Lawrie for Pineda was discussed

Hey, so apparently Jeff Blair has multiple sources that claim the Jays were looking in to Michael Pineda this offseason.  So far so good.  It turns out the Mariners wanted Brett Lawrie in return...  No, that's it... straight up.  Yeah, I know.

I guess Jack Z. was in charge of drafting Lawrie when he was with the Brewers in 2008, and wanted him again for his Mariners club now, but heh.  I wouldn't have done that trade either.

Remember last night when AA said that he could have made all kinds of trades this year, but fans would have just turned to him and said "Well what did you do that for?"  Yeah, me too.  This would have created another hole in the infield, unless you want Luis Valbuena playing third everyday in exchange for a pitcher who is probably worse than what they gave up to get Lawrie initially.  Obviously Pineda still has room for improvement, but there's something to be said about the attrition rate of pitchers vs. that of position players.

Neither Lawrie nor Pineda is really proven as a big leaguer yet, but I'd certainly rather have the guy who put up 3 WAR in 1/3 of a season vs. the guy who put up 3 WAR in a full season, given ages, size, and positional scarcity.  Especially when Pineda's success could have been, at least partially, assisted by the pitcher-friendly confines of Safeco.

A Pineda-Lawrie trade wouldn't be completely outrageous in a vacuum, but I wouldn't do it.  It's not that Lawrie is miles ahead of Pineda or anything in terms of value, because he isn't.  The mere fact is that Jays fan cared about Lawrie so long before they ever saw him play a single game of baseball, and we'd have a complete mutiny on our hands if we ever lost him, let alone traded him away.

In closing, I provide video evidence suggesting Lawrie>Pineda:

Stuff

If you're still interested in reading about the Jays terrible, awful, horrific offseason, Yahoo!sports has their Jays offseason review/2012 preview.

Fangraphs has heard about the Lawrie-Pineda stuff too. [Ehh... having a closer look, they're comparing Lawrie and Jesus Montero, not Pineda.]

State of the Franchise Liveblog

6:30ET: Buck Martinez is the emcee.  Meh.  Turn off your cell phones you cunts.

6:32ET: Buck is introducing Beeston, Farrell and AA, not necessarily in that order.  He's stumbled over his words once, so far.  Expect more.

6:35ET: Beeston "Blah blah blah, future is bright."
Audience: *clap clap*
Beeston "But we need to win first."

Basically, same stuff we've heard from Beeston lately.  Won't fast-forward, want sustainable winning, and such.  Eventually, people will remember that he's said this over and over and that they're not going to diverge from that plan and they'll stop asking for Rogers to spend a cock-load of money.

6:40ET: Winter tour video?!? WTF is this shit?  Get to the questions.

6:50 ET: Wooooooooo more promotional events!
Wow, so people who aren't from the internet actually realize that winning is the only thing that's going to bring fans to the ballpark?  I'm legitimately shocked.  Good start.
Buck starting with his own questions now:  Asking about contract length, policy, philosphy, free agents, Prince Fielder etc.

Beeston (paraphrased): We'd like Fielder, he's a special talent, but was looking for 8-10 years, and that doesn't fit under our philosophy.  If you change it for one guy, you gotta change it for everybody, or you lose leverage and credibility.  5-year contracts are max for this club right now.  We need the ability to manage our team, and those big deals don't allow that.  We want credibility inside our negotiations.  Big ticket free agents tend to migrate to teams who are winning or about to win, so we need to start winning before we get those big guys to come, and keeping that credibility will help us there.

Buck: "Winfield! Molitor!"

6:53: Buck asks AA about Darvish:
AA: "We're linked to everyone, but again, we're not going past 5 years.  There's a lot of guys out there in the league that we like, but we like them at a certain price.  That's why we like the trade route, instead of the FA route.  We could have made trades to excite fans, but some of those deals wouldn't have worked out well long-term.

Roster turnover is huge since I've been on the job, and we have guys we like right now.  We're going to keep at it and try and win soon."

6:55: Buck asks about the bullpen.
Farrell: "We have more defined roles going in to spring training this year, as opposed to last year where we didn't really know who was going to close, who would set up, etc.  Delays (injuries) going in to ST kind of hurt last year.  This year, we have Santos to close, we have Oliver for LHB's, we have Frasor, etc.  Incosistencies were probably partially my fault, and it's something I've got to improve upon this year."

