The Blue Jays have been "making inquiries" about Ryan Madson, according to Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun, while the Marlins are "also in on" the free agent closer, reports Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated (both Twitter links). The Jays and Marlins join the Rangers, Red Sox and Nationals as clubs reportedly interested in Madson in the wake of his four-year, $44MM deal with the Phillies failing to materialize.
Toronto is known to be looking at several established free agent stoppers. Signing a Type A free agent like Madson would cost the Jays their first round pick (17th overall) in next year's draft, and giving up high draft picks and spending millions on a closer both seem to run counter to Alex Anthopoulos' modus operandi. The Jays do have the 22nd overall pick in the 2012 draft as compensation for not signing Tyler Beede last year.
Madson is only the latest target for the Marlins, who have been connected to most of this offseason's major free agents and have already made offers to Albert Pujols, Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle. Juan Carlos Oviedo is the incumbent closer in Miami, but he is currently embroiled in legal issues surrounding his adoption of the "Leo Nunez" name for the last several years. Heyman tweets that the Marlins could stick with Oviedo since the free agent closing market may be too pricey.
So I’m guessing Jays off-season will be very much like last year? Get linked to pretty much everything and then a move out of nowhere happens.
Yep AA and scraps as usual
Yeah, Brett Lawrie, what a “scrap” that guy is.
he was clearly talking about Brett Lawrie
Not too pumped about him but it could be worse. I also didn’t like the contract being spoke about with the Phillies, I am thinking more of a 3/30 deal with a 4th year option.
Marlins are interested in another free agent… that’s a surprise.
Yeah, this is getting out of hand. They’re connected to every FA apparently, haha.
This is there first time cut the team some slack
elliot is a hack. the jays are gonna sign madson and give up the 17th overall pick for a reliever? who presumably thinks he can get more than 4 years $44MM? because bj ryan sure put the 2006 jays over the top, right? if true, AA might be writing the first chapter of his downfall.
no reliever is worth that kind of money.
I don’t see why he would think he could get more than 4/44. I don’t think that it’s smart giving up picks for a reliever but they could sign a higher FA too. If you saw their bullpen last year it almost would be worth giving that pick up for someone that is actually serviceable.
they weren’t making the playoffs. their bullpen was fine. Francisco came to camp out of shape, and then he was what they needed. Rauch was terrible, but he wasn’t much worse than he had been in years past (victim of high HR-rate more than anything). Dotel, Rzep and Frasor became the long-coveted Rasmus. Janssen continued to improve his peripherals, and was great, and in september we saw a whackload of prospects…overall, that was a good bullpen in my eyes.
papelbon just got far more than they were offering madson and set the market for elite relievers in 2011…of which madson is clearly the best option remaining. so, i wouldn’t be surprised if his dollars/years excede what the phils were offering.
I don’t care what the expectations were for the bullpen they still stunk and if you think that the bullpen was good then you need a reality check. We need a good stable bullpen to compete and we have absolutely 0 bullpen at the moment. Having someone like Madson would be good to add some sort of stability. The Phils were offering 4/44 to Madson then gave Pap 4/50, that’s not “far more” that’s only 1.5 more per year.
rotation: Ricky Romero and the High Upside Four
lineup: Jose Bautista and his pull hitting pals.
i’d say those are probably more immediate areas of concern.
Casey Janssen and? That’s a great bullpen right there… The offence is fine but I do agree that the Rotation needs some help but the bullpen is the big hole on the team. Signing Madson won’t hinder the opportunity to sign a starter and would be a start to actually building a decent bullpen for once.
Janssen, Carlos Villanueva, and Litsch are all pretty solid. I’d rather they sign 10 guys to fill 4 roles than spend twice that on one guy…especially since their lineup doesn’t stack up with the rest of the division, imo.
