2:39pm: Revere acknowledges that he’s been traded, Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News tweets. Pitchers Jimmy Cordero and Alberto Tirado are headed to Philly in return, Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com reports on Twitter.
1:07pm: The Blue Jays have agreed to acquire outfielder Ben Revere from the Phillies, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki reports on Twitter. He joins a bevy of other additions heading to Toronto in a busy deadline for GM Alex Anthopoulos.
Revere owns a .298/.334/.374 slash on the year and while contributing 24 steals. That’s a fairly typical line for the speedy, left-handed-hitting outfielder. As Steve Adams of MLBTR noted earlier today, that brings something of a different element to Toronto’s high-powered offense.
In spite of his running ability, Revere is not generally considered an excellent defensive outfielder. But he has drawn much more positive ratings from both UZR and Defensive Runs Saved in 2015.
For Toronto, Revere could make sense as a platoon partner for Kevin Pillar in center as well as the team’s combination of Danny Valencia and Chris Colabello in left. All of those players hit from the right side of the plate.
The Phillies will pay the remainder of the $1.2MM owed Revere this season, Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca tweets. The Jays can control him for two more seasons through arbitration.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Sounds like a single-A prospect..not like that narrows it down or anything
It’s getting ridiculous now
I guess the Blue Jays were willing to pay 75/25 unlike the Orioles who wanted to go 50/50.
There’s a joke in there somewhere from reading earlier responses.
A.A. is going nuts
Ben Revere is an excellent addition for Toronto. Not the type of player that does much for a horrible team like Phillie but a nice shot in the arm for a quality team like Toronto.
Not a Blue Jays fan, but I’m happy for their fans. They sure are going for it.
That said, this is all going to look pretty bad if they don’t make a deep run.
Honestly the only one that would look bad is Price.
LOL@AA, madman
What happned to Pompey and Pillar? I thought they were as good as Revere.
So, why are the Blue Jay doing all of this?
They better get that Wild Card otherwise, I don’t see a future for AA.
pillar plays center. pompey is in triple a.
What do you mean what happened to Pillar? He’s the team’s CFer. If you haven’t noticed, they don’t have a LFer. Revere fits that position. As for Pompey, he needs to prove that he can hit consistently in the minors. He’s ripping up the league right now but that doesn’t necessarily translate into success at the big league level. Especially for a team thats trying to make a run.
I’m not fond of huge overhauls like the next guy, as recent history with Miami and *gasp* Toronto in the past haven’t totally panned out to reach expectations, but keep at it if you really want all in.
I’d just worry for their GM’s job security if they don’t finish above .500 this season.
Too bad for the Jays the best teams in baseball don’t always do well in the playoffs. I still like that they’re going for it given that many of their main pieces will be free agents after the 2016 season and they need to make up a lot of ground in their division of course, but for as many big moves as they’ve made, there’s almost no such thing as a “favorite” in baseball. During the regular season yes, but in the playoffs it’s anyone’s game. Same thing goes for the Astros and other teams. At some point you mortgage too much of your future for a chance of winning that can only be so high.
So the point of your comment is: there are no guarantees in sports.
Thanks for enlightening everyone.
I take it you don’t know much about sports then.
Of all the major sports, baseball is at the bottom of the list when it comes to the correlation between regular season winning % and playoff winning %. In basketball the top one or two regular season teams are highly likely to win it all. In hockey, the better team is somewhat more favored to win. Even in the NFL’s one game playoff format if a team is significantly better than its opponent or matches up very well it is likely to win.
My point is that mortgaging your future in baseball isn’t as sound a decision as it may be in other sports for this reason. If your mortgage your future in basketball to become the best team in the game, you’re golden. This is also true to some degree in other sports. In baseball, it’s not. At some point the returns from improving your team via trade aren’t worth the few percentage points added to one’s playoff winning chances. Again, not criticizing the Jays here so much as making a general point, as they still need to make the playoffs and have ground to cover.
I think he got your point. He was just teasing you because you said what everyone knows… in more words than what it took.
Relax.
Actually … Many more words 🙂
He said there are no guarantees in sports. I countered with there are no guarantees in baseball specifically. That’s all.
Although I will admit I can much too wordy at times. It’s one of my bad habits, the other being a (currently irritated) Mets fan.