Buck: "Wooo, bullpen."

7:00 ET: Alan Nicholson: "1-yr, 3-yr. 5-yr business plans, gogogogo"
Farrell through 1 year " I get a C.  I've learned from my mistakes, and have ultimate optimism.  We can score runs, but we need more SP quality innings."
AA, predictions for 3-yr "Trade demands, payroll, minor leagues, etc... foundation... like building a house.  We're getting there now.  Our oldest guy is Bautista, and he's in his prime.  Our rotation is young, can get better, and we've got a bunch of re-inforcements in the minors.  Guys are going to have good year, bad years, and they're going to get hurt, but day-in and day-out, I'm excited."
Beeston "We should have been in the post-season by now.  Haivng said that, we've got a good team.  Better than last year, and better than the year before.  5 years from now, we'd better be in the post-season.  We want meaningful September baseball.  Once we're in the playoffs, we've got as good a chance as the other 9 teams [note- double wildcard?!?!]

7:01ET Old man, something about Omar Vizquel
Farrell "He's got to earn a spot.  He's got a good presence, and can play D.  He can spell 2b/3b/SS."

7:05ET: Angry guy!  Wanted Fielder.  Might not be back! Good, get the fuck out.  "I've only seen one trade, Wah wah."  Wanted Beltran, Fielder, etc. signed, Gio/Latos traded for.
AA "Some people don't want turf, some don't want DH, some have medical concerns, some don't want to play in the AL, even for more money/years.  Basically, there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that you don't get.
It's easy to say 'I wanted you to trade for that guy' but the price was never right.  We can do stuff during the season as well."

7:07ET: Old guy bitching about the last whippersnapper's question, and then asks about season ticket prices and something about the Raptors.
Beeston: "Trying to be consistent, simple.  Don't worry about it."

7:10ET: Turf is an eyesore.  Give us grass.
Beeston "Examining grass.  It can work.  But this is a multi-purpose stadium (concerts, football) so grass is difficult.  Some guys don't want to play on turf, so we're looking at it."

7:12ET: Guy lying about his age.  Beest-> Where's Henke on the level of excellence?"
Beeston "Considered."

Old, old man. "Trop has turf."
Beeston "Trop's is permanent.  We're multi-purpose and can roll it in and out."

Old, old man, again. "AA, comment on the lack of Canadians on the field"
AA: "Lawrie is Canadian, you dumb old senile fuck."  And then the stream died.

8:17ET: Guy -- "Fill the seats please."
Beeston "We're creating a team that you want to come see.  Winning breeds asses.  It takes time.  Promos don't really do much."

Some Ron Guy: "Winning isn't Charlie Sheen.  Winning to some is just putting a whole bunch of effort.  I look at Lawrie, and I'm pleased.  I look at AA, and I'm pleased.  That brings me out to games."
Farrell "Our style of play in terms of baserunning, types of players, athleticism, etc. brings fans.  Giving 100% -- I think you can appreciate that.  That's what we encourage.  We want those players, because that's how you build a World Series team.  We think that the fan frustration is a positive, because that means that they want what we want.  We want guys to hustle, and we want guys to win."

8:20: Howard wants winners, and wants his kids not to settle for mediocrity.  The time is now to stop settling for mediocrity and dig in.  Talk is cheap, let's see results: Specific reasons/players who will bring us to the top, and how are we going to get those guys if we don't have them now.

AA: We've had a lot of good seasons since the 92-93 WS, but obviously not good enough.  We want elite, high-ceiling guys.  We realized that we need to beef up the minors and get assets.  Trading big league starters obviously makes your team worse in the short-term, but it's got to be worth it if it's for a high-ceiling guy.  Everyone on this team has all-star potential.  Fans aren't told about all the trade offers, and we could create the odd hole here if we really want, but we want elite talent at every position.  Results will show themselves, no matter how much we talk."

8:25: Something about Latin Americans in Niagara Falls.  I think he might be a scout or something, but it's too quiet.  Texas signed 5 guys during the World Series, while TOR didn't have enough time... WTF?!

AA "Changes in international scouting (Paddy).  Don't have much knowledge, but I'll look in to it."

8:30: "Inter-league... PHI is here again.  Natural rival?  Jays have a bad record in inter-league play, what's the deal?"

