Peace Out Alex

Alex Rios tenure as a Toronto Blue Jays is officially over, the "worst kept secret" in baseball as JP dubbed it turned out to be true as Rios was shipped off to Chicago for absolutely nothing, not even a sack of magic beans or future considerations.

Suffice to say, reaction on this deal so far has been incredibly mixed. While it's easy to just jump into knee-jerk anger and call for JP's head, I think it's worth taking a few deep breaths and thinking about this rationally.

There's some definate pros and cons to this deal that need to be weighed.

• Don't jump out and say "Woohoo money for Doc!" The Rios salary does not go towards a raise for Roy Halladay, it goes towards one Bo Jr. Ryan. Not having to pay 10 million dollars to Alex Rios to play baseball takes care of 2/3 of the 15 million dollars that needs to be paid to BJ Ryan to not play baseball. While it's a shitty way to find cash to buy the Beej a yacht, the money had to come from somewhere.
• Nothing comes back for Rios for that reason, if the Jays got something back they'd have had to eat at least some of the contract like the Rangers had to after dealing A-Rod to the Yankees. It's another way of saving some coin.
• This means even more Vernon Wells in CF. Ugh. Snider and Lind are clearly not centre fielders, Vernon Wells cannot stay out there forever, as we all saw about his fielding getting craptacular and Rios had been annointed his future replacement and now we're kind of left scratching our heads about just what JP is gonna do to fill this void.
• While this does clear the way for Travis Snider to come back up right away, that's also a double-edged sword as if he's back in the big league line-up too soon it can fasttrack him to arbitration eligibility which in turn fucks over any efforts to cut costs.
• This takes away a constant heading into a year of uncertainty.

The Chicago Media doesn't seem to psyched about this deal either, it was called shocking by Mark Gonzalez at the Tribune, and over on Yahoo, David Brown's headline speaks for itself: Ooops?! White Sox make $60-million waiver claim on Alex Rios

I don't know what I think about this deal yet either, it's just too much to weigh, I wish the best of luck to Alex in Chi-Town, and a final fuck you to his ROM heckler this year, but I have to question the satchel and tight jeans he was wearing as he was leaving Yankee Stadium; one last bit of fuel for the fucking stupid Rios is gay rumours?