If we aren't close then we can't be far

I've always resisted the notion that the Blue Jays should be looking to trade off prospects in exchange for potentially costly veterans for the sake of "appearances" and adding a few wins here and there.... but let's be honest. Since about 1993, it would have been mostly for appearances.

The Jays have not been contenders, and those are moves that only contenders should really make. Going one step further, the Jays system, quite frankly, has never really been strong enough to make the strategy legitimate.

Here in the 2011 season, at least one of those points has changed. The minor league system might never have been stronger than it is today, with names like Lawrie, d'Arnaud, Gose, McGuire, etc "cluttering" up many a top prospect list no matter the publication. Alex Anthopoulos' healthy obsession with stockpiling talent and spending (yes, spending) on amateur talent, whether via draft or international signings, has quite clearly begun to pay off handsomely with the Blue Jays prospect list the envy of every franchise, save for perhaps one or two.

And it hasn't been by chance that the organization has found it's way here. If the much maligned Ricciardian Years can be stereotyped with big splashy free agent signings, the AA Era is stamped with smart internal investment and building from the ground up. With more than a few ninja trades mixed in, of course. But this stockpiling of talent ain't for nothin', as the GM himself is quite fond of saying that not all the prospects will wear Blue Jay uniforms; the clear implication being that some will be used as trade chips to fill holes and complete the roster on the slow march towards contention.

Which begs the question..... are we there yet? Are the Toronto Blue Jays close enough to being a championship calibre ballclub that now is the time to start cashing in some of those prospect chips?

If you've been following me on The Twitter (and if you haven't.... you probably aren't missing much - how's that for self-promotion?), you'll notice I've been openly musing about the possibility of the Jays dangling Travis d'Arnaud. It's not that I want to see TdA moved; far from it. But..... IF the Jays decide that Arencibia is their guy for the forseeable future, and IF the club is indeed close enough to contention that it makes sense to add the beef now... then, you know, isn't that the right call?

And I'm only using d'Arnaud as an example. What about Kyle Drabek? Deck McGuire? Henderson Alvarez? A year ago, we'd all shudder at the thought of dealing any piece of our precious collection of prospect porn.... but now? The franchise has depth. Losing d'Arnaud would hurt, but a good enough JP Arencibia with a charging AJ Jimenez (or Carlos Perez, or whomever) means you're dealing from a position of strength. And if that's the cost for acquiring (insert impact major league player at a position of need here), then that's the right call.

Do you know who trades coveted "name" prospects for star major leaguers? The Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox do. Do you know who the Blue Jays are trying to emulate in terms of success at the major league level? Obvious is obvious.

Are the Jays close enough to start making those kinds of trades? I can't say that for sure, but we'll know what Alex Anthopoulos thinks the answer to that question is soon enough.

Sell! Sell! ...Sell?

As trading season approaches and the winds of change blow through MLB (Cliff Lee, speaking for whichever team you were pitching for and whomever just acquired your rights....we hardly knew ya), the conversations surrounding a rebuilding team now firmly entrenched in non-contending mode are sure to center around one common theme.

Sell anyone and anything not seen as part of The Plan TM in 2011 and beyond.

Seems simple enough. For a confessed surfer of prospect porn and minor league boxscores, it seems equally obvious that yours truly would fall right in line with such. After all, for every marketable piece the Jays might offer, an intriguing prospect awaits his chance down on the glittery farmlands of Vegas. Consider:

John Buck: JP Arencibia (.364/.639/1.003, 23 HR, 60 RBI)

Jose Bautista: Brad Emaus (.412/.478/.890 in 72 games split between AA/AAA)

Lyle Overbay: Brett Wallace (.364/.498/.862, 14 HR, 44 RBI)

Alex Gonzalez: Adeiny Hechavarria (er....let's just say minor league stats unavailable. OK? We good with that?)

Compelling arguments, all (most). I've even wondered openly in this space as to the need to carry the sellable vets for the duration of the season. But upon reflection - as always - it's not that simple.

Imagine this team, this weird, bizarro 2010 Toronto Blue Jays team, without the offensive output of All-Stars Buck and Bautista. Yes, that felt as strange to type as it is to read. Now imagine watching the club try to find it's way through 70-odd post All-Star break games where the only sure offensive force is Vernon Wells (again with the bizarro).

