Cooler Heads Prevail

The Jays plan to go for it in 2013 was the right time and the right move. It was the execution of it that was bad. Choosing Josh Johnson, Melky Cabrera, JPA, Mark Buerhle etc as key guys on the team blew up in their face ( Buerhle did ok but his contract is awful ). Dickey actually was a good acquisition but what they paid in talent to get him was too high a price UNLESS they had an ironclad winning team this year and he put them over the top. Didn't happen, but we'll see if 2014 is any better. Part of the execution issues are the inability to acquire useful free agents, something the Jays have always been able to do even on much lower payrolls. This seems to be one of AAs weaknesses more then an actual unwillingness of players to come to Toronto. I'd rather they break the mold and overpay for Cano then give up any more top prospects, not that I'm saying Cano is necessarily their smartest choice but they do need to bring in a star player without losing important current or future assets.

I rarely have seen successful teams trade away their best players coming off great seasons unless they are on an expiring contract and/or will likely command more money then the team budget allows. So this kind of idea that these players need to be traded at their peak ( and its a hindsight peak just like novice traders think they can call stocks at their top values ) is basically not practical and often not good practice either. Should the Red Sox have traded away David Ortiz years ago, a man who actually was older and more likely to decline then our guys are right now ? I have a hard time thinking about examples of guys that were traded, maybe Alex Rodriguez to Texas, how did that work out long term for the Mariners ? Sure there are a few good examples but I think its a fairly rare event when a true star for prospect trade occurs. In my opinion, Bautista and EE were untouchable through this year because with them we had some shot of winning and without them forget it we had ZERO chance of winning and a boring team to boot ( think Mariners again as an example ). For next season, I think moving Bautista now is doable and the time might be right, but only if its for full value plus. Simply keeping Bautista for 2-3 years is NOT a bad decision, if market conditions dictate this. There is no shame in keeping your best players until their contracts run out. I don't see anyone criticizing the Yankees here for signing any number of older players for big money ( eg Jeter for $12M, Soriano makes a mint ). So the idea we made a mistake somehow not trading Bautista is not a good theory really in my opinion. Jays in the late 1980s kept almost all their stars and added a few high profile free agents like Molitar, Winfield, Morris, even Rickey Henderson at an advancing age. There was never any talk about trading away our core stars for prospects.

I really think Cano would hit well at RC.

And under a Jays plan to contend in 2014 he's a welcome asset on this team. Numerous teams are looking for reliable closers right now, and many posts on here are basically giving him away just because we have other candidates. There is no harm in just letting Janssen and Rasmus play out their contract and spend the money saved on filling their other needs.

I think this forum coming off this losing season is definately undervalueing Jays players, especially Bautista and Janssen on team friendly deals. However, I like your idea of Rasmus plus say Stroman for Profar, I could see both teams considering this move. If its not quite there because of Rasmus limited window, maybe chuck in an extra arm.

If the players are available I think they could do at least $160M with ease. Several reasons for this. Rogers benefits from baseball content on their main product line, this media convergence strategy is paying off big at the moment in many markets. Overall market value of the teams is growing, so unless you are losing great wads of cash every year its not a bad business to be in anyways. And attendance increasing with a losing team is hardly a negative, but probably less important then the first two points at the moment. C$/U$ is fine and I doubt with the US govt debt levels where they are we will see a massive drop in the C$. Sure things could chance 5 years from now, but for now there is no real constraint to spending money up until the luxury tax.

Impossible to know how young players will work out ( ability, durability ), especially starting pitchers. Some trade ideas on here are based on young players projected ability being their future, without discounting in the risk. For example, Profar isn't worth Bautista ( yet ). One risk is a young player eventually becomes a great player but his team controlled window diminishes because he takes a few years getting there. So then he gets paid the huge contract and he's not the bargain people expected. Rasmus in my opinion isn't a centerpiece to the Jays winning it all, but if they go huge budget he could be a significant part of a winning team. If they don't want to become a Yankees type operation ( just under the luxury tax ), I'd be trading Rasmus now or just plan on letting him play out his contract.

I agree I think Dickey will likely be very good next year. I noticed that Phil Neikro had a great season at age 43, so the age thing is overstated at times here given that Dickey keeps himself in reasonably good physical shape. Pitching is at a premium right now, so giving up D'Arnaud was fine but the Mets wanted more and Syndegaard was too much ( for the same reason, pitching is at a premium ). For similar reasons I wouldn't trade Stroman unless its a remarkable deal.

