Blue Jays fan here. Just wondering what you guys think it would take for us to lure Ryan Zimmerman away from you guys. We have a bunch of young rookies that were forced into starting at the major league level this year because of injuries, that we may not need this season, like Brad Mills, David Purcey, Robert Ray, or Brett Cecil.
We traded away Scott Rolen for the younger, cheaper, but more inconsistent Edwin Encarnacion and a few young power arms. If the Jays are going to compete they need a plus defender and solid bat at 3B.
You guys have Zimmerman signed for a few more years but he starts getting expensive soon. Do you think you would take something like 3 young starters plus Edwin Encarnacion for Zimmerman?
Well Brett Cecil, a lefty, has a career minor league ERA pf 3.15 and struck out 1 per inning.David Purcey is another lefty that can throw 96mph.Brad Mills, lefty, in 2 minor league seasons he went 15-5 with a 1.96 ERA, struck out about 10/9 inningsRobert Ray is a right hander who has a career minor league ERA of 3.83 and went 1-2 with a 4.44 ERA for the jays this year.
We have these guys plus a few more who pitched for the big league club this year, and are basically expendable.
Other than the facts that Zimmerman is from Virginia Beach, went to the University of Virginia and was signed to a long-term deal by Rizzo with the intention that he continue to be the face of the franchise, is the unofficial team captain, made his first All-Star team and should win the first of many Gold Gloves -- all which mean there's no way he gets traded from a big-market Nats team with only $45 million committed in 2010 but the revenues to afford a $100 million player payroll... to the mid-market Blue Jays who don't have the revenues to keep Halladay beyond 2010?
Seriously?
Okay, I'll play along.
If you really want Zimmerman, you'll have to send us Halladay (we'll re-sign him to an extension before he hits FA), Hill, Scutaro and Frasor.
A fleecing of you just like what the Indians pulled on Minaya (Colon for Lee, Phillips and Sizemore).
That's why I made the price so steep that he would never accept it.
Gotta love clueless fans who have no clue of reality...
Who knows? Maybe if Halladay hits the FA market next winter, the Nats could swoop in with the winning bid -- keeping Zimmerman in the fold and making this clueless Blue Jays fan a really unhappy camper! LOL
Right, I'm the clueless one. You think that trading for Zimmerman STARTS with Halladay?
Zimmerman is a top 5 3B in the majors, don't fool yourself. Halladay is by far the best pitcher.
Aaron Hill is going to win a gold glove this year too, and his bat compares very well to Zimmerman.
Scutaro is a free agent, so its going to be hard to trade him to you.
I thought there might be some intelligent people here, but I guess not. They Jays are getting their payroll bumped to 120 million and we've just washed out our front office. We have the core pitching to compete we just need a few bats.
Now you guys have had some of the worst management ever since I remember. You have a decent lineup but your pitching is horrendous. So even with Strasburg coming, I hope you guys can at least get to playing .500 ball.
Yes, I realized my mistake on Scutaro's FA status soon after I typed my post.
"Now you guys have had some of the worst management ever since I remember."
I guess you'd prefer Alex Anthopoulos as your GM over Mike Rizzo, huh? Have you been paying any attention at all to how much Rizzo's overhauled the Nats' front office, Dominican academy, scouting, etc. since he took over as acting GM on March 1 or how highly respected he is throughout MLB?
Who traded for Nyjer Morgan? Rizzo. Who shored up the bullpen as best he could after Bowden did NOTHING last winter? Rizzo. Who got something in return for Nick Johnson and Joe Beimel instead of letting them walk after the season for nothing? Rizzo.
I can go on and on.
Has anyone south of the Canadian-American border even heard of Anthopoulos?
Where's this $120 million coming from that the Blue Jays are going to spend, especially after the team owner died, leaving it run more by the corporation (Rogers Communications) than by a person/family?
And, again, how do you expect the Blue Jays to compete with the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays? Unless the teams from the Bronx and Boston suffer major injuries, there's no way they are giving up the top two spots in the AL East, and last I checked, MLB has only ONE Wild Card team per league, so 3rd place does not cut it.
Ok, so do you just want to argue who has a better organization now?
Tony Viner from Rogers said if Alex Anthopoulos could come up with a plan payroll would be no obstacle. If they think they can win it they're going to go all out.
You guys can't deny you're in a rebuilding stage. Zimmerman is 25 now and is going to be in his prime. You could bag 5 top notch prospects for him, but you'd rather go after a 33 year old Roy Halladay?
Lets ignore that you also wanted Scutaro, who is probably the best FA shortstop this offseason, and Jason Frasor, an average closer. Lets just say you wanted Halladay and Hill.
I think Hill has almost as much value as Zimmerman. He's signed for cheaper for a longer time. This year he hit .286 with 36 HRs and 103 RBIs(out of the second spot in the order). Last year he had a concussion, but the year before that he hit .291 with 17 HRs, 47 2Bs, and 87 RBIs. He should earn his first gold glove this year too.
You also want Halladay, the games best pitcher, who by the way said if he doesn't resign with the Blue Jays it's because he wants to win a world series now, so if he was traded to you he wouldn't sign an extension.
Then we take an account that those Jays players have to play against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays.
I can understand you guys not wanting to trade Zimmerman, but thinking you can get Halladay, Hill, Scutaro and Frasor is ridiculous.
Then we take an account that those Jays players have to play against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. "
Hold on how, eh?
Your sounding like an Oriole fan.
You don't want to speak the language of a loser.
I like the Jays. Please don't align with the Angelos.
He did say "had" some of the worst management, I took that to mean that the current management wasn't included, especially since the whole league respects Rizzo and his abilities.
