Celebrating the anniversary of one of the best trades in franchise history
On December 10, 1991, 22 years ago this evening, the Indians worked out a trade with the Astros. The Tribe sent Willie Blair and Ed Taubensee to Houston, in exchange for second baseman Dave Rohde and an outfield prospect namedKenny Lofton.
You'll be forgiven if only one of those names means anything to you.
Blair was a right-handed pitcher, about to turn 26. He'd been an 11th round draft pick and was never especially impressive in the minors. He'd been decent for the Blue Jays in 1990, his rookie season, before being traded to the Tribe that winter. In 1991 he pitched only 36 innings for the Indians, spending most of the year with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, the Tribe's Triple-A affiliate at that time.
Taubensee was a 23-year-old catcher, who'd been a 6th round draft pick of the Reds in 1986, but never panned out for them. In 1991 he'd had his first real success in the minors, also as a member of the Sky Sox. He'd posted a batting line of .310/.377/.547 and was the main target of the deal for Houston, expendable for the Indians because Sandy Alomar Jr. was seen as the catcher of the future.
Rohde was 27 at the time of the trade. In both 1990 and 1991 he'd hit well for Houston's Triple-A affiliate (the Tucson Toros), but had struggled in the big leagues, batting just .165 in 139 at bats, without hitting a single home run. Houston had a young catcher named Craig Biggio at the time, he'd had a nice year in 1991, but the team planned to move him to second base.
Lofton was a speedy center field prospect, 24 years old, who'd been given a taste of the show in 1991, appearing in 20 games with Houston. By December he'd been named one of Baseball America's top 100 prospects, but Houston had acquired another young player named Steve Finley the year before, and expected him to hold down center field in the Astrodome for years to come.
Blair appeared in just 29 games for the Astros, with a 4.00 ERA in 78.2 innings. He did stick in MLB until 2002, including a very solid 1997 with the Tigers. Taubensee was Houston's primary catcher for two seasons, then played with the Reds for 7 years, collecting 600 hits with them. He returned to the Indians in 2001 and hit a game-tying 9th inning home run against Detroit on May 23rd. Rohde went 0 for 7 with the Indians in 1992, and never again appeared in the Majors.
Lofton, well I think you know about Kenny. He collected 2,428 career hits (1,512 with the Indians), stole 622 bases (452 with the Indians), and scored 1,528 runs (975 with the Indians). He was named to the All-Star team 6 times and won 4 Gold Gloves (all with the Indians). In short, he went on to become one of the dozen or so greatest center fielders in baseball history.
I'd say that trade worked out pretty well for the Indians.
A couple hours ago, the Toronto Sun's Bob Elliott reported that the Blue Jays have offered Colby Rasmus to two different teams for options to bolster their starting rotation. Rasmus is coming back from a bounceback season in which he hit .276/.338/.501 with 22 homers while slickly patrolling centre field. Rasmus enjoyed a fantastic July in which he hit .371/.413/.588, hitting 12 of his 26 doubles. Unfortunately, after that month, he was limited to just 16 more games in the season, first suffering an oblique strain then getting hit in the eye by an errant ball thrown by Anthony Gose in warmup.
Rasmus, 27, can become a free agent after next season unless the Blue Jays can sign him to an extension. As Alex Anthopoulos is known for being very thorough, I don't know if we can make too much of any rumours or think that a deal is imminent or even close to being closed. We have not heard much about a possible extension for Rasmus--one could speculate that the Jays are dangling Rasmus because there may have been some difficulty getting on to the same page in terms of contract negotiations.
Even though it it seems that other teams are asking for young pitching prospects--like Marcus Stroman or Aaron Sanchez--in exchange for their starters, Anthopoulos is making pitching depth a priority after what he had to go through last season. And with him stating in his daily media session that there is now a "three-to-five-year" window to win (we had thought that the Blue Jays were already in year two of a three-year window), there might be more reason for Anthopoulos to keep his young pitching, which should be hitting their prime around the end of said range, than to deal them away.
The Blue Jays do seem to have some depth in the outfield with Moises Sierra out of options and Anthony Gose possibly ready to take the centre field job. John Gibbons mentioned yesterday that Gose could benefit from major league time as he is the type of player who can do better in the majors than in the minors. Gose's speed and defense is major league ready, but his bat--and frankly his head--may not yet be ready, especially on a team with such pressure to win and contend.
On the other hand, Anthopoulos also indicated to the press that the high hopes and high asking prices free agent had heading into the offseason are going down (but as Shi Davidi pointed out in that piece, he didn't specify whether pitching prices are going down). Talking about his "five-year rule" on free agents, Anthopoulos explained to Ben Nicholson-Smith that it may be slightly bent to include six years, but he believes that five years at a higher price per year is better than signing a free agent to a seven-year contract for the same total price, telling Davidi,
At the end of the day if you do that, if you’re eating the last two years of a deal or the last three years of a deal, if you’re really representing the contract appropriately to the ball club and ownership, you better say, these last two or three years don’t mean anything, bump those into the first three or four, and that’s ultimately what you’re paying the player. Just go shorter and pay him, just dump in the money, it’s the same thing. If you’re going to go seven times 10, or go five times 14, it balances out at the end of the day.
