Saturday Bantering: Donaldson

It was two days before Christmas, and all through Jays’ land there wasn’t anything close to news. Which is a problem for us. Of course, the Blue Jays don’t have to do things on our schedule, but a little something tossed out to our long suffering bloggers would be appreciated.

Last year the complaint was that they moved too quick on Kendrys Morales (which is true they did, but then they didn’t know how the rest of the winter was going to play out). This year the complaint is they aren’t moving fast enough.

Ross Atkins said "We're trying to win, and I can't imagine our team being better without Josh Donaldson." Which, of course, is true, but people are still going to complain.

Whatever they do with him will be wrong to a large portion of the fanbase. We are never going to get enough to satisfy most of us. As Tao said, it’s a no-win thing for the team. Trade him, it won’t be enough/keep him and they should have traded him.

The market seems to be just the Cardinals. It is harder to build up a bidding war if you only have one bidder. Add in that the Cards don’t seem to have the deepest minor league system and you are looking at the strong possibility of a disappointing return.

I’m still on the side of don’t shop him, but if someone makes an offer that looks interesting, consider it.

Being a fan, I’m happy to keep him. I like watching him play.

The team has stayed in-house to replace George Poulos as head trainer. Nikki Huffman moves up from ‘head physical therapist and rehab coordinator’. Not that I know anything about it, but the players seem to like her, and that’s as important as anything.

They promoted from their minor league system to fill her assistant spots. Jose Minstral and Voon Chong are now assistant athletic trainers and Donovan Santas is head of strength and conditioning.

As a long time player of OOTP Baseball, all I know about trainers is that it is satisfying to fire them when your team goes through a stretch of bad luck with injuries. I’ve fired George Poulos (sorry George) in every edition of the game, for the past several years.

Spring training starts February 14th, for pitchers, and February 19th for everyone else. I can’t wait.