AL Notes: Fister, Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays

Whenever there’s a trade that fans perceive as being one-sided, fans will often wonder why their team didn’t get involved in negotiations. The beginning of a recent SportsNet.ca interview with Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos shows why that might not be as easy as it sounds. Anthopoulos says Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told him that the Jays simply didn’t have the players he wanted in a trade for Doug Fister. Detroit eventually sent Fister to the Nationals for Ian Krol, Steve Lombardozzi and Robbie Ray. That Dombrowski apparently didn’t think the Blue Jays could beat that package might seem surprising, but it appears the Tigers simply had a very clear idea what they wanted, and it wasn’t possible for the Jays to enter a higher bid. Here are more notes on the AL.

• The Orioles didn’t have an easy time dealing Jim Johnson, a source tells Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun. Other teams weren’t eager to trade for a closer making a hefty salary, so the offers the O’s received were underwhelming.
• The Orioles would give up their first-round draft pick — No. 17 overall — if the right free-agent opportunity presented itself, FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweets. That means that, if they’re willing to open their wallets, they could be contenders for players like Carlos Beltran and Nelson Cruz, both of whom rejected qualifying offers.
• The Rays are hopeful that they can fix newly-acquired reliever Heath Bell, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes. “His stuff is virtually as good as when he was a dominant closer with the Padres (2009-11),” says executive vice president Andrew Friedman. “He missed a lot of bats last year. He commanded the ball better than he had in previous years. He’s just got a lot of things in place that give him a chance to be really good, and it’s about trying to sync them all up.”