I can't really wrap my head around that--maybe it's because I am tired--but if the club is going to pay out the $70 million anyway (as in his example) wouldn't it benefit the club to control the player for longer? Or is he saying that offering a five-year contract at $14 million incentivizes free agents to sign because it could mean they are back on the free agent market earlier?
Anthopoulos also mentioned in Davidi's piece that players under control who are willing to negotiate an extension is more valuable, referencing R.A. Dickey's deal last winter--could he also be referring to what Colby Rasmus can bring back if a trade partner reaches an extension agreement?
Josh Thole was a complete and utter train wreck in 2013. What, exactly, went wrong?
When Josh Thole came to Toronto he did so as a minor part of the R.A. Dickey trade and as such his arrival was not greeted with a lot of fanfare. He was quickly signed to a two year contract and it appeared that he was well on his way to becoming the Blue Jays backup catcher. While has was coming off a season where he had hit for a dreadful line of .234/.294/.290 the thought was that this could be attributed to his concussion problems. The idea of Thole slowly grew on Blue Jays fans as a guy who'd had a couple of decent seasons at the plate in 2010 and 2011. Additionally he was the anti-Arencibia, a left handed hitter with patience but no power. Even before J.P.'s awful 2013 season the idea of an anti-Arencibia was kind of appealing. It was theorized that Thole could even get a few starts against tough right handers and work his way into some kind of timeshare.
In Spring Training those hopes were dashed. The geriatric Henry Blanco laid claim to a job as the backup catcher/R.A Dickey's caddy and Thole was shipped off to Buffalo. In AAA something very interesting happened, Thole began mashing the ball. In 167 plate appearances Thole hit 7 home runs, more than he had ever hit in a calendar year at any level, and produced a sterling .322/.383/.510 line. #FreeThole became a little bit of a thing on twitter as Blue Jays fans watched their decrepit backup catcher flounder and their impatient starter struggle. It seemed like Thole's 2012 was in the past and he was flashing interesting power to go along with the patience he had always displayed. As it turned out, Thole was on the cusp of disappointing a lot of people.
As a quick review here is what Josh Thole did for the Blue Jays in 2013:
PA
BB%
K%
ISO
BABIP
AVG
OBP
SLG
wRC+
WAR
135
8.9%
18.5%
.067
.213
.175
.256
.242
37
-0.5
That is some serious ugliness. The good news is that it is contained within a very small sample size. Thole isn't this bad because basically no one is this bad, at least no one who has had success in the majors before like Thole has. So what exactly happened here? Before we dive in you should note that there is massive small sample size warning for this journey. I should probably be handing out waivers.
The first thing that jumps out about this line is the miniscule BABIP. It's clear that Josh Thole had some back luck here with ball not falling in for hits. However, batters often have the ability to make their own luck and Thole did not do so last season. The following spray chart shows where Thole struck the ball in 2013:
Thole almost never pulled the ball with authority last year. This picture looks like it could be the chart of someone struggling to catch up with the fastball. Although he has always been an opposite field hitter (He has a wRC+ of 98 both pulling the ball and going the other way in his career.), he's not exactly Adrian Gonzalez. Here is what his career spray chart going into 2013 looks like:
This chart is far more even. Although it is clear that Thole experienced some bad luck in 2013, the fact that virtually none of his ground balls to the right side went through the infield stands out as an example, he simply wasn't hitting the ball hard. Pulling the ball is the most reliable way to get create offense (league wRC+ on balls that were pulled was 161 in 2013) and Thole just wasn't pulling the ball. He's never going to be a power hitter but he's never going to get by on exclusively slapping the ball the other way either.
Another problem that Josh Thole had last year in 2013 was a rising strikeout rate. At 18.5% Thole's K% was actually below league average but it was well above his career rate of 13.1%. Strangely, his Swinging Strike % was 4.9% which was way below the MLB average of 9.3% and even below Thole's career average of 5%. In fact, out of the 420 players with at least 130 PA Thole's swinging strike rate was the 36th best. Thole managed the intriguing feat of striking out without whiffing.
My first thought was that perhaps Thole was striking out looking a great deal. That would make sense given Thole's general passivity at the plate, but it wasn't really the case. In fact 24% of Thole's strikeouts came looking which was exactly the league average. Apparently, Thole's real problem was sequencing. In two strike counts his Swinging Strike % rose to 11.7% leading to his inflated strikeout rate. You would expect more swinging strikes with 2 strikes because hitters are swinging to protect the plate, but an increase of that magnitude is probably the result of small sample sizes leading to strange results.
