He gave everything he had and deserved all his success.

He was one of my favorites, ever.   I will never forget the day he passed me in the hallway and boomed out, completely from the blue and for no reason, "I'M HITTIN' 'EM LONG, I'M HITTIN' 'EM STRONG!"

My how far Ivan Rodriguez has fallen as with this signing, he may have to agree to a minor league deal with someone.  I guess when you are at his age and have had the offensive production fall of the table.

This is a very good signing for Baltimore as Zaun will probably be the starter to start the season, but will most likely be a back up at some point when they call Wieters up.

This is unrelated, but since there isn't a thread for this I guess I will post it here.  If you haven't heard, the Iowa Cubs are going to host Las Vegas at Wrigley Field on August 9th.  A little closer of a road trip than making the trip out ot Vegas and almost as fun. 

I would advise to getting tickets early if you were interested in going.  Two Midwest League teams played at Wrigley last season (Kane County V. Peoria) and it drew 26,000.

Gone and forgotten -- or make that -one and for-otten? Let us not for-et that the inimitable Zaun spells his first name with two G's -- it's GreGG Zaun, donchaknow, returning to Bal'mer where he first broke in back in '95.

Didjaknow that among his "most similar" players per BBRef are Greg Myers, Alan Ashby and Pat Borders? A cornucopia of ex-Jay backstops!

This is unrelated, but since there isn't a thread for this I guess I will post it here.  If you haven't heard, the Iowa Cubs are going to host Las Vegas at Wrigley Field on August 9th.  A little closer of a road trip than making the trip out ot Vegas and almost as fun. 

I would advise to getting tickets early if you were interested in going.  Two Midwest League teams played at Wrigley last season (Kane County V. Peoria) and it drew 26,000.

Unrelated to the rest of ya'll but, Las Vegas will visit the Memphis Redbirds for three games in May and if I have any income AT ALL it will be my very first chance to see any Blue Jay player or prospect in person.

i can't wait! I only hope (for selfish reasons) that JPA has made it to AAA by then. It'd be just my luck that Scott Campbell would be the only real prospect to take the field that day.

I disagree. Thomas most certainly did leave here on bad terms. Fasano was bitter as well and he took some parting shots. Hillenbrand we all know. From the wikipedia entry on Koch it certainly appears there was some serious animosity from Billy towards the Jays.

Add Zaun and that makes 5. 5/7 years, a player has left this team bitter and/or pissed off. That is JP's fault, no more, no less. That is a brutal track record - I cannot think of another GM who I can associate multiple players with leaving on bad terms. Obviously I don't follow other teams this closely, but even from my favorite hockey and football teams, I cannot for the life of me think of another GM who is as brutal with his words to the public as JP or has had as many players leave angry as he has.

And people skills in the professional world are one thing. I'm sure JP is very good at being nice to the people he sees at eye level. However, he is incredibly arrogant and I would say, from my percetion, that his people skills in general are not the most refined. Somebody who naturally has great people skills would not alienate a professional ball player on a radio show "just because he got flustered". That is piss poor decision making.

Someone with great people skills would not answer questions to the Canadian media on why he called Richmond up with a smug "HUMMMMMMMMm, when I was a kid, did I dream about playing in the Olympics when I grew up, or did I dream about playing MLB? Give me a break". His conduct there was also appalling.

Simply put he does NOT have a track record when it comes to people skills which is even close to the regular professional.

Willrain, I'm not sure if you understand what smug means. There was nothing inaccurate about what he said. That is not what smug means. That was a great example of how poor his people skills are. He failed to consider the audiience he was speaking too.

My perception is not formed by pre-assumed bias. This is wrong.  My percetion is formed (continously) by every comment/appearence JP makes. Yes - it is filtered through the media. Unforunately for him, it's not the media misrepresenting him, he does it himself so well that they don't.  There was no media filtering him when he appeared on Wednesday's with JP and crapped all over Adam Dunn.  And this is time and time again his downfall. He talks down to those he doesn't need anything from.

And please, for the love of good debate - which you constantly claim to be a supporter of - please stop this crap where you break down somebody's post bit by bit and pick and choose a handful of words that you define the boundaries for to respond too.  That is not debate. You remove all context when you do that. 

For one perfect example you cut me off at :"I don't follow other teams as closely...". You COMPLETELY took away my point by doing so. This is not good debate - in fact, it's dishonest and really reduces the credibility of what you're trying to say.  My very next set of words countered your point but you were so keen on proving me wrong you decided to pick what you wanted to hear so you could "be right" then read what I said.  I follow teams in other sports as closely as I do the Jays, and they have GM's who have SIGNIFICANT, noticablely better people skills when dealing with the public. 

As well, when you break down a post word by word like you do when you respond, you remove context from a lot of the lines too. Please stop doing this.

