Jays came really close and it was really fun for us Jays fans to watch back to back ALCS runs that both looked like teams with legit shots at being WS champs.

Yeah, there's definitely a few, but like a thousand dudes play in the bigs a year.

Guillermo Mota is no exception.


Gil Meche's retirement is still intriguing.

Haha Anthopoulos is awesome. I’m writing up some trade reviews today for sure. Today is also the anniversary of the Reyes Johnson buerhle blockbuster

The Jays fired JP Ricciardi in October of 2009, and promoted Anthopoulos from Assistant GM to replace him. Anthopoulos immediately had to decide what to do with Roy Halladay, who was a year from free agency, who had already signed a pretty team friendly extension, was approximately the best pitcher in baseball, and was heading a team that otherwise stunk. Pretty easy decision, I guess.

Halladay basically chose where he wanted to go, and the Jays still ended up getting three top-100 prospects for the Phillies, in Michael Taylor, Travis d'Arnaud and Kyle Drabek. Doc ended up winning a Cy Young in his first year in Philly, and put up an even better second year before needing a backiotomy and retiring at 36, but the Phillies definitely got their money's worth.

AA wanted Anthony Gose instead of Taylor, but the Phillies weren't willing to give him up in the deal at the time. The Jays, instead, flipped Taylor three days later to Oakland for Brett Wallace (who came to Oakland in the Matt Holliday trade). The Phillies did eventually give Gose up; he went to Houston later on in the Roy Oswalt deal (JA Happ, Gose and Jonathan Villar to Houston) the following trade deadline. Later that day, Anthopoulos got his man, sending Wallace to Houston for Gose.

None of those three ended up really being worth anything to their teams. Wallace played in 300ish games for Houston and provided -0.5WAR before getting released. Taylor was worth -1WAR for Oakland, and then got traded for a guy who is now 28 and has never appeared in the bigs. Gose provided about a WAR for Toronto before being traded to Detroit for Devon Travis, shortly after Detroit got Ian Kinsler and didn't have a spot for Travis at 2b.

Now Travis is pretty great, he just can't seem to stay healthy. He'll be 26 this offseason, and has provided 6 WAR for the Jays over about 200 games spread over three seasons.

d'Arnaud is best known as the main piece (at the time) in the RA Dickey trade, though we know better now that Noah Syndergaard is the real prize in that one. TDA has been listed as high as #6 on MLB's prospect rankings, but hasn't really put it all together for the Mets. He's shown some signs of breaking out, but has ultimately put up 2 WAR over 400ish games for the Mets. The Jays meanwhie got 800+ innings over 4 years out of Dickey, getting league average-ish production out of him before eventually leaving for free agency.

The most disappointing part is Drabek though. He was the centerpiece of the deal and was supposed to be a front-of-the-rotation piece for the Jays. He put up some great numbers in the minors and got a call-up in September. Made 3 starts, in 2010, and was decent, despite going 0-3. He ultimately ended up never being able to throw strikes and hasn't been worth anything. Last I heard, he was going to give up pitching and try to be a shortstop. He appears to be playing with the Sugar Land Skeeters, who are apparently a real team somewhere in an Independent League.

The main takeaway I get from this one is that both PHI and TOR got some good value out of the Halladay trade, despite the fact that none of the three prospects the Jays originally got ended up being all that good.

I've already told Braves' fan friends that I'm jealous of the wild ride they're about to go on. AA's selling the system in 2015 made total sense because of how seldom the Yanks/Sox give the jays windows, so I had no issue with the percieved reaching he did. AA isn't perfect, but he's a great playalong GM option. Good hire imo.

If anyone wants a hearty LOL, check out Aubrey Huff's twitter feed. He's being trolled on evolution and doesn't even know it.

For anyone interested, I set up a predictions contest for the Effectively Wild Facebook group. You can enter here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...X6Y/edit#gid=0

Hit me with any suggestions. No cash in the contest, but you can obviously make your own sidebets.

H/t to the aubrey huff alert. He's the guy that got the Devil Rays changed to the Rays right? Hilarious Twitter feed

Depends what you count as voluntary retirement. Lots of players could find a contract that paid them a lot less or would require them to be a part-time player/fight for PT and choose retirement instead.

Not many guys go out like Ortiz where there could still be a starter and get a decent contract. Recent names that come to mind are Mariano and Wagner who were still super-effective when healthy.

Speaking of voluntary retirement one Carlos Beltran has officially retired. So now the HOF debate begins official. I say slam dunk yes but couldnt help but pull this gem up from a couple if years back...start it at 3:50 to get to the Beltran debate:

yeah, a hard no thanks on the Mad Dog.

Richie Sexson

Am I doing this right?

You think he is a hall of famer?

Yea, the whole thing is funny. Someone asked him about Imagine Dragons and he went on a rant about how they are real. LOLZ.

No, but I do remember him being the near shocking consensus of a MLB round-table discussion back in the day that he was going to be the guy to top Maris' record.

I meant the opus about player X being moved.

