Breakout on Bremner

In Jeff Blair's most recent blog post, he mentions that the Jay's are trying to showcase Rolen and Overbay, to try and dump some salary. This is all fine and dandy. Although Rolen is earning his salary for the most part, the injuries really hurt his reliability on the field. And despite Overbay's solid defence I still have doubts about him bouncing back from the wrist injury he suffered a few years ago, and I don't know how well he'll be able to perform this year.

Blair also says that the Jays are trying to clear salary to sign Orlando Cabrera. Wait wait wait, Orlando Cabrera the guy who hasn't posted an OPS higher than .750 since 2003? Yeah that guy. Is it really worth going after him when you have Scutaro, who is a solid player, albeit not as good as Cabrera, but still almost as good (Scutaro was worth 2.8 wins last year, compared to Cabrera's 3.7).

On one note, Cabrera would come on the cheap, you know with this end of the world economy and what not. But he would almost certainly require a 1 year deal, with hopes of getting a better contract next season, but he would also mean giving up our 1st round pick. The Jays in no way shape or form, should give up their 1st rounder, in order to sign a 1 year rental player, who isn't all that good. It's just foolishness.

If the Jays are able to move Overbay or Rolen's contract, I'm not really sure who they would sign. Cabrera is useless, Ramirez would be awesome but he'd still take $25m+/year, and everyone else is a replacement level bench player. The only thing I can think of is saving some money to add a guy during the season through a trade when teams are being hurt even more by the economy, but that would mean surviving with the corners being manned by Bautista and Millar (PLAYOFFS!).

• The Tao talks about how Beeston is more commited to spending on draft picks this year. Even more reason NOT to give up a first rounder.
• Halladay trade rumours hopefully put to rest?
• Why Carlos Delgado is, and always will be great.
  

The very young Chicago Blackhawks are primed to make the playoffs this year, so they could use some veteran help. Dominic Moore is your prototypical 3rd line center, great attitude, no quit, and very gritty. Burke's been in talks with the guy for a while, but he wants top 6 money for being a bottom 6 guy. Yeahhhh we aren't the New York Rangers Dominic hate to break it to you. Antropov well he's been one of our best forwards, and is definitely a valuable asset going forward. Both are UFA at the end of the season so don't be surprised when they are both gone.

So, Steve Mason has all but written his name on the Calder Trophy. No one other rookie can hold a candle to this kid anymore, he's been absolutely phenomenal.

Now we all know that Columbus plays a horribly defensive system. Boring for most, exciting for Blue Jacket fans. He could very well be a product of Ken Hitchcock's system. This one was easy for him though. The Oilers did nothing to make him work. He faced 19 shots and barely broke a sweat. My only question is when the hell is Craig "I hate Robbie Schremp" Mactavish going to get fired?

Post game thoughts: This game was horrible. Stupid roller coaster of nothingness. As most of you can tell I'm a tanker (I'd rather the Leafs lose now, and get a higher draft pick.)so now the Leafs have the 7th overall pick instead of the 4th which we had last week. But then again these are the Islanders and they're icing a horrible team right now. Next week the firesale begin.

Sources say that the Blackhawks and Canadiens had scouts at the game tonight so maybe they were looking at Antropov who didn't disappoint. No pretty sure the Habs scouts wanted Streit. Either way Leafs Nation next week will be a defining point in this rebuild.

Two games into spring training I have a few thoughts...

1. Travis Snider is raking it.

2. Scott Richmond and Cecil are both looking good. I'm not too sure anymore who I want to make the team, or who should make the team for that matter...

3. Scott Campbell, the loveable Kiwi, is playing 3B. If Jose Bautista gets let (HOPEFULLY), and Rolen's shoulder breaks down once more (PLEASE NO!), then Campbell might be able to fill in. I'm not sure if his offence will be able to fit in longterm, but I'd much rather have a young guy filling in who has the potential to be a great player down the road.

As much as I hate the habs, I love the stupid deals they've been putting out.

Steve Begin is off to Dallas in return Montreal gets Doug Janik. To me it's a lateral move.

Damn it's like Trade Deadline jr. today, $1.49 off of the NHL's value menu.

My sources are telling me Janik has just been waived...

This just in Penguins trade 6'4 puck-moving defenseman Ryan Whitney to Anaheim for scrappy Chris Kunitz and top prospect Eric Tangradi.

Basically this trade affects Kaberle since they're both puck moving defensemen. The great(ex)GM Ron Maclean say both Pronger and Ryan Whitney are worth than Kaberle. This is the same man that thinks Rick Nash is worth 2+ million more then Crosby and Ovechkin make. Pronger sure he's worth more proven playoffs performer having a cup ring and all. Whitney is 26 and has 4 years on his contract left. Kaberle is 31 on Monday has 2 more years left at 4.25 million, and is second only to the future hall of famer Nik Lidstrom in points since the lockout. Here's to a hectic week ahead, and many more first rounders.

So I was going through some sites I usually go through and ended up finding this.