It might be exciting. But it might also be painful. The only sure thing about rookies is there are no sure things. To throw 3 or 4 kids straight into the fire of major league competition stripped of veteran roster presence would be a disservice to their development and a potential disaster in the standings. A trade or two with an acceptable return would be tremendous and welcomed; a wholesale roster turnover is another thing altogether.

I'm all for change with this club. I've embraced it wholly and thoroughly and am genuinely excited about the future under the guidance and vision of Alex Anthopoulos. Things are different now, man. Slot-busting draft bonuses (Dickie Thon Jr.!), snagging front-line international prospects (Adonis!), and a thorough re-stocking of the minor league system. It was the only way to go, and it's the way the Jays have gone & are going. If the path taken by this Jays front office team has taught me anything, it's that patience is required....and hopefully rewarded.

So, yeah....Playoffs! Just maybe not this season.

....but can we start maybe talking about a Kyle Drabek appearance?

How do you follow up a no-hitter? By tossing 6 shutout innings in your next start, of course. Apologies for forgetting the source - I read way, way too much Blue Jays related info on the internets - but I browsed upon a thought that the Jays should consider a 6-man rotation in the season's final months as a means of limiting innings on all those impressionable young arms.

Until given evidence that it's a total shitbag of an idea, consider me down. And who better to take that 6th rotation spot than our guy Drabek? Curiously, I'm opposed to a Vegas promotion, because I don't see how inevitably getting shelled in the hitter's paradise known as the PCL (see prospect stats above) would benefit his development. I say when he gets the call, make it directly from New Hampshire.

How does a late August/early September cup of coffee sound?

Giving the fans what they want: The Shepherd's Pie Post

Today was one of those days where we had about 15 minutes to pull together a post, and nothing totally enthralling to write. (As if that's stopped us before.)

So we threw it around Twitter: What do we post about today? Do we do a thoroughly-entertaining Tweet Bag (even if we don't have tweeted questions?) Do we rev up the Starting Pitcher Power Rankings? Do bitch about our fantasy teams and their hard luck? Worry over Hill and Lind? Or do we just throw up some bikini pics and call it a day?

Then someone suggested that we do the whole lot together, and mix it up into some sort of delicious stratified treat. Like a parfait, or a tasty Pâté chinois (only with peas instead of corn, because peas are yummy and better for you. But we digress.) And really, who are we to deprive the kids of what they want?

The Tweet Bag Question!
@hemiboy tweets: How about a status of the top 5 Jays prospects? Are they ready for the big show or underachieving?

We really wish that we could spend lots of time parsing through this, and figuring out which of the top five are up and which are down this year. We were all ready to check in with Baseball America's site to see their top prospects list for the Jays this year, but then we realized something: BA apparently uses some sort of HTML editor which chisels the code into granite, because they have yet to update their list to include the players who came back in the Halladay deal.

And here's the really weird part: We went and bought the magazine with the AL East prospect lists in it...and the dead-tree, printed version is more up to date than the website. Which is just weird.

Since we don't have the magazine with us (it's literally in our basement, probably sitting under a Pat Borders bobblehead), we'll have to come back to this one later.

Roto Kvetching!
It's the second year of the Tao's Roto Hoe-Down, and we were determined to come back with a vengeance this year. We were going to prove to everyone what a baseball savant we were, and why you should all hang off of every word we write because of how goddamned brilliant and insightful we are.

But here we are, at the midway point of the season, sitting mid-table once again.

We could write it off by saying that we drafted Kendry Morales and Shin Soo-Choo, but those guys actually produced pretty well for us while they were healthy. More dubious was our decision to draft prospect mancrushes of yesteryear, like Alex Gordon and Cameron Maybin, neither of whom is on our roster nor the roster of their respective MLB teams.

Crud.

Also galling about this year's league: That Navin from Sports in the City is running away with the league with a team named The (The Manager) Effect (except that he actually uses the name, which is gross.)

Hill and Lind
Speaking of SaTC, we've been sitting on a "when does a bad start become a bad season" post for a while now, but Navin has beaten us to the punch. (Between TBRTOAL and the Roto Hoe-Down domination, we're starting to really resent that guy). Nevertheless, there is musing and there are stats, and his piece is probably better than the old man clichés we were about to string together on the topic, so have a read.

One more bikini pic
Because you deserve it for making your way through the whole post. It's Raquel Welch! Mazel!

