Once again, the most wonderful time of the year is upon us. No, not the holidays. It's Winter Meetings time again! The winter meetings generally are when the off-season moves really start to happen in the baseball world, and I think that Jays fans should expect to hear at least some news coming out of these meetings.
Anthopoulos has a wish list. His wish list doesn't match mine necessarily, but he does have one. As far as we know he will be heading to Dallas shopping for a second basemen, some bull pen help, and if all goes well a starting pitcher as well. Alex got one item checked off of his list yesterday when the Blue Jays found their replacement for Jose Molina and acquired their new back up catcher in Jeff Mathis.
Mathis comes to the Jays from the Angels by way of a trade sending pitcher Brad Mills the other way. I'm not really sure how I feel about this deal. On one hand, Mathis is a good defensive catcher, and has a reputation of being an asset in helping develop young pitchers. On the other hand, Mills is a left handed starter who has had a fair amount of success at the triple A level, and I'm not sure he won't develop into a fair, or even a good starter at the major league level. Time will tell. On the surface, I would have preferred to have picked up a back up catcher from the free agent market rather than trade to bring one in. I'm not really thrilled about sending Mills packing just a few months after shipping out Zach Stewart and Marc Rzepcynski. I just don't think that giving up an arm for a back up catcher (for one year none the less) is a great idea.
Anthopoulos has stated numerous times this off season that the Blue Jays intend to try to add through trades, and not by signing free agents. He has also said that the Jays will not pursuing any big name free agents. So I wouldn't expect to hear of any big free agent acquisitions coming our way. Once again Jays fans will have to wait, and find out what we have to give up to fill the holes we need filled.
My prediciton: Travis Snider is not a Blue Jay this time next week.
A lot of GM's view Snider the way that Anthopoulos viewed Colby Rasmus. High ceiling of talent that hasn't been realized yet. So there is interest there, and I can't help but get the feeling that the Blue Jays would rather move forward with Thames in LF over Snider. But hey, that's just me.
Personally, I would like to see Adam Lind in LF, making room for our new first basemen: Prince Fielder. However, we all know that isn't going to happen.
Happy Winter Meetings everyone!
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