Alex Anthopoulos talked to the media this morning in Dunedin. I guess we shouldn't expect any additions to the team:

"We'd like to do (add a starter) but we're not going to do it at all costs," the general manager said during a 33-minute discussion with media. "As we sit here today I think it's unlikely at this point, we're getting so late into spring training."

He mentioned that they signed Dioner Navarro to a contract that was longer (two years?) than they would have liked, and for more money than they would have liked ($8 million?), but they felt they needed to make a change at catcher and they were willing to go above what they would have liked.

But for pitchers, they won't go above what they think is reasonable.

As well, it looks like he's set with what we have at second base:

The Blue Jays remain interested in upgrading at second base, but free agent Stephen Drew doesn't appear to be in play for them. Rather, Anthopoulos hopes to find a long-term solution.

The name Aledmys Diaz wasn't mentioned, but he would fall under 'long-term solution'. Alex talked about the possibility of trade.

And the 25th man was talked about, it looks like a battle between Moises Sierra and Brent Morel (he's got to be kidding). Or maybe the team will go with an 8 man bullpen (please no).

So, it looks like what we've got is what we are going to see this season.

The Blue Jays third basemen hasn't managed to stay healthy, but he's still young enough that we might see a wealth of development yet.

There's not a lot to love about Brett Lawrie'sBaseball-Reference page. In three seasons (well, three partial seasons, consider one late-season callup and four disabled-list stints), he's topped out at 11 home runs, 48 RBI, 13 stolen bases. Since his strong rookie season, he hasn't topped a 98 OPS+. I mean, I'd love to say I hit 11 big-league homers, but I doubt people expected quite as much out of me as they did out of Lawrie.

There is one line, though, that might inspire confidence: That old "162 Game Avg." line.

If you believe in the extrapolation, over the course of 162 games, Lawrie as a 21-to-23-year-old has put up 18 homers and 17 stolen bases per season. He's also contributed 82 runs and 70 RBI on the same scale. And again, dude turned 24 right around a month ago.

Sometimes, that's the problem with the youngest of arrivals. We dismiss them as "busts" or "disappointing" when they don't produce right away, but we get so used to seeing them in the big leagues that we forget that they're still just so young, that most players their age are still in, what, high-A? Double-A?

Assuming Lawrie continues to develop at anything like a normal rate - such as "normal" is - really, all we're looking for out of him is health. Now, of course, that's the rub with Lawrie. According to his Baseball Prospectus page, he's missed 94 big-league games to injury, and has been day-to-day or worse with like 10 different ailments.

So, while 162 games might be a stretch for a normal, healthy-ish player - everyone needs days off - it seems Herculean for Lawrie. That's why someone with his skills still only finished 14^th in our consensus third-base rankings, behind someone as relatively unproven as Xander Bogaerts or others like Chase Headley and Manny Machado.

If Lawrie can buck his trend, though, and stay healthier in 2014 - maybe not 162 games, but 140? - it stands to reason that any sort of reasonable forward development, and the should-be-decent offense in Toronto, he could (finally) start rising in the third-base rankings.

He's still only 24. Barring serious injury to some of the top guys, Lawrie won't be catching Miguel Cabrera or the Adrian Beltre-Evan Longoria-David Wright triumvirate this year. But positive development on Lawrie's end could easily see him join the next set of third basemen.

Best bet for 2014 is to start with Lawrie as your corner infielder or bench bat. Relying on him before he proves he can stay healthy is a dicey proposition. But he's a guy you should want on your fantasy roster, if only for the extreme upside.

More from Fake Teams

Follow @faketeamsFollow @SBNationMLB

• Baseball America releases their Top 100 Prospects
• Third Base Draft Strategy
• NFBC ADP Rankings Analysis: Third Base
• MLB Prospect Review: Maikel Franco, Philadelphia Phillies
• Does Kris Bryant Make the Grade?

Obviously the bulk of our readership will be focused on the Canada-US men's Olympic ice hockey semifinals game this afternoon, and there really hasn't been huge Blue Jays news, so feel free to use this as a live chat thread for the big hockey game if that's your thing. But between periods, consider taking a look at these recent Jays-related items.

SS Diaz had private workout for Blue Jays - Sportsnet.ca
The Blue Jays might not be close to a deal with him, but according to Shi Davidi, the team has been interested enough in Cuban free agent shortstop Aledmys Diaz to give him a private workout this spring. According to MLB Trade Rumors, other teams interested in Diaz include the Athletics, Yankees, Cardinals, Giants, Braves, Phillies, and Mariners. Diaz is expected to sign soon.

Would the Blue Jays do the R.A. Dickey Deal Again? - The Blue Jay Hunter
Ian wonders whether the Blue Jays would re-do the R.A. Dickey trade, wondering if the Blue Jays had misjudged the abilities of J.P. Arencibia. Be sure to also catch Junior Felix Jr.'s great FanPost, where he wonders if the Marlins trade was a mistake.

Barry Davis of Sportsnet is in Dunedin and reports that Drew Hutchison is looking good:

Looking really strong early in camp is @1DrewHutch , who chats with Mike Nickeas and Pete Walker. #bluejayspic.twitter.com/IlP68QdNWD

— Barry Davis (@SNBarryDavis) February 21, 2014

And Jose Bautista has apparently advanced past the diving Derek Jeter in the awful Face of MLB Twitter game. So more annoying tweets from the Bautista and Blue Jays official accounts for those who have yet to block them.

GO CANADA GO!!!

White Sox ratted out A.J. Hinch to the NCAA in 1992

A couple days ago, Aaron Fitt of Baseball America reported that the Phillies told the NCAA that two of their unsigned draft picks from 2013 had used an agent. If true, that is a violation of the NCAA's byzantine, nonsensical rules:

Several sources have confirmed to Baseball America that the Phillies, who drafted Wetzler in the fifth round last June but did not sign him, told the NCAA in November that Wetzler violated the NCAA’s "no agent" rule. That rule is widely disregarded by baseball prospects, whose advisers routinely negotiate with teams on players’ behalf, against NCAA rules—because that is the industry norm. As an American League scouting director told Baseball America in 2008, "Every single player that we deal with—I don’t care what round you’re talking about—has representation, has an agent."

And every year, some players drafted inside the top 10 rounds elect not to sign pro contracts, often drawing the ire of the clubs that drafted them. But major league teams almost never attempt to contact the NCAA in order to report potential violations. The Phillies, according to sources, did just that with two players they drafted last year: Wetzler and sixth-round pick Jason Monda, who opted to return to Washington State for his senior year. Monda was cleared to play by the NCAA last Thursday, the day before the college season began.

As suggested, this is a rather petty thing for the Phillies to have done and it's difficult to see what upside there would be to doing something like this. Sure, you'll scare some players and maybe they end up being more likely to sign if drafted by the Phillies.

