So what do I think the Jays should do this offseason?

So you are sitting there thinking "OK Mr. Internet Snark, you think you're so smart, what do YOU think atos should do now that he has his soft, smooth inexperienced girly hands on the rough and leathery reigns of power!"

Buy gloves!

Ha Ha - no really, I worked on that for a long time.

Anyways. I noticed SI.com had their top 50 Free Agents posted, and really there were only 2 names on it that I thought would make any sense. Felipe Lopez and Rich Harden. That's pretty much it, and only if they can be gotten cheap. And I'm probably just throwing Lopez in for fun because he's young. You know what forget it, Rich Harden. That's it. I don't feel like constructing an argument for Lopez.

(As a weird aside when searching Felipe Lopez on Baseball-Reference.com, he is the only one that comes up, I would have thought there were like 200 Felipe Lopez's that played minor and major ball over the years).

If Harden comes cheap then I could see him making some sense. The Jays can offer a low pressure situation to get himself right over the next couple of years, and maybe by the time he's ready to be good, they'll be good and then he can go find some big bucks somewhere else. I think this makes some special sense if Halladay gets traded. I'm not interested in the "Canadian Angle", just the young and cheap angle.

Otherwise if one of the available "proven starting pitchers" gets left without a chair and is basically willing to pay the Jays to pitch with them for a season, go for it.

As far as trades - strip it to the bone baby. I keep Hill, Lind, Snyder, Romero, Marcum, Rzep and Cecil. Anybody not on that list, probably including Rzep and Ceil, if I think I'm getting future value - good bye! No 3B for next season, who cares, I'm going to suck anyways.

Of course the reality isn't you can't just trade everybody for pure prospects. There has to be something put together that looks like it can be developed into some kind of cohesive whole in the off season by the end of 2010, or else you're the Pirates. So it can't be a fire sale. If atos goes more than 2 moves where you can't see the reasonable upside in 2011, I think you have to get nervous.

Max possible value for Halladay whenever you can get it will be fine. I just don't want to see somebody in management try and tell me that they think as long as they have him they can contend, or they are trying to make a serious attempt to re-sign him. Please, I am not stupid.

One thing I don't try and do is trade Wells at any cost. If something workable comes up then great, if not the crazed desire to be rid of him could make you miss other good opportunities to build to something in the future. Just leave him be, who know's maybe he'll put it all back together. The money is gone.

Otherwise, enjoy that 180K season from Randy Ruiz. And Cito playing every "veteran" he can get his hands on for no reason at all. And hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel in September 2010.