At the end of the day Josh Thole's 2013 was probably more of a small sample size glitch than anything else. A lot of wild things can happen in 135 plate appearances and it appears that in this case they did. Although we can explain a couple of the things that lead to his dismal line, such as his two strike stuggles and failure to pull the ball, it's difficult to tell if they will be issues going forward. More likely than not they are just blips on the radar. It's not as if Thole is going to rebound to be some kind of offensive dynamo but the tolerable .245/.318/.349 line that Steamer projects for him sounds about right.
Thole's role on this team is a small one and most of it involves not chasing too many knuckleballs to the backstop. If he can keep R.A. Dickey's pitches in front of him he will be considered a success. Josh Thole is no elite catch-and-throw guy but he did gun out base runners at a league average clip last season and he didn't embarass himself while donning the tools of ignorance. The same can't be said for his foray into first basemanship, but the less said about that the better. Thole is nothing more than a backup catcher with a very specific job. Whatever a guy like that does at the plate is something of a bonus. There is no way he can be as poor at the plate as he was in 2013. It's almost literally impossible.
Rasmus, 27, has been with Toronto since mid-2011 when he was acquired from the Cardinals along with three other players for Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson and two others. He has topped 20 home runs each of the last two seasons and is coming off his best year at the plate since his sophomore year in the MLB in 2010.
Over 118 games in 2013, Rasmus hit .276/.338/.501. He missed a month due to an oblique strain, then had his season end Sept. 20 when he was struck in the face by a ball during batting practice. For his career, he has a 753 OPS and is regarded as a strong defensive player.
In return for Rasmus, the Blue Jays are hoping to acquire starting pitching. Despite trading for Mark Buerhle, Josh Johnson and R.A. Dickey last year, Blue Jays starters combined for a 4.81 ERA in 2013, the second-worst mark in Major League Baseball.
Johnson is now a San Diego Padre, having signed with them as a free agent. However, Buerhle and Dickey will join Brandon Morrow and J.A. Happ as holdover from last year's staff. One reason for Toronto's starting rotation failures was a mass of injuries: Dickey and Buerhle were the only two pitchers able to start over 20 games last year. Happ, Morrow and Johnson all had significant injuries, leading to 13 different pitchers making a start in 2013. The team is hoping to find another starter to slot into the rotation in an effort to help maintain stability.
Rasmus has one more year of team control and will be a free agent after the 2014 season. He made $4.675 million in 2013 and is poised to earn more than that in arbitration this offseason.
After another day of rumors but no moves by the Blue Jays, I think today will be another day of inactivity.
Last night's rumor was that the Jays had shopped Colby Rasmus for pitching help. Let's face it, Alex will talk about any player, and likely has talked about every player in the Jays organization. Colby would have some trade value and sometime they are going to have to decide to fish or cut bait with Anthony Gose, but I'd be surprised if Colby was traded.
Alex doesn't expect a trade for a starting pitcher to happen this week (thanks for throwing cold water on our hopes) and doesn't figure to sign a free agent before January. It sounds like all the teams are waiting to see what happens with Masahiro Tanaka.
Adam Lind is being shopped and Elliot figures the Rays, Pirates and Mariners are among the teams that could use him.
"Brandon Morrow is another big question mark. He's pitching in Arizona and throwing simulated games and feels good. That's a guy that we've got to have."
On Moises Sierra playing first Gibbons said: "I have a hard time seeing him there to be honest, if you want to know the truth- maybe in that blowout."
On left field: "If Melky Cabrera‘s fine, Melky will be in left."
On second base: "We like what Goins did in September, he gave us a shot in the arm. He handled the ball well enough to be the top dog going in there."
I hope they really aren't planing on Goins at second.
Yesterday Ben Nicholson-Smith told us that the 'no contract over five years' thing is more a guideline than an unbreakable rule. Honestly, the five year thing always sounded like an excuse to me:
"We have to tell the fans why we didn't sign free agent 'X'".
"Well, tell them we have a rule against contracts over 5 years."
I can't imagine there would be a way to get Price that wouldn't involve including Marcus Stroman and/or Aaron Sanchez. Samardzija? Well, if I was the Cubs I'd ask for one of those two as well, but I hope the Jays wouldn't give either of those two up for him.
I'm really getting the feeling that anytime the Jays ask about anyone Stroman and Sanchez will be the names that come up. If you are another team, why not try for those two. If I'm the Jays I don't include them in a trade until I try everything else.
I'm really not expecting anything big to happen this week. I think it will have to be closer to spring training, when the Jays or their trading partner decide that they can't do any better. And I can imagine the Rays would trade Price inside the division, unless they really felt they were being overpaid.
Oh, and there is this:
Sources: #BlueJays have looked into #Rays' Price, #Cubs' Samardzija. Consider prices to be too high. Asked often about Sanchez, Stroman.
