Yorkshire Blue Jay

I am not surprised by the contract years and numbers given to Price - It is inline with that of Scherzer last off season. It sucks for us that he remains in the AL East. Price's contract alone I think will provide good value going forward but on top of 3 poor contracts for Porcello, Ramirez and Sandoval means they have $90m tied up in 4 players for the next 4 years and that is really good news for us going forward. You could make that $104m if you include the aging and more injury prone per year Pedroia. Part of me as a fan feels it's only money and not mine so I'd have loved Rogers to ponyed up and got Price, despite having a rich corporate owner in Rogers, they have consistently shown they do not want to enter the world of the Dodgers, Red Sox and Yankees in terms of payroll, this seems a surprise to the fans (or casuals as they are referred to on here) who showed they are willing to turn up and watch a winner when we were 2nd or 3rd in attendance for the last 2 months of 2015. The Jays are on the longer road to try and become a smarter organisation that does it in other ways than purely throwing money at it, to try and have a bigger window of sustained success, but this move of Price to the Red Sox makes our task of winning next season tougher, which is a shame when this year will likely be the last of having Tulo, Donaldson, Martin, Edwin and Bautista together in the lineup. The off season is yet young and there will be more twists and turns to come no doubt, but potentially good value pick ups for the rotation in Happ, Estrada and Chavez still leaves us with a far worse rotation than the one that finished last season.

I would like to think that if we were to sign Price that Shapiro has certain assurances about payroll for the length of the contract given. The casuals helped to neigh on sell out the Skydome every game after he was signed, I would envisage that if he were to be signed then the feelgood factor would remain for some time to come. I think we were 2nd or 3rd in MLB home attendance after the trade deadline with an average of 44,313. Those numbers might be sustainable with an ace like Price or Grienke but I highly doubt it if we sign a good value pitcher that doesn't excite the casuals.

One thing is for sure Chavez will be more valuable than Hendriks if they continued to misuse hendriks in his bullpen role. I do know that we lack starting pitching depth and this move will help to address that, it's a shame that it cost Hendriks who I liked, but for some reason the Jays didn't trust enough to have a bigger role within the pen.

More flesh from on the bones in this tweet from SRB today. I will have option to buy after purchasing my flex pack. "For FPHs, when you buy your pack you get access to purchase opening day. It's just not included in your pack."

Clearly many bought the 2016 season tickets to get their playoff tickets in October and also many have left their playoff monies on credit to subsidize 2016 season tickets, the deadline for refund requests was last week. Following the STH guaranteed playoff priority. Depending on the final purchase numbers. I should imagine that the 40 game flex pack holders would be the first to get a playoff ticket offer should the numbers allow it, then the 20 ticket FP, followed by 15 game FP and finally 10 game FP if they can all be accomodated. The home opener is a strange one though, do they really have the numbers from STH's and 40 game FP to fill that game. As a multiple 20 ticket FP renewal I wanted to buy a couple of seats for that game but now it would seem that if I want a ticket then I'll be joining the single game ticket throng hoping to get lucky on the Feb 11th release date for the remaining seats, as i'll have to allocate my games upon renewal with no option for the home opener.

They certainly could the Shapiro announcement was made a full calendar month after the trades and we had been in 1st place for a whole week. It is definitely a position that could have been avoided. I am sincerely hopeful that Shapiro will be successful but the coming months will be crucial to see in which direction this team is headed and before yesterday that question didn't need to be asked. In truth I felt a figurehead president is what the team needed but we have a proven (albeit with a small market team) baseball guy calling the shots, I hope the intention from ownership is not for him to replicate his time in Cleveland where he had to preside over a top five payroll team becoming a bottom five payroll team. Only time will tell I suppose.

He wanted autonomy and it wasn't on offer - He worked for the last 6 years making every baseball decision and wanted it to continue. Ego or not - Better for him to leave now than sign a contract and have conflict and bitterness going forward. He's handing it in a respectful manner. I hope Shapiro is successful - what's the saying the king is dead ..... long live the king!