Those aren’t guys that are going to win you games in the ben, they are solid 7th inning guys and Carlos will be given the chance to start again. We need a guy that can take over a 9th inning and shut it down. Twenty-five blown saves is not acceptable and there is nobody in the system right now that can take over the 9th. The offence will be ok, they were 6th in runs scored this year and they didn’t even play that well to what they could have. The pitching is the main address this offseason and the bullpen is terrible.
Casey Janssen’s a 7th inning guy? His 2.45 FIP and 2.74 SIERA laughs in your face.
OK I will retract that statement for Janssen but he is most definitely not a closer type. He can be a great 8th inning guy.
wtf is a closer type?
pixie dust you fools
“closer type”
Player A: 1.096 WHIP, 2.3 BB/9, 8.6 K/9, 3.79 K/BB –
PLayer B: 1.297 WHIP, 4.1 BB/9, 8.2 K/9, 2.00 K/BB –
One player costs ~$11.5 million/year, the other under $2million/year.
since it looks like arodinyourpujols is gone to bed, Player A is Casey Janssen @ 1million bux + arbitration raise; player B is Rafael Soriano, “proven closer” signed last year by the yankees.
Bullpen is not as bad. The baddies are gone, Rauch, Dotel. Franky was doodoo first half then was back in form second half. Maybe a solid releiver but honestly I feel like bullpen can be fixed easily in house with some of the younger pitchers in the system.
I know…if they only gave up 26 blown saves like the Cards then they’d be World Series champs
They also had 15 more save opportunities then the Jays.
oh okay. So all the Jays have to do is create 15 more save opportunities by scoring more runs. Then they’ll be equal to the Cards!
Um what? What I was pointing out was that even though the Cardinals blew more saves they had a better conversion rate the the Jays. If the Jays had the same amount of opportunities as the Cardinals with their conversion rate they would have blown 31 saves whereas if the Cards had the same amount of opportunities of the Jays they would have blown 21. Not a perfect science by any means but gives a little bit clearer picture.
Not all blown saves take place in the 9th inning or at game’s end…i think you’re missing that. Saves are a stupid stat, so “conversion rate” and “blown saves” don’t have any relation to one another.
E: f;b…Define terrible – Casey Janssen’s 2.45FIP versus Jesus Madson’s 2.25? Litsch and CV were both injurred most of last year. They were both fine when they were pitching in relief.
The bullpen is the last thing you need to build. I would pencil Carreno in right now. Then, let’s assume the Jays bring on one starter. That leaves: Romero, NEW GUY, Morrow, Alvarez, Cecil, McGowan, Drabek…2 extra guys, the bottom 3 i could see moved to the pen. especially cecil and mcgowan. that means all they have to do is sign ONE guy that can throw in the 9th. I’d rather them take fliers on Nathan and Broxton, or trade for someone like Bailey or Street than give up the 17th pick and over-pay for a guy with one year of experience closing.
I’d deal Cecil-Snider-Teahan for another starter and 2nd baseman or a 2nd baseman and closer like Huston Street, Andrew Bailey, or sign Broxton/Nathan as the closer. If Johnson don’t work out, go for Jurrjens and Prado or Orlando Hudson in San Diego could return. I think McGowan deserves a shot at the #5 spot and Villaneuva should be in the rotation with Romero-Morrow-Alvarez. Drabek if he wins a spot but doubt he will… Camp-Perez-Carreno-Litsch-Francisco-Jannsen should be in the rest of our bullpen slots. I can’t see anyone wanting to take on Teahan’s contract though unless the Jays pay a sum of it. Plus he’s Canadian, so. I just don’t wanna see McCoy playing 2nd base lol
Romero, Morrow, Villaneuva, Alvarez, Cecil (if he doesn’t get dealt or we sign a FA), but I’d deal Snider-Cecil-Teahan for a Starter and 2nd Baseman (Jurrjens & Prado) or even try and deal for Orlando Hudson if we can’t keep Johnson.
The Jays were actually pretty middle of the pack in terms of their bullpen. And that middle of the pack bullpen turned into Rasmus and a few draft picks. All in all a pretty successful year. They’ve got a lot of starters right now and not all of them will stay starters. No point in overspending on a reliever that won’t help you next year. Especially considering they’re so volatile you can’t be sure Ryan Madson in 2013 will be any good.
