Braves GM Frank Wren says he viewed Ryan Doumit as the best player available to fill his bench need because "he's almost two players in one," tweets Mark Bowman of MLB.com. Atlanta acquired Ryan Doumit from the Twins in exchange for left-hander Sean Gilmartin earlier today. More out of the AL and NL East..
- While Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulous is still engaged in trade talks, he might be content to stand pat at this stage of the offseason, writes Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.
- The Doumit pickup also allows Evan Gattis to pinch hit when he's not catching for the Braves, notes Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter).
- The Red Sox are still interested in Stephen Drew following today's acquisition of infielder Jonathan Herrera, tweets Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com. Herrera will serve as a utility man for Boston.
- Former Phillies catching prospect Sebastian Valle appeared to be on the move last winter, along with pitcher Tyler Cloyd, in a proposed deal for Houston reliever Wilton Lopez, but the Phils backed off the deal because of concerns about the condition of Lopez’s arm, writes CSNPhilly.com's JIm Salisbury. The Phillies designated Valle for assignment this morning.
- Wren said the trade doesn't mean anything for Braves catching prospect Christian Bethancourt, tweets David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "When he’s ready to be our catcher, he’ll be our catcher."
- In today's mailbag, a reader asks MLB.com's Bill Ladson if the Nationals are done making moves this winter.
I don’t know Doumit personally, but I’m pretty sure he prefers to be called “big-boned”.
Tyler Cloyd and Valle for Lopez looks like a diaster for all sides. All 3 had bad years this year.
If the Blue Jays “stand pat” then I believe Alex Anthopolous must lose his job. The Jays are so close, they just need to add one decent starter. Anthopolous has had the entire off season to do it and has only signed Tomo Ohka. It’s a joke really.
They were last in the division and well under .500; I have a hard time believing they are only “one decent starter” away from competing.
They had a bad year. Full of bad luck. The pieces were in place, it just didn’t work out. The Jays needed to bolster their starting rotation
Yes, they needed to bolster their rotation, but they needed more than just one decent pitcher to do that, and they also needed to upgrade like half a dozen position players.
I heard the Blue Jays need help on starting pitching and Seattle Mariners looking of some more offense or relief pitching help. With that being said, either Jose Batista or Bret Cecil for Tyler Pike, Jullio Morban, and a player to be named on Cecil’s trade or Erasmo Ramirez/James Paxton, Julio Morban, minor league prospect at shortstop at AA level that will be blocked by Brad Miller, and a player to be named for Batista sure makes sense.
Assuming the Jays starters stay healthy and play up to their career averages, they’re above average at 1B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF and DH.
If Navarro can keep up with what he’s done over the last two years, they’re above average at C as well.
The bullpen is excellent, and the rotation with a healthy D!ckey, Morrow, Happ, Buehrle + one of Stroman/Hutchison/Drabek/Redmond/Nolin might be passable as well, especially with a strong lineup.
So, no – I think if the Jays take their roster TODAY, and added 3 players – two 3-4 starters, and a starting quality 2B, then they’re set to contend, barring health of course.
Right, if they add more than one decent SP they could compete, that was pretty much my point. They are in no way above average at 3B though; depending on whether this year or last year was the fluke they might be about average, but that’s about it.
Upgrade a half dozen position players? Maybe you don’t know very much about the jays, but they employ Bautista, Encarnacion, Reyes, Rasmus, Lind and Lawrie in their everyday lineup. They could use an upgrade at 2B and i suppose Navarro and Melky aren’t the greatest C and LF in the league, but they’re probably averagey, which is all the Jays need given the strong talent covering the rest of the diamond. As for the rotation, Buerhle, Dickey and Morrow are a perfectly fine starting point to build from. Add a solid arm and you’re pretty decent 1-4. The thing that makes me most optimistic about the Jays this year is the bevy of starting rotation depth in the form of usable journeymen (Happ, Rogers, Redmond), injury returnees (Hutchison, Drabek) and talented prospects (Stroman, Nolin). Not a Ramon Ortiz, Wang, Laffey or Ricky Romero in sight. This was probably the biggest weakness in the roster going into last season. It’s a long year and teams that don’t have depth get exposed. A solid arm and hopefully a middle infielder and the Jays will be looking pretty good.