>>"You guys have Zimmerman signed for a few more years but he starts getting expensive soon."
That's a contradiction right there. We only just signed him to that contract a few months ago and it's looked like a bargain in the team's favor ever since, but even so, in a few years the Nats will still be able to afford him, so you're mistaken if you think we'll need to trade anyone because we can't afford to keep him. Don't mistake having back-to-back 100 loss seasons as being indicative of a team with a small market that can't afford a large payroll. The Nats had the second-highest operating profit in the Major Leagues last year and, as Eric pointed out, can afford a $100 million a year payroll.
The Nats have been hording young pitchers in the draft for the last few years. Yes, the team had pitching issues at the ML level in '09, but they really don't need to consider trading a franchise player that they are building the team around in order to acquire the very thing (young pitching) that they are flush with in the minors. Within a year or two, the Nats should even be able to trade a young pitcher here and there to fill holes elsewhere.
Our rebuilding is a lot closer than the record indicates, one top free agent starter, and perhaps a Type-B, and a couple of solid bullpen guys could be enough to fix the pitching in 2010, considering the young talent coming up.
For those reasons, Zimmerman is untouchable, he's more than a top five 3B, there's no one better defensively in all of baseball (players have been quoted stating that), and I can't think of four who are better offensively, but even if there were, with their defense factored-in, they wouldn't compare favorably overall, David Wright is the only one who stacks up.
Thanks for that. I watch the Nats as often as I can, but besides Strasburg I really don't know much about your minor league system. Only things like how Aaron Crow didn't sign and things like that. To someone who is just a casual viewer they don't seem like a team that could just throw a 100 million dollar payroll together, but like you said I've just seen them lose like crazy the last few years.
And I know every club thinks they are closer than their record indicates, and the Jays are too. We had 7 of our starting pitchers on the disabled list and still came out with an above average pitching staff. We're always solid defensively but our bats were all but gone this year. Giving away Alex Rios helped, but we still have question marks at 1B, 3B, CF and DH. Whenever Kevin Millar is getting steady playing time something is wrong.
We should be getting Marcum and McGowan back next year along with Ricky Romero hopefully improving a little bit. Now someone like Marc Rzepcynski or Scott Richmond stepping up and Jesse Litsch recovering from TJ surgery, we have a half decent rotation even without Halladay. Pitching wise we are fine.
What we need is Wells to go back to his .300-30HR-100RBI form with GG defense and Lyle Overbay to go back to spraying doubles like crazy and walking when hes not. Now add Randy Ruiz bashing 40 homers and maybe we have a team.
Anyways I really hope you guys can get it back together, the Expos were one of my favourite teams when I was a kid.
Zimmerman's not going anywhere. Yes, the Nats have holes to fill, but why in the world would you trade away an All-Star 3B (and most likely the 2009 NL Gold Glove winner) who is under contract through 2013, just broke through to greatness, is only 25 years old, grew up in Virginia Beach and went to college at the University of Virginia?
Especially when the Nats have no one to fill even half his shoes at 3B, still need another year or two to get AAA and AA back to where they were before Minaya systematically gutted the farm system, and, with only $45 million or so committed for 2010, the ability to spend a ton of money this winter on FA's?
FA is the more logical way for Rizzo to address the Nats' needs in the rotation, bullpen, 2B and potentially RF.
Trading Zimmerman for a SP -- no matter how good he is -- that's not the way to go.
And the way the Nats are promoting the h3ll out of "the face of the franchise," they would destroy all their credibility with the fans -- especially because Zimmerman said he wants to play for his hometown team and win here. If Rizzo does what he says he will, #11 will retire wearing a curly W because he will have played in several Octobers in DC, including bringing at least one "rolling rally" to Pennsylvania Ave.
We could give it up because we had at one point last year on the disabled list a better starting rotation than Boston or the Yankees. Halladay, Marcum, McGowan, Litsch, and a few of the rookies were out at the same time, and we still had enough young arms to keep us competitive.
Our offense though is terrible.
I know what you mean by getting attached. Things like letting Burnett walk have killed the Jays. For every time Riccardi lets an AJ Burnett go into free agency without getting anything but a draft pick or 2, which he fails to sign I might add, the Jays farm system in the long run gets worse. It started with Delgado way back then.
It's the same thing now with Roy Halladay. Now if Rogers Communication really is going to give Anthopoulos a payroll of 120+ million to work with not trading him was the right move, but to let someone like him just go into free agency would be devastating to the franchise when we can get 2 or 3 top prospects for him.
Now I know you guys aren't in a situation like that with Zimmerman, but most fans cannot look long term.
Methinks that Rogers Communications is blowing smoke on the $120 million 25-man roster. According to you, they said they would spend $120 million on player payroll "if Anthopoulos has a concrete plan" or something like that.
The Blue Jays are a mid-market team, not a big-market team. I'd be surprised to see them exceeding $100 million, let alone $120 million.
According to ESPN, the Blue Jays' 2009 Opening Day roster was $72,563,200.
How exactly are they going to spend $40-50 million this winter? What's Anthopoulos's plan?
>>"I heard Marrero plays 3B far better than 1B."
Exactly where are you hearing this stuff? Marrero hasn't played 3B since high school. I've watched Merrero play, he has tree-trunk legs that, judging by the way he moves, are filled with concrete. He'll never be a starter in the majors at 3B, and his odds at 1B are only slightly better. He's got 'DH' written all over him.
Trading away your franchise player for starting pitching that you will soon be flush with in a year or two anyway, is crazy enough, but thinking Marrero can eventually take-over the 3B spot is perhaps even nuttier.
