I don't have a punch line. Here's Hugo's story, from the day that will live in infamy. I've been complaining about the lack of news of late, it could always be worse.

A portion of this story was published last year. As we've got a bunch of new folks hanging around here (and because of massive confusions on the Twitterwebs), I figured that it'd be worth it to put this up now.

Salary Arbitration Hearings: A Blue Jays History

Continue reading this post »

Four years ago today, in the middle of what had been very slow January for Blue Jay news (I can relate), the Jays traded Troy Glaus to the Cardinals for Scott Rolen. As Hugo said, in his post on the trade, it was two teams each trading off a player that didn't want to be with them anymore.

Glaus was having foot troubles (plantar fasciitis), which, he felt, were made worse by playing on the carpet covered concrete at Rogers Centre. Troy had a lot of power, he hit 58 home runs in his 2 seasons with the Jays (even though he had only played 115 games in 2007).

Rolen had been having problems of his own, he had missed 196 games over the previous 4 years with the Cardinals. He had a rocky relationship with manager Tony La Russa (sort of like Colby Rasmus). Scott hit just .265/.331/.398, with 8 home runs, in 2008, the season before the trade.

Glaus had a pretty good 2008 season with the Cards, hitting .270/.372/.483 with 27 home runs and 99 RBI in 151 games, but he played only 14 games in 2009 due to a number of injuries. He signed with the Braves, as a free agent, before the 2010 season and had a bit of a bounce back year, hitting .240/.344/.400 with 16 homers in 128 games, but that was the end of his career.

Rolen missed 47 games in 2008, starting the season on the DL. When he did play he hit .262/.349/.431 with 11 homers and 50 RBI, and played great defense. I don't think anyone would argue too much if I said he was the best defensive third baseman we've ever had. He also quickly became a fan favorite. He played 88 games for the Jays, hitting .320/.370/.476, before he was traded to the Reds for Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Roenicke and Zack Stewart.

At the time, the trade seemed like a pretty good one, especially considering that Rolen had wanted to get out of Toronto. Unfortunately, Roenicke didn't turn out to be of any value. Stewart though turned into a major piece of a complicated pair of trades that netted us Colby Rasmus (and a couple of guys that were soon released). And Edwin...well, Edwin has given us something to argue about.

In the 3 seasons since the trade, Rolen has played 238 games for the Reds hitting .270/.337/.452, with 28 home runs and 143 RBI. Edwin has played 272 games, .257/.320/.461, with 46 home runs and 129 RBI. Of course, Rolen's defense has been massively better than Encarnacion's.

Anyway I'm digressing a miles from the topic. I think it is clear that the Jays had the better part of the Rolen/Glaus trade, not so much because Rolen was that much better for the Jays than Glaus was for the Cards, but because we could trade Rolen for parts that will continue to help us into the future. Good job, JP.

With the return of the Jason Frasor, the Blue Jays' franchise leader in appearances, I noted that both he and the Dave Stieb Duane Ward (#2 on that list) both played their entire their career with Toronto except for a two-month stint with the Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves, respectively (h/t to @Bam_86 for noting the error). That brief sojourn out of the Jays franchise have disqualified the two pitchers from lists such as Beyond The Boxscore's All True teams. And taking a look at that list, you could see that the Jays do have a lack of history with regards to keeping their own players for their entire career.

In this mini-post, we'll look at the players who have played a significant amount of time in the Major Leagues but have never played for another Major League team other than the Toronto Blue Jays. Note that some of these players may have played in the minors for another organization.

More after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Like the list posted this morning, Tom wrote a wish list to Santa about what jolly old Saint Nicholas should bring to various Jays-related people three years ago, on December 24, 2008. Let's take a review to see which wishes Santa actually granted and which he ignored:

Alex Rios....Home runs, lots of them and the a center field glove.

IGNORED. In 2009 Alex hit 14 homers for the Jays after hitting 24 in 2007 and 15 in 2008. He was hitting .264/.317/.427 and collected a -1.5 WAR in 108 games with Toronto. The Jays placed him on waivers in August and allowed him (and his contract) to go to the Chicago White Sox in return for nothing.

Vernon Wells....No trips to the DL and a season that stops us from talking about his contract.

PARTIALLY GRANTED. Vernon did play a full season and appeared in 158 games (he played 108 in 2008) and had 684 plate appearances. Unfortunately he only hit 15 HR and hit .260/.311/.400. And we still talk about his contract and why we couldn't use that money to sign Pujols/Darvish/Fielder/Madson/Papelbon.

Shaun Marcum....A recovery with no set backs and a 2010 as good as 2008 looked, with more run support. Marcum actually received fewer run support in 2010 (4.53 per start) than 2008 (4.84 per start).

GRANTED. Shaun came back even stronger in 2010 than he looked in 2008, finishing with a 13-8 record, 3.64 ERA, 1.147 WHIP, and pitched 195.1 innings, collecting a healthy 3.6 WAR. His strong season got us Brett Lawrie--thank you Santa!