Now Jamie doesn't tell us why Dustin is 'certain' to be coming in as a starter. Have the Jays stated they aren't going to be getting another starter in trade or sign a free agent? Did Dustin demand to start? Or is it a guess on Campbell's part.
McGowan looked great as a reliever this past season, and I thought, if the Jays traded Janssen and Santos, McGowan would be a great choice for closer. I do worry about his injury history, but I don't know if he would be more likely to be injured as a starter than as a reliever. It just kind of makes sense to think that. Fewer pitches, less chance of something snapping.
It's Dustin's career and if he wants to start and the team is willing to let him, then go for it.
Three way deals are pretty hard to put together, but I can understand that there might be a team that would want say Adam Lind, but doesn't have a player that the Jays want, so they talk to a 3rd team that does have someone the Jays want. There are a lot of ways this could fall apart.
I've no idea what two teams the Jays might be working with to get something done.
The TORONTO BLUE JAYS announce that RHP THAD WEBER has been granted his release and has signed a contract with the NC Dinos of the Korean Baseball Organization. The club now has 39 players on the 40-man roster.
But we already heard that one. The free roster spot means they could take someone in tomorrow's rule 5 draft, but I doubt they will.
At least there was some fun today:
The big buzz at MLB's Winter Meetings today involved competing player agents throwing punches at each other. At Disney, of all places...
And Bartolo Colon signed a two-year, $20 million deal with the Mets. I don't think I'd give him a 2-year contract, but the Mets might have a decent rotation next season. Let's do a poll.
I'm sure I've missed things, tell us what I missed in the comments.
Ohka became one of the handful of players to have played for both Montreal and Toronto in 2007, when he went 2-5 with a 5.79 ERA in ten starts before he was released in mid-June. As Ian noted at The Blue Jay Hunter, Tomo Ohka was the last free agent starting pitcher the Blue Jays have signed to a major league deal (Roy Halladay's ceremonial contract notwithstanding).
Ohka, who is now 37, has been out of North American baseball since 2009, having returned to pitch for Yokohama in 2010 and part of 2011, which was shortened by a shoulder surgery. Ohka has reinvented himself as a knuckleballer (nakkurubora) after rehabbing in 2012, throwing it for a Japanese independent league team.
It definitely isn't the "angry" knuckleball that fellow organization-mate R.A. Dickey is famous for.
According to a horrible Google Translate translation of this Nikkan Sports article, Ohka threw 21 games with Toyoma in 2013, going 7-7 with a 3.73 ERA, although his knuckleball control was lacking. He had planned to travel to Arizona to work with college students in October; it is unknown whether he actually did--perhaps that's where the Blue Jays scouted him. But why would the Blue Jays want to sign a 37-year-old knuckleballer who struggled in Japanese independent ball? Gideon Turk of Blue Jays plus came up with a pretty decent theory:
If Jimenez is able to catch a knuckleball, Josh Thole doesn’t need to be on a major league roster! Victory!
The only hole I can punch into that is that the knuckleball Ohka throws seems to be of a different species than the ones that Dickey has. But I guess that any practice with knuckleballs for catchers coming up mean that the Blue Jays would not be handcuffed to Josh Thole, or any other sub-par catcher with knuckleball-catching experience, for the balance of Dickey's time in Toronto.
Fun Fact! "Tomokazu Ohka", or Ohka Tomokazu (大家友和) in Japanese name order, means "big family friend peace."
Munenori Kawasaki News
As I was browsing through Japanese websites fore news about Ohka, I found this piece about free agent Munenori Kawasaki. Translated, it says:
Blue Jays from FA became Munenori Kawasaki Toronto Sun electronic version dated 10 was told, that the infielder (32), has been investigated by focusing on two of the probe択residual forces or reversion to Japan. Agent of Kawasaki visit the winter meeting, and that was met with military leaders breakfast. Name has been cited by the U.S. media as one of the winning candidate Mets, the Dodgers, Kawasaki, suggesting an intention breakfast troops re-up.
The piece was obviously talking about this article from the Sun, who mentioned that Kawasaki's agent, Kenta Yagi, met with the Blue Jays on Tuesday and that he was still trying to decide on returning to the Blue Jays or heading back to Japan. I don't know whether that means that those were the only two choices he had, and why the Mets or the Dodgers were named in the Japanese article. And I also assume that "military leaders" are general managers. I also like the idea of having breakfast troops re-up--it is the most important meal of the day.
With an open roster spot stemming from Thad Weber's release, the Blue Jays selected left-handed reliever Brian Moran from the Tacoma Rainier's of the Seattle Mariners organization. The Blue Jays did not lose anyone in the major league phase of the draft.
