Blue Jays Moving Closer To Deal With Octavio Dotel

MONDAY, 12:42pm: Dotel is "moving closer" to an agreement with the Jays, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.  He agrees that it would be in the $3.5MM range.

SUNDAY, 8:49pm: Heyman tweets that the deal with Toronto isn't done yet, and that the Pirates, Rays, and several other teams are still very much involved in the Dotel bidding.

8:21pm: SI.com's Jon Heyman tweets that the deal will pay Dotel $3.5MM, or a bit above that.

6:15pm: The Blue Jays and Octavio Dotel are on the verge of agreeing to a one-year contract, reports Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes. The deal will be "almost identical" to the $3.2MM he earned in 2010, including another $500K in incentives.

Although Jason Frasor will return after accepting arbitration, the Jays still lost late-inning relievers Scott Downs and (presumably) Kevin Gregg to free agency. Dotel, 37, gives them a veteran arm with closing experience. He pitched to a 4.08 ERA with 10.5 K/9 and 4.5 BB/9 for the Pirates, Dodgers, and Rockies last season. Dotel's trademark velocity is declining but still well above 90 mph, and over the last four seasons he owns an impressive 11.4 K/9. Only Carlos Marmol, Jonathan Broxton, and Billy Wagner top that. 

The Pirates and Rays also had interest in Dotel, who is represented by the Beverly Hills Sports Council. The Rockies will receive a supplemental first round draft pick as compensation for losing the right-hander, who was a Type-B free agent. Toronto will be Dotel's 11th big league team, amazingly enough.