- The Blue Jays wasted no time resuming their search for offense after announcing the Burnett contract, meeting with Arn Tellem, the representative for free-agent infielder Nomar Garciaparra. Lyle Overbay is being discussed as a possibility at first for the Blue Jays. One option for the Jays would be to sign Garciaparra as a DH and acquire the Brewers' Lyle Overbay to play first base, but those moves might be difficult to swing unless they traded Shea Hillenbrand along with either Eric Hinske or Corey Koskie."

This all from Ken Rosenthal's article: http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5146662

C   Paul Lo Duca -- GONE
1B *Carlos Delgado -- GONE
2B #Luis Castillo -- GONE
3B  Mike Lowell  -- GONE
SS  Alex Gonzalez  -- GONE
LF  Miguel Cabrera   -- safe
CF *Juan Pierre     -- GONE
RF  Juan Encarnacion -- GONE
DH  Jeff Conine -- might stay

SP *Dontrelle Willis -- safe
SP  A.J. Burnett  -- GONE
SP  Josh Beckett  -- GONE
SP  Brian Moehler  -- dunno    
SP *Jason Vargas    -- safe, I guess

CL  Todd Jones  -- GONE     
RP  Guillermo Mota  -- GONE
RP  Jim Mecir    -- GONE
RP  Antonio Alfonseca -- might stay
RP  Nate Bump    -- dunno

That's 7 of 9 regulars gone with one player on the fence, 2 of your top starters, and your top three relievers by appearances. And the offseason is still young. My God. How would you like to be Miguel Cabrera? Actually, don't answer that ... you know what I mean.

I agree, and is Overbay really worth that kind of price even as a salary dump? I feel like the Jays could make that salary dump elsewhere and do better.

But then I think to myself, who am I specifically thinking of as a better option? And then I can't really think of an answer.

What about Koskie to the Twins?

I would guess that the Twins don't have a lot of money left after acquiring Luis Castillo. Plus, I haven't heard any more about the juicy Morneau-for-Koskue rumours that were floated a few months back.

The Brewers may be increasing payroll -- from $42 million last season to the $50 million range in 2006

I think that is the question, except that the hitting difference is more than slight.

True. My interest in seeing Hinske included in that sort of deal is entirely bound up in the $10M or so remaining on his contract, rather than any real talent advantage owned by Hillenbrand, who is arb-eligible and who at worst could be salary-dumped in a Cory-Lidle-type deal. But we shall see.

Dang. I want another two seasons out of him. Then he could reach #3 all time in the win list (32 wins away). Of course, then I'd hope he hung around 2 more to crack 400 wins (27 more). Then one more to move into second (Walter Johnson is at 417). Five more years? He'd be 47, or one more year than Nolan Ryan lasted, one less than Phil Niekro.

Sadly, there is no way he can reach Cy for #1 at 511 which is 170 more wins, or another 10+ seasons.

Never thought I'd see a guy have a shot at the top 2 for pitching wins but Roger could do it if he wants to and his health holds on.

Looks like the Jays won't be picking up Estrada.

[Evan] Grant reports that Toronto might be willing to trade lefthander Ted Lilly or righthanders Miguel Batista or David Bush for [Kevin] Mench, and that the Jays could also offer to put interesting reliever (and Mark Connor favorite) Brandon League in a deal. [T.R.] Sullivan writes that Toronto's interest in Mench, however, seems to have cooled.

Geoff Baker of the Toronto Star reports that one scenario discussed by Texas and Toronto would have Mench and Gonzalez going to the Jays for Batista, League, and (Buck Showalter favorite) second baseman Orlando Hudson.

Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun offers the same speculation, adding that [Gerald] Laird could be involved.

yeah right.

It is a good story. But it should be noted that Williams hardly needs to interview personal trainers in Dallas. He's in Dallas to deliberately show teams that he's interviewing personal trainers. Small point, but I wanted to flag it in passing.

Not that I think it would help much -- I've never heard anyone questioning Williams' conditioning. The knock on him is simply that his baseball skills have deteriorated, and workouts probably won't help that much.

Meh. Jesse was a better ballplayer.

If any of these facts are remotely acccurate:

-Wily Mo is up for grabs
-The Reds would take Eric Hinske
-Wily Mo is similar to Jesse Barfield (good karma or what?)

Then we should pull the trigger...now.

Our outfield would be much improved:

Vernon, Wily Mo, Rios / Cat / Sparky

-Then we move an outfielder plus a pitcher for another catcher, or possibly for a DH

C Zaun / New catcher
1B New 1B or Shea
2B O-Dog
SS Russ Adams or Aaron Hill
3B Corey Koskie (backed up by Hill)
LF Cat / Reed / Rios
CF Vernon
RF Wily Mo
DH Shea (I guess?) or another FA, like Sanders / Nomar

Wow. Our team is potentially looking very good.

This is an answer to a bit of an expansion of your question as posed, but ...

I think any team running out a starting rotation of two Hall of Famers (Johnson and Mussina) followed by a healthy Carl Pavano and some combination of Chien Ming-Wang, Jaret Wright (admittedly, ugh), Aaron Small and Shawn Chacon, is not terribly worried about the Blue Jays pitching being "significantly better" than theirs.

Then you have Sturtze, Franklin, Henn and Proctor or DePaula -- true, pedestrian if workmanblike, all -- along with whoever's left over from the rotation, setting up another Hall of Fame walk-in lock, Mariano Rivera.

