Set-up Year for Blue Jays
This year’s offseason has seen the Toronto Blue Jays make some moves on the periphery. Trading away your opening day starter is never insignificant, but neither does it rank up there with the acquisitions of Crawford and Gonzalez in Boston or Cliff Lee spurrning the Yankees to join, quite arugably, one of the greatest rotations of all time in Philadelphia.
The Jays apparently showed interest in the young Royals hurler Zack Grienke. The 27-year-old former Cy Young award winner would have immediately strenghtened the Jays starting rotation. More importantly though, Grienke could have provided top-end depth into the future. Ultimately, Greinke apparently would not have waived his NTC to go to Toronto and the price in terms of prospects may have been to high anyway.
Despite the fact that the Jays will be able to field a young team that showed promise last season and hopes to build on that, they are probably won’t be a serious playoff contender until 2012. General manager Alex Anthopolous, has expressed the opinion that the team is likely one big piece away, and I beleive that piece could be found next off-season.