Yes, I was exaggerating about the position players, but the point is that they’re more than one decent starting pitcher away from contending, and after two consecutive terrible season I don’t think it would be unreasonable to suggest that they could use a better 3B than Lawrie – maybe they’re comfortable taking a chance on his potential still, but an upgrade couldn’t hurt, even if it’s just someone with a lot more certainty.
Their lineup is all that fantastic either. EE and Bautista are great, but once you get past the 5th slot in that lineup the dropoff is dramatic. Also the fact that their pitching is really mediocre. They have Dickey coming off a really mediocre year, and a bunch of injury prone and/or backend starters.
I still don’t see that they have done anything that really puts them in discussion. They could always sneak in, but it would be a real longshot at this time.
Right now Rasmus, is projected 7th in the lineup. That’s a strong lineup.
That’s what Red Sox fans thought after they won the 2011 offseason by acquiring Crawford and Gonzalez. I’m sure everyone remembers what happened to the Sox in ’12.
…and they only changed few positions and look what they accomplished. I wouldn’t blow up the Jays lineup just because of a bad year.
Jays had the 2nd most injuries in all of baseball
That wasn’t very hard to predict with the players they added though, and it’s still fairly predictable for next year too. Plus, at best you can add 5 wins to their total with full seasons from Rasmus, Bautista, Reyes, and Lawrie. That’s still below .500 and they probably need to add closer to 20 wins to be real competitive next year.
Outside of Johnson, really don’t see your injury argument. Reyes was a freak accident had nothing to do with being injury prone…meanwhile, Melky played injured for a while and it certainly hindered his play. And the Red Sox gained more than 20 wins last year by pretty much getting similar players at a cheaper cost, and full potential performances that weren’t delivered in 2012…don’t know where this 5 wins at most is coming from for the Jays.
The injury that happened to Reyes might have been a freak injury, but the fact that he was injured was in no way a surprise; he has a long history of multiple nagging injuries.
Rasmus and Bautista both played ~120 games, and based on their performance in those game an additional 40 games would add maybe another win each – that’s two wins. Reyes played in over 90 games and based on his performance in those games he adds maybe another 2 wins with an additional 70 games – that’s four. Lawrie played in just over 100 games and was just over 1 WAR, so another 60 games adds another 1 WAR at best – that’s 5. I figured I’d be generous and not double Melky’s -0.9 WAR, but even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt (and be way over the top about it) and pretend that in a full season he’s still a 4 WAR player, that’s 9 added wins; congratulations, that’s an 81 win team.
You’re forgetting the black holes at catcher and 2B.
As far as I can tell they still have black holes at catcher and 2B. Plus, upgrading those positions goes against the original comment of them only being “one decent starting pitcher” away from competing.
I wouldn’t call Navarro a black hole. He’s not as good as he played last year, but he’s probably averagey.
Agreed. That’s why we play the games. At the very least, hopefully Navarro calls a good game behind the plate (in a platoon situation). What scares me most is – Navarro hasn’t played in 100 games in the last four years. He hasn’t come close!! And he’s a switch hitting catcher.
I was referring to last year’s lack of wins.
Fair enough, to each their own, it’s pure assumption regardless. However just for perspective, fangraphs has Blue Jays in 3rd of AL East teams with a 2014 projected 39.9 team WAR, so if replacement level is 48 wins, that has them at 88 wins. Rays and Red Sox though are beyond at 90.5 and 95 respectively.
Haven’t thought of this before, but I wonder if WAR is predictive based on division difficulty?
While Reyes had a full 2012 season with Miami, from 2009 – 2011, he had injuries that kept him out of the lineup. 3 seasons with injuries is arguably “injury prone” imo. I don’t think that slide into second was a freak accident – it was careless (read: He doesn’t know how to slide). Slipping while coming out of the shower is a freak accident. With that said, every time I see Reyes, I think he’s ready to hit the DL.
You forgot the rotation. A healthy D!ckey to begin the season, healthy Morrow, probably another starting pitcher added via free agency/trade, Buehrle and probably a #5 starter from within the organization (Hutch, Stroman, Happ, Nolin, Romero? etc). That alone will provide a ton of value.
You can also add a few wins via a healthy Melky, EE for a full season and an upgrade over JP (-0.6 WAR last season).
Right, no chance that a 38 year old knuckleballer would ever regress.
Err… Dickey made 34 starts and pitched well over 200 innings – that’s a full season, and expecting a healthy Morrow is like expecting the sun to be green tomorrow.
Dickey made all of his starts but he was definitely not healthy. He pitched through an abdominal injury all year because he doesn’t believe in the DL. If he’s healthy, I expect huge things this year.
He’s a 38 year old pitcher, so nagging injuries are hardly unexpected, and neither is regression (especially moving to a hitter’s park and a division full of hitter’s parks, and a much better offensive division).
Also, EE played in 142 games, which is a pretty normal season, and even at 162 you’re not going to gain much in those extra 20 games.
Morrow has made as many starts over the last three seasons as a certain Clay Buccholz. This past year was the first major injury he has ever suffered. If the Sox are fine with relying on a player like that, I’m pretty sure the jays are too, especially with the depth they have in the rotation this year.
Nice straw man. I said nothing about Buchholz in my comment, and the fact that Buchholz is also injury prone does nothing to prove that Morrow isn’t; the point is you can’t expect Morrow to be healthy at this point, he’s never done it before.
Lawrie, Reyes and Josh Johnson may have been easier to predict. Rasmus, EE, Happ getting a liner off the skull, and a tumour on Melky’s spine were a little tougher to predict, no? Were Bautista’s and RAD’s injury situations easy to predict?
It was also pretty difficult to predict the utter uselessness of Izturis and Bonifacio, although JPA was a little easier to predict in that regard. Still, Salty and JPA are fairly similar players: predicting that JPA would follow a similar curve wouldn’t have been out of line. It didn’t happen.
Besides, this is a funny argument from a Sox fan who’s seen the one-season turnaround occur pretty recently. Returns-to-form (Ortiz, Drew, Lackey) and career years (Uehara) played a fairly large role in their success, no?
No, I don’t want to use injuries as an excuse and yes, it’s a challenge they face, but it’s far from insurmountable…
Right, because the Red Sox turnaround had nothing to do with dumping a quarter of a billion dollars off of their payroll, or rebuilding half of their roster in the offseason. If the Jays did that they would be a lot more likely to contend too, but that’s a far cry from adding “one decent starter.”
They just need to add one 20 WAR pitcher. That’s it.
James Paxton along couple other players might do it if the Mariners are still interested of acquiring Adam Lind, Jose Batista, or Bret Cecil.
And a merely “decent” 20 WAR pitcher at that.
That could present a problem
Miguel Trout?
The superhuman?
Even Babe Ruth was only 15 WAR at his peak.
He’s also upgraded our catching position and added a lot of depth to the organization. Still lots of players available and time as well.
It is just frustrating to see teams like Minnesota, San Diego, Houston, Kansas City, Oakland (teams with pretty small budgets relatively) going out and overpaying for starting pitching. It is irritating that the Blue Jays aren’t prepared to pony up a bit more money.
Guys like Nolasco, Pelfery, Vargas etc would probably get killed in the AL East. Jimenez, Garza and Santana are still available in the FA market, plus there’s prospects/young players AA can use to trade as well. There’s still plenty of time and plenty of quality arms available.
Can’t say I’m super sorry to have missed out on any that have moved so far. Point is all the big fish are still in the pond as far as pitching goes. No reason to think the Jays are done. Davidi is just fear mongering to play to the illogical negatives in the fanbase.
I agree it was slim pickings this winter with pitching. In AA’s defense, I wouldn’t have gone after Nolasco, Pelfrey, etc., either. But I would take a chance on Ervin or Johan Santana. I thought Davidi was actually downplaying the Jays current state in his most recent piece. Not a ball thrown in Spring training yet, and I think the Jays fans have reason to be concerned.
To be fair, the Jays are not necessarily doomed to compete if they do nothing. I would be just as happy giving Marcus Stroman a chance than overpaying for a Garza or trading away Stroman or Sanchez for someone. Sometimes the best move is no move. We really don’t know what this team can do at full potential. A healthy Morrow, Melky, Bautista and Reyes in addition to (based on 2nd half numbers) an adjusted Dickey and Buehrle can certainly put this team in better shape than they were. And to say it’s a joke only because he signed Ohka to a wise minor league deal…just remember the pitching market is going to get moving come January/when Tanaka gets posted (if he does)…relax.
