Cooler Heads Prevail

Not exactly, in my opinion none of them will make the rotation to start the season. I think if Rogers pitches at all well in spring training he deserves a shot at the rotation ( over Happ and Redmond ), and barring injury or performance issues they'll likely give Hutch a shot to start the season. I like Rogers durability in this mix of often injured pitchers, and why not Happ as the long relief man in games they need someone early. Let them pitch their way on or off the team in April. Redmond and Stroman are in the mix at some point as well, and spring training could flip the decisions on April rotation for sure. I fully realize the Jays seem to like Happ as the 4th guy but it could all be bs. I'm hoping that two of Morrow, Hutch, and Stroman are in the rotation at the all star break, and we only ever need to use the best of Happ/Rogers/Redmond in more then spot duty. If we fall well short on this but are still in contention, we can trade for one starter. Or add Santana now as I was hoping for quite a while back.

We also needed to make that move during the 2013 season and AA failed to pull the trigger. Is he really going to get to the point where he's looking at waiving guys out and instead takes some D level prospect to save face the day of that event ?

Well, in all honesty, I thought by end of season that JPA, Bonofocio, Johnson, Gibbons, and AA would be gone. The Jays kept AA and his hand picked manager and I'm not sure why. The off season seems to confirm that AA isn't the right guy to be on the job, if that wasn't already clear by June 2013. The unfortunate reality is the Jays are still good enough ( with normal luck ) to be respectable and give the illusion of being competitive. For several of the reasons I mentioned and probably a few more I didn't say. I just wish they'd have that one more bat ( eg Beltran ) and/or pitcher ( eg Tanaka, Jiminez, hell even Santana in my opinion ) to give a more real chance to do so. Raptors and Leafs tend to illustrate that things can change, and sometimes management shuffles do work, even if just to reduce the baggage the old management brought to the table ( trying to make mistakes work out ).

" I expect we'll have a stronger roster next season then this season, but if the Jays flounder in the off season hell I'll just rescind my idea before game 1." ( not sure where this came from but I'll address it ) The Jays did flounder this off season and I don't like their chances much at this point. Simply adding two decent players would have been enough. They were in a good position to make a push in 2014 and they declined to do so. Would it floor me if they made the playoffs ? No. It just got far less likely when they failed to add at least one more bat or one more starter at a minimum. And, btw, your prediction that Stroman and Sanchez would be traded by now was a complete bust.

I have no doubts I am a more intelligent person then either of you. In fact, I have no interest in seeking a consensus like or dislike from a board full of mostly young man with jacked up sensibilities about their baseball knowledge and lacking the common sense to know how utterly stupid their aggression gets on here. You've found some buddies on here who revel in this s***, and when I say s*** it's nothing to do with baseball. Baseball has simply become an excuse, and the stats a tool, to compete against others you barely know. What a dumb exercise really, trying to "WIN" a baseball forum. The mob psychology aspects on this forum are appalling. But you can find this on many online forums, I could direct you to a trading forum that has a section dominated by American racists. The more comfortable they are in the environment, the easier the racism comes and supportive the group is in their beliefs. That forum also has been dominated overall by traders advocating shorting the SPX nonstop since 2010, which was about the worst trade one could take the last 4 years. Once people start congratulating like minded people in their absurdity, it gets very real to them. Insulated from reality, itès easy to be delusional. So if you care to believe you are smarter then me ( despite the obvious evidence of your posts ), be my guest. I don't care.

If only Vegas would allow you to bet Boston under 81.5 as you recommended yesterday on this site. Seriously dude, you post a lot of stupid stuff on here and I don't give a f*** who you think you are. All I have to so us read anything you post about the Leafs to realize your actual knowledge is far exceeded by your rather inflated opinion of yourself.

This angle like many others on this forum is somewhat exaggerated and leans too heavily on recent Jays history. At one point we were great at bringing up guys in our system ( 1980s was tremendous ), then we were mediocre, lately not good at all. However, one could argue that just random variance and the pitching injuries of 2012 ( way above norm ) skewed our results. And one might even guess that our draft strategy of picking mainly pitchers further exasperated things. We've rarely finished near the bottom of the league ( last two years was about as bad as it ever got ). JPR seems to have a dubious drafting record, whereas AA is a work in progress that will be clear in a few years ( starting pitchers on numerous teams ). King said we'd have traded both Stroman and Sanchez by now, I knew the chances of that occurring was around 1% tops. Might get a better player at mid season for a top pitching prospect ( eg Sanchez ) and we don't need to make the move unless our team performs better then most expect. So why not see if this Jays team has any chances at all and pick up a strong pitcher second half from a pretender at that time ? To me, Shark is like Rasmus, not enough of a track record of success to feel like a long term big money contract is appropriate. Can you really get to a WS with these guys in your core ? The whole "ruined talent" angle is overdone, make the trade for other reasons not for that one.

Baseball is at a nice peak in terms of fan interest and success. So I'm not sure why it has to be fixed. If Toronto ownership is unwilling to spend money to contend, despite our big market, increasing league revenues, and possibly growing fan interest, that's more a corporate strategy then anything to do with baseball. So our team situation isn't really typical of most. I suppose an argument could be made that the luxury tax doesn't work when a team like the Yankees claims it's more profitable to blow through the tax and win then not.

I think it comes down to a few things : a. How meaningful is the implied discount at the top in the sport ? ( the soft cap on superstars ) b. Can the contract easily be absorbed into the team's payroll without stretching it badly elsewhere ? c. Real Market for him player wise. No right answer, especially if someone wants to trade you top of the line healthy pitching.

