With the Major League Baseball off-season in full swing now with free agents eligible to sign wherever they want, its time to shift our focus to Canadas lone team, the Toronto Blue Jays. . The Jays finished the 2011 season 81-81, which was good for fourth place in the American League East. They were 10 games out of the Wild Card, so needless to say, the team has some work to do now that the off-season is upon us. Our question for you today is what should the Jays focus on adding the most via free agency or trade? Hitters, starting pitching or the bullpen? The Argument for Offence While General Manager Alex Anthopoulos said during a conference call on Tuesday that another bat was "very low on the priority list and we have a lot of other areas wed rather address first," one could argue that another bat is what the team needs. In overall offence in 2011, the Jays managed to score the sixth-most runs in baseball, while posting the 11th-best OPS, 18th-best OBP and 20th-best average. One could wonder how much better the Jays could be if they could get some more protection in their lineup for Jose Bautista. Bautista has emerged as one of the top hitters in the game, despite not really having much protection in the lineup behind him. After a torrid start to the year that saw him hit .300 at the All-Star break, Adam Lind struggled mightily in the second half of the season, posting a .197 AVG, .233 OBP and .356 SLG batting line. In fact, Linds 2011 season was the second straight year that the first-basemans on-base percentage didnt break .300, and his on-base plus slugging didnt crack the .735 mark. By way of comparison, the average first baseman in baseball in 2011 hit .271, while posting a .796 OPS. If the club could add a more feared hitter in their lineup to hit behind Bautista, the two-time defending home run champion would likely face better pitches, which in turn would theoretically help the offence. Starting Off In 2011, the Blue Jays starting pitchers ranked 25th in baseball, recording a 4.55 ERA. Only the Twins, Rockies, Cubs, Royals and Orioles staffs struggled more. Ricky Romero was stellar for the club, posting a 15-11 record with a strong 2.92 ERA. Henderson Alvarez started 10 games and despite posting a 3.53 ERA, won only one game. After that, the Jays starters all had down years in 2011, with Brandon Morrow (4.72 ERA in 30 starts), Brett Cecil (4.73 ERA in 20 starts), and Kyle Drabek (6.16 ERA in 14 starts) getting most of the other starts. While some could argue that the Jays should expect bounce-back years from both Morrow and Cecil - who each were much better in 2010 - and progression from Drabek and perhaps from Dustin McGowan, one could feel that an experienced arm that could take the ball every fifth day and give the Jays some consistency would be more beneficial than hoping/expecting the youngsters to have a turnaround. Would a more reliable starter help the Jays improve their pitching staff? Its a possibility. Call To the Pen Last season the Blue Jays bullpen had the 21st-best ERA in all of baseball with a .388 mark, while being tied for third in the league for blown saves with 25. Now, while all of those blown saves didnt result in losses, it still signifies a problem as their direct competition in the AL East were all much better in that stat, with the Rays bullpen only blowing 12 saves and the Red Sox and Yankees bullpens each only stumbling 16 times apiece. The blown save stat aside, the Jays bullpen is in flux, with the in-season departures of Marc Rzepczynski, Jason Frasor and Octavio Dotel, and the fact that the two men who handled the bulk of the ninth inning duties in 2011, Frank Francisco and Jon Rauch, are both free agents. There is a school of thought that the bullpen could be easiest of the teams holes to fix, due to the sheer number of relievers available and the fact that the Jays could convert some of their starters like Jesse Litsch and perhaps even McGowan, health permitting, to useful weapons out of the pen. Others would argue that a power arm who has the ability to slam the door shut at the end of contests would not only preserve the leads that the Jays have, but give the rest of the club some confidence and more importantly wins themselves. Youve read the arguments, and now its time for you to have your say. What do you think the Jays primary area of focus should be this off-season: offence, starting pitching or the bullpen? As always, its Your Call! [url=http://www.cheapnfljerseys2015.us.com/NIKE-NFL-JERSEYS_JACKSONVILLE-JAGUARS... Jacksonville Jaguars Jerseys . In fact it was a little bit of a letdown after the incredible playoff series that preceded it. Che... 