Fangraphs has Bill James 2010 projections on their player pages.  Interestingly Barajas and Torrealba are forecast to have almost identical OPS next season, Torrealba at .683 and Barajas at .680.  Torrealba's projection is lower than his 2009 performance, Barajas is projected to improve.

Torrealba had a strong playoff for Colorado, he is probably trying to cash in on that.

but Johnny Mac is a complete hole

I don't think he's worth $1.5m, but let's not get personal.

        According to MLB TradeRumors the Twins are looking to sign Harden and the Royals are looking to sign Bedard, both to short term incentive laden contracts. If both have good years then Harden might make the 'A' list and Bedard the "B' list and offering arbitration on their less than market contracts wouldn't be as big a risk if they accepted. Worth the chance  of catching the proverbial 'fire in a bottle'

         I seem to remember Boston building their system by signing freeagents and then collecting draft picks when they left a year or two later

I was hoping the Jays trade Halladay for quality prospects, not ML ready players like Bills(already 3 yrs in ML) and                                                                          

use the savings to sign Harden and Bedard to 1 yr contracts - Players get chance to prove health & showcase                                                                

themselves - Available to trade in July/draft picks - allow Zep & Cecil 1/2 season experience  in AAA  - But it looks

like the Jays are just going to pocket the Halladay salary savings.

like the Jays are just going to pocket the Halladay salary savings.

I guess that's one way of looking at it... or they already spent it on Wells' escalating contract.

This is defensive stuff for Torrealba: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/torreyo01.shtml . This is defensive stuff for Barajas: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/barajro01.shtml

Torrealba is also a significant defensive downgrade from Barajas. 

Anyone who can say something like this, is either, lazy and uninterested, or educationally defficient by choice.   (A.K.A.: can't be bothered to do the work or don't want to think about the result).

Yorvit Torrealba is 3 years younger than Barajas, more than good enough offensively and defensively to fit in well.  J.P. Arencibia will not be ready for the big club in 2010 - we need a starting catcher.   There is a good chance Arencibia will  not be ready for full-time catching duties in 2011 - we need a starting catcher.  Contract: two years plus an option year or two.  This is a changing of the culture of the club, something we will see a lot this off-season.

Yorvit Torrealba is 3 years younger than Barajas, more than good enough offensively and defensively to fit in well. 

OPS+ from ages 27 to 30: 78, 76, 72, 87.
WAR from ages 27 to 30: 0.5, 1.0, 0.3, 0.8.

He looks a whole lot closer to a 400K replacement level player than he does to someone "more than good enough offensively".

This is defensive stuff for Torrealba: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/torreyo01.shtml . This is defensive stuff for Barajas: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/barajro01.shtml Torrealba is also a significant defensive downgrade from Barajas. Anyone who can say something like this, is either, lazy and uninterested, or educationally defficient by choice. (A.K.A.: can't be bothered to do the work or don't want to think about the result).

not to keep picking a nit Richard, but this is what i was talking about when mentioning catcher defense. Torrealba comes out 94 out of 114 http://www.drivelinemechanics.com/2009/10/13/1082419/2009-catcher-defense-filling-in

The Jays are signing McDonald because the team isn't going to contend, Scutaro is headed elsewhere and the team is short on infield prospects (at least, in the high minors).

Have the Jays formally announced that they won't be offering Scutaro arbitration? I had guessed that they would, to either get him to return at a decent rate for one year, or to get the draft picks. If the talk about the Red Sox being interested in him turns out to be overblown (and they have no interest of giving up the compensation draft picks), then Scutaro may look at what Abreu and Hudson had to settle for last year, as type A free agents, and decide to accept arbitration.

I would want Scutaro's fate sorted out before locking in McDonald. McDonald as a 1.5MM starter is scarcely defensible. As a 1.5MM backup, it's entirely insane.

If Casey Kelly becomes a dealbreaker, then I hope AA switches to Paul Westmoreland as the Jays could use more positional prospects with upside and

kelly seems to be a player with a headstrong personality (both good/bad trait), who it seems still has to be convinced to give up ss and just pitch. 

The draft picks create a number of  issues:

1.  They are players who won't even arrive in the SYSTEM until June of 2011.
2.  They could end up being something like the 38th and 63rd picks. 
3.  You've got to pay them bonuses

If you make a trade, the players arrive now, project to help the major league club sooner and they have already been paid their bonuses.

That's true, but there are competing advantages to taking the draft picks.

1. You get one more year of Roy Halladay, and that's worth something. And who knows what could happen in that one year? Maybe he'll change his mind.

2. If other teams are really only offering scrap metal and donuts for Halladay, then the draft picks could turn out to have not just  more value, but a lot more value.

I don't really think the Jays are ever going to be a good team again anyway, so in that sense it doesn't matter to me what they do, but just because they're doomed doesn't mean they have to roll over for the first team who offers them a 24-year-old shortstop who might hit .240 in a good year. Particularly the Red Sox and Yankees; why make it easy for them?

"I don't really think the Jays are ever going to be a good team again anyway, so in that sense it doesn't matter to me what they do..."

Really? Talk about unjustifiable fatalism.

The Jays were most certainly a good team from 2006-2008. Last time I checked that wasn't that long ago.

Okay, well, strictly speaking you're right. It's likely that the Jays will find their way back to the 85-win neighbourhood a few more times before I die, perhaps even sooner than 2020. But that's about as optimistic as I'm willing to get.

Basically I think major league baseball in Toronto is broken. It's fixable, but I don't think any humans exist who are simultaneously interested in fixing it, able to fix it, and in a position to fix it.