Moran is a 25-year-old former seventh round pick from UNC-Chapel Hill. He maintained an impressive 3.61 ERA in a season-and-a-half of being in the Pacific Coast League. He had an impressive 31% strikeout rate last year in triple-A, walking just 7.3%. He sports significant lefty-righty splits, with righties slapping him to the tune of .341/.410/.484 and lefties just managing just .235/.272/.322.
Moran is added to the 40-man roster and will have to be kept on the 25-man roster the entire season. He cannot be optioned or outrighted in 2014 without being first offered back to the Mariners.
When weighing the options, Stephen Drew just makes the Red Sox better.
The off-season is moving along at a brisk pace and like a pot on one of those spin-y pottery things, the 2014 Boston Red Sox are taking shape before our eyes. As Chad Finn likes to say, maybe there's a blockbuster trade to be made somewhere here, but likely the roster you see right now is the roster that will show up for workouts in Fort Myers at the end of February. There is one more likely or semi-likely addition, however. Stephen Drew. Drew is still a free agent and having turned down the Red Sox qualifying offer, another team will sacrifice their first round pick should they sign him. This makes Drew signing with another non-Boston team just slightly more difficult and makes his return to Boston just slightly more likely.
Drew's agent, Scott Boras, held his annual media scrum yesterday and not surprisingly the topic of Drew's free agency came up. Pesky reporters, what with all their questions and wanting answers and such! You might have noticed, had you been following the trade rumors this off-season, that Drew's name hasn't often come up. That was of no concern to Boras who claims Drew has several multi-year offers, contingent on plans falling into place for those other teams. That's fine. For their part, the Red Sox seem content to sit back and wait to see what happens with Drew. That's a perfectly logical way to approach the issue, but I hope that when push comes to shove Drew is back in Boston next season.
This took some thinking, because it's not exactly clean cut, but it came down to a common theme for the 2013 team: depth. The Red Sox are a much deeper team with Stephen Drew on the roster than without him. With Drew, the Red Sox have an infield of Mike Napoli, Dustin Pedroia, Drew, and probably Xander Bogaerts. Without Drew, Bogaerts moves to shortstop and Will Middlebrooks probably becomes the every day third baseman. I like Middlebrooks a lot, but after last season I'm not sure that turning the starting job over to him is what's best for the Red Sox.
Last season Drew hit .253/.333/.443, which is damn good for just about anyone these days let alone a shortstop. That's above average on-base ability, and above-average power from a good fielding shortstop. Can he repeat it? The projection systems out now aren't so sure. FanGraphs has two, Steamer and Oliver, and they both say about the same thing for both Drew (and Middlebrooks). They have Drew at about a .315 on-base and a .380 slugging percentage. I'll take the over on both of those numbers.
I think there's a strong chance Drew repeats his 2013 numbers or maybe even betters them. Maybe I'm just bullish on Drew, but if you look at what he did when he was healthy both in Arizona and last season, the 2013 numbers are the norm. Will he stay healthy? No, probably not, but it's not the nagging injuries that have hurt his overall numbers. A badly broken ankle was the culprit in 2011 and 2012. Then a concussion in Spring Training derailed his last season before it could get going. So how'd he do in April of last season? .519 OPS. He was awful. Don't think the concussion had anything to do with that, do you? From May 1 on, Drew hit .267/.342/.469. That's about what I'm expecting him to do (if healthy) in 2014. Maybe a bit worse, maybe a bit better, but roughly that. Last season, the second best hitting shortstop in baseball was our old friend Jed Lowrie who hit .290/.344/.446. So after getting over his concussion, Drew was at roughly the offensive level of the second best hitting shortstop in baseball (Tulowitzki was first, if you were wondering).
Compare that to Middlerooks, who hit .227/.271/.425 last season. There's a lot to be scared about in that slash line. But I did some cherry-picking with Drew, so let's do some for Middlebrooks too. After an awful start to the season, Middlebrooks was sent to Triple-A. When he returned, he hit .253/.307/.443, which is a much more respectable line. Can he do that over a full season? Maybe, but I have my doubts. The last month of the season Middlebrooks hit .244/.270/.477. The slugging is nice, but oh total ugh to the rest of it.
If there was a way to guarantee that Middlebrooks would hit .250/.310/.420 next season, it would probably make financial sense to let Drew go and play Middlebrooks, but of course there isn't any guarantee. Of course there isn't one for Drew either, but for one Drew offers more certainty, but if something happens and Drew falters, guess what? You've still got Middlebrooks! If Drew signs elsewhere and Middlebrooks falters, you aren't going to get Drew, or anyone even remotely i the same ballpark.
I hear what you're saying. Last year the Red Sox won with Middlebrooks' lousy play, so if Middlebrooks is bad in 2014 maybe they can win again. But last season they won because Middlebrooks was their only hole. Everyone else in the lineup was healthy (enough) and productive. I don't think you can plan on that happening again. Middlebrooks may have a good 2014 in him, but he may hit .230/.270/.420 and then what do you do? Then you've got to make a trade for a lesser player and from a position of weakness. That or bring up a prospect from the minors, possibly before they're ready to face major league pitching. That's not a situation that a team wants to find itself in, but if the Red Sox don't sign Stephen Drew it's, if not a likely outcome, than a very easily foreseen one.