Reprieves, squandered second chances and weekend stuff

We'd hate to go down the road of talking how something in a baseball helped us to see what really matters and all that jazz. Still, we were left dumbfounded when John McDonald hit his ninth inning homer on his first Father's Day after his father's recent passing. We don't really need to tart the moment up, because most of you readers saw it yourself, and had your own moment with it. We hope that you can remember whatever you felt in that moment, and we'll leave it there.

A bucketload of Sunday transactions
The Jays have been nudging the pawns around board for the past few weeks, adding players with marginal roles like DeWayne Wise and Nick Green to the roster, while sending Jeremy Reed away and waiting for Travis Snider's wrist to recover.

But Sunday's transactions are a bit more intriguing to us. The Jays dispatched Jorge Padilla to the Mets for essentially nothing, which tipped us off that something else might be moving later in the day. (We can't remember is Padilla was still on the 40-man, but we figured a move like that was making room for something else.)

Before the Jays even had time to hit the showers after yesterday's loss to the Giants, the team announced that they were calling up Triple-A slugger Jarret Hoffpauir, while sending Edwin Encarnacion off to Vegas to chill and get his swing back.

We love the move to bring up Hoffpauir, as it shows that the team might not be quite so stubborn about trying to get the most out of the minor-league veterans on its roster. He's posting a .910 OPS in Vegas, with more walks (21) than strikeouts (15), which shows a level of maturity with the strike zone. Moreover, he's in his 27 year-old season, which means (if the old scouting addage holds true) that the next few years might be his most productive. So why not give him a chance?

The only thing that is perplexing about this is the sequence of adding journeyman Nick Green and his career .656 OPS to the mix while dispatching Encarnacion, who's OPSing .765 this year. We're not entirely sure what Encarnacion is supposed to learn at this point in the PCL, and the Jays should know that they have a guy who will hit the ball hard and whiff a lot. We're not sure how that's supposed to change from here on out.

Maybe this is just the beginning of the end for Edwin.

A Minor League Hero is something to be
Another couple of transactions that might have slipped below the radar drew our attention this weekend. First off, our off-season mancrush Brian Dopirak was dropped from the 40-man roster and outrighted to Vegas.

It's funny to us now how much we spent the off-season bitching and moaning about the raw deal that Dopirak and Randy Ruiz were getting, and how the Jays should be making room for both of them on the 25-man roster. Now, Ruiz is getting back into game shape and helping the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, while Dopirak is rocking a sub-.700 OPS and grounding into double plays like your grandma.

We're sure there's a lesson to be learned there.

Meanwhile, Kevin Ahrens (the next Chipper!) and his .524 OPS was shipped from high-A Dunedin to end-of-the-line Lansing last week, with an order to stop with his switch-hitting nonsense (Thanks to Lott at the NP.) We'd say something hopeful about the young-ish (21) Ahrens' chances of pulling it together, but a slide back to the Midwest League at this point pretty much wipes clear most of the optimism that we might have had for him.

Litsch is bitchin'; Brian leaves us cryin'
How good did Jesse Litsch look on Saturday? Good enough that we're going to give him one week's worth of free passes. There shall be no discussion of his follicular colouring or pigmentation, nor shall there be any brickbats launched at the expense of his physique. You toss a three-hitter where you attack hitters like that, and you get yourself a nice reprieve.

As for the man he replaced in the rotation, Mr. Tallet: Shave your stupid lambchops, you beatnik.

Optimism! More Optimism Please!
Five Dunedin Blue Jays were named to the Florida State League All-Star game, including starter Henderson Alvarez, catchers Travis d’Arnaud and Yan Gomes and infielder Tyler Pastornicky. (And some other dude got added, but we're inclined to believe that it was a sympathy thing...or we're just too lazy to go back and find who it was.)

We've got a lot invested emotionally in Alvarez, d'Arnaud and Pastornicky at this point, so any good news coming from wherever they are is fine by us. We just wish we didn't have to wait so long for them to get here, because the more levels that they have to traverse, the more that we get nervous about whether if they can surmount the next obstacle.

On the other hand, the past few weeks worth of performance from J.P. Arencibia (still young at 24!) has us feeling like we might actually start to see real live prospects emerge from the system any day now. Arencibia is doing a passable job in terms of throwing runners out (24%) while reclaiming some of his past form at the plate (.884 OPS, 14 HRs, 35 RsBI.) It was in his 24th year that Mike Napoli finally emerged from the minors to start making a dent in Anaheim, and Arencibia's numbers compare pretty favorably with the Angel's backstop.

