Bobthe4th

FYI if you’re on the mobile site you can quote someone’s post in a reply by clicking the little quotation mark in the bottom right of a message.

I’ve noticed at least two Hong Kong based, and a few more English posters who have posted infrequently. Of the regulars, there’s a few that are at least based in the US, but they may just be expats.

You don’t rate any of Biagini, Barnes or Ramirez?

Welcome to the board! I'm English and live in Leeds, Yorkshire. My mother has cousins who live in the Toronto area after my grandfather's brother emigrated in the 50's. I went on a family holiday to Toronto in the mid 90's and went to a Jays game. Since then I've been to the US and Canada six more times, timed to coincide with either the baseball or basketball season. Although I've only seen the Jays once more live, at Fenway Park a couple of years ago! To be honest, if it wasn't for the internet I'd be unable to follow as closely as I want to. I stream any game that isn't at 4am (or worse) UK time. I discovered this board around 4/5 years ago, starting reading it regularly around 3/4 years ago, then eventually signed up to take advantage of the ignore list (once the Jays got good nearly every thread dissolved into trolls and people insulting each other!), and then began to post 6 months or so later. None of my real life friends have any interest in baseball, so this board is great, and I've grown to enjoy the off topic part just as much. There's some very knowledgeable people here, there are also some idiots, but overall it's a good place. One of the best things is that any baseball related story normally gets posted here within a few hours at most - which can be very convenient!

You’re forgetting BarryDavis man!

Keep most of the classic categories and add the best fantasy poster new one IMO.

It shouldn’t take long, hardly anyone voted this year! In any case thanks for organising it.

Boras is now claiming that those numbers are wrong and that Hosmer wants more anyway. I assume that probably means it includes various non guaranteed add ons like an all star bonus etc. Would be surprised if he turned down a truly guaranteed $150m deal.

He’s quoting Big Cecil from the previous page, he just messed up the formatting.

He might even be the first unanimous selection.

Interesting that they think Taylor Guerrieri and Deck McGuire will compete for the 5th rotation spot. I still think we’ll acquire someone. They seem to be a bit low on Dwight Smith Jr and Thomas Pannone. I didn’t realise that Francisco Rios is now a reliever. It’s also encouraging that they have 8 players with an ETA of this season.

Yep, minimal risk. If nothing else they can have an FBI themed day at AAA when Ji-Man Choi is signed!

Just looked at his Twitter feed, 90% of his tweets are shilling his apparel. I assumed the board was exaggerating, but I’m starting to come round to the idea that Stroman is a tool.

Also will any of the prospects on the verge of the team establish themselves? It'll make an enormous difference to the future of the team if players like Hernandez, Alford, and Gurriel can make meaningful contributions.

Looking forward to seeing Ohtani, more young players coming through, and the Orioles imploding. Here's to an exciting year of baseball!

The big question for this year - how long will JD be a Blue Jay in 2018?

One factor that hasn't really been mentioned is that teams could be trying to save money for the 2018/19 free agent bonanza. Whatever the reason, it could turn out well for the Jays - both by picking up some bargains, and being offered a sweet deal for JD either now or at the trade deadline.

Sure, but you can't know that they'd be able to sign two of Cain/Santana/Hosmer/Dyson/Morrison/Alonso and even if you assume they could have, the overall money and contract lengths would have almost certainly been higher if Cain or Hosmer were included. Both approaches have risk, but most of the risk is monetary. They have the salary room so IMO the distinction between which method they used is a lot closer than you think. Neither mortgages the future (as no prospects are given up) and they obviously felt that the bullpen was a bigger need than 1B when compared to free agent solutions.

On a low risk deal any of them could have a good year, and when the alternatives are massively overpaying someone like Hosmer on a much longer deal than any of their relievers got, I'd target someone like Lind for them at least.

Any of Napoli, Adrian Gonzalez, Lind, Pedro Alvarez, Chris Carter, plus Bautista could end up taking a low cost 1 or 2 year deal. Obviously none of those players are elite, but I'm not sure overpaying to secure someone like Hosmer would have been in the Rockies best interests either.

Even if they have spent all of their money, there are still numerous 1Bs on the market that will likely be available on cheap deals.

The Desmond move was way over criticised at the time IMO - they didn't give him a 5 year contract to play 1B for 5 years, and $70m isn't that much when compared with some other deals (by the way although I seem to be defending them a lot ITT I'm not a secret Rockies fan haha)

Ideally yes, but if that's your area of need and you don't want to give up assets, and you have the payroll room then why not go for it? They've decided it gives them the best chance of improving. Can't really blame them for that.

Maybe if you excluded GDTs.

That doesn't really follow, as they'd have to give up assets for Stroman. They've shown they are willing to overpay in dollars, but not in prospects.