Cooler Heads Prevail

33 years old. You really need to do more research. Just for kicks why don't you look at what Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor achieved in their late 30s. MVP votes for Winfield at age 40 and Molitor at age 39.

This is an important point. Right now, Rasmus and Janssen/Santos are our best chips if we assume we want to keep Sanchez and Stroman ( I'd like to keep them but of the two Sanchez would be untouchable if I were the GM ). This is also assuming we are in the playoff race which I think we will be at the deadline. This is also why I think shopping Santos now is a good plan. Don't give him away but if we can solve any of our other problem areas they should do it. And how can we ever trade Rasmus with the depth we have in the OF ? In a perfect world, we'd find a pitching and/or payroll thin team wanting Santos + for a hitter or two, and that would make our situation more flexible now and at the deadline. So is Santos truly as remarkable right now as people are saying ? If so let's find a GM that feels the same way and swing a deal. If there is no market, fine, let him pitch as a Jay. This runs the risk that he loses his effectiveness at some point and hence his trade value. I just don't know how they upgrade their offence. Not a big fan of Drew at the big bucks, he's inconsistent and could blow the budget. Morales would help the bench, but positionally he's a bad match. Who truly is out there that we can acquire, and should we not make a move before some injury hits and we look desperate ?

Hard to compare pitchers from different eras, I've seen most of these guys pitch dozens of times and recently only Morrow at his very best was truly dominant in my opinion. Clemons is one of the best pitchers ever ( any team ), he was on top of his game far more frequently then most pitchers. My point on Stieb is more trying to relate to the one pitch theme. What I'm thinking is in terms of when these guys were at their best, who was most dominant ? Roughly, this is how I remember it : Clemons ( early Boston ) > Stieb ( best games ) > Clemons ( Toronto ) > Halliday ( best games ) This is subject to error of course and I'm thinking more in terms of best dozen games then any one game. Stieb was close to a perfect game numerous times. Clemons would just blow people away on his best nights. Halliday was good but I don't remember him being as dominant. Which begs another question, what has this got to do with one "filthy pitch" ? Well, I just wasn't sure how to rate a Stieb slider vs a Halliday cutter vs a Clemons fastball. I just know Stieb was almost unhittable some games, but I can't remember if it was because his slider was so good or it was just control pitching. I see the stats say Clemons in Toronto was over the entire season rated higher by WAR then when he was in Boston. But he was more dominant in my mind in Boston. And Stieb statistically seems weaker then he really was, which to some degree might be because he pitched for some fairly weak teams some years. And I'm not sure how well new stats like WAR hold up going back to the 1980s. Toronto has been blessed with some really good pitchers.

Seriously now, none of these guys can touch Stieb or Clemons. It's laughable to compare these new guys with legends.

I'd be trading Santos right now when people are liking his stuff and he appears to be healthy. Reality is he was good in a setup role last year, he does have injury risk, and there is no guarantee he'll adapt well to closing out close games. It would not surprise me if Janssen came back and was more effective then Santos. But it almost doesn't matter who is better, if the trade market dictates we can get good value for Santos we should move him. Our bullpen as it sits now is overkill on this team. Cecil, Janssen, Santos, Delebar, and maybe even Wagner could all close games. We cannot have this excess of relievers ( quality and quantity ) and have this bare thread depth in the OF and on the bench. If Santos short term success can be parlayed into a useful offensive player, they should do it. Add one decent bat now for a reliever and we might have a contending team that only needs to trade for one more player at the deadline ( to cover for whomever gets injured ) to make a serious run.

Buddy, you seem to think I'm some kid/dope who reads your dumb s*** and will accept it. No, buddy, it's just dumb s*** and deserves to be called dumb s***. If you were a smarter guy you'd realize how absurd it is to claim the "over-reactionary school o'drama" when you have made the excuse that your point was an "overstatement for effect". Here's an idea, just own up to the idea you posted something stupid in yet another emotional rant you have about the Jays and how bad they are. God knows this seems to be your main point of being here, be a man and own it.

