Lots of links today while we wait to hear if the Jays are going to pick up Kevin Gregg's options:
Bob Elliot gives us the timeline on the hiring of John Farrell.
Alex Anthopoulos talked to Shi Davidi about changing his approach to the off-season:
"I looked back at my off-season, trade talks, dialogue ... and I just found myself being so much more conservative than I needed to be or wanted to be."
The main take-away for Anthopoulos as he heads into his second off-season as GM is that while risk shouldn't be embraced recklessly, it's OK to swing and miss once in a while if the potential reward is worthwhile.
He was too conservative last year? He did trade Roy Halladay, signed Adeiny Hechavarria and made the trade for Brandon Morrow. As well as signing a few free agents like John Buck and Alex Gonzalez. If that is conservative, I wonder what will happen this year.
Someone else thinks the Jays should pick up a former Red Sox, at least this time it is a decent player.
Alex Anthopoulos thinks the Mets were smart to pick up J.P. Ricciardi.
The Red Sox picked up the option on their old DH while the Rangers didn't pick up the option on Vlady.
Ghostrunner is joining the Sweet Spot network. Congratulations Drew. He also looks at Adam Lind's season, thinking it wasn't so terrible after all.
Tao of Stieb thinks we should go after Aubrey Huff. If we do I'll have to stop typing Audrey and then fixing it (at least I hope I fix it each time) every time I mention him.
Baseball Prospectus put up the second part of their interview with Jerry Howarth. You don't need a subscription to read it.
Here is a great piece on Sparky Anderson.
Scrabble is having an easy time of it in the Arizona Fall League.