Man, I am just starved for Blue Jay news. I'm even looking forward to being told which Jays 'have come to spring training in the best shape ever'. In fact we should have a contest to guess which player we get told has come 'in the best shape ever' first. Lets do that, tell us who will come to camp in the best shape ever and let's keep track who the writers say that about.

My guess: Brett Cecil.

The National Post tells us that Alex Anthopoulos is saying that the Jays won't be moving their Double-A team from New Hampshire to Ottawa:

"We're thrilled with New Hampshire," Anthopoulos said. "They have the best ballpark in the Eastern League, unbelievable ownership and unbelievable management. It can't get any better for us than New Hampshire."

I guess he couldn't really say 'yeah we can't wait to get out of that dump' but then I really doubt they will be leaving New Hampshire in a hurry.

But then the Jays could be leaving Vegas. @AdamRubinESPN twitted that the Mets could be losing their Triple-A team in Buffalo and then added:

If Buffalo leaves the Mets after this year, it likely would be for the Blue Jays. They could still re-up with Mets. Nothing set in stone.

That would be great for us. Closer to Toronto, easier to get players to Toronto in a hurry, and it would be a much more neutral a park. Far easier to evaluate our Triple-A players if they have more normal numbers. And we wouldn't be so afraid to send prospect pitchers there.

Speaking of the minors the Jays signed Koby Clemens to a minor league contract. He hit 26 homers in 2010 at Double-A Corpus Christi. His career minor league stats are here. I bet he'll enjoy playing at Vegas.

Keith Law has posted his top 10 prospects for each major league team (insider membership needed. Please, please don't put up links to people reposting copyright material), here is his Jay top 10:

1. Travis d'Arnaud, C (6)
2. Drew Hutchison, RHP (42)
3. Jake Marisnick, CF (47)
4. Anthony Gose, CF (59)
5. Aaron Sanchez, RHP (96)
6. Justin Nicolino, RHP
7. Noah Syndergaard, RHP
8. A.J. Jimenez, C
9. Adonis Cardona, RHP
10. Deck McGuire, RHP

I think the great thing about the Jays minor league system is that 100 people could pick top 10's and we'd all come up with a different group. I like Keith's though I'd have it a little different.

The numbers in the brackets are the placement on Keith's MLB top 100 prospects. Hutchison's has moved up the list in a hurry.

Another nice thing about the Jays system is that the players from 11-20 would almost be as good as the top 10. And yes we'll have our prospect list up soon.

The Jays have made the signing of Francisco Cordero official and, to make room on the 40-man roster, have designated Darin Mastroianni for assignment.

Darin got into 1 game with the Jays, last year, going 0 for 2 with a sac bunt. I kind of like the guy, I think he'd be a fine fourth outfielder, for some team, but the Jays have plenty of options for that role.

Thanks to all who came out (ok, more accurately stayed in) for the live blog last night--I had a great time chatting about baseball once again. Can't wait until this becomes a regular occurrence again during the season! So to practice for game recaps, here is a brief summary of what was discussed at the Rogers Centre last night.

In case you missed the broadcast, you can catch the audio here from Sportsnet Radio the Fan 590. The live broadcast started at 6:30 pm, and was only available on the web either through Sportsnet's website or BlueJays.com--there were no other games on tonight so I don't know why Rogers could not have broadcast this on one of their many TV or radio channels. The State of the Franchise is basically a sales event for the Blue Jays, and they don't use broadcast channels that a casual fan may pick up. Weird.

The evening began with the host, Buck Martinez (whom Beeston kept calling "Albert") introducing the three club representatives that evening: manager John Farrell, President and CEO Paul Beeston, and General Manager Alex Anthopoulos. Beeston then had a short speech about how confident he feels about the way the club is going and how he is looking forward to an evening "dialoguing" with fans. He mentions that, even though some fans would want the Jays to "fast forward" on some things, the club must be run in a sustainable fashion. He talked a bit about the change in the logo, the Winter Caravan, and the success of minor league affiliates.

