2011/12 Toronto Blue Jays Off-Season

[VERVE]

Originally Posted by dustyanddaflames

Red Sox sign Jesse Carlson.

Surprised by that signing. I am not a fan of Carlson at all. When he was a Jay, he was then a slight upgrade to Brian Tallet. He had that odd finish to his delivery like he was going to jump off the left side of the mound and run to the club house. Sort of like the Wild Thing but not so extreme. Carlson like Tallet could single-handedly lose games without much pressure on the mound. Not clutch players at all. I was happy when the Jays finally got rid of Carlson and finally Tallet (twice).

[nik-]

I would like us to land Darvish.

[VERVE]

Originally Posted by nik-

I would like us to land Darvish.

Darvish has been described by some sports critics and the media in North America as a phenom while others are leery of what the posting amount could be and the risk of a poor transition to MLB.

Excerpts from an article providing a slight comparison of Matsuzaka and Darvish:

Yu Darvish: The Missing Piece For Blue Jay Contention?-Callum Hughson

"Why would Major League teams know exactly how good Dice-K could be and not Darvish? Why was Dice-K’s talent not “on the rise” while Darvish’s is? Matsuzaka was a crafty veteran when he joined the majors at age 26 but Darvish would be a young stud at the same age?..."

Daisuke was quite over-worked as a pitcher while in Japan. From his high school days onto the Japanese pros, he was used extensively.

Excerpt:
"(Matsuzaka) made a name for himself at the age of 18 when he led Yokohama High school to the Japanese Highschool National Championship (The Koshien Tournament). In the quarter finals of that tournament, Matsuzaka threw 250 pitches over a 17 inning complete game (!!!), emerging victorious. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, THE VERY NEXT DAY Daisuke pitched in the final and threw the first no hitter ever in a final...."

http://mopupduty.com/yu-darvish-the-...ntention-1207/

[VERVE]

"DALLAS -- A horde of reporters from Japan swarmed Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos on the final day of the Winter Meetings on Thursday.
The media contingent wanted to know whether Toronto would be interested in acquiring right-hander Yu Darvish when he is officially posted. ..."


http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...k_tor&c_id=tor

[ricoFlame]

Originally Posted by VERVE

while others are leery of what the posting amount could be and the risk of a poor transition to MLB.

No risk, no reward. simple as that.

[ricoFlame]

Ben Francisco a Blue Jay.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/1...francisco.html

[dustyanddaflames]

Good find - colour me now confused and thinking there is more to come...

[ricoFlame]

Originally Posted by dustyanddaflames

Good find - colour me now confused and thinking there is more to come...

Agreed...good asset, perhaps someone else wanted him?

[flambers]

Originally Posted by ricoFlame

Ben Francisco a Blue Jay.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/1...francisco.html

Weird trade, Jays now have a boat load of Outfielders. Would think another trade is coming? Maybe Snider...

Rasmus
Davis
Bautista
Francisco
Snider
Thames

[dustyanddaflames]

Heck with it - I am going to go out on a little bit of a limb here, and state (with no evidence whatsoever), that this is the first domino in Gio Gonzalez becoming a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. The A's outfield is brutal with Cowgill, Miller, Mitchell, Taylor, and Sweeney (they have Sweeney playing all three outfield positions on their depth chart on MLB.com). Snider and Francisco plus pitching prospect puts the A's outfield back into respectability.

[The Big Chill]

Originally Posted by dustyanddaflames

Heck with it - I am going to go out on a little bit of a limb here, and state (with no evidence whatsoever), that this is the first domino in Gio Gonzalez becoming a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. The A's outfield is brutal with Cowgill, Miller, Mitchell, Taylor, and Sweeney (they have Sweeney playing all three outfield positions on their depth chart on MLB.com). Snider and Francisco plus pitching prospect puts the A's outfield back into respectability.

That is a pretty reasonable line of thought. If Snider can find some consistency then he has a chance to be a pretty darn good player. He has a great swing and seems to generate some nice power with minimal effort and body movement.

I wonder if it is possible for AA to get Gio Gonzalez and still stay in the Darvish sweepstakes. I know there are pretty mixed opinions of Darvish, but I still believe that we will make some sort of a play for him. Adding those two could help us to challenge for playoffs right away.

[ricoFlame]

Originally Posted by dustyanddaflames

Heck with it - I am going to go out on a little bit of a limb here, and state (with no evidence whatsoever), that this is the first domino in Gio Gonzalez becoming a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. The A's outfield is brutal with Cowgill, Miller, Mitchell, Taylor, and Sweeney (they have Sweeney playing all three outfield positions on their depth chart on MLB.com). Snider and Francisco plus pitching prospect puts the A's outfield back into respectability.

I Would have to agree that something's going on here...and if your thoughts are near correct, that'd be alright...though i'll echo the desire to stay in the darvish hunt.

[cross16]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

That is a pretty reasonable line of thought. If Snider can find some consistency then he has a chance to be a pretty darn good player. He has a great swing and seems to generate some nice power with minimal effort and body movement.

I wonder if it is possible for AA to get Gio Gonzalez and still stay in the Darvish sweepstakes. I know there are pretty mixed opinions of Darvish, but I still believe that we will make some sort of a play for him. Adding those two could help us to challenge for playoffs right away.

It's possible depending on who you believe in terms of what the Jays payroll parameters are. I would say its unlikely that they would stay in on Darvish and go after Gonzalez I think it's a one or the other type scenario.

I agree with looking at Snider or Thames as being part of a package and as long as it's not a top notch prospect I'd be ok with it. I have some pretty big conerns with Gonzalez pitching in the AL East full time. His numbers go up a fair bit away from Oakland (known to be pitcher friendly) and his record against the AL East is not pretty. He'd take a ton of innings, and probably still be a solid top 3 but I'm not sure he is a guy you give up 2 top propsects for (which is what the Os are believed to want).