I hate the point of the relievers netting Rasmus. As awesome as that was right now it’s to the point of competing and you can’t do that with a middle of the pact bullpen. Is Madson the total answer? No but he is an upgrade of the projected bullpen right now. If you take a look at who will be returning from this past year, it looks scary. There is no bullpen what so ever that anyone would be comfortable with so something needs to be done and this could be the first step towards that.
Fair enough about Rasmus. But in terms of WAR, the Rays, Cards and Phillies were all bottom ten for their relievers. Relievers, and closers especially, are drastically overrated. To commit 10+ million a year to a reliever when you’re not going to compete for two years minimum is ridiculous. Bullpens are so volatile you can rarely know what you’re going to get. Put all the other pieces together, then get a bullpen.
WAR is a tough one with relievers and pitchers in general, the Jays pen was good until the 8th and 9th inning. The Phillies converted 84%, the rays converted 73% and the Cards converted 64% of their saves compared to the Blue Jays at 57% of their saves, that’s a big difference. I d think your 2 years minimum is slightly off, if you take into account the blown saves this year and bring them to a league average the Blue Jays are right on the playoff line.
Parkes at getting blanked showed that really, the “closers” can be held responsible for 6 wins. Even if they had 2011 Jose Valverde or 2003 Eric Gagne with 100% conversion rates, that still leaves them 10 games back.
I guess you can’t post links on here…I tried to link to that article but it doesn’t seem to be working.
probably to block spam/ad bots.
Um what? They were 10 games out of the playoffs at the end of the year as is, so not blowing so many saves would presumably close that gap. I don’t know if I am just not understanding your post.
The point is: three times they blew 2 saves in the same game. Seven times they blew a save but they still won. Half the remaining saves were blown before the ninth inning (where Madson would be used). Two of the saves blown in the ninth inning were by non-closers because the closer wasn’t available that day. Result: six times the “closer” lost them the game.
And all credit there goes to Dustin Parkes, cause I’m definitely not smart or patient enough to figure that out.
Edit: spelling mistakes bug me
10 games back of the Yankees. 4 back of Rays. Can you safely assume that the wild card will come out of a 4-way massacre all year in the ALBeast? It basically takes 95 wins to take that division at bare minimum. They can generate more WAR/$ by spending elsewhere.
Here’s a nice little stat for you: the Jays relief corps had a 4.35 WPA and 3.17 WPA/LI, 8th and 7th best in MLB, respectively. They were good when it mattered the most.
Another one: the Jays relievers had the 6th least Meltdowns in MLB, with 57. There were middle of the pack in Shutdowns.
They’re honestly not as bad as that stupid little stat you’re using shows.
You also are assuming that blown save = loss, which it clearly doesn’t.
Blown saves do not equal losses but the less blown saves that you have the less losses you have, and I think we can all agree on that. It works the same for every team that not all blown saves equal losses.
srsly – read the article being referenced. Google: Parkes + “There’s No Need To Spend Money On A “Proven Closer”
Why care about blown saves, is the point, then? It’s a stupid stat that doesn’t even measure what you think it does (ie. it doesn’t correlate to one guy costing a team the game).
okay. Then stop pointing to the 25 blown saves and actually look at which games they lost.
Francisco had a K/BB of 6.00 in the second half. He can be had for a fraction of the cost. Broxton and Nathan are also worth a roll of the dice, in my books. Willis and Harden are interesting starters that might accept moves to the ‘pen. Those 5 would likely cost around the same as a year of Madson. But you can’t have Madson on a 1-year deal, you need to throw something like $40MM and 4 years at him. It just isn’t worth it. Reliever attrition is too high.