I like your optimism, Jaysfan724!
Thanks. I’m not saying this team is a contender, but they certainly aren’t doomed as many people think.
Not before Gibby goes, he’s got some insurance for a little bit at least..
I agree AA hasn’t done much this winter to improve the team. But to say the Jays are “so close” to a winner is like calling a pitch thrown into the stands as being “juuuuuuuuust a little outside”. Currently, the Jays are fighting for fourth place in 2014, unless all its parts are over-achieving, the Jays won’t see first place in September.
Melky is a question mark. Will Rasmus improve? Joey Bats has a full season? Lawrie improves? Reyes stays healthy? Second base? And pitching? At the very least… I hoped AA would make a managerial change. Gibbons is a decent guy, but that’s all I can say about him.
Many people forget (or may not be old enough to remember) that until the 1990’s, H.O.F. Pat Gillick’s nickname was “Stand Pat”, for much the same reasons. From 1978 to 1989, he seemed unwilling or unable to make a major trade (and was unable to attract big name free agents to Toronto), despite the Jays being contenders for the last 5 years of that stretch. The trades last year were bigger than any Gillick did in his first 12 years as GM although while I still believe they were the right deals at the time, it’s easy to look back and suggest maybe AA should have “stood pat” a little longer. Sometimes making major, “sexy” moves like last year’s are just as risky as doing nothing at all.
Anthopoulos. Anthopoulos. Should be in every baseball writer’s spell check dictionary.
For at least one more year, maybe.
I think AA and the Blue Jays will be licking their wounds from last year’s off-season gone bad for the next couple of years.
Congratulations on another top 10 draft pick in 2015 however
The Jays have no salary commitments after 2015, so they should be fine. Their low minors are well stocked, and by 2015/2016 comes around, those guys will be within striking distance of the bigs.
Assuming the majority of them don’t flame out between now and then as prospects in the low minors are wont to do.
Of course, but in the mean time, those guys are slowly building value to help improve the MLB squad.
If they bust they won’t be helping the MLB squad.
No, but their trade value can be used to acquire proven assets, which is the point I was trying to make.
I get that, but if they flame out they won’t have any trade value either.
Fair enough. The likelihood of that isn’t that great until they reach the upper levels anyway.
I mean, I love prospects as much as anyone, and it’s the best way to build a team if you can do it, but when you’re looking at guys for 2-3+ years down the road, it’s just not a dependable answer to any sort of concern, and it’s not something you can count on (or wait for) to fix things.
They also have a farm system ranked between 10-15 depending on who you talk to. Should only get better once guys like Baretto, Osuna, Tirado, DJ Davis etc start progressing.
Only one salary commitment…Reyes (through 2017), but nonetheless, they’ll have money to spend and top prospects in the upper levels by then.
That’s a major assumption about the prospects; they may be top prospects two years from now, but they may have completely flamed out too – it happens all the time with prospects, especially ones in the low minors.
I’m not saying all of them will be, but you’re bound to have a few. A lot of the Jays top prospects from the past two years before the Happ, Dickey and Marlins trades were in the upper levels. However, with those you also get your ones that flame out like Deck McGuire or Chad Jenkins.
Sure, some of them could be, probably even likely will be, but counting on it, and sitting on your hands waiting for it is a very risky proposition – it’s not really an answer to criticism of the future of the team because it’s too unpredictable; if they were already in the high minors it would be a more legitimate response.
Where I did I say I was waiting for it? The Jays aren’t going to let all of their players walk and rely on the promotion of a bunch of AAA prospects. All I’m saying is it is likely many of those lower level top prospects will be upper level top prospects by then (and some of them won’t be). Your nitpicking my words…the point of my original post is they will have the resources after 2015 (money and upper level prospects) to acquire players they will need to replace then. How much if each is still to be determined.
So if Amaro was smart at evaluating talent, we may have acquired a bullpen piece for these two washouts. And we backed off because of health. And now, we have nothing. Awesome.
