Daily Duce: Friday, February 10th

The search for this year’s version of Jesús Montero has finally ended, as the Jays have signed José Tábata to a minor league deal. Your boy Cam Lewis has the details below.

Speaking of Cam, he’s now running the @theJaysNation Twitter, and though I’m obviously biased, he’s killing it. Be sure to give it a follow!

Hey, uh, holy shit: Paul Swydan of FanGraphs looks at Josh Donalson’s last four years, in historical context, and… seriously: holy shit. All-time among players (both position players and pitchers) for their age 27-30 seasons, Donaldson ranks 25th by WAR. He’s nestled right between Greg Maddux and Mickey Mantle at the same age. Holy shit!

Minor Leaguer’s outstanding Blue Jays roster tree route map over at Bluebird Banter has been given a facelift to reflect some of the recent roster changes for the Jays. Go check it out!

Interesting stuff from Jays Journal, as Chris Henderson looks at the talent funnel that exists for the Blue Jays that exists in, of all places, Okotoks, Alberta. Go Dawgs!

Elsewhere at Jays Journal, Brendan Panikkar makes the case for Mike Bolsinger to be in the Blue Jays’ bullpen ahead of Joe Biagini — essentially to swap the expected roles of both players, largely because Bolsinger is out of options and Biagini isn’t. I’m not sure how much I believe Biagini is a viable starter in the big leagues, because I think his success in relief was because his stuff played up in short bursts, so I don’t know about making him a depth starter. I’m skeptical about Bolsinger as a reliever, too. But the Jays probably should probably find a way to keep him in the organization.

Speaking of the bullpen, Dan Grant of Same Page Team looks at the two newest Blue Jays relievers: J.P. Howell and Joe Smith.

And speaking of Smith, Ian of the Blue Jay Hunter noticed that he was tweeting about some of the proposed rule changes that were floated this week. Smith has a serious personal stake in it, as Ian investigates, because he lives right at the absolute bottom of the strike zone — something MLB has suggested raising by two inches.

Speaking of Smith, Kyle Matte of BP Toronto looks at how the new Jays reliever may be tunnelling his way to a home run problem.

More rule change stuff, as both Mike Wilner and the Tao of Stieb give us their takes on the silly suggestions we’ve been hearing.

Great stuff from Gregor Chisholm of BlueJays.com, as he begins a series of spring previews by looking at different aspects of the club, starting at their overall vision and front office strategy — a delicate balance of the present and the future.

Ian Harrison of the Canadian Press, via CBC.ca, reviews the Blue Jays’ off-season.

It’s been a while since we learned that Brendan Kennedy is no longer on the Jays beat for the Toronto Star, but it was just today that we learned Laura Armstrong will be his replacement — be sure to give her a follow at @lauraarmy.

Ben Lindbergh has a must-read piece at the Ringer about baseball’s ever-expiring secrets — the difficulty clubs have in getting and staying ahead of the pack in terms of data and front office strategies in an age where employees move frequently and everybody is looking that same edge. Travis Sawchick has a great follow-up on FanGraphs about how teams can better innovate. Read these!

Lastly, in a post with six different ads on it, BP Toronto invites you to write for them for no pay.

Here’s a better idea: if you’re an aspiring writer looking for exposure for your Blue Jays content, start your own site. Once you do that, send me the link (or if you already have one and I haven’t been linking it, send it too!). I can be reached at via email at stoeten@gmail.com, or on Twitter at @AndrewStoeten. I will put your site in the RSS feed I use when compiling these posts. I will read what you write. If it’s good, I will point people to it. If it’s consistently good, we can definitely talk about having you do stuff for us. If we agree to work together and I don’t have it in the budget at that moment to pay for it, you’re welcome to do some things for us anyway, and if its gets good traffic and demonstrates value, I’ll certainly be able to make a business case to bring you on for pay.