Blue Jays sign Daric Barton, well known infielder known for not being that good. Assume he would be a defensive replacement or the guy to bring donuts.
The Toronto Blue Jays already have a number of players capable of filling in at second base, but they continue looking for potential upgrades. One of the players who has caught the attention of GM Alex Anthopoulos is Japanese infielder Takashi Toritani.
“We’ve scouted him quite a bit,” Anthopoulos told Jeff Blair on Sportsnet 590 The FAN Wednesday. “We have some scouts that like him and he’s someone that we’ve certainly talked about internally. Beyond that I probably wouldn’t get into anything else, but certainly a guy like that would fit.”
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“There’s certainly truth to the fact that we’ve had talks,” Anthopoulos said.
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The Blue Jays remain hopeful that they’ll be able to trade for a reliever.
“We’re currently trying to do that,” Anthopoulos said. “We’re not close, but we are in talks with teams, trying to get some things done. Hopefully something will break for us and we’ll be able to make a deal.”
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Anthopoulos expects the 2015 Blue Jays to have a payroll “right in that top 10 range, or at least close to the top 10.”
New edition of Sportsnet magazine has a detailed overview on how the As deal went down. Some highlights:
- AA had been asking Beane about Donaldson for some time. Beane didn't want to trade him.
- Once AA put Lawrie on the table Beane became interested. This was Nov 24. Once Lawrie was in play the deal took just a few days to finish off.
- Original plan for the Jays was not to trade Lawrie but switch him to 2B
- AA was the first to commit to the deal on Nov 27 - saying he would do Lawrie, Nolin, Graveman and Barreto for Donaldson. Beane asked for more time but called back and said "I'm good".
Nothing shocking but at least according to this piece, Beane was not actively looking to trade Donaldson. It sounds like the relationship between AA and Beane was a core reason as to why the deal got done.
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Unless they are trading spare parts for a closer, it seems to be a really wasteful manner in which to approach the issue. I have next to no interest in the Jays investing anything meaningful in such a stupid position.
Never gonna happen. Rogers isn't going to spend the kind of scratch it would take to put in an irrigation system into a cement bottomed large facility to change a multi-use facility capable of hosting multiple events into just a baseball park.
It would probably be cheaper in the long run to build a new stadium than it would be to put grass in.
For all the retrofitting that they'd have to do, it would probably cost $200 million (they have to screw with the roof as well), might as well just spend the extra 2-300 or so and have a brand new facility.
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In other news I guess they're going forward with replacing Beeston with Duquette. Can't be good news for AA, I mean if they bring in a guy with the same job as you to take the job above you... kind of says that Rogers can't think all that highly of you.
Also the Jays claim Matt West on waivers. Converted infielder so even though he's 26 he has less milage on the arm. Mid-90's fastball and a slider.
I received a notification from the score mobile app which said that Duquette said specifically there's no way he's coming up here. No doubt though that it wasn't at the very least discussed. It likely just didn't fit his dollar value.
As for the possibility of a few ballpark, I'm not so sure. I'm in the minority here, but when the roof is open it's a nice ballpark, with a nice history. Even with it closed it's still a nice place to watch a game (though not great). If a new stadium were to be built, given the weather it'd be another retractable roof I'd think. What's the point really? Having said that, if they ever decide to build a new ballpark I hope they keep the existing location, while playing a couple seasons out of town somewhere while the construction takes place. The location simply can't be beat.
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I received a notification from the score mobile app which said that Duquette said specifically there's no way he's coming up here. No doubt though that it wasn't at the very least discussed. It likely just didn't fit his dollar value.
As for the possibility of a few ballpark, I'm not so sure. I'm in the minority here, but when the roof is open it's a nice ballpark, with a nice history. Even with it closed it's still a nice place to watch a game (though not great). If a new stadium were to be built, given the weather it'd be another retractable roof I'd think. What's the point really? Having said that, if they ever decide to build a new ballpark I hope they keep the existing location, while playing a couple seasons out of town somewhere while the construction takes place. The location simply can't be beat.
Duquette didn't say that, crazy old Peter Angelos said that and he's senile.
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agggghhhhhh!!!
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The Blue Jays and outfielder Andy Dirks are in agreement on a minor league contract with an invite to big league Spring Training, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. Toronto originally claimed the Frontline Athlete Management client off waivers from the Tigers in October but non-tendered him in December rather than pay a projected $1.6MM salary via arbitration.
