Blue Jays named best defence in baseball, according to Dewan.

All of this makes me nervous about trading Rios.  He's not just a solid corner outfielder, he's a gold glove caliber corner who can play a good centre.

I'm still dumbfounded at how underappreciated Miguel Cabrera is. Three straight seasons of an OPS+ of 150 or better and he's only 24. His top four comps are/will be Hall of Famers: Aaron, Griffey, Frank Robinson, Cepeda.

Let's hope he doesn't eat his way to a prematurely short career. He's got all the ability in the world to be an inner circle Hall of Famer.

Even though I await ZIPS and Pecota both telling me that Miller will outperform Willis even in 2008, I can't see this as anything but a huge win for the Tigers. I'm very curious about their lineup for 2008.

Also, I really wonder whether the Jays might be dealing for a Lincecum so that they don't have to be so reliant on their defense. At SS, that's hurting, not helping overall.

The Indians have apparently revived talks with the Pirates regarding Jason Bay, in the wake of the Tiger's aquisition of Miguel Cabrera.  The American League, in particular the East and Central, keeps getting stronger.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07339/839260-63.stm

One trade that I would LOVE to see happen this winter is for the NL to trade the Chicago Cubs to the AL East.  In return, the NL Central would obtain the Toronto Blue Jays. 

According to Rothensal, the Jays have left Rios for Cain or Lincecum in the Giants hands.  And maybe more interesting than that is the fact that sources say that the Jays are unlikely to move Burnett if they get one of the Giants pitchers.  They  apparantly feel that it would be counter-productive (along the lines of 2 steps forward for 2 steps back as someone recently posted).  Anyhow, I am very happy to hear that.  Let's keep AJ in Toronto - worst case is we take a great run at the dyanamic duo and we get a couple of draftees next year for Burnett.

 http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7528844

TSN.ca is reporting that the Jason Bay-to-Cleveland deal is basically done. It would be Bay and Ronny Paulino for Franklin Gutierrez, Kelly Shoppach and either Cliff Lee or "a minor leaguer".

http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/news_story/?ID=224410&hubname=

To be fair, Maldoff's link says that "the deal is far from done".

This is the type of deal where I won't feel disappointed either way. If it happens, fine. If it doesn't, that's fine too. You can't really go wrong with either keeping Rios or getting Lincecum/Cain. The only issue for me, as I said in the other thread, is the health of the pitchers. I would really have to be convinced that both are 110% healthy. The team trading the established position player for the young NL pitcher is always taking the bigger risk. Ricciardi seems to be in a "pitching and defense is the only way to topple the monsters" mode. I'm guessing JP is also banking on Snider being ready by 2009-ish, because the outfield situation if Rios is traded is going to be ugly, especially if Wells doesn't produce more .900 OPS seasons.

I do like the Lofton idea though, especially if the Jays keep Rios. That would solve three issues (LF, LHB, lead-off) plus keep Stairs and Johnson on the bench where they can be insurance in case of injury to Thomas, Overbay, or one of the OF's. It's a shame about Bay going to the Indians though. He's another RHB, but he would have looked nice with the Jays.

The jays have made a minor trade picking up Buck Coats from the Reds for a PTBNL.

Lincecum and Cain ain't nothing to Buck Coats!

Jays picked Coats up from Cinci for a PTBNL

www.rotoworld.com

People forget that Marcum was pitching hurt the last month or so of the season, whether that affected his performance only he would know. Also you guys are underestimating his change-up. And I thought Bones point about the strikeout ratio's was pretty much useless, as there K rate in the high minors and majors still look pretty similar to me, the fact that Marcum's K rate increased to over 10K/9 his last trip through AAA even adds more reason to believe that he will continue to get better as he adjusts to the major's

Regarding the hypothetical challenge of replacing Rios, I think you'd only have to find a replacement for one season, maybe two.  If Snider tears up A+ or AA this year the way he handled the AFL, I think that it's conceivable that we'll see him in a Jays uniform in nine months.  If he has a successful year and a good showing in September then I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that Snider will be a 21 year old starting RF with the Jays in 2009.  I've mentioned before that with Snider on the way and Lind in AAA in 2008, there wouldn't be anywhere for Lind to play until 2010, when Thomas departs.  Moving Rios while his value is high in order to obtain a starter to replace Burnett is a good move.  Ricciardi need only find a one year stop-gap rightfielder, such as Shawn Green.  Rios' defense will be missed, but the Jays would have another lefthanded bat in the lineup and Rios' departure would make room for both Lind and Snider.

The Dodgers and Jays are possibly talking about Glaus.  It was also reported on Rotoworld.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/dodgers/la-sp-dodgers5dec05,1,7218495.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true

I'd do Glaus for La Roche in a heart beat.

