TwistedLogic

Now what about 60 total active people?

I think I'll start spending a bit more time here again. You guys think there's at least 30 active posters here? I've got an idea.

How does one go about writing for the blog?

Nice blog. Who do you guys have writing for you? Members off this forum?

I don't think you'll find a single analyst in baseball that thinks that that rotation has a realistic ceiling of top 5 in the majors. Absolutely no way in hell. Is it a possibility? Of course it is, because everything is possible in baseball, but every single member of that rotation would have to pitch incredibly far above his own standards. Dickey and Buehrle are becoming ancient, Garza and Morrow are injury prone and Happ and Rogers profile as spot-starters. If the projected 2013 rotation of Dickey/Morrow/Johnson/Buehrle/Romero resulted in the season that we just saw pass, you are reaching incredibly, increadibly far in assuming that simply switching out Johnson for Garza would somehow turn this abomination into a serviceable major league rotation. And no, it is not "definite" at all that Ruiz sees $10M a year as a 2 win catcher with a PED background. Russell Martin just posted a 4 win season and was an established catcher last season and signed for only 17M over 2 years. Again, is it possible that Ruiz gets 10M a year? Yes, because there are idiotic GMs out there and like I said, anything is possible. But it is not likely. Thank you, sir.

That isn't anywhere near good enough. That has incredible potential to be a bottom 5 rotation in the majors. And I don't think there's any chance Ruiz sees 10M a year.

A team the quality of our Toronto Blue Trash should be getting perennial top 5 picks and we barely ever even pick within the top 10.

We are only 4.5 f***ing games out of the 4th pick. That's a 10-pick difference. This stupid ass team can't even lose right.

For the first time ever, I'm getting sick of this team.

I stopped following the Jays for the past few months, finally got fed up with it. I see that they still can't do a single f***ing thing right, and just like I told my friends two months ago, as soon as they're mathematically eliminated from contention, they're going to start winning the most useless f***ing games just so that they can make sure they get back to the middle of the pack and eliminate their chances of a good draft pick. That's why this team hasn't made the f***ing playoffs in so many years, because not only do they NEVER play good enough to make it at the end of the season, they NEVER play bad enough to get some good draft picks. It's so f***ing annoying.

This is f***ing awesome. If the manager challenges a play and his appeal is successful, it won't count on his review total for the day (meaning it won't be counted as one of his three challenge opportunities). I personally don't mind the limits on challenges because you might have a douchebag manager that would otherwise challenge every play whether right or wrong. If the manager is appealing for the right call, he'll never run out of challenges. Having two after the sixth inning gives them an extra challenge in higher leverage situations.

So if he's already rich, you wouldn't mind seeing him get richer, but if he's poor, you wish he never comes across that kind of money again? I don't really get that sentiment. I don't feel the way with Bickford that I did with Beede at all. I hated Beede for the way he handled his negotiations and he was just an all around douchebag. I didn't want to see him succeed. I have nothing against Bickford. He has 1st overall pick kind of potential and if he ends up drafted higher than the Jays picked him, hats off to him.

I could totally believe that they tried to punt the Hollon pick, I was awestruck at how low of a bonus he got. Him deciding to sign though made it possible to sign the second guy between Brentz and Tellez so I'm happy it went down the way it did. It's crazy that there are two guys from our 2011 draft class that are projected as possible top 10 picks in 2013, in Beede and Nola.

So you think last year's draft was a failure? Really? BA Rank 10: Stroman BA Rank 20: Davis BA Rank 24: Smoral BA Rank 36: Alford BA Rank 45: Gonzales BA Rank 86: DeJong BA Rank 101: Nay Some of you guys are just absolutely f***ing adorable, it's insane.

And yet there's a day left till the signing deadline. I don't care if it's a real possibility, when it becomes real then you guys can bitch about it. -cough- Tellez isn't a second round talent? http://i.imgur.com/Ya6K7Jl.gif

If it's Buck or Devlin, I take Devlin every time.

Unfortunately we probably won't know the full story, but my assumption is that when you overdraft a guy (who, despite his improved stuff, only soared after one excellent start) and then offer him 3 million dollars, you're trying to get him signed. Even if they knew that he wouldn't sign, the mere chance that he would gave credence to their strategy. They could have went with the idea that Bickford-or-2014-Draft was a better option overall than Shipley or Crawford or McGuire. There really isn't anything we can say to that because four teams after the Jays followed suit in passing Shipley. I see it as a very well managed pick, and actually see it as opposite of the Beede pick (despite us getting a good guy like Stroman for it) because 2011 was seen as an elite draft class and 2012 was seen to be significantly weaker.

I'm tired of debating with people who have absolutely 0 inclination to do any of their own research. AA had the best pitcher and baseball and a bunch of teams desperate to acquire him, except that his best pitcher in baseball had a FULL NO TRADE CLAUSE and told the Jays that he wanted to go to the Phillies. The Jays only choice was to trade him to the Phillies or have him walk the next year and sign with the Phillies anyways, getting nothing but a compensation pick. So yes, AA had NO leverage. That isn't what I've done. I take away credit for the Dickey and Napoli trades despite knowing the reasoning behind them (Napoli more so than Dickey, Dickey trade was brutal), but I also give credit where credit is due. Rasmus was a great trade that is working out. Escobar was an excellent trade where we gave up a journeyman and a middle-of-the-road prospect for a guy who immediately provided a 4+ win season. Wells was an excellent trade. When I mention the bad luck, I'm not talking about the Dickey and Johnson trades, because like I said, Dickey was a brutal trade for me ever since we made it, and Johnson was a guy who came with Reyes at a price that made way too much sense. When I mention bad luck, I'm looking at guys like Santos and Lawrie, even though I know that both guys can still end up very valuable for us in the near future.

