I wouldn't be surprised if the Jays tried to acquire near ML ready pitchers like Mark Appel who could be ready by mid-season if the team starts poorly and there is a sell-off in July.

But of course it does. This IS their 'big money' starting pitcher signing. Combine this with the trade for Chavez and they are... in their eyes anyway, set. (Stroman / Estrada / Dickey / Happ / Chavez) The new Jays management has indicated the way they want to go, and it is NOT back to the playoffs.

Each of Estrada (age 31), Happ (32) and Chavez (31) logged their career highs in innings last year: 181, 170, 157. One might look at those numbers as a baseline to grow from. Or one might see 3 guys who might be challenged to collectively throw 450 innings in 2016.

I don't know what Stroman's cap will be, but I don't see the organization supporting the idea of 200 innings. So maybe he'll land in the 150-180 area.

Even with Dickey's presumed 200 innings, this feels light.

I guess I've forgotten about Hutchison in all this. He's a wildcard. He may land in the 150-180 inning range himself. Or lead Buffalo to the post-season.

Collectively, the six-man starting crew of S/D/E/C/Ha/Hu doesn't inspire the greatest confidence. It might be another matter if you had the Royals' bullpen.

But it's early. Let's see what else Shapiro can do before hoisting and petards come into play.

But, this is a fact, and not something that we just woke up today with. This is the reason that the Jays are collecting average MLB rotation pieces, you can't compare this to another situation that didn't have this elite offence.

I don't get how people can bitch about a trade like the Gomes trade and just pretend like JD was homegrown and wasn't acquired via trade. Some big time cherry picking around here.

I don't think we have traded "all" our minor league arms; gents, we have so many good ones on the way as well!

Connor Greene

Sean Reid-Foley

Matt Smoral

Jon Harris

Angel Perdomo

Adonys Cardona

Clinton Hollon

Tom Robson

Aside from Greene, I really like Hollon, especially. The movement he gets on his pitches is crazy. Not a bad season considering his TJ surgery. I expect him to move fairly quickly, up to AA, this year.

The Rogers folk are not spending their own money. They are publicly traded. They cannot throw the money of others on a hope and prayer and a whim at whatever makes the LOPI upset every off-season. It's not their money that they are entrusted with.

I was looking at the list of MLB owners on Wikipedia, and I noticed something: most teams aren't owned by a corporation - they're listed as owned by a single person (though this person might be a front man for an ownership group). These teams aren't throwing shareholders' money at baseball players, as a corporation such as Rogers is - their primary business is baseball, so it's their own money they're spending (or wasting). They don't have to answer to anybody but themselves.

Of course, there's no guarantee that a team owner will be the sort of benevolent patriarch who is happy to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to bring glory to the city in which they live. The last time that a Toronto sports team had a single owner, it was the Leafs under Harold Ballard, and you probably recall how that turned out.

Try to remember that Jordan Zimmermann has some say in the matter.

Isn't it obvious (perhaps everywhere except Toronto) that a company's customers are those who actually pay for its products?

My significant other and I just bought a flex pack for 2016, so I am officially a customer. I am now entitled to complain all I want. Boo-yah! :-) (Perhaps, in Rogers' eyes, I don't count as a customer unless I buy season tickets or a luxury box or something. Just as, technically, I am a bank "customer" when I open an account there, but am not exactly important to them.)

While it is true that a corporation such as Rogers is accountable to shareholders, they are also a cable and media company as well as the team owner. There are MASSIVE benefits to being in a position where they can match team expenses (namely player $$) against revenues.

If they know what they're doing, they've probably got some smart people with spreadsheets who have calculated the expenditure level that will yield maximum profits. Sadly, this expenditure level might not be the same as that required to bring home a pennant (this is a flaw in baseball's business model).

On the other hand, there might be one or more people in Rogers' chain of command whose instinct is to say "no" to greater expenditures if there is any risk at all of the expenditures not bringing the expected results - and, in baseball, there is always this risk. Ask the owners of the Washington Nationals, for example.

As a fan, it is frustrating: Rogers has enough money to buy three David Prices and write it off as a rounding error in their financial statements. But, as CBDC points out, it's not our money, it's theirs.

Richard, kindly go to another Jays website where you don't feel the need to call moderators and authors lazy.

And stay there.

Umm, that is a really weird thing for a Blue Jays fan to say. You're right about that.