On of the players the Dbacks traded away in 2003 to get Richie Sexson played on their team last season.

Let's do this.

I'm pretty neutral to the Jays but their second half of 2015 run when they finally turned their sick pythag into wins and won the division after the blockbuster trades was super exciting. Culminating in the bat flip obv.

Well this has sent me down a nice little rabbit hole. Did you know that there's a person on this planet called Noochie Varner? I didn't. He's actually a baseball player, and was involved in a Richie Sexson trade, which makes him relevent. He might actually have beeen a 2p2er, given this revelation.

Anyway, Richie Sexson was, if I'm remembering him correctly, kinda like the original Aaron Judge. "Holy frig, this guy is tall" people would say. He also hit some tape measure homers, and struck out a lot. Now I admittedly don't remember why Sexson got traded from Cleveland, but I've got a guess. Cleveland had Jim Thome at 1B, and picked up David Segui at the deadline in 2000 to DH, moving Russell Branyan to the outfield. Sexson wasn't much of an outfielder himself, so he was squeezed out and flipped for Bob Wickman, who would become Cleveland's closer. What I definitely don't have a guess at is why Milwaukee was the team to go get him. They were fresh off an 11 game losing streak and were now 13 games under .500. They certainly didn't have much going on at 1B before that, but they certainly weren't a good team, and this trade seemed unnecessary.

I say it was unnecessary, because they didn't do **** to build around him or any of the other decent pieces they had. The Brewers obviously missed the playoffs in 2000, but also managed to lose 94 games the next year, lost 106 in 2002, and 96 more in 2003 (Sexson was definitely a bright spot on those teams though). Milwaukee opted to move Sexson to Arizona before the 2004 season, with Shane Nance and the aforementioned Varner for for Chris Capuano, Craig Counsell, Chad Moeller, Lyle Overbay, Jorge De La Rosa and Junior Spivey. A pretty decent haul, considering Sexson had one year of control remaining.

In true LOLDbacks fashion, Sexson managed to play 23 games for Arizona before getting hurt checking his swing, and then walking away in free agency. Sexson was worth .3WAR for Arizona, neutered by Nance being worth -.5WAR, and Noochie never reaching the majors. As a saving grace, the DBacks got a compensation pick the next year in the draft for losing Sexson. They blew that too, though, taking Matt Torra 31st overall and subsequently selling him to Tampa a few years later on.

The Brewers got plenty of value from their side though. Capuono's best years were in Milwaukee, giving 8WAR before leaving in free agency. Counsell was worth 1 WAR in his only season for Milwaukee. He left and re-signed in Arizona. Moeller was one of those guys who played forever just by virtue of being a catcher. He provided negative WAR, but that's almost expected from a glove-first backup catcher. Spivey hung around for a year and a half, putting up a few WAR, before getting traded for Tomo Ohka. Ohka put up 1.7WAR and then left. I think he's a knuckleballer in Korea now, maybe?

Jorge de la Rosa debuted with Milwaukee and toiled for a couple years, before being traded to KC for Tony Graffanino. Graffanino was alright, giving Milwaukee 2.7 WAR over a season and a half. As mentioned, JDLR made it back to Arizona this past season.

Finally, Lyle Overbay was worth 4.3WAR in his first tour of duty in Milwaukee. He was traded after two seasons to Toronto with Ty Taubenheim in exchange for Dave Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson. Bush put up two decent years in his first three seasons, and then became the worst and walked. Gross gave 3 WAR over 2 seasons before being traded to Tampa for Josh Butler. He stunk.

Jackson wasn't very good at all, and didn't provide anybody any value on the field. However, he was a piece in one other trade during his career...

Sabathia was only in Milwaukee for half a season, but that didn't stop him from putting up 4.9WAR over 130 innings. Sabathia made 17 starts, had 7 CG's, including 3 shutouts. 1.65 ERA, 8.8k/9, etc. He also made one start in the playoffs and got shelled by the Phillies, so whatever. He would leave in free agency at the end of the 2008 season, and would sign a huge free agent deal in NY.

The Brewers took Kentrail Davis and Max Walla with their compensation picks for losing Sabathia, neither of whom has seen MLB time.

All told, Arizona got more value out of JDLR this year, 12 years onward at age 36, than they did out of the entire Richie Sexson trade, while Milwaukee got like 10 WAR out of Sexson, then traded him for a million pieces and got pretty good value for the one season that they traded away.

TOREY

Dave really racking up the silver medals this year!

Richie Sexson anecdote.

He grew up in Vancouver, WA, which is very near the first cardroom I worked at. I was told that he had been in a few times, though I never saw or dealt to him. One of my coworkers told of a time where Richie lost at blackjack, and he really freaked out. Demanding to know how he was supposed to explain to his wife he had just lost $1,000. Lol. Idk dude, maybe your 8 figure annual salary might be of some consolation.

I don't really cotton to baseball book learnin', but Molitor has to be one of the best players to turn manager, right?

He's no Frank Robinson, but he's up there.

One of the most underrated players of all time.