Catcher:
-Ok so the first thing I read this morning was that the Jays were targeting Chris Ianetta and/or Hank Conger from the LA Angels via trade. Now this is a TERRIBLE idea, the reason is because one both of these players are FAR more expensive than J.P. Arencibia (salary wise we're talking 510k for J.P and more than 4 million for either of the LA catchers), two they aren't that much better (Conger and Ianetta have better OPS and walk rates but they still have lacklustre defensive skills as they still have a 25% or below stealing throw out and both have several based balls and errors) and three neither of these guys are that good at calling games (that means calling pitches and pitch locations) and with a staff that could very well consist of a lot of new guys (if we have injuries in 2014, which we likely will at some point) intelligent catchers like Yadier Molina are needed. So overall I don't think this move will happen as it will downgrade our already not fantastic prospect pool for a very lacklustre upgrade
-On the other hand there are still possibilities at the catcher position, specifically we can look at how Mike Napoli was only signed for a 1 year deal with the Red Sox. If Boston is not open to shelling out more than another 1 yr deal for the catcher we could give him a 2-3 year deal since that still covers the window where we have the core players in place. As well we must not forget that Brian McCann and A.J Pierzynski are also a free agents this year as well and would fit in quite well offensively and defensively, especially considering Pierzynski has played with Buerhle before. The final possibility is this cuban catcher that I've read some about, now this could be good mainly because of how effecient we've seen some Cuban players be (Puig, Cespedes and Chapman).
Second Base:
-Not many reports have come out in terms of what the Jays plan to do here, the logical move for most people would be to throw Ryan Goins a bone and let him start at 2nd considering how well he played in the last month of the season. Now while I think this is an awesome idea because of how much Goins reminded me of Roberto Alomar, I'm not sure it is what they need right now as we have only 2 years until that window of time where we have all of our stars locked down ends and trying to integrate a young player like Goins may take some time. Not to mention I'd rather have our future stars lined up to come out at one time to make another all star calibre team rather than one at a time and fade into mediocrity.
-Now heres what I think is possible for the Jays, they could make an attempt at signing Robinson Cano (though anything past a 5 year deal would be suicide) which may go over since most big money teams either have an established second baseman or have come out and said their not going to be taking part in Canopalooza. The second option is to trade for a quality second baseman, now out of all the players out there the ones I believe that fit best and are most likely are Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler and Marco Scutaro. Now heres why for each, Utley makes sense because his production level is still on the up and the Phillies have all but collapsed in recent years and are in serious need of remodelling for their team. Scutaro makes sense as well because the Giants just came back from a World Series win and barely managed to scrape together a over .500 season, now with Scutaro I don't think we're expecting a home run hitting machine but he's obviously a lead off hitter and behind Reyes that would be great for loading the bases before the big guns come up. Now the one that most will think stands out and doesn't make sense is Ian Kinsler but just let me explain. First off we know Kinsler has agreed to an extension that ties him down until the 2017 season so theres a fair amount of money involved (not that it's an issue for the Rangers or the Jays) and then the Rangers have nearly made Jurickson Profar a regular, but the 2B/SS doesn't have a spot to fit in unless someone gets injured and to develop him they need to make room, so the obvious thing is to trade Kinsler and slot in Profar as their second baseman. Overall it makes sense for both teams. Then of course there is lovely free agency, which has Cano, Uggla, Infante and potentially Zobrist coming out. I personally don't think Uggla or Cano will end up coming to Toronto, because Uggla has been just as bad if not worse that J.P Arencibia in the batting sense this year and because the price tag on Cano is too high unless he'll take a lower year contract. On the other hand Infante and Zobrist are intriguing because thy are both quality defenders and when on can be more than above average at the plate, more so with Infante, though Zobrist has some serious multiple position ability which would be a big life saver for the Jays as it seems every year someone goes down on injury.
Pitching:
-Not much to discuss here in terms of news, the only trade whisper I've heard is the Jays taking a look at Brett Anderson, which I think is a bad idea since we already have enough pitchers with terrible injury history and taking on another pitcher injury reclamation project would be suicide until we get the ones we currently have done (Morrow, Johnson, Hutchinson, Drabek, etc.). On the international side though there has been some interest show in the Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka (Ma-kun), now I've gone to Japan before and had the pleasure of watching many Japanese baseball games and boy are thy exciting, the outfield is reserved for hardcore fans of each team (left is the home team and right is the away team). Hell it's like a soccer crowd in a baseball stadium. Anyhow Tanaka has a similar repetoire to Yu Darvish and has been just a successful, which leads me to believe that he would be a good pick up for the Jays. Though if thats not enough for you lets look at another few factors. First off the fan base, this year has shown us that there is plenty of love for Japanese players in the Jays fan base (2 words Munenori Kawasaki) and on top of that one thing Darvish didn't have when he came over was a Japanese team mate to help him integrate and considering how friendly Kawasaki is and how crazy fans go for him I can't imagine the same wouldn't happen for Tanaka. Second we have the stadium, Darvish has been wildly successful in Texas and if we look at it Rogers is a FAR more pitcher friendly park than Arlington so it'd be easier for Tanaka to gain the same level of performance as Darvish in Toronto. Overall he seems like a great fit and I would be ecstatic to finally see a good Japanese pitcher get into the Jays rotation.
-Now on the other hand there isn't much available in the free agent pool for starting pitchers, now don't get me wrong there are a few pitchers that would vastly improve the rotation but those guys I expect to get offers from their current teams and come back to there (ie. Hiroki Kuroda, A.J Burnett, etc.). So theres not much to offer there.
Alright so I'll be doing this for the Orioles this weekend and possibly for the Cardinals the following week (though it doesn't look like they need much of anything with that lineup)
-Eric