Beeston "15 teams in each league, always some inter-league.  There's no natural inter-league rival for most teams.  Some rules talk (NL rules in AL city?!?!?)."
Farrell "NL style is different, especially after 7th inning.  1 run is magnified, especially with pinch-hitters and hitting pitchers, bullpen, etc.  From a fan standpoint, ruleswap (above) would be interesting.  Our style is a little more well-suited for the NL play, and Kevin Cash will be an advanced scout so we can get a look at NL teams before they happen."

Buck: "We want a woman questioner."
Woman "Outfield positions and whatnot"
Farrell "Rasmus is our CF.  We want him to be comfortable.  If he plays to his capability, he gives us a lot offensively.  His defense is great.  Snider and Thames will compete for LF.  Possible platoon and options with Davis/Francisco."

Other woman: "I didn't know cock about baseball 2 years ago, and now I'm a big fan.  Not enough woman clothing and whatnot in the merch store.  Not necessarily pink, not necessarily tiny, and not necessarily the cutest players."
Beeston "K."

8:35: Lind tailed off hard, Kelly Johnson isn't great.  No cleanup hitter.  Fix it.
AA" There's nothing wrong with a balanced lineup if a bunch of guys can hit 20 HR's instead of having someone hitting 50 of whatever.  Kelly Johnson is good.  Was above average OPS, especially for a 2B, during his stint last year.  Lefty bat, good OBP, some HR's, nice guy.  Body language can fool you if that's why you think he doesn't wanna be here.

Old guy: "You paid too much for Rasmus."  HAHAHAHAHA. "Put Lawrie in the 4 hole."
Farrell "Sort by OBP, that's your lineup, more or less.  Yunel is comfortable at the lead-off spot, and he's our guy.  And we gave up some good pitchers, but Colby is going to be worth it (with a glare)."   Fuck you old man.

Man: "Umpires won't allow replays on the big screen.  Change that please."
Beeston "Yeah, we want it too."

8:40: Guy: "You've done a poor job of setting expectations for fans.  We;re there, we're not there.  We have money, we don't.  Which is it?  You'd rather trade, but people like Gio are harder to come by and are more expensive.  Where are we going with this?"

AA: "Plan isn't to lose guys and get picks, but this was the right time (rebuild) to do that.  From our standpoint, we traded a bunch of useless guys, plus two controllable guys who are pretty much fodder (depth).  We approach Colby as a Yunel project.  That worked, huh?
We want a 1st and 2nd rounder every year, no matter what, because that helps us sustain.  Multiple picks is good, but we need to scout well.  We can move depth and maintain."

8:45: Man: "Beeston, retire and give Buck your job."
Beeston "Fuck off"

Guy: "How prepared were you for the CBA, talk about Tyler Beede, and can we prevent that from happening again with the new CBA."
AA: "All we had to do to sign Beede was give him a blank check.  Sometimes you can't trade for guys because you don't have the right players.... it has to make sense, and at the right price.  We offered more years/dollars to two FA's who said no.  Sometimes it's the turf, sometimes it's this, sometimes it's that, etc.  Tyler will be fine and have a great career (until Vandy ruins his arm), but it wasn't the right thing to do."

8:50ET: "Hype about Brett Lawrie last year in ST.  Is there one of those this season?"
Farrell "LF is up for grabs as far as competition...  Drew Hutchison is good, has poise, etc.  Not to say that he is in the rotation on opening day, but we're not going to be reluctant to call him up if need be.  Gose, d'Arnaud, Deck Mcguire, etc.  It's emerging more clearly."

Closing thoughts from Beeston: Thanks for Q's.  There's more passion now than last year.  We've got a strong front office, who works hard, never lets up, and want to improve the club.  Farrell is good, and the players are good, and very proud to wear the leaf and Blue Jays uniform.

There's more than one way to do this.  We're committed to a plan.  Come along with us, it's going to be fun.

If you have questions that you didn't want to ask tonight, call me.  E-mail AA.  We'll get back to you and fast."

Now they're giving out some raffle prizes or something.  At some point in time, it became evident that I live in PEI, and not in the Eastern timezone.

As a whole, I don't think we heard a ton of stuff that we didn't know before.  Maybe the stuff about [unnamed free agents], but we also know that there were offers made to Carlos Beltran, and presumably Roy Oswalt?  Maybe someone else?  No biggie.

