Jordan Bastian has twittered changes to the Jays coaching staff for 2010.

Cito Gaston will manage one more year then retire after 2010.

Brad Arnsberg has moved on to the Astros as the new pitching coach and Gene Tenace has retired.

Bruce Walton comes out of the bullpen to be the next pitching coach, his job in the bullpen will be taken by Rick Langford who has been a pitching coach in the minor leagues for many years.  Last season Langford was the pitching rehab instructor.

Brian Butterfield goes back on the field to be third base coach as he switches jobs with Nick Leyva.  This gives Cito one of his old pals on the bench with him.

Dwayne Murphy moves from first base coach to hitting coach.  Murphy is another coach who has spent time in the minor leagues.  And Omar Malave is promoted from Dunedin manager to first base coach.

Alex Anthopoulos's first order of duty is to come up with a philosophy for the team.  What is a team philosophy you ask?  Beeston and Anthopoulos stated in their first Saturday press conference that the organization first needs to define a philosophy and from there decisions regarding payroll and free agents and roster composition can be made.   The philosophy covers how the team will compete, it is a baseball equivalent of a business plan.  Alex and Beeston were supposedly meeting over the last couple of weeks to determine the philosophy.  This week they might be presenting it to Rogers.  So we at Batters Box, at no charge to the Blue Jays, will help define what the philosophy should be.

There has been a lot of discussion in other threads about what the Jays should do but a lot of it is based around specific players such as JJ Hardy or Hanley Ramirez that the Jays could target.  However a philosophy cannot be based on what other teams might be willing to do, it has to be more abstract than that, it is what will wo do, in general, to make this team competitive.  Here are three offerings from members of the roster.

Short is a big issue for 2010.  Scutaro cannot be counted on we'd have to assume (the Jays would do full medicals to know a lot better than us I hope) so what do they do?

Things are quiet in Blue Jay land.  Alex Anthopoulos continues to work on his plans for league domination.  There have been a few news items recently with AA saying the Jays would like to bring back Marco Scutaro and Rod Barajas and last week AA was on the road inspiring the troops.

Should the Jays be more like the Twins?

I think they're already way too much like them. In 2009, anyway.

Now that the regular season is finally in the books... there was some wild stuff going on. It is my custom, as ever, to subject that stuff to an Intense Scrute. Thereby resulting in... intense scrutiny, what else?

The post-season is now upon us, and I have to figure out who I'm going to cheer for....

I suppose there are reasons to cheer for or against everybody, no? I wonder if I can think of them...

ROGERS today announced that J.P. RICCIARDI will be leaving his position as Senior Vice President, Baseball Operations & General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays effective immediately. Mr. Ricciardi joined the Blue Jays in 2001.

"This was a tough decision and a difficult one for me personally as I have enjoyed J.P.'s friendship and his perspective on the game," said Paul Beeston, acting President, and CEO. "J.P. has put an incredible amount of effort into improving the team and he has brought along a number of great young players. However, I feel that it is time for a change and accordingly we have decided to move on."

Alexander Anthopoulos, Vice President, Baseball Operations & Assistant General Manager will fill the role commencing today.

Ken Rosenthal's latest missive states that the Jays players are close to mutiny over their treatment and the managing of Cito Gaston.  The Star has also jumped in with a similar story citing the Canadian Press.  Jeff Blair also talked about this a few weeks ago.  This adds to the turmoil surrounding the Blue Jays with the lack of a permanent president, rumours that the GM will be fired and now whether the manager should stay.  It's a modern War and Peace.

It's about baseball records and such.

Joe Posnanski writes about JP Ricciardi, again, and points out some of the contradictions in the Blue Jays GM.

“You would really like J.P. if you got to spend some time with him,” one friend in baseball told me. “He’s really a good guy and a good baseball guy.”

“You would really hate J.P.,” another friend in baseball told me. And so it goes.

The great Dave Till took care of this for us, year after year. I don't have Dave's fine sense of the classroom (it's been a while since I was actually in one, you know) but I'll do what I can.

Something to do while I wait hopefully for Jim Balsillie to give up on his NHL dream (they don't want you, Jim, can't you see?) and turn his attention to baseball.

Nice little discussion starter the other day, in the form of a pinch-hit by Bauxite Brian W., in his look at the A.L. Cy Young race. 

The verdict: Um, we really don't know. Maybe Greinke deserves it. Maybe King Felix out in the Pacific Northwest. C.C. in the Bronx? Maybe somebody will explode in the last two weeks and win 20, effectively blinding the voters? We dunno!

Fortunately, there are a number of other awards that will be given for us to start fighting about ... er, discussing, debating ... ya know.  Are ANY of the major awards a slam dunk right now? (Okay, one is.)

So fill out your projections ... anyone who goes 10-for-10 -- gets every prediction right -- well, what are you doing here? Get to Vegas!

As the 2009 season winds down to its depressing conclusion the only possible cure is to focus on 2010 and look for positive signs.  It goes without saying that the Jays need to do what we, the knowledgable fans, think they should do.  So let's try and see if Batters Box can use the wisdom of our crowd to come up with a prioritized to-do list for the 2010 team.