Speaking of scotch, here's a tweet from Elliot...

Jays tell RHP Zach Stewart, one of top arms in system along with Henderson Alvarez: "Be prepared to start or pitch in relief next spring."

Since the Triple AAA Portland Beavers are closing up shop ,  couldn't  the Padres go into Las Vegas and the Jays go into Vancouver ?

Jays tell RHP Zach Stewart, one of top arms in system along with Henderson Alvarez: "Be prepared to start or pitch in relief next spring."

So it appears the Jays will not convert either individual from pitching. Interesting.

What's going on with Portland? I was there this summer: the stadium is quite nice, the crowd was fairly large and knowledgable.  Sure the team sucks, but that doesn't mean that market can't support a team.

As a Vancouverite this would be great news but I have never heard of the sports reporter.  I go to 3-4 Canadians games a year now.  I used to go to about double that when the AAA team was here.  Vancouver has mostly been a marginal AAA location.  It had a few years when local interest was better when Molsons was making noise about a major league franchise and California had a good minor league system.   As noted above, the stadium is now too small for a AAA franchise.  Baseball interest is also pretty variable here but the biggest problem is that the weather in Vancouver from the beginning of the season to the end of June is generally very wet.  The number of rainouts in the old AAA days was scary in some years.  One of the great attractions to the short season league is its scheduling.  The good news for the Jays is that the team came under new ownership two or three years ago and they are now a pretty well run franchise.  This would be a good location to send new professional players now - two or three years ago I would not have said that.  One final note, Vancouver and its park makes us sort of the anti High Desert.

Winnipeg has a great ballpark and it could probably support a team, but sadly there aren't any affiliated leagues nearby.

The league the Goldeyes play is as close to Winnipeg as a few affiliated leagues.  Most of the Teams are around Lake Michigan.  I don't see this as an issue.  The biggest issue for relocating a team to Winnipeg is you'd have to buy the Goldeyes and contract them, in addition to buying the team you want to move there.  And the Goldeyes are probably worth more than most affiliated teams.

I've felt for a while that part of building a strong minor league system is continually turning over free agents and playing the compensation game effectively to maximize your top 75 picks in each draft.  I'm not sure though how the organization will treat Gregg in this regard. 

AAA teams don't bus everywhere.  Vegas plays one night in New Orleans and the next night at home - a distance of 1738mi according to Google Maps.  I'm sure they're flying some if not most of their games in the PCL.  Calgary and Edmonton had PCL franchises not so long ago.  It's about $12,000 round trip to fly a ball club to Winnipeg for a series, maybe about $250k a year in air travel - or two home games of ticket sales.

You may be right, I don't have any insight into the business of AAA baseball.  But I remain skeptical.

Is Gregg worth that (plus $4.5 million)? That is the question. I know Frasor isn't, Downs gets a 2nd pick as well thus it could be more than double those odds for him. Gregg though is harder to say - I'd lean towards keeping him as he might be a B next year as well (or even an A).

A nice point, in that if we exercise his option and he puts up 2 more seasons of 30+ saves with a sub-3.50 ERA, we might have a Type A on our hands.  Despite that, I'd just as easily sign an RH set-up man with a decent K/9 (don't have a list of potential FAs in front of me) for 2 years at 5 or 6 million and just hand him the closer's job.  Saves you 3 extra million you can do what you want with.  Gives a little room for signing Bautista and/or another FA bench player.  That being said, I don't know how much the money matters in the grand scheme of things - I just think it would be worth saving that money rather than spending it on Gregg.

I think a high-leverage bullpen arm is something the Jays should have on their team. Aside from the importance of the innings he pitches, I think such an arm instills confidence in the rotation and the rest of the bullpen, even if the high-leverage isn't of the calibre of Rivera or Bell. It is also useful to have another arm there, as that pushes Camp, Purcey and potentially Roenicke into setup roles and so on down the chain. If we are going to lose Gregg, Downs and Frasor, I don't think all of them can be replaced effectively internally.

The team doesn't have to spend $10 million a season on Rafael Soriano, either. As pointed above, there are plenty of other options on the free agent market, such as the players list above (Rauch is someone who could possibly be signed on a reasonable 2-yr deal) or Grant Balfour.

A team in Winnipeg at a lower level like the Texas League or Midwest League would be a complete non-starter geographically.

