And the innuendo jokes? That's just gravy!

The Toronto Blue Jays signed B.J. Ryan on Monday. Reaction to this has been mixed. Ken Rosenthal calls this "Nuts." However, Richard Griffin manages to muster a few compliments in between his regular shots. So who's right?

The answer, as is often the case, is both of them. Giving Ryan a 5 year deal is nuts. Consistently good closers are hard to find, and Ryan hasn't been a closer for a long period of time. The Jays are going to look foolish if Ryan is putting up a 4.50 ERA in year 3 of this deal. They will also catch a lot of flack if Ryan goes down to injury. But if he produces over the five years like he did the past two years, then he will be a steal.

One thing that hasn't really been talked about is the trickle down effect of the Ryan signing. Most everybody agrees that this frees up Miguel Batista to be moved; however nobody has really floated the idea that they could trade another one of their starters. Before, their starting depth chart looked like:

Roy Halladay
Guastavo Chacin
Ted Lilly
Josh Towers
Dave Bush

With Scott Downs, Pete Walker, Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum all waiting for their shot should any of those five should falter.

What's stopping the Jays from making a package of say, Chacin and Rios and picking up a quality bat like Adam Dunn? (Ignoring that Dunn probably not likely to be available.) How about moving Ted Lilly for something? Batista gives them a viable replacement for any starter not named Halladay.

(With that said, JP is talking up the interest in Batista, which probably means that he is looking to move him and wants to generate more interest.)

Needless to say, this is only the beginning, and the Jays can move in many different directions. And this is the first time in a long time that the offseason will hold a lot of interest for Jays fans.