On the other hand, this is the kind of stuff that pisses off college coaches - who, of course, control to a large measure both information on and access to their players. Also, any agent advising a player (high school or college) is going to be very wary of letting the Phillies "into the living room" of their players' homes. Those personal interactions between a player, his family/friends/coaches, and scouts is a pretty essential thing in evaluating signability and makeup - two rather important things to know in deciding whether to draft a player.

Basically, the Phillies have made the job harder for their scouts.

It had been more than 20 years since a team was known to have reported a draftee to the NCAA for this kind of rules violation. That team was the White Sox who, in 1992, drafted A.J. Hinch out of high school in the second round, failed to sign him as he instead opted for Stanford. They then told the NCAA he had an agent:

On at least one occasion, a team purposely turned in a player to the NCAA. After failing to sign 1992 second-round pick A.J. Hinch, White Sox vice president of scouting and minor league operations Larry Monroe told the NCAA that agent Steve Caruso negotiated directly with the team. The NCAA ultimately decided that it couldn't prove whether Caruso did with or without the knowledge of the Hinch family, a determination made more difficult when Hinch's father Dennis died of a heart attack in February 1993.

[As also noted in that link, the President of the Blue Jays gave an interview in which he said he negotiated with Scott Boras regarding unsigned draftee James Paxton in 2009. That appears to have been an inadvertent disclosure but it did result in Paxton being ineligible for his final year at Kentucky. More on that here.]

While it's obviously speculative and incorrect to draw a direct link - since other factors such as draft position were involved - it is interesting to note that the White Sox run of good drafts ended in 1992. Coverage of baseball, and the draft in particular, obviously wasn't what it was then as it is now, so there isn't any good way to evaluate whether or not Monroe's reporting hurt the White Sox in later drafts. I'd imagine many players, coaches, "agents", etc. wouldn't have even known about it.

Today, it's a different story. Everyone knows about it. At a minimum, the Phillies just look like jerks. More likely, they've harmed their standing with amateur players and those around them. It's easy to imagine that translating into something tangibly harmful to the Phillies and there's at least some bluster from an agent to that effect:

One agent: "As of today, Phillies are out. Phillies are not getting into any more of our households. We're shutting down all communications"

— Aaron Fitt (@aaronfitt) February 20, 2014

But the counterpoint:

One agent advisor, however, had a more pragmatic response:

It definitely will not help [the Phillies] for the draft, and I think the trust level has gone down to zero. I think they will see some backlash, and they may have to alter their draft board a little, but in the end money still talks…they will still draft and sign quality players. I have seen quotes today from agents stating that the ‘Phillies are not getting into any more of our households’ and I have to laugh. I thought the advisor/agent works for the client and the client determines who he does and does not talk to?

We'll see if their drafts in the coming years end up being as barren as the White Sox drafts. It would at least be poetic justice.

POSTSCRIPT (by Jim): Out of curiosity, I went to the newspapers to see whether/how the Hinch negotiations were covered at the time. The coverage is indeed scant, with only a couple references to the inability to sign Hinch, and after-the-fact acknowledgment of the NCAA reporting. However, the thoughts of three parties -- Monroe, Sox GM Ron Schueler, and Hinch -- are represented over the years.

From the Chicago Tribune on June 4, 1992:

Larry Monroe, Sox vice president of scouting and minor-league operations, on signing their No. 2 choice, Oklahoma high school catcher A.J. Hinch: "There's some risk there, because he's a valedictorian who's going to Stanford. But the kid has indicated to us that he wants to play pro ball and he wants to play now, so it's just a matter of if we can agree to terms." If they can't, under new rules the Sox would retain rights to him through college-but those rules are being challenged.

From the Chicago Sun-Times on Sept. 23, 1992:

"It looks like he's going back to school. I talked to his parents and they said within the next 48 hours they were driving to the West Coast," Schueler said. "And if you're asking if we're going to send the highway patrol after them, the answer is no."

Which is the same answer Hinch and his family gave the White Sox when the team offered the young catcher "the most money ever given by the Sox to a second-round pick," according to Schueler.

"We upped the signing bonus, but their family consultant and agent came up in his demands after Hinch had a good summer playing on a junior Olympic team in Mexico," Schueler said. "We told them A.J. was drafted for what he had done (in high school) and was being offered money for being the 62nd (overall) pick."

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on July 7, 1996:

"We had a lot of heart-to-heart talks, and she wanted me to be able to look back at this opportunity and decision and be 100 percent secure in what I did. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if I missed something like this for her. That's the way she is, and that's the way my family is."

The White Sox questioned his family after the organization selected the catcher in the second round of the 1992 draft, but Hinch chose to sign a national letter of intent with Stanford instead of a professional contract and the $175,000 signing bonus that went with it.

The White Sox claimed that Hinch 's family authorized an agent to negotiate for the 18-year-old and called for an investigation into his collegiate eligibility, but the NCAA found no violations.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on July 17, 1996:

"I'm happy with what I'm doing, but in the business of baseball, I might have rubbed some people the wrong way," said Hinch, acknowledging the fact teams don't like to waste second-and third-round draft picks. "To them . . . well, I don't apologize.

"I've always looked at it from the standpoint of what's right for me. If that puts a little black cloud over me, so be it."

They do this during the game???

The Blue Jays have claimed right-hander Liam Hendicks off waivers from the Orioles, designating Brent Morel for assignment. pretty much ending the worry that Morel might get the last roster spot as a right-handed bat.

I don't really see the point, but more depth for the rotation I guess. Or maybe we need an Australian, in case we are attacked by kangaroos?

Come on Canada, another goal would be nice.

After covering the outfield and infield positions for the Organizational All-Upside Team, we move to the pitchers portion. The Blue Jays are bursting at the seams with young high-ceiling pitchers in the low minor leagues, so this is a definite position of strength. For this piece three pitchers will be chosen, although you could list about 10 (or more) who are legitimately exciting arms that will be fun to follow through the minors. Without further ado:

Starter #1- Aaron Sanchez

The nearly consensus top prospect of the Blue Jays has to lead this rotation, doesn't he? The sky is the limit for Sanchez and the ceiling for the California native seems to be a solid number two starter in the major leagues. Inconsistency, delivery concerns, command, and control issues all pose a risk to the right hander actually coming close to reaching his ceiling, but the stuff is most definitely there. A 3.34 ERA in Dunedin in a year plagued by inconsistency isn't too alarming and the 21-year-old should get a shot in the higher levels of the minors in 2014.

See the delivery for yourself:

Starter #2- Alberto Tirado

The flame-throwing Dominican pitched to a 1.68 ERA in Bluefield last season, before he had even turned 19. Spotty control led to a high walk rate, but the huge fastball isn't going away anytime soon, so it's up to the teenager to develop his secondary pitches in his changeup and slider. The upside is massive for a lanky kid throwing high-90's so it'll be exciting to see what comes of Tirado in the next few years.