Seems like the Giants want more than Rios:

This is from MLBtraderumors.com:

Brian Sabean wants more than just Rios for Lincecum (yes, the Jays prefer Lincecum based on service time).  The Giants want an improved proposal from the Jays, and Toronto could add Robinzon Diaz, Curtis Thigpen, or Brett Cecil.  Cecil would have to be a player to be named later since he was drafted in 2007.  He signed on June 22nd, so he can't even be named as a PTBNL until December 22nd. 

I sure hope we don't have to give up Diaz or Cecil in this. 

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/12/rios-for-cain-o.html

If a minor league throw-in is all that is preventing this deal from happening from the Giants perspective, it has to get done.  I'd prefer Thigpen - and feel Cecil is untouchable.  Maybe we could send them Purcey.  We could get Mylegacy down to Nashville tout de suite to sing the praises of young Purcey in earshot of Mr. Sabean.  I think Purcey is still an excellent prospect to be at least an excellent reliever at the major league level and possibly more, but I wouldn't think twice about adding him to this deal to get it done.

Throw in Thigpen and arrange the press conference. He doesn't seem to have much of a future in Toronto as Diaz looks to be the C of the future, he can't move to 2nd because of Hill and by no means has the bat for 3rd.

That said, one of the great things about about Lincecum (I believe its pronounced Lin-Seh-Kum) is that he makes around the league minimum. This would free up a few mil for the team which they can use on a backup C or even a new outfielder. I personally like the idea of Mike Cameron.

Diaz and Thigpen can't both catch in AAA at the same time, so including one of them in the deal shouldn't be an issue if JP wants this trade bad enough. If it only took adding Thigpen to the deal to make it work, then I'd imagine JP will finalize the deal rather quickly. He seems higher on Diaz anyway. Judging by the previous trade these two teams made, Sabean wanted Vinnie Chulk with Hillenbrand in order to trade Accardo, so he might be looking for a pitcher in the deal to off-set losing Lincecum. Interesting nonetheless.

Diaz and Thigpen can't both catch in AAA at the same time, so including one of them in the deal shouldn't be an issue if JP wants this trade bad enough.

There's plenty of room at AAA for these two and I believe that is the plan.  They have both played 2B and 3B and they can both DH.  There's no reason why they can't get 400 AB's each.

I heard Blair on the Fan around 3pm.

Jays would do a Rios for Cain even up

Jays will not do a Rios for Lincecum even up, they are asking the Giants to take back Glaus in that case in a bigger deal

Blair doesn't believe the Jays are acquiring Cain/Lincecum to flip Burnett.  He thinks the Jays believe you need a very strong rotation to compete in the AL East.

Based on this and Sabean's comments they may be at an impass.

Blair updated his blog. Mentioned the Jays offer to Lo Duca was one year less than 5 mil. But as to everyone's favourite rumour he said this.

"Ricciardi still hasn't heard back from the San Francisco Giants, but sources with both teams said there is now just one offer on the table: Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum, even up. No Troy Glaus. No Matt Cain. Nothing else. Ricciardi is ready to make the deal right now. Giants GM Brian Sabean has yet to respond - although he has delayed his daily press briefing with Bay area reporters."

Git'r Done!

Andruw has already earned 87.7 million, according to the Baseball Cube. I really wonder whether or not the financial side of a contract actually matters to a guy like that.

Players Association nothing. Mike summed it up perfectly. It's human nature, and perfectly legitimate, to demand appropriate compensation no matter what you are doing and no matter how full your coffers.

The baseball owners are not running a charity. They are running a $6B enterprise. You wouldn't expect them to say "We're already extremely rich men as it is. We're no longer going to pay the players 42% of league revenues, but rather 70%. We have much more money than the players. They could use the money more than we could."

Back off with the snarky comments, Chuck. Your tone is insulting. My earlier post was simple speculation. I wasn't saying that Andruw has earned enough that he would play for nothing; clearly no major leaguer is doing that. I had just called a 32 million dollar contract a bargain, and I was considering the implications of that.

My apologies if your feathers were ruffled, but the "he's already made a lot of money in his life" argument is an old one, long ago proven spurious. When free agency started, it was speculated that players would retire earlier, having earned so much more money than players past. Bill James questioned this line of thinking, suggesting that the opposite would happen, that 40-year old players would hang on as long as they could if they knew they could eke out another $1M contract. Years later, of course, it's $3-5M contracts that are getting eked out. Just watch Kenny Lofton eke away year after year.

As for Andruw Jones being a bargan at $36.2M, you're not alone in that sentiment. That said, Jones will presumably be baseball's highest paid CF for the next two seasons (the rationale of the ".2" in the 36.2), all that coming off a 222/311/413 clinker of a season. I agree with those who suggest that the contract length is odd. Why not just one year and go after a 9-figure contract next off-season?