Next up would be Rick Porcello. Porcello was a first-round draft pick in 2007 (the Jays got JP Arencibia that round). He had a nice 12-year career, going 150-125 with a 4.40 ERA in 355 games, 351 starts, with an 18.8 bWAR. He won one Cy Young and was third in Rookie of the Year […]
about 2 hours ago | 0 reads
The Jays got through the MLB section of the Rule 5 draft without losing a prospect, and actually added a player. Yohendrick Pinango, who posted video game numbers in AA and has very strong underlying contact and exit velocity data, and Yondrei Rojas, a reliever with big stuff and strong results in A+ and AA, […]
about 23 hours ago | 0 reads
As a Jays fan, I’ve always been cognizant of the fact that my fandom comes with a certain myopia. As a kid, what I knew of other teams outside of the American League was limited to what was pulled from baseball card and sticker packs (one year, every pack seemed to have a Ryne Sandberg […]
1 day ago | 0 reads
Hunter Pence would be next on the list, but I don’t think many people, who aren’t related to him, would vote for him to make the Hall of Fame. He played for 14 seasons, had a 30.9 bWAR. Hit .279/.334/.461 with 244 home runs and 120 steals. He got MVP votes four times, finishing as […]
1 day ago | 0 reads
After much throat clearing, it’s time for me to actually lay out my main move for the off season. Initially I’d also expected to have to debate starting pitching options, but Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce solve that problem. As it is, I can just focus on one main decision: Bo Bichette vs. Cody Bellinger. […]
1 day ago | 0 reads
There were little bits of baseball news today. I was sad to see that the Dodgers signed Edwin Diaz. He’s getting 3 years at $23 million a year. I’d imagine that the Jays would have matched that, but who knows. I’d guess that the Dodgers are a a draw for any player. So we turn […]
2 days ago | 0 reads
I’m going to skip a few, because I doubt anyone would consider them Hall of Famers. Matt Kemp had a nice 15-year career. He hit .284/.337/.484 with 287 home runs, 184 stolen bases and a 21.6 bWAR. He had one great season, an 8.0 bWAR. He hit .324/.399/.586 with 39 home runs and 126 RBI […]
2 days ago | 1 read
There were little bits of Jays news yesterday:
2 days ago | 0 reads
This is part three of a series I started the week before last. Part 1 surveyed the current Jays roster, while Part 2 looked at the team’s financial situation and prospect capital. Since I wrote, they’ve signed Cody Ponce to add depth to the rotation and outrighted Yariel Rodriguez off the 40-man roster. I’d hoped […]
2 days ago | 0 reads
The Jays picked up Myles Straw in trade from the Guardians, along with some international bonus pool money. At the time, we thought we were getting Roki Sasaki, and the bonus money would go to him. It didn’t happen. We were to send Cleveland a ‘player to be named’. I don’t know if that player […]
3 days ago | 0 reads
We have four former Blue Jays having birthdays today. Josh Donaldson turns 40 today. We picked up Josh in trade from the A’s for what turned out to be a handful of magic beans. In his four seasons with the Jays, he hit .281/.383/.548 with 116 home runs in 462 games. He won an AL […]
3 days ago | 0 reads
The only player on the Contemporary Baseball Era Player Ballot to be elected to the Hall was Jeff Kent. He’s the second-to-last guy I would have picked. I would rank him above Clements on my list. Well, likely Mattingly too. But any of the other five would have seemed better picks to me. The Committee […]
4 days ago | 0 reads
Bluebird Banter is 20 years old today. I remember when the site was an awkward teenager. Or maybe I was an awkward teenager? It started just a few days after the Blue Jays traded for Lyle Overbay (for David Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson). The trade got a very favourable review. The first post […]
4 days ago | 0 reads
Occasionally, the Jays make a move that I don’t understand They placed Yariel Rodriguez on waivers. He wasn’t claimed, but he’s no longer on the 40-man.. They still owe him $5 million this coming year. $6 million in 2027 and has a $6 million player option for 2028, which would become a $10 million team […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
The Winter Meetings start today. Which means we should get some rumours and news to talk about. Right now? Well, we know Dylan Cease’s jersey number will be 84, the first 84 in Jays history. And we know that Kyle Tucker visited the Jays’ spring training facilities. Yes, so did Ohtani. Hopefully, the Jays didn’t […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
If you are my age, I don’t need to tell you much about Fernando Valenzuela. He was bigger than life, bigger than baseball for a few years there. They called it Fernandomania. He came up in 1980 at 19 and pitched 17.2 scoreless innings over 10 games, earning two wins and a save. In the […]
5 days ago | 0 reads
Next up on the contemporary Baseball Era ballot is Gary Sheffield. Sheffield spent 10 years on the Writers’ ballot. He got 11.7% of the vote in his first try and made it to 63.9% on his last try. Looking at his stats, Sheffield was a better player than I thought he was back in the […]
6 days ago | 0 reads
Dale Murphy is another who looked like a sure Hall of Fame choice, in the middle of his career, but his numbers fell off a cliff soon after he turned 30. He played 18 seasons, most of them with the Braves, then three with the Phillies and one with the Rockies. He came up as […]
7 days ago | 0 reads
Donny Baseball is an interesting case: his career lasted only 14 seasons. At his peak, he was great, one of the very best players in baseball for a few seasons, but back problems brought his stats down, so he doesn’t have the counting starts that get you into the Hall. I’m guessing that his time […]
7 days ago | 0 reads
Not a surprise, but the Blue Jays are putting José Berríos on the trading block. They would have to pick up some of his contract. He is to receive $18,714,286 next year, and $24,714,285 in each of the two years after, with the possibility of performance bonuses on top. But then, if the Jays thought […]
8 days ago | 1 read
I’m going to go through the players on the Contemporary Baseball Era Player ballot over the next couple of days, because they are voting on the weekend. Jeff Kent had his 10 tries on the regular ballot, his last one in 2023. He was on 46.5% of the Writers’ ballots, that time, the high point […]
8 days ago | 1 read
11 years ago today. The Blue Jays traded J.A. Happ to the Mariners for Michael Saunders. Happ had been with the Blue Jays for 2.5 seasons since he came over in a big trade with the Astros. We sent Francisco Cordero, Ben Francisco, Joe Musgrove, Carlos Perez, David Rollins, Asher Wojciechowski, and Kevin Comer to […]
8 days ago | 2 reads
The Blue Jays have signed Cody Ponce who pitched in the KBO last year. Cody went 17-1 with a 1.89 ERA and was the KBO’s MVP. He’s a RHP, 31 years old. He adds to a deep starting rotation, unless they see him as a reliever. He played for the Pirates in 2020 and 2021. […]
9 days ago | 1 read
The Jays signed Max Scherzer to a one-year contract in February of this year. For one-year and $15.5 million. At 40, it wasn’t bad money, even for a future Hall of Famer. In 2024, he started nine games for the Rangers, and, since the Jays had a number of starting pitchers, they could afford to […]
9 days ago | 1 read
We’ve been doing this for several years now. We reviewed some of the top free agents, as rated by Keith Law in The Athletic and Ben Clemens at FanGraphs, using the contracts FanGraphs suggests they will receive, and asked if we should sign them. Munetaka Murakami is number 12 on the FanGraphs free agent list […]
10 days ago | 0 reads