We could definitely learn to live with that.

Next up?

Heyo! Ack here, in case you'd forgotten. I know - try to temper your enthusiasm, but I'm hoping that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. What? I was only out of the loop for a week? One goddamned week? Well then...

It was during my nightly ritual of scouring MiLB boxscores for the Jays minor league affiliates that it dawned on me - in the midst of a slump (and a corresponding Overbay hot streak), perhaps we've been too quick to anoint Brett Wallace as the next foam-at-the-mouth prospect whose recall we eagerly await.

What about that guy Arencibia (or Aaron Cibia, for all you DJF hounds)? Remember him? The Player whose initials the Jays Talk crowd hold against him? OK, let's get serious for a moment here....

After a fairly miserable 2009 campaign (.728 OPS) and a slow start to 2010, Arencibia has apparently found his groove and currently sports a much improved .848 OPS to rock along with his 12 HR/33 RBI. Here's the part where you say "yeah, but those are inflated by Vegas". So what if I told you that his home/road OPS split was .731/.991? Then what? PCL inflated? Yeah/sure/maybe, but at some point, you have to stop discounting players because of the league they play in, no? I mean, whaddya want, a 1.0+ OPS? C'mon. Arencibia may never reach that coveted foam-at-the-mouth status (yeah, I know - I made that up), but he can certainly become a legit major leaguer.

JPA is in a pretty tough spot for a recall, all things considered. John Buck is handling the starting duties as well as any of us could have expected, and you can't recall a hitting-first catcher to be your once a week backup. Seems inevitable he'll see big-league at-bats before the season is through, though. And hey, with his relative aversion to taking a walk, he'll instantly be a favourite of hitting coach Murph. Heyo! (yeah, it's good to be back.)

Oh, and about Wallace....let's not allow his recent statistical nosedive and negative reviews (insider alert! But here's the money quote: "First-base prospects are expected to hit for average, draw walks and hit for power. Wallace is doing one of those things, but his power is a bit of a myth, and the walks are something that might not have ever been there in the first place.") talk us off the kid.

Because sometimes, it's about more than the numbers. It has to be. He's going to hit.

Brett Cecil is an Ace in the making (if he isn't already).....
You're damn right he is. Go ahead and convince me otherwise.

No, seriously. Why can't he be? Because he doesn't throw 95+? Get the hell outta here with that.

.....and Brandon Morrow could make for a fantastic #4
Speaking of throwing 95+, Morrow seems happy to harness his filth instead of just whipping max effort fastballs past major league hitters (though that's always fun, too). I'm telling you....if Papi Walton can smooth out his mechanics and Morrow settles into a consistent delivery....wow. Just, wow.

With all the talk of the upside in the arms within the system and those the Jays just drafted (Deck McGuire - now that's a baseball name), Morrow might trump them all.

Just another reason this is a fun team to watch and follow. And that's enough for me, anyway.

We'll hoist a Cuba Libre...as soon as we hear something official

We don't know about you, but in this day and age, we generally like to wait it out until we hear something absolutely, positively, officially officialized from the team before we break out the party hats and start planning the next World Series parade. So now, we wait for something official on Adeinis Hechavarria, the half-Cuban half-Martian supermensch who is supposed to be patrolling the middle infield turf as soon as next year.

Sure, we're going to end up being the last person to comment on this, but we'd rather that than go on at length about what this signing means. We'd rather not indulge in tossing out the names of every failed infield prospect that we could predictably belch out to dull the mood around the signing that isn't even official, and we're certainly not going create false dichotomies in trying to establish what sort of impact he may have. ("A Griffin or a Zosky", my ass.)

And in no way are we going to gloat about how some teams might be stuck with the ghost of Derek Jeter in a couple of years while we've got the rockin'est double-play combo in the AL East.

Nope. We're just gonna bide our time. Wait for something official. (Jay Stenhouse: Drop us a line when you get a chance, a'ight?)

And should it finally become official soon, we'll start daydreaming about the shortstop running to the mound to grab staff ace Henderson Alvarez in an on-field celebration in some late-October / early-November not to long from now.

Sorry. We kinda got ahead of ourselves for a moment.

Sifting about for golden prospects

For the second time this month, we found ourselves with a copy of Baseball America in our hands. BA, as the cool kids call it, is like the Barely Legal of prospect porn. (So we're told.)

