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.

The Long Goodbye

So they've traded Roy Halladay.

Now, we wait for the official announcement, and we wait to watch Halladay pull on another team's uniform and smile for the cameras and talk about how excited he is to be in Philly. As much as we've been prepared for this for months, and as much as we've eagerly anticipated the conclusion to this endless saga, it's still going to hurt like hell to see Roy Halladay in another team's uniform.

As our colleague quite aptly noted yesterday, the affection that Jays fans had developed for Doc went far beyond his statistical value. There was a level of reassurance in knowing that Halladay would be there, and even if the rest of the pitching staff blew up, you knew that you'd get a great pitching performance once every five days. You knew that you had a Strong Foundation, a bona fide Ace, a Number One Pitcher, and a Cornerstone. You had what almost every other team wanted, and he was inherently yours.

Now, that's gone. Now, we have to learn to live with the chaos and uncertainty of a starting rotation in constant flux. And we'll have to appreciate and savour the occasional great pitching performances from Jays starters that we'd come to take for granted from Doc.

Now, we move on.

Living in Oblivion
There was something vaguely Rip Van Winkle-ish about the past two days, as we found ourselves generally cut off from the up-to-the-second rumouring and reporting of the conclusion to the Roy Halladay trade saga. From Friday morning through until this morning, we had no TV, no internet connection, a BlackBerry with a nearly dead battery and a crappy sports radio station to which we couldn't subject ourselves, much less Mrs. Tao.

When we checked our Twitter account sometime on Sunday and instantly saw cryptic references to the Halladay trade going down, we flipped out for a few minutes and scoured around in a panic to find any information we could. Finding solid information on Twitter was quite a challenge, as every wisenheimer that we follow was more interested in making funnies about which local delicacy was being shipped to which city, or whether if the mascots were to be involved in the trade somehow. (Which is totally and patently ridiculous. Because the Phanatic is an elite level mascot, while Mariner Moose has never been the same after crashing into the outfield wall and snapping his hind leg.)

If there was a positive aspect to being mostly isolated from the news of the trade, it was that it gave us some time to reflect on the news, rather than reacting to each bogus report or scouring the Baseball Cube to tally up the relative value of this prospect and that one and whether if this is a good or bad move, or what have you.

(It also allowed our good pal The Ack to shine like the crazy diamond that he is. Great work this week, dude. Now take a breather and have a Fort Garry Ale. You've earned it.)

There will be plenty of time to assess the relative merits of this move. Years, even. There's probably no good sense in trying to declare winners and losers at this point, so we'll probably hold off on the instant analysis of the deal for at least another couple of hours.

Hold on tightly....

It's only a matter of time now.

I'm going to hold off on my Halladay post-mortem until such time as I can truly collect myself & my thoughts to do the thing justice. Suffice to say, until the deal is finalized, I'll be a ball of nerves, hoping the excitement can overcome the waves of nausea. I'm only slightly exaggerating.

So until then, we can only speculate whom among Drabek, Happ, Aumont, Taylor, Brown, D'Arnaud, Saunders, Triunifel, etc will join the fold.

(But I'm guessing it'll likely be one of Drabek/Aumont, one of Taylor/Brown, and one of D'Arnaud/Triunifel. With maybe Saunders thrown into the mix.)

In the meantime, as far as up to the minute coverage goes, the DJF and MLBTR have got your refresh button covered.

Oh, boy.

A two-sentence post on.....Building

They say that patience is a virtue, and it damn well better be, because Buck + Gathright ≠ Building!.

Alas, that's the way she goes, and until The Roy Halladay Sweepstakes reaches it's inevitable conclusion, we won't even have any prospect porn to get excited over.

Anywhere but the Angels

I am not a professional baseball scout (stop me if you've heard that before).

I'm just a dude with a passion for the game and opinions - some of which are unquestionably uninformed - and a rudimentary understanding of baseball statistics and evaluation metrics (for good times & baseball nerditry, go here).