I would disagree with your view. Janssen, Villenueva, Carreno, Perez, are solid relievers. The problem in 2011 was Frasor, Camp, Miller, Tallet, Zep at times, Rauch, Dotel, and Francisco in the first half. In case you didn’t notice, but NONE of those pitchers are in the 2012 bullpen. The only four relievers left are the guys that actually earned their salary in 2011. Litsch is a question mark in the bullpen. I would like to see him traded, replaced by Cecil, Madson, and one other pitcher that actually earns their spot on the roster. To say the bullpen is now awful isn’t looking at the facts, because only the top four relievers are still with the team. The dead weight was jettisoned.
dude stop whining, we get it, you think the jays don’t have any relievers… even if you are wrong. Janssen, Carreno, Litsch, Villanueva and then potentially add Broxton, Nathan is a decent pen. Any others can be filled in-house
there are exceptions to that rule and this would constitute as one. the bullpen was terrible last year, and while the addition by subtraction theory will apply in 2012 by not having Noodle Arm Rauch back this is an impact signing which I would love to see. Its all about term though, maybe even more so than dollars. 3 years and an option max.
yea, the exception is if you are an elite team that has a finite window to compete, and no prospects on teh horizon to do the job cheaply. a closer is ‘the final piece’ you worry about, and the jays have so many question marks. they outperformed their results to finish @.500 and in 4th place. If the season started today and the jays added Madson, they still finish in 4th place. period. why would you pay a relief pitcher more than everyone on the team except bautista? it’s not even certain that they’ll be able to compete before 2014, if AA “stays the course”. signing madson makes sense only in the world in which they are committed to signing Fielder/Pujols or trading for a top tier 1b, and also signing or trading for an ace-caliber pitcher. even then, it’s by no means certain that they can leapfrog the lineups of BOS and NYY and the rotation of TB.
who says there not competing? if madson was the only move they make this offseason then i’ll give your comment the creedence it deserves but this could be a tip off point which signals they are ready to compete…i dont think they want to wait until 2014 to “go for it”. there a solid team now…and not giving significant run to patterson, rivera, rauch and reyes, and subing in REAL ball players in there place means they have a real chance of making the playoffs in 2012. it’ll take a busy off season but no reason they cant be there next year…WITHOUT sacrificing the future.
the team they have now is good. i will enjoy watching it next year, especially decked out in new unis. anyway, they’re still profitable, and they should just keep doing what they’re doing…it’s a long process. i know jose bautista might be pissed, but i’m not sure handing another vernonwells-style contract out is a good idea for a team full of young guys ready to fight for a playoff spot.
Can he play 2B?
Can he start?
– B. Cash
C’mon bro, that’s sooooooo last offseason.
Can he play?
I dont even think he is conscious…
CAN HE PLAY? Answer the question
Can he play?
I dont even think he is conscious…
CAN HE PLAY? Answer the question
Might be shorter to make a list of people the Marlins aren’t interested in at this point.
Why not just write a post saying the Blue Jays and Marlins are interested in every single free agent on the market and be done with it.
I think it’s time to exclude the Jays from any speculation stories. Since they are asking about every player, and when the jays do make a trade it’s out of the blue, I think it’s fair to only report when they actually sign someone.
blue jays weirding me out. somehow i suspect this is intentional
AA keeps his mouth shut.
Media and agents take advantage of that.
Media people = Trying to show that they have insider info.
Agents = trying to milk out more money for their clients by inluding more bidders.
he’d probably have to in order to make that salary worth it. He’d also have to wait tables in the lounge and scrub the deep fryers.
the marlins caught wind of this and made the blue jays an offer. 4 years 38 million, all deferred. no word yet on what that means exactly
Just an FYI, if you take out the years where Philly had Madson starting, not a reliever, these are his stats as strictly a late inning reliever.
52 saves, 113 holds, a 1.71 ERA and a whip of 0.86. K/9 9.8, BB/9 1.11.
Yeah, I would sign him to a three year plus an option contract based on that.
The 2.37 ERA he put up last year was the lowest he had ever produced, so somehow, I think your numbers are off.
He actually has a 3.94 ERA in save situations. He’s turrible!