Starter #3- Jairo Labourt

Another 19-year-old Dominican who spent most of 2013 in Bluefield is Jairo Labourt. With a 1.92 ERA and a 2.4 BB/9 it's hard not to get excited about the potential of another stud young Blue Jays pitcher. As with Tirado, Labourt has to refine his slider and changeup, but the future looks bright for the two young Dominicans. As Woodman663 pointed out last year, Labourt has become an impressive groundball pitcher, so hopefully that keeps up in 2014.

There's numerous other pitchers who could have slotted into this list including Daniel Norris, Chase DeJong and even Marcus Stroman, who has nearly reached his ceiling. If the 2014 season doesn't work out well for the big league squad, fans can at least enjoy tracking the progress of the young pitchers working their way through the system. As an aside, there was no catcher selected for this All-Upside Team mainly because everyone knows what A.J. Jimenez brings to the table and it's time for him to go out there and show it.

Who would you folks have as your top three pitchers on the Organizational All-Upside Team?

What else is there to say?

JAYS LINKS

The Blue Jay Hunter: With Ubaldo off the Board, the Focus Shifts to Santana
After months of being linked to the Toronto Blue Jays, Ubaldo Jimenez is off the board. His name can officially be scratched off the board of potential starting pitcher upgrades, and the only man left is Ervin Santana.

Cabrera tumour-free and primed for big year - Sportsnet.ca
Back at spring training for his second season with the Toronto Blue Jays, Melky Cabrera is now tumour-free and primed for a big season.

Jays' Kawasaki rooting for Canada in gold game - Sportsnet.ca
Count Munenori Kawasaki among the people who will be cheering for Canada’s Olympic hockey team in Sunday’s gold-medal final against Sweden.

Jays must weigh present needs, Stroman's future - Sportsnet.ca
Marcus Stroman has a chance to be special, and the Blue Jays could sure use a dynamic fifth starter. But they must balance present needs with Stroman's development.

Coming off a last-place finish, Morrow and Jays hoping to bounce back this year - The Globe and Mail
If everything falls into place, Manager John Gibbons said he believes Toronto can end its 21-year post-season drought, which ranks second longest in the majors behind only the Royals (28)

Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista looking to avoid disabled list | Toronto Star
Slugger Jose Bautista hopes to hit one big goal this year — staying healthy.

Blue Jays can’t count on Bisons staff to contend: Griffin | Toronto Star
Griff writes something obvious.

Jays fans not buying into Anthopoulos's plan - Sportsnet.ca
Alex Anthopoulos was admired after last year's busy off-season, but after this year's quiet winter fans have begun to sour on the Blue Jays GM.

MLB LINKS

The Best Transactions of the 2014 Off-Season | FanGraphs Baseball
Yes, there are still free agents on the market, but with Spring Training officially underway, I think it’s fair to say that the off-season is over.

The Worst Transactions of the 2014 Off-Season | FanGraphs Baseball
Today, we’ll look at the other side, and cover the 10 moves that most made me scratch my head.

Connie Mack’s Less Than Graceful Exit
The Yankees made them do it. That’s the time-honored explanation for the American League’s decision to move the Philadelphia Athletics to Kansas City in 1954. After strong-arming the rest of the league to install a friendly, compliant owner in Kansas City, the Yankees looted the Athletics franchise, acquiring such key players as Roger Maris, Ralph Terry and Clete Boyer in return for nobody in particular.

Looking for the Next Max Scherzer | FanGraphs Baseball
For a long time, Max Scherzer had been heralded as a future superstar. It was his bonus demands more than anything else that drove him down to the Diamondbacks’ 11th overall pick in the 2006 draft

The Phillies and the Unambiguous Bad | FanGraphs Baseball
As much fun as it can be to criticize, the reality is that nearly every decision made by an MLB organization is justifiable.

Down With The NCAA's No-Agent Rule
The criminal cartel that is the NCAA has struck again. This time, the apparent victim is one of the best pitchers in college baseball, Oregon State senior Ben Wetzler.

Redefining Batted Balls to Predict BABIP
Today, I will release metrics that will help supplement our understanding of hitter batted-ball tendencies and provide a model to predict a hitter’s Batting Average on Balls in Play, or BABIP.

Note: Take that BABIP GODS!!

ANGRY FAN LINKS

Angry Russian Hockey Fan Wants To Send The Team To Siberia
He seems upset.

"America's Most Patriotic Band" Plays America's Worst Anthem Rendition
NASCAR promoted these guys who performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" before today's Nationwide Series race at Daytona as "Madison Rising, America's Most Patriotic Rock Band." I guess the more patriotic, the less talented! (Things really get good, and by good I mean bad, around the one-minute mark.)

Note: Patriotism is the last refuge of the talentless. Keep that in mind the next time someone waves the flag... your buzz kill moment of the day.

Add Scott Boras to the list of "Rogers is cheap" champions.

Of course, Boras is speaking out of self interest. He has free agent clients that still are looking for a contract and would love the Blue Jays to be in on them, even if it is just to give Boras a chance to suggest there is a bidding war.

As Rosenthal says, the Jays payroll with jump from $120 million to $130 million and that's after it jumping from about $85 million the year before.

Honestly, I can see the team not wanting payroll to jump to $150 million. But if Rogers was really cheap, they could shed some payroll without too much trouble. Someone would take Jose Reyes's contract, if the Jays sent some money along with it. Same with Mark Buehrle. They could have easily moved Jose Bautista's contract for a couple of young underpaid starting pitchers.

For his part, Alex Anthopoulos is sticking to the same line he always has used:

Informed of Boras' comments, Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said, "Our ownership has been outstanding and given us all the resources we need."

I don't believe that ownership is "preventing management from improving the team". Rogers seems to like Alex--for now. If they didn't , or if they have lost confidence in Alex, he wouldn't still be around. Ownership, I'm sure, understands that the better the team does, the better ratings will be for the games on the 52 different Sportsnet channels.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers has put a $140 million cap on the team. That doesn't scream cheap to me. It is a fair bit of money.

I'm as frustrated as anyone with how this offseaon has gone, I'd like the team to make a move to improve the pitching staff or get a real major league second basemen, but I'm not going to blame Rogers. I really would have like Jimenez, but I don't want Santana.

I'm not sure who Boras is talking to by saying this. Is it his players? I'm sure Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales are getting a little anxious, now that spring training has started. I'm sure they must have questions for Scott and must be wondering if they are going to be playing this year. Maybe they are also wondering if they have the wrong agent. Boras can't be expecting that the Jays will suddenly sign three guys because some agent embarrassed them.

Baseball-Reference has the Jays sitting third in the AL East in payroll at $131.3 million, Trailing the Yankees ($195.5 million and the Red Sox ($152.1 million), ahead of the Orioles ($87.3 million, with a couple of signings that will move them over the $100 million mark, presuming the physicals go well) and the Rays ($68.2 million). I don't expect the Jays to be spending as much as the Yankees or Red Sox.

