Two years ago today, the Blue Jays traded Brandon League and Johermyn Chavez to the Mariners for Brandon Morrow. Morrow has pitched to a 4.62 ERA as a starter in his two seasons with Toronto while League became an All-Star closer last season. Here's the latest from the AL East…
- In an ESPN Insider-only piece, Jim Bowden reports that the Red Sox offered a position player heavy package to the Athletics for Gio Gonzalez before he was traded to the Nationals. Bowden adds that the Blue Jays were only willing to part with risky low-level minor leaguers for the southpaw.
- Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says the Red Sox's pursuit of both Gonzalez and Andrew Bailey was "very much part of conversation for majority of the time," but they shifted their attention to solely Gio after they learned they were competing with the Nats (Twitter links). The Blue Jays jumped into the bidding late, adds the FOX scribe.
- Roch Kubatko of MASNSports.com reports that the Orioles are not shopping Adam Jones, but GM Dan Duquette will listen to offers and make counter proposals. We recently learned that the Orioles wanted Jair Jurrjens, Martin Prado, and at least two of the Braves' young pitchers in return for their center fielder.
- The Yankees considered pursuing Carlos Beltran earlier this offseason according to Bob Klapisch of The Bergen Record (on Twitter), but ultimately decided against it because of his balky knees. Beltran agreed to a two-year deal with the Cardinals yesterday.
- MLB.com's Mike Bauman writes that the Red Sox's makeover – from the front office to the manager to the roster – will be heavily scrutinized this season.
Would be interesting to see which players the Sox were willing to part with for Gio. Also odd that they favored him so much to go so hard after him considering their 1-3, the fact there farm is just rebounding from the AGonz draft and that they have some mlb concerns they might want to address in the near future which might be filled by in-house options (since the article mentioned it was almost all position player prospects).
Agree. Have been saying all along that see little to no reason to target any top SP requiring prospects because of the 1-3 that they have and only a top SP if they fall into their hands via FA.
Would prefer they bottom feed on innings guys as have made abundantly clear many times already.
With that abundance of position player prospects, I really wish ATL and BOS could hook up in a trade. We have the opposite, so much pitching and much fewer position depth, especially OF.
Id love to get one of the Braves young pitchers if they would consider a package including Reddick..
I am not of the opinion he has much value. he is ‘filler” material in a deal IMO.
If teams are looking at Sox positional players that might get moved, it is Jacobs, Brentz (OF) Coyle, Cecchini, Head and a possibility of Bogaerts.
Sox fans might drop the bomb on me here, but am of the opinion that if teams think so highly of Middlebrooks… Move him… I understand 100% he has the “5 tools” label and has a cannon for an arm, slick fielder etc.. but really.. lets take some harder looks at what exactly he has done.. Poor plate discipline and 1 really good season at AA..
My opinion that will get slaughtered here probably and the 1st time have said it aloud, isif a team will take him as a major piece and they can get something they really want.. Move him.. 3B is not a weakness in the Sox system..
Both Coyle, cecchini and even head can play it, not to mention #1 pick Vitek from 2010.
I am not sold on anyone with poor plate discipline, it’s a very hard thing to teach and at the MLB level gets exploited very easily by pitchers and even at AAA he was burned by pitchers who were more experienced.
Theo empited the farm the past 2 1/2 years. He traded away 4 top players to Cleveland , 4 to the Padres for A Gonz , including Mike Rizzo who is set to a star 1st baseman, Casey Kelly their former #1 and 4 to Seattle for awful Bedard , though that was done in a 3 team trade.
So what they have left ? Middlebrooks who is being groomed to replace Youkilss and the ss Igelseis , what do they have left ? Not much except down at the lower single A and Double AA level.
Simply put, Theo left the cover bare for Cherington. So, he can dream all he wants of making a major trade, he does not have the prospects. And to think he could have landed both Gonzelez and Bailey with what little he had to offer is insane.