Your 2.37 is based on one year. I figured out the numbers based on his whole career so far, which makes a huge difference. I deleted the games he started, plus the games early in his career where the manager left him in to get hammered, inflating his career stats. He is also only 31, which falls in line with other pitchers that were late bloomers. Cliff Lee didn’t enjoy his breakout season until he was 28 and he is now seen as one of the best pitchers in the league at 31. There are other pitchers that didn’t start producing until they were around 28 – 29 either. Just food for thought and Madson is now showing the same value in a different role. I don’t see him signing for 20M a season because he isn’t a starter, but I can see him signing for 9 – 10M for 3 years, plus the option year. If Soriano can get 35M for having one good season as a closer, I’m sure Madson can too.
what numbers are you using? I went to BR and checked his splits in save situations, and he has a 3.94 ERA. In the ninth inning he has a 3.66 ERA. And yes, I understand how dumb these splits are.
But how did you get that his ERA is 1.71? If the lowest ERA he has ever posted is 2.37 than how could you have possibly gotten a lower number?
No thank you. I’d rather spend $14M per year on Wilson than $11M on Madson, and I don’t even want Wilson.
edit: and CBDW is right, how the hell did you get those numbers?
“I’d rather spend $14M per year on Wilson than $11M on Madson”
aaaand /thread
and I reaaaaly dislike Wilson. I don’t even think he’ll be that good going forward. That’s how much I hate giving long term contracts to relievers.
But if Papelbon got 4/50 do you think wilson will want like a 4/56? heck to the no man, heck to the nawwww
Well, I think he’ll get something like 5/75 or something around that neighbourhood.
I don’t see the Jays or Marlins signing Madson for 4/40 which is what it will take minimum to sign him. The Sox almost have to sign him now to save face.
I imagine he signs late in the off season and gets less than that. None of the remaining teams have the need/pressure to give him a big contract that the Phils did.
Any word on how the Marlins are treating the Nunez (or whatever his name is) situation?
NO!
at this point, every FA should be linked with this Miami Marlins…
Is this the same Marlin team that always watches their best players leave because they wont pay them?
No, they are the same team that has won 2 world series in the past 20 years, they look like they will spend this year with the new stadium and manager.
I’m sure there is all kinds of truth to this rumour. Unfortunately Bob was unable to get his source to go on the record, he only gave him the cryptic pseudonym “Bott Scoras”. Weird.
Ryan Madison is a proven SETUP MAN, not a closer. If the jays were to sign Madison, they’re making a grave mistake (remember B.J Ryan?). They should instead go after Broxton (who has a lot of upside and wouldn’t cost the jays a draft pick) and/or sign Joe Nathan just in case Broxton doesn’t work out. A one-year deal for both pitchers might be the right option, it gives the jays more flexibility to allocated the rest of the money saved for a proven starter and a 2nd Basemen.
Maybe the Jays are just “interested” to get the Red Sox to overpay for him.
That won’t effect the Sox there team is almost complete: closer, rf, #4 starter, and a couple of relievers.
I’m sorry, completer? really?
Probably 4 and 5 starter and what are they doing with Ortiz? Where is Youk playing next year? Manager might be an issue too…
So apparently according to MLBTR, the Jays are interested in everybody and the Marlins are talking to everybody.
Cool Story Bro.
i wont mind a 3yr /30 deal with an option for fourth …… but thats the max i’d go with him….. lets go with joe nathan and jonathan broxton .. i bet those two combine to make little less salary than maddason alone
definitely less years, which seems like the crucial part with relievers.
I say it’s a good deal if the Jays sign Madson. He can help that team. Not sure about the losing draft pick idea though.
I don’t think AA with be in the ball park of some of the other teams like the Nats, Marlins, or Sox.
I will know for sure Madson won’t be signed by Blue Jays if he is seen working out in Toronto during the winter like Manny Ramirez was last year.
maybe he just needed to see the good doctor in toronto that helped A-rod