Would you rather have Henry Blanco or Josh Thole?

Shi Davidi, who I think is great and I'm not trying to pick on, has a post up saying the Jays could be planning to save half a million dollars by having Henry Blanco as back up catcher over Josh Thole.

I'd absolutely hate this. I get that R.A. Dickey said that Blanco was the best he's had at catching the knuckleball and that Blanco has a better arm. Not that having a good arm helps all that much with a knuckleball, you aren't going to throw out a lot of runners when that pitch comes floating him.

I'm being told, on Twitter, that Blanco handles staffs well and that he is a good guy. How can you tell he handles staffs well, when he caught 21 games last year, 37 the year before and 50 before that? That he's a good guy, well that's the logic that got us Kevin Millar.

I get that Blanco has his backup catcher union card, but the guy is 41 and hit .188 last year. I guess it would be a way to make us think fondly of Jeff Mathis. I like the idea of having Henry around, in case there is an injury in spring training. I'd like it if he would take a Triple-A job, but I really don't want him backing up J.P. Arencibia. JP gets hurt too much, we'd see way too much of Blanco.

On the other side, what sort of reliever are we going to get for a million dollars? Shi lists these relievers, still on the market:

That leaves the Blue Jays with a potential $1 million to perhaps lure someone lingering on the market such as (and in no particular order) Matt Capps, Jose Valverde, Kyle Farnsworth, Matt Lindstrom, Brandon Lyon, Juan Carlos Oviedo, and Francisco Rodriguez.

Please, please no Valverde, we did the 'established reliever' thing last year with Francisco Cordero. It didn't work, if my memory is correct. I did try my best to block out any memory of Cordero. Yeah, I might take one of the other guys but I'm not sure how much of an upgrade it would be over what we have.

And, really, if one of them is going to sign for a million, why are we worried about saving that half million. A million, in baseball terms, is nothing.

Man, we need some real news if this is what I feel like talking about. How many days till spring training starts?