Gregg Zaun fired for inappropriate conduct. Have to say that after hearing some of the stories I have heard about him I think this firing was about 7 years too late

after watching him painfully attempt to be baseball's Don Cherry i'd say this firing was about 7 years too late

he sucked something fierce
him being a major creep is just icing on the **** sandwich

Has anyone ever done a Dunedin/poker trip during spring training?

Looking to possibly head down to spring training for maybe 2 weeks, with baseball and poker on mind. Is it feasible to check out some baseball games and grind 2-5/5-10 at night?

Granderson, Diaz and Solarte are all very nice unsexy bits of depth we are adding. Hopefully this year we will give less than 2500 PAs to sub replacement level players.

typical shapiro moves, unsexy shrewd moves

there is no way we open the season with an OF of Pearce, Granderson, Pillar, Carrera and Grichuk is there? We already have 6 IF for 4 spots, that puts us 4 guys on the bench with no backup C. Someone else has to be on the move unless we go with a 5 man bench and a 6 man bullpen...

Not a huge fan of the Grichuk deal tbh. I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'd rather Leone, much less Leone and Greene.

more to come boys

This can’t be right can it? A good middle reliever isn’t more valuable than an average OF. Greene throws 100 but he still walks more guys than he strikes out and his lolERA was almost 6 in AA.

Grischuk’s bat disappeared last year so hopefully there’s something in the advanced stats that show he got a bit unlucky or they think it’s going to improve.

Pretty much this, plus we aren't hurting for good relievers anyway. I'd rather it not have been someone quite of Leone's calibre but if there's one position I don't mind taking a hit on this team it's relief pitching.

Meh, if there's one thing that we, as the internet baseball community, have been undervaluing until the last few years, it's the value of a bullpen.

I'm not really worried about Greene because he walks everybody and they've not been able to straighten that out in the last two years, so they probably wouldn't ever under the current regime, but still. Eric Longenhagen graded him as 45 FV and 30 command.

SortByWAR suggests that Leone was just as valuable as Grichuk last year, and there's a non-zero chance that Grichuk, another RHB (platoon splits be damned) may have peaked at 24. OF was already a bit crowded, and now we'll probably have a 5 man platoon, while Alford/Hernandez/Pompey (Smith, etc to a lesser degree) will be pinched that little bit more for playing time. Not that any of those guys are knocking the door down or anything but still, I can't see Grichuk being that big of an upgrade over what was there plus whatever may come up. Not a horribly different player from what Teoscar projects to be right now tbh, unless I underrate Grichuk big time defensively, which is certainly possible.

Big thing for me though I think is that pitching depth is already a bit light for the rotation, I'd rather keep Leone in the fold and have as strong a bullpen as possible. Loup stinks but he's the only lefty that even approaches serviceable at the moment, but Leone was ~neutral vs. platoon and I think the best blue jay reliever against LHP.

I don't necessarily think they're done by any stretch, so if this is just a precursor to something else, I fully reserve the right to re-evaluate. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong, but basically Grichuk doesn't really excite me and I quite liked Leone.

From BA's #3 prospect in baseball (behind Ohtani though who is barely a prospect) write up on Vladdy Jr.

https://streamable.com/qbipm


Can someone gif the deflated Jays mascot at 1:25. Feel like it may get a lot of use here this season

Donaldson still not extended, Tulo already hurt, Stroman MAD about the mean things the team said in arbitration, but at least they signed a 1 WAR pitcher for $8M? season off to a great start

im pretty sure the going rate in free agency is about 8M per WAR lol

I'd rather Garcia at 1/8 than Vargas or Cashner at 2/16

I feel Shaprio is doing just enough so when the team fails he can have his fire sale he's been dreaming of.

ya that was the good news to counteract the bad


and yeah, once i realized that he played for 3 teams last year it looks pretty good
probably more like 1.5-2 WAR projected? could be 2-3

would probably be for the best

not in the same ballpark on term

he's posturing like he thinks he's gonna be a superstar until he's 40 lol


so he's playing hardball, or he wants out?

For 2018 me thinks

Martin will hit well (270-80 ish) and will be relatively healthy
Travis will be injury free and will do his 290-300+ spray singles/doubles thing.
Tulo will either be hurt or we will wish he was. He will spend some time on bench.
Osuna will be the big surprise. He is shaky and is going to lose his role
Sanchez will be fine but Stroman is going to get lit up lots
Pillar is going to spend some time on the bench with Tulo cause he cant hit.
Not one but two of our many new outfield options will surprise and see regular/non-platoon time.

Donaldson's shoulder looks dead.

Yeah, looks like he is short-arming his throws, guessing that full extension hurts... Regardless of whether it is an inflamation or a tear, I cant see how he can "play" through it.

This game feels like we are in spring training and the other team is playing their regs and we are fielding a split squad, except that we are not and this is what we got for 2018.

Should just play Donaldson at DH and send Morales to the moon. Play whoever at third until Donaldson can actually throw a baseball.

Really need a thread title change at this point

Toronto Blue Jays: It was fun for a second there...