Again, for anyone who thinks over-drafting a guy and offering him slot value is punting a pick... actually nevermind. Let people think what they want, who really cares. Jays fans are desperate to be miserable about something so if it's not this, it'll be something else.

Not of course it's not a valid argument, and it means nothing in a realistic scope of things, since the Jays are, in fact, in the AL East. But when someone proposes the idiotically stupid idea that you can't do much worse than AA, then it is a very legitimate point. You very much could do far worse than AA and it's really ridiculous to even mention that. This.

That's fair but if the Jays took a stance where they saw Bickford as a very high ceiling kind of player that had a decent shot at signing, while having the safety net of a protected pick in a potentially better draft next year in case he doesn't, it was a very logical draft choice. People are so blinded by their hate of this draft that they're forgetting that we are one year removed from getting Stroman, Smoral and Alford in the same draft. Alford was a guy that absolutely nobody thought the Jays had a chance of signing, and they did. Bickford was a guy that a lot of people thought the Jays had a chance of signing, and they didn't. It's how it goes. The sentiment that someone on this board could have looked at a BA list and conducted a better draft is ridiculous. We have no knowledge of how next year's draft will look and how it will play out. The use of a hypothetical player makes no sense because we don't know what kind of guy the Jays are going to be looking at. And in the case that you do use a hypothetical player, you can't compare him to Bickford, you compare him to Shipley or whoever else you wanted at that pick. Bickford is a guy that we did draft and a guy that we did attempt to sign. We didn't punt Bickford. Happens. To the first point, again, we are not trading Bickford for his 2014 equivalent, I really don't understand where this narrative is coming from... we offered Bickford slot! He wants 4.2M, what the hell are the Jays supposed to do here? How can anyone say the Jays are punting a guy who they offered slot dollars at a pick considerably higher than where he projected to go? Remove Bickford from the discussion because it's his choice not to sign. If you're talking about what the Jays gave up versus what they might get, the Jays passed on a college arm in Shipley for a potentially very high ceiling high school arm in 2014. It's not Bickford (high ceiling arm) vs some similar high ceiling guy in 2014, it's college arm Shipley vs Bickford OR the 2014 guy. Which can result in a pretty big upgrade in both cases. As for your point about Hollon, I can totally agree with you there, that it would have made sense to punt him if they wanted a better pick next year. It was also tremendous to get him 700K below slot, secure his own signing, and be able to legitimately go after another high ceiling guy that they took after the first 10 rounds. So they didn't really mess that up at all.

And yet there's a day left till the signing deadline. I don't care if it's a real possibility, when it becomes real then you guys can bitch about it. No it was not a desperate comment, it's exactly what far too many people on this board think they can do. And for what it's worth, AA's last place AL East team would be third/fourth in the NL West, two games back of the division title, after having faced the toughest schedule in baseball. So no, it would be very f***ing easy to do far worse than AA and it's just ******** blind hate coming from armchair GMs that things like that are even being said.

Except that...um.... it IS. I'm starting to get tired of typing this (already three times in the last thirty minutes) so I'm going to post this one last time and then I don't give a s*** if you guys comprehend it or not. If the Jays fail to sign Bickford in 2013, their 2014 pick will STILL BE PROTECTED. STILL BE PROTECTED. STILL BE PROTECTED. "Teams get an extra year of protection for compensation picks for failure to sign draftees from the first three rounds. For example, the Blue Jays get the 22nd pick in 2012 after not signing No. 21 overall choice Tyler Beede in 2011. If Toronto can't come to terms with the compensation selection, it would get another one in 2013." Quote taken from HERE: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/2011/11/more-draft-details-from-the-cba/

The bolded part is completely irrelevant because NOT every move was dedicated to the farm. He shed Wells salary, he acquired Morrow for a reliever, he acquired Lawrie for a middle-of-the-road starter, he got Escobar for nothing, he traded more relievers for Rasmus, turned Thames into Delabar, the list goes on and on and on. You say all of the guys moves can be dedicated to the farm, but that is completely untrue because almost none of AA's moves were dedicated to the farm. His farm system soared based completely on his drafts and IFA signings. The one single move that bolstered the farm was Halladay, and he somehow managed to get three top prospects in trade where he had absolutely no leverage. You say that you can't say he's done a good job because of the team not playing well, but why the hell not? Of course he's done a good job. A General Manager only has control of putting together the roster, it isn't up to him if the players under-perform like f***. The Wells, Morrow, Rasmus, Escobar, Santos, Delabar and Lawrie trades were all excellent. The Reyes trade was great. The extensions he gave to guys like Bautista, Encarnacion and Morrow were all excellent moves at the time. When an entire group underperforms, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the GM's fault, it means that the team has bad f***ing luck. The Jays fanbase has always been somewhat pathetic for the way they deal with their mood swings but this whole uproar over AA is desperate even for Jays fans. I almost wish the Jays fire Anthopoulos and sign someone like Ed f***ing Wade just to give some of our "fans" exactly what they deserve.

I usually appreciate your posts on here the majority of the time, but really now? So you're saying that Shipley is 100% guaranteed to be a 3 or 4 starter in the majors and nothing lower than that? His floor is a 3rd/4th starter and ceiling is a 2nd starter? Why wasn't he picked first overall then, he seems to be one of the greatest prospects in history. Yes it will. And who said the Jays were going after Grant Holmes? Bickford emerged literally one month before the draft. Are you really comparing his ceiling to somebody projected at his pick a year from now? You shouldn't have made this post. Let people spiral into darkness and cry about the sky falling as long as they can. I bet they enjoy it.