The first copy was an ancient edition (circa 2002) stumbled upon as we were sifting through and unpacking boxes of baseball marginalia. The other was a brand new edition, picked up this week at the newsstand. Leafing through both, we found it instructive to learn from the older edition to get a sense what the most recent list of future Jays might mean.

The 2002 copy included a run down of the top prospects for the NL East, including the Expos. Among those on the list for the Expos were some future stars, including Brandon Phillips and Grady Sizemore. Also on the list were some players who had decent-to-marginal careers (Brad Wilkerson), a few guys who barely made a dent (Zach Day, Justin Wayne), and a bunch of guys who flamed out completely (Donnie Bridges, Josh Karp, Luke Lockwood, Eric Good).

And the Expos weren't an especially exceptional case that year. The Mets, for instance, had a few superstars in the making (Jose Reyes and David Wright), but at the top of their list was Aaron Heilman, who seven seasons later has turned into a serviceable middle reliever, but not much else. The rest of the list included a couple of uninspiring arms (Jae Seo and Tyler Yates), along with some "who-dats?" such as Corey Wright, Grant Roberts, Jamie Cerda and Pat Strange.

In fact, as we've scoured back through some of BA's top prospects over the years, we've found that less than half of the annual top 10's do much, and usually only one or maybe two players on each of those lists become something special.

With that in mind, we turn to the latest edition, complete with the post-Halladay trade prospect list for the Jays. That list looks a little something like this:

1. Kyle Drabek, RHP
2. Brett Wallace, 3B
3. Zach Stewart, RHP
4. J.P. Arencibia, C
5. Travis D'Arnaud, C
6. Chad Jenkins, RHP
7. David Cooper, 1B
8. Henderson Alvarez, RHP
9. Jake Marisnick, OF
10. Josh Roenicke, RHP

The Tao's Prospect Analysis - aka Pissing in the wind about lists
With the lessons of the past as prologue, we've been looking at those names and their associated descriptions in the dead-tree edition, and trying to sort out which of these we think might be golden, and which are just shiny pebbles. We'd never even attempt to present ourselves as sun-dried scouts, especially since we've seen exactly one of these guys play.

Our hope is that this class of ten is the exception, and that they all end up playing long and storied careers, but if we had to take a stab at it based on their progressions, we'd figure that Arencibia, Jenkins, Cooper, D'Arnaud and Roenicke may end up in the dustbin of Jays history, while Drabek and maybe Stewart could be stars. (You can pick your stars and scrubs by picking them out of a hat, and we'd have a hard time arguing with you.)

We'd love to think of Alvarez as the future superstar, but hearing that he tops out at around 89 mph makes us wonder how much of his extraordinary run in the NY-Penn League will translate. He's only 19, so there's time for him to put some meat on his bones and turn into the Venezuelan Pedro, which makes us cast wistful thoughts towards what he might do for the Jays some time after 2014ish.

The Wild Cards for us would be Jake Marisnick and Brett Wallace. Marisnick really hasn't played much against men who are paid to play the game for a living, but is described as having a "good body." (In case any of you girlie-girls were wondering.)

Wallace, on the other hand, has a great body...if your archetype for great bodies is something along the lines of the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. (More to love, ladies!) And as much as we keep hearing about what a great looking swing Wallace has, we look at the numbers and see a guy who tore up pitching when he was armed with a carbon-fibre death club, but who has posted progressively declining OPSs with each successive level of pro ball. Wallace has posted an .815 OPS in 106 Triple-A games over his career so far. As a point of comparison, Travis Snider, who is two years younger, posted an OPS of 1.043 in 66 Triple-A games.

If you've made it this far through our meandering mess of useless speculation, the rather uninspiring conclusion is that we have no idea what this list means, and whether if there is anything of real value amongst the most recent list. It's not exactly a crapshoot, but given the dearth of real meaningful information that any of us has on any of these guys, it's hard to start slotting these names into the lineup of the playoff-bound powerhouse of our dreams.

Too many Brandons!

We figured that today would be a day off, where we could spend more time online looking at NFL Cheerleaders in their holiday garb and dust off some last minute shopping on Amazon. (Which Gotan Project discs does Mrs. Tao have anyhow?)

Alas, that sneaky bugger Anthopoulos has apparently gone and worked out a deal that would send the apple in the eye of GROF's Drew to Seattle for Brandon Morrow, who has "upside".