Now that I've thrown that disclaimer at you, allow me to explain why I'd rather see Doc traded to anywhere but the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California, United States of America.

First, a few other points of clarification:

(1) I've come to accept that the Jays will not receive the "shoot for the moon" package we all dream will happen.

(2) I've settled (my stomach) on deciding that Anthopoulos should take the best package out there - AL East rivals be damned.

So here's why it bothers me to hear that the Angels are the rumoured frontrunners - depending on the day of the week, I suppose - in the Roy Halladay Sweepstakes:

I just don't like the package. I see nothing in any of the names within the rumoured/proposed deals that excites me as a Jays fan - not for now, and not for three years from now. Have a look-see:

Joe Saunders
I'm befuddled, really. Strip away the shiny win totals from the past few seasons, and then explain to me why he is the apparent focus/centerpiece of any deal. In fact, let's compare and contrast a few stat lines from this past season:

Pitcher A: 186 IP, 4.60 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 4.9 K/9
Pitcher B: 178 IP, 4.30 ERA, 1.522 WHIP, 7.1 K/9
Pitcher C: 61 IP (I know - sample size alert!), 3.67 ERA, 1.321 WHIP, 8.8 K/9

and just for fun....

Pitcher D: 166 IP, 2.93 ERA, 1.235 WHIP, 6.5 K/9

Now what if I told you that Pitcher A was Saunders, B was Ricky Romero, C was Marc Rzepczynski....and D was the Phillies JA Happ? Does Saunders really present as a better rotation option than either of the Jays' young lefties? Of course, I'm ignoring the aspects of durability, longevity, etc....but why should we care about established mediocrity when "building" the core?

And if we're talking about players as the centerpiece of a deal....does Saunders - even after adjusting for pitching in the more difficult AL (of course, there's the potentially offsetting matter of home ballparks) - represent a better option than the Phillies' Happ? Not to these eyes, they don't. So help me out here. Why Joe Saunders?

Peter Bourjos
I'm sure he's a nice enough prospect. Maybe he's great defensively. He can run like hell. But check the statlines, and you'll find a player who hasn't OPS'd above .800 since the lowest levels of Rookie ball. I don't know. Am I missing something? Let's do another stat compare:

Prospect A: Class AA, 437 AB, .281 AVG, .354 OBP, .423 SLG, .777 OPS
Prospect B: Class AA, 318 AB, .333 AVG, .408 OBP, .569 SLG, .977 OPS, and
Class AAA, 110 AB, .282 AVG, .359 OBP, .491 SLG, .850 OPS

Pretty clear who you would choose, no? There's no way you'd prefer Prospect A (Bourjos) in a deal over Prospect B (Phillies Michael Taylor), would you? (And to be conservative, I've compared Bourjos to Taylor over the Phils more highly coveted OF prospect, Dominic Brown.)

Erick Aybar
Here's where my logic breaks down. No question, he's a great shortstop. Tonnes of range defensively, speed to burn, and a nice enough hitter as a middle infielder. But Aybar is heading into season 5 of his major league career, is only under team control for what - 2 more seasons? And really.....he's only had one real plus season offensively.

Like I mentioned - a good player, a definite upgrade, and I'd enjoy him as a Blue Jay. But enough to overlook Saunders/Bourjos? Not for me.

Mike Napoli/Jeff Mathis
Napoli can mash. Absolute upgrade behind the plate. But again, 4 full seasons under his belt, club control for a few more (non-contending) seasons, and then what? And Jeff Mathis? One season with an OPS +.600 screams defensive backup.

So there you have it. That's why I vote "No" to a Saunders/Angels trade. In all sincerity - convince me otherwise. Maybe my opinion changes if you sub Saunders for one of Weaver/Santana. Maybe. But from where I stand, a Phillies package around Happ/ Taylor-Brown/plus is preferable. And I was violently opposed to that package during last season's trade deadline.

Of course, any Yankees package centred on Hughes-Joba/Montero, or a Red Sox deal with Buchholz probably trumps either one, but it remains to be seen if either of the big boys will come out to play.

