It has been a long, tough, ornery winter. But baseball is back, the Blue Jays play their first game of the year today.

It is less than three weeks until pitchers and catchers report to the Jays spring training facility. With the last thread having over 300 responses, a new thread is warranted.

The Doc is in the hall of fame. While some might argue over his number of wins, he was without doubt a dominant pitcher for a long time.

We need a new thread and Fangraphs published their ZiPS projections for the Jays today. It does not make for easy reading. There are no standouts on the team, before Vlad, and the projection for Lourdes Gurriel is very low.

Yesterday, the Blue Jays announced the signing of Matt Shoemaker on a one-year contract for $3.5 million, plus incentives. Shoemaker is controllable through 2020, if the Blue Jays wish to retain him. It appears as if he will fit into the fourth spot in the rotation behind Stroman, Sanchez and Borucki, which currently leaves Reid-Foley and Pannone as the leading contenders for the fifth spot.

It's winter, and they're not playing any games, so I don't pay much attention. (Raptors, folks! And, dare we say it... Leafs?) But stuff is happening, at the usual glacial place, and 300 plus comments is way too much to scroll through. Am I right?

The winter meetings have begun in Las Vegas. Many GM's will be gambling with their moves. Will it be a good gamble or a bad gamble. The Jays are looking to take a flutter on a free agent pitcher or two. Mike Fiers and Kendall Graveman are the latest two names to be forwarded to Ross Atkins phone.

Two new members of the HOF were announced today.

The Bauxites have spoken. I received eight top 30 prospect lists and I have compiled them into a combined top 30. The resulting top 30 is similar in many ways to the Top 30 posted last week but there are a few key differences. The top nine on both lists have the same names with small changes in the order. Further down, the differences are bigger.

For the purposes of explaining the two top 30 lists, I will refer to last weeks list as the “official” list and this one as the “Bauxite” list.

Now that you have reviewed the top 30, it’s time to consider those who did not make it.

The top ten features five returnees from 2016, three newly drafted players and two prospects who had big years to move up the list into the top 10.

The middle 10 of our top 30 prospects is a real melting pot. You have players from last year's top 10 who are dropping on account of underwhelming performance. You have the players with average years who remained in the middle. You have a rising star who had a great season to put himself on the map, as well as a new draftee and a player who arrived through a trade.