2017-2018 Blue Jays Off-Season Thread

[calculoso]

Figured it was time to open a new thread for this..

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb...ff-mlb-roster/

Nov 1:
Shi Davidi ✔ @ShiDavidi
#BlueJays outright RHPs Bo Schultz, Cesar Valdez & OF Darrell Ceciliani off roster. All were on 60-day DL & would have had to be reinstated.

Nov 4: Shocking no-one...
Jose Bautista's tenure in Toronto is over, as the team will not pick up their end of a 2018 mutual option.

Nov 6:
Blue Jays PR @BlueJaysPR
Blue Jays have claimed RHP Taylor Guerrieri on waivers from Tampa Bay, he is now on our 40-man roster https://t.co/j2Zd9VFzTC

http://www.tsn.ca/jays-claim-guerrie...ayers-1.907445
The team also announced that Leonel Campos, Taylor Cole, Rafael Lopez and Luis Santos have all been outrighted off the 40-man roster.

[calculoso]

@ShiDavidi: Derek Shelton leaving #BlueJays to become bench coach with #Twins, per source. @MeatSauce1 reported first. Shelton was quality control coach

@ShiDavidi: #BlueJays on the hunt for new quality control coach after Derek Shelton joins #Twins as bench coach: http://sprtsnt.ca/2AcVJ2L

[TheAlpineOracle]

Rumour the Jays are yet again going after Jay Bruce. Just what they need, another aging power hitter who can’t hit for average, has no speed, and is a questionable fielder. Do we ever learn our lesson?

[calculoso]

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb...unedin/sn-amp/

Details emerge from Blue Jays’ new spring training agreement in Dunedin

Field dimensions and wall heights exactly matching those at Rogers Centre, an outfield boardwalk that includes a “good-sized ‘tiki’ bar,” and multiple robotic HD cameras for video feeds baseball operations staff can access remotely are part of the Toronto Blue Jays’ deal with Dunedin on a spring training home.

[Jiggy_12]

Very preliminary and details are extremely sketchy, but it sounds like a small airplane owned by Roy Halladay has crashed and there is one fatality.

People jumping to conclusions all over twitter and hard not to, but confirmation on all details has yet to come.

http://www.wtsp.com/mobile/article/n...o/67-489944976

[jayswin]

Unfortunately, I don't see how it's not him. He was really excited about buying it, saying it was his dream.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Unfortunately, I don't see how it's not him. He was really excited about buying it, saying it was his dream.

Yeah, his entire twitter feed lately is him and his plane... gotta think that if he wasn't on the plane he'd have sent out a "chill, I'm alright y'all" by now.

[nixon45]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Unfortunately, I don't see how it's not him.

Yeah with a small personal plane like that it is very unlikely that it wasn't him flying. Either way someone is deceased so that is sad.

Just watched the aircraft delivery video where his wife explained how she fought him getting the plane initially.

Brutal

[zukes]

Originally Posted by calculoso

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb...unedin/sn-amp/

Details emerge from Blue Jays’ new spring training agreement in Dunedin

This sounds awesome. I have been to Florida three times for Spring Training, 2013, 2015 and 2017. I went to the Jays stadium the first year and haven't bothered to go back. It is an absolute dump compared to every other park I've been to down there.

I am going back for spring 2019 and hopefully they have this done by then and I will then be sure to go and check it out.

Spring Training ball is best when watched with a beer in hand at a bar in the park, or on a grass berm dozing off from the many beers you have consumed, or overlooking a bullpen or another area where you can watch the players prep or just sit there and chat.

For comparison, I have been to (ranked by my personal tastes):

1. Bradenton (Pirates) - best all around experience

2. Port Charlotte (Rays) - newer and very similar to the Pirates stadium, also the park I stay closest too, so I may be biased

3. Clearwater (Phillies) - another older stadium but classic, best food selection of the ones I have been too, probably the best beer selection too

4. Sarasota (Orioles) - Nicest stadium, just beautiful. The public area in the outfield is behind expensive seats with tables and service, expensive all around, food/beer and tickets and also can't walk around entire stadium so loses points for that, but just absolutely beautiful

5. Fort Myers (Red Sox) - mini-Fenway. This may rank higher after I go here again. It was unseasonably cold, I'm talking 10 or 12 Celsius for a night game (it actually dropped to 5 degrees the one morning when we were golfing that year) we weren't in a party mood. Stadium is nice, but is blue instead of green (named JetBlue Park) which is offsetting.

6. Fort Myers (Twins) - older stadium, seemed a little crowded, can;t walk around the entire stadium and almost all seating, no standing room or berms, but good food and beer and inexpensive all around.

7. Dunedin (Jays) - Everything I have said bad about a stadium applies here. Expensive, almost no standing area, no berm, can't go past mid outfield on either side. Just brutal compared to the other 6 I have been to.

I have not been to any of the stadiums that aren't on the west coast of Florida and I haven't been to Legends Field (Yankees) yet in Tampa.

[nixon45]

Press conference scheduled regarding accident.

Can't be a good sign.

[Jiggy_12]

News conference scheduled for 4:30 (im assuming that's Eastern time) so details should come out shortly.

[P-Rugby]

the Phillies have posted a photo of the clouds on Instagram with the caption Paradise

[Caged Great]

You would have to figure that if it wasn't Halladay, he would have said hey I'm alive by now.

[jayswin]

Damn.

[Caged Great]

It is him.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Brutal news.

[Roof-Daddy]

Terrible.

Only 40, wife and two kids.

[Hockey]

Wow. I'm heart broken. Halladay was my fav Blue Jay. Rip Doc

[TheScorpion]

####.

[Tyler]

RIP Roy