JJippidy

Offense has been stupid. All i know is i like this lineup and the question marks i see on the 25 man look like less than every other team in this division. Plus this board likes the idea of regression to the norm so... isnt it about time the jays get a few breaks along the way?

Its baseball, i say dont overthink it, youre going to have nights where the bats dont click, if you come out of it with a win against the defendind nl champs, well thats gravy. Team game, team win.

This is a good team. That is all, see you all next month for my monthly obvious statement. Have fun Jays fans, you've all waited for this, however long this lasts.

Hype does more than winning on the very short term only, that's not applicable here since the Jays only produced hype and failed to win. I don't see any examples in the game where hype beats out success long term, it's just the nature of the timeline, you can manufacture hype and sales all winter long, you can only produce winning once a season gets significantly underway. It's easier to pump ticket sales all winter long after big splashes than it is to sellout a stadium in May after a good April etc. In most places the lag is just a reflection of that. Toronto is a little different than the average, but if anything the nature of this market (large, good following but success starved) leads me to believe that if the Jays win the attendance spike will be swifter than most, fans want a winner here, the Jays just have to plow their way through the sour taste of the past 20 years of broken goals.

I can't remember a time when it was open for the opener, unless we go way back. The issue generally isn't just the weather outside on that day but all the work and checks they have to go through after a winter to ensure the mechanics and structure of the roof is ready to go.

There's always been a lag. You can see it in other markets as well. Especially true here, not just after last year but after the last decades, people need more than 1 game above .500 in May before they put aside their scepticism. Play off race come mid summer and attendance concerns are gone. Team has to win, do that and everything is fine.

I'm worried the Rays won't make the playoffs. A successful, on the field, Rays team in an unsuccessful Rays market isn't nearly as worrying as the thought of a successful Rays team in a supportive market. If they're selling by the deadline what's their attendance and TV numbers look like? They'd probably be profitable, maybe even highly, with a slashed payroll but MLB has to not like the idea of 5k crowds on a team that just came off of a half decade of great teams.

Im not 100% on the new cba but they shouldnt have lost a year of control, he just becomes arb eligible a year earlier, he was off the 25 man long enough not to log his first 1 year of mlb service time until next season, no? As far as him as a starter, I say run him out there, long term his height worries me, but I dont suspect his size will be an issue while his arm is young, might as well use his youth in the rotation rather than waste the talent in a relief role.

I came to this thread to make a post and realized I had already made one last night. While I should be concerned about the lack of memory I'm mostly impressed that my post was oddly readable.

There was a time where I looked at Buerhle and thought he was an innings eating throw in with the Miami trade who was grossly overpaid... But the guys a f***ing horse, and I think I finally accept that while I dont understand how he has success with 83, its somehow not a fluke. I don't expect this level of performance to continue, but I oddly feel perfectly at piece when the freak of nature takes the mound.

Picking up the option is fine, it just needs to be done with the realization that you can't count on him for being more than the 5th best option on a team looking to contend.

Hard to make that comparison until a "winning" team takes the field with a chance to win some meaningful games. Slightly better than .500 records vs slightly more exciting off seasons isn't much to compare. No reason to expect the Jays to show a trend in attendance better than what the rest of baseball would expect with .500 or worse teams with meaningless Septembers for 2 decades. As for the original topic, you worry about attendance when the Jays are in first place come July and no one shows up... until then you accept the numbers are about what the team has earned.

Well, according to Wilner this franchise has probably only had 5 bad years in the past 20, if you take their best 50 games from each season and sprinkle them around to the other 20 years and put then in the nl east they would have made the play offs most years, thats a fact, patently!!! Also, I just got a text from wilner, he wanted me to tell everyone how much he likes/needs his job because his oher qualifications are pretty weak, and that its early and hes doing alright tonight.

Is it just me or does anyone else want to see, from this point on, every ******* who takes the mound on a cold night in short sleeves and walks the opposing teams entire 25 mam roster whipped and then dfa'd? I know everyone sucked in the 8th, but happ and his short sleeves on a cold nigth throwing garbage to the plate really set me off. Not fair, but he sucks so i hate him most. Beer typed this.

