TDotttt2005

They'll sign Drew, and go on to be just fine, thats my prediction. Someone should clue AA in on this line of thinking...seeing a glaring hole, and going out and filling it. Radical, I know.

I think this would be difficult to quantify, since compared to Dickey, every non-knuckleballer, is a 'hard thrower'. You'd have to define the degree of 'hard thrower', and go from there.

Tallet, Towers, Laffey, and Manager Cito Gaston.

Really? I would read a lot into it, given Morrow's history, and the history of the club, pre- and post- Ricciardi when it comes to sugarcoating injuries until the very last minute. If it were Buehrle, i'd say don't read into it, he's a vet, durable, knows what he has to do...but Morrow?? I wouldn't be surprised if we hear he is starting on the DL. To quote Jack Morris - "Salty, this isnt my first f***ing rodeo" . I've followed this team for too long to not be alarmed when things like this pop up.

RE People should at least realize that Stoeten ripped on this message board pretty hard last year for the "Official Fire AA Thread", which was made largely through the prism of last years moves and maybe contained more thoughtful foresight than he was willing to entertain at the time. He washed away the sentiment that AA was performing poorly with a response of "baseball is hard", and then he said this message board was full of dopes. Lots of people here are dopes, sure, but for Stoeten to come completely over to the darkside because the Jays missed out on Ervin Santana is pretty funny to me. Blogging is hard. Actually, I didnt realize that, as unfortunately I didnt know these boards existed until this offseason (Was on ESPN for years). That said, I can see why someone who was a defender of AA last season, has turned on him this year. If it is to be believed that the money is there, then AA simply chose not to improve the team AFTER he stated that his offseason goals were to add 1 or 2 SP's, a 2nd baseman and catcher. If it is to be believed that the money was there, then it was AA who is the decider of value, and he's clearly undervalued free agents, leaving us with Navarro, while the O's got Cruz and Jimenez, the Yankees got McCann, Tanaka, Ellsbury, and so on and so forth. Last year, the only move that wasn't lauded was the Dickey trade, which couldve gone either way. Last year, there were freak incidents, tumors, injuries in the WBC, and under performance all around. While ultimate performance does fall on the GM, I'd agree that a lot of it was not on him. He did what he had to do, and it didn't work out. This year, he isn't even doing what he has to do. For that, he has to be blamed.

Stoeten sums up the sentiment, the lack of moves, and the Who is to blame (Rogers, AA, Beeston?) through the prism of last years moves pretty comprehensively at DJF. http://blogs.thescore.com/djf/2014/03/12/anthocalypse-now/ My prediction is that Stroman and/or Sanchez is traded as part of a package for Samardjzia or someone else. For some reason, AA is ALWAYS more comfortable with value in trade than value in free agency. That may carry some water, but its an extreme position to me, in that you can only raid your farm system so much, and we reached that point last offseason. At the end of the day, in free agency, you're getting players for nothing but money in an uncapped league. Thats what makes the Santana non-signing so frustrating.

Ah ok...still semi-new, didn't know if there was a rule against posting twitter or other links. But yes, it does hurt seeing that, and thats taking D'Arnaud out of the equation, which he is still very much a part of.

Sorry, Ban why?

On the topic of Dickey... Buster Olney ‏@Buster_ESPN 2h Noah Syndergaard is going to be a monster on the mound http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/sports/baseball/noah-syndergaard-mets-prized-prospect-passes-big-test.html?ref=sports&_r=0 I wouldn't be surprised at all if Syndergaard has a better year than Dickey, this year. Its this trade, not the Marlins one, that has/will seal AA's fate.

I think we're better served keeping him in the fold, and trying to get his value up. A .650 OPS while repeating AAA, albeit in his age 22 season, kinda killed his value. I can see Sierra being traded, and bringing back more than what Gose would at this point. That said, Sierra is out of options, so its play him or lose him, which would affect his trade value.

Given the organization's inability to develop toolsy players like Gose, at least up to this point, I would tend to agree with you on Davis. Those are the players you have to draft, because with their skillsets, they have a chance to be special, but I really cant think of the last 'toolsy' guy they Jays have developed, without going back to Shannon Stewart.

I really liked Ashby. Wilner, everything else aside, is not bad doing the play-by-play. Siddall is on with Blair right now. I'm pretty impressed with his knowledge.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22944#155500 Only 1 player (Lawrie) on the Major League Roster. Not a surprise we're toward the bottom after the Marlins/Mets trades. Interesting that there are 4 guys (Tirado, Norris, Barreto, and DJ Davis) who are 20 or younger on this list...so shows that we have room for growth here, if those guys continue on the right trajectory. I think Hutchison would be on this list as well without the Tommy John surgery last year. Takeaway...Its not as bad as it looks?

Alomar, Carter, Fernandez, Halladay

Why the Melky signing?

in 2014, we're only 5 seasons away from Grass at the Rogers Centre!!

No word yet on what the $$ and years are. I'd be interested in seeing how this deal compares to the Melky deal last year. Melky came off a better year than Cruz, albeit both PED fueled, but Cruz has a draft pick comp pick attached. Either way, for O's fans, must be nice to see their team picking up these guys on the cheap, relatively, and improving the holes in their roster. What a concept.

I wondered when Sartori left, how much that hurt the Analytics department. He was our Guru. Red Sox hired Bill James, he apparently didnt fit in terms of years and dollars for AA.

Yes, This. Maybe you lose an advantage by letting your competitors know your budget and payroll space, or lackthereof, but I don't think thats it. I think AA and especially Beeston know from a business end, that if the team says anything about payroll parameters, the fans will freak out (rightfully so), and stay away from the gate, stop watching, stop buying merchandise, and they'll lose the little goodwill left that they banked after last offseason.

I really wouldnt be surprised if the Yankees get Drew or Santana or both. If we are to take AA at his word, and its his and his staff's decision, and not Rogers tightening the purse strings, then either he has misvalued the free agent class, or the Red Sox and Yankees have misvalued the free agent class. I'm going to go with the former.

No clue, but i'd think each each club has their own proprietary set of metrics, which are probably (hopefully) a few steps ahead of what we see on FanGraphs and similar sites.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/02/red-sox-likely-to-sign-chris-capuano.html So, Chris Capuano is probably not worthy of a new post, and people here will probably say he sucks. That said, in the larger picture... The Red Sox 3-4-5 starters before this signing were Peavy, Lackey, Doubront. With Allen Webster, Rubby De La Rosa, etc. waiting in the wings. Now, the Jays' 3-4-5 are Morrow, Happ, Redmond. With Hutch, Drabek, Stroman waiting in the wings. AA says given the "depth" he has waiting in the wings, he doesn't believe the value of the guys available matched up with their cost. The Red Sox say given the depth they have waiting in the wings, plus their 3-4-5 which by all accounts are better than the Jays' 3-4-5, they STILL think the value added by a free agent starter is worth the cost. Who now, has miss-assessed value?

Sign Brian McCann Sign Ellsbury Sign Beltran Win posting for Tanaka

I'd say Kent counts. Just as Padres fans would say Alomar counts. The talent was there for everyone to see, yes, but I dont think Gillick/McIlvane would've told you at the time that they expected their guys to blossom into HOF and marginal HOF talents. Cone and McGriff were known talents and established at the time, we knew what we were getting with Cone, same as the Padres/Braves knew what they were getting when they traded for McGriff.

My first thought was oh no, they'll snap up one of the SP's, but they already have Lester, Buch, Peavy, Lackey, Doubront, Webster. Crazy the type of rotation depth you get when you can actually develop your own SP's. I wonder if they bring back Drew, and move Bogarts to 3B.