GM Dave Dombrowski says the Tigers don’t expect to be able to find improvements from outside the organization to improve their offense down the stretch, MLB.com’s Jason Beck reports. “[T]he reality, is I don’t know where you’re going to find a bat to help your lineup. Runs are tough right now. It’s hard to find hitters right now.” Trades in August are difficult to complete due to waiver rules, and it doesn’t sound like the Tigers will be making any. Dombrowski also confirmed that Andy Dirks’ hamstring injury will keep him out the rest of the season. Here’s more from around baseball.
- The Royals feel they need a pinch-runner, so outfielder Terrance Gore is likely to be promoted to the big leagues once rosters expand in September, even though he’s not on their 40-man roster, Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star tweets. The 23-year-old is hitting just .225/.292/.262 in 305 plate appearances this year, most of them spent with Class A+ Wilmington. He does, however, have 44 stolen bases and has only been caught seven times.
- Top Blue Jays prospect Daniel Norris is another potential callup, MLB.com’s Jamie Ross writes. “You could see him. No guarantees, but you might,” says Jays manager John Gibbons. The 21-year-old has zoomed through three levels this year, most recently striking out a ridiculous 32 batters in 16 2/3 innings with Triple-A Buffalo.
- Both the Nationals and Indians are happy so far with their deadline swap of Zach Walters and Asdrubal Cabrera, Bill Ladson and Daniel Popper of MLB.com report. Cabrera has played strong defense at second base in Washington, while Walters is off to a strong start in 35 plate appearances with Cleveland, hitting .212 with a .257 OBP, but with a terrific .576 slugging percentage even before homering tonight.
Really glad Jays held on to Norris. With him, Stroman, Sanchez, Hutchison anchoring the Jays rotation the future looks bright.
that’s what Jays fans said 2003 when they had Halladay, Carpenter, and Escobar…. here we are 12 years later with no playoff games since then. And besides, if it’s time to look to the future, why aren’t Dickey, Buehrle, Happ, Drabek, Rasmus, J-Bau, EE, Melky, Lind and Navarro all on waiver wires with the hope of working out a trade with whoever claims them for them something that will help with the rebuilding you mention above? Those kids have potential, but they’re not taking the Jays to the playoffs this year… or next.
When does he ever mention a rebuild? It’s possible to be excited about prospects while still being optimistic about the big league club…
“the future looks bright”… they’re not in the race this year, so wasn’t that the implication ? Again, they’re prospects. Stro has looked great in spurts, Sanchez is the real deal, Hutch needs to be consistent, and Norris looks like he’ll be lights out, but if you have all four in your pitching staff next year, that’s a rebuilding project. That’s not building for a playoff run… until 2016 or beyond.
Sanchez hasn’t made a start yet, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Pitchers have been known to take something off their fastball when making starts because they want to conserve energy to make around 100 pitches, this means Sanchez isn’t going to be throwing as hard as he is as a reliever and we might see why his AAA numbers weren’t very good.
Beyond 2016, the offense will need to be retooled as well.
Well good thing is that young pitching seems to be more successful then young hitting and FA hitters have been less injury and bust prone then FA pitchers.
Trading Norris or Stroman would been a mistake, but their window of contention isn’t looking very good. Bautista and Encarnacion have two more years and Reyes isn’t going to be productive for much longer than that. Fixing one problem just creates another.
They need to either do 1 of 2 things:
1. Do what the Dodgers did, and spend alot of money for a couple years to allow the farm to remain strong, and have cheaper home-grown replacements later on
2. They need to run a fire sale and re-build again and get some value back for some of their good players.
Status Quo is not good enough. This year proves it.
The Rays are the Rays, and Boston and New York will not be this bad again next year.
They have a competitive payroll. They needed another frontline starter, which they didn’t get and that’s not 100% their fault. But this team doesn’t need to empty the bank vaults to be competitive next year.
I think they need to spend closer to the pre-luxury tax limit. They need a top end starter, absolutely, and a stronger bench.
Ultimately, Alex needs more cash, and if ownership says “No”, I would rather see a fire sale then a farm gutted.
Farm systems are overrated when you have major league talent like Bautista and Encarnacion locked up for massively underpaid contracts and are still relatively in their prime, when will the Jays ever get a Edwin Encarnacion or Jose Bautista for underpaid contracts again? We don’t know and the core on this team is fine, they can’t however stay healthy, ever. If the Jays got one of Scherzer/Shields/Lester they’d be fine. Melky Cabrera and others would likely want to sign/resign with the Jays if they got one of those names. They spend millions on a MLS team that nobody cares about, they sure a heck can spend on a franchise that actually makes them money.
That MLS team is a MLSE property, so that is a separate entity with different decision makers.
AA needs more payroll or they are going nowhere meaningful with what they have. And if that is the case, then why do you not sell? Don’t end up like the Phillies.
Rogers owns that Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment. In fact they’re majority owners with Bell Canada.
You don’t sell off on the team because the team’s still very good on paper, injuries at inopportune times have killed this team over the last two seasons, also a rebuild doesn’t work when the franchise hasn’t done anything in over 2 decades, the fanbase isn’t willing to go through another rebuild after the tease of this season. Rebuilds kill your fanbases, look at the Marlins as a key example. 3 firesales since 2003 and they haven’t made the playoffs since then. They also draw the smallest crowds and their former fanbase is so alienated from the product they refuse to support them in anyway.
WAY too early to proclaim ANY o` these as quality starters. And a rotation that inexperienced is doomed. Jays still desperately need an ace. The trades 4 Dickey, Buehrle and Happ were all massively counter-productive.
Curious why Carlos Peguero isn’t being considered with Hosmer out till at least mid September. The guy is RAKING. just keep his wife out of the club house petty cash.
I wonder if the Jays will take their chances and let Norris start in September? What do they have to lose? They really don’t need another guy in the
pen doing the same thing Sanchez is. Norris has been unbelievable this
year as a starter. I don’t think it makes sense to derail him now and
put him in the pen as some necessary condition to call him up. Let him come up and start and see what happens.
Agreed, why would J-Bau, EE, Dickey, and Buehrle want to stick around if this team can’t contend for the playoffs until 2016 or beyond? AA just stood pat this trade deadline, which means he lied to his core players about adding if they were in the race. And don’t say Rogers didn’t let him expand the payroll; why would he have lied to his core unless he never believed they’d be contending? If I’m J-Bau or EE or Buehrle, the guy flat out lied to me… time to leave.
They’ve been getting good turnouts at Rogers Centre lately, therefor they’re happy with contending in July/August rather then September and October by the looks of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t hear reports of AA saying “we can’t take on payroll” to other GM’s.