State your case .... you have three choices.
1. Indianapolis
2. New Orleans
3. I don't care, shut up, when's Spring Training start?
I find it mildly interesting, for no particular reason at all, that the two Super Bowl towns are both AAA baseball cities ...
A recent essay by Batter's Box's own #2JBrumfield examined arbitration-eligibility news in the world of Major Leage Baseball. That called to mind recent efforts to build teams for our ongoing Baseball's Hall of Names based on player initials ... we've done dozens of such rosters of all types, ranging from G.M. to M.D. and P.R. to B.S. (that latter pairing, some wags would argue, is repetitive). But we've never done one for "R.B."
To do so, as always, we first need to set some ground rules ...
I recently came upon my old prospect guides and I thought it might be interesting to look back six years to see where the Blue Jay prospects were rated. Given the current uninspiring reviews of our farm system it might give us some hope that a lower rated prospect can make the jump to become a major league regular.
Jordan Bastian of bluejays.com says a half-dozen pitchers want to super-size their value meals by filing for arbitration. The "arbitration six" are right-handers Jeremy Accardo, Shawn Camp, Jason Frasor, Casey Janssen and Shaun Marcum as well as lefty Brian Tallet. Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos is imposing a Tuesday deadline for contract negotiations.
Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus are in agreement about who the top two prospects are in the Blue Jays system. BP has released its list of the Top 11 Jays up and comers and if that's not enough, they take things four steps further. A tip of the 1999 Jays Batting Practice cap to Bauxite jdog for the heads-up.
The Toronto Blue Jays have signed four players to minor league deals. Jordan Bastian from bluejays.com says the team has inked left-handed pitcher Willie Collazo, infielder Jesus Merchan and outfielders Jorge Padilla and Chris "The Big" Lubanski. Two of the four have played in the major leagues.
The biblical scripture known as Baseball America arrived in my mailbox yesterday and it's the issue I look forward to the most every year - the Top 10 Prospects for the American League East!
Featuring the Orioles Brian Matusz on the cover, it contains a revision of the Jays Top 10 list that BA posted on its website last month. The changes reflect the three prospects added in the Roy Halladay deal and each of them ranked highly on the revamped list.
