Earlier this afternoon, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported that the Blue Jays have reached out to the Phillies and inquired on Cole Hamels, but Shi Davidi of Sportsnet hears from a source that those discussions occurred months ago. The gap in talks isn’t exactly surprising, given that the reported outcome was that Hamels was unwilling to waive his limited no-trade protection to approve a deal to Toronto. Davidi reports that GM Alex Anthopoulos is unlikely to subtract from the big league roster to add immediate help, and he seems unconvinced that the Blue Jays would seriously consider parting with either left-hander Daniel Norris or right-hander Jeff Hoffman, both of whom are deemed vital components of the club’s future. Toronto has $5-8MM of available payroll to make in-season additions, per Davidi, so even if Hamels had been comfortable with a trade, the teams would still have some hurdles to clear in terms of salary. Hamels is earning $23.5MM this season — of which about $17.46MM remains.
Here’s more on the Blue Jays…
- The Blue Jays announced last night that rookie sensation Devon Travis has been placed on the 15-day DL with inflammation in his shoulder. Travis’ DL stint is back-dated to when he last played on May 17. There’s no indication that Travis is slated to miss a large chunk of time, so it seems likely that he could return to the club in early June. In the meantime, Toronto has selected the contract of fan favorite utility infielder Munenori Kawasaki, who will join the club for tonight’s series opener in Seattle. The 33-year-old Kawasaki has batted .244/.327/.302 over the past two seasons in part-time duty with Toronto.
- In a notebook piece from last night, Davidi writes that manager John Gibbons feels that Daniel Norris isn’t far from a return to the Majors. “His last outing was pretty good,” said Gibbons. “We just want to see that a couple of times, a few times maybe, for his own benefit. … We’re looking to get him back. He got here so quick, he started to struggle, you want to make sure what you did by sending him down was worthwhile, that he’s regrouped enough, instead of rushing him back.” Norris has a 2.50 ERA with 20 strikeouts against nine walks in 18 innings since his demotion to the minors.
- Also of note on the prospect front for Jays fans, assistant GM Tony LaCava said that Jeff Hoffman’s pro debut was a success, as his fastball topped out at 99 mph and he was able to throw five innings in his first start. Hoffman, selected ninth overall in the 2014 draft, didn’t pitch for the Jays last season as he recovered from Tommy John surgery. He was thought to be a potential No. 1 overall pick prior to his injury.
- Davidi’s colleague, Ben Nicholson-Smith, hosted his weekly Blue Jays chat this afternoon and discussed a number of trade scenarios, R.A. Dickey‘s future with the team beyond 2015 and a the number at which Roberto Osuna‘s innings should be capped.
Wasted money on Hamels. This team is far behind from being a winning team. Under achieving for at least the past 4-5 yrs.
Don’t waste your money.
Yeah, I mean look how much better the rest of the AL East is now. I mean, they went 2-7 since being 5 games back, and now sit 4.5 games back.
Oh, wait….
Or they could fix that bullpen that’s blown 7 games and only saved 6… Papelbon and Harang would be a nice trade to happen considering it would allow Cecil to join Osuna as their only reliable bullpen options in those crucial close games the Jays always seem to let go away.
You can make the argument their starters haven’t gone long enough but if their rotation averages 200 innings this year which is a huge stretch, that’s only averaging 6.1innings a game meaning they have to put that bullpen out there for the 7th,8th and 9th. Maybe that’s why teams are building bullpens nowadays right Rays/Royals/Astros/Nationals/Cardinals/Dodgers?
The Nationals/Dodgers/Rays aren’t investing money into their bullpens. They’re drafting capable pitchers and using their excess for the bullpen.
Also, blown saves is a shared stat among the whole bullpen. A reliever can get a blown save in the 6th inning. It isn’t really an appropriate measure to discern how a bullpen is truly pitching.
The Dodgers have a lot of money in their bullpen, the majority of it is on the DL but that doesn’t change the fact they’ve put money into improving it the past few years. The Rays just traded for their setup man in Kevin Jepsen who they got in the Matt Joyce trade and the Nationals also have money on the DL in Casey Janssen. All these teams did stuff to improve it.
I understand what a blown save is, don’t see your point in explaining it to me when the Jays lack quality mid inning relievers to go along with only 2 relievers capable of doing anything positive. When the starting rotation has 2 guys with a track record of giving you 200 innings a year a good bullpen is pretty much a necessity to ensure you you get through those 7-8-9 innings with a lead or a game in tact.