Who cares, as per usual the "fan base" here undervalues our assets and overvalues others. For example, Kendrick is supposably worth Stroman + Janssen ++ ( he's not ), but Bautista is supposably only worth Profar ( he's got far higher market value as a name player with some excitement element and decent production every year ).

More likely positive scenario is the Jays sign one or two decent hitters, drop JPA and become one of the best hitting teams in baseball. Lawrie will be good next year. Pitching I'd rather they gamble on their own then overpay for guys like Garza who seem like bad gambles to me on long term deals. Adding one durable pitcher would help if their offence is great. The pitchers I think are most likely to post a positive improvement next season are Dickey, Stroman, and Hutch. As much as I like Morrow, injury history isn't pretty. But anything you get out of him helps the team. He could maybe be real good for 2 months then get injured again. My guess is they splurge big on a high profile free agent hitter and/or overpay for a starter like Santana. If none of that works out, they'll trade Bautista for somebody like Cliff Lee. Cannot possibly see them inactive this off season, something major will occur.

1983-1993 is an 11 year period of contention. If my memory is good, 1983 our young team was in contention but lacked a reliable bullpen closer and we lost something like 6 games in two weeks in the 9th inning.

Do I really have to post this again ? Seriously, we had a modest payroll most of those years. Ownership chose to operate liked a mid market team and expected Toronto to continue to support them regardless of their success on the field. There were at least two years since 1993 that simply having one more top rank player probably would have got them into the playoff hunt. Look at the list of recent payrolls this site provides. $46 million was a joke for this market.

Again, why on earth would you post the Jays of all teams "don't have the money to add". Come on now get your head screwed on straight. The chances the Jays get "gutted" is ZERO. To illustrate, tell me the last year that the Yankees or the Red Sox got "gutted". Do you really think Boston is a big market and Toronto ( and in some ways Canada ) isn't ? Tired of these lame ideas about the Jays payroll.

This theory has no merit. The Jays are a big market team with rich ownership. Their payroll has grown but is nowhere near the historical levels of the early 1990s when they at times had the largest payroll in baseball. And Rasmus does NOT have to be signed long term if they can find a better fit free agent at a position they have a more dire need. I am frankly tired of people saying the Jays have payroll issues. They don't. The Yankees, the Dodgers have higher payrolls. The Yankees have stated they do not wish to breach the luxury tax. The Jays have quite a bit of room before this becomes an issue. And they have flexibility beyond 2014, with movable contracts ( eg Bautista ) and only a few troublesome contracts on the books. No ARod or Pujols type deals; Buerhle's about the only god awful contract they have. If you are wondering why the Jays had a much lower payroll in the recent past, there are several reasons. One, Interbrew was a disasterous owner who simply wanted to make money off the team ( or not lose money depending on how you bookkeep ). Two, the $CDN went to 0.65 $US.

So what you are saying to kids like GordieDougie here that if they want more strength and/or endurance to help tackle life challenges they should get on a good steroid program asap. Wonder what the medical community thinks about this.

BS. Toronto has so many things going for it; meanwhile the US is quite literally going to s*** in many areas. For example, Tigers are a good ball club. How is their fan base and economy ? Well, a bankrupt city with many homes foreclosed or burned out / looted is hardly encouraging.

Me, not a chance, in fact I think the vast majority of people wouldn't risk their health breaking the rules on some chance that a 100 million payoff is possible. The saddest cases these days are the minor league guys going nowhere who get busted taking drugs chasing a likely futile dream. And there are so many cases of retired guys getting massively sick or passing away far too young with a drug history. Do people really want to trade off decades of their life for some money ? I suppose so, lot of boxers take this road for sure. I see a lot of the young Dominican ballplayers ( kids ) are being persuaded to take drugs by their "agents" to pursue the dream, and their at an age where the health risks are massive. This is perhaps the best example of things getting totally out of hand, when capitalistic interests trump everything.

I never said I liked Selig, and baseball itself still has a lot of stigma every time the Hall of Fame voting starts up. The wild card with ARod is did he try to thwart their investigation aggressively ( eg by bribing his dealer ) ? The fact they went after him harder then Braun suggests there are special circumstances in play. Braun got a wrist slap.