I don't know, I'm tired of the whole 'cheap Rogers' thing. Seems just too simple to blame ownership.

Today, four-time Blue Jays outfielder DeWayne Wise turns 36. Wise's career has been both quite unremarkable and quite remarkable.

He has been a career backup outfielder, ever getting above 239 major league plate appearances in any season, and has logged significant time in triple-A in almost every year of his career. At the plate, he is the owner of a .228/.265/.381 slash line and a whopping 65 wRC+ and a WAR of 0.5 or 0.8 depending which website you look at. According to Baseball-Reference's similarity scores, the three most similar players to Wise are Ivan Murrell, Ryan Langerhans, and Billy Cowan. Basically, you shouldn't be surprised if you see DeWayne Wise's picture next to the dictionary entry for "replacement-level player" or "quad-A player."

But despite all his shortcomings, Wise has managed a long career, playing in the majors for parts of eleven seasons and accruing over seven years of major league service time. He has played for six major league clubs: the Blue Jays, the Braves, the Reds, the White Sox, the Marlins, and the Yankees. He must be a very likeable character as several teams have re-acquired him through the years despite the existence of many other quad-A outfielders with defence and no bat. The Reds, who drafted him in 1997, got him back in 2005, he spent two separate stints with both the White Sox and the Marlins, and four separate stints with the Blue Jays. The other four-time Blue Jay was Tony Fernandez.

Three of the four stints came in the 2010 and 2011 seasons. In 2011, when Mike McCoywas shuttling between Toronto and Las Vegas, DeWayne Wise was on the Toronto-Miami shuttle, shifting between the two teams four times. Take a look at his transactions list in that period (from Baseball-Reference):

June 2, 2010: Granted Free Agency.
June 5, 2010: Signed as a Free Agent with the Toronto Blue Jays.
November 12, 2010: Granted Free Agency.
January 10, 2011: Signed as a Free Agent with the Florida Marlins.
March 30, 2011: Released by the Florida Marlins.
April 6, 2011: Signed as a Free Agent with the Toronto Blue Jays.
June 9, 2011: Released by the Toronto Blue Jays.
June 15, 2011: Signed as a Free Agent with the Florida Marlins.
August 26, 2011: Selected off waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays from the Florida Marlins.
October 4, 2011: Granted Free Agency.

I'm not sure if any other player has ever shuttled between two teams that many times in consecutive transactions without involving a third team.

But of course, when Wise retires (he is still listed as an active free agent at the time of writing) he will be remembered for a single play he made on July 23, 2009 while playing for the White Sox. Coming into the game in the ninth inning of Mark Buehrle's eventual perfect game as a defensive replacement for Carlos Quentin, Wise was immediately greeted by a deep fly ball from the bat of Gabe Kapler. Wise made a spectacular over-the-wall catch to rob Kapler of a sure-home run to preserve Buehrle's perfection.

Happy birthday, DeWayne.

Wise Facts

• In New York and Cleveland, Wise will probably be remembered for a catch that was too good to be true--replays showed that he had clearly dropped the ball in the stands, but he pretended he caught it by pumping his (empty) glove, and the third-base umpire never bothered asking to see the ball. In fact, the actual fan who caught the ball was showing it off. Also: note guy in Blue Jays cap helping Wise up.
• Playing 70 games for the Blue Jays in his initial stint after being picked up as a Rule 5 draftee from the Reds puts Wise second on the list of longest tenured Rule 5 picks in the organization since 1990. Reliever Aquilino Lopez pitched 90 games over two seasons in Toronto.
• Wise holds the Blue Jays franchise record for wearing the most number of different numbers: #55, #16, #1, and #3.
• DeWayne is Wise's middle name. His first name is Garry Jerry Larry. (Side note: wouldn't it be great if the folks at Parks & Recreation renamed Jim O'Heir's character "DeWayne" next season?)

With just about 48 hours until real, actual baseball gets going again the pitchers who will be toeing the rubber in the first week of games has been announced. With a pretty wide open competition for the spots at the back-end of the rotation, all these starters will be keen to show they deserve to break camp with the big league team. Writer Shi Davidi was the first to release the schedule:

#BlueJays SP this week 1-2 IP each: Wed Happ Redmond; Thu Dickey Rogers; Fri Buehrle Morrow; Sat Huthison Romero Stroman

— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) February 24, 2014

Mike Wilner also added some additional pitchers:

Drabek slated to pitch in relief Wed., McGowan Thur., Stroman Sat. Janssen makes first appearance on Sunday. #Bluejays#Jays

— Mike Wilner (@Wilnerness590) February 24, 2014

On Wednesday at 1pm the Blue Jays will make the short trek across town to visit the Philadelphia Phillies, with current fourth starter J.A. Happ and Todd Redmond likely each getting two innings. Kyle Drabek will return to the Blue Jays from injury on Wednesday as well, making an appearance in relief.

The first home game in Duendin on Thursday at 1pm will see R.A. Dickey make his first start of the spring, followed by Esmil Rogers. Dustin McGowan is expected to appear in this game as well.

The third game of the Spring Training campaign sees Mark Buehrle and Brandon Morrow on the mound against the Pittsburgh Pirates, which should be an interesting game to watch with both starters being heavily counted upon this season.

Saturday will make for some seriously interesting viewing as Drew Hutchison returns from missing nearly the whole 2013 season. After Hutchison, another forgotten pitcher in Ricky Romero will pitch trying to capitalize on what might be his last real opportunity to prove he still has the stuff to be in the big leagues. Lastly, highly-touted prospect Marcus Stroman will make his first appearance of the spring, which should be fun to watch.

Two more days until baseball!

There really isn't much more to it than the headline, but the Blue Jays lose Brent Morel to the Pirates off a waiver claim. The Jays designated him for assignment after taking Liam Hendriks from the Orioles. There was some thought that Brent might make the team as a right-handed bat, to split time with Adam Lind, but (thankfully) that's not going to happen. Moises Sierra has been working at first base, early in spring, to give the Jays more reason to keep him on the roster.

Goodbye Brett, good luck in Pittsburgh.

The first injury of the spring:

Brandon Morrow has a sleeve on his calf. It's "a little tight, no big deal" says John Gibbons. Set to pitch 1-2 inn. Fri. #Bluejays#Jays

— Mike Wilner (@Wilnerness590) February 24, 2014

Yeah, Brandon and Dustin McGowan were the odds on favorites to have the first injury of the spring. Injury is likely overstating it. everyone gets a little tightness at various times during the spring. If he is still going to pitch on Friday it can't be all that bad. Course it wouldn't be the first time that the Jays undersold an injury.

But, like the first robin, the first injury is a sign of spring. And with how cold it is here in Calgary, I'll take any sign of spring (I wish I was in Florida, hey SB, wanna fly me out there? I promise to post several times a day. No?).

The Palm Beach Post has a story saying that the Blue Jays are no longer looking at moving their spring training home to Palm Beach:

And the Toronto Blue Jays are no longer looking for a site in Palm Beach County. Team officials told county officials last week because they've decided to stay in Dunedin.

I wonder if this means that the Jays have found enough space in Dunedin to allow them to have their major and minor league camps in the same area, right now there is a bit of a drive between the camps.

I liked Dunedin, so I'm glad that the Jays will be staying there. I'm hoping to get to spring training again next year.

Dirk Hayhurst's new book, Bigger Than the Game: Restitching a Major League Life, is being released today. It is the third in his 'behind the scenes look at the life of a ball player' books. I loved his first book (The Bullpen Gospels), I liked his second (Out of My League) but this one is favorite of the three.

This book covers 2010, his second year as a member of the Blue Jays, and if you are looking for a love letter to the Jays organization, this isn't it. As always, Dirk is very honest and some of it doesn't present the Jays in the best light.

It starts out on a very happy note, Dirk is in a pretty good place (for him, the boy does tend to worry a lot), his first book is soon to come out, he's coming off a good season where he split time between Las Vegas and Toronto (putting up a 2.78 ERA in 15 games for the Jays) and he gets a pretty positive phone call from Alex Anthopoulos, telling him how much he likes Dirk and that he would likely start the season Vegas but that things could change in spring training, but life for Dirk goes downhill in a hurry after that.

Pumped up by the conversation he had with Alex, Dirk heads to the gym, and, pushing more weight than he really should, injures his shoulder, and it all goes bad from there.

The story line of the book is how an admittedly overly sensitive player deals with injury, surgery, rehab, and all that goes with it.

But the main focus of the books is the depression that Dirk falls into. Bell just had their "Let's Talk" campaign, well, Dirk talks, as always, with an honesty that is refreshing.Dirk falls into a very deep depression, which is understandable--he's so close to his dream of being a major league ball player and an injury has taken it away from him. He's at spring training, but he can't pitch, his rehab isn't going well (or really isn't going anywhere), and some of his teammates are creeps.

A major character in the book is a player that Dirk calls Brice Jared . Brice is a jerk. Brice is a bully. Brice calls Dirk 'Media', because Dirk has written this book (a breaking of the unwritten rules, in Brice's mind), and because Dirk promotes the book to reporters (another breaking of unwritten rules). The little fantasy that all players pull for each other and hope the best for each other is, apparently, just a fantasy. Just like anywhere you work, there are people you like and people you can't stand. Baseball players, it seems, are a gossipy group. Of course, not all of the Jays players were jerks and some that were jerks were going through their own stuff at the time.

Dirk, at first, deals with his depression in the time tested manner that most of us men tend to use: he drinks (and uses sleeping pills) to get away from his thoughts. He's kind of slow to catch on to the fact that he has fallen into depression. He describes a phone call to his wife, where she obviously has figured out he's depressed (one of the things I didn't understand is why she didn't come down to Dunedin at that point, he's clearly not dealing with things well, and he has no support system there). Dirk, himself, doesn't realize how bad the depression had become until thoughts of suicide start coming up.

The depression and recovery are a large part of the book and it is an important issue to discuss. Dirk isn't the first and won't be the last athlete to deal with those issues, but there is a perceived weakness in talking about it. Without being able to talk about it, it's hard to deal with.

Some folks (and at times me included) want our sports heroes to be the strong silent types. When I told Dirk how much I enjoyed the book he said 'Honestly enjoyed or just being nice? I can feel the blow back from fans calling me a weak whiner'. Personally, I don't see it as whining, I think he is just being honest about his feelings, and having a potential career ending injury is something that you should be allowed to whine about.

As much as we'd like to think they are above such things, it must be incredibly difficult for ballplayers to deal with injury and failure. These are guys that have been the best at what they do all their lives. Can you imagine how hard it must be on Ricky Romero to go from staff ace and All-Star to what he is now? And it can't help that random bloggers and Twitterers keep giving their opinions of what he's doing wrong or, even better, telling him what a lousy person he is. It would be hard, maybe impossible, not to fall into depression.

The parallel story line is his rehab and this is where Jays' organization looks really bad. I'm not sure if Dirk intended to point out how crappy the Blue Jays were at rehab, but it really reads like the Blue Jays need to overhaul what they are doing in that area.

Dirk, at the start of spring training, was working with the major league trainers on getting his arm back into shape. Then he, and the other rehabbing players, get sent to the minor league side of the camp and he works with the 'head minor league trainer and director of rehab', who Dirk named Jep Jasper (his real name is Hap Hudson who is no longer with the team( . Honestly, there doesn't seem like a system, or any real well thought out procedure, for getting Dirk back to where he could pitch. In his words:

...we didn't have much of a routine. Some days we'd do laser. Other days we'd do ultrasound. Others we'd do electric stimulation' At first I didn't think anything about how little consistency there was, but eventually I started wondering if it wasn't a result of how much demand there was on the training staff. It seemed when things were slower, I'd get laser, ultrasound, and all the other things that whet into the rehab process. Then, on days when more emails and phone calls showed up, I'd be told things like, "I'm not sure if I put too much stock in this laser" OR, "the ultrasound is just a way to warm you up, but you can get warmed up on your own without it." Maybe. Maybe not. We had the machines and I had the time. Why not use them.

At very best, it seems like the training staff is overworked (or at least were overworked, maybe the Jays have fixed things since then). With the amount of money spent on the players, you would think they could hire a few more training people. Maybe have one guy that would put together a routine for each player to follow and enough other people to make sure each player gets the best help. And, perhaps, they could arrange for a psychiatrist or someone to have a short session with each player, during rehab, just to make they are handling the mental side of rehab.

After Dirk gets his depression issues somewhat sorted out, the Jays send him to Andrews Sports & Orthopaedic Center, where he, finally, gets the rehab help he needs and the book takes a turn to the positive. There are several funny stories that come out of his time at the rehab clinic. My favorite bit is where Dirk's rehab trainer has Dirk convinced that, fellow rehabber and wrestler Triple H is mad at him for telling the world, through Twitter, that Triple H is rehabbing. He has Dirk convince that Triple H is a little deranged (too many hits in the head with folding chairs). I laughed hard at Dirk working himself up into a state of fear and then finally meeting Mr. H., who plays along with the gag of being a wrestler who acts like he's on stage at all times.

The time at Andrews Clinic is a fun read. Dirk is having a good time and the trainers working with him are enjoying being with him and, more importantly, actually helped him. The humor in this section is a nice change from the rest of the book.

It really is a good read and talks about some important issues. It must be hard for someone in a 'macho' sport like baseball to talk about issues of depression. Dirk does a good job of it.

Honestly, get the book, Dirk is a very good writer and does a good job of balancing the honest description of his depression with enough humor to make it a great read. As a Blue Jays fan, the inside stuff about the Jays make it that much better.

It's baseball's silly season, when preseason publications pour out predictions by the score. Some of them will be right, many wrong, and none of it is worth getting upset over.

Preseason predictions are foolproof, speculative declarations on the unknowable, and whether based in fact or pulled out of thin air are not falsifiable except via the passage of time. Don't tell anyone I revealed what analysts have been hiding behind the curtain for years, but it's true and now that you know, you are free to make the boldest and most asinine predictions you can think of to absolutely anyone who will listen, free from fear of ridicule.

If you're reading this on the train, turn to the person next to you and tell him or her that the Cubs are going to win the World Series or that Miguel Cabrera will never hit another home run. If you're going to be that bold with your predictions, it's probably best to stick to strangers in public places (you're probably still not the craziest person on the train!). If you turn out to be right, you can claim that your analytical skills are far superior to that of your counterparts while boasting, "Well, I told you so!" every time the real outcome matches your prediction. If you do happen to be wrong, which happens way more often than being right, you're insulated from harsh criticism because not only is there a short memory for these predictions, but if you're way off base you can claim that your prediction was just an educated guess and that there is absolutely no way to know what will happen for certain because baseball is unpredictable. That explanation satiates 99 percent of people, but that one percent can be pretty voluble, becoming deeply offended by what is, after all, mere conjecture.

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Last January, I reaped that kind of reaction when I wrote a pessimistic  piece on the Toronto Blue Jays' chances last January that appeared on SB Nation's Jays site, Bluebird Banter. The premise of the article was that the roster improvements the Blue Jays made by adding R.A. Dickey, Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, Josh Thole, and Maicer Izturis wouldn't have enough of an impact to let the club contend in the AL East, a division that required an average of 95 wins to capture over the previous 10 seasons. My intention wasn't to troll my friendly northern neighbors. In 2012, the Blue Jays had won just 73 games, and messing with a simple Pythagorean Win-Loss calculator made it obvious that adding 22 more wins to get to 95 was going to be difficult.

Not surprisingly, this column went over like a lead balloon, crashing into Canada and causing it to emit snark and contempt on social media, in my inbox, and in the comments section. I wasn't offended and could even be sympathetic to the vitriol -- no one likes to see their favorite's chances denigrated -- but there was no way to respond, resolve, or defuse those attacks because we were still months away from the first game; there couldn't be any winners or losers to this particular argument while stuck in offseason purgatory. The best I could do was throw up my hands and say, "This is what math and history say," while they responded, in so many words (some more polite than this, some less), "No stupid, you literally have no idea what you're talking about." The prevailing wisdom was that the Jays had made enough improvements by adding the reigning NL Cy Young winner and a handful of talented major leaguers spurned by Jeffrey Loria to contend. I was raining on an entire country's World Series parade.

Brett Lawrie (David Manning-USA TODAY Sports)

By the end of April, the Blue Jays were 10-17 and already 8.5 games out of first place in the AL East. Jose Reyes broke his ankle just 10 games into the season. That set off a string of injuries that got to pretty much everyone this side of George Bell,  and the few players that managed to stay healthy still weren't playing well. In short, the Jays took a hell of a beating last year, finishing with a 74-88 record, just one game better than their 2012 record.

Lest you think I broke my arm patting myself on the back or gave into the temptation to exult in the comeuppance received by those who doubted my thesis (or am doing so now), there were three things about the prediction that I readily admit: First, all I was attempting to do was present indicators of what might happen. Second, while the conclusion I reached was similar to the actual outcome, there was absolutely no way to know that it was ever going to get as bad as it did for the Blue Jays. I wasn't clairvoyant, or even all that insightful. I was just the proverbial blind squirrel who found the nut, someone with Excel and too much time on her hands. Third, and perhaps most obvious, the degree of suckitude that was the Blue Jays last season surprised everyone, myself included.

None of this is to discredit offseason predictions altogether. They are useful as a conversation starter, if nothing else, a way to fill the long wait for games to resume. Sometimes, we get lucky and get to gloat about being right, and other times, we get to quickly wash our hands of being wrong since the sport is mostly impossible to predict. That divorces the business of prediction-making from that of having to stand by your words, which is the basis of integrity. No one should become overly exercised by a sports prediction because the absence of integrity also implies a lack of seriousness. In other words, it behooves us to keep our senses of humor intact about the predictions that come back to haunt us. There was a tweet by Jon Heyman back in April of 2010 that reads, "Good job by #phillies to sign superstar Ryan Howard to a 5-year contract extension" that still gets retweeted nearly four years after the fact. If predictions actually meant anything, he would have long since hidden himself away in shame, but they don't, and so he soldiers on.

To be bold is to sometimes be stupid; I was right about Tyler Flowers last season, but I was terribly wrong when I predicted that the White Sox would give the Tigers a tough race in the AL Central last year. I took no heat for that, and yet, you'd think the over-positive prediction would be worse -- better to be surprised by a team dismissed doing well than to be disappointed by a team praised as a contender dying like a dog. I happened to be right about the Blue Jays, not because of some anti-Jay animus, but because that's the conclusion to which the data led me, just as the inputs I saw regarding the White Sox led me to a more positive, wholly errant conclusion.

Some predictions are rooted in opinion or just blind optimism, but others are well researched and use the past to attempt to predict the future. It would be a disservice to all of the rational baseball fans out there just to read tea leaves or shout random prophecies at strangers on trains instead of attempting to glean something meaningful regarding what's about to happen. Even then, sometimes the obvious picks (or those that seem obvious to some plurality of prognosticators) end up having looked much better on paper than they do after 162 games. That's all predictions are, an interpretation waiting to be affirmed or denied by events. They're nothing to get upset about.

Free agent starter Ervin Santana is still seeking the four-year, $50 million contract he was asking for at the beginning of the offseason.

Ervin Santana, the top remaining free agent starter on the market, has not lowered his asking price even with the arrival of spring training, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

Santana is still seeking the four-year, $50 million contract that he was looking for earlier in the offseason, and despite the fact MLB clubs will begin playing in spring training games this week, the right-hander's asking price hasn't budged. Other top free agent starters, such as Ubaldo Jimenez, Matt Garza and Ricky Nolasco, have signed similar deals with teams this winter, and Santana feels he deserves the same type of contract.

The biggest deterrent for most teams regarding Santana is the draft pick compensation that is attached to him, something that has stalled the market for other free agents this offseason. Nelson Cruz recently agreed to a one-year, $8 million deal with the Orioles after struggling to find interested suitors, while Stephen Drew still remains a free agent after rejecting his qualifying offer back in November.

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But Santana is refusing to budge, according to MLB executives who spoke with Heyman. The 31-year-old finished with a career-best 3.24 ERA with the Royals in 2013, striking out 161 batters in 211 innings. Despite his strong 2013, Santana has been inconsistent from season to season, a reality that has prevented teams from offering him the type of deal that Jimenez received from the Orioles. In 2012, for instance, Santana posted a 5.16 ERA and gave up a league-leading 39 home runs.

Given his propensity for giving up the long ball and the fact he excelled in 2013 while pitching his home games in Kauffman Stadium, a pitcher's park, it's fair to say many MLB clubs are wary of offering Santana a lucrative, long-term deal. Santana has been linked with a number of teams this offseason, including the Blue Jays, Rockies, Indians and Royals. Last week, however, ESPN's Jayson Stark reported that the Jays were unlikely to sign another pitcher, and that remains especially true if Santana won't budge from his initial asking price.

Jimenez was able to find himself a four-year deal despite being saddled with draft pick compensation, and Santana clearly hopes to do the same. That hasn't happened yet, however, and if he is unwilling to accept a lesser contract, it's hard to say when Santana will sign with an MLB team.

Although Opening Day is just over a month away, the Cubs could still trade right-hander Jeff Samardzija before the season starts.

The Chicago Cubs could still trade starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija before the season starts, according to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Samardzija was the subject of trade speculation earlier in the offseason, with the Cubs dangling the right-hander out on the trade market. Much of that talk had quieted down until Tuesday, when Wittenmyer reported that a trade remains a strong possibility. The Cubs and Samardzija have also discussed a potential long-term extension, but the two sides have gained little traction in coming to an agreement.

Samardzija will make $5.35 million in 2014, his second year of arbitration eligibility, and has another year of arbitration before he is set to enter the free-agent market in 2016. With the Cubs still a few years from serious contention, the 29-year-old Samardzija has been a trade candidate all winter long for teams looking to add a mid-rotation starter.

After beginning his career in the Cubs bullpen, Samardzija has settled into his role as a starter quite well, turning in two above-average seasons for the club. Last year, Samardzija finished with a 4.34 ERA and nearly three times as many strikeouts as walks in his second full season as a big league starting pitcher. The 29-year-old posted a 3.81 ERA, including 180 strikeouts in 174.2 innings pitched, during his first campaign as a starter in 2012.

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Asked about whether Samardzija would get the nod as the Cubs' Opening Day starter this season, manager Rick Renteria was noncommittal, providing further fuel for speculation.

"So many things can happen over the course of the spring that I'm not going to lock myself into trying to divulge something that I can't really determine will be in the end," Renteria said on Tuesday. "That's a terrible thing to do when you name somebody and then all of the sudden it changes."

The Rangers and Blue Jays are both potential candidates to add starting pitching before the season starts, but neither has been linked to Samardzija in recent weeks. As of now, it's unknown which team might pursue a deal for the right-hander, though according to Wittenmyer's sources, the Cubs haven't ruled out trading Samardzija at this point.

Even if Samardzija opens the season with the Cubs, he could certainly be traded before July's trade deadline much like Matt Garza was in 2013. With the Cubs still looking to add young talent for the future, Samardzija will no doubt continue to be a topic of trade speculation.

Moving up the list.  If you've missed one 21-15 is here,  the 26-30 is here, 31-35 here and 36-40 here.

20. Kevin Pillar: Kevin had a great year, starting in New Hampshire, hitting .313/.361/.441 with 5 home runs, 15 steals (caught 8 times) in 71 games, moved up to Buffalo and continued to hit, .299/.341/.493 with 4 home runs, 8 steals (5 caught) in 52 games. He finished up the season with the Jays, hitting .206/.250/.333.

The knock on him is that he doesn't have enough power to play a corner outfield spot and not enough glove to play center field, but then Melky Cabrera doesn't have enough power to play a corner outfield spot and he's entering his 10th season in the majors. Baseball America has Pillar as the Jays system's best "hitter for average" and he gets all the 'has the right look in his eyes', 'works hard', 'plays the game right' comments. A 32nd round draft pick has to do everything right to make it to the majors.

We had him at #18 last year and he really didn't do anything anything to move himself down. He could easily be the team's fourth outfielder this year. Keith Law has him at #13 on his Jays prospect list.

19. Tom Robson: Tom (the second Canadian on the list) was a 4th round pick in 2011. His second year as a pro went very well. Splitting time between Bluefield and Vancouver, he had a 1.12 ERA in 13 games, 12 starts. In 64.1 innings, he allowed 43 hits, 1 home run, 16 walks and 47 strikeouts. More strikeouts would be good but the 7.7% walks rate is pretty good. MILB says he is getting 3.48 ground outs per fly out, with the Jays playing at Rogers Centre, you do have to like ground ball pitchers.

Just 20, he's a big guy, listed at 6'4", 200. He throws a low 90's fast ball, but as he fills out, maybe it will get to mid-90's. He also has a curve and a changeup. We had him at #33 last year, I'm thinking he'll make another step up the list next year, if he pitches anywhere near this well in full season ball.

18. Matt Smoral: Matt was a first round pick in 2012. His first look at pro ball didn't go well, a 7.01 ERA in 15 games, 5 starts, 25.2 innings, 22 hits, 26 walks, 27 strikeouts. .The 9.5 strikeouts per 9 looks good but the 9.1 walks per 9 is just awful.

Matt was #6 on our list last year, and it is always an argument about how far a bad season should drop a guy. He doesn't turn 20 until March and he still throws hard (mid-90's), still has a great slider.

He is very tall, 6'8", it often takes guys that big a while to get all the parts working together. See Randy Johnson as an example of a tall lefty who took till almost 30 before he could find the plate consistently, at age 28 he was walking 6.2 per 9.

17. Dwight Smith, Jr: Dwight had a good season at Lansing, hitting .284/.365/.388 with 7 home runs, 25 steals in 109 games. Not bad for his first time at full season ball. He played mostly LF, but had 27 games in CF. The Jays game him their Webster Award for being the 'top player' at Lansing. His defense is good enough for left, but not for CF.

He's often compared to his father, who was a pretty good platoon left-handed outfielder. I think Dwight will likely only be hitting against RHP, when/if he makes it to the majors. Power isn't his strong suit, I doubt he'll ever get more than 15-18 homers in a season.

He turned 21 in October, it would be nice him play in Dunedin this year. He moved up from #27 on last year's list.

16. L.B. Dantzler: Our 14th round draft choice in 2013, drafted after his senior year at University of South Carolina. He's a power hitter (though he isn't that big, 5'11" and 200 lb) and, well, I like power hitters, and I tend to think there aren't enough of them in the Jays system.

His first season of pro ball went great. He hit .302/.385/.504 with 9 home runs, 30 walks and 47 strikeouts in 59 games at Vancouver. He got the Jays' Webster Award as the top player in Vancouver. Now, as a college draftie, he was a little old for the level at 22 (he turns 23 in May). He played third in College but the Jays have him playing first base.

