The Toronto Blue Jays/MLB Thread.

[Mack North]

I kid you not, I have an in-law who lives in New York, who booked a flight to Ontario, California (shown as "Ontario, CA") when attempting to visit us.

Funny you should mention that... I was looking through a map of Ontario last week and noticed there is a California in Ontario. It's in the boons out by Ottawa.

[Apollo]

Stop the wagon, I need to get out of here.

[Joey]

Dickey getting his option picked up ... How do we feel about this? While I'm a bit surprised, I think I'm ok with this.

[jacobdr4]

Dickey getting his option picked up ... How do we feel about this? While I'm a bit surprised, I think I'm ok with this.

I'm less surprised than you. 12 million a year is pretty good for a guy who eats up all the innings he does. No point in wasting more money on a starter who is going to give you the same numbers and less innings

[Cody73]

Dickey getting his option picked up ... How do we feel about this? While I'm a bit surprised, I think I'm ok with this.

It depends on how his knuckleball looks next year.



He can eat innings if his ball is good.

[Mack North]

AA is gone. I can't believe it... This Mark Shapiro better keep things on the right track. Shocked...

[Wild-ling#1]

Yup. Shocking. A young, homegrown managerial talent who could work within budgets, take the long view and tirelessly/skillfully work the BIG trades ... Who needs that?

I assume Shapiro wanted full control of baseball decisions. A power play. Still, I guess the writing was on the wall when they didn't extend AA before hiring a new guy. Why would the new guy accept half a job?

But let's see Shapiro get any sort of "hometown discount" on Edwin and Bautista next year (while enjoying the Donaldson/Tulowitzki deals). And Estrada? Where's the loyalty now?

Maybe I'll warm to the guy ... never say "never". But as of this moment?

Fuck Shapiro. Or Rogers. Or both.

[Apollo]

AA is gone. I can't believe it... This Mark Shapiro better keep things on the right track. Shocked...

This sounds very familiar to the Raptors' situation at the turn of the century. They had a good team, looked to have a good future but what we didn't know was that the guys behind the scenes who should be focusing on finance, marketing and HR policy were getting involved with the on court product and actually making decisions.

Obviously that was a total disaster.

[Joey]

Well apparently AA rejected an offer to stay on as GM.
And apparently it wasn't financially motivated.. I could see this as just two guys butting heads?

Pretty shocking though.

Now I'm wondering what Shapiro does with Gibbons .. I hope Gibby stays on though.

[Doc]

Are we not overrating this a little too much right now? Outside of our success this season, is it just because he's homegrown that is why everyone's panties are in a bunch right now? It's not like he's had a proven track record of success.

Clearly Shapiro and AA have different visions of this organization moving forward. No one is irreplaceable. We'll find our man and wish AA continued success once the Expos are back in the MLB.

[Joey]

I'm not necessarily upset about this, I'm just pretty shocked, is all. I was convinced after last seasons success they'd bring back AA. But clearly Rogers operates differently than MLSE .. which is either awesome, or terrible. Lol

[Doc]

I'm not necessarily upset about this, I'm just pretty shocked, is all. I was convinced after last seasons success they'd bring back AA. But clearly Rogers operates differently than MLSE .. which is either awesome, or terrible. Lol

Ya, the team will be fine and like AA I think many overrate Gibby too. You give any average manager the talent to work with and they'd have the same successes that Gibbons had this season too. I won't shed a tear if Gibbons is gone this off-season either. Shapiro is a sharp exec and he knows what he's doing.

[Bendit]

There seems to be a bit of dysfunction happening (which most times starts at ownership)....a report by Griffin (Star) earlier this week said that Shapiro had stated to another media outlet that he was glad to be moving back into baseball ops with the BJs. This would clearly mean that he would as Pres. have final say over at least large/consequential deals. This would of course be a diminishing of AAs autonomy he enjoyed under Beeston.

If the Jays had not had the run they did AA might well have acceded. Too bad.

And one other report...Shapiro in his first meeting with the BJs baseball ops group expressed displeasure at the emptying of the farm system to acquire the players AA did. Who knows. All in all a pissy situation.

[slaw]

Dickey getting his option picked up ... How do we feel about this? While I'm a bit surprised, I think I'm ok with this.

He's going to eat up 200 innings and you can rely on the 30 starts. Not many guys you can sign who will give you that at $12 million/season. Makes sense. He's not a top of the rotation guy but he's not being paid like one so it's good value.

[slaw]

There seems to be a bit of dysfunction happening (which most times starts at ownership)....a report by Griffin (Star) earlier this week said that Shapiro had stated to another media outlet that he was glad to be moving back into baseball ops with the BJs. This would clearly mean that he would as Pres. have final say over at least large/consequential deals. This would of course be a diminishing of AAs autonomy he enjoyed under Beeston.

If the Jays had not had the run they did AA might well have acceded. Too bad.

And one other report...Shapiro in his first meeting with the BJs baseball ops group expressed displeasure at the emptying of the farm system to acquire the players AA did. Who knows. All in all a pissy situation.

Not terribly shocked. Same thing happened in Boston. I'm not terribly concerned but the optics are bad and if the offseason goes poorly all the mouth breathers will be up in arms.