How do you justify giving a two-year deal to a 38-year old DH who's only had one injury free season in the last four years? All I know is that offense was not a problem for the Jays last season.

i guess JP figured if he would throw a 2yr guaranteed contract at Thomas..the jays would automatically rise to the top of his list..again the deal may be laced with incentives and have a low base salary..but i dont see many other teams offering a deal that will guarantee cash to an injury plagued 40yr old...and although offense wasnt our problem..adding the big hurt may help in the long run..it makes up for losing hillenbrand..and does give us some more power after wells and glaus. If rios can get back to where he was last yr before getting hurt you can add his name to the list as well. doesnt sound all that bad yet..but we'll have to wait for the dollar figures to creep in to really know.

if you ever played fantasy ball with me, you know i love this guy. Frank Thomas is that dude. I like this move.

It's like the Hakeem Olajuwon signing...except in baseball

23 million dollars over 2 years...

Wow. When will a Toronto sports team get some good management?

i like the big hurt, but now he is close to getting hurt all the time. when he's healthy, he's a good DH and a good guy to have on your side if there's ever an on-field brawl. his best years are well behind him to say the least. they coulda signed barry bonds to fill the same role and it would have been endlessly more hilarious

That is a hell of a salary for an injury-prone DH that's pushing 40. I love The Big Hurt and all but something tells me the Jays won't be re-signing Vernon Wells this year.

Completely agree with you. All of this means Frank Thomas is replacing Vernon Wells. This means that we will resign Catalanotto at a fairly cheap price, have Rios, Cat, Johnson, and Lind as our outfield; and Wells will be traded for whatever else we need, probably a starter and a shortstop, especially since the market for shortstops is thin this winter.

Riccardi is pulling off a move he has done before: a good PR move right before a bad one, so that we the public don't complain too much. In one sense, this will be a lot cheaper than resigning Wells; we might have enough money left over to sign Lilly as well, so that we would have one seriously talented rotation. It might still be a bad deal overall; depends on who JP gets for Wells.

For rumour's sake:
- Wells for Santana/Aybar, or Santana/Kendrick with the Angels; or possibly Wells for Weaver/prospect, and JP signs Lugo.
- Wells for Young/Millwood, or Young/Tejeda with the Rangers.

Though to be clear, I would much rather sign Wells. It might not be the greatest move financially, but from the fan's perspective, it would be nice.

The final deal doesn't look so bad now when you compare it to the 2-year/$23 million deal that ESPN originally reported, hopefully he can give the Blue Jays at least 130-140 games at DH every season for the next two years. BTW, other offers that Thomas received included the Rangers offer of 2-years/$18 million and the Athletics offer of 2-years/$16 million.

I guess it isn't that bad... It's just a shame we still have absolutely NO pitching considering Ted Lilly probably won't be back. We have to pray that Chacin and Burnett are healthy and effective otherwise this team is going down the shitter

Well last year was hopefully the 'injury year' for the pitching staff and they can pull it together. I maintain a slight degree of hope cause before he went down Chacin looked good and Burnett really brings a fire we need in the pitching staff wehn he plays.
If we can somehow package Josh Towers with Wells for...hell, anything, as long as we get rid of Towers.

anyone else have a feeling that rogers opened his wallet once again? Think about it..we could just sign wells to an extension and then trade him for equal value if we wanted..but instead JP decided to throw 10 mill at Thomas...it just doesnt make that much sense to me since we couldve gotten that sort of power with a younger player from a Wells deal...and although we need pitching, i dont know if we really need an ace caliber pitcher at the 3 spot. I think this may be one of the times where we make a big addition to try and convince Wells that we are trying to be contenders (so he signs a bit cheaper than market value but on a longer contract)..which would have to be emphasized with all the rumors of the Jays being out of money..plus it makes up for the loss of bengie/zaun behind the plate and hillenbrand at DH.

Offense was not a problem alone last year, nor was pitching/defense. Both were quite solid. The offense, however, was weaker than the pitching despite what anyone says. The Blue Jays runs scored was 6th best in the American League while they allowed the 5th fewest. The real problem, however, stems from the fact that their run differential was worse than the Yankees (who won their division) and worse than that of 4 other teams in the division. As a result the Blue Jays want to increase runs scored, reduce runs against, or both.