Chris Slade, at Minor League Ball wrote:

Even if he does have some contact issues as he moves up the ladder, I still think Dantzler can maintain an above average power output and reach base often via the walk. From what I've seen, I think he has everything else you look for in a hitter (a quick, compact stroke, above average barrel to the ball ability, major league pop, discerning batting eye, willingness to take walks). I believe his Senior season at S.C. was a legitimate breakthrough.

As a pitcher without options who fared admirably in 2013 Todd Redmond has a real chance to be Toronto's fifth starter. If he does get that chance, things could get ugly.

As most visitors to Bluebird Banter are painfully aware, it has been a remarkably inactive offseason for the Blue Jays. This inactivity has caused a great deal of negativity, both in terms of depression and rage. It has also forced fans to accept that players that they assumed would be pushed down the depth chart by newly acquired talent remain in positions to play roles far greater than their talents dictate in 2014. My personal beef lies with the idea of Ryan Goins as a starting second baseman, but there is also a fair amount of righteous outrage regarding the rotation. Coming out of 2013 the assumption was that guys like Esmil Rogers and Todd Redmond would scarcely be heard from again,now it looks like one of them will probably open the season in the Blue Jays rotation.

The Jays have more interesting candidates for that spot such as Marcus Stroman, Drew Hutchison and Kyle Drabek, but none of those players are out of options and as a result they are likely to open the season with Buffalo. That may not be a bad thing. Drabek and Hutchison still need to prove they are at full strength coming off their Tommy John surgeries. Even if either is healthy, neither has proved themselves as an effective starter at the major league level. Stroman may well be ready, but he will have to show himself to be significantly better than both Redmond and Rogers and the Blue Jays might be inclined to have him get some triple-A seasoning.

If we assume, depressing as it may be, that Redmond and Rogers are the front runners for the fifth stater job out of the gate, the preference by a lot of fans may be Todd Redmond. Redmond was surprisingly effective in 2013, definitely more so than Rogers. The chart below shows a comparison between the two last year:

Redmond bests Rogers in virtually ever category here, although his sample is smaller and therefore less reliable. That being said, it would seem that the way Redmond struck out batters while limiting walks makes him worth a shot as the fifth starter. The home runs were a huge problem, one partly created by the fact Redmond's ground ball rate in 2013 was an anemic 30.3%. Although that is likely to go up to a degree going forward, Redmond has never had a season in the minors with more ground balls than fly balls so it's not a problem that's going away. Another major issue is one that can't be seen in Redmond's stat line: Todd Redmond is a two-pitch pitcher.

According to FanGraphs 93.6% of Redmond's pitches last season were either sliders or fastballs, while his changeup was merely a token offering. That type of profile screams reliever, and given the fastball/slider mix it screams platoon problems. On the surface it appeared that Redmond did fine against left-handed batters in 2013, in fact he exhibited a reverse platoon split:

Those numbers may look quite surprising an remarkable, perhaps they even look like evidence that Redmond can be effective against left-handed batters going forward. However, you should never bet on a right handed pitcher armed only with a fastball at around 90 mph and a slider to get LHB's out. As it turns out, the case to be made that the numbers above are legitimate is wafer-thin. A more in-depth look at Redmond's peripherals by handedness split is much more revealing:

It seems that BABIP luck is the main reason that Redmond appeared to control left handers last year, when in fact he did a very poor job against them. That being said, the discrepancy between the BABIP numbers here reflect more than luck alone there is also a fundamental difference between the type of batted balls Redmond allowed against LHB's and RHB's:

Redmond allows fly ball after fly ball to left handers which helps account for the low BABIP while also explaining why they are generally killing him with extra base hits, especially home runs. The following Brooks Baseball zone profile shows the ISO that left handers are put up against Redmond last season:

Although the sample here is on the small side, this is what to expect this season when Redmond faces LHB's.

Last year Redmond gave the illusion of a pitcher who could handle a starting role, when in fact his limitations against left-handed batters make that a terrifying proposition. While his luck against right-handed batters will likely improve (RHB's had an 18.9% infield hit rate against Redmond in 2013), teams who face the Blue Jays will stack their lineups with lefties and have success. Being an extreme fly ball pitcher in the Rogers Centre is dangerous enough. Taking that act on the road in the AL East is even worse. Combining that tendency with a lack of ammunition to get out left handed batters is downright suicidal.

If the offseason had gone the way that Blue Jays fans, and maybe even Alex Anthopolous, had imagined no one would have to be thinking about Todd Redmond right now. Unfortunately, we are in a place where he's one of the favorites to open the season with the team. This might be a good time to pray for the swift arrival of Marcus Stroman.

Like you aren't already.

According to super agent Scott Boras, it appears free agent shortstop Stephen Drew will switch to second base in exchange for long-term deal with Blue Jays

Super agent Scott Boras has given the Blue Jays -- or at least Toronto radio host Jeff Blair -- an offer he believes they can't refuse: Stephen Drew moving to second base in exchange for a long-term contract at the going market rate.

While this may seem like another case of Boras being Boras, Toronto's second base situation is seen as an almost intractable mess and he knows it. He made it very clear in the interview why he believed his clients were the best fit for the worst team in the AL East, which according to him, has "no second base prospect in their system". This is a view shared by pundits and fans alike; something not lost on Boras, who knows any chance to upgrade will at least be considered by the organization just to show that they're seeking the long-term solution that he claims Drew can be.

That's because the depth chart for the team currently has Maicer Izturis and Ryan Goins written in pencil, with Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos looking longingly at the eraser. This desire to upgrade is partially because of Izturis, who at his best once hit for a .300 batting average, but now struggles to make it on base at all with that kind of consistency. However, it's mostly Goins' extremely disappointing debut season. His defense was astounding in a short September burst, but he could barely hit at Triple-A, meaning that glove might never be enough.

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But that doesn't mean that the team is looking to sign anyone as the solution, with Anthopoulos telling reporters during a recent press conference, "A day ago, I was talking to a club about some trades. Right now through free agency, I'd say no. I would think it's unlikely that we add someone there but I would say that we'll still continue to have some dialogue trade wise, see if we can bring someone else in."

Which explains the hard sell from Boras, who is also trying to get Kendrys Morales a job with the team, using the same strong arm tactics to make his client look desirable: badmouthing current Jays who stand in the way of his client's paydays. Boras goes out of his way to call out recently optioned DH Adam Lind, citing the hitter's weakness against left-handers as the primary reason to sign the switch-hitting Morales and trade Lind for pitching.

How dire the need that Drew would fill for the team is likely to be made clear during the competition in the spring, but unless something changes drastically in the next few weeks it's clear that the Blue Jays will eventually have to do what no team ever wants to do: take Scott Boras seriously.