11:24am: Toronto’s likely not a real threat to sign Keuchel, suggests Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, who expects the club to shop for lower-tier free-agent starters.
9:40am: As the most accomplished starting pitcher available in free agency, left-hander Dallas Keuchel has unsurprisingly drawn plenty of attention this offseason. Count the Blue Jays among the teams with interest in him, Jon Heyman of Fancred reports.
Starting pitching is a concern for the Blue Jays, whose rotation ranked an atrocious 28th in ERA and an unimpressive 21st in fWAR in 2018. That included a solid 114 innings from lefty J.A. Happ, whom the Blue Jays traded over the summer and now have interest in bringing back in free agency.
As things stand, the most established starters remaining in Toronto are Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, Sam Gaviglio and Ryan Borucki – a quartet that, with the exception of Borucki, struggled to prevent runs last season. Moreover, Stroman and Sanchez, despite the immense promise they’ve shown at times, have come up in trade speculation this offseason. Even if the Jays do keep them heading into next year, their control over the pair is dwindling, as both Stroman and Sanchez are only arbitration eligible through 2020.
While the Jays’ No. 1 and 2 starters are controllable for just two more seasons, it may take a contract at least twice that long to reel in the soon-to-be 31-year-old Keuchel. The career-long Astro is in line for a four-year, $82MM deal, MLBTR predicts. Whether the Jays would be well-served by making such a commitment is debatable. Toronto may have trouble pushing for a playoff spot during the very early portion of Keuchel’s deal, after all, as general manager Ross Atkins has suggested the team’s realistically hoping to return to contention in 2020 or ’21. In the meantime, the club should continue to have its hands full in a division led by the world champion Red Sox, the title-contending Yankees and the up-and-coming Rays.
Keuchel’s age, his status as a qualifying offer recipient and the Jays’ current state seem to make the two an imperfect match, though they may earnestly pursue the former AL Cy Young Award winner if they believe he’ll avoid a sharp decline. Keuchel’s run prevention, strikeout, groundball and swing-and-miss numbers dipped last year in comparison to his best seasons, but he remained a formidable producer. Further, Keuchel has never been one to rely on velocity or post gaudy strikeout numbers, and has instead leaned on his exceptional ability to induce weak contact. Keuchel’s big-talking agent, Scott Boras, plans to take advantage of that, having announced that he’s selling his client as the “soft-contact genius of his era.”
Jays always interest, but never seriously consider signing anybody! That’s why they will never be more than a third place team!
Oh really? How about the playoff runs in ’15 and ’16?
2 years. The Tampa Bay Rays has a couple year playoff run too. Irrelevant teams
Which upsets me, especially when Toronto is such a large market.
If you want the jays to be truly terrible you want them to sign free agents and be stuck with god awful contracts like martin and Morales and Bautista had they sign him to a blank cheque like all the fans wanted, and Encarncion notice how the Indians want to desperately trade him. See a trend here? Free agents = bad contracts.
There are both good free agents and good free agent contracts and bad free agents and bad free agent contracts. The Jays have a few bad of both.
Shaprio/Atkins signed Bourne and Swisher while in Clevleand. How did that work out?The current regime ha to clean up the Shaprio FA mess.
There is no question that every team must have it’s own developed core, but if the Jays really want to compete, they need to sign good free agents with good contracts. I don’t think SHaprio/Atkins have the skills to do that.
The Jays have had great FA signings in the past: Molitor, Clemens, Jack Morris, Dave Winfield, Joe Carter extension…..all were Gillick/Ash signings…..It can be done….
What bad contracts do the Indians have other than Kipnis who wasn’t a free agent signing by the way. Indians core was all asselbmed by him lol.
Also love the fact you had to go back two decades to find good free agent signings by the jays.
One thing with the Jays is they will need to spend a little more to get the free agents. They gave AJ Burnett and BJ Ryan big money to come to Canada.
There are good free agents; guys who are 26 turning 27. Jays aren’t signing Harper or Machado.
As for what Jimmer said….Molitor was mid-30’s, Clemens was mid-30’s, Morris was mid-30’s and Winfield was 40. All were for 1, 2 or 3 year deals. Longterm extensions are risky, obviously.
Yah, sad to go two decades back to find when the Jays had an elite GM.
Very very stupid comment. You should be proud. Wow.
Typical yankee fan. They wonder why the Yankees are the least respected team in the league.
Who cares if they’re not respected, which they are. They’re the winningist team in pro sports.
They buy championships, who cares?
You dont have to be clueless every day of your life.
The Yankees are the winnigist team in Pro Sports except for the Montreal Canadiens but who is counting huh?
Really stupid comment. I love seeing the Yankees lose and I know this isn’t true. Almost there entire team is home grown. They have a lot of finances available but these are not the Yankees from 10 years ago you read about in your cave yesterday.
Gave you an upvote for attempting to be a troll. But you do sound asleep at the switch.
Jays aren’t going to be contenders until 2021 at earliest, Keuchel doesn’t really fit that window. If he wants to be on a 4th place team and have to pitch against the Red Sox and Yankees a ton, then that’s on him, but I doubt he would.
Brighter future than the A’s.
??? You realize Justin’s comment was not a slam against the Jay’s, right?
Mets aren’t due for WS appearance until 2031 but we can hope. And there’s a pattern that makes me believe it will be 2031.
This looked like the best place to drop this nugget of my knowledge.
:0)
They STILL have a brighter future than the A’s.
Jays need to pass on this guy, he’s an unneccessary commitment in a rebuilding phase.
Idk about that, the Jays “could” could possibly compete for a WC spot next season depending on the their pitching situation. I mean what if they sign both Keuchel and Happ???
Similar situation to the Phillies last year,
They only have $60 mil on payroll next year befor arb and $20 in 2020 so I could see them signing 2-3 players this offseason. With the farm system lacking high end pitchers it’s not outrageous to think they could sign a few pitchers this offseason.
and what happened to the Phillies last year happens almost every time a non-contender thinks just because they have money laying around that they HAVE to spend it, so they overpay Carlos Santana for no damn reason.
They need to be signing guys like Mike Fiers, Edwin Jackson and Trevor Cahill, guys who can be flipped at the deadline to help bolster the farm with more arms.
Good call JTO!
Totally agree
I’ve said this numerous times about Philly based teams. They’re run by people who are too lazy, impatient, dumb to competently construct rosters. They want to make big splashes to impress a championship-deprived fanbase, so they go after players with name recognition. They live in the shadow of NY and Boston, and employ the same strategy and tactics. It never works because they overpay for guys who can’t carry a team, and who fail because they lack talent and depth.
It’s not championship-depraved, its postseason, period. They have the 5th longest postseason drought in MLB, 2011 was 8 years ago and they failed to understand what a rebuild is during that time.
I blame the Ryan Howard signing mostly, he was easily the most overrated player of recent times and should have never even sniffed that MVP over Pujols.
I live in the area… trust me, this city is championