The Kansas City Royals designated solid back-up catcher George Kottaras for assignment recently because Dayton Moore might have not thought through his signing of Jason Vargas so well. Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star wrote that when explaining why the move was made:
"One top club official responded by rubbing his thumb over the tips of his first two fingers."
Money.
I suppose Jason Vargas is worth blowing up your payroll situation for 2014...
Another reason Kottaras was DFA'ed was to make room for Vargas on the 40-man roster and he may have been non-tendered this offseason regardless of Vargas' arrival. The Scarborough native is 30 years old and made his debut against the Blue Jays in 2008 as a Red Sox player. In 2013 he appeared in 46 games with the Royals hitting .180/.349/.370 with a tidy 19% BB% rate. He also hit five home runs, while working against a .245 BABIP.
The Canadian is a left-handed hitting, right-handed catching backstop who is capable defensively with a passable arm. He's always walked a lot in his career, making his low batting averages a little easier to swallow. Kottaras is a super-two player who is under team control for two more seasons. His first two years of arbitration elgibility netted him salaries of $700,000 and $1,000,000. He's expected to get $1.2 million this season according to MLB Trade Rumors.
There's a little risk in bringing Kottaras aboard as the Blue Jays have a fair amount of back-up type catchers, but with 0.7 WAR this year in only 46 games he might even take J.P. Arencibia's job! What do you folks think about Kottaras coming to the Blue Jays?