We also know that there was one butthurt Leafs fan who cared enough to go to the State of the Franchise presser just to tell us that he wasn't coming back as a fan ever again.  Which is fucking stupid, given the direction this team is going, but again, no biggie.  What we really got here was a lot of the same answers from Beeston and AA, so maybe this time people will pay attention?  NO 8-YEAR FREE AGENT CONTRACTS!

Good night folks!

Daily Stuffing

As we all know, the offseason is pretty well winding down, and teams are more or less finished making their big moves.  We're going to see a lot of minor league deals and minor bench moves, and there might be another trade or two, but the recent offseason trend is to have all the major stuff done at this point, since GM's are trying to beat their rival GM's to the punch on any competitive moves.  That's why I started writing previews last week, since there just wasn't really all that much else.  Anyway, a few little Jays/baseball links from around the internets.

The Blue Jays "State of the Franchise" meeting is tonight at 6:30PM ET, and I believe it is going to be webcast on their homepage.  If that is the case, I'll be watching it, and updating right here.  If not, enough people will be attending and tweeting live that it shouldn't be a problem to find out almost immediately what's happening.  I'd check Shi Davidi or Mike Cormack on twitter.

Roy Oswalt is apparently not interested in joining the Blue Jays, according to MLBTR.  Sucks, I guess.  I was going to make a post dedicated to pursuing such a gentleman, but never got around to it, and now I guess it doesn't matter.  Expect him to join a contender, i.e. Red Sox, Cardinals, Rangers.

Former Jay Matt Stairs has been hired as a Gregg Zaun-type by NESN, the Boston Red Sox tv network.  Congrats to him, I guess, but enjoy hanging around those fackin' queeeahs.  Expect him to invent pinch-talking, and then do it at some point.

Could you have any interest in reading about a bunch of internet punks doing a fake dynasty draft for no stakes? If so, check this out.

Tango looks at the Prince Fielder contract relative to the historically comparable players.  It's not THAT bad based on this evaluation, assuming Fielder ages similarly to, say, Todd Helton, or steroidy Mark Mcgwire.

Finally, I was going to buy it anyway, so this really changes nothing to me personally, but check this out.

2012 Previews: Chicago White Sox

Jesus Christ what a mess.  They won't necessarily be a horrifyingly bad team, but I really can't imagine being an owner of a professional baseball team and standing idly by while my GM simultaneously creates the worst farm system in baseball, while also spending $127MM, and finishing under .500.

The Majors
I probably could have told you that taking the Alex Rios deal was a bad idea, and the Jake Peavy thing was kind of iffy at the time as well, simply due to his injuries.  It's not that Peavy has been terrible or anything, because he's still fairly decent when healthy, but he's only pitched 111 innings or fewer in each of the last 3 seasons, and is now past his prime seasons, even if he can stay healthy.  The Adam Dunn contract seemed fine at the time, especially if the plan was to DH him, because I don't think anyone could have really predicted his fall off a cliff.

The end result of these three guys being either hurt, or terrible going forward is a nice big chunk of payroll providing not that much value.  Peavy is still owed $17MM this season (plus a $22MM option or $4MM buyout), Rios is due $36.5MM between now and 2014 (plus a $1MM buyout), and Dunn is due $44MM through 2014.  No one of these contracts alone will handcuff the team, but the three of them together, combined with other commitments like Paul Konerko, will take away a lot of payroll flexibility going forward.

Kenny Williams refuses to commit to a full blown rebuild, considering the payroll that this team can sustain.  I think the biggest problem he has going for him right now is the fact that he hasn't gotten much use out of the salary that he's using right now, but with a lack of a farm system, the only real way to compete in the next few years (i.e. until the Rios/Dunn deals are off the books) would be to spend on free agency and have a really expensive bench.  I'd have traded John Danks and Gavin Floyd already, if I were him, mostly because there's no way he's going to compete in the next 2 or 3 years.  The biggest struggle Williams is going to have going forward is dealing with a division that has the peaking Tigers and the up-and-coming Royals and Indians.

Alexei Ramirez is good and plays a premium position, so he would probably get a decent haul in a trade, and you could probably turn 4 or 5 guys from that roster in to a 3-star prospect (with a bit of cash tossed on the side in some cases), so it's not utterly hopeless if they're really willing to go ahead and actually commit to a rebuild.

