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So the Jays are in the midst of the race still very much capable of holding their own if every 5th day Mark B can get us a chance to Win. Now I know our offence is suspect but is firing to say the least. I think we are capable of kepeing it going but we cant be juggling talent at 2B all thought Lawrie at 2nd isnt bad with the other guys have been playing but his D at 3B is what wins games. Rickie Weeks is an option out of Milwakuee and we can then move Brett back to 3B and shuffle Lind/Francisco at the DH spot even with EE. I know we need to make a move for the SP, but how long do we play with fire when we know the SP is suspect to say the least.

Do you guys see the Jays making a move to sure up that we can hold our spot in the standings? Of past years we may have still been in contention until 1/3 of the way until we did nothing to keep making the push and fell back.

Wonder what Jays fans are looking for I am thinking we need to pick up some sure fire talent and not rely so much on the call ups. 2B needs a fix and Rickie Weeks maybe it along with another potential SP.

something that should be discussed around the all star break, imo. I do, however, applaud your enthusiasm and admire your opinion that the jays are in the midst of the race in mid-may.

when was the offense considered suspect? and by whom?

rickie weeks is finished. his refusal to move to the outfield in order to gain more playing time just speaks volumes as to his character.

the lawrie experiment is working and I think the jays should stick with it. lawrie/Francisco > lawrie/scrub2boption

but seriously, there are 120 games to go and a lot can change for better or worse between now and the time to buy or sell.

FrankGrimes wrote:something that should be discussed around the all star break, imo. I do, however, applaud your enthusiasm and admire your opinion that the jays are in the midst of the race in mid-may.

when was the offense considered suspect? and by whom?

rickie weeks is finished. his refusal to move to the outfield in order to gain more playing time just speaks volumes as to his character.

the lawrie experiment is working and I think the jays should stick with it. lawrie/Francisco > lawrie/scrub2boption

but seriously, there are 120 games to go and a lot can change for better or worse between now and the time to buy or sell.

I don't agree that you have to wait until the trade deadline to be a buyer. Why do you have to wait through 60 more mediocre games before deciding you're mediocre and need reinforcements or you're mediocre and to sell? The price also goes up near the deadline as well. The unfortunate reality though is nothing will be done, they will wait, and they will hope to avoid the annual nosedive that seems to accompany every end of June.

I really just don't get this management. We have the 2nd best OPS in the majors. Our lineup vs. RHP is ridiculous because we lucked into Juan Francisco and Adam Lind's unlikely resurgence has continued.

All you need are LHP hitting backups! Backups! Like, Jordy Mercer type players. And we have a championship level offense.

When are we going to have an offence like this again?

We made these moves last year to get into contention. It blew up. But this year Melky, Reyes and Buehrle are what we thought they were. It's working (sort of)!

So can we keep making win now moves or.. is that it I guess? Just doesn't make sense.

Brass new our rotation had holes in the offseason and did nothing, still apparent now but doubt anything will be done that is significant until Sanchez is called up and Stroman finally gets an opportunity to start. Too bad it feels like both of those moves will be dictated by McGowan and Happ imploding as opposed to preemptively. Even so, expecting them to get the job done consistently may be a little more wishful thinking than being realistic with the growing pains of young arms.

In all honesty adding payroll is at the discretion of ownership who probably keeps revisiting last year's success or lack thereof. Highly realistic that last year was an aberration and this year we are getting a taste of what could be if we could get better outings from our starting rotation. CJ back in the pen, at least some stability has been regained in that sense. The upcoming Boston series is going to be very interesting in determining how this team looks at the end of the month. The East is not nearly as dominant as it appeared it was going to be, at this point at least.

MikeM wrote:I really just don't get this management. We have the 2nd best OPS in the majors. Our lineup vs. RHP is ridiculous because we lucked into Juan Francisco and Adam Lind's unlikely resurgence has continued.

All you need are LHP hitting backups! Backups! Like, Jordy Mercer type players. And we have a championship level offense.

When are we going to have an offence like this again?

We made these moves last year to get into contention. It blew up. But this year Melky, Reyes and Buehrle are what we thought they were. It's working (sort of)!

So can we keep making win now moves or.. is that it I guess? Just doesn't make sense.

Agreed about the offense. The Jays definitely lucked into Francisco and he makes a huge difference offensively. Even if/when he regresses, as long as he can play a passable 3B and is strictly platooned (.262/.326/.486 career against RHP), that's a huge upgrade over Goins/Getz. He's already been a 1.0 WAR player with 80 plate appearances. The Jays just need to be platoon conscience with this roster. Lind and Francisco both need one, and Rasmus against tough lefties could use one as well. If they refuse to make any moves for players outside the organization (other than minor league deals), then the best use of internal talent is probably Pillar (4th OF), Diaz (platoon with Francisco at 3B/back-up IF), and Kratz (back-up 1B/3rd catcher). I'm not sure that's good enough to supplement the RHP mashers, but I can't see any other internal option being better than that. For whatever reason, the team either doesn't want to (doubtful) or can't (most likely) add players from the outside the organization unless it is a minor league contract. I don't know why, but they have done that before (2009) so it could just be that ownership does not want to add salary.

At this point, with Janssen back and the offense looking like a strength, the team's best chance to win is getting really lucky in the rotation. I could live with a 4.80 ERA out of McGowan as long as he throws 5-6 innings a night, but they'll need to replace Happ with someone, and Stroman is the only option that has the upside to potentially increase the potential of this roster. I'm not sure he is ready yet, but they are wasting his service time already, so they might as well put him in the rotation and see what he does. I was hoping Sanchez would breeze through Double-A and present another internal option mid-season, but he looks way far off.