Looking at the numbers, we might be able to argue this as an upgrade, and we don't have the same level of attachment to League as some others. But what is worrisome is the plus one to this deal, where the Jays are apparently sending a prospect to the Mariners.

One tweeted report from (Dave Cameron of USS Mariner) stated that the prospect is Zach Stewart, who came over in the Rolen trade. To which we say: Yikes!

Will the trade be consummated? Who will the prospect be? Will Drew freak out online, or will he trash his office, launching slide rules and mechanical pencils hither and yon? Keep coming back today for ongoing coverage of this situation!

11:38 am - Mystery Prospect Update!
FoxSports.com's Jon Morosi tweets that the Mariners are looking for a catcher, which we think likely puts J.P. Arencibia and Brian Jeroloman on notice (via the Drunks.) We like Arencibia more than Jeroloman, but that's based mostly on a quick scan of numbers, and nothing more.

1:16 pm - Lack of News Update!
So, to sum up: Basically pick a player in the Jays system (Arencibia, Cooper, Dopirak, Stewart, Jeroloman) and a commenter on one blog or another has "heard from their source" that such and such a guy is in the deal.

In lieu of discussing the implications of these rumours, we'd prefer to note that we are annoyed and appalled at how Vic Chesnutt's amazing At the Cut is on just one Best of 2009 albums list. (Hooray for Stereo Subversion, and boo to the rest of you hipster douchebags. I'll stomp on your frigging Dirty Projectors records! I swear I will!)

1:46 pm - We have a name, and it is Johermyn
Bastian tweets that Johermyn Chavez, who knocked the snot out of the ball in Lansing last year, may be the mystery bachelor on his way to Seattle (or more likely, to West Tennessee to play for the Double A Dimond Jaxx. Or some other team. Who knows?)

Liked the look of Chavez' numbers, and figured that a steady progression might land him in Toronto eventually, although his repeating a year in the NY-Penn League makes us wonder if there were concerns about him beyond his baseball skills.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...

...it'll be here, better than before. Yesterday's gone. Yesterday's gone.

(And right about now, there's a handful of you who have a Fleetwood Mac aversion and raw open wounds from the Roy Halladay presser in Philly yesterday who have just flipped out and thrown their computer out the window. Sorry about that.)

It was unquestionably sad to see Halladay in another team's uniform, smiling and shaking hands and speaking warmly of the coming opportunity and floating out empty platitudes about his time in Toronto. It was sad to hear someone float out a new nickname for him overnight: Dr. Phil. (Yikes!) But frankly, we're thrilled that this whole thing is over, and we can move on. Keep on movin'. Let's push things forward.

We're not saying that we're glad to see Halladay gone, but from where we're sitting, this is the most exciting moment that we've had as a Jays fan in a few years. Maybe it is the excitement that you feel when you're about to go through a set of Level 5 rapids in a white water expedition with a bunch of weak-armed bureaucrats, and maybe you know that there's a good chance that this ship hits the chute at the wrong angle and you're going over and you're going under for an undetermined amount of time. But fuck it...Let's do this. Let's go.

Let's not look back, and figure out the multitude of ways that this is the fault of J.P., or Paul Godfrey or Paul Beeston or The Manager or whateverthefuck. Let's look at these three guys we got, who instantly move into the Jays' Top Ten prospects list, and let's get ready for what their emergence as significant contributors could mean.

And we don't want to indulge in propect pornography, but the one thing that we'll say about the three guys that the Jays received in return is that they've all had the opportunity to play for a year or two or three in affiliated ball, and there is at least a better understanding of how their skills will transfer to the pro game, as opposed to some pie in the sky supplemental round pick that the Jays were going to get after Halladay left. Whatever the case, we're pretty geeked to have these three new guys.

Over the years, we've seen Jimmy Key go to the Yankees, and Dave Stieb go to the White Sox, and George Bell go to the Cubs, and Roberto Alomar go to the Orioles. We saw Carlos Delgado walk away to Florida, then go to the Mets. We've seen Tom Henke move on to the Cardinals (err, oops...I meant Rangers), and we've seen Tony Fernandez leave and return and leave and return more often than we can count.

The point is that the team persists. Our fandom and our dedication to the Jays persist. Our desire to see the team succeed persists.

This is not the end. This is a new beginning. This is the start of a new journey. This is a moment to savour.

Questions

Heyo friends - who wants to talk about shortstops?

Yeah, me neither. When do the Winter Meeting start again? Until then, I've got questions, maybe you have some answers....

