Blue Jays Morning Brew: Canadian Hall of Fame, Onesies, and more

A tip of the cap to our former leader at Jays Journal, @keeganmatheson, for his years of bringing us the Morning Brew.

With his blessing, we’ve decided to carry on with the Brew, and this is my first kick at it, so bear with me. Here are the Toronto Blue Jays news and notes for Sunday, Feb 5th, 2017.

Blue Jays sign Joe Smith to 1 year deal

The full details haven’t been announced just yet, but Fox’s Ken Rosenthal broke the news late Saturday night on Twitter that the Blue Jays have signed Joe Smith. Learn a little bit more about what Smith brings to the table, here.

The 10 year veteran spent last season split between the Anaheim Angels and Chicago Cubs, and finished the season with a 3.46 ERA over 52 appearances.

Canadian Hall of Fame Announcement

Earlier this week, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame inducted it’s newest members, headlined by former ace Roy Halladay, and slugger Vladimir Guerrero.

The rest of the inductee list included Ray Carter, who was a past president of Baseball Canada, the 2015 Canadian Pan Am team, who won a gold medal, and the late Doug Hudlin, a B.C. umpire who worked games for over 40 years.

Guerrero of course starred for the Montreal Expos from1996-2003, but he was also briefly a member of the Blue Jays organization in 2012. He appeared in 12 games in the minors and slugged 4 home runs, before asking for his release and eventually retiring from baseball. “Vlad the Impaler” appeared on Baseball’s Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year, and narrowly missed induction, getting 71.2% of the vote. Players are inducted when they reach a mark of 75% or higher, so it appears likely the Dominican will be elected in 2018.

Roy Halladay will be eligible for the Hall in 2019, and has a very strong case for induction as well. With Roberto Alomar as the lone Blue Jays’ cap in the Hall, it would be great to see “Doc” get the recognition he deserves, and another Blue Bird in the Hall.

Blue Jays Super Bowl Party last year

There’s not a whole heck of a lot going on at the moment, so if you’re not the “Super Bowl” type but you’re looking for a laugh, check out our look back at Jose Bautista’s Super Party Last Year. The fellas provided us with a couple photos to chuckle over via social media in 2016.

Roy Halladay interested in returning to baseball

More news about the “Doc”, as Roy Halladay caught up with reporters in Canada this week, and dropped some interesting tidbits while in town.

Halladay mentioned that he is very interested in getting back into baseball, as noted by our own Clayton Richer. He mentioned that he’ll be involved in spring training for the upcoming season, but he’s “unsure of where” at the moment. Check out Clayton’s piece for more details.

Our top 30 prospects list is complete

If you’ve been following along with our top 30 prospect list, we got to our #1 this week (you’ll have to check out the link to find out.. suspenseful right?)

The Blue Jays had 4 players make the MLB’s recent top 100 list, including Anthony Alford, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Sean Reid-Foley, and Richard Urena, in alphabetical order.

None of the above are expected to make an impact on the big league roster in 2017, but they’ve all got big upside, which should give Blue Jays fans plenty to be excited about for the future.

Here’s our top 30 list, leaving out the top 5:

Top-30 Blue Jays prospect rankings:
#30: RHP Jordan Romano     #29: RHP Yennsy Diaz     #28: CF Reggie Pruitt
#27: 1B Ryan McBroom     #26: CF Roemon Fields     #25: 2B Cavan Biggio
#24: RHP Jose Espada     #23: RHP Patrick Murphy     #22: C Danny Jansen
#21: OF Dwight Smith Jr.     #20: RHP Zach Jackson     #19: RHP Francisco Rios
#18: OF Harold Ramirez     #17: C Max Pentecost     #16: Ryan Borucki
#15: OF Joshua Palacios     #14: OF J.B. Woodman     #13: C Reese McGuire
#12: RHP Conner Greene     #11: IF/OF Lourdes Gurriel Jr. #10: SS Bo Bichette
#9: LHP Angel Perdomo  #8: RHP Justin Maese   #7: T.J. Zeuch
#6: Jon Harris