Are newspaper reporters the only people left on earth that take anything that JP says as the truth? The Globe has not one but two stories about how the Jays ought to trade Halladay because JP isn't going to sign any free agents. Why do they think JP isn't going to sign any free agents? Because JP says he's not, that's why. Course they also think that JP isn't going to trade Halladay because JP says so.

So they figure the only way a team that had a pretty decent second half of the season could be competitive is to trade their best player. For what? They have no idea.

I don't share the world view that the Jay's will not be able to compete next season. The Jays competed pretty well in the second half of last season, with a several players having an off year and with a black hole at DH. Next year at worst Snider will fill the spot and he would have to be better than the mess we had last year.

Yeah the Rays are a good young team, but good young teams regress sometimes. Especially ones that leap from last to first. Yep the Yankees and Red Sox can spend and spend, but with the age of most of the free agents out there there is no guarantee that spending a fortune will make for great teams.

One line in Jeff Blair's column interested me:

The guess here is that hasn't changed. The 2009 Blue Jays won't likely be better than a fourth-place team and god help them if McGowan or Janssen has a setback or other guys regress to the mean.

What Jay player was so far beyond the mean that regressing is a worry? I don't think there was an offensive player that was even 1% better than we could have hoped. Well maybe Inglett. And it looks like he won't be allowed to regress.

Anyway since there is no real baseball news at the moment I can understand, truly understand, the need to write about anything that might almost be news. But reporting things that JP says like they have some sort of grounding in truth....well won't you feel foolish when it turns out that he was lying yet again.