The Minors
This farm system is the consensus worst in baseball.  That's why I'd have traded Danks and Floyd.  Floyd could still be moved (and Danks can be moved next year), so it's not a complete disasterfuck yet, but given the load of prospects Gio, Latos and Cahill fetched, this seems like a no-brainer, since they're not going to be winning soon anyway.

The White Sox have spent next to nothing on the draft over the last few years, and it shows.  They've hardly gotten any value from their own first rounders, either due to prospects fizzling, or trading them away (they also gave away a pick when they signed Adam Dunn, who gave them -3WAR for $12MM).

I guess it's a pet peeve of mine to see a team have a $100MM payroll and finish with 80 wins or fewer without having some semblance of a positive aspect of your season.

The Verdict


The best-case scenario for the White Sox over the next few years is being perpetually decent.  I don't see much of a fix until the Rios and Dunn contracts expire (assuming Dunn never returns to form).  They really need to accumulate some assets in the form of prospects so they can have some kind of chance to compete in 2017 or so.  I don't necessarily think that they completely tank this year, because they aren't absolutely awful and won't fully commit to re-tooling the organization, but they definitely aren't good enough to compete with the Tigers, and won't improve enough any time soon to compete with Indians or Royals when they get good either.

2012 Projection: 74-88, 4th in AL Central
I expect them to be worse this year than they were last year, but also expect improvements from the Royals and Indians.  I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they went it to full firesale mode, in which case they could actually win something like 70 games or fewer, depending on when the sale happens, but as is, they're probably better than that right now.

2012 Previews: Baltimore Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles have, in my opinion, at least two guys who have no right to be on the team right now: Nick Markakis and Adam Jones.  That isn't meant to be any disrespect to either, since both are good players -- it's more of a diss to the people who have run this team (directly in to the ground).

The Majors
I understand that it's tough to attract players to Baltimore (blessing in disguise, really, if we're talking about free agents), mostly because of all the murders and stuff, but also because they've been a complete clustercock of an organization for the last 20 years.  It probably hasn't been that bad for the whole 20 years, but the fact that they've been playing in the AL East with the Yankees and Red Sox (and various good-to-great Rays and Jays teams) clearly magnifies their inadequacy, and has left them with little chance to compete.  If, at any point during the last 6 years in which they've had Markakis, they thought they had a chance to compete in this division, they've been fooling themselves.  I would have traded Markakis after his 6WAR 2008 season, and probably would have gotten a bounty of prospects for him.  I can understand not moving Jones, simply based on the hype behind him as a prospect and the fact that he's still fairly young, so he could still break out and double his trade value. He's had a .338 wOBA as a CF in the last 3 years so there's certainly some value there, and he still has 2 years of team control left, so they can still hang on and hope he breaks out.

Beyond that though, I just really don't understand how they don't blow the whole thing up and rebuild.  They've still got some young pieces in Matt Weiters and all those young, should-be-good-but-are-only-meh pitchers, plus Manny Machado waiting in the wings, but there's got to be a real problem in their player development system, and if I were taking over, I'd probably be replacing a significant percentage of the instructional and scouting staff immediately, and then blowing the team up to score some prospects.

Currently, I see Weiters (good), Markakis (OK), Jones (Almost good) and JJ Hardy (sustainable '11?), followed by a bunch of below average filler.  Robert Andino, Endy Chavez, Nolan Reimold, Mark Reynolds... it goes on.  The lineup just isn't that good.  The rotation should be good, but just can't seem to put it together either.  Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, Zach Britton, Chris Tillman... it's a pretty mighty list of guys who just haven't been able to put it together in the bigs.

Instead of dealing Markakis, they chose to extend him after his breakout '08 season (which is fine, really), inking him to a 6 year, $66.1MM contract (with escalators), buying out his three years of arbitration and his first three years of free agency. Markakis has responded by putting up seasons of 2.3, 2.6 and 2.2 WAR since then, largely due to his defensive abilities falling off a cliff, turning that deal in to a market-value-ish deal that wouldn't really fetch a whole lot in a trade.  The extension itself is fine in a vacuum, but there just hasn't really been anything else in the system to build around Markakis, and the guys who have come up behind Markakis have fizzled pretty terribly so far.  If that sounds kind of familiar to you, it's not terribly different from what happened in Toronto, when JP Ricciardi signed Vernon Wells to an extension, locked up Alex Rios, and signed AJ Burnett to for a 1-2 with Roy Halladay.  We all remember how that worked out.

