Jays Journal: Brett Lawrie, Juan Rivera, Jose Bautista Poll, and Links

Here are some notes that we have accumulated from around all things that impact the Jays:

• Brett Lawrie, the player who could eventually fulfil Jose Bautista‘s wish to return to RF, is apparently slated to begin his new position learning in AAA’s Las Vegas. He’ll be able to learn from players with lots of MLB experience, like Ryan Shealy and Corey Patterson, and having him in AAA should let us know immediately how close or far he may be from making his Jays debut. Lawrie could be the cockiest player the Jays have had since Roberto Alomar, and we all know how well that turned out! However, is anyone else a little apprehensive about placing the 21 year old so close to the strip? Food for thought.
• The Jays still haven’t found any takers on Juan Rivera, but spring training is only getting started. I recently wrote an article assessing his market and do believe that Alex Anthopoulos will find a way to move him some time in 2011, I’m just not sure when. As position battles become clearer and teams realize where they may be weakest, the Jays should be able to find a match. I wanted to add the Seattle Mariners to the list of teams who may be interested, as they only have 3-4 players who can feasibly hit more than 10 HRs in 2011, and they could also use some pen help, another Jays strength. More food for thought.
• Our latest poll results are in for the question:
  “What Will Occur in the Case of Jose Bautista‘s Arbitration Eligibility?”
  The counted votes were as follows: Go to Arbitration, Jays win(41%, 26 Votes), A deal will be agreed to before Arbitration (long or short term)(41%, 26 Votes), Go to Arbitration, Jose Bautista wins (18%, 11 Votes). Total Voters: 63.
  You can’t blame the fans for thinking that arbitration was on the way and that the Jays had a very good case on their hands due to Bautista’s past, but Alex Anthopoulos once again proved to be under the radar and got a deal done. The reviews of the new deal with Bautista are mixed, but the majority of them are positive. Congrats to those who nailed it with a long-term or short-term deal being agreed to! We should have our next pen focused poll open later on today.
• Here are a few links you may want to check out on a sleepy lazy Daytona 500 Sunday:
  Tom Dankers of Bluebird Banter: takes a look at the catching depth for 2011;
  The Southpaw: becomes the first of many on this list to take a deeper look at the Jose Bautista deal with a positive outlook we share;
  Dave Cameron of Fangraphs: takes a look at whether Jose Bautista could actually be better in 2011;
  Drunk Jays Fans: take another look at the Jose Bautista signing. Interesting read and it reflects what many others believe, but it’s not my view at all;
  My personal view on the Bautista deal is closer to what Ian at the Blue Jay Hunter posted here. Enjoy;
  And, sitting smack dab in the middle is our friend from Tao of Stieb, who correctly points to the risks and rewards of the deal;
  Mopupduty also take a look at the Bautista deal and swing, and have an interesting hot and cold zone graph to go with it and take a really good look at his swing adjustments. They also look at 2011 promos and giveaways that many may be interested in;
  The Man with the Golden Arm from 1BlueJaysWay has a contest that I unfortunately missed before today. He’s asking for predictions on the opening day roster and has a good amount of contestants and their predictions listed in this post; and
  I ran into this thorough and interesting look at the 2010 season and projections for Jays players here at the Baseball Think Factory. It’ll take you a while to sort through, but there are some points here I may draw from at some point because they make interesting topics of conversation.

I hope that fills your Sunday with lots of great Jays reads as the Daytona cars just keep on turning left. Our top prospect #7 should be up at some point and we’ll be sure to get the remainder of the list up before this time next week, so stay tuned for that!

– MG

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