Prospecty Stuff, mostly.

I'm tired and hungry and kind of cold.  There's no time for the usual small talk, so let's just get right in to it.

First off, that guy in the picture up there is Travis d'Arnaud.  I present you him, because he's the only Jay to make the MLB's top 50 prospects in Baseball list, which was unveiled on MLB.com and the MLB network last night.  I no longer see this being available in video form, but here is a written-word link to that top 100 prospects.  Included in the back half of that are three more Blue Jays: Anthony Gose (57), Jake Marisnick (58) and Noah Syndergaard (95).

Speaking of Jays prospects, Kevin Goldstein of Baseballprospectus.com released his top 20 Jays prospects today, with scouting reports on the top 11, plus 9 more names and a sleeper.  He also includes his top 10 players under 25 in the organization.  He calls it his "Top 11" but includes 21 names...  Let's not forget, when reading this, that the Jays have a very deep system, and a lot of the names that aren't mentioned here were drafted out of highschool, and were given over-slot bonuses due to upside.

The Red Sox and Rangers are believed to be in on Roy Oswalt, still.  Here's the thing though: The Rangers don't really need him, given their pitching depth (Ogando to the bullpen?  Come on...), and the Red Sox appear to have offered him just $5MM.  NOW can we try to sign Oswalt?  I mean, if Francisco Cordero is worth $4.5MM, surely the Jays can beat the suddenly-cash-strapped Red Sox' offer of $5MM for a fucking starter.

The Prince Fielder signing became official today, and it will probably have a lot of bearing on Joey Votto's contract negotiations after next (2013) season.  Basically, if the Jays are going to want Votto, they're going to need to pony up Fielder money, and then some.  If Votto were a free agent this year, there is little doubt that he'd have found a better contract than what Fielder got, but since Votto will be 30 at that time, I think something in the same range as what Fielder got seems fair-ish.  I say this without having read MLBTR's recent post about Votto being a candidate for a contract extension.