[whosurnabby]

What a beautiful off-season to be a Blue Jays fan - I honestly can't remember this much "actual" excitement, meaning we aren't wetting our pants over Fred Lewis, etc.

For the people who are saying we overpaid, and not meaning anyone in this forum specifically, but we just landed last year's CY YOUNG winner. LAST YEAR'S CY YOUNG WINNER. For people who are saying we acquired a 38 yr old hurler - he WON LAST YEAR'S CY YOUNG. Frick give your collective heads a shake. I listened to DJF's podcast on the way into work this morning, and I thought they brought up an excellent point - if this trade were to have taken place five years ago, the pieces going back to the Mets would have been Travis Snider and Brett Cecil.

I understand that the players aren't the same - but you get the jist behind it. They are just prospects until they hit the MLB stage. Five years ago, I would have cringed at the thought of trading Dustin McGowan, and now you couldn't give him away for 20 other clubs. D'Arnaud might end up becoming a top tier catcher in the MLB, but until we know that, it seems like a stretch to say that the Jays got screwed in this deal. I honestly hope that Syndengaard and D'Arnaud do well for the Mets, I would like to see them become relevant again in the NL East. But by the time D'Arnaud becomes an established MLB catcher, Bautista/Encarnacion are probably on the tail end of their productive years - so where does that leave you?

I love the deal from every aspect - you aren't going to land a Cy Young winner without giving up your best prospects. We are fortunate enough that we didn't have to give up anything off our roster to complete the deal. Add to the fact that the Jays were able to sign Dickey for three more years at a very competitive dollar adds value to this deal for Toronto. So even if Johnson walks at years end you have eliminated that gaping hole and added another top pick in 2014, amd you still have a strong 4/5 in your rotation, AND you are getting Hutchinson back in 2014.

Great stuff A.A., a right-handed bat to platoon with Lind and convincing Black Magic for one more year - and Alex may have completed one of the most effective off-season turnarounds I have seen.

Just got done listening to the DJF podcast as well and they also brought up key points about former "can't miss" catcher prospects like Jesus Montero and Matt Wieters not living to their prospect status (yet). And even though I am still 50/50 because a) this is baseball b) i'm a Blue Jays fan and something always goes wrong for the past 20 years. On another note, I whole-heartedly agree with your statement regarding AA doing this trade with our core line-up being in their primes. We bitched about watching the Delgado and Halladay-lead Jays team not having any support, now that we got it, why are some fans whining about losing key prospects?

Guys, with all of those prospects, we have gotten a Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, JJ, R.A Dickey and Emilio Bonifacio in their primes. The better news...we also have a JoeyBats, Edwin Encarnacion, Ricky Romero, and Brandon Morrow in their primes as well. Imagine if one of Colby Rasmus, Anthony Gose, J.P. Arencibia, and Brett Lawrie decides to make that leap in 2013 and "arrive in the SHOW"? WOW.

Bottomline is that the Toronto Blue Jays are finally relevant once more in the sport of baseball, in this country, and in the city of Toronto since Joe Carter ended the World Series in 1993.