The point is that Hillenbrand probably represents about the average quality of Jays DH's last season and had a UEqR (runs created, essentially) of 68 (his combined Toronto and San Fran stats). Frank Thomas, on the other hand, posted a UEqR of 95. In his 74 game season in 2004 Thomas had a UEqr of 59, which shows us that half a season from Frank is worth about as much as a full one from Hillenbrand.

Baseball Prospectus calculates Shea Hillenbrand's WARP (Wins Over Replacement Player) as 1.8 for last season. Frank's was 4.7 which would mean, approximately 3.9 extra wins for the Jays, give or take, of course, because these sorts of calculations can never actually predict what would have happened. They do, however, provide a good point of reference. Would these likely extra wins have made the Jays a playoff team all on their own? No, but they would have pushed the Jays above the White Sox and Indians in terms of run differential and past the White Sox in wins (the Indians season was bizzare and they lost an insane number of games for a team that outscored opponents by almost 90 runs).

The point is not that the Thomas signing isn't a risk (it is) but that it gives the Jays a strong chance to improve the team during a weak free agent class in which any low-medium risk signing is going to require a 5-6+ year commitment and outrageous amounts of money. As a Red Sox fan, I am not pleased with this development.

The problem is that teams have to try to make a competitive team with $80 million while other teams spend freely (over $200 mil) and dont have to manage a budget.

The season is over for 80% of the teams before it even starts.

Until this problem is solved, I will not return to baseball.

this freespending doesnt really win world series anymore..the Cards, Whitesox, Marlins, Angels, D-backs have all won in the past 6 years and theyre not the the teams that you would consider free spenders with no budget. Although i hate trying to keep up with Boston and New York who have limitless pockets..its still exciting trying to out do them while within the constraints of a firm budget. We did it last year to the Sox, which was rewarding (sort of) and really if we add a 5th starter that could remain atleast .500 i think we have another good shot this year perhaps even at the yankees.

You guys aren't looking at the little stats.

I like Thomas, but look at our team speed now. Sure, he gets on base, but ideally Gibbons puts him at the 5 spot (too much money to have him at 6), and what the hell is the bottom of our order going to do to drive him in?

As far as pitching not being the problem, you've gotta be kidding me. Our bats weren't all that, but we didn't have the middle relief to have Burnett tossing 100 pitches in the first 5 innings. Now we've lost Speier.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the rumoured Ervin Santana deal happen if we get a Scot Shields or whoever coming our way. We're in trouble next year.

Thorbs is back, ladies and gentlemen. He's back.

Ervin Santana is sick. I'd be the happiest dude ever if we somehow land him. Its gonna be costly though.

The big hurt is gonna bat 4th...almost a certainty with his speed...

Johnson will likely lead off
Rios or Hill will prolly bat 2nd
Wells guaranteed 3rd
Thomas bats 4th..ensuring that Wells gets the good looks
Glaus bats 5th ensuring that for whatever extra-base hit Thomas gets, he can cash it in with a HR or extra base hit himself..

The pitching is a really big need for us..

Doc, Burnett are prolly our sure things right now (writing off last yr as an adjustment period for Burnett and hoping he's good to go)

Chacin is presumably better and injury free, Janssen, Marcum and Taubenheim may solidify a spot in the rotation or be forced into it again if we dont find a replacement with experience, and Towers will likely get another shot at the big leagues seeing as we are paying him a significant amount of money. Hopefully he can get his crap together and slide into our 5th spot.

Our middle relief sucks..and JP's hoping our farm team can fill the voids..and although its risky..our guys may be able to hold it down..with Accardo, League, Frasor being the key guys.

Shevy,
That's all well and good, but what are the 6 - 9 hitters in our lineup going to do then? As an aside, Glaus isn't an extra base hitter...I don't think he had 30 doubles last year.

Thomas walks, Glaus singles, or strikes out (which he does some 140 odd times a year), and voila, we have zero speed on base for our contact hitters at the bottom of the order. Glaus has OK speed, but what does he do with Thomas on base in front of him?

Fingers crossed Vernon wants to cash in this year and not get stuck in a situation like Vladdy did after the market levelled itself out after the ridiculous Manny/A-Rod/etc. contracts, and we can move him for young talent (aka pitching). He's way out of price range now.

Glaus had 27 doubles and 38 home runs last year..thats probably enough that we need from him..speed on base doesn't matter all that much for this team since we usually have no running game. As long as Glaus gets Thomas over to 2nd base most times we should be fine..remember we still have Overbay batting behind Glaus who is a doubles master..so even if Glaus does single..Overbay can drive Thomas home and move Glaus into scoring position..and if Rios is able to regain his strength from that staph infection then we have another power hitter behind Overbay.

I don't think theres a real problem for our offense being able to drive in Thomas at all...and our 6-9 hitters shouldn't have too much trouble creating offense by themselves either.

Projected lineup Full Version

Johnson RF
Hill SS
Wells CF
Thomas DH
Glaus 3B
Overbay 1B
Rios RF
Adams (or Free agent) 2B
Barajas C

It's a pretty powerful, if extremely right-handed, lineup.

WTF is going on?



I thought Rod Barajas was ready to take over as the full-time starter but it looks like we'll have another platoon situation at catcher.

Nevermind, the deal with Barajas fell apart so Zaun will start.

The Blue Jays have their shortstop and it's ANOTHER stopgap.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6221264

Check out this line-up now:

Johnson
Hill
Wells
Glaus
Thomas
Overbay
Rios
Zaun
Clayton

So, that gives us SEVEN right handed hitters to go with ONE left-handed hitter (Overbay) and one switch-hitter (Zaun).

does it really matter that we have a right handed lineup?..i mean 9 times outta 10 we're gonna face a RHP..be that a starter or in relief

that's why it's a bad thing. Right Handed pitchers have an advantage over right handed batters.

Vernon Wells
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
71 156 26 52 9 0 6 24 15 22 6 3 .333 .392 .506 .898 vs. Left
152 455 65 133 31 5 26 82 39 68 11 1 .292 .346 .554 .900 vs. Right

Troy Glaus
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
69 137 31 40 11 0 12 31 29 29 1 1 .292 .413 .635 1.048 vs. Left
151 403 74 96 16 0 26 73 57 105 2 1 .238 .334 .471 .806 vs. Right

Frank Thomas
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
63 106 22 26 4 0 9 18 31 23 0 0 .245 .429 .538 .966 vs. Left
137 360 55 100 7 0 30 96 50 58 0 0 .278 .365 .547 .912 vs. Right

I dont think we have that big a problem..although Wells and Glaus have better numbers against lefties..they're able to give pretty much all righty's problems too. Thomas on the other hand is the opposite..he has way better numbers against righty's than lefties so really his addition to our lineup shouldnt be factored into the whole right handed lineup argument.

Are you actually expecting him to play as well as he did last year this coming season? He's not getting any younger.

who knows..i certainly dont expect a drastic decline in his numbers..and his getting older shouldnt affect his success against RHP compared to LHP..besides when youre a pitcher i dont think you brush off Thomas just because of his age..even if his power numbers decline a bit..intimidation is a powerful thing..it will still mean the guy ahead of him gets a better look at the ball..and if Thomas gets walked the guy behind him has a man on base (albeit a slow one).

Fair enough - I'm just not that enthused with this signing because it really limited our options to improve at other positions (Royce?!! What the poop) that we direly need.

oh i agree completely..it wasnt the smartest move..not by a long shot however the positive side of the deal only exists if wells is resigned..if we lose him this may very well be one of the dumbest moves for the franchise

Blue Jays close to signing Matt Stairs to take over as the team's fourth outfielder...

There's NO way Wells gets resigned...you look at the money some of the other marginal players are getting (i.e. Juan f***ing Pierre) and Wells' asking price is probably astronomical now.

18.5 mill for 7 years could prolly get it done roughly 130 mill commitment..and we just freed 20 mill by not getting lilly/meche..

if wells doesnt get resigned..you can expect rios to prolly get a huge extension tho haha