Drew is Middlebrooks insurance, but he's more than that. He's a legitimate above-average hitter and fielder at a premium position. He's not flawless, certainly, but he's a guy who moves the needle closer to Championship. Middlebrooks may be that guy, but right now there's a lot of uncertainty about it, and so the question becomes, do you want to take that chance? I don't.
Next season the Blue Jays aren't likely going to be a train-wreck. The Yankees have Ellsbury and McCann and may have much more by the time the season rolls around. The Orioles are made of grit or something. The Rays have young pitchers on top of young pitchers. Defending the AL East crown let alone the World Series championship is going to be a huge challenge. The Red Sox are going to need everything going their way to win in 2014. Having Stephen Drew at shortstop makes them better offensively, better defensively, and deepens the roster. Mostly though, Drew just makes the Red Sox better. And who wouldn't want that?
Then they immediately traded him to the Angels for some 'International Draft' cap space. So the Jays now have a few more dollars to spend on international free agents. How much they aren't saying, but likely not all that much more. The two teams would have been discussed the deal before the draft.. The Angels would have said 'if Moran is still available when you pick, grab him for us.
The Angels must have figured someone between the Jays number 9 pick and their number 14 pick would grab up Moran. The Rule 5 draft is a ton of fun. The Angels will have to keep Moran on their 25-man roster for the entire season or offer Moran back to the Mariners. Moran will likely sit at the back of the Angels bullpen and only be used in blowouts or when no one else is available, though he looks to have a good arm, 85 strikeouts, with just 20 walks, in 62.2 innings in Triple-A last year and a 3.45 ERA.
The Jays made no other moves in the draft and none of our players were taken. They are still at 39 on the major league roster. Room for a free agent signing, right Alex.
In the Minor League phase of the Rule 5 draft the Jays made some moves.
Triple-A
The Jays select Roberto Espinosa, a RHP, from the Pirates, he had a 2.30 ERA, with 31 strikeouts and 15 walks, in 27.1 innings between rookie ball, high-A and low-A last year. He's 21 and from Mexico.
Richard Bleier, a LHP, from the Rangers. He has a 3.32 ERA, with 49 strikeouts and 20 walks, in 82.2 innings, split between Double-A and Triple-A, last year. He is 26.
Scott Shuman, a RHP, from the Giants. He had a 9.51 ERA, with 39 strikeouts and 42 walks, in 23.2 innings at Double-A. He is 25. That a ton of walks, but also a lot of strikeouts. He, apparently, throws hard. Maybe the Jays figure he is like Nuke LaLoosh, just needs the right catcher (and pitching coach) to show him how to use that arm.
We lose Evan Crawford to the White Sox. Crawford was one that John Farrell liked when he was here.Evan had a 5.60 ERA, 23 walks and 44 strikeouts in 45 innings split between Dunedin and New Hampshire.
Looks like we are stocking up on arms for the Bisons.
But if the Jays were planing on trading Adam Lind then Butler makes some sense. I can't imagine what the Jays would be sending to KC that would get them both Butler and prospects.
Maybe this is part of a three way deal that Alex as suggesting, but then what team would go after someone like Lind in a three-way trade that involved Butler, why not just take Butler?
Anyway, I'd love to have Butler, he is 27 and tons of talent. And unlike Lind, he can hit against both right-handers and left-handers. He could save us a roster spot and when you like to carry 9 relievers, a roster spot is an important thing.
The Angels acquired lefthanded reliever Brian Moran in a Rule 5 Draft transaction. Instead of drafting him outright, the Halos traded for him with the team that did - the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Angels didn't trade a player to make the acquisition, though; they traded $224,000. Actually they didn't really have to hand over the cash for the 6'3" 210-lb southpaw out of the University of North Carolina. They simply shrank the amount hey are allowed to use on international bonuses and the Blue Jays increased theirs by that amount.
Even more creative of General Manager Jerry Dipoto, the Blue Jays drafted Moran away from Seattle and then the trade was made.
Moran has 85 strikeouts in 62.2 Innings Pitched in AAA Tacoma last season. In 2012 he had a WHIP of 0.94 in 37 AAA innings after a promotion from AA. He is a prototypical LOOGY (Lefty-One-Out-GuY) and slots to be the Scott Downs type who shows up late to face, oh say Prince Fielder or Robinson Cano, you know, the new lefties of the suddenly powerful American League West. He will come in, get one out and take a shower to the sound Angels fans are singing "Buttercup" (unless the team gets some sense and changes that terrible seventh-inning tune).