When did prospect porn become the baseball fan's vice of choice?
Regurgitating discussion from comment sections this week....but seriously, what's up with the completely absurd fascination with unproven prospects - talented as they may be - who haven't even advanced beyond the low minors?

Honestly, if I read "No way I would give up (Casey Kelly, Jesus Montero, Ryan Westmoreland, Kyle Drabek, etc) for one year of a 32 year old pitcher" one more fucking time, I think I might just go on ahead and gouge my eyes out.

There are so many things wrong with the reasoning behind this line of thought that I'm not even going to bother taking it down. Actually, yes I am:

(1) That "32 year old pitcher" is one of the best (if I was biased, I'd say the best) in the game, he's at his peak, he's not declining, and nobody works harder. I understand, prospect fans, that you love to show just how clever and informed you are by touting your team's "next big thing"....but in actuality, all you're really proving is your ignorance by dismissing the greatness of Doc. Jesus, this makes me angry.

(2) In all likelihood, you're not getting one year of Doc, you're getting a contract-extended Doc. Oh, and don't worry about the goddamned payroll - you are all big market, free spending clubs. You'll manage.

(3) Your teams are involved in the discussions because they are built to win now. Prospect X, should he pan out, will be a guy who can help you win in 2 or 3 seasons. What, you have an aversion to winning today? You'd rather roll the dice on potentially being in the same position a few seasons down the road?

(4) Please, Yankee/Red Sox/Phillies/Dodgers (to a lesser extent) fans, don't insult our intelligence by clinging to the value of "cost controlled players". Are you just trying to be cruel?

(5) That player you're touting as the next big thing? The guy you've never seen play, but can't possibly bear to lose? He'll be replaced in short order by the next guy on your team's top-10 prospect list, or perhaps by the next high schooler who slips to the 6th round on signability concerns that your team drafts and "convinces" to bypass college.

So there.

Why can't Dustin McGowan become Toronto's Jonathan Papelbon?
....minus the part about being a douchebag, of course.

I'll remind you this is all hypothetical on my part. I'll let you know that I know there's probably a prettttty, pretty slim chance that ol' Dusty can even recover from his shoulder woes to be an effective MLB arm. But hear me out - didn't Boston go through the same thing with their (begrudgingly) nails closer? I can't pretend to know the severity of Papelbon's history of arm troubles, but I do recall (with a google assist) that Papelbon was a rising power arm who was moved to the bullpen in an effort to placate that tender shoulder.

Can this scenario unfold for McGowan? And really - doesn't he seem perfect for the role? Power fastball? Check. Hammer breaking ball? Check. Superficial "unique" look required for a memorable closer? His lambchops say "check".

Bears watching, is all I'm saying.

Shouldn't we be talking a little more about Jesse Litsch?
Hey, he is what he is. Jesse Litsch is probably no more than a back end starter who can provide the club with some serviceable major league innings. That's not a knock, that's just who he is. In fact, I mean it as a compliment, because I really do believe that he doesn't receive near the credit he should for being just that.

He doesn't throw 95 and he won't get you more than about 5K/9. But if he can bounce back from his TJ (does that stand for "Tommy John" or "Toronto Jay"?) surgery and provide the club with some rotation stability, the club will be much better for it. And that, my friends, would be admirable. I'm pulling for the guy.

Do writers make absurd claims because they think the Jays are wholly incompetent? Or are they just smug?
Actually, I've got the answers here:

YES, the Jays will offer Marco Scutaro arbitration.

NO, the Jays will not accept a package of Ian Kennedy, Melky Cabrera, and Francisco Cervelli in exchange for Doc.

...and NO, Alex Anthopoulos will not "throw in" Adam Lind to "even out the deal" in exchange for your precious little prospects.

Can we convince ourselves that the disdain we feel for the Jays offseason moves to date will dissipate as the plan becomes clear?
Yeah, I probably can, personally. I've been getting on (for now) by telling myself that if these were the final moves of the offseason (throwing 2 years at Johnny Mac, signing Alex Gonzalez v2.0) rather than the first moves of the offseason, things would make more sense.

I'll carry on believing that these moves are not a precursor to more of the same in addressing the many other holes on the roster, and by April 1 we'll have reason for hope.

I keep telling myself that it's all part of the process, and AA knows what he's doing - because I want him to succeed. I'll keep believing that better days of baseball are ahead.

We have to, man.