Over at Minor League Ball, John Sickels has ranked the 30 MLB teams minor league systems and he puts our Jays number #1. Here is what he says about us:

1) Toronto Blue Jays: Eight B+ prospects with ridiculous depth behind them.

Yay us!

There isn't all that much out there for Blue Jay links, I guess we've all got the end of season blues. 

• Robert MacLeod, in the Globe and Mail, tells us that Brett Lawrie thought about playing through the pain, Proving he is a good Canadian boy. Don Cherry says 'get up' and all that. 
• John Lott lets us know that Kelly Johnson isn't watching what the Diamondbacks are doing. 
• A story in the Orange County Register says that Dan Haren didn't break anything when he got hit last night:

A fluoroscan after the game was normal, indicating only a painful contusion for Haren, who must drink a lot of milk. Strong bones also helped him survive taking a line drive off his pitching arm during his first start with the Angels last season. Haren, who has never missed a start as a professional, expects to pitch Monday.

I don't know what a fluoroscan is. 

• Fans, at Rogers Centre, have been on Vernon Wells:

"The whole time," Wells said, having produced a homer and double in Tuesday night's victory. "It's impressive. From the first inning to the ninth inning, it's nonstop. I've heard everything. I don't expect anything less now that I'm on another team.

Maybe fans was the wrong term.

• Want to look back at what the 'experts' thought would happen this year? More than half picked the Red Sox to win it all. I wonder if they still think so. 

I had MLB radio on for a bit this morning (gotta stop doing that) and they were telling me that the Red Sox were losing because of a 'lack of character'. Don't people ever get tired of this crap. They aren't losing because of a bunch of injuries and some lousy pitching. They are losing because they are just bad people. Ok, I'll give in that I really dislike Youkilis and Paplebon but that's not why they are losing, they are losing because they are playing bad baseball.

Just some links to get us to game time:

• MLB Trade Rumors has their latest update on the Elias Rankings. Kelly Johnson is still an A a B. I wonder if he would accept arbitration? Jose Molina is a B, as is Jon Rauch. I'd likely accept arbitration if I was Rauch.
• The 2012 MLB schedule is out, you can plan your trips. We start the year April 12 5 in Cleveland. Our first home stand starts on April 9th with the Red Sox. And we play at home on Canada Day! For interleague play, we host the Mets May 18-20 and then the Nationals and the Phillies starting June 11. We visit the Braves and Brewers.
• Richard Griffin and Cathal Kelly argue about who is the AL MVP over in the Star. I agree with Cathal. 
• The NY Times know the Jay exist, they wrote about us and the Orioles twice, here and here.
• The Southpaw looks at our Gulf Coast League team.
• Tao answers Twitter questions. 

I haven't done a links post in a while, but was wandering through the Jays Blogosphere and saw  a lot of good stuff out there. Chime in with any links you think are interesting.

• Gregor Chisholme has notes on Ricky Romero, J.P. Arencibia and quotes from Don Wakamatsu on Jesse Litsch.
• The Rays have released everyone's favorite reliever/author Dirk Hayhurst. Alex, I'd love it if you would pick him up.

• Bluefield clinches Appy East crown | MiLB.com News | The Official Site of Minor League Baseball
  The Blue Jays' first season in the Appalachian League could not have gone better.

• This is a couple of days old, from the Naional Post: Kelly Johnson talking about hearing about the trade and being rattled by an earthquake at the same time.
• Bob Elliot talks to Todd Stottlemyre about the death of Mike Flanagan. But the interesting tidbit is the note that The Jays say Newmarket lefty Jake Eliopopulos, whom they drafted in the 43rd round in June, did not return any of their calls before the Aug. 15 deadline.
• The Leafs take batting practice. Insert your own joke.
• Fangraphs wonders if the Yankees should move our old friend A.J. Burnett to the bullpen. We are so lucky he opted out of the contract with us. 
• Kelly: Time for Rogers to open vault to get Jays to next level - thestar.com. Cathal Kelly thinks the Jays should spend money, but not on a high priced free agent. I'm not sure what he is getting at and the lead is buried under 500 words about the Yankees upset over the rescheduling of games with the Orioles. Yeah, I don't know why I'm linking to this mess.
• Tao of Stieb looks at the mess that was Kyle Drabek's start from last night.
• Blue Jay Hunter wonders what is wrong with Adam Lind.
• Blue Jay Hunter also has a video of the 1996 Jays lip syncing This Land is Your Land
• Mike Wilner rants about the folks that call his phone in show. I don't know how he does that job. 

