Friday Bantering

Not much out there for Blue Jays news.

• The team did officially announce the Darwin Barney signing, 1-year, $1.05 million. Barney has a .246/.294/.339 line in 581 MLB games over 6 seasons and would be the back up infielder if Devon Travis can't start the season.
• Bob Elliott tells us that the Jays are getting calls on Drew Hutchison, but he doesn't suggest that something is likely to happen. With the contracts that free agents are signing, I'd check in on Hutchison, if i was a GM for another team too.
• Elliott also says that finding starting pitching for Buffalo is a priority for Shapiro/Atkins. saying that ""We had five blanks in the Buffalo rotation," Shapiro said. "And usually you don't get a lot of results from guys named blank." Of course, every time Shapiro talks about depth, everyone complains, but, odds are that someone on the Buffalo starting rotation will make starts for the Jays.
• The Orioles have pulled their 7-year,$170 million offer to Chris Davis. Apparently he wants 8 years and $200 million. He would look really good in the middle of the Jays lineup.
• John Lott talks about how the Canadian dollar effects the Jays payroll.

The Jays collect revenues in Canadian dollars and pay their players in U.S. dollars. On Thursday, the Canadian dollar was worth 73.36 cents against the U.S. dollar, an 11-year low. A year ago, it was worth about 88 cents. Shapiro says the 2016 payroll will rise - it was about US$140-million for the past season - but the exchange rate will chew up a sizeable chunk of the unspecified increase.

• Ben Nicholson-Smith writes about how the Jays know they need to improve the bullpen but don't want to get caught up in the recent overpaying of relievers. Baseball has always been a copycat industry. When a team wins doing one thing, every other team tries to copy them.