Fair enough.  My main point, which you are leading me away from, is that Goldeye ownership is likely the key obstacle to any affiliated team in Winnipeg.  And I'm not sure travel is a deal breaker (i think the Goldeyes currently subsidize the Northern League for travel costs), though that would obviously depend on the league.  The revenue model is excellent in Winnipeg too, with 7k fans per night, 30 luxury boxes, radio and tv coverage, and excellent corporate support.  You could cheaply add bleachers to get up to 10k seats if you wanted to.

For a system that I assume was designed to try and compensate small market clubs for losing free agents to large market ones, you really have to question the system they have managed to put in place.

Rewarding movement (e.g. letting Gregg walk and replacing him with a different type B) is a very poor outcome vs intent of the system.

Signing a class A should mean you lose your 1st rounder and any 1st/ supplementary round picks you acquire to try and counteract the temptation to go on periodic FA splurges as you lose less valuable picks by bunching them in one year while you gain picks from FA departures.

But if that's the system, you have to play it.

Out of interest does anyone know how much a AAA team would cost to buy? Would be interesting to know the cost of e.g. Syracuse or Buffalo.

I would have thought owning Buffalo (or similar) would have quite real ancillary benefits to the Jays.

cybercavalier,

why are you linking my profile? 

That'll do it every time!

Looking at those maps, the Midwest League has the most similar geographical profile to the Northern league that the Goldeyes where currently play.  The Texas League looks like a non-starter.

Why would they go to all the trouble converting Stewart into a starter and now converting him back. Especially since the results look good so far. Yes, the Jays have a lot of young arms but they also tend to break.

Having Stewart work as a starter in the minors even if they were looking at him as a late inning reliever in the majors helps accelerate his development. It gets him reps for his delivery, it allows him to build arm strength, and forces him to work on his command and secondary stuff. Given the way people have been talking about the development of his change and his ability to hold velocity, I'm not sure they only see him as a reliever, but even if so, when feasible it's the right move.

As for Gregg, the obvious risk is that he accepts arbitration. Given his history of shakeyness, it's hard to say how big the market will be for him. An arbitration win would probably end up costing a couple million more than the option would, given his shiny save total. I'm not sure what I'd do, but I don't know if it's automatic. If I felt he won't accept arb, then it does move into the obvious realm.

Rewarding movement (e.g. letting Gregg walk and replacing him with a different type B) is a very poor outcome vs intent of the system.

Yeah, this has been annoying me (Boston and the Angels in particular) for years. The Supplemental picks should not be protected in this process. It allows wealthier teams to pad themselves with picks by churning through a few pick-eligible free agents every year.

If the shiny 2010 stats would earn him a handsome arbitration award shouldn't it earn him a decent contract too? Jose Valverde made 8m in 2009 and declined arbitration, and Billy Wagner did the same after making 10.5m. I bet people in Atlanta were also worried about the award Mike Gonzalez would make in arbitration before he promptly declined as well.

I get what you're saying, but the comps don't work for me. Valverde had been anywhere between good and very good for 4 of the past 5 years. Wagner wasn't going to be a closer in Boston, and this was clearly more important to him. Gonzalez had consistently been dominant when healthy. Gregg just isn't in the same class as these three either in terms of reliability or dominance, but some of the shiny totals he put up could make arbitration appealing to him. What would he get in arbitration? $5M might be the floor, and his agent's research may say $6. What would his agent have to believe he can get to turn down arb? 2 years for $10 Mil? Is that out there with the recovery cooling? I have no idea, but these are the questions I'd be asking before deciding.

I don't think the Tigers would allow a minor league team in Windsor.  The reason is that the Tigers would have the ability to veto that (I don't think there can be a minor league team within 50 miles of a MLB team).  If Windsor was to get a team, the only way I see Detroit letting it work is if the Windsor team was a Detroit affiliate.  It would be similar to the agreement that Cincinnatti has with Dayton and Cleveland has with Lake County and Akron. 

The other thing against that is there is an independent league team in the northern suburbs of Detroit as well (The Oakland County Cruisers I believe is their name).  There would just be to many teams in that area.

What kind of park is it. Hitter or pitcher friendly. As long as it`s not like like Vegas where you seem to have to 45 homers with an OPS of 1500 to be considered a prospect.

I notice Vancouver Canadians website has some game highlights on it, which would be nice to see the prospects in action

On sportsnet last night they mentioned the possibility that they may show some Canadians games on sportsnet one next year.