• Davidi on Snider: Cautiously optimistic - sportsnet.ca
  "It's been kind of a long year for me, I've put in a lot of extra work and it sucks to see it come down to something like tendinitis," says Snider. "I didn't think it would be season ending first and foremost. I was hoping it would be something that I just could get through the end of the season, ultimately the decision was made by the organization.

Hello all - sorry you haven't heard from me in a few weeks but I got stuck in a field job that took about 4 weeks longer than it was supposed to and I just haven't had time to really spend much time at all around here, never mind putting posts up.  Well, that's done for now (hopefully) and I should be around somewhat consistently again.

For those new to the site, and for the vets as well, feel free to use this as a chatter spot.  Want to talk about last nights game (okay, neither do I), you can do that here.  Want to talk about anything around baseball (and probably anything not related to baseball within reason), feel free.  With that, onto your links.

Jays Links

Jays' kids quick learners
Shi Davidi on the Jays' youth movement.

Does Brandon Morrow hit the wall or does the wall hit Brandon Morrow?
Drew wonders if Morrow consistently suffers from bad luck, or if there is something to his late(r) inning demises.

The skill is there. I don't think there is much development left for Brandon Morrow, more discovery.

Jays, Drabek search for silver linings
John Lott talks with John Farrell about Kyle Drabek. Sounds like they remain confident in him despite the atrocious Vegas numbers.

Adeiny Hechavarria Improving in New Hampshire
Mat Germain at Jays Journal compared Hechavarria to Jose Iglesias and to Yunel Escobar's age 24 AA season and concludes that he is making good headway toward becoming a viable everyday player.

Jays making a uniform change - thestar.com

It’s expected the Blue Jays uniforms will have a new look for the 2012 season, one that will reflect a Canadian theme more than ever.

Any ideas on what the new uniforms should look like? I despise the patriotic theme, and would love if they just went back to the early 90's uniforms and logo.

Around the League

Is The Best 1-2-3 Halladay, Hamels and Lee? - Beyond the Box Score
Satchel Price at Beyond the Boxscore wonders if the Phillies trio is the best in baseball. There is most definitely some stiff competition.

Jim Thome quietly closing in on milestone 600th HR

Thome is close to joining an exclusive club. With 598 home runs over his powerful 20-year career, Thome is on the verge of becoming only the eighth player in professional baseball history to hit 600. And there are all kinds of people around the game who couldn't be happier for him.

I know Thome has been good for a long time, but it still surprises me just how good he was. He's set to join some very elite company (roughly 1 in 1000 major league batters hit 600 home runs).

In Which Two Canadians Fight About A Sport That Is Not Hockey
Chris Jones and Jonah Keri debate science versus art. Good stuff.

Don't Worry: We Know Michael Young Is Really Good At Baseball
Rob Neyer touches on Michael Young's 2000 hits and the debate over the significance of the milestone that followed, in an article about target audience:

My baseball-playing friends, you have to understand that we're not writing for you. We're writing for us: All the millions of mere mortals who could never, for any number of reasons, do what you do. We would like to do what you do. We admire what you do, and celebrate what you do. But we also analyze what you do, and we're compelled to point out the relative merits of what you do.

Stephen Strasburg to make second rehab start Friday
Sounds like Strasburg might be pitching in the majors again this year.

Little League Championship not just for the boys
The Vancouver Sun has a nice piece on the female representation at the Little League Championships.

Everyone is writing about the Big Trade. And we all seem to have the same opinion: it was a great deal for the Blue Jays. Many are shocked that Corey Patterson found himself involved in the trade. Corey is a player we picked up for free, who wasn't supposed to make the team, played good for about 5 minutes and then turned back into Corey Patterson. I don't know why he didn't play better defense for us. I don't know why he kept trying to steal third, only to be thrown out each time. What he has to realize is that, as a 4th or 5th outfield, he only has value if he doesn't make dumb mistakes. 

Anyway Links:

Fangraphs thinks the trade would be a little more even if the Cards use Scrabble as a starter:
Rzepczynski is called a LOOGY — and his 4.18 xFIP against righties, at first blush, doesn’t suggest that he can’t hack it in a full-time role. Sure, he’s not as good against them. His 9.47 K/9, 2.98 BB/9 and 60.3% GBs versus lefties is much better than his 7.65 K/9, 4.62 BB/9 and 52.2% GBs against right-handed hitters. But those numbers against righties aren’t terrible, especially if he can improve his control. Considering his better-than-average control against lefties — and consistently decent minor league walk rates — it’s not a stretch to imagine the 25-year-old in the Cards’ rotation at some point.