Agree with it and then some. Would like to add no (as Don Cherry and Mike Milbury would say it and get sued for.) "pansified" players.

The Phillies are currently interested in adding an extra RH bat, which may push good ol' Stairsy onto the trading block!?

Madness I say, madness. No team coming off a World Series win should give away the guy who hit a game winning playoff homerun! Tis' madness.

BOB will be following this closely...

Baseball America released there top 100 prospects today. Mr. Wieters, the bona-fide-soon-to-be-superstar-who-hasn't-faced-AAA-pitching guy, found him self atop the charts. After that, we find Travis Snider - The great pasty white hope sitting in spot #6.

This grade seems spot on to me. The guys ahead of good ol' Snideyman are all either premium position players or flame throwing SP's. This goes to say alot about Snider. BA's one little comment talks about his power, which many of us have already seen.

To make a few comparisons to Snider, two other 3 possible outcome players (power HR hitter, takes lots of walks, and strikes out a hella' lot), Burrell and Dunn were ranked 2nd and 33rd the year before they graduated to the bigs. Snider seems to be smack dab in the middle of these two, with a closer comparison to Burrell. I think it's tough not to see Snider having success in the majors to some degree, but it's difficult to decide to what degree he will have success. Snider's main fault pointed out by many scout like people is the fact that he's a bit chunky, but it seems he's dropped a bit of the baby fat and is more of a baseball build compared to his football build that he used to have. All in all, I truely hope Snider becomes a masher with his HOF? potential.


The next guy to find himself ranked is good ol' Arencibia. I was incredibly surprised to see him at #43. I'm all for optimism with this kid, but until he learns to walk, I don't think he deserves to be this high. I don't want Barajas to be replaced with Barajas 2.0 (New and improved with more power! But just as many walks as before). I would have to agree more with Keith Law's placement of Arencibia in the 90's.

At long last we come to Cecil. Ranked at #72, first thing that comes to mind is WTFTHISSHITISBANANAS@#$@#$. I thought over this ranking for a while, and read over the Tao's post on Cecil, and I have concluded that it's pretty stupid to have Cecil so low. Yes I know he was a closer in college, and yes I know his innings are limited, but is there any other fault you can find with him? He has 2-3 plus pitches (depending on how his change up develops), he has no injury history that I can find, his K rates have been great (over 9K/9IP), his HR and BB rates have also been superb. It's tough to find any real faults with Cecil. I think the main reason why he's ranked so low, is because he's generally gone under the radar as compared to the likes of David Price, and Tommy Hanson.

Wells has started upon a mission to injure himself in every conceivable manner. Way to Injure Yourself #356: Light Movement of the Legs - Check.

With Wells sidelined for atleast a month, it would seem like the obvious solution to slide over Rios into CF, and allow Snider to play his natural position in RF. The Blue Jays management has decided to approach this difficult conundrum(word of the day!) in a slightly less conceivable way. Jose Bautista, the man who is -40.3 runs below average in CF in his career, will slide to his left about 45 feet and back about 150 feet, and take up the CF position. Lets think this over for a minute...

...


...

It's stupid.


I understand completely that Cito is trying to get everyone AB's, but playing a guy in a position he should never in over 9000 years be touching with a 100 foot pole is nearing insanity in my books. Why not let Inglett play some CF? I know its a small sample size, but at he's shown average/above average defence in the OF, maybe that can translate into some success for him this spring. And with Wells keeping himself injured so nicely, Im sure there will be at least a few opportunities for him to demonstrate his prowess out in one of the three OF spots.

To add more onto Bautista playing CF, why not give him some time at 1B? Overbay is out with his trio of hernias, and with any luck Cito will figure out a Bautibay platoon at 1B could create a half decent player this year.

Honestly, I'm all for getting guys AB's this spring, thats what it's for. Preparation. But the team needs to prepare both offensively and defensively, and that isn't going to happen buy having guys play a position they won't ever, ever play in a real game.

I'm all for optimism about this season and hoping the young guys perform, but at the same time the team needs to be smart in how they play the game of baseball

Spring training is upon us at last. The season is almost here. I can just feel it now.

Onto some actual news from the Dunedin...

1. Overbay has had not one, not two, but THREE surgeries for hernias. Why are we just hearing about this now?! As long as he can return to near 2006 form, I'll be happy. But still. He had the surgeries in January, and the news is JUST breaking now? Why was this kept so quiet by the Jays front office.

2. Travis Snider is currently Cito's starting LF. This excites me in places which I shouldn't discuss here, but scares me too.... Snider should NOT be rushed. I would prefer to have him start the year in Las Vegas, play there for a month, then come up and send HR's over the fence. In an ideal world this would be the case, but I don't think an ideal world includes Kevin Millar getting any real AB's either.

3. Snider is a tank.

4. Baseball happening again is incredibly refreshing, it feels like my life is complete once again.

More to come later as I get into this blogging thing. Check me out on the twitter too...