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OT: The Toronto Blue Jays

This guy and Rasmus on the same team??

Jeff+Samardzija+Chicago+Cubs+Photo+Day+pK5_BDqdcrcl.jpg
 
With Doc, it's all about that shoulder...if he's healthy I would expect 7+ K/9, a 3.5-4/1 K/BB Ratio, a FIP in the 3.20-3.50 range

Last year a bunch of his peripherals didn't just jump, but exploded. A career norm .85ish HR/9 became 1.76. A career norm BB% of 4% became...I shit you not, 12.8%. HR/FB spiked, FB% spiked, GB% plummeted. His O-Swing% dropped 10% (percentage of pitches outside the zone that hitter swing at). Hitters took a lot more pitches against him (7% more)...

His fastball & Cutter both lost 2mph over the course of a year (3-4mph over 2 years). If Doc wasn't such an insanely hard worker, I'd write him off. But if he can get his shoulder back throwing 90mph FB's and 89mph cutters, over the plate, he's back to being a really serviceable, really cagey old Doc Halladay again.
 
About the reports that he was in talks with the Chicago Cubs about pitcher Jeff Samardzija:

I won’t comment on specific rumours or things like that but I will say that we are definitely exploring offers with teams but also just like a lot of other stuff that’s out there that is false, we have not made an offer to anybody with respect to a starter.



Nothing really noteworthy here. The tweet by Bruce Levin of WSCR 670 the Score in Chicago that started the rumor smartly said the “Blue Jays are putting together a package of young players” and did not state an offer was actually made. Anthopoulos then addressed the notion that he is speaking with teams however.

But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t inquiring, we’re still inquiring.



He’s then asked if that means nothing sounds to be imminent and Anthopoulos responds with the following.

You know what we’re talking to one club about a smaller trade maybe it will move the next few days or maybe it won’t happen. No I don’t think not right now there’s not anything imminent we’re not necessarily waiting on someone to get back to us.


Hmm… a smaller trade? Now that’s something curious, I wonder what Alex’s definition of “smaller” is since his transactions have ranged from full-blown blockbusters to a plethora of minor league deals. It makes me wonder what he could be working on. Could he be downplaying us a bit? You never really know when it comes to comments from the Ninja.

The Blue Jays interest in potential free agent pitchers also comes up:

I probably wouldn’t come out and say who we might be in on just from a competitive standpoint but let’s say we’ve probably talked about all those guys definitely all the starters, definitely made calls on all those guys, trying to get a sense of what the price might be whether it’s guys like Garza and so one, those guys are clear-cut, they would be upgrades to any team, so I think any team would have interest in guys like that. The mid-tier guys we may have someone that we like a little more than some other clubs and would want to keep that a little more quiet. But we’ve even called on positions we don’t have a need on because there have been some trade talks where some teams have asked about some guys that we don’t plan on trading but all of a sudden we get to fill some other holes and if we can back-fill through free agency and strengthen the club we would look to do that as well. Obviously a lot more complicated to do something like that but we’ve been open-minded and we’ve actually looked into some of those things as well.



This helps give a bit more context to the recent rumours that the Blue Jays checked in on Matt Kemp from the Los Angeles Dodgers but basically leaves the door wide-open to all kinds of possibilities. Who are the mid-level starters they could be targeting? Could we see another huge trade that completely changes the look (or direction) of this team?

Who knows what Anthopoulos has up his sleeve at this point but Blue Jays fans are eagerly anticipating what he will do to try to improve the club for the 2014 and beyond.
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http://jaysjournal.com/2013/11/24/a...-toronto-blue-jays-rumours-news-rumors-blogs/
 
As feared, looks like money could become very hard for the Blue Jays to come by going forward. If this is the case, I'd rather Rogers just sell the team to somebody else. If they are going to go back to penny pinching and not going to spend the money it takes in MLB to be competitive, I'd rather they no longer own this team.

This is where Beeston is going to earn his own pay cheque, by making the case for the Blue Jays and defending the team to the higher ups.

There is no reason for this team to act like a small market team, none.

Rogers Communications, the owners of the Toronto Blue Jays, is undergoing a big change in governance as retiring CEO Nadir Mohamed is being replaced by Guy Laurence as the head of the giant media empire effective December 2, 2013. Laurence, a Briton from Manchester, was previously the CEO of Vodaphone. On Friday afternoon, Toronto Sports Media (@yyzsportsmedia) tweeted that he had received a tip that Laurence may be pushing to cut the budget to the Blue Jays, and that money (either this coming season or seasons going forward) may be "very tight."
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http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2013/...ts-possible-under-new-rogers-ceo-guy-laurence
 
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zeke said:
makes no sense at all. the jays are a drop in the bucket for rogers.
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I know right. A multi billion dollar company is worried about a Baseball team, that is making money and providing excellent ratings for their Sports network and filling the stadium which they own. So they are going to penny pinch on that and potentially ruin all of that content. I agree, doesn't make sense.
 
zeke said:
makes no sense at all. the jays are a drop in the bucket for rogers.
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A quote i got a couple weeks ago from an MLSE VP "The DP's we are talking about won't even make the footnotes on Bell or Rogers financial statements"

That is the same thing as the jays payroll on the Rogers financial statements.... for example cutting $50 mil won't make a dent in terms or revenue or profit. as far as i can see the revenue in the past 12 months is 12.72 billion for rogers... the jays payroll is nothing for them.
 
MapleLeafBlueJayBoy said:
I know right. A multi billion dollar company is worried about a Baseball team, that is making money and providing excellent ratings for their Sports network and filling the stadium which they own. So they are going to penny pinch on that and potentially ruin all of that content. I agree, doesn't make sense.
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I was trying to imply that that tweet was complete BS.
 
Dave Gershman @Dave_Gershman
Hearing that, contrary to initial report, Cano's offer from the Yankees is 7 years for approx $174MM.
 
leafman101 said:
That would definitely make our pitching better.
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Yeah. Moving Beuhrle makes no sense whatsoever regardless of salary. The goal is to fill two holes (no, that's not a DP joke) not create a 3rd hole and have to fill that one as well (no, that's not aTP joke).
 
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