Buck then talked a bit about the different promotions the team is going to be having this season. He said that there are going to be 20,000 giveaways this year, to "make sure every fan [who] shows up gets a promotional item." He'll regret saying that a bit later in the question-and-answer session, which is after the jump.

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The Blue Jays have signed reliever Francisco Cordero to a 1-year, $4.5 million contract.

We have a loaded bullpen now. We've added Cordero, Jason Frasor, Sergio Santos and Darren Oliver to the pen. Casey Janssen, Jesse Litsch, Carlos Villanueva are hold overs. If we are going with a 7 man pen that doesn't leave room for lefty Luis Perez or Joel Carreno.

I'm not 100% sold on Cordero. He was great last year, he had a 2.45 ERA but his FIP was 4.02 and xFIP was 4.14. His strikeout rate dropped to 5.43/9 from 7.31 the year before, but he did have a 50% ground ball rate. I don't think his .214 BABIP will keep happening.

After a long dry stretch, the Blue Jays did a few things yesterday and are rumored to be wanting to make more moves:

• Brandon Morrow: The Jays have announced that Morrow signed a 3 year, $20 million contract with an option for a fourth year (2015) at $10 million, nice round numbers. They also said that Brandon will be making a yearly donation to the Jays Care Foundation. They have a press conference coming at 10:30 Eastern to talk about the signing, but I'm a little too far away.
• Omar Vizquel: They also announced that Omar Vizquel has signed a minor league contract, with a spring training invite. Vizquel will be 45 in April, if he makes the team they will have two players in their 40's on the roster. Might not win the AL East but we'll have the leagues best shuffleboard team.
• Francisco Cordero: There are rumors the Jays are offering a contract to Cordero. He had 37 saves, last year, and a 2.45 ERA, but that came with a .214 BABIP (he is normally in the .300 range). I think going from the NL Central to the AL East would put a big hurt on his numbers, but he is a good pitcher.
• Koji Uehara: There are rumors the Jays are interested in trading for him, in fact some where saying it was a done deal (oh the fun of twitter). He's got a great arm and has a career 3.13 ERA with 9.6 K/9. I'd love to have him but then we are up to our armpits in RHP in the pen, I wouldn't mind another good lefty.

Other than that, I think it is funny that the Red Sox traded away Marco Scutaro for payroll relief. A team with a payroll like their's, trading Scoot to drop payroll? Is like a fat guy passing up vegetables to loss weight.

Ok, I have no idea why we would do this, but apparently we have signed 44 year old infielder Omar Vizquel. 44 year old. I can't get it. I usually understand, if not always agree with Alex's moves but I don't get this at all.

Vizquel hit .251/.287/.305 in 58 games with the White Sox last year.

Did I mention he was 44. He'll be 45 in April.

Please Alex, explain this to me.

Paul Beeston talked to Jeff Blair this morning. Some highlights.

• They don't want to 'fast track' things at the expense of their long term play.
• "It isn't a matter of spending it is a matter of spending wisely."
• "I don't think we should lose our patience."
• Absolutely no tension between the club and Rogers. "They have never turned us down for anything we wanted to do." "They are equally as good (of owners) as Labatts."
• The team is paying a lot for their draft choices. The amatuer draft cost has gone up from $2 or $3 million to $15 million now.
• Everyone would like to 'fast forward' things but not at the expense of doing something that will give us what we want for the long term.
• Can the Jays compete this year? "Yes". "If everything comes together the way we think it can, yeah I do."

So really he didn't tell us anything new, jut that they aren't going to try to sign 5 free agents to try to win it all this year. Asked about Prince Fielder, he said the team wouldn't want to sign him to a 10-year deal. Then asked if he thinks Fielder will get 10 years, he said 'no'. Would you sign him for 5-6 years? Depends on the cost. It was sort of like listening to Alex, he talked for 10 minutes and didn't say anything much.