Moran held lefties to a .235 batting average and a .322 OPS in the Pacific Coast League last year.
The Halos grabbed another Mariners arm in the minor league portion of the Rule 5, taking Jose Valdivia and his 2.23 Low-A ERA.
In other Rule 5 news, nobody took reliever Jeremy Berg, left unprotected in the draft by the Angels, nor did anyone take A.J. Schuegel, who now heads to the Diamondbacks to complete the Mark Trumbo trade.
Thursday was the final day of the 2013 Winter Meetings, with a number of moves still pending and rumors still flying even as everyone left the Swan Dolphin Hotel in Orlando.
Butler, who turns 28 in April, hit .289/.374/.412 with 27 doubles and 15 home runs for the Royals in 2013. He has been one of baseball's most durable players, missing only 11 games in the last five seasons, and during that span has hit .302/.372/.469, averaging 20 home runs and 40 doubles per season.
Butler has one year and $8 million remaining on his contract, plus a $12.5 million option for 2015 or a $1 million buyout.
Colorado closing in on Logan
The Rockies' search for a veteran left-handed reliever appears to be nearing an end, as the club is "making [a] final push" for Boone Logan, per Troy Renck of the Denver Post. The deal is expected to be in the $15 million range over three years, says Renck.
Logan, 29, pitched the last four seasons for the Yankees, including a 3.23 ERA in 61 games in 2013, with 50 strikeouts and 13 walks in 39 innings. The southpaw held left-handed batters to hitting .221/.274/.377 against him, with 34 strikeouts and six walks.
The Red Sox finalized their two-year, $32 million agreement with first baseman Mike Napoli on Thursday, and to make room for him on the 40-man roster, the club designated outfielder Alex Castellanos for assignment.
Castellanos, 27, was acquired by the Red Sox on Oct. 23 from the Dodgers for minor league outfielder Jeremy Hazelbaker. Castellanos was 3-for-18 in his brief time in the majors with Los Angeles in 2013, but hit .257/.347/.468 with 19 home runs in 105 games with Triple-A Albuquerque. The versatile Castellanos has played minor league games at second base, third base and all three outfield positions in the last two seasons.
Billy Butler to Toronto? A Justin Maxwell/Dee Gordon swap? Is Infante ours? Will Shaun Marcum come home? Let's review a day's worth of rumors.
The Winter Meetings wrapped up in Orlando yesterday with the Royals not making a single move, but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot of pots on the burner. As Dayton puts it:
"Oftentimes," Moore said, "(the meetings) are a precursor to another deal or an opportunity to make a deal. More than anything else, you’re able to dissect your team and get a good evaluation of the other 29 teams."
The most notable trade rumor was from Toronto columnist Jeff Blair, who reported the Royals and Blue Jays had discussed a swap that would send Billy Butler and prospects to north of the border. Bob Dutton's discussions with club officials seem to suggest the Royals are willing and perhaps even eager to deal Butler.
Even now, a trade involving Butler is possible. The Royals have All-Star catcher Salvy Perez under control through 2019 but are already seeking ways to keep him in the lineup when he isn’t behind the plate."Before too long," a club official said, "the DH spot has to be a rotating position for us. It really does."
It is hard to imagine what kind of return the Royals would be interested in from Toronto for that price. Both clubs need a second baseman quite badly. The Royals could use a starting pitcher, but Toronto's rotation was a mess last year. Veterans R.A. Dickey and Mark Buerhle might be available, but both are quite costly (Dickey makes $12 million next year, Buerhle a ridiculous $18 million) so its hard to see how that makes sense for the Royals. The Blue Jays have some nice pitching prospects like Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, and Robert Osuna, but the earlier reports were the Royals sending prospects to Toronto.
Other possibilities include Colby Rasmus, who the Jays have been rumored to be dangling as trade bait, or even slugger Jose Bautista. Its hard to see how the pieces fit right now, but that hasn't stopped Dayton in the past. At the very least, I think there is at least a 50/50 chance right now that Country Breakfast does not open the season in Royals blue.
In other hot stove news, the Royals are still pursuing Omar Infante, but the club seems very unwilling to go a fourth year.
The Royals can’t afford long-term deals that, effectively, produce dead money in the closing years. (Can Seattle, for example, really expect Robinson Cano to be worth $24 million a year at age 39, 40 and 41?)"We just can’t do that," Moore said. "For us, players have to be able to produce over the entire length of the contract."
Dan Szymborski ran ZIPS to project Infante as a 1.7 WAR player in 2014, 1.5 in 2015, 1.3 in 2016, and 0.8 in 2017. The Yanks have indicated they are out of the bidding, holding firm at three years $24 million. Is Omar as good as ours? Not so fast, as it appears the Reds have emerged as an unlikely bidder, although they would have to move Brandon Phillips to make room for Infante.