Good lefty option for that RH heavy lineup. Revere is slashing .320/.355/.404 against RHP. Solid platoon option with Pillar. AA’s really going hard this deadline :O
I think you’ll see the Pillar/Revere combo man CF/LF most nights. LF defense was a hole for the Jays. They can easily accept a downgrade in offense for elite defense in LF, although you could really argue that Ben Revere isn’t an offensive downgrade from Colabello/Valencia.
Typically, Revere hits lefties better than righties.
Blue Jays finally got a LH batter.
I don’t think its any stretch to say their lineup is the most fearsome in baseball.
I don’t think anyone would have argued against it even BEFORE Tulo (and Revere I suppose). They had 70+ runs on the entire league until the Yankees closed the gap a bit with that 21-run explosion. A couple weeks ago they had almost a 1.0 run per game advantage on everyone else in the league.
this is becoming borderline negligent. totally sacrificing the future for now.
jays fans – you digging all this win-at-all-costs-now-throw-caution-to-the-wind stuff?
Agreed. Only if it pans out will whoever their GM is look like a genius and revered (no pun intended).
They haven’t been to the playoffs in 22 years. Can you blame them for being a little excited?
since all these prospects are guaranteed to be great it’s a risk. (sarcasm)
up until a year ago no one knew who any of these prospects were. blue jays will continue to develop prospects. aa has already done it twice already. after some of the trades from 2-3 years ago, people said they gutted their farm system and yet here we are. still had enough for price, tulo plus 2 other major leaguers.
i wish they had done it earlier…trading drabek when he still had value would have been cool.
When did Drabek have value?
Drabek was one of the players that came back for Halladay. He was highly regarded once.
He was the main piece in the Roy Halladay deal. He was a top 20 prospect in all of baseball.
It’s totally not negligent.
As Cedric Lee said, AA is a master of replenishing the minor league closets.
When he arrived as GM, we had nothing.
He stocked the minor league system to the brim.
After the Marlins deal, our minor league system was once again barren, and once again Anthopoulos replenished the system!
you dont know who they gave up, and he’s not a FA at the end of the season.
They are in the same division as the yanks and soxs …. I think it’s great. This whole “future” approah doesn’t always workout either, sometimes you gotta go for it. They got two years to make a serious run at the WS. 2 great chances vs 6 ok chances by playing it safe all the time. The Dodgers could learn a lesson. It’s really hard to win championships in sports, the Atlanta Braves had a run of 14 division titles and won one World championship,… That’s what playing for the future can get you. A run of great teams that can’t get over the hump. You have the phillies you went for it from 07-11, and only wore one,but had the chance, 2 wins away from back to back titles, they knocked on the door hard but came up short. Then you have the cards and giants…. Which I think is more an abbreviation. Will see. It’s really hard to be the best team and prove that you are executing when it matters. If tor gets its first WS since 93′ I do thik they’ll care about the future, if they don’t, at least they went for it instead of being indecisive. great move TOR it’s what sports are all about, championships …
Not hoarding unproven prospects
AA has been stockpiling prospects for a long time. Out of the “Lansing Three” he has retained two and shipped the other for a pitcher coming off a Cy Young season. I’ll grant that hasn’t worked out but AA has been criticized for over-valuing his prospects.
This is the last year for Paul Beeston and there have been whispers that AA might be gone if the team doesn’t improve or make the playoffs. He missed out on adding starting pitching during the off-season and, up until now, has had no success. What changed? Perhaps the Blue Jays owners (Rogers Communications) decided to take the financial handcuffs off. Or maybe it was like the Star Trek episode where Spock decided the most logical time to be illogical.
Looks like they got their leadoff hitter now
With that disaster Gibbons you never know. But one things for sure is that Troy Tulowitzki should be hitting 3.
Absolutely not.
They have already been wrong to hit Bautista 3rd, don’t magnify it by putting and even better hitter 3rd.
Tulo should be 2nd or 4th. I think 2nd.
Something like: Revere, Tulo, EE, Joey, Josh, Martin or Pillar etc.
Id do Revere, Donaldson, Tulo, Edwin, Bats, Martin etc.
You should never put your best hitter third. You are minimizing his impact by doing so.
And yes, lots of teams do it (including the Jays). That doesn’t make it less wrong.
Why do you say having your best hitter hit third is minimizing their value, Rusty? If they’re hitting cleanup there’s no guarantee they’ll come up in the first inning. I think a lineup of Revere, Donaldson, Bautista, Tulowitzki, Encarnacion, Martin, Travis, Smoak/Navarro, and Pillar would be excellent. Can’t go wrong with switching Bautista and Tulo either.
Disagree your best hitter should hit 3rd. That way he always bats in the 1st inning, and possibly with some runners on. Regardless jays offence is so good it doesnt matter.
Is it bad that I think Toronto still misses the playoffs, even with all these moves?
It’ll be hilarious if it happens
It’s understandable. This is a good team that nonetheless has had an uncanny knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they could have 10 more wins this year (making them 62-41 instead of 52-51). That said, with all these new additions maybe the “vibe” of the teams turns around. Time will tell.
AA doing his Preller Impression.
Great for the Jays this year…A.A just saved his job
See what happens when you give a Greek no budget! AA the best
+1 for a quality current events reference.
Nice!!!!
Future rly hasn’t been mortgaged that bad despite all these moves. Hoffman and Norris are two big close to ML rdy pieces gone along with Jose Reyes obviously. Boyd is ML rdy but very low ceiling, Tinoco/Labourt are a long ways away and neither is outstanding. All three pieces to the M’s for Lowe were org. Ish guys. Also, revere has two years of control left so he’ll be here nxt year for another try with Tulo, Donaldson, Bauts, EE, Martin, Pillar, Travis with plenty of budget room to add to the rotation. The price trade makes me nervous, but was a reasonable cost given the rumours of the market.
and the Jays still have Stroman, Osuna, Sanchez, Pompey in the fold;also, Alford, Pentacost are still c the team
Last year at this time we were all singing the praises of the Oakland A’s. The baseball Gods are a fickle bunch……
Makes no sense to have him platoon with Pillar – he is playing fab defense, and hitting .271
Put him in left – that’s the hole in the OF – and bat him lead off
rube wanted to get phillipe aumont back in the deal
Are you trying to give me a heart attack?
The Jays jet has a busy day ahead of it!
apparently rube was talking to the media about the hamels trade when he got the text that revere was traded.
They’ve waited for a Saunders return all season and can’t wait no more.
What did the phillies get??
Very little, I imagine… Revere is not a high trade value player.
Revere is on pace for a ~3.0 fWAR season, is a little over 27 years old (2 months) and has 2 years of team control left after this one.
He’s not a “franchise cornerstone” value player, but he’s definitely better than average.
To all the people who say toronto just wrecked its farm, we still have Pompey, ReidFoley, Harris, Pentecost, Alford, Osuna, etc left. (Barring what we give for revere). Not only that, we have Donaldson, Martin, Tulo, Travis, Pillar all controlled long term. Joey bats and Edwin are here next year as well. NOT ONLY THAT, but the jays have around 50m coming off the books in salary next year in Buehrle (making over 20m), Dickey making 12.5m, Romeros deadweight money in 7.5 coming off, Izturis’ deadweight money coming off, and a bunch of other smaller salaries. The jays even with a lesser farm system, are in a long term position to keep winning.
According to Jim Salisbury the Phillies are getting Jimmy Cordero and Alberto Tirado.
According to Jim Salisbury the Phillies are getting Jimmy Cordero and Alberto Tirado.
Jim Salisbury is saying the Phillies got Jimmy Cordero and Alberto Tirado.
I like this deal for Toronto. Philadelphia saves some cash, but the return — two young relievers with high walk rates — certainly isn’t overwhelming.
well, they probably asked for someone like tellez and gotten rejected; they have acquired lots of young arms to possibly fill out rotation in next couple years, so rather than go for some soft tossing possible 5th starter, getting some possible bullpen arms makes sense.
both guys walk alot but worth taking a shot on.
Lol literally gave up nothing for revere. Love it.
LOL. Getting nothing in Revere. I just got back from driving him to the airport. Worst fielding OF in Phillies history. Never walks. Worse production from a guy hitting .300 there will never be.
I think you dont know a lot about baseball. Perfect Leadoff hitter, its just the phillies are horrible. Perfect fit on the blue jays for cheap.
Lifetime .300 hitter as a Philly led the league in hits last year. Probably won’t have another one of those combinations for a while. Maybe one of the guys we got back will be among the league leaders in holds one day. Not projected as starters or closers so middle relief is all that is left. Sad. If you trade away all the veterans you’ll have a bunch of young players looking at each other in a few years. No leadership left who will be here in two or three years when veterans will be needed. Toronto will love Revere.
want to shout out to the people who changed the whole dynamic of this team, fulfilling my wishes which I and others posted here, before the deadline … the incoming are beyond expectations. Great stuff from AA and crew for this team and for baseball in canada