[dustyanddaflames]

Blue Jays Focused On Gio Gonzalez

By Tim Dierkes [December 12 at 1:30pm CST]
The Blue Jays are focused on Athletics lefty Gio Gonzalez, tweets Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. Last week, Slusser reported that 12 teams were interested in Gonzalez, and there were indications the A's and Jays might try to involve a third team to facilitate a deal.
The A's recently traded Trevor Cahill to the Diamondbacks, but ESPN's Buster Olney still thinks Gonzalez will be dealt. Gonzalez, 26, ranked ninth in the AL with 197 strikeouts but led the league with 91 free passes. He's under team control through 2015. Gonzalez is a Super Two player for 2012 and MLBTR projects a $4.2MM salary. That's not far from the current first-time starting pitcher arbitration record, and if Gonzalez stays healthy and continues pitching well I think he could earn nearly $40MM over his four arbitration years.

And.... now this surfaces... too much aligns for there not to be some merit to this.

[The Big Chill]

Originally Posted by cross16

It's possible depending on who you believe in terms of what the Jays payroll parameters are. I would say its unlikely that they would stay in on Darvish and go after Gonzalez I think it's a one or the other type scenario.

I agree with looking at Snider or Thames as being part of a package and as long as it's not a top notch prospect I'd be ok with it. I have some pretty big conerns with Gonzalez pitching in the AL East full time. His numbers go up a fair bit away from Oakland (known to be pitcher friendly) and his record against the AL East is not pretty. He'd take a ton of innings, and probably still be a solid top 3 but I'm not sure he is a guy you give up 2 top propsects for (which is what the Os are believed to want).

Ya the payroll parameters make it interesting. A lot of that will depend on how Rogers feels about that posting fee, and whether they consider that to be part of payroll or not. Darvish will provide a huge marketing opportunity for the winner, and a lot of that fee could be recovered if handled properly.

I don't know if anyone posted this already, but this guy makes some great points about the Darvish scenario.

http://www.drunkjaysfans.com/2011/12...u-darvish.html

I fully agree on Gonzalez. Make a play as long as the price isn't too steep.

[cross16]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

Ya the payroll parameters make it interesting. A lot of that will depend on how Rogers feels about that posting fee, and whether they consider that to be part of payroll or not. Darvish will provide a huge marketing opportunity for the winner, and a lot of that fee could be recovered if handled properly.

I don't know if anyone posted this already, but this guy makes some great points about the Darvish scenario.

http://www.drunkjaysfans.com/2011/12...u-darvish.html

I fully agree on Gonzalez. Make a play as long as the price isn't too steep.

Good article and sums up what I had been thinking nicely. The commitment is huge, but if you're going to make that big of a commitment that's probably the safest way to go, and especially when you consier what Darvish could mean in advertisment and publicity given that i'm sure the Jays have next to no coverage in Japan.

For me, I'd probably prefer Darvish or Gio just given that he would only cost them money and i'm very concerned what the final price on Gonzalez would be given what the Os already got for Cahill. If the Jays were able to get him for Snider/Thames and not have to give up one of their top 10 prosepcts i'd be OK with that, but if it's going to take more I'd prefer they step up their pursuit of Darvish. That's of course assuming they have/will make a bid which is unknown.

Having said all of this, knowing how AA works they'll trade for for a pitcher that hasn't even been mentioned in talks....

[flames_fan_down_under]

I've been to a number of Mariners games at Safeco and Ichiro is still very much a draw to the Japanese. Every game I've been to I have seen multiple large groups of Japanese buying tickets to see Ichiro play. I'm assuming Darvish would have similar pull.

[Caged Great]

Jays have agreed to terms with Jesse Litsch (975K) Dustin McGowan (600K) Jeff Mathis (1.5 million) and have settled the 3 players to be named later in the Rasmus trade by giving the Cards some cash instead.

[Caged Great]

Here's the updated pay structure with the new signings and the Francisco addition

.........................2012...............2013.. ...............2014................2015........... ......,.2016.....................2017
Bautista..........15.....................15....... ..............15.....................15
Teahen.............5.5
Romero............5......................7.5...... ..............7.5....................7.5.......... ...........13.1
Lind...................5.......................5.. .....................7......................7.5... ....................8
Escobar.............5.....................,,5..... .................5........................5
Encarnacion...3.5
Davis.................2.75..................3
Mathis...............1.5
Santos.................1....................2.75.. .............3.75.....................6........... ...............8........................8.75
Litsch................0.975
McGowan..........0.6
Total.................45.825..............38.25... ..........38.25...................41.............. .......29.1.....................8.75

For guys not signed their 2011 salary below (likely salary in Brackets)

Johnson - 5.85 (6.25)
Morrow - 2.3 (4)
Villaneuava - 1.415 (1.8)
Francisco - 1.211 (1.2)
Janssen - 1.095 (1.4)
Valbuena - 0.414 (League min)
Cecil - 0.443 (.9)
Rasmus - 0.443 (3)
Snider - 0.435 (.9)
McCoy - 0.422 (League min)
Arencibia - 0.417 (League min)
Drabek - 0.416 (League min)
Lawrie - 0.411 (League min)
Thames - 0.411 (League min)

[VERVE]

Wednesday at 4pm central time is when posting for the right to negotiate for Darvish ends.

Rangers, Blue Jays and Yankees are teams being named so far to have some interest enough in Darvish to post a bid. Depends on your media source, the news from one may contradict another.

Side note: Phillies signed Dontrelle Willis today...