When you consider the industry as a whole - can you really name another GM who consistantly comes across as poorly as JP does to the general public? And not a GM who comes across poorly because he makes a bad trade or something, but who brings it upon himself just from how he conducts himself?

Zaun was a good player for the Jays. He basically saved the catching position for many years (when no adequate back-up or minor league prospect was on the horizon). Hard to believe he spent five seasons with the team, as it doesn't seem that long.

Anyway, he's not a great loss. He's nearing 40 and at this point Barajas is the better defensive player. My main concern with the catching position moving forward is JPA's plate discipline (and defense of course).

BA spoke quite highly of his defence in their Jays top-10.

That's good to hear. I haven't really read about Arencibia that often, just looked at his minor league stats. I just hope his defense is good enough to stay at catcher long-term as that's where his offense will be best suited. The more good reports about his defense, the better. K:BB ratio still bothers me though.

I'd much rather have Pie in the outfield for 650 PAs than have Millar's less than potent bat in the lineup. 

While I certainly agree with Pie over Millar, I still can't see why a team with a young center fielder with a dubious bat (for now) would go out of their way to grab another. It's not clear that Pie is a major leaguer caliber player as a center fielder, where his glove is allegedly tremendous, so it's a real stretch to see him being a net positive in an outfield corner.

He'll be 38, and what do you mean "at this point"? Barajas has always had a better arm, so nothing has really changed - Zaun has always been a much plate blocker, and I suspect he fields bunts and foul-popups better too. He also is a much better base runner than Barajas. I wish the millions this team apparently has to waste on guys like Frasor and Tallet when they are entirely replaceable would have gone to at least offering Zaun arbitration.

Well, 38 is closing in on 40. Granted Zaun doesn't have as much mileage at catcher than someone like Pudge or Varitek, but age is age. As far as defense, I think Barajas being a better thrower than Zaun is not only obvious but also only part of the equation. Statements like "game caller" and "plate blocker", unless there is some equation that quantifies its effectiveness, are more subjective. My unscientific opinion based on what I have seen from both is that I am more comfortable, purely on defense, with Barajas. Offensively is a different story.

Zaun's offense was never questioned. Getting a .350-ish OBP out of the catching spot is great, but was his catching ability and lack of throwing arm (coupled with his age) more of a factor? Gaston didn't play Zaun much and Ricciardi has tried to upgrade over Zaun for three years (Molina and Barajas twice).

Also, offering arbitration to Tallet was a smart move. Lefties always have value in trades, especially near the deadline. Frasor is more baffling.

I think, knowing we have Barajas and the AAA folks, that I'd rather have Barrett than Zaun.  Barrett has the upside of another big year.  Zaun doesn't.  If I were a betting man, I'd say Zaun will have the better year, but it's nice to have Barrett's upside in the equation. Of course, if it were an option, I would have rather had Zaun and Barrett.

As for Zaun in arbitration, I had the feeling back in October that Zaun was trying to talk himself into an arb offer from JP so he could take it.  He's quite savvy, and rhetoric aside, he likely knows his best way to maximize return over the twilight of his career is through arbitration awards.

And arm strength is based on what? Objective statistical evidence?! I think anyone who watched the 2008 season would agree that Zaun is much better around the plate than Barajas is. I think it's crazy to think he's better defensively. Marcum and Litsch had no problem holding runners on in 2007 (while Doc, AJ, Dusty did) even with Zaun back there, which should tell you that SB/CS stats are mostly dependent on the pitcher and not the catcher.

Throwing runners out is dependent on the pitcher? Seriously? Yes, a pitcher has an influence with holding runners on, no question about that, but throwing runners out is a direct correlation with how strong of an arm a catcher has. Barajas did not see a drop-off last season from his career mark (despite playing a lot more on a new team). Zaun has been awful for a while now with throwing runners out. How can you blame the pitchers when such a discrepancy exists on the same team?

Since 2006, Barajas has caught 48 of 140 potential base stealers (nearly 35%). Last season it was 35% as well. Over the same span, Zaun has caught 44 of 212 (20%). That has nothing to do with arm strength? What is it then, luck? I guess Pudge's arm strength (in his prime) was just a mirage too, even though he threw in the mid-80's (or whatever it was). It was just his pitchers helping him out all the time. Come on.

Judging a catcher's defense is difficult. There are aspects like "game calling" which we will never be able to quantify. Even plate blocking, unless one watches every game, is difficult to assess because it's such an arbitrary claim (unless you want to look at passed balls, in which case Barajas was better than Zaun in that last season as well). Your entire argument so far is based on subjective opinion that you never bothered to even try to support. "Anyone who watched the 2008 season would agree Zaun is better (defensively)", while you are entitled to that opinion, is not exactly objective. I think Barajas is better defensively, and yes that is subjective too since I rarely look at defensive stats for any position, but there are remarkably more variables in favor of my view than yours (Rod throws out more runners, fewer PB's, team performance, faith from manager/GM, etc).