Lyle Overbay....the lead off role and enough home runs to keep the fans off his back.

IGNORED. Lyle only played 132 games in 2009 and had exactly 500 at bats. He hit .265/.372/.466, 35 doubles and just 16 homers (one more than 2008). The fans never got off his back and even inexplicably booed him when he returned as a Pittsburgh Pirate, much to Jerry Howarth's consternation. And did Tom hope that Lyle would hit lead off? He mostly batted 7th in 2009 (and never ever led off).

Aaron Hill...No headaches and a shortstop glove.

GRANTED. Aaron had a career year in 2009 after missing most of 2008 with a concussion, and at least reported no headaches. He won the Silver Slugger as the Jays' second baseman hitting .286/.330/.499 with 36 homers, 37 doubles, and 195 hits. Went to the All Star Game and even got a few MVP votes to finish 12th in the AL.

Scott Rolen....Health, the economy sized package.

PARTIALLY GRANTED. After missing 39 games in 2008, Scott had a healthier 2009, missing 21 games (but only 2 as a Blue Jay). He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds at the trade deadline for Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Roenicke, and Zach Stewart. I have no idea what size his package was/is.

More after the jump...

Continue reading this post »

Two years ago today Roy Halladay was traded.

After a confusing couple of days worth of rumors, we had the trade. Roy Halladay and $6 million to the Phillies for Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d'Arnaud. Taylor was immediately moved to Oakland for Brett Wallace, who, for a few months was our first baseman of the future. Then he was traded to Houston for Anthony Gose, our current center fielder of the future.

Two seasons later, we still can't judge the deal from the Blue Jays end. I'm sure the Phillies are happy. Doc has won them 40 games and they have been in the playoffs both years.

On our side:

• Kyle Drabek looked good in 2009, but 2010 was a lost year for him, or maybe it was the strike zone that got lost. I'd like to think he can turn things around but he doesn't look like the sure thing that he did a year ago.
• Travis d'Arnaud had an ok 2010 but then a terrific 2011, hitting .311/.371/.542 for the Fisher Cats. A good 2012 in Vegas and Alex is going to have a great problem on his hands.
• Michael Taylor had 30 lousy at bats for the A's last season and hit .272/.360/.456 in Triple-A Sacramento, not great numbers for the PCL. The guy we got for Taylor, Brett Wallace, played 115 games for the Astros in 2011 hitting .259/.334/.354, not the numbers you would want out of a first baseman. So I'm happy we have Anthony Gose.

So will the help of 2 years worth of hindsight, what do you think of the trade?

It was 21 years ago today that Stand Pat Gillick made the biggest trade in Blue Jay history. Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff went to the Padres for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.

I'll admit, at the time, I wasn't a big fan of the trade. We had a team that was in the race for the playoffs each season for the past few. In 1985 and 1989 we made it to the playoffs. Then, suddenly, we trade the best shortstop the team ever had and a first baseman that, I thought, had a shot to be in the Hall of Fame one day for a young second baseman, who hadn't slugged over .400 yet in his first 3 major league seasons and an overrated (in my opinion) outfielder, who had hit .232/..290/.391 the season before.

The trade worked out, though I wonder if, in the alternate universe where the Jays didn't make the trade, we would have won a couple of World Series anyway. But then, there is no way we could have had a better finish than we had in the 1993 game with Joe Carter hitting that home run.

We held on to Joe for too long, his last few years with the team weren't very good and Alomar left the team as a free agent, but for a couple of years, they helped make the Jay the best team in baseball and gave us a lot of great memories.

Maybe, at this week's winter meetings, Alex will make a trade that we look back on the same way, in 21 years time.

Alex Anthopolous recently re-stated that, while he is exploring all possible free agents, he would "exhaust [all possible trades] first before delving into free agency." It appears that Anthopolous' mantra is to focus on trades rather than free agency to improve the Blue Jays. As a prelude to the upcoming Winter Meetings, I decided to throw together this graph of the number of free agent signings and trades made every year by the five general managers in franchise history. Since the Rule 5 Draft is coming up, I decided to throw those on as well.

Please note that the free agent signings listed only include players signed from another club's 40-man roster, and do not include the Jays re-signing its own free agents, minor league free agents, or international free agents.

Although the 2011 calendar year is not over, it appears that we may have already seen more Blue Jays trades this year (13, including the recent Mills-Mathis trade) than ever before in franchise history! I don't think anyone else has noticed or mentioned this fact yet, which makes me wonder if it is true. The Toronto Blue Jays Official Guide 2011, which I used as one of my main references, include transactions where a player is acquired for cash as a trade. However, that seems to have only started in 1994. Does that mean that no player was sold or purchased before Rob Butler was sold to the Phillies? Does anyone know?

More after the jump.

Continue reading this post »