Fuck the market.

Rule 5 Draft Day - Starring Shannon Tweed

After making some vaguely ironic (i.e. not funny) comment about our excitement for today's Rule 5 Draft, J from 3:10 to Joba called us out on Twitter over the hypocrisy of it all.

His argument, we suppose, is that we shouldn't get all excited over minor leaguers considering our aversion to the levels of "prospect porn" demonstrated by people who love their own minor leaguers too much to give them up for a stud like Roy Halladay. (Also, our aversion to Jays fans who insist that the road to glory includes stockpiling infinite numbers of compensatory picks.)

We didn't think we'd need to address this, but since it was raised, we'll say this: The Rule 5 Draft isn't a prospect porn thing. It's more like a "prospect erotic thriller", where you know that you're not gonna get much good stuff, but it's the best thing that's on hand at the moment. So to speak.

Who needs a car jumper?
Joey Gathright can jump over cars. He can also post a career slugging percentage of .303. Which is 14 points lower than John McDonald's career mark.

I hate Joey Gathright.

(And no, this doesn't count as the Major League player that we wanted to see the Jays pick up at the meetings. Because we hate Joey Gathright.)

Update: Bastian tweets that the deal isn't done. So there.

The Roy Halladay Sweepstakes
From the sounds of some of the packages being floated in the media yesterday, it's on like Donkey Kong in the race to get Doc out of Toronto. And frankly, at this point, we're liking what we hear. (Optimism!!!1)

Also, Buster Onley from ESPN notes that AA is impressing his peers with the way he is going about his business in Indy. Which is good, because you'd hate to think they view him as some dilettante weird germaphobe.

Where To Find The Latest News, Analysis and Insight on the Winter Meetings
We've spent more time on the Drunk Jays Fans blog than any other Canadian site this week. Where the hell else are you going to go?

(This would be a good week for a winter DJF podcast, don't you think?)

The Manager Speaks
But we're not listening. La la la la la we can't hear you! La la la la!

I'm ready

It's not that I think it's not going to hurt. I'm not delusional, 'fer chrissakes. We're still talking about Roy Halladay - the man, the myth, the Blue Jays legend.

It's just that I'm ready now. It's enough already. The whole thing has gone on long enough. Really, let's be honest with ourselves - we're all friends here, right? - does it really feel like Doc has been a part of the team, or at the very least, part of the team's future, since the trade debacle shitstorm that swept through the organization back in July?

Because to me, it feels like me we've just been counting down the days until it's over. With baseball's Winter Meetings looming right around the corner, I'm almost hoping, mercifully, that it comes to an end. It sucks for Doc, it sucks for the organization, and it fucking sucks for the fans. Not the most eloquent thing I've ever written, but hey - the Roy Halladay Sweepstakes haven't exactly been poetry in motion.

At this point, Halladay breaking camp with the Jays will be just about the most awkward situation possible. It's really not even an option, despite the protestations that "2 comp picks just might end up being the best package". So get it done. Put us all out of our misery.

I'm ready for it, anyway.

Lying liars and the lies they tell
"We wanted to trade Roy and Roy wanted to be traded (in the summer), as he does now."

This quote from venerable old JP Ricciardi is just a litttttle bit different than the July deadline stance of "Roy never asked to be traded, we're just seeing what's out there."

Hey, I know how the game is played, but it's still funny as all hell to read. At least JP left us with one of his legacy quotes:

"I personally think, move the player and move on because ultimately the player is going to leave."

Reason #426 that Twitter is worth paying attention to
All around knowledgeable baseball dude Will Carroll drops this piece of juicy fruit via his Twitter account:

"I know of two HUGE announcements coming at the Winter Meetings. I expect both will be bigger than any player signing or news made during. "

Carroll has already denied all of the obvious guesses from his followers - expansion, contraction, relocation, Selig news, etc. Any guesses?