Obviously it's easy to just look back at the last three years and say "Jeez, you shouldn't have done that," but whatever, the point remains that I would have traded him since there was nothing but Matt Weiters and a pitcher or two in the farm system.  Now that they can see what Andrew Friedman has done over the last 5 years or so, they should clearly replicate such a system (get used to reading that last line, by the way).  It takes more than an extension and 3 prospects to build a winner.

The Minors
The O's have Manny Machado and Dylan Bundy in their system, thanks to getting very early draft picks in the last couple of years, but beyond that, there's not much, and certainly not enough to combat the great farm systems of the Jays and Rays, or the spending ability of the Yankees and Red Sox.  The only way the O's are going to be able to compete at any point this decade is if they go all Marlins on us, signing some huge free agents and building themselves a cute little 3-year window with 7-year contracts, before fading back in to mediocrity. And even then, the Rays and Jays are both going to be really good in the coming years, no matter what the Yankees and Red Sox do.  This isn't the NL West, where there is only one good team each season -- it's the AL East, where you can hardly make any mistakes in building your team if you want to have any hopes of success.

The Verdict
Ultimately, the Orioles are a total lock to come last in their division this season, and they don't even have a  tunnel to have any light at the end of.  The team is bad, the farm system is bad, and if I had to guess, I'd say their scouts and staff are terrible as well.  That is a lethal combination if you ever feel like competing in this division.

They should be shedding payroll, instead of paying $90MM to come in last place.  There are moveable pieces in Jones, Markakis, JJ Hardy, Matt Weiters, and Jim Johnson that could be turned in to prospects.  Most of those guys aren't really elite players, and won't really fetch giant hauls of prospects in trades (save for Weiters), but there is absolutely no reason not to move everyone and focus on building some good internal prospect depth.  Either that, or move to a new division.

Projected Finish: 5th in the AL East.  61-101

Stuff

Wanna work for the Jays?  Check it out.  Speaking of things going on on the Jays homepage, there appeared to be some video announcement going on this morning, but that turned out to be an error stemming from the new jerseys announcement like a month ago or whatever.

If you're in to podcasts, you should be listening to the Up and In podcast with Kevin Goldstein and Josh Parks of baseballprospectus.  They spent a good 20 minutes just waxing on about how awesome the Jays' farm system is.  You can check that out for yourself, but I've taken the liberty to listen to it already and take out the Jays' snippets.  Episode 80, for what it's worth, at 1:16:00 or so.  The highlights:

KG: [maniacal laughter] 

JP: Dude... hahaha.  That's a craaaazy system... that's the "Bob Seger" system. [I don't understand what he means by that, but it's a compliment.]

If you remember looking through the list of prospects in the Jays system, you'll remember that Goldstein had his list divided in to 5-stars, 4-stars, and 3-stars, and then 9 other guys plus a sleeper.  When discussing the Jays list with BP interns, just to figure out how far in to the system ranks that they had to go to find bios on the players;

KG: One of the interns emailed me back and asked "how far back the 3-star list goes back", and I answered "20... it's 20"[...] This is as good a collection of young pitching as you'll find in all of baseball.  [...] They have 8 million young pitchers with just crazy-high ceilings.
JP: I think it's the best system in baseball.

As a frame of reference, 3-star prospects usually make up the majority of KG's top-11's.  3-10 on last year's Jays' list were 3*, with a 2* rounding things out, and two more 2*'s appeared on the '09 list.  The Jays now have TWENTY 3*'s.  KG also points out that despite all the high-ceiling pitchers in that system, the fact that they start the list off with two 5*, up the middle guys (d'Arnaud at C, Marisnick at CF) makes it really special.  JP calls d'Arnaud "an all-star waiting to happen".

They then argue about whether or not Marisnick will be able to stick at CF going forward.  They agree that he's already a big kid, but JP thinks he'll lose a step as he fills out, which will mean that he needs to move to a corner, where his bat will still provide more than enough value.  KG, on the other hand, thinks that he'll be just fine in CF even if he does lose speed, citing Torii Hunter as being an excellent defensive CF for years despite league-average speed (they fail to mention that if he can't stick it in CF, Rasmus and Gose should still be around, whether or not they can hand CF in a few years time.  Still, having both Gose and Marisnick in your outfield should take away some of the worry about whether either can be an elite CF-defender.  Look at Gardner and Granderson this year for the Yankees).