Love to know what the “risky low-level” guys the Jays were offering. Getting Cole in the deal really made it a win-win for both teams, but hearing that Syndergaard was in the Jays’ offer, I’m curious about the other young guys thrown about.
Whatever it was, I’m glad the Jays didn’t up their offer after seeing the haul the A’s got.
“but hearing that Syndergaard was in the Jays’ offer”
Haven’t heard that anywhere. Got a source?
No, I thought it was on here actually. Obviously doesn’t make it so, but it does make sense both from a talent, youth, and the whole “risky low-level” part.
Whenever it says “AL East Links/Notes” it seems the Rays are never mentioned. Oh the burdens of being a low payroll organization………
oh shut up and keep collecting your one zillionth 1st rnd picks..haha.
Or because they aren’t really doing anything right now.
Um…yeah…that’s pretty much my point…Thanks
My bad, I read it to mean that they just weren’t getting the same attention as the other clubs.
“Bowden adds that the Blue Jays were only willing to part with risky low-level minor leaguers for the southpaw.”
Whew.
hooray for good judgement!
@Ken Spliffy Jr.
Since the trade: 1.9 fWAR for League, 7.1 fWAR for Morrow. They’re equivalent how? Unless of course they’re only equivalent in the sense of your dislike to both of them.
EDIT: Oh hai reply fail! It’s been far too long :'(
Problem is fWAR relies on FIP and bWAR relies on ERA, but morrow is killer 10.2 k/9
..and while both FIP and ERA are flawed, FIP is the better choice of the two, which is why I personally prefer fWAR.
If Morrow has another year of a sub-par ERA, I think the Jays will trade him. He has great stats, but is too much of a fly ball pitcher for the AL East as it stands.
Big problem with WAR is that fWAR valued morrow more than romero.
Yeah his gb rate is down from last year, i think he just needs to more consistently pitch down in the zone like he did in the end of the year and he will see more success easily.
A year of Rasmus in the OF will help Morrow’s ERA. I also wonder about the impact of having both Rasmus and Gose in the OF.
Wow chavez really struggled in AA for seattle. I would still take a high upside starter over a high upside closer anyday. In saying that i wouldn’t mind getting League back as a set up guy if it didn’t cost to much, though it likely will.
Except that League is pretty average away from Seattle.
1.27ERA at home.
4.85ERA on the road.
I’d rather have Janssen setting up.
Huh, totally missed the part about it being 2 years since Mariners fans were jumping out of windows because of the Morrow trade. Still a lot of question marks to be answered before we really see who made out best, but so far I think it’s safe to say that Seattle fans were a little overly worked up.
right. If they can net some good prospects for League, I think it could work out for both teams.
agreed
still dont know the winners of the trade. Morrow is a starter but has played pretty bad besides his k’s. League is been a closer for 1 year and made allstar team and Johermyn Chavez is really young and had a bad year in aa but is only 21 and has lots of upside
It isn’t cut and dry, but I am leaning towards Seattle at this point. To me you can’t overlook the fact that League doesn’t walk people, went on a tear over the second half of the year, and overall has done his job better than Morrow has since the trade. I do give credit to Morrow for the occasional dominating performance, his remaining potential, and the fact he is getting closer and closer to finally eating his share of innings. But Chavez has a lot of potential in his own right.
Chavez was completely overmatched in AA this year, his first appearance above A.
When evaluating Morrow, you have to look past his ERA. Other users posted his xFIP and FIP, so I won’t need to, but there are indications that Morrow is MUCH better than his standard stats show.
League is a great pitcher, and actually one my favourite players and has been for a long time; but his stuff is not suited for the AL East as he tends to give up too many flyballs.
IMO, great trade for both organizations.
I still really like Morrow, he has great stuff. Amazing how he can have that high an ERA with his stuff.
Brandon League on the Jays and in the East would be the equivalent of Brian Tallet 2.0. No thanks. He couldn’t pitch before the Jays had him, he couldn’t pitch while the Jays had him, and his only success came from pitching in huge ballparks that artificially inflate his success rate. In smaller ballparks, the fly balls that are caught in Seattle, Oakland, Anaheim, etc are moonshots everywhere else, which led to Toronto trading him in the first place. Toronto fans had to suffer through him pitching once before. Deja vu – no one wants to go through that again.
