TwistedLogic

The thing that scares me is that he has had a tendency to really overpay for relievers in the past. I hope he's evolved past that point. For all the great he's done this offseason, he has yet to deal for a reliever, so we've yet to see if he's smartened up in that regard.

http://i.gyazo.com/2ccbccf20b4afef5c5f251f9ef423cd7.png With the first day of the Winter Meetings just beginning out San Diego, Jeff Blair opened his show on the Fan 590 this morning with a heavy dose of baseball. And, of course, the big story has to do with Paul Beeston and just how long he will continue in his job as president of the Toronto Blue Jays. Lots of interesting stuff to be heard in the segment — which is ongoing as I type — most of which came at the start of the show, before the Beeston fanboys started calling into lay their cringeworthy delusion onto us poor listeners. Some of Blair’s comments certainly echo some of the things I wrote yesterday, when the story first broke, though he’d take issue with the notion — originated by Buster Olney — that the development has anything to do with the Jays’ support of Tom Werner, and not Rob Manfred, as MLB owners searched for a new commissioner back in August. “I wouldn’t look back as Beeston’s support of a losing candidate as having anything to do with this,” he says. “I don’t think that has, frankly, anything to do with this at all.” What it might have to do with, Blair suggests, is Dan Duquette. “It would seem to be Dan Duquette who gets the biggest benefit of having this story leak,” he says, explaining that “he’s realized that, effectively, he’s not going anywhere” in the organization, with Peter Angelos and his sons above him, and Buck Showalter — who himself, it’s suggested, aspires to be the club’s G.M. — below. That isn’t to say that he suggests it’s fabricated though. In addition to the sources speaking to Olney and Ken Rosenthal, Blair says that “I know from talking to a couple people yesterday, Dan wants this job.” “I know that he, in fact, called the Blue Jays a couple of times when he was out of baseball, looking for work,” he adds. “It would not surprise me if Dan Duquette saw this as an opportunity to expedite the process. ” Whatever the case, clearly to the local media this is all coming out of left field, yet Blair zeroes in Scott Merkin’s piece at MLB.com that says discussions with Ken Williams are “believed to have happened weeks ago.” The process, he suggests, could have even been underway before the decision to back Tom Werner was even made. “The Jays have been talking to people since August about this,” Blair claims people have told him. “This is not new.” So… that’s interesting. And what we have now, we’re told, is that it seems Beeston is leaving less graceful than we believed — and very probably less gracefully than he believed. And more importantly, it suggests that the Jays are looking to bring in an established baseball person who, as Blair says, will be able to assume total control of the organization, and will be able to replace Anthopoulos. Duquette has won. He has won in the AL East. And “this year he did it on a payroll that was $30-million less than the Blue Jays payroll,” we’re told — the implication being that Rogers would clearly have interest as well. And Blair also says that he has it on very good authority that for 2015 the higher-ups are operating with “no playoffs, no return of Alex Anthopoulos,” as a premise. I’d hope they might not be quite so rigid about that — I’d hope that if they missed by a game and had a bunch of injuries that there might still be some small amount of leeway — but it’s pretty understandable. And that’s sort of the thing: whether Beeston is going to be there or not — whether he was always going to be there or not — the pressures on Anthopoulos to win in 2015 probably don’t change all that much. They’ve tried to make a talking point out of the idea of Alex being a lame duck in all this — and that’s maybe a little bit more true than we might have said it was a week ago, but… not really. I don’t see what it changes for him, or for the way the team will operate this winter, or what we should think about the team, or… anything. Maybe I’m missing something because I just can’t grasp how absolutely saintly some fans view Beeston to be — which… fair enough, I guess, because he sure had a great run in his first go with the club — but it wouldn’t make any sense at all for a new president to come in immediately start making massive changes. He or she will have all kinds of time to survey the territory, see what works, and then make the appropriate moves when it becomes clear whether or not Anthopoulos’s last kick at the can is going to work. No sense in blowing that chance by bashing about making sweeping changes right away. Plus, it’s probably truer than we’d all like to believe that much of the Jays’ off-season is already complete.

With how much Miller just signed for, I don't think this is a thing anymore.

I like this post.

Nobody should be interested in Navarro as a DH. But the Royals did consider Billy Butler their franchise player for several years, so there's that.

Welcome to the forum! I agree completely, Holland is a far better pitcher than Robertson is. The price it'd take to trade for him though does make me nervous.

http://i.gyazo.com/904b213a02285b96289da4cdb669677d.png I got hard for a few seconds. Then I saw that it was reported by Elliott. Nothing to see here.

Anyone else with the baseball bug that can't go to sleep, here's a link to a live-stream for the MLB Network. I think I'm an addict. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

It usually is. Alex says he hates the Winter Meetings and prefers to deal before and after in a controlled and less chaotic atmosphere. That said, I have a gut-feeling that the Jays are going to get at least something done this year. Maybe a Navarro trade, or a free agent reliever or something like that. For what it's worth, AA implied that he isn't far along on anything when he said earlier today that they don't have offers out to anyone.

http://i.gyazo.com/a168da675af6d25e881a8ded07479251.png

Looks like the first significant chip of the weekend has fallen: Let the chaos commence.

I know that he was. I was laughing at the guy he quoted. That guy (atomic) also thinks Ken Rosenthal has an agenda against the Orioles. http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/145519-Blue-Jays-interested-in-Duquette?p=3701067#post3701067 http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/145519-Blue-Jays-interested-in-Duquette?p=3701074#post3701074

http://i.gyazo.com/be2ec2465f171c54b1a24b44be578201.png Classic OriolesHangout http://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gif

Exactly this. I'm not particularly interested in Duquette over anyone else, I just want Beeston gone and if Duquette were the one to replace him, the salt would taste so good.

Click for full story: http://i.gyazo.com/2dd8ae47b567a5b0e884d428d2d72ae6.png

I know, but it would have been more AA for him to have said something like "I haven't heard anything about it, but as far as I know, I'm still reporting to Paul on baseball matters". Instead, saying that it wouldn't impact their ability to add players just makes it sound like something is going on. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Let me be optimistic, lol.

Does this count as "Around Baseball"? http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Robert-DeNiro-Laughing-Awards-Ceremony.gif

If there was no truth to the rumors, this seems like something that AA would immediately shoot down as nonsense. Him "refusing to comment" and mentioning that the situation wouldn't impact their ability to add players makes it seem very much like there is a "situation" to begin with.

Yeah I was gonna post this until I saw it was written by Elliott, who's a bit of a decaying moron at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if Beeston is with the club in March, but I'd also take anything Elliott writes with a grain of salt.

http://i.gyazo.com/b15005c864fc4dfb1d706a647b94711e.png

Audio link to Duquette's interview regarding the whole situation: http://i.gyazo.com/ea220684cd6b19226c9ec33d25510878.png

Don't know why but I read this in a 1930s transatlantic/Oppenheimer-like accent, with the s***** recording audio in the background and everything.

Just gonna leave this here...