Here’s the latest from the game’s eastern divisions:
- The Marlins are interested in Cuban second baseman Hector Olivera, reports Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald. Olivera recently defected with hopes of becoming an MLB free agent, and Miami is certainly one of several clubs that looks in need of an acquisition up the middle.
- Giancarlo Stanton’s season-ending injury does not change the Marlins’ plans to make a push at extending him this winter, the Associated Press reports (via the New York Times). “There’s no hesitancy, no reservation or doubt he’ll return and be even better,” said Miami president of baseball operations Michael Hill. “We’re going to do everything in our power to keep him a fixture in our lineup for many years to come.”
- The Red Sox are not giving up on Will Middlebrooks in spite of building frustration, but president Larry Lucchino did make clear that the team is “looking for a left-handed hitting third baseman,” as he told WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan (via WEEI.com’s Andrew Battifarano). Though Lucchino said that prospect Garin Cecchini could be that player, he also emphasized that the team will not “make the same mistake that [we] made this year, which is to assume that so many of our young players are ready for prime time.”
- Two long-time Blue Jays — reliever Casey Janssen and DH Adam Lind — are approaching the possibility of finding new homes, as Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca writes. Janssen, a free agent, says he does not yet know whether Toronto will make him a competitive offer. If not, he says, he will “embrace a new city and try to bring a championship to wherever that next stop is.” Lind, on the other hand, is subject to a $7.5MM club option. Though expectations are that it will be exercised, Lind says he hopes the front office will give him a clear sense of its intentions before the season ends.
Please dont bring Lind back lol
I could definitely see the Rangers making a play for Casey Janssen in free agency and maybe a trade for Bautista and or Lind..
What’s the point of trading away Bautista? Are they going to find a $14M dollar slugger that provides 5-6+WAR in Free Agency? Nobody of that quality would even entertain the thought to sign with the Jays.
Why would Toronto trade it’s cost controlled franchise star? Because you’re a Rangers fan and you want him?
Why? Unless they’re planning on overpaying for Nelson Cruz or Victor Martinez, they really don’t have any better options.
If it was up to me I’d let Lind, Morrow, Happ, Rasmus, Santos all walk, use that money freed up to sign Melky and the remaining freed up cash that is left to try and acquire Brandon Phillips in a trade. Eat Phillips contract and they’d likely give up nothing to acquire him.
If the Jays feel Edwin can’t play everyday at first, be one of the 29 other teams looking to steal Mark Trumbo from the Dbacks. His power playing in this division would be phenomenal.
I’m not on the Phillips bandwagon… He’ll be 34 next year and is clearly on the decline. I don’t like that .668 OPS at all given the downward trend.
There’s really no other options, unless you feel comfortable making our already poor infield defense worse by signing say Rickie Weeks. He’s the cream of the crop this year in terms of second basemen, no sure thing if he’s even willing to sign with the Jays.
Phillips can still field his position very well, considering he’d require nothing other than salary relief while putting up 2.0+WAR a season I’d say why not try and acquire him? He’s not useless with the bat either for a quality defensive infielder. He could always rebound in a hitter friendly division and it’s not like this guy doesn’t know how to hit with RISP.
It would be quite a bit of overpay though, do they really want to overpay that much for him? The is owed another $39MM over 3 years. At that price you can probably right around sign asdrubal or Lowrie and you got an upgrade.. And GAB isn’t exactly an unfriendly place for him to hit, I wouldn’t expect that much of an increase.
I wouldn’t mind signing anyone of those players, I’m being a realist in saying nobody in their right mind would want to go to a team that hasn’t won anything in 21 years, let alone made the playoffs without a horrible overpay. Toronto isn’t a hot destination for Free Agents, it hasn’t been since they signed Clemens nearly 2 decades ago.
You also can’t say Asdrubal or Lowrie have been more productive than an injured Brandon Phillips this year with the bat or the glove. Phillips has nearly provided more WAR then both players combined this year in far less games.
They all had essentially the same WAR. But Lowrie and Asdrubal are both 3-4 years younger than Phillips. I’d rather have the one that is younger and staying healthier. They also could hope that both their defense isn’t quite as bad at 2B, thus helping their WAR. Seattle isn’t a hot destination, yet they got their man. If Toronto will pay many will come.
Because Cano had other teams listening to his insane demands right? The Yankees offered Cano $65M less then what the Mariners offered him.
A win is apparently worth $6.5M-$7.0M. How much was Brandon Phillips worth this year even with an injury? Around $10M. Baseball Reference rates Asdrubal as a minus WAR player this year with the Nats at second and only provided 0.8WAR with the Indians, and Lowrie’s provided a measly 0.6WAR.
I must stress that Mark Buehrle, RA Dickey, Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and or J.A Happ are not strikeout throwers. They put the ball in play lots. They must have good defense behind them or else you get a month like August of this year where the Jays get blown out early and hard.
The Reds would need to eat 75% of Phillips’ contract for that to be a good move.
When I hear a list of quality free agents lining up to go to Toronto without grotesque overpays, I’ll gladly agree with that. Until then, Brandon Phillips sounds like the best option available with not a lot of options out there.