Actually they traded him because they valued a fireball starter as opposed to a fireball reliever, his stats in Toronto weren’t actually that bad , he just wasn’t closer material , better left for a set up role.
I think that was the thing that made me laugh about just how one-sided people thought the trade was. You are making this matter-of-factly argument about this being such an obvious trade, but it’s Morrow that is a flyball machine…. and quite the opposite for League. League did go to a better park and division for pitchers, but the way he gets GBs, I don’t think you can steal too much of his credit.
HEY EVERYONE WE HAVE A HOMER OVER HERE
now u can just watch morrow with his high 4 era haha and u can watch league in the allstar game haha
if mark redman can make the allstar team, any player can.
brandon morrow has suffered a bit from an unnaturally high BABIP (.342) in 2010 and then from an unusually low strand rate in 2011 (3rd lowest among qualified starters).
the way he punches batters out while at the same time doing a decent job limiting walks makes his ERA results a little puzzling so far with the jays. he’s been a little homer happy in his 2 years here, but not enormously so. maybe he has trouble pitching from the stretch?
i’d still take him in a heartbeat over league (who i also like).
His FIP and xFIP are much more encouraging.3.64/3.53 are hopefully what his numbers will start trending towards
I don’t have Insider (so maybe someone who does can confirm or deny) but I bet the package the sox were offering was something like Middlebrooks/Lavarnway/Doubront/Reddick..or possibly Ranaudo/Workman instead of Doubront?
I really doubt they would of traded both middlebrooks/lavarnway
If you believe that the Braves offered Prado and Jurrjens for Adam Jones, let alone those two PLUS one or two of their top-tier pitching prospects, then you are high. What is far more likely is that the Braves offered Jurrjens for Jones, as was reported previously, and then the Orioles came back with a ridiculous counter like, “How about Jurrjens, Prado, Vizcaino, and Delgado for Jones?” Which the Braves would have considered for about zero seconds.
I think there’s an error in the post, and that the Orioles probably asked for those two young pitchers instead rather than with Jurrjens and Prado. That said, Braves fans are really overvaluing their pitcher who’s under control for two more years, is about to get expensive, hasn’t pitched a full season in two years, will have a drop off moving to the AL and especially the AL East, and really isn’t quite as good as his stats indicate.
The difference with Adam Jones is that while he’s a FA in two years, his agent isn’t Boras and is seen as more extendable. While certain fielding metrics may disagree, he has a gold glove and his fielding is viewed as a plus. He’s also just entering his prime as a hitter, and it doesn’t make sense for the Orioles to go for two years for Jurrjens while they need to be thinking longer term.
Don’t get me wrong, the Braves are smart for selling high, I’m just grateful the Orioles aren’t making a dumb moving like this for a guy who would be a #3 starter.
No, that isn’t an error. It has been confirmed that the Braves “asked about” Jones and were first told he was unavailable but then that he was offered up for Jurrjens, Prado plus two of the young pitchers.
Just as Braves fans grossly overrate Jurrjens, Oriole fans grossly overrate Jones. He is poor defensively in CF and doesn’t have the bat to play a corner OF position. While his stats may look good on the surface his super low OBP suggests that he will never be more than a good major league outfielder, nothing worth giving up major young talent to get. In fact Martin Prado is a better overall hitter than Adam Jones. Yes, he was bad last year but his career stats are excellent. JOnes has never been more than a 2.9 WAR player in a season while Prado has a 4.4 WAR season under his belt already.
While I understand why the Orioles don’t want Jurrjens (they prefer prospects with lots of servcie time left) in a trade he is roughly equivalent in trade value to Adam Jones. Both have their warts.
Axisa must be quite the Mariners fan. Nice way to frame that trade lol.
Axisa must be quite the Mariners fan. Nice way to frame that trade lol.