Doc to Jays: Drop Dead

So the deal seems to be something like this: Roy Halladay wants to go to a contender, but wants to choose the contender and wants to choose when he goes. In other words, he's setting the market, and has announced as much through his representatives.

So those deals where the Jays are getting more than the other teams want to give are pretty much off the table. Rid your mind of Buck Holes or Phil Hughes and start thinking Buck Swope or Phil Coke. Stop thinking of a front line player to solve a need, and think of a marginal and flawed guy who's outlived his time in Triple-A. Start thinking in terms of what the Minnesota Twins got back for Johan Santana. Start rehearsing the following sentence: "At least it's not as bad as the Sirotka trade."

Groan.

Look, we don't begrudge Halladay exerting his no-trade clause to put himself into the best situation possible for him and Brandi and the kids and whatever. But we've got to wonder why his reps felt it was necessary to add this extra wrinkle to the trade talks right before the Jays head to the Winter Meetings. Did they feel as though the Jays weren't doing their level best to get Halladay out of town? Did they think that this might spur talks? Or even add to the Jays leverage?

It has crossed our mind that this might actually work to help encourage suitors to step up. But mostly, it just seems like this isn't going to end well.

A Personal Note to Doc
And as far as Doc is concerned: We love you, man. We love you like we've never loved another Blue Jay player. You're amazing, and we can't express to you how much you added to our enjoyment of the Jays over the past decade. You're the best.

Now take your shit, and get the fuck out. Take your beard and your Ikea bookcases and your shitty Robert Palmer cd's and leave. We'll give you the TV stand and the pint glasses and all of the stuff that we bought together. You can have the plants and the cat and crock pot. We don't care.

Just get out. Don't make this any harder than it needs to be.

Return of the Mac

Bastian tweets that the Jays are ready to announce the re-signing of team mascot John McDonald as soon as today. Jays co-mascot Ace could not be reached for comment.

What does this mean? Another season of Prime Ministerial punnery, pugnacious pinch-running, and picktacular playmaking in the field. (Also, alliteration. Always alliteration.)

Don't get us wrong, we really like Johnny Mac, and it is worth noting that he had a career high four homers in just 151 at bats, and his slugging percentage reached dizzying new heights (.384). But on the other side, he is one of four or five players that we envision as the 25th man on the roster, and we're a tad bit worried that all of those guys are going to make the team.

Also, what's this mean for Mike McCoy? Is there only room for one Mac on the roster? Too much mackin'?

The Halladay Sweepstakes, part XXXIV
So today, it is the Red Sox, who allegedly want to get this wrapped up before the winter meetings. Also, the Angels, although that Canada.com report sorta looks like horseshit.

Yorvit? Our Vit!
Torrealba catching for the Jays? Meh. Could happen. He's no Miguel Olivo.

Something about the West Coast makes you lose all sense of perspective

It's been stunning over the past few days to read a quote here and a comment there about how the Dodgers would be giving up too much if they let Chad Billingsley go in a trade for Roy Halladay.

Are you fucking kidding me? Or more to the point, why are you kidding yourselves?

Chad Billingsley is a guy who has had some success here and there by kicking the stuffing out of also rans in the National League West for the past few seasons. Sure, he's shown the Padres quien es mas macho, and he's schooled the Diamondbacks. He's faced down the mighty lineup of the Giants ("now hitting cleanup, Bengie Molina"). He's pitched in a lot of pitcher friendly parks. And he's thrown exactly 3.2 innings against American League East teams, namely the Jays.

Meanwhile, Doc has stepped to the mound for 516.2 innings against the Yankees and Red Sox over his career. So we're guessing that he could hang in the NL West.

We realize that as fans you can start to overvalue your own players, and develop unnatural attachments to them. That's the nature of fandom. But if you (or your general manager) can't conceive of how much better Roy Halladay is than Billingsley or anyone else that you have on your roster or in your system (yeah, Clayton Kershaw included), then you deserve to have Vincente Padilla pitching in crucial games for the next dozen years.