Friday, July 31, 2009

Scott Rolen dealt to the Reds for Encarnacion and Two Prospects


Rolen will be missed. He was having a very solid season. However, Alonso included or not this is a good trade for the Jays. The Jays were not going to compete while Rolen was under contract with them, so it made sense to try to move him. The bonus is that we got a major leaguer and two solid prospects.

http://toronto.bluejays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090731&content_id=6169044&vkey=news_tor&fext=.jsp&c_id=tor

"The Blue Jays dealt third baseman Scott Rolen to the Reds at Friday's non-waiver Trade Deadline, receiving third baseman Edwin Encarnacion, right-handed reliever Josh Roenicke and Minor League righty Zach Stewart in exchange for the veteran. Rolen waived his no-trade clause in order to approve the deal."

In other news - The Toronto Mammoth Burger has filed for bankruptcy

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Just over 24 hours left to go and all is quiet in Jays land - Status Quo Moving forward?

Well folks here we are - Just over 24 hours until the trade deadline.

The Jays are currently 4 games under .500 and have played a wicked awesome 17 games under .500 since their hot start. Maybe I am straying away from my own advice and not thinking rationally right now, but I am getting a little nervous that upper management might think that this is the team we should have moving forward.

In other words, is the Jays brass considering remaining status quo?

Can they really believe that staying with the same team that finished 4th last year, will finish 4th again this year, and likely 4th again next year is the right thing to do? I sure hope not.

We have so many moveable pieces right now, led by of course Roy Halladay. If done properly we can expedite a true rebuild if we move some (if not most) of the players we have on the current Major League team. I already listed the group that can be moved, but as we get closer to the deadline I am really starting to get worried.

I expected some moves by now. What is going on here?

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Time for a TRUE re-build


We will NOT compete with this core. We haven't even been a top 3 team in the East with this core going on two years now.
Upper management has resisted a true re-build for a good 15 seasons. We currently have some chips that could speed up the TRUE rebuilding process from 6 or 7 years to only 3 or 4.

The following players should all be shopped:

Halladay (he is the key player who will speed up the re-build), Rolen, Scutaro, Millar, Overbay, Wells (tough to trade obviously), Barajas, Downs, Camp, Frasor, Tallet, Bautista, Inglett, League, Richmond, and McDonald.

Of the players who have seen major league baseball this season on the Jays I would only hang onto Lind, Hill, Marcum, Rios (yes Rios), Snider, Litsch, Rze, Romero, and Cecil.

The time is now. There is a real chance to fix this team in just 3 or 4 years. But we need a TRUE re-build. A re-build that has a low team payroll and a team that isn't mediocre, but truly does suck. Enough with these 80-88 win 3rd and 4th place finishes!

**I just hate the JP is the man to do this.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Halladay trade deadline date set by Riccardi

I don't normally paste links to websites, but for this I will.

If you ask me, Halladay is not going to be traded this year.

“If you ask me today if we’re going to trade Roy Halladay, I’d say no,” Ricciardi, the Toronto Blue Jays’ general manager, said Tuesday morning. “Something could happen between now and the trade deadline, but this isn’t something that’s suddenly going to happen with someone on the 30th.

”While the non-waiver trading deadline is July 31, Ricciardi said that the Jays would most likely enforce an internal deadline of July 28 to make a deal. Since Ricciardi said the Jays “have to be knocked off our feet” to trade Halladay, he said trade talks with prospective suitors will need to have accelerated several days before the deadline. An 11th-hour deal sounds unlikely.

“There are too many pieces that have to be in play with this,” Ricciardi said.Ricciardi noted that Halladay is scheduled to start on July 29 and added that he did not want Halladay to have to make that start with the possibility of a trade still lingering over the pitcher. By then, Ricciardi hopes that the Jays have traded Halladay for a pile of prospects or have decided to keep him.

source : http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/plenty-of-suitors-for-halladay-but-deal-remains-elusive/

Monday, July 6, 2009

After 81 Games - Mid Season Thoughts


We were told by upper management that this was going top be a long season. We were told by upper management that we were going to suck. We were told by upper management to be patient.

Well here we are - halfway done the season and own a winning record, who would have thought that eh?

How have we been doing this? I am confused myself. Our can't miss rookie was sent to the minors in May. Our entire starting rotation has been on the DL or sent to the minors at one point this season. We have had two pitchers that we're drafted in 2007 make starts. Our elite closer hasn't been able to through a fastball over 88mph, and his replacement went down with a foot injury. Our two projected main offensive threats have been complete busts this season. Attendance is down about 6%, but SOMEHOW we have a winning record at the midway point. Baseball is a great game.

It is pretty simple to see that Scutaro, Lind, Hill, Rolen, Halladay, and Romero have carried this team on their collective backs. With special thanks to Frasor, Downs (before his injury), and Richmond.

The combo of Scutaro and Hill have been more then solid all season long. Hill has always been a potential guy, but has dropped that tag with his tremendous offensive first half. Scutaro, who has always been a part-time player has become one of the best shortstops in the entire majors. Nothing short of a major surprise there.

Rolen has adjusted his game to the point where you are shocked when he hits a homerun. However his .330ish batting average and near .900OPS more then balances out his diminished power. I am extremely happy with Scott this year (understatement).

Doc has been Doc.

Adam Lind in my opinion has been our best and most consistent hitter all season. He is the only hitter who hasn't gone through a prolonged slump, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

We have arguablely been a 5 or 6 player team all season long, but nonetheless have shutup the critics for the time being. Did we do it with smoke and mirrors? Perhaps, considering we have played 13 games under .500 since the hot start, but let's all be happy here. It was nothing but negative propaganda spewed out by our team management at the start off the season. The positives moving forward far out-weigh the negatives.