The Jays are bringing back Sal Fasano.

Fasano has been appointed manager of the Lansing Lugnuts.  He will be joined by John Tamargo as hitting coach.

Last years manager Clayton McCullough is now at a team unknown.  The Jays top three teams all need new managers.  Mike Basso and Gary Cathcart were released by the Jays and Dunedin manager Omar Malave is now a coach in Toronto.  Assuming he is still with the organization McCullough could end up with Dunedin.

The Jays announced most of their minor league staff this afternoon.  Here is the announcement.  There are a lot of new names coming into the organization, hopefully they will pay off in better development.

As of now Chad Mottola is listed as the hitting coach for both las Vegas and Dunedin, I assume that will change.

In addition to Fasano, pete Walker is back in the Jays organization, he is the rehab pitching coach.

Why?

Why two years?

Was anyone else even interested in Johnny Mc?

To echo everyone else, why two years?  I'm going to be especially annoyed if Halladay nets someone like Lowrie, and the Jays end up paying MacDonald $3 million to be an occasional late inning defensive replacement for Encarnacion.

Man, Torrealba and MacDonald will kill the back end of the Jays' lineup (if the Jays do in fact sign Torrealba too).  Unless, of course, Gaston goes with his original plan to use MacDonald in the lead-off spot.   Is this a bad dream?

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&page=rumblings091119

Jayson Stark thinks the Jays are pulling in at least $80 million before selling a single ticket.  So if he's correct, the club is rolling in money and not telling.

He hired Sal Fasano to coach in the minors. Sal Fasano is cool.

This 2 year deal for Johnny Mac is absolutely nuts.  Not worth that big a salary and why go for 2 years?  I can't believe he would be offered anything close to that by another team.  Frankly I was really hoping, and expecting, he wouldn't be back, at any price.  The truly frightening thing is that our new GM thinks that this is a good deal (obviously, or he wouldn't have done it).  I was not impressed with the decision to bring Cito back and now this abomination.  I shudder to think that the person making the personnel decisions for the Blue Jays is a guy who thinks it is a good idea to give Johnny Mac this deal.  This is the kind of mismanagement the Maple Leafs have been fumbling around with for decades.  I have lost any hope I had that AA is a competent GM.  If his player judgement ability is this bad, we are in for a very dark era for Blue Jays baseball.

I really don't understand the fury and loathing over McDonald's new contract.   He's not signed as a hitter, he's signed as a utility infielder, for defensive purposes, to serve as the back-up at SS and 2B and 3B.   Every team needs a guy like that.  Rarely will any team get much offensive production from a back-up infielder, so it's a little absurd to condemn McDonald as a poor hitter when he is manifestly not expected to be a hitter.  If you're going to denounce McDonald as a poor hitter, let's also denounce the DH for his lack of defensive abilities.  It's a bit irrelevant, isn't it?

It's very clear, from AA's public statements in the past day, that McDonald is not the starter, he's a back-up.  The team is planning to acquire another SS to be the starter.  Whoever ends up at SS and 3B, they won't be playing every inning of every game, and they might get injured.  Same goes for Aaron Hill.  The Jays need a good defensive infielder to be the back-up, and McDonald is probably one of the better ones available.  By the way, he's also a useful pinch-runner, which the team also needs.

The other criticism is the money.  He's getting $1.5-million a season, which is less than he received for the previous two seasons.  Is it still too much?  It depends on the team's overall payroll, which we don't know yet.  So let's wait and see the total payroll.   If McDonald is getting $1.5-million from a $50-million payroll, that's one thing.  If he's getting $1.5-million from a $90-million payroll, that's quite a different thing.  It's a little unfair to AA to attack him for over-paying a player until we know the total budget. 

Moreover, I'm not even sure if AA could find someone of McDonald's defensive calibre at a much lower price.  Maybe he could save a few hundred thousand dollars by bringing in someone new -- probably someone younger and less experienced.  Is that really worth the meager savings?  If the Jays are paying a slight premium to retain a veteran who knows the team, knows the coaches, can provide some veteran leadership and stability, and is a good influence in the clubhouse, I wouldn't quibble a lot.  It seems rather excessive to condemn AA in vitriolic and hate-filled terms for a contract that might be a few hundred thousand dollars higher than necessary.  Let's give the guy a chance, see who he acquires at SS, see the size of his total payroll, and then judge the guy.

Alex Gonzalez signs one year deal with the Jays

That's actually a smart move, from an attendance point of view: they can attract a few extra female fans who confuse him with the boy-band Alex Gonzalez who was John-McDonald-as-a-regular for the Jays in the '90s.

Not sure where Jim is getting his numbers.   According to Baseball Reference, Gonzalez hit .284/.316/.453 with the Red Sox last season. His OPS was .769.   Of course that was in just 44 games with the Sox, and his numbers were a lot worse when he played for Cincinnati in the early part of last season.   But as recently as 2007, he posted a .793 OPS with the Reds.  I guess it's a question of which Gonzalez shows up in 2010.  

From AA viewpoint, perhaps with EE &  Lind likely manning the corners (poor Defence), the jays want a plus defence up the middle to help their young pitching

The Jays are not going to be competing next yr. - so perhaps they want to build the confidence in the pitching staff - also what was the alternative?

The Jays probably prefer Jmac as a backup (than Mike McCoy) because Gonzalez is fragile. Not saying I agree but that is perhaps their thinking.

when are Type A free agents able to sign with a new team and when do teams have to make the arbitration decision for their free agents?