Blue Jays

[Frodo]

Hellooooo RA Dickey - taking a salary haircut to come here! Take that John Farrell!!! Huzzaaaaaaah!!!!!

[Yello to Mello]

I should look for season tickets in January...will probably be hard, and expensive this year even 500s

They needed to move on the right year when the other teams in the AL east weakened a little. It will obviously still be a very competitive division.

Dickey is a very fun pitcher to watch.

[Frodo]

I dunno Y2M. The Yanks start the season with injury problems and have an old team. The Rays have taken a steps back. Who knows how good Baltimore will be, and the Red Sox will be better but how much better. Looks to me like a mediocre division. Right time to move for the Jays...

[Yello to Mello]

I think it will still be remain the toughest division in baseball, and as of today the Jays projected at #1. Yankees always come out of the box late anyway and both them and the Red Sox wont be sitting still in the offseason. They will buy their way around, I do see them rolling over and dying.

Nevertheless I hope its still a hard division, makes it a lot more fun.

Maybe Bruce can come in here and chime in on what the Sox might do, while were busy looking how good the Jays look on paper.

[Mr Tattie Heid]

The Sox are rebuilding, in the wake of dumping the huge salaries of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett (thank you, Dodgers!). At the same time, they're trying to stay competitive, and have been very active this winter. The goal has been to fill out their line-up without compromising the future by giving away any of their top prospects (which the Jays have done with their deals this off-season). They've stayed away from the big-name free agents who would have cost them a draft pick (e.g. Josh Hamilton), and loaded up on guys who, for various reasons, didn't have great years last year, but might thus be undervalued--Shane Victorino, David Ross, Jonny Gomes, Stephen Drew, Mike Napoli (the latter hasn't been finalized and might fall through yet). The general feeling is that the Sox have overpaid for these guys on a per-year basis, but in so doing convinced them to accept shorter contracts, two or three years. (Drew has signed for one, as he wants to rebuild his value and go into the market again, as Adrian Beltre did a few years ago.) Thus they will have greater flexibility going forward, while still staying well within their payroll budget. They're looking ahead to the projected arrivals of hot-shot prospects Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley, and Rubby De LaRosa, among others. The new players are all the sort of grind-it-out batters who can work a count, which the Sox value (look for plenty of 4:30 games with the Yankees, who do the same thing), but more important, they are all players with a reputation for good character and positive clubhouse presence. I think they are expected to be good role models and mentors when the young kids do come along. The starting pitching needs improvement, and so far they've made no moves there, but part of the hope is that, with Farrell back on board, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz will return to form after off-years. John Lackey (whom everyone in Boston hates) will be back, too, after missing a year for Tommy John surgery.

There are a lot of people here who don't like these signings, and there's a lot of anger in the Nation, at least judging from the Boston.com comment boards. Sox fans have developed a sense of entitlement after so many years of being a top-flight contender. I think it's going to be an interesting year. It's really hard to judge how good they're going to be right now, but I think they're going to be a much more likeable and fun team to watch than they've been the past two years.

Glad you asked?

[Mr Tattie Heid]

Ah, I forgot, we signed Ryan Dempster, a consistent 200-inning pitcher in the National League--some doubts as to how well he'll do against AL lineups.

[Yello to Mello]

Glad you asked?

Yes, yes I am. Very informative post.

[Pudge72]

For the BoSox, my understanding is that Napoli failed his physical. I hope Sox fans don't hang their hopes too much on Farrell...his bullpen management (ironically, as a former pitching coach) was questionable at best, and his base running strategies were archaic, while he was with the Jays.

FWIW, the Jays are now the Vegas favourite to win the WS (8-1 odds, I believe)...we'll see how the Yankees and Sox respond. The starting pitching for the Jays, assuming Romero returns to 2011 form, is up there with the Rays and Tigers as best in the AL. I do think the most competitive division designation has been handed over to the AL West. There really isn't as stand out team in the AL, with a lot of teams (including the Jays) still having significant question marks, especially wrt bullpens.

The Ninja GM continues his quest...

[Frodo]

Great post TH! I am a bit confused with the Red Sox dumping their overpriced players to LA last year only to sign more overpriced free-agents this year. With your post it seems as though they haven't committed with the new bunch on long-term contracts.

Hope the Jays can find a new 1st baseman and can pay someone to take Adam Lind off our hands.

[Mr Tattie Heid]

Frodo, the Dodgers wanted Gonzalez, a Mexican-American star from southern California. In getting them to take Crawford and Beckett as well, the Sox dumped $260 million in future contract obligations. Gonzalez' and Crawford's contracts have six and five more years to run, respectively, at over $20 million/yr each, and Beckett is owed $15 million/yr for the next two years. The deals they've made this winter are small potatoes in comparison, and leave them with much more flexibility going forward. Crawford had signed as a free agent two years ago, and was a major disappointment--he never seemed comfortable in Boston. Beckett's decline in performance over the past couple of years (immediately after signing a big contract extension) was accompanied by an increasingly arrogant attitude and an apparent unwillingness to stay in shape. He had to go. The Sox weren't looking particularly to get rid of Gonzalez (who played well, but was also not a really good match for Boston temperamentally), but saw this as an opportunity to reboot.

[portwood]

Seems to me that due to some good fortune (a certain team wanting to dump payroll) and some cunning from their geeky GM (think "Little Big League"), the Jays have taken advantage of the void created by the lack of HOCKEY to drum up some off season excitement in 'trana.

I think the fans should cross all their fingers and toes and hope/pray the new betting favourite doesn't lay a big goose egg in April. Thankfully their season doesn't open April 1st

[Frodo]

Blue Jays still have some holes. 1st base, 2nd base, Closer. They can't take on much more salery according to what AA said on prime time sports so any trade would have to be salery for salery. The one place the Jays are deep is the bullpen.