Why thank you, points out I can't be bothered to research everything I plan on posting to satisfy your requirements. But you know what, imagine what this forum would be like if every time you made a forecast or evaluated a team that dozens of people brought up your predictions for the 2013 AL East ? Wow, we'd just be swamped with negativity. Or maybe you could exercise some restraint ?

The interesting thing is he put up huge offensive numbers, but Texas wasn't a very good team during those years ( 73/72/71 wins ). Texas did get some flak about signing him at the time.

Ok fine, guess he was a free agent signing. Texas did have a big trade way back but not him ( Canseco ). Point still stands on ARod, was he worth the big bucks he got on his contracts at the time ? How much did his move affect both teams ?

The most interesting example of a similar guy might be Alex Rodriguez when he was with Seattle. Would we say Texas or Seattle best benefited from the big trade with the benefit of hindsight ? Alex got a pretty large contract at the time so he's a similar example ( generational position player ).

My point is 100 games is significant because X is significant where X << 100. You seem to think an NHL team can survive on luck alone for 100 games. That only exists in your imagination and extreme bias to see the Leafs lose. The same bias allows you to think Bozak was a bad signing even though the Leafs record with him in the line up is far better then without. In the end, neither of our opinions will determine the Leafs future. I think its brighter now then what it was 2-3 years ago.

You are likely overvaluing most of the free agent pitchers this season, including Josh. Perhaps you just don't know how to evaluate injury prone pitchers. Most likely if Morrow was a free agent you'd be lamenting on the Jays passing on him too. But you know what, this season we'll see how they all do and it will either support the projections people make or not. Garza, Santana, Jiminez, Capuano, Johnson will all be whatever they will be. Maybe passing on all of them is the right move, hard to be certain that any of these guys will blow away our guys.

Ok, now you are just getting stupid. None of those deals were "shockingly cheap" when they were made.

Why would anybody bring up Nonis on a thread about the Orioles signing Jiminez ? Seriously now, it's kind of funny you even said this. The fact you were trying to make fun of the idea that the most important stat in hockey being winning games is rather absurd too. It is the most important stat, there is no doubt in that. You can talk bs about "regressing to the mean" which in itself is a phrase abused to death online, but the Leafs have over 100 games of playoff level results in the regular season now so it is rather impossible to dismiss their results as random short term luck. In fact, on a purely statistical basis, you can't. 100 games are meaningful.

You seriously lack perspective. Luckily you have the Jays to complain about and not seem super stupid at times doing so. Just for kicks, tell me which baseball team is most similar in nature to the Leafs in terms of competitiveness, roster make up, and depth ? I need a good laugh.

Of course you do, you've been posting s*** about the Leafs and Raptors all year.

No, you know fk all about hockey mate. I could quote your s*** on the NHL site but why bother.

You couldn't be more wrong, but it makes for a great example of how abusing stats can lead to irrational thinking. Here's a few realities for you. The Leafs only a few years ago were second last in all of hockey, missed the playoffs every year, had an older roster, had no real depth in their system. Now, they've addressed all of these issues. Rome wasn't built in a day, but very few NHL franchises have rebuilt as well as they have. The fact you say "Bozak laugher" shows how truly delusional you are. Go ahead, tell me what the Leafs W/L record is from 2012-2014 with Bozak in their line up. Now that's a real stat, winning games. And with respect to Clarkson, its far too early to address how he will do on his contract. If he's "crippled" their team then explain to me why they are solidly in the playoff race again. I don't care about some bs stats, there is a guy on here that ranked the Leafs dead last in hockey this year based on his bs forecasting stat. They aren't even close to dead last. What's the point of forecasting anything if your results are so brutally bad ?

Alex Rios seemed to have the potential to be a superstar in the league and never really got that good in the end. Aaron Hill and Adam Lind had the huge breakout years but haven't really followed that up very well.

If I wanted to I could prove I was posting online that Bonofocio should have been dropped as early as May 2013. You ? Doubt you have the smarts to think that far ahead, certainly not the vision to "saw what you seen" ( sic ) whatever you think that means. I posted dozens of times the Jays needed to trade or dump Bonofocio asap last season, long before it was a popular refrain.

Excuse me kid, but my post is on point. Seriously now, when one of you gets on here and posts this kind of reply its a huge joke. Trying to change what is actually occurring to match your fantasy of what you think is occurring deserves a swift slap on the side of the head to be perfectly honest. CAN WE HAVE A THREAD WHERE YOU DON'T GO OFF TOPIC AND POST THIS NEGATIVE s*** JUST BECAUSE THE MODERATORS ( SO FAR ) LET YOU ? Havok is complaining about Demar who averages 22 points a game ( among the leading NBA scorers list ), and just looking at the Portland game made something like 50% of his shots. Anyone who follows the Raptors to any degree knows it has been rare in the past that out so called stars shoot at a good percentage, guys like Rudy Gay throw up a lot of shots and rarely were efficient. Demar isn't always efficient but he's one of the reasons they are winning. Can we have one f***ing thread where your little petulant child act doesn't surface ? Is it too much to ask for ? Do you have ANY self control ?

This is illogical, he is an effective fairly cheap reliever and not everyone in baseball can be traded to match their value on paper ( in fact, the vast majority probably can't ). One way the Jays can try to win in 2014 without damaging themselves long term is just let Rasmus and Janssen play out their contracts. Add a free agent starter and this plan is even better. And, if they don't contend, you can package them off at the break. I believe Rasmus is a long term risk at the money he may command at this point. I'd like to see some consistancy and how well he does in a more competitive situation ( eg the Jays stay in contention into August ).