Kevin Gregg is drawing interest from the Angels, Orioles, Rays and Blue Jays and will turn down Toronto's offer of arbitration, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com (on Twitter). All four of those teams could be in the market for a closer, but they aren't the only ones interested in Gregg.
Since the right-hander is a Type B free agent, teams won't have to surrender a draft choice to sign him. The Blue Jays will obtain a supplementary first rounder if Gregg signs a big league deal elsewhere. If you're wondering which ranked free agents have accepted or turned down arbitration, check out MLBTR's free agent arbitration offer tracker.
When Mike Axisa broke down Gregg's free agent stock yesterday, he explained that closing experience, a history of health and high strikeout rates should play in Gregg's favor. The 32-year-old walks lots of hitters, but he may very well get another chance to close.
Id love if he signed with Tampa. Lol
After reading the comments I feel like there must be a link to this info from DJF. Third update in three weeks? RIP Parkes, your work on DJF was infinitely funnier than getting blanked. Paycheques are nice i guess.
Ugh. Fail.
Over the week, the Jays pretty much got themself 2 more Aaron Sanchez’s. AA knows what he’s doing. Once again, the Jays will stock up on players in the early rounds of the draft. I’m excited!
I feel like saying f— yeah but I’ll go with HELL YEAH!!!!Sign with Boston or NYY!
Good fit for the Halos. Go get ’em, Arte
he started there, no?
yah he did, and the angels booted him along with brendan donelly
what are you smoking?
Like the Angels have a lights out Bullpen right? You are telling me he won’t help?
honestly the angels bullpen will be pretty solid next year with a young core of kohn, walden, jepsen, and hopefully matt palmer or even kaz if they cant grab a lefty. The closer role is very much up for grabs (IMO the angels will end up signing soriano to close that situation. As stated above he was already on the angels and they traded him because he was expendable, his career numbers dont show he is a quality relief pitcher with a +4 career ERA a winning percentage south of .500
And his career H/9 is 8.2 and his BB/9 is 3.7 when you simplify that as a reliever (pitch about 1-2 innings each outing) he is giving up about a hit and a walk every inning. However, when compared to some of the better relievers in the FA class, he stacks up ok against the scott downs and pedro felicianos but he is not a good reliever overall
Red Sox need to get him. Then go after Downs. They would make the bull pen 100% better for next year.
You’d seriously give up a first round draft pick to sign a reliever? Let alone one that doesn’t even close? Just wait for some idiot team like the marlins to sign him and then you can probably trade a minor leaguers for him.
I can’t believe anyones interested in this bum.
Seriously, I’m baffled by the fact he is a type B FA… and I’m even more baffled that it says the Blue Jays have interest in re-signing him?
Kevin Gregg will occasionally cause heart problems but from watching him this past season, he was fairly effective when not trotted out to the mound day after day. If he’s pitching for the 3rd day in a row – look out. Otherwise he tends to get the job done. It’s all about how he’s used.
The guys best pitch is his fastball, and he can’t even control it. He’s just a harder throwing version of the white flag a.k.a Brian Tallet
The guy was a solid reliever for the Jays. There’s nothing wrong with a 3.51 ERA and he wasn’t a FIP lagger. Yeah, you can look at those 6 blown saves, but the same people probably look at his 2-6 record, then get laughed at. I remember people saying he was going to get tee’d up in the AL East, but only had a 0.61 HR/9.
Is he closer material? No – a career 3.75 BB/9 and 1.39 WHIP doesn’t strike me as a closer – but he had the most experience in the role out of the bullpen.
Look at it this way. If he comes in with runners on base he’ll probably end up putting teams in a bigger jam then if they didn’t put him out to pitch. Sure he put up a decent ERA but he’s on a long list of guys who’ve done that as a closer and never put those numbers up again. It’s just not smart decision to pursue Kevin Gregg that heavily.
I don’t think they will, it’s just AA doing his due diligence just like John Buck. Relievers are easily replaceable, and there’s options out there like Putz or Raunch that make much more sense, atleast to me.
That could be an option, but if I were AA I would be spending more time looking for 1st basemen rather than pen guys.
There’s really only 2 options out there – Prince Fielder and AGon. Fielder’s size and baggage (Boras) aren’t really worth it, and AGon would take about the same package of players as Justin Upton will. Free agency just doesn’t have the right player for the Jays, so I personally am all for Lind being the 1Bman for 2011.
If the Jays actually had a decent pen in 2010, they may have had 90-92 wins. If they sign Berkman or Ramirez to DH for 1 year and shore up the pen, theoretically they should have a much better team and that doesn’t include Hill and Lind rebounding.
Personally, I’d love to see the Jays sign Carlos Pena, but that’s pretty much out of the question. I’m sure we could win 90 games without Aaron Hill, but without Adam Lind bouncing back from last year would leave a hole in the middle of the line up. I also don’t think that Lind has played enough 1st and the only reason I’ll accept him playing at first is if we sign Manny.
As for the pen, I think you were right with Jon Rauch and Putz they’d be good assuming they’d want to play for a Canadian team.
“theoretically they should have a much better team and that doesn’t include Hill and Lind rebounding”
Yeah, but that does include Arencibia mirroring Buck’s stats and Bautista repeating his career year. The ebb and flow will go both ways for the Jays.
There’s really only 2 options out there – Prince Fielder and AGon. Fielder’s size and baggage (Boras) aren’t really worth it, and AGon would take about the same package of players as Justin Upton will. Free agency just doesn’t have the right player for the Jays, so I personally am all for Lind being the 1Bman for 2011.
If the Jays actually had a decent pen in 2010, they may have had 90-92 wins. If they sign Berkman or Ramirez to DH for 1 year and shore up the pen, theoretically they should have a much better team and that doesn’t include Hill and Lind rebounding.
Look at it this way. If he comes in with runners on base he’ll probably end up putting teams in a bigger jam then if they didn’t put him out to pitch. Sure he put up a decent ERA but he’s on a long list of guys who’ve done that as a closer and never put those numbers up again. It’s just not smart decision to pursue Kevin Gregg that heavily.
A 3.51 ERA for a relief pitcher is absolutely terrible. Jesus Christ.
But to be frank, the Jays had better guys in the ‘pen than Gregg. Shawn Camp for instance.
This guy definitly has something to be interested about, but certainly isn’t the guy that can play on a contender team. He always seems “sketchy” in his outings and rarely had 1-2-3 saves.
Being a 32 year-old he will certainly seek a multi-year contract, and I highly doubt he will be able to put equal numbers as he did last year.
John Heyman is a tool
If the Jays re-sign him do they still get a sandwich pick as compensation?
No
no lol
no lol
Not a bad idea though, we sign team x’s type b, they sign ours, then we trade even up.
don’t we wish, actually we don’t cause we don’t want to sign him because his is atrocious
I wonder if a team and player would be willing to make such an agreement. Like Team X signs a player (lets assume Gregg) and Jays would get a compensation pick and then team x trades him for cash + PTBNL (nothing big). Jays would get Gregg and a compensation pick. Not that I want Gregg back but its just an example.
What you suggested doesn’t work btw.
Why in heaven’s name are the Orioles interested? Because they want to lose 18 games to the Jays next year instead of 15?
i think KG is OK. the one playing in Boston for the Celts
kidding. KGregg is OK. his arm. maybe not his head. it seems he has a closer mindset in his mind but he really needs to be an early closer, like seventh-eighth inning guy. a guy you bring out to start the inning after a LOOGY gets you out of the previous inning.
I’m confident we can improve on Gregg. I’d like to see the stats on how many runs he gave up when he got a save. It seems like he would come on in the 9th with a 3 run lead and wind up with a 1 run save. Decent guy, and would make a decent 7th inning RP, somewhere.
I’m confident we can improve on Gregg. I’d like to see the stats on how many runs he gave up when he got a save. It seems like he would come on in the 9th with a 3 run lead and wind up with a 1 run save. Decent guy, and would make a decent 7th inning RP, somewhere.
Yes that 3.51 ERA is a tad high, and six blown saves is no where near the worst I’ve seen from a closer. Anyone remember the double digit blown saves Miguel Batista got for the Jays just one year before JP went out and signed BJ Ryan? Compared to that man, Gregg is awesome.
Gregg got 37 saves last year, which was a career high for him. While that might not cut the mustard in the AL East, I think 37 saves in that division is harder to get then 50 saves in the National League. That’s why I think there is interest in Gregg cause his saves look more impressive when you consider what division he was pitching in.
I see your points but when compared to great relievers like mariano, soriano, bell, nathan, he is a below avg reliever. I dont care what division he is in, the team doesnt play all 162 games in the AL east, this is baseball anything can and will happen. Yes 37 saves is quite an accomplishment, but having 6 blown saves isnt, most closers have about 1-3 blown saves a year. I will admit he will somewhat have an effect on a bullpen, he wont completely blow everyones mind. And considering he has 2 seasons ( a total of 60 games in those 2 seasons) with a winning percentage over .500 he isnt the godly reliever some people are making him out to be
Gregg’s 3.51 ERA was better than Papelbon’s 3.90 ERA 🙂
As mentioned previously, Gregg was pretty decent unless he was pitching on consecutive days, then he would have no command, walk a bunch of guys then give up a big hit. Overall he performed much better than I expected in the AL East, but I won’t miss him.