Jayson Stark reports the Royals are one of the teams in on Kansas City native Shaun Marcum. The 32 year old Marcum had a 5.29 ERA in 14 games with the Mets last year, but was a solid 1-2 WAR pitcher before that. Cleveland and Texas are also pursuing the right-hander who recently underwent surgery to correct his thoracic outlet syndrome in July. Marcum would probably sign for a one-year deal with incentives.
A new name attached to the Royals is pitcher Jason Hammel. Hammel had a 4.97 ERA in 26 games with the Orioles last year, but posted a 3.43 ERA with nearly a strikeout per inning in 20 starts in 2012. Hammel is pretty much a back-of-the-rotation guy that should be pretty cheap. The right-hander is just 31, and has only twice made 30 starts in a season.
Finally, the end of the winter meetings marks the end of Royals coverage from Bob Dutton, who is leaving the Kansas City Star to cover the Seattle Mariners for the Tacoma News Tribune. In all sincerity, we will miss Bob and his acerbic wit. He was a veteran sportswriter who reflected both the best of the old guard, while at the same time embracing new technologies such as Twitter. He will be missed.
The farm system still has high-ceiling arms, but after the wave of trades the talent is concentrated at the lower levels of the organization. The trades left the upper minors short on prospects and long in the tooth. The pitching staffs for Triple-A Buffalo, high Class A Dunedin and short-season Vancouver were the oldest in their leagues.
Nothing we didn't know, our best prospects are in the lower levels, a bunch of guys building up their trade value.
The current regime continues to invest in building pitching depth. In the past four drafts, Toronto has used 74 percent of its top-five-round picks on arms, versus a league-wide average of 49.7 percent. Toronto will have two-first round picks, Nos. 9 and 11, in the 2014 draft after failing to sign Bickford.
With how much is being spent on free agent pitchers, this off-season, drafting pitchers seems like a smart move, though I wouldn't mind seeing a few more hitters, but when Boone Logan can get $16.5 million over 3 years, growing your own seems like a smart more.
Their best tools list is the interesting part, here are a few of them:
Their list of Top Players under 25 puts Sanchez and Stroman above Brett Lawrie, which seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
They also list the Jays top draft picks of the last decade, a very sad list., so I won't share it here...click the link to see.
It is nice to see that was still have some talent in the minors, even if most of it is in the lower levels. We'll wait until January to put our list together.
I said 'Happy Birthday' to Ferguson Jenkins, who turned 67, so he would be turning 71 today. Happy Birthday again Ferguson. Birthdays are good for you, the one that has the most lives the longest.
Personally, for $2 million, I might've cut Bautista loose. An 89 OPS+ career is nothing special for a corner infielder, and he hasn't been getting any better despite entering what is normally an offensive player's prime. He's not a great fielder so I'm not really seeing the upside. The Jays could do worse as injury insurance for Rolen, but I'd go with Inglett. Bautista has hit lefties well in his career and would be a good platoon mate in the event of an injury, but that's a little expensive for the righthanded part of an injury contingency platoon. He could still be cut loose though, a la Sparky from last season, so we'll see.
I didn't like the Doom and Gloom around the team or at least the doom and gloom talked about by Richard Griffin. Richard said: Halladay is being abused. He will never publicly criticize the organization. I thought:
Halladay is being abused? The man will make $14.25 million next year. If that's abuse, where do I sign up? I know hyperbola is great and all but let's save the term abuse for, you know, someone that's being badly treated.
Six years ago:
Hugo reports that free agent David Eckstein signed with the Jays and that 'Sparrow' wasn't offered arbitration. I figured I'd see if any of you remember who was nicknamed Sparrow.
According to a tweet sent out by TSN's Scott MacArthur Friday afternoon, Roy Halladay actually tried out for the Blue Jays in the October instructional league but his velocity was still down so he packed it in and opted to retire.
I'm told Halladay hoped to return to pitch for #BlueJays, gave it a go in Oct in instructional league, threw 82-86 mph, shut it down. #MLB
The key part of the story is that Halladay did want to pitch for the Blue Jays in 2014, even going so far as to going to the Blue Jays's camp instructional league in October to see what he had left, perhaps at the invitation of the Blue Jays front office. It is interesting that Halladay would have been able to even do this in October, as technically he would not have been a free agent until after the World Series ended.
It was clear last year that the Roy Halladay wearing #34 for the Phillies wasn't the great Roy Halladay we remember. I am glad that ultimately he decided to hang up the spikes rather than to try to come back and possibly get lit up. I think it is better for Blue Jays fans to remember him as a dominating pitcher and for him not to be also remembered for poor comeback efforts à la Dave Stieb in 1998 and Pat Hentgen in 2004.
Halladay gave everything he had to Toronto when he was here, and wanted to come back to pitch again. When that failed he still wanted to sign a ceremonial contract to retire as a Blue Jay. How great is that?