This sounds like a totally fraudulant claim that is indefensible. You just aren't a credible poster when you basically lie about the business of baseball to "support" your emotional rants. But you know what, I'll give you a chance to defend your statement. Specifically, define where the 2013 revenue in "revenue sharing" comes from. Now tell me why you think this comes from the Yankees. Now tell me how this works for the rest of the league. If a relatively rich team like the Jays takes $30 million from the Yankees, boy, the Yankees must be contributing what $600-900M to other teams there cowboy ? Nope, the numbers seem off. You are making stuff up.

Oh man you really are clueless sometimes. Anyone who plays ball knows hitting is streaky and there is nothing random about it.

I think the Rays and As will start trending down soon because their recent success is unsustainable long term. You get a good group of pitchers going they can make up for a lot of issues that things like payroll caps cause. These kind of situations don't last forever, the Rays drew 9K fans for their third game, they basically signed players this off season with other team's revenues. Rays will have to release at least one good player next year and you aren't going to find a Myers all the time. I guess you can dream about huge payrolls for these teams, but it isn't going to happen. If the Jays had a Yankees payroll right now they'd be solid contenders for sure. When the Jays DID win world series, they did have a Yankees like payroll.

If you truly believe this, they've fooled you then. Rogers is a rich owner sitting on one of the better situations in baseball. If they decided to not spend money, it was a decision to make higher profits and has absolutely nothing to do with necessity. The revenues in baseball now are nice, we have almost no long term commitments to players. Seriously, the baseball payroll is a mere fraction of the NHL deal.

Moogy your observations are horrible, Lawrie's going to have a huge season this year. You remind me of that idiot on the other site, "sempai", who posted nonstop bs about Lawrie last year.

Ok I'll agree with you the term was a little harsh, wasn't meant to be, and I was referring more to the roughly ages 16-24 group ( my kids generation, one I'm familiar with ). This generation has in general been protected by their parents and had it fairly good until they get out in the world. And I agree fully with you, baby boomers have messed up the world for them. So its natural to be cynical and complain a lot at this age once this reality sets in. And its also obvious there is a lot more anxiety out there as a result. So there you go, we pretty much agree with each other ( surprise surprise ). I still don't fully get the pages of complaining on here, the Jays are who they are and in some respects they have some interesting younger players now and I love cheering for a clear underdog. The GDT was kind of extreme for game one. I don't think getting all riled up about the Jays is constructive, if they suck wind and AA fails to fill their holes ( as he failed to do in 2013 ), I'll lose interest quickly and not watch their games. I would have fired AA end of season 2013, and I have never liked Gibbons. But I do like a lot of the players, including some guys that get a lot of overdone flak on here.

I saw earlier today it was the 4th inning of the first game of the season and there was already 40 pages of posts on the game including a whole lot of complaining. I'm not sure if this is a product of the entitlement generation or the fact many young people have almost no attention span anymore. The title of this thread is bang on, people need to calm down and stop complaining about the baseball team. Life goes on whether the team wins or not, and absolutely nothing from spring training or one game can be useful to forecast how a team will do in any season. I wonder if Texas has a forum with dozens of posters complaining about how bad their pitching was today ? Or maybe, just maybe, it's just one game in a 162 game season.

I'm not sure if it's wise to totally dismiss a late bloomer like Sierra when the thread concerns how many of you ( and the Jays ) totally wrote off Gomes. Are you suggesting we sign Drew or Morales ?

Ross isn't very experienced, I don't have any stats on this but I distinctly remember he made a fatal error in judgement late in one game I was watching. These kind of errors are to be expected by young players. This Raptors team is far more composed and less prone to turnovers and absurd shots late in games then any Raptors team in recent memory. The coach has to get a good deal of credit for this, whatever he's preaching the team has bought into.

There is something seriously wrong with you when you post this kind of s*** and you are dead serious doing so.

Pretty much if they can't trade him that's what you do. Not sure why they insist on trying to keep everyone, I'm not sure if the Lind demotion a few years ago was identical in nature ( can;t remember ) but Lind went to AAA and worked on his swing. Somebody needs to ask AA what "All In" was supposed to mean. Funny thing is as bad as Happ has been ( and its since the beaning he's had the biggest problems ), with all the injuries in baseball someone will need him this season. Would a team like Oakland want him on their team as depth now ? Pay part of his salary and trade him there if so. Just do something, the Jays waiver wire roulette is pretty stupid.

