Monday Bantering: Bautista’s wedding

The big news, of the weekend, was Jose Bautista got married. I’m sure my invite got lost in the mail.

Congratulations Jose.

There were some pictures posted to Twitter:

I don’t understand why this is worth talking about yet, but:

There really is no rush. If it isn’t done in February, then I’d start wondering.

And the Jays, and all MLB teams, have to set their 40-man roster before 8:00 PM Eastern to prepare for the Rule 5 draft. They have 4 open spots, at the moment, and likely could make a little more room by dropping Chris Rowley and/or Harold Ramirez and/or Tom Koehler. The only thing I’m sure of is that Danny Jansen will go on the 40-man. Beyond that? Rowdy Tellez? I’m still a fan of Max Pentecost, but I can’t see any team grabbing him (unless Alex still loves him). Conner Greene? I could see someone putting him into the back of their bullpen.

Matt W took a good look at the choices the Jays face here.

I’m curious to see if the Jays leave an open spot to make a pickup of their own. We’ll have to wait until December 14th to see what happens in the draft.

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot was released. One notable name not on the list is Roy Halladay. Halladay will be on next year’s ballot. Occasionally, a player who dies gets on the ballot early, but his death came too close to this year’s balloting. I guess the most famous example would be Roberto Clemente, who died on New Year’s Eve, 1972 and was voted into the Hall from the 1973 ballot.

This year’s ballot, the names in bold are on the ballot for the first time. We will run out own polls over the next two or three weeks.

Barry Bonds, Chris Carpenter, Roger Clemens, Johnny Damon, Vladimir Guerrero, Livan Hernandez, Trevor Hoffman, Orlando Hudson, Aubrey Huff, Jason Isringhausen, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Jeff Kent, Carlos Lee, Brad Lidge, Edgar Martinez, Hideki Matsui, Fred McGriff, Kevin Millwood, Jamie Moyer, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Scott Rolen, Johan Santana, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, Larry Walker, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano.

There are a few with Blue Jays ties: Carpenter, Clemens, Guerrero (he was in our minor league system for a couple of weeks, before deciding to retire), Hudson, Kent, McGriff, Rolen and Vizquel. Did I miss anyone?