As for the rest, if you have terrible starting pitching, that’s going to expose your bullpen sooner or later. You can’t have relievers pitching this often, because as we’re seeing with Toronto, they’re getting burnt out. Their worst relievers are having to pitch more to get through the 4th-6th innings because the starters have failed, and that’s exposing a bullpen that’s otherwise been pretty decent.
The Blue Jays bullpen isn’t fantastic, but it isn’t designed to be. It’s designed to be average and it is. The rotation has been a dumpster fire, and that’s exposed their whole pitching staff. Hendriks has been a nice surprise, Cecil and Osuna are going to continue to be viable, Loup is going to bounce back, Delabar’s production has been encouraging too since they got him back from Buffalo. The Blue Jays aren’t in the AL East cellar because of the bullpen.
You don’t watch their games.
“There have been 9 games where the Blue Jays were tied or were leading in the 7th inning or later, and ultimately lost the game.”
In simple terms:
“The Blue Jays have blown 9 leads, but only have 3 ‘come from behind’ wins.” – May 20th 2015.
The narrative of this season has Jays lose close games because team can’t keep it close late. Gibbons has stated himself that the lack of quality pen arms has forced him to leave in a starter way past the time he’d usually pull them.
How do you know what games I watch? lol Be more presumptuous.
Have the Blue Jays lost nine leads, or nine ties + leads? I feel like you’re being intentionally misleading.
Moreover, how do those numbers compare against the league average?
That has not been the narrative of the season at all. The Blue Jays starting pitching has been terrible. That’s been the reason the Blue Jays have lost so many games. Hutchison has gotten blown up, Dickey went consecutive starts without a strikeout, the Jays starting pitchers are walking boatloads, and striking out few. Aaron Sanchez has walked more than he’s struck out. The starters have the worst FIP in baseball. Worse than the Rockies. Still the bullpen’s fault?
Both have been horrendous and every Jay fan agrees with me.
Starting pitching WAR 15th in AL = -3.9
Relief pitching WAR 14th in AL = -1.0
Just for reference Kansas City has the third worst rotation WAR right now with -1.7 and have the best bullpen WAR with 2.9.
Fangraphs Major League Team Stats
Relievers:
0.3 WAR (23rd overall, 11th in AL)
FIP: 4.07 (23rd overall, 10th in AL)
xFIP: 3.76 (13th overall, 5th in AL)
Starters:
0.2 WAR (30th overall, 15th in AL)
FIP: 5.19 (30th overall, 15th in AL)
xFIP: 4.67 (29th overall, 15th in AL)
Interesting. It almost appears as though the relievers are doing some things positively, whereas the starters have been an absolute dumpster fire.
I am a Jays fan. I’m a long time member of several Blue Jays blogs, and I disagree with you. Actually I don’t disagree with you, data disagrees with your assertions.
Of course I wouldn’t be using baseball reference because that would make me sound smart or something?
Baseball Reference is smarter than Fangraphs?
I respect both sites pretty equally. They just calculate things a little bit differently.
Does Baseball Reference have the Blue Jays starter’s FIP/xFIP being 30th and 29th overall in baseball? Or is that just Fangraphs?
That’s not what you either one of us said. You’re clearly overlooking the fact and this is a fact that you said “data disagrees with my assertions”. When I point out that’s incorrect you start bringing up irrelevancies. Okay.
Their Starters are a “dumpster fire”, which is something I didn’t disagree with and if you might’ve read I put “Harang and Papelbon” would be a nice addition meaning that hey, their bullpen and rotation are both really bad? Either that or you’re missing something I didn’t write.
Why would I suggest acquiring a starter and reliever if clearly I didn’t come to the conclusion that both things need drastic improvements?
Well they aren’t there because of Offence, both starters and Bullpen are horrible, the Jays have the worst combined team era and the worst starting pitcher era in all of the AL, but have the best offence in the league. Should have focused on getting pitching help in the offseason, and didn’t Again!! Pitching wins games, and the Jays don’t have it, so they will continue to lose.
Everything wins/loses games. A run scored and a run prevented are equal. Can’t win 0-0 after all.
Don’t spend money on your bullpen, it’s baseball 101.
The Phillies being one of the highest income teams in baseball would undoubtably eat some of his salary for a solid B-Prospect. Which would probably be a Miguel Castro type prospect.
Some, but not enough for Rogers to pull the trigger on that deal. Castro is also a high price to pay for a bullpen piece I would think. He has a lot of cheap, controllable years you are giving up for something you could find much cheaper if you look harder.
