Wednesday Bantering: Jays Bits

It has been a fun Wednesday morning so far, I’m having computer issues this morning, but they seem to have resolved themselves, so hopefully, I can get to the end of this post.

FanGraphs has their Top 100 Prospect list out and there are two Blue Jays on it:

• Ricky Tiedemann is number 24. They have his ETA in Toronto.
• Addison Barger is number 53. They have his ETA as this year. I’m happily surprised it is on the list.

I am enjoying the video tweets of the Jays in spring training. This one is particularly good (though I’m not sure that Nate should be going all yet):

This is pretty good too:

Alejandro Kirk is hasn’t made it to camp yet. He is waiting for the birth of his child. John Schneider figures he is likely to have to miss the WBC.

I don’t know that it is fair to talk about this to the media, talk to Kirk about it, but I don’t think it is something you should be negotiating through the media.

Happy Birthday to Chris Bassitt, who turns 34 today. Chris seems to have become a better pitcher in his 30s. I hope that continues.

An old friend has found a home with the Mariners. I don’t it works out for him:

Jim Bowden, in the Athletic, has a post up grading each team’s offseason. He gives the Jays a B+:

Key takeaways: The Blue Jays’ top offseason priorities were to add a starting pitcher, improve the bullpen and add more left-handed hitters to better balance the lineup. Check, check and check. Bassitt gives them one of the top three rotations in the league, Swanson significantly improves their ‘pen, and the left-handed bats of Varsho, Kiermaier and Belt balance out their lineup considerably. The Blue Jays also improved their outfield defense with Varsho now in left, Kiermaier in center, and George Springer moving over to right field — which all together should really help their run prevention.

Improving the outfield defense is the biggest part, but the bullpen looks greatly improved.

Unfortunately, he gives the Yankees an A.

I’m leaving on holiday on Saturday. We are going to the ‘land down under’, Australia and New Zealand, for a month. I’m back just in time for the season to start, but I will miss the fun of spring training games.

But fortunately, we have a whole crew around to keep the place going. And there will be Spring GameThreads (Sportsnet is showing all the home spring games this year and many road games).

I’ll look in when I can, but WiFi will be spotty at times and non-existent the rest of the time. But it will be fun to be a day ahead of the rest of the world (I’m going to miss February 26th totally, but I’m doing Dry February, so I’m ok with missing a day).