Toronto Blue Jays Morning Brew: Breakout Seasons, AFL Awards, Baseball Back in Montreal

Philadelphia Phillies left fielder Domonic Brown misses a ball hit by Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis (not pictured) during the fifth inning at Turner Field. Credit: Kevin Liles-USA TODAY Sports

Toronto Blue Jays News and Rumors

Here are the latest news and rumors about the Toronto Blue Jays.

Jeff Sullivan at FanGraphs follows up Dave Cameron’s post about the Jose Bautista/Domonic Brown (now discredited) trade rumor with a look a “breakout” seasons, specifically for players 25 turning 26.

Jim Callis at MLB.com was live tweeting from the Arizona Fall League yesterday and provides a recap at MLB.com from the elite pitching matchup between Aaron Sanchez and Kyle Crick. Sanchez appears to be the more polished of the two but Crick was throwing heat upwards to 98 MPH.

Marcus Stroman told Jeff Blair at The Fan 590 yesterday what most of us already knew about Sanchez – he’s filthy (h/t Geoff Lowe, Sportsnet).

Josh Jackson at MiLB.com shares that Blue Jays prospect Andy Burns has been named one of the 2013 Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award nominees, which “is given at the end of each autumn campaign to the player in the league who best carried himself according to Stenson’s core values of unselfishness, hard work and leadership.” Congrats to Andy for the nod and for a great AFL season overall.

Ian Hunter at the Blue Jay Hunter does a Free Agent face-off between Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana. Who would you rather see the Jays pursue this offseason?

Shi Davidi at Sportsnet shares that Toronto Blue Jays President Paul Beeston would love to see baseball back in Montreal. Currently there is a feasibility study called the Montreal Baseball Project, which has the goal of showing MLB there is enough support in the city to bring back a big-league team.

Gregor Chisholm at BlueJays.com looks at some of the potential options Jays’ GM Alex Anthopoulos has to shed salary. I’ve mentioned it before but I feel J.A. Happ is the most viable trade candidate to provide at least a bit payroll relief.

A young fan wrote an entertaining letter to Jose Bautista in hopes of luring him to Texas, which was published on Yahoo’s Big League Stew. Jose posted it on his Instagram account yesterday but please, let’s not read too much into this.