It may very well be that they aren't done cleaning house. AA may in fact be in serious trouble, his waffling on decisions like dropping Arencebia, no QO for Josh Johnson, and dropping/demoting Gibbons are not confidence building ( they aren't hard decisions ), and executives are a lot smarter people then they are portrayed on this site lately. Look, if Burke could get fired, and he actually made some good moves for the Leafs ( except the Kessel trade which some even don't mind anymore ), AA could be dropped in a heart beat once his performance gets reviewed. Or he could be put on notice to be decisive. Maybe he's already got some big moves coming which save his job. Speaking of the Leafs, this site should be all over the moves that organization has made the last 4-5 years. They have gone from having one of the weakest rosters value wise ( a lot of veterans, some of whom had very bad contracts ) to the opposite, a really well put together roster with plenty of young talent and decently structured contracts. Farm seems good; player development seems decent. Despite one bad move, even Burke looks decent now in retrospect, and Nonis so far seems really on the ball. I know its hockey but Leafs are in a good place concerning the salary cap and their future teams. My opinion, the Jays will make some big moves. AA will either make them or he'll be the first big move the Jays make getting fired. Somethings imminent I'm sure and its under wraps for now.

I don't see anything having been changed. I suggested he'd get suspended a year plus and he got suspended. If you think I knocked other posters well quote me directly I want to see exactly what I said not what you paraphrase and interpret. It's not a first offence ( maybe technically but not in reality ). I suppose there are always technicalities and sometimes guilty as sin people get off for much worse ( even murder ). Bankers ripping people off, athletes doing drugs, people shooting others they fear as "self defence", politicians being slime balls its all too common and tearing apart the US in my opinion. Doesn't make it right just because more people are doing it. This is not about being a "guardian of morality". This is about doing what is right and having integrity. The idea that I am in the wrong for standing for these principals is a little strange. I've made mistakes as a younger man but if you learn from them and own them you become a better person.

Arod is hardly a good example of "professional" in baseball. Besides the obvious involvement in drugs there is plenty of evidance that he was cheating on his wife for many years. Even on the field, I remember seeing this incident live one day : . One of the most bush league things I've ever seen in MLB. So this might not make him any different then numerous peers in the game, but I doubt his moral code is shared by the majority of ball players. If he were an extreme sociopath, it would be quite natural for him to blame everyone but himself for getting caught. Did the league force him to repeatably break their rules and lie about it ? No, he made his bed and he has to sleep in it. I suppose to some having the big bank account would make up for any shred of integrity one might wish to keep.

Jays used to be the team that always contended but always found a way to lose in the end. Until 1992, then they won twice. They also had one of the biggest payrolls in baseball ( sometimes top ) and filled the stadium every game. So next time someone tries to suggest that Toronto cannot be a big budget team that brings in free agents, you can be sure that person wasn't very old from 1985-1992. What the Jays tried to do this year was a first attempt to follow a model that worked in spades in the past. They got sloppy but the basic premise is similar to the glory days. I wouldn't write it off after one year. A complete rebuild at this point would be stupid. There was some hangover from the World Series years followed by the legacy of a Belgian brewery that decided that winning didn't matter, and they'd milk the franchise for every dollar they could get. Its not surprising that it could take many years to recover from such an approach. Note the years that the Jays had a payroll around 45M which is a joke for a franchise in a city this big.

Tigers over Pirates in 6 games.

The fact they had several easily identifiable holes that were absolutely awful for them in 2013 actually makes picking up in 2014 a lot easier. They can't help but get better simply by releasing Arencebia, Gibbons, and Johnson. Cabrera should be the full time DH unless they can find someone who will take him off their hands; I truly believe DH is the only position he might contribute next season ( and I'm not sure he will ). They have so many starters coming back that one or two can't help but be better then the #5 and Johnson were this year. The big upside potential in my opinion resides with Morrow, Stroman, Hutchinson ( if healthy ), Dickey, Lawrie, Reyes ( re play a lot ), a new CA, and a new OF. The wildcard is Cano or a #1/#2 starter acquired via trade ( presumably for Bautista ). Cano would add wins for sure at the price of only $$$$$, whereas the latter scenario is a tricky risk/reward situation. I think I'd consider rolling the dice on our starters given the shortage of free agents, keep all our good hitters and add some strength in terms of positional players ( eg CA, one of 2B or LF ). I'm concerned about overpaying for a starter ( be it Bautista or a lot of money ) on a weak year, then we find out we had guys almost as good anyways.

A 2013 prediction I found online : B_T_S : New York Toronto Tampa Bay Boston Baltimore