That’s not a great argument. Free agents have come to Toronto in the past (2006 comes to mind), but AA doesn’t pursue them. It’s true that some teams are wary of the turf and with playing in Canada, but the bigger problem is AA’s five year limit and his lack of aggression.
The Jays don’t have a ton of spare payroll and Phillips would be a terrible allotment of resources.
Who do you sign that improves this team at second? Like I’ve said, Rickie Weeks is the top free agent and he’s not even a replacement level player at the major league level. Asdrubal and Lowrie don’t want to play second and are going to get paid around $10M-$13M a year to come here like prior overpaid Free Agents that came here post Clemens.
BJ Ryan might have been the last impact free agent to sign in Tononto and he was paid the most as a closer at the time, he fell apart in the middle of the deal which is the reason most teams stayed away from him and hasn’t pitched since.
Why is Brandon Phillips not a good option when he’d require nothing to get and he makes your team better with him than without him defensively and offensively. He’s pretty much assured to get 2.0+WAR. That’s worth $13-14M in WAR terms.
Considering Phillips will provide 2.0+WAR a season and could potentially rebound in a hitter friendly division, what exactly do the Jays have to lose? They already went all in and got burned hard, they keep trying to plug guys who have no business being everyday starters at second or third depending on where Lawrie plays.
It’s either trade for a second baseman, or sign top FA second baseman Rickie Weeks who’s not even a sure thing to be on opening day roster with a team next year.
How do you know he will provide 2 WAR? Last four years (age 30 to 33) he’s put up 5.6, 3.7, 2.6, and 1.6 WAR. He’s also been worse in the second half of 2014 than the first half. Everything is pointing to him being done really soon. I am not at all on the Goins bandwagon but I’m not sure Phillips is an upgrade next year. Maybe one year would be fine, but Phillips has three years and $39MM left. That sounds like Uggla 2.0 to me.
He was hurt this year, still provided 1.5+WAR despite missing significant time. Was assured to hit 2.0WAR with defense alone.
There is no Phillips bandwagon in the year 2014.
Why not? He’s been worth over $8MM each of the last two years and the Jays have nobody to replace him. It’d be silly not to exercise the cheap option. They could trade him, but he’s really a DH only at this point so that limits his trade opportunities. I think we’ll see one more year of Lind before he walks.
Because all they have to do is train Juan Francisco into a better hitter and use him as DH. He’s younger, has power, is Dominican also, and is way cheaper. Oh, and at least he doesn’t have a back injury every month…..
That makes no sense. He is clearly worth the money.
Jansen… not so much (as it will be much more…)
Just curious…as someone who rarely watches Boston, what seems to be the problem with Middlebrooks? Looking at the numbers, the only thing that jumps out at me is that he swings at far fewer pitches than he used to. Despite this, his K rate has jumped. I’d be interested in the observations of some informed Boston fans who have watched him on a regular basis.
Some players seem to never get borderline strikes in their favor. Middlebrooks sounds like one of those players.
that and he’s susceptible to breaking pitches on the lower outside corner. Nagging injuries over the last 3 years as well.
More likely that he isn’t able to defend certain pitches on certain parts of the plate.
Probably, his fangraph heatmaps seem to indicate he loves to swing on a pitch inside even if it’s a ball.
Will Middlebrooks is bad at knowing which pitches to swing at and where to swing when he decides to. Also known as, he’s bad at batting.
Ok, but why? His first two years, he swung at the right pitches on par with the MLB average. In 2014, he’s making more contact on pitches in the zone than ever before, but FAR less contact on pitches out of the zone than ever before…and he’s swinging at far fewer pitches overall than he did in 2012-13, yet he’s seeing pretty much the same types of pitches now as he did in those years.
That is super false. Check his swing-and-miss rates for his first couple seasons, in combination with the percentage of balls he swung at.
Actually, it’s not super false. His first two years, he swung at almost the same number of pitches in the zone as league average. His contact rate in the zone was below league average, but only by a few percentage points, and this year it’s way up. His swinging strike rate has always been right around 1% higher than league average. The biggest differences, occurring this year for the first time, are that he is suddenly swinging at far fewer pitches overall and there’s been a drastic drop in his contact rate on pitches OUTSIDE the zone. So he’s actually gotten better at hitting strikes and worse at hitting pitches he should lay off. I would argue that if he can just learn a little patience – or even go back to his previous outside the zone contact rate – then Middlebrooks could make a nice stride forward next season.
He sure got a lot of prospect love coming up.
Panda to the Red Sox. 5/100M
Would be a good fit, but the pitching needs to be solved first.
I don’t know much about Sandoval. The Sox seem to be interested.
I personally like the Cecchini kid –I have seen him at AA and during this Sept. call-up and he hits the ball well. He also plays a little 1 B and LF.
Will is a puzzle–he takes a lot of called 3rd strikes similar to Bradley,Jr. The pitches may be just a little outside or inside and they give up on them.
Both WMB and JBJ insist on trying to pull the ball resulting in infield grousers or nothing flys to the OF.
Both could benefit from Winter Ball–both have options and will be fixtures at AAA next season.