The Blue Jays 2004 media guide is available from the Blue Jays website in PDF form.

They also have an archive of media guides dating back to 2001.

Ryan, thanks for the link to the media guide! It's a work of art... Can't wait to read through it.

First observation:

Jeff Guiel (brother of Aaron) signed with the the Jays on February 20, 2004, as a minor league FA. The similarities to that other 1B/3B/OF Canuck are remarkable...

I'd like to print out a 1-page colour calendar Jays schedule (e.g. pocket schedule), but I can't find one on the Jays web site (or even in the media guide). The Yankees have their pocket schedule already posted, but not the Jays.

fyi, I found a 4th Jays spring game on TV, Sat. Mar 13 vs. Red Sox on WSBK (channel 211 on Rogers Digital Cable here in Ottawa).

(RSN has 3 Jays games, including Mar 6, but the other two are late (Mar 27, 29) during the dullest part of the spring.)

On page 3 of the media guide, I discovered that Delgado hit only 24 homers last year. Better luck in '04, Carlos!

http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=3006653&l_id=&t_id=
The Jays and Fisher Cats have extended their player development deal through 2006. COMN. I believe this means they should see at least one full season, maybe two in the new Manchester stadium which last I heard was scheduled to be ready for the 2005 season. The original two year deal would have expired after this season and the Red Sox could have swooped in and scooped up the new facilities because of their ability to draw the hometown crowd.

last night i dreamt that toronto traded delgado to the twins for joe mauer. i know i'm becoming a true bauxite because the first thing i thought about after i heard about the trade was what i was going to write in the gone but not forgot: carlos delgado section.

i also dreamt that i went to a jimi hendrix concert and he was playing drums. when i went to the washrooms the urinals were on the floor not on the wall and i fell into one...but this story is for a whole different messsage board.

They have a Red Sox excerpt from Chasing Steinbrenner, the book involving J.P. and the Jays last season, over at bostondirtdogs.com.

That was one crazy dream SuperDevin. Carl Pohlad would never allow the Twins to take on payroll though.

About Jimi Hendrix... apparently, Andre 3000 from Outkast is going to play him in a major movie *if* and when they get through the legal mumbo-jumbo to acquire the appropriate copyrights from his estate (or however that wroks...)

Baseball and Jimi Hendrix in the same dream? Cool. Now if you had integrated chocolate mousse in there, you'd have the triumvirate from my "scrolling marquee" screen saver at work.

Are people still up for a get-together to watch one of the Spring Training games? I can offer my house as a venue for the game on March 27th. The TV room isn't gigantic, but the TV is.

Sadly, I'm not around for the one on the 6th.

Andre has no chance playing Jimi, Jimi was the man and way to cool for Andre!!

http://premium.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2613
I don't think anyone's posted this but BP looked at the possibility that the Jays could overtake the Red Sox or Yankees. COMN.

Essentially it boiled down to everyone needing to overachieve and even then they were 4 games short.

An interesting piece Pistol links to above. For some reason PECOTA hates Delgado, Wells and HLH. Delgado is projected to decline by 20 points of VORP, Wells by 30 and Doc by 18.

Thanks to Ryan for the heads up re the Blue Jays media guides. Some random thoughts from skimming through the Jays minor league player stats.

In his first year of pro ball 19 yr old Venezuelan outfielder Heliezer Aguilar had an OBP of .454 in the DSL. I don't know what that means but I couldn't find any other player who had a season like that in the DSL for the Jays. He might be a player to watch on the mainland this season.

The Jays seem to sign a lot of players out of Venezuela. Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are now the main source of highschool ages players.

Justin Maureau gave up ZERO HRs last season and only 1 in 92 innings of pro ball. Don't know if that has any predictive value. Despite the zero HRs he still sucked.

The San Francisco Chronicle has apparently reported that BALCO claims to have given steroids and HGH to six major leaguers.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/02/MNGNM5C3AV1.DTL
COMN for the original San Francisco Chronicle article.

3 and $23 for Geoff Jenkins, who has never played more than 135 games in a season. Contract applies to 2005-2007, ages 30-32. I guess Milwaukee felt they needed to hold on to their only remaining "name" player.

Just heard on CNN. Marge Schott passed away today.

For those awaiting the '04 Prospectus Handbook, mine hit the shores of Maine this marnin' by way of Amazon (USA). Having always been a fan of them, the Jays & A's entires were still a tad ho-hum. By late evening I do expect however, to be in full giggle mode as I cruise through the White Sox and Mariner chapters.

I've always liked Jenkins -- he went to 'SC and his swing-from-the-heels approach is great fun to watch -- but that's probably a bit much for him. He's J.D. Drew without the Boras Baggage, but we'll never know how good Jenkins is until he plays a full year. My hunch is that there's a .320/.380/.590/40 homer in there somewhere, but we may never see it.

And I wish the Chronicle would apply a bit more journalism, or even ANY journalism. There's nothing in the article that says where the feds got their information, or even from where the Chron got theirs. As much as I loathe Bonds and Giambi, I'm still of the innocent until proven guilty mind. I guess it's too much to ask, given the salacious predations of the mass media, to expect the same from the biggest daily in the fourth-biggest market in the U.S.

Oh, and a note to Jeff Kent: shut up already. I don't care if you're right or wrong, just go back to your hunting, fishing, and clubbing off-field doubles.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2004/columns/story?columnist=klapisch_bob&id=1749776
Texas and NYM are talking about Soriano going back to the Big Apple to play across town (COMN).

Just heard from Wilner on the FAN. It appears there is concern that Lilly won't be able to start the season due to his wrist injury.

There was apparently live baseball on US TV this afternoon. Anyone know hen the first live action is likely to appear on Canadian channels ?

Saturday.

Plucked from my Fanhome post:

The first time the Jays will need a fifth starter will be April 17th against Baltimore. That's nearly two weeks into the season, so if Lilly's injury isn't too serious it's possible he could make that start, assuming he misses any time at all.

If it turns out that Lilly will miss some time, if I were Tosca I'd move Towers up to the third spot into the rotation to start the year and leave Hentgen in the fourth spot. If he did that, it would allow for Hentgen to face Boston twice and Detroit once, while Towers gets Detroit twice and Baltimore once. I'd be very uncomfortable with Towers starting against the Red Sox once, let alone twice given his poor history against teams the second time around.