1st of any given free agency period. The current record, if I'm not mistaken, is Ubaldo at 50/4 signed on February 19, 2014 by the Orioles.

I'm not sure if this was intentional but... *Ben Badler

Like I said a day or two ago, I don't see that as a possibility. You don't back out of a minor league signing because of a physical. If it turned out he was unable to pitch or something came up on his medicals, they could have just released him for nothing, or relegated him to AAA on the minor league portion of the deal, which would probably cost nothing. Anyway, we already know that it was Belisario's camp who backed away from the deal, at least based on Wilner's tweet. Apparently he didn't like the "terms", which sounds kinda bogus if he ends up in St. Pete for the same amount.

You never know. They were both minor league deals, so after it came out that the Jays were nearing a deal, maybe the Rays quickly called in at the last second with a similar offer and said "well you can make the same amount, but instead come play for us where you'll get to hang out in Florida, pay no income tax, and play in a pitcher-friendly park". It would be a dishonest reason to back out of a deal after committing to one, but I can see it happening. It's probably easy to pick the Rays over the Jays in a year where you're trying to build/rebuild value.

It's very obvious that it's been written with a conflict of interest, to the point where it looks like it had to have been written by either himself or his wife. I can't imagine anybody else cares about Carson Cistulli to that level. Anyone I've seen speculate on it seems to think it's been written by his wife, and if that's the case (even if it isn't) he's clearly conscious of it.

I do too, but I used to like him a lot more before I found out about his creepy wikipedia page. Probably a wash between Sullivan and Blengino as my favorite guys from FanGraphs. Probably lean a bit more towards Sullivan because of quantity and the homer angle; large amount of Jays-related pieces there are written by him.

It's hard to believe that this is an actual real life human being that exists.

Fat f***. Didn't even want him.

If you want a wikipedia page to invoke fear, pity and embarrassment in you all at once, while also making you cringe, check out Carson Cistulli's page. http://deadspin.com/5965567/does-carson-cistullis-admittance-to-the-bbwaa-finally-justify-his-preposterously-detailed-wikipedia-page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carson_Cistulli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Carson_Cistulli

d'Arnaud was probably the first wiki page I've ever edited, because a) it bothered me that a guy with as many minor league accomplishments as him didn't have a page, and he was called "Travis D' Arnaud" I probably also cleaned up a lot of the Bautista page and added a bunch of his accomplishments, like the Player of the Month awards. Other than that, I don't know if I've done any edits on anyone else. I'm not some freak that spends all day nitpicking flaws in wikipedia pages

As the guy who created the Travis d'Arnaud wikipedia page, this irritates me as well. Original page had his name like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_D%27_Arnaud Disgusting.

Agree 100% on this front. Might be a bit more than 1 or 2 unfortunately. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-thing-about-josh-donaldsons-defense/ http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/29/the-12th-greatest-gm-of-all-time-is-the-real-moneyball-innovator-not-billy-beane/

I think I saw an article a few days ago that was saying that Sandy was the real innovator of moneyball or some s***. I don't remember, I didn't read it.

True, but it's not as bad as we all thought it would be, and as bad as people think it still is. It's become somewhat justifiable. Looking at RA9-WAR for Dickey and considering the Dickey effect, there are worse trades you could have made if you were truly in a balls-to-the-wall kinda year. Now the philosophy of going balls to the wall to that extent can be called s*** in and of itself, but the trade in a vacuum hasn't turned out disastrous. Probably looks a lot worse when Syndergaard starts contributing, and it still f***ing burns that we gave up more for Dickey than we got for Halladay. Us Jays fans need to somewhat keep this in mind as well. Prepare yourself ahead of time for Donaldson's throwing errors. When he inevitably makes them, don't s*** on him and remember that he is a Lucky Charms-scented angel from the sky. I kinda hated that we had to throw in DeSclafani and Becerra in each of those trades. Just seemed unnecessary after all that we'd given up, to give away another couple of high upside guys.

Purcey is actually the year when the curse of the stolen pick began. And by that I don't necessarily mean that the Jays were in on the guys picked before them if they did slide, just that almost every year since then, a more valuable player was picked with the selection directly before the Jays. 2004 Pick 15: Diamondbacks select Stephen Drew Pick 16: Blue Jays select David Purcey 2005 Pick 5: Brewers select Ryan Braun Pick 6: Blue Jays Jays select Ricky Romero *Note: This is also the year where Upton (1), Gordon (2), Zimmerman (4) and Tulowitzki (7) went in the top 7 picks. McCutchen (11), Bruce (12), Ellsbury (23), Garza (25) and Rasmus (28) also went in the first round. 2006 *This was the year where Tyler Colvin was drafted one pick before the Jays took Travis Snider, but this is no longer a "steal" in my book, considering Snider's resent "resurgence" (if you can call it that) and Colvin suddenly becoming s***. Note that both of these things happened after the curse was broken, so I assume that the curse is retroactively repairing some of the damage that it caused as a result. #RomeroReturns2015 2007 Pick 15: Reds select Devin Mesoraco Pick 16: Blue Jays select Kevin Ahrens 2008 16 Overall: Brewers select Brett Lawrie 17 Overall: Blue Jays Jays select David Cooper 2009 19 Overall: Cardinals select Shelby Miller 20 Overall: Blue Jays select Chad Jenkins Perhaps the bigger story here is that the Jays under Ricciardi were f***ing atrocious at drafting. Personally, I prefer the curse narrative. The curse lost a step in its game in 2010 when the Jays threw away another pick on Deck McGuire, but the Athletics only got Michael "The Wrong" Choice with the prior selection. The next year (2011) the Jays lost Beede, and the following two years after that, the curse attempted a Pettittesque comeback, where Giolito was stolen before the Jays took DJ Davis, and Meadows was stolen before the Jays took Bickford. Anthopoulos, unlike his predecessor as it was ultimately discovered, would not go down without a fight. With Andrew Tinnish at his side, and an onslaught of gyro meat in his arsenal, he would battle toe-to-toe with the curse - a legendary duel not unlike that of Gandalf and the balrog. He'd scoff at the McGuire mishap by selecting Sanchez and Syndergaard with his next two selections. He'd make a mockery of the Beede blunder by selecting Norris in his stead. He'd drop a souvlaki-scented s*** on the Davis downer by taking Stroman five picks later. The curse would finally fold in the fight against the fat Greek once and for all when Anthopoulos would wrest it to its knees by turning the previous year's Bickford bloop into a first round, 9th overall selection of future world series MVP and first ballot hall of famer, Jeff Hoffman. To ensure that the curse was down for good, the Colorado Rockies would draft garbage clown Kyle Freeland with the prior pick, and the Jays would select the reincarnation of Jason Kendall's dead father-in-law Bubba Joe Kendall, in Max Pentecost. Disclaimer: If you actually read this whole post and are dissatisfied with its contents, only you are to blame. You should have known going into it that you were about to completely waste your time.

This is probably the greatest Jays related Twitter account ever made:

I don't know, never gone. I didn't even know people could sell tickets to these, I went on there to look for game tickets. If I wasn't so f***ing broke right now I'd probably buy one. Have always wanted to go to one of these, and this actually feels like a year where there's a reason to attend.

No, I don't think it ever has been before. Isn't it exclusively for season ticket holders? And people who go to this get to actually talk to AA and co. I know if I went, I'd ask AA about Jesse Crain, LOL.