The Jays haven’t converted a save since May 4th. They’ve blown like 5-6 saves since then, one of those games involved 2 blown saves in back to back innings. Cecil probably should be pitching in the 7th/8th inning since you can’t account of the likes of Liam Hendriks, Aaron Loup or Ryan Tepera pitch in any high leverage innings. Osuna’s pitched every single game for the past 5 days and he’s coming off Tommy John surgery. They’re not going to get a cheap bullpen piece this month or next month until the deadline. Which is months away, the only guys available right now is Papelbon. The Jays will undoubtedly be out of it by then if they continue to blown saves with this regularity because you can’t tell me Liam Hendriks or Ryan Tapera are going to step up into high leverage situations and pitch like they’ve never done before. Had the bullpen been addressed they’d probably sit a lot closer to that division lead.
They’re tied with Arizona with blown saves and rank second worst in bullpen WAR(A.L) according to baseball-reference.
If you are going by blown saves, we are on two completely different pages here.
The Jays don’t NEED to get a piece right this second, as they are not losing any ground on the rest of the terribly bad AL East yet, and things can turn around at any moment given the way the Jays pitching got off to a slow start, as guys were performing way under normal performance levels. Just be patient, and if they need a guy after the draft (which they probably will), they will get one. It just won’t be a big name, or one that will cost them anything they would regret giving up in the next 4-5 seasons.
Bullpens pieces are easy to get, it’s just not the time to get them yet.
You don’t possibly believe that the Jays are going to blow out every team for a win this year do you? They’ve only won like 2 games this year in which they’ve scored 4 or less runs which has to do with the fact their bullpen can’t keep a lead or keep a game close in a tie ballgame and they usually ends up blowing it.
Blown saves are a good statistic, unless you have five 200 inning eaters you’re going to need a good bullpen. 200 innings still only averages 6 innings a game. Meaning Liam Hendriks, Aaron Loup or Ryan Tepera would still need to come out for at least an inning in which they potentially blow a save. In which most cases they have.
I’m going by bullpen WAR by the way, the Jays still have the second worst bullpen team WAR which is -1.1 as of today. When you have this bad of a bullpen you’re not going to have many shutdown innings after your terrible rotation which is the worst in the AL with -3.6 goes out there.
Second worst rotation WAR in the A.L is Kansas City with -2.7WAR, they also have the best bullpen WAR with 2.5.
-Baseball Reference.
They’re not that far from being a winning team. Stats indicate they are already a better team than their record suggests and adding a Hamels just makes them that much better. Best offense in baseball, best X-WL in the AL East, just horrid results at pulling out close games so far.
Every team in the league should have at least one guy, like Kawasaki, Holt in Boston, Amarista in San Diego types that play with excitement and effort far beyond the talent which they actually posses. The kind of effort that makes those types instant fan favorites.
Amarista shouldn’t be getting starting assignments in San Diego, but he should be on that team as the utility player, always available to come off the bench at any time, just like Holt does in Boston and would think Toronto could find a roster sport for Kawasaki before now also. Sometimes it’s more than just the numbers with what a player brings to a team.
I’ll take the better performer over the better trier.
I agree these guys have a,really hard job, speaking of Major league players . But by the Same token they are payed to do a Job , Not for being the trying mentality. Would our Companies pay us if we just showed up to tried to Work !
If your in the American League east, your in with the Big Boys of Boston and New York. Blue Jays need to consider that or request move to American League central.
I’d much rather be in with “Big Boys of Boston and New York” than the Royals or Tigers at this point.
Yeah.. Can count on those 2 making an impact acquisition (or 2) if/when either is still in the thick of it by the end of June and forget it for KC, iffy situation with detroit on a single acquisition you could call impact. Nobody ever can deny both Boston/NYY were afraid to pull the trigger on a deal of any size during the season and neither is afraid to go over the salary cap.
Boston may have the edge in kids they “could” give up, though with the Yank’s, it that they will willingly deal anything they have and always will to get a win, especially heading onto 3y without a PO birth. I can see them making more than 1 huge deal quick.
As if requesting a move to the AL Central would change anything (and also be incredibly unrealistic).
I would much rather they not be in the AL East, as they would have made the playoffs regularly in any other division over the past 2 decades, but it’s not up to them.
However, the AL East is all terrible this year, and the Yanks and Sox don’t have great teams either so…..
Then finish LAST !
tonight’s series opener in *Toronto 🙂
But New York and Boston want to Win more than Blue Jays Management, can’t competent with ruthless ownership of those Clubs! ,Toronto has to have that mentality .
As much as I like Muni his AAA numbers shouldn’t warrant a call up. The
only reason I can think of for his call up would be a diversionary
tactic directed at fans on the recent crappy play of the team.
They needed a middle infielder for the weekend, he’s gone on Monday when Reyes is back….. What would your solution have been???