It is December, which means a) I can shave off the mustache and b) in 2 or 3 weeks us guys have to start our Christmas shopping.
I figured we ought to take a look at the moves that the Jays made in the month of November. but they didn't do all that much:
- The big news was the new logo and jerseys. We had 1935 votes in our poll on the jerseys and 81% said they were great, while only 4% hated them. You know it is a slow month when laundry is the big news. Minor Leaguer took a look at the Jays uniforms of the past here and here.
- We dropped Adam Loewen and Jesse Carlson from the 40-man roster. Loewen signed with the Mets, Jesse is still a free agent.
- We got Trystan Magnuson back from the A's.
- Pat Hentgen left the team and we hired Pete Walker to take his spot as bullpen coach.
- Award season came, the major one for the Jays was the AL MVP that wasn't won by Jose Bautista. At least SB Nation got it right. Johnny wasn't thrilled with the BBWAA.
- The Jays picked up Cole Kimball off waivers from the Nationals, but then the Nats grabbed him back when the Jays tried to slip him down to the minors.
- Some 40-man roster moves were made. Travis d'Arnaud, Michael McDade, Nestor Molina and Evan Crawford were added. Brian Jeroloman we removed, picked up by the Pirates on waivers, who later tried to move him to the minors so the Jays grabbed him and he's back on our 40-man.
- MLB and their players agreed to a new CBA. There is a lot of speculation on what it means to the Jays. It closes off some things that Alex used to build up the minor league system. We'll see how long it takes him to find new little methods to exploit the rules. The CBA was supposed to help bring more parity to the sport, but it seems to me that it got rid of some of ways that the smaller market teams were using to compete.
- The Jays traded cash to the Indians for Luis Valbuena.
- There were (and are) rumors galore. And we argued about closers. Several times.
So, even though there wasn't much for news we still found lots to talk about on here. Amazingly enough, we had our 3rd best month ever for visits. Can you believe it, a month with no baseball, and almost no news and yet we still manage to talk, incessantly, about the Jays. Maybe December will bring real news.