Today we take our final look at the position players by predicting where the outfielders will land.  The outfield projections vary from simple to complex by team.

The Blue Jays have released their promotional schedule for the upcoming season.  The highlights include three bobblehead giveaways, a baseball card set and the return of the magnetic schedule after a one-year hiatus.

Today's POTD looks at a pair of new acquisitions by the Blue Jays, who were teammates with the Los Angeles Angels from 2007-2009.

Darren Oliver fires away against the Blue Jays in May of 2010.

There has been a lot of talk about how great the Jays minor league system is and how many top prospects there are. Naturally we are all getting excited but what have the top Jay prospects done in the past?

We finish our tour of the infield minor league assignments with a look at third base. This is not a position of strength in the Jays minor league system and you could see the same players in the same spots to start 2012 as played in 2011.

We started this series by looking at catchers and first basemen, today it's the middle infielders who we review.  Because of the interchangability of shortstops and second basemen we will look at them together making it a double position look.

 

BlueJays.com, via Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com, says the Jays have signed free-agent reliever Francisco Cordero to a one-year contract worth $4.5 million.

36 year-old Francisco Cordero was 5-3 with a 2.45 earned run average and saved 37 games with the Reds in 2011.

Tim Brown/Jon Heyman reports that Prince Fielder has signed with the Tigers for $214 million over 9 years. That's just shy of $24 million a year, or about $1.2 million less than Albert Pujols received on an annual basis.

Fielder will reportedly play first base, while Miguel Cabrera will move (to DH or Left Field, presumably.)

The Jays signed Brandon Morrow to a (for all intents and purposes) 3 year, $21 million deal with a club option for $9 million. Will he be worth it?

John Sickels has done a farm system ranking for the first time - and guess who's top?

1) Toronto Blue Jays: Eight B+ prospects with ridiculous depth behind them.
2) San Diego Padres: Incredible depth after the winter trades pushes this system almost to the top.
3) Texas Rangers: Continues to churn out talent, with much more percolating at the lower levels. I do not give the Rangers farm system credit for Yu Darvish. They would rank number one if I gave them credit for Darvish, but in my mind that is unfair to the other teams: I see him as a major league free agent, not a prospect.
4) Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero plus three elite pitching prospects and others who can improve.

Yesterday we looked at the placement of minor league catchers for 2012 and it was relatively straightforward.  Today we look at first basemen and the picture is much more muddled.

 

Ken Rosenthal has just tweeted that the Blue Jays have signed potential Hall of Fame shortstop Omar Vizquel. Details and links forthcoming -- if you see them, add them in a comment!

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And here's the ESPN.com news story -- interesting, his profile on the Worldwide Leader now lists him as a third baseman. And by the way, he's less than 150 hits away from 3,000 (I had no idea!), so if he manages to play a lot, a milestone is at least possible ...

Shi Davidi tweets that the Jays and Brandon Morrow are set to announce......

We're so late to jump on the podcast bandwagon that it isn't even a bandwagon anymore. We're trendsetters!

The inaugural episode of the "Boxcast", Batter's Box's official podcast (as opposed to all those imitations running wild out there) features Box scribes Anders Whist, Thomas Ayers and myself talking Jays, ZiPS, and Prince Fielder. More details inside.

We are in the depths of a baseball-less winter but pitchers and catchers will be reporting to camp in less than 30 days.  The minor league camp won't start until March but let's start thinking about the lineups for the 2012 season.  There is no hurry so we will do this over the next week or so.  Today I will look at the catchers.  Infielders, outfielders and starting pitchers will follow over the next few weekdays.