They use Marisnick as a segue to Anthony Gose.  As a preamble, "burner" means that he's outrageously fast. They also use some numbers within this to describe him; that's basically a scale that scouts like to use, almost as slang.  The scale is from 20-80, from the best of my understanding, though I'm not sure where it originated, nor do I get why it goes from 20 to 30 to 40, etc., without 25, 35, 45, and so on.  Anyway:

JP: Gose can fuckin'... do everything.
KG:That's a burner... average power at least.
JP: Not a bad approach.
KG: 80-Arm... at least (Chuckles), and a 70-CF.
JP: If there's anybody who you can go over 80 for (re: speed), it's him.

Their knock on Gose is his contact.  I've read some stuff that suggests that he'll improve with his contact rate, since he's a prep hitter, but still will probably strike out a lot.  KG compares him to Devon White.  JP says that there's more power there than most people realize.

The format of the prospect-list talk usually goes (1)talk about quality of the system, (2) talk about each of the top 4-5, (3) each person pick their own guy from the bottom half of the list.  When asked which of the young pitchers in the rest of the top 20 list stands out, JP answers with Nicolino, calling him a pitcher, not a thrower, and that Nicolino will be "his guy".

KG: Hard to find a 19-year olds with a 60-changeup.
JP:[talks a bit about the fastball, before coming back to change] I never say this about young pitchers -- it's usually "60 projected" -- I think he has a 60-pitch.
KG: OH yeah. Changeup is really good.
JP: The breaking ball isn't there yet, and it may never get there, but it may not have to get there with the way his command profile suggests that he's going to become... with a fastball that's good -- and it doesn't have to be great-- everything about this guy is a combination of decent stuff, but with a lot of pitchability... I don't think this is a guy that's going to stumble at all on the way up. This arm is really, really, really good. [...] I'm in love with him.

KG answers with Matt Dean, whom the Jays picked in the 13th round do to signability issues.

KG: Classic 3B profile... really good hitter, he'll hit for power, but athletic and strong.
JP: And he stays at third [as in he's athletic enough that he won't necessarily have to move to the outfield]
KG:  The only reason he was a 13th round pick was because he was going to cost money.  And the Jays had an insanely aggressive draft.
JP: Yeah, there were a lot of people who were fans of the college team (U of Texas, JP is a fan of UT) who were pissed off that he signed. How many players in the minor leagues fit a true 3B profile and can stick? There is a shortage of true, legitimate 3B prospects who can stick and have success at the position. Those are very, very valuable prospects.

 Fangraphs has more Morrow stuff.

Apparently the Jays signed a few minor leaguers to some contracts today, which wasn't really the transaction news I was looking for.  More on that in a second, but... RHP Tim Redding, LHP Bill Murphy, and C Kyle Phillips all signed minor league agreements today.

I figured the Francisco Cordero contract would be finalized today, but apparently not, not that there's an incredible rush or anything.  The Jays do need to find an empty 40-man spot for him though, so we can expect a DFA or trade soon.  The other possibility is that Cordero failed his physical and won't be on the team after all.  Come on....

As for me, I'm probably going to start doing previews soon.  I'm fairly sure that I'll be writing a quick preview on every team, starting with the teams that I think are in the worst shape going forward, and moving towards the better ones.  They will obviously get a little more extensive as they go, since there isn't exactly a whole lot to write about the Orioles, the White Sox, etc.  This won't necessarily be a "projected standings" as much as it will be a "team that is in a situation in which I'd like to be a GM of" list.  I'll probably start with the AL teams, going from least-to-(AL b)east, since I know a fair bit more about them, and then move over to the NL and do the same.

We're about 30 days from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, which means we're in the range of 70 or so days from opening day.  I should be able to hammer through 30 previews in 70 days, but I'll also want to do a fantasy baseball primer in there at some point as well.  I've been substitute teaching a lot lately, and don't really do much when I'm there, so I assume I'll be writing outlines for a bunch of teams during the day, and then coming home and hammering them out at night.  I'll probably review each league in a 2-parter at Nowhere Plans at some point during the week leading up to the regular season.

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.