Just who are the THEY though, the person making the baseball decisions left this morning

My post was a response to a poster who absolved the Indians decision on signing Swisher and Bourn because their play fell short of expectations, I was trying to use balance saying that AA gets criticism because the play of Dickey and the Ex marlins fell short of expectations. Please do not take my post out of context, in no way do I think they were good trades especially the Dickey one.

But AA gets the blame for the Dickey and Marlins trades when RA hasn`t repeated his Mets success and Josh Johnson fell off the cliff

Why would anyone be scolded for making moves that invigorated the fanbase that moved our attendance to an elite level and the team to a game or 2 from the WS. Daniel Norris and Jeff Hoffman `could` be very good but likely will be no more than average starters but we were 2015 AL East Champions and IMO wouldn`t have been without those moves.

If Shapiro `scolded` AA for the deadline moves that put us into a Gm 6 of the ALCS AND put our average attendance into the top 3 or 4 in all of baseball for the last 2 months. IMO he fully deserves some criticism, and makes me a little sceptical for what he sees for the Toronto Blue Jays going forward.

Have just requested a refund from my post season tickets - I was going to reinvest it all into Flexpacks or even season tickets for next year. But i`ll take my money back for now I am waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks and months now before I need to make that decision. I was delighted with the deadline moves and now apparently having a president that deems them worthy of a scolding. Norris and Hoffman were the only 2 names that I was even slightly concerned about but to see Tulo`s defensive upgrade over Reyes and Price pitching a 9-1 record to seal the division are now cherished memories that IMO were totally worth it and can never be taken away.

But Tulo after him didn`t

Excellent news and pleased all are well in the Loup household, totally none of our business, we all guessed it was a serious situation and makes his absences totally understandable.

pedant alert** We`d have to lose 2 WS games to win it back in Toronto

I agree, he has just delivered 2 of his best starts in postseason eliminators, coming through in the clutch will be an intangible that will help him get a much better than 3/28 deal. I would qualify him but hope that he gets a multi-year offer too good to refuse elsewhere. If not then stomach it for next season while Edwin and Jose are still cheap

With most of the pitching depth in the farm traded away in the deadline deals, I felt sure that he Jays would stabilise the rotation with a couple of free agents on multi-year deals thus allowing the farm to be restocked. The impact Price has had on the club may lead them to acquire an ace (not necessarily Price) and a lower tier starter rather than 2 mid tier starters. Only time will tell I guess. I think they will give Estrada a QO but he will leave and get more elsewhere through his post season showing so far.

So let me get this right Holland is whining about Jose's whining hmmmm Do we get this report if Rangers win game 3, 4 or 5 .... absolutely not! Losers are gonna hate.

Some tickets for today less than $70 right now on stubhub - much cheaper than last week for higher face value tickets

Conversely should the worst happen tonight (perish the thought) they will drop like a stone. But with Stroman on the mound, I would gamble and buy for tomorrow before tonight`s game.

I have and had no problem with the trade in fact I was all for it. Flags fly forever... we had the best pitcher of his generation but in the end Doc needed to leave to get to the postseason. The buzz of this city and the way it got behind the Blue jays for the run in has been a joy to behold and a memory that will last for years to come. I`m a firm believer that success breeds success, the Pirates had a similar playoff drought and have now gone 3 successive seasons playing playoff games and had the second best record this past season. Long may the Jays feelgood factor last but the bandwagon seems to losing numbers since the weekend.

as I say he did well as there are cheaper available on stubhub. I am well aware of the conversion I am still doing it daily for UK sterling into CAD

You did well, a single for row 3 sec 523 is listed at $125 on stubhub.

Numbers show on the phone app Game 3 - 5533 left from $90 Game 4 - 8785 left from $79 Game 5 - 9737 left from $82 (if necessary) as of 8.15pm