This is 2009-ish. Ownership has told the GM to win with what he has. For better or worse. AA just has to start making sensible roster moves, and so far, that has been a huge weakness for him this season.

To me we could use a 2nd baseman who could hit for avg near the bottom of the line up. Apparently he needs to be able to hit against LHP.

Lind or Francisco DH and there you go.

Another pitcher wouldn't hurt. I don't even think you have to give up the bank for those two players.

Is drew just going to sit out the year? Or has his asking price gone down a bit?

Jonah Keri brought up Aaron Hill on twitter. Just sayin.

Santoki wrote:

FrankGrimes wrote:something that should be discussed around the all star break, imo. I do, however, applaud your enthusiasm and admire your opinion that the jays are in the midst of the race in mid-may.

when was the offense considered suspect? and by whom?

rickie weeks is finished. his refusal to move to the outfield in order to gain more playing time just speaks volumes as to his character.

the lawrie experiment is working and I think the jays should stick with it. lawrie/Francisco > lawrie/scrub2boption

but seriously, there are 120 games to go and a lot can change for better or worse between now and the time to buy or sell.

I don't agree that you have to wait until the trade deadline to be a buyer. Why do you have to wait through 60 more mediocre games before deciding you're mediocre and need reinforcements or you're mediocre and to sell? The price also goes up near the deadline as well. The unfortunate reality though is nothing will be done, they will wait, and they will hope to avoid the annual nosedive that seems to accompany every end of June.

agree or disagree, trades that are worth mentioning don't happen this early in the year. last year scott Feldman was dealt in the first week of july. before that? who cares. you're simply buying parts and depth until then. 2012? the shell of youkilis was traded june 24th. carlos lee...july 4th. in 2011 if you don't count the blockbuster of purcey for sizemore, k rod was dealt to the brewers on july 12th.

I'd like to see the blue jays make a move, they have too many bats for too few positions (brett lawrie will not stay at second) but we're gonna have to wait until july comes around most likely.

I'd still do Stroman + someone other than Sanchez for Samardzija.

Fairview4Life wrote:Jonah Keri brought up Aaron Hill on twitter. Just sayin.

wait a sec. - didn't he and Gibbons get into a fight a few years back? Or was that Cito?

Strav wrote:

Fairview4Life wrote:Jonah Keri brought up Aaron Hill on twitter. Just sayin.

wait a sec. - didn't he and Gibbons get into a fight a few years back? Or was that Cito?

Think it was Gibbons and Hillenbrand you're thinking about.

For now, we wait. Few teams are sellers at this point in the season, and fewer still are willing to sell at a reasonable price. If we're still hanging around in mid-June (and don't sign Drew), however, we're a team well-suited to a rental or two; we presumably have some budget room, given that we tabled an offer for Santana, and that money goes further when you're only paying the player over half a season.

I'd be curious whether Tampa would be interested in moving Ben Zobrist when he returns, if they continue to muddle along below .500. He's incredibly cheap relative to his production, but he's also showing mild signs of decline, is eighteen months from free agency and a week shy of 33, and as the Rays are unlikely to re-up him thereafter they might be willing to cash him in. Wouldn't be cheap, though.

Here's the thing, the Jays aren't playing in a vacuum. There's obvious targets out there, and if we don't get them, our competition surely will. Boston just signed Drew. The Yankees are apparently looking at Samardzija (of course they are). I don't know if Sanchez and Stroman with what they've shown this year would still get it done, but I've never had faith in Stroman and I don't want the Jays to hold onto Sanchez purely out of sentimental attachment because he's the last of the "Big 3".

It hurts to lose such highly developed prospects, but he hurts doubly to have a player of Samardzija's calibre winning games for the Yankees, while we trot out Happ/Hendricks two out of every five games.

There's absolutely zero guarantee that Stroman is going to be any good this season. The Jays still need a 4th pitcher that can eat innings reliably. Damn you Santana!

I'm all for buying more talent.

It's not money, and if we are as good as we look right now we shouldn't waste this season on a what if later.

LittleOzzy wrote:I'm all for buying more talent.

It's not money, and if we are as good as we look right now we shouldn't waste this season on a what if later.

Depends entirely on what we"re giving up. This season is a 'what if' as well...if we trade major prospects for stop-gap players in a season where we're merely doing okay (in an AL East where okay is good enough for the moment, but might not be over a full 162), we deserve all the failure we're likely to reap.

Interesting article about Jim Bowden of ESPN's insider piece proposing the pieces of the Jays-Cubs trade for Shark.

http://www.sportsworldnews.com/articles ... -video.htm

We find that Bowden proposed that if Stroman and Sanchez was a non-starter, then Norris, Osuna and Nay should be the offer. I don't f'n think so. Many of us now consider D-No to be our top pitching prospect. I would say he's as untouchable as it's possible to be.

Schadenfreude wrote:

LittleOzzy wrote:I'm all for buying more talent.

It's not money, and if we are as good as we look right now we shouldn't waste this season on a what if later.

Depends entirely on what we"re giving up. This season is a 'what if' as well...if we trade major prospects for stop-gap players in a season where we're merely doing okay (in an AL East where okay is good enough for the moment, but might not be over a full 162), we deserve all the failure we're likely to reap.

It's not just a matter of being the least mediocre team over 162 games. If we make the playoffs, I would want to do some damage. I'd put this lineup of position players against any team in MLB. But we''ll see what new information the A's series brings, including the viability of Hendriks as an SP.

[edited to add]

It can be useful to think of all hot prospects as a potential Snider, D'Arnaud or Drabek. But of course, sometimes prospects don't flame out. I'm not a hockey fan anymore, but this Globe story about Ryan McDonagh is sobering reading for those who would gleefully trade upside for experience.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/h ... d/follows/

we're a ace or near ace away from being world series contenders