If the Phillies would have made that trade at the time, it would have been a clear win (especially after getting Tommy Joseph last year, I don’t think many people thought Valle would have ever been a main catcher in Philly). But after seeing Lopez struggle this year (in categories that you can’t just “chalk up” to Coors Field), I guess their concerns about him were right – he saw his K/9 drop significantly (down over 1.5 from 2012 to 2013), his BB/9 rate increase (up 1.0 from 2012 to 2013), and even had his GB% drop (pretty significantly – from 55% to 49.6%). Although, not trading for him did indirectly (ok, probably directly) lead to the Phillies signing Mike Adams, who, at best, may be ready for the start of the season.
Our team would have been better without Adams. They made $5 million different, we could have fetched another bullpen arm or complimentary bat. Lopez is still a quality reliever and can still bounce back, while Adams we are simply hoping for some value.
Lopez has now (reportedly) failed two physicals for trades because of an elbow issue – and then had his worst season in his (albeit, relatively short) career last year. I’m not saying Adams is going to light the world on fire. Or even that it was a great move to not trade for Lopez, and sign Adams. Both seem to have some serious concerns. Adams that he can come back from multiple tears in his labrum/rotator cuff. Lopez that he won’t need surgery on an elbow that has voided a pair of trades. And was that $5 M they would have spent on an extra BP piece or bat really going to make a significant impact on the team?
Well consider that we would also have that same $5 million for this year’s team too, which we could use to sign Jeff Baker, who I’ve argued before is the absolute perfect fit for our team. This really boils down to who would be better on this team, and the clear choice is Lopez, all things consider. Hindsight is 20-20, but I would have made that trade then, so…
Lopez for Valle & Cloyd in retrospect wouldn’t have been bad, monday morning QB-ing it since both Valle and Cloyd were waived.
Bartolo Colon is also “two players in one”, but that doesn’t mean he should have received a two-year deal.
this has been a let down of an offseason for the jays imo. i personally would have offered Johnson the 14.1. overpay yes, but its only for one year. and kept JPA. JP at 2 mil is nothing. he should be backing up Dioner. if AA biggest move other than bring in the two new catchers is Tomo Ohka, hes gonna be on the hotseat imo.
I doubt Johnson would have accepted a QO from the Jays.
Pitchers looking to make good and score a multi-year deal avoid the AL East like the plague.
if he wouldn’t have accepted the QO than good, not only do you not have to pay him 14.1 but you’d get a draft pick. ps there was no way Johnson wouldn’t have accepted a QO.
His first crack at the AL, and he only throws 16 starts and puts up a 6.20 ERA.
Considering how quickly he signed with San Diego, I think it’s pretty obvious he was ready to get out of the AL East as soon as possible.
Because he wasn’t given a QO…he was only getting a 1 year deal no matter what, so if he wasn’t going to get the $14.1 mill QO, he was going to go somewhere that would benefit him so he could re-establish value and get a better deal come 2015.
It didn’t seem like a good marriage – Jays and Johnson, once the season ended. And JPA can’t call a game. 20 homers is nice from the catcher’s position, but every team in MLB would trade that for a better defensive catcher and someone who can deal with the pitching staff. Dioner hasn’t played 100 games since 2009. That means you’d be seeing a lot of JPA. It defeats the purpose of trying to improve your pitching staff and defense, provided that JPA doesn’t change (improve) behind the plate.
20 home runs is definitely not nice if it comes with a .227 OBP.
yep, awful.
JPA could not be a backup for the Jays. After the flack he was getting this year from the fans and media. All well deserved, it would be too much for him to come back. Plus he would have been going to arbitration, plus going from a starter to a back up in our 20s for the same team will kill any confidence or drive you may have left. Lastly, back up catchers are typically more defensive orientated since you don’t have to worry about them heating up their bats.
Shi, AA is not going to stand pat. What is nice to see though is that even under a pile of pressure he’s staying patient and avoiding desperation moves. I think he has a lot more job security than most think.
The problem with going by Shi’s reports is that he does not actually do reporting in the traditional sense. He is basically a mouth piece only and only aims to give out a headline regardless of the substance.
Shi was so much better when he was with the Canadian Press, before he was with Rogers.
Doumit’s two players in one, alright. A mediocre player, and a less-than-mediocre one.
Guys? Am I right?
well done sir. plaudits bestowed.
Funniest baseball play I have seen in my life was Doumit nailing his own pitcher,John Grabow ,in the arm while attempting to throw out a base stealer a few years ago. I guess he though if he got it to the SS,( who wasn’t covering ) he might have a chance. The look on his face was priceless.