You'd think a creative trade could be made to free up some roster space for others, and possibly help our lack of depth at 2B/OF/Bench. Same situation that existed in June 2013, and AA hasn't done a damn thing to change it. We can kick in on Happ's salary if it makes a trade work, not sure how deep Seattle's pitching is but if they have any interest in improving their pitching depth we need a 2B.

Plus Dickey wants to pitch every 5th day, meaning they don't even need the 5th guy sometimes. Redmond seems to be a good fit for the "5th guy" in this scenario, the guy seems fine with irregular starts. I'd test McGowan in long relief and see if he can handle the work. I remain doubtful on him but if he puts up 3+ strong innings a few times then maybe they can consider him. Rogers probably blew the job today, no reason to totally give up on him yet, Happ they can risk losing him he's not right since he got beaned. So my vote for 5th starter now is a 1a/1b thing, Redmond/McGowan in that order with ideally 4 or 5 innings from Redmond and 3 or 4 innings from McGowan. Will Gibbons cooperate though and let anyone pitch long relief ? Trotting out 6 relievers every time a starter falters will kill this team second half.

Older fans were spoiled with 1983-1993 when we were one of the more exciting and successful franchises in baseball. The main complaint in that period was how good we were but never winning a world series ( kind of a "choker" label ). So I don't care so much that they haven't won since and don't buy into the theories that they can't win because of our market, our stadium, or simply because we haven't won so long. But I have a daughter who was born slightly after their last world series win, and she holds the outlook that they will never be good because all she's ever heard is that they may be good and they never are legit contenders. So I understand the mentality on here at times, I just don't agree with the certainty that some people have concerning future events. It's actually crazy talk to assume everything will stay bad or good for any team. The pessimism on this site is way overdone, even on the Raptors thread there are people complaining about Demar and the coach, and they are having a great season. Worst case the Jays lose, it's hardly important and I can't see how constantly complaining about them and expecting the worst is useful. Real Jays fans don't do this. If you hate the team, cheer for some one else.

It is possible that the Jays will use the money midseason to upgrade their team if enough of the projects on the team work out. We could become buyers if most of Cabrera, Lawrie, Rogers, Hutch, and Sierra are decent. And I say Sierra because no matter how much people dislike him on here, he may contribute with his bat and very little is expected of him. So the best sequence is Dickey/Bautista/EE/Reyes are great, some of the listed upside guys come through, and we have only one or two glaring holes on the team still ( either a SP/2B/4th OF or an injury creates a spot ) and we trade to fill for an expensive guy or two someone wants to salary dump.

But he's a bargain at $14M per season right ? JFaS says he's 0% "injury prone" so his forecasts remain good. My model says he's had several recent injuries and hasn't pitched well since 2010. Now if the Jays had given him the QO, you'd all being talking about the Jays bad luck and how our pitching staff always gets hurt. Instead, we have some hope that 1 or 2 in the Hutch/Morrow/Rogers/Redmond group will turn into a decent pitcher and we still have the $14M. Sometimes you make your own luck by properly analyzing the risks you have. I believe the Jay's insistence they need a starter is less about the #4s and #5s, but all about they know Morrow might never be healthy again. And this is why they didn't sign Johnson.

I've been touting Rogers as our "5th starter" all along. He makes the most sense to me, looked pretty good at times last year. If he gets a chance to start right away, he might settle into the role better and who knows what could happen.

Look, *******, it's not me obsessing over Goins like he's integral to our teams performance this year. If you were a smarter guy, you'd understand the element of sarcasm in my post. But you aren't are you, you seem challenged easily on very basic concepts. The absurdity of hundreds of posts concerning an IF who may or may not last a month on the team is quite obvious. Almost as obvious as your lack of smarts.

The real question is can a solid defensive 2B and a supposedly better catcher help our pitching. There is no way any of you know what the net impact of these moves will be. Projecting the performance of any one player is of limited use in this situation. Obsessing over numbers won't get you the answer, no matter how devoted you are to it.