The only things that should concern the Yankees about their pitching -- and these are both very real, legitimate concerns -- are age and injury.

The only things that should concern the Yankees about their pitching -- and these are both very real, legitimate concerns -- are age and injury.

The jury was out going into last season as it will rightfully be again in 06.

                 AB/K     AB/BB    K/BB    AB/HR
Josh Phelps      3.50     12.80    3.70    21.10
Wily Mo Pena     2.88     15.37    5.80    16.27

I *totally* agree with that. The pay increase is nice, but Ted giving another ten million on the condition that a Manny deal is in place would just skyrocket the team

Good on Rogers for the team commitment, but right now it helps to have an owner who is knowledgeable about baseball and can see the impact Manny would have. I'm not sure Ted sees this.

On a side note, ESPN ranks the Blue Jays as the 47th Ultimate Franchise.

As much as I know I should just gape in awe at these mighty and noble Hall of Famers (a combined 79 years young in 2006), I can’t help but note that they were out-pitched in 2005 not only by Halladay and Burnett, but also by Towers and Chacin. A healthy Carl Pavano? We’ve seen that twice in his 8-year career. Once it produced a 137 ERA+. The other time it produced a 94 ERA+.

I can’t even bring myself to deride a bullpen that counts Tanyon Sturtze as an asset…

Putting $20 million per season in Ryan and Burnett is all fine and dandy, but without any true offensive leaders I'm really concerned that this team will finish around the same place in run differential and be a more expensive, slightly better third place team.

I’m still dying to hear what the World Champs had that the Jays don’t. Or why the Jays should expect to score fewer runs in 2006 than they did in 2005 if they don’t make any changes.

From rotoworld:

The Boston Herald is reporting that Lyle Overbay will be traded to Toronto for Shea Hillenbrand and David Bush. A nice trade for Toronto in our opinion, mainly because Hillenbrand has little value at the salary he'll command in arbitration. The Brewers will likely spin Hillenbrand off to another team and hand first base to Prince Fielder.

According to sources, the Brewers asked for pitchers Dave Bush and Zach Jackson in return for Overbay, a left-hand hitting first baseman. The Blue Jays agreed and were awaiting a return call from the Brewers.

In addition to having a shot at Overbay, the Blue Jays remain convinced that they can land free-agent Nomar Garciparra.

That, folks, would be a whole lotta infielders.

Interesting. Bush I've liked a lot but his K rate is just 5.3 per 9 innings, which is fairly poor and he dropped last year to 4.95. As a rule pitchers below 5 do not survive long in the majors (there are exceptions of course). Losing Bush would suck, but is understandable given the massive surplus of pitching the Jays have at the moment. Shea is excess if Overbay is aquired. Overbay, in his 2 1/2 years in the majors has had OBP's of 365, 385, and 367 and Slg of 402, 478, and 449. Only the Cat had an OBP above 360 last year (367). Zaun was the only other one above 345 at 355. OBP, while a strength overall, is not something the Jays have an excess of.

As a reference, Shea's OBP are 291, 330,314,348,343 and Slg of 391,459,468,464,449. I suspect Shea could have a better Slg, but I think Overbay has to be viewed as the favorite there. In OBP Overbay will almost have to do better than Shea based on history.

Checking Baseball Prospectus I see an adjusted EQA of 284 for Overbay (career 283) vs Shea at 279 (career 266). Overbay is 1 year younger and further from free agency.

Hrm. I like Overbay over Shea one on one. Is it enough to justify giving up Bush though? Seems a bit high but given Bush is excess at this point for the Jays I guess it is a case of paying a bit extra from your pitching fund which is overflowing to assist your hitting fund which is fairly dry. Guess we'll see if it happens.

Rotoworld is reporting that Alfonso Soriano has been traded to Washington for Termell Sledge, Wilkerson and a PTBNL.

If the Jays had anything serious going on Mench, I wonder if JP can convince Texas to flip Wilkerson.

As for Overbay, not really thrilled about it, seems like half a step forward and two steps sideways. Hopefully the deal was done to open up other options.

How, exactly? Did Dave Bush turn into a 32 year old middle reliever when I wasn't looking?

According to whom? I like him as the fourth starter. I think some of you are severely underrating him. The guy had a terrific rookie year, and was solid through most of last year save for some blowups against the Red Sox. I think he'll be better than Chacin next year and he has a decent chance of outperforming Lilly, too. Furthermore, he's only 25 and he makes the league minimum.

What are we trading him for? Why not deal Lilly or Batista?

I can't stand this random attitude that suddenly all our young arms are worthless. Hey, we have a SURPLUS! So let's just deal it all away! Who cares who we get in return! We have a SURPLUS!

According to JP, actually. Yesterday he said that at the moment the rotation is Doc, AJ, Gus, Batista, and Towers. He didn't mention Lilly. It may have been on mlb radio that he said this; I can't recall, but Bush wasn't in the list. If you add Lilly to this Bush would be #7.

The Blue Jays acquired Overbay and a player to be named later early Thursday morning for pitchers Dave Bush and Zach Jackson, a first-round pick in 2004, and outfielder Gabe Gross. Today, they are expected to try and pry Brad Wilkerson away from the Texas Rangers, after they acquired him, Terrmel Sledge and a player to be named later in a deal that sent Alfonso Soriano to the Washington Nationals.

Overbay is 28 and still cheap. Im pretty sure it's against the law to compare a team to the Yankees unless the players they acquire are significantly older and more expensive than that. And last I checked Bush and Gross were only 2 years younger than Overbay.