Keith Law says the trade is win for the Toronto Blue Jays - MLB - ESPN
The Cardinals, meanwhile, have made a terrible organizational move by allowing their aging manager to run off the best hitting prospect the team has produced since drafting Albert Pujols. Whether La Russa was mostly responsible or only shares responsibility with Rasmus and his father, it is clear that La Russa's my-way-or-the-highway mentality has hurt the organization for this year and several years to come with the Rasmus fiasco, and unfortunately the front office's decision to retain La Russa for 2011 has come back to haunt them. Rasmus has the potential to be a 5- to 6-win player at his peak, and there's no manager in baseball who can produce that kind of value.

More after the Jump.

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We have afternoon baseball today. Glad to hear the Jays are closing the roof, with it being scary hot out. Also nice to see Snider in CF again, thought putting in center just so we can get Corey Patterson's big bat into the lineup seems a little counter productive. But when Lawrie is up with the team, having Travis in center will give us room to put together a pretty decent lineup. 

Some links:

• Bob Elliot has a series on this year's Hall of Famers. Here he talks to Pat Hentgen about Robby Alomar.
• And Bob on the phone call to Pat Gullick.
• Bob on Dave Van Horne. I've said before how I owe a large part of my love of baseball to Dave Van Horne. As much as Tom Cheek deserves to go into the Hall, I'm thrilled that they are sending Dave, he was so good doing those Expo games.  I love the story about Ken Singleton 'speaking Japanese'.
• Bob on Bert Blyleven and his time in Saskatchewan. 
• One more from Bob Elliot. This time talking to Jack McKeon on the Alomar trade.
• Shi Davidi talks to Edwin Encarnacion. 
• Adam Dunn may not have hated baseball before but after this season he might. 

Enjoy the game this afternoon. 

I've been waiting for this piece on Jose Bautista for a while, and Joe Posnanski doesn't disappoint.  Pos is one of my favorite writers around right now and this is an enjoyable read.  He writes about Bautista's rise to success while giving us short clips of other 'Amazing True Sports Stories'.

Do you believe in miracles? Can you?

We live in a time of mirage, of Photoshop and special effects and undetectable designer drugs. We live in a time when truth and illusion tango unhappily, when reality television seems more unreal than cartoons, when identities are stolen and online personalities invented, when the President must show his birth certificate to an unbelieving portion of the nation, when baseball's record books have become choked by men who are admitted—or outed as—steroid users.

Can you believe in miracles?  That's the question Pos asks the readers.

"You know what you should do," Wells said. "Think about starting as early as you can possibly imagine, so early that it seems ridiculous. And then start even earlier than that. What do you have to lose? If you look like a fool, you look like a fool. It's just one game."

It was just one game. Bautista stepped in against Scott Baker in the bottom of the second inning. O.K., he would remember thinking, I'm going to start so early it will be ridiculous. Baker pitched, and Bautista felt as if he started his swing before Baker even let go of the ball—"I thought, You want early, I'll show you early." He expected to miss everything, but he felt his bat hit ball. It was more than that, though, because the feeling of hitting a baseball hard, really hard, doesn't feel like anything else in the world.

The ball smashed against the leftfield wall so hard, Bautista thought he could hear the impact over the sounds of the cheers.

Holy s---, Bautista remembered thinking as he stood at second base. What was that?

I liked this part of the article and I don't remember hearing Vernon Wells' quote before (although there's a good chance I just missed it).  Cito Gaston and Dwayne Murphy had been trying to get Jose to start his swing earlier and he was struggling with it, and this is when it clicked.

Do you believe in miracles? Can you? Or maybe those are the wrong questions. Maybe the real question is: Do you believe that people who never stop trying or believing are capable of doing amazing true things? And if not: What's the point of watching?

And Pos ends the piece with that great line.  If you can't accept stories like Bautista's; stories like Dazzy Vance and Hank Sauer; stories like Kurt Warner's and Priest Holmes of the NFL, then what is the point of watching?  Because those are the guys that really make sports fun and exciting.  Anything can happen and anything will happen.

And, the rest are after the jump.

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