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The Cardinals trailed 2-0 heading to the bottom of the third, but Jon Jay ripped an RBI double in the inning to get them on the board and Matt Carpenter added an RBI double in the sixth to tie the game.Max Scherzer will pitch the most important game of his career Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park in Boston. Its Game 6 of the ALCS, and if the Tigers lose, their season is over, and the Red Sox go to the World Series for the third time in 10 seasons searching for their third title over that span. If Scherzer and the Tigers win, it will force a Game 7 on Sunday night, with Justin Verlander on the hill against John Lackey. The interesting story is how Scherzer got to Detroit in the first place. In 2009, Scherzer was with the Arizona Diamondbacks, battling for the number five starter job with Yusmeiro Petit. Yes thats the same Petit, who came within one out of a perfect game, for the Giants back on September 6th against the Diamondbacks. Heading into that season, the D-Backs were a highly touted outfit. In fact, I found an old article from the Bleacher Report, that praised their starting rotation of Brandon Webb, Daren Haren, Doug Davis , Jon Garland and either Scherzer or Petit as the best in the National League West and arguably the tops in all the Majors. That year, Arizona was 70-92 and was needless to say a huge disappointment. Clearly a shake-up was in order. So on December 8, 2009, Arizona, Detroit and the New York Yankees concocted a monster three team deal involving seven players. Initially, it seemed the Yanks got the best of the swap, in acquiring up and coming slugging centre fielder Curtis Granderson, from the Tigers. Arizona landed two veteran arms in Edwin Jackson from Detroit and Ian Kennedy from the Yankees. Kennedy gave the D-backs one incredible season, but ultimately got traded to San Diego this season. Detroit picked up four young players a couple of which were highly rated prospects. They got centre fielder Austin Jackson and lefty reliever Phil Coke from the Yankees, and a couple of pitchers from Arizona, Daniel Schlereth and yes Max Scherzer. The ddeal didnt seem to help Arizona at all. [url=http://www.cheapauthenticjerseyschina.net/nhl-jerseys-china_dallas-stars-je... Dallas Stars Jerseys[/url]. The next season (2010) they tumbled to 65-97, and in-season replaced manager A.J Hinch with current skipper Kirk Gibson. The Yankees got two solid seasons out of Granderson and an injury plagued 2013. Now Granderson is set to enter free agency and is by no means a lock to return to the "Pinstripes". What do the Tigers have? Well they beat the Yankees a year ago to make it to the World Series where they ultimately lost to the Giants. Theyve got a right hander in Scherzer, whos poised to win his first Cy Young Award, a starting centre fielder in Jackson and serviceable reliever in Coke. Now with Scherzer pitching Saturday, theyve at least still got a chance to go to the World Seriesfor the third time in eight seasons. Sometimes, it takes a few years to analyze a trade, but clearly GM Dave Dombrowski and the Tigers won this one. As a bit of a footnote, to this story, I saw one rumour, this week, that after the season, Detroit might actually consider trading Scherzer in the off-season. That knocked me back a few steps, but Scherzer is eligible for arbitration after this season, and can become a free agent in 2015. Maybe the Tigers just dont think they can afford to have Scherzer and Justin Verlander on the same staff, or perhaps, they just want to keep growing and replenishing their system, the way they did with that epic three team deal in December of 2009. Stay tuned. A couple of former Blue Jays of World Series vintage were in the news this week. Darnell Colesa valuable bench player on the 93 team, was promoted by Milwaukee to manage their Triple-Afarm club at Nashville. Turner Ward a versatile outfield back-up with the club in 92 and 93 is the assistant hitting coach with Arizona. There is a chance he could be in for a promotion, since Don Baylor left the D-backs to become the hitting coach with the Angels. Ward was a huge fan favourite in Toronto. ' ' '