Blue Jays Brew: Bautista, catching market, podcast

Toronto Blue Jays news and notes for Monday, January 9th

All remains quiet on the Blue Jays front, but entering the second full week past the holidays, the market should soon regain traction.

Here are some news and notes to keep you up to date:

Jays Nest Podcast, Episode 103

The Jays Nest Podcast with myself and Shaun Doyle of Jays From the Couch is back on a weekly schedule and you can find our most recent episode right here.

Early in the show, we’re joined by Paul Sullivan who host the daily Sully Baseball Podcast. Paul put together a formula used to measure the “suffering index” of each fan base in Major League Baseball. He breaks down how those numbers work, and more importantly, where the Blue Jays rank.

We also touch on Jose Bautista’s ongoing free agency and the Blue Jays catching situation, which remains unsolved, with some help from our listener questions. Subscribe using the links below to get each new episode delivered directly to your device:

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Speaking of backup catching…

We’d originally let this one slip by, but it’s worth noting Ben Nicholson-Smith’s report that the Blue Jays had interest in catcher Bobby Wilson before the veteran signed a minor-league deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers last week. That point was mentioned again in today’s piece for Sportsnet that also takes a deeper look at Bautista’s situation.

“The Blue Jays wanted to sign Wilson, but he moved on when the team wouldn’t provide assurances that they wouldn’t pursue any other catchers,” Nicholson-Smith reports. That may be good news for the Blue Jays, as they’re likely to add more than one catcher to the upper minors.

Behind Russell Martin and A.J. Jimenez, minor-league signing Mike Ohlman is the next catcher in line but some question whether he has a future behind the plate (at six-foot-five, many see him as a first-baseman). Prospect Reese McGuire could factor in as well, but might open the season back with double-A New Hampshire to keep his everyday reps.

Next: Why Morales could thrive playing in the Rogers Centre

Backtracking on Bautista

Baltimore Orioles’ general manager Dan Duquette, who said earlier in the off-season that their team was not interested in signing Jose Bautista because their fans did not like him, tried to backtrack in a Sunday interview with MLB Network Radio. (Find the story here, courtesy of Sportsnet).

“The thing with Bautista,” Duquette said, “I was just trying to make it clear to the agent that we didn’t want the Orioles in that conversation because I didn’t want the fans to be upset that we were trying to bring Bautista here after we had competed against him for the last six or seven years. That kind of got blown out of proportion.”

Top prospect list

If you’ve missed the early entries to our top-30 Blue Jays prospects, catch up here and get to know the Blue Jays’ young talent before they reach the bigs:

#30: RHP Jordan Romano     #29: RHP Yennsy Diaz     #28: CF Reggie Pruitt
#27: 1B Ryan McBroom