Designs are different, obviously, but it's the arraignment of the roof and roof supports that I see as what's important. If you're going to go the retractable route you need to be willing to toss in the extra cash needed, even over a typical retractable roofed stadium, to ensure as much of the roof as possible isn't within the site lines of the spectators and pushed back as far as possible. Chase field has it's roof looming over both sides of the stadium even when open and the supports out beyond centre field are in clear view, the fans are boxed in. If they had lowered the outfield roof supports to sit below the stands and had the roof sections slide over more to open up the sky it would have been a very different feeling park. I suspect the cost of doing something like that would mean hundreds of more millions. Safeco is open air even when the roof is closed, that probably made it more feasible to have the roof arranged the way it is, it slides to right field on a 45 and sits well back, plus there's no visibly clunky supports needed all around the park, it feels open and looks good because of that. vs

They should enroll Sierra in rehab, not because he's injured, just so he can have professionals help establish basic motor skills.

Because despite baseball people constantly stating how they're really good at what they do, they're actually really bad, because they're human and humans are really terrible at stuff like this. Bring on the computers, they can feed the info to the umps so they can pretend they're making the calls to help satisfy the traditionalists.

With Reyes coming back and it being April there' probably 2 months or more of a slowly revolving door at second before he'd pull the gun on a second basemen, they can carry no bat - all glove there for a while and odds are someone has a good week or two in between to push back the seemingly inevitable realization that the guys they're hoping can do the job aren't major league starters. This team needs to be in the thick of things in warm weather, with a healthy pitching staff, before any big moves get put into play for positional players. Frankly for the short term, given how early it is, I'd rather see them try and pick up a bat for the bench, because I can't imagine how a team would acquire a starter in April without paying out the ass, other than the obvious free agent who's not coming here because they "really like" Goins/have no money.

Na, not even I'm reading it anymore, they can have at it though if they wish. I could probably add fuel to the fire by dissecting the minutia of semantic inconsistencies maybe throw in a straw man or two with some back handed complements but that also seems to be taken care of.

I'll try to keep this as short as I can. Sure, but the new money does at least help mitigate the risk, i.e. there's less risk for loss than there would be without it, it certainly had to make the risk somewhat more palatable than it otherwise would have been. Plus, money streams aside, they could blow this whole thing up as soon as this summer. I do. Ya, given out, but paying in, it's the WHOLE deal there. I see no way you can say that paying themselves 30'ish million in TV money versus 100+ per year and having to only put in 31% of that 30'ish vs 31% of 100+ is anything but an advantage of owning the broadcast channels. The rest is sorta of irrelevant because I trust the Jays to know more about their books than us, so if there comes an advantage to pay in more for their TV rights, they kinda will, no? Very simple, this off season suggests they gambled last one and lost the faith of ownership after last season, revenue went up but apparently not enough for Rogers and because of this the front office seems handcuffed. I see the value gained and the continued value in going one way but Rogers apparently sees things through a different light. Nothing contradictory there, numbers went up but I see the risk reward from a different angle as a fan than does ownership. Sure, doesn't mean that a tough sell isn't worthy of being bought, who to spend it on aside. But it'll be blown up if it goes south so... 1 million is 1 million, but 14 million over 1 year is not 50 million over 4 years... If the window is now then a few million more this one year seems to be easier to argue for than X million each year till 2020. Ya it's still money, but it's a lot less, and if a lot rides on this year then again stacking the deck seems a sensible move.

He has the ability, thing is are the Jays in the play offs, it shouldn't be as much of a factor as it is, all depends on how you evaluate the slippery term "value" but that's likely what it comes down to.

It's a legitimate boost to payroll because it's real cash that could have been kept, that's a fact for sure. Good thing is that the Jays local revenue is well sheltered given their TV deal, stadium ownership, etc. and there will be refunds given to teams that do not receive revenue sharing going forward under the new system, they're in decent shape compared to a lot of larger markets in that respect. The main point for me though was that the Jays committed payroll by then (2016) is minimal. I maintain that their investment last season was a pretty low risk one financially in that regard, it spurred a good boost in attendance, kept TV numbers healthy and the vast bulk of the teams committed salary comes off the books before the new revenue sharing takes full effect. They spent, yes, but I guess that I just didn't like how they were heralded as much as they were, too much white knight and self back patting going around for me with them when that money would have looked pretty good the year before.

3 seasons... they've finished no closer than 22 games back of first the previous 2 years.

They had money to sign him... if they pushed salary to next year. That's like me saying I have money to buy a million dollar home so long as I extremely over burden myself with debt and hope interest rates don't rise from historic lows... then I tell my bank not to worry about how I plan on coming up with the money.

Beeston doesn't understand modern technology, therefor I think the relevant question would be which cereal box? Seriously though, it'd be nice for the next president not to be a dinosaur - not in relation to age, just general out of touchness.