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Pastimes : Major League Baseball (MLB) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (14865)	2/3/2011 9:15:06 AM
From: niceguy767	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29261

I haven't met one Blue Jays supporter in Toronto who doesn't agree with the Blue Jays side of this trade. No one, but no one, thought that the Jays would ever be able to unload this much salary. We saw some great defensive plays by Wells over the years to be sure, but even with Halladay and wells as centrepiece here, the Jays could not compete in their division, albeit a most difficult division with the Yankees and Red Sox salary loads to compete with. With AA running the Jays operations, a new page has been turned and the focus is now on Building from within by fostering a farm system second to none. It is clearly this mission which motivated both the Halladay and the Wells trade. Additionally a new minor league team has been added to the farm system to accommodate the growing number of prospects in the Jays system. In the blink of an eye it seems, the Jays farm system has leapfrogged from invisible to one of the best in MLB. Next year, the Jays have a disproportionate 10% of the top 70 picks. The upshot is that Toronto, with the Halladay and Wells trades (as well as Rios), although losing 2 (perhaps 3) premier players, has dumped salary and seeded their farm system in effort to establish long term competitiveness down the road. Jays in 2011 will be without Marcum, Overbay, Wells and Buck in their everyday lineup. That represents the loss of a top line starter and 70 combined home runs. Obviously, Jays will be hard-pressed to win 85 games again this year with this much upheaval as it will take at least a year to digest this much change. The hope this year is that the power loss will be offset to some extent by speed on the base paths. From my perspective, Jays have taken a step back in 2011, in order to gain 2/3 steps in 2012. If Jays are to reach .500 in 2011, they will need huge upticks in offensive contributions from Snider and Hill, especially Hill, with whose sub .210 stat from last year, is not MLB worthy. Jays have a superb young starting pitching corps (Romero, Cecil, Morrow, Drabek and ???) to build around to be sure, but just too many question marks elsewhere to think that they will compete in the AL East in 2011. The new wave, Arencibia, Snider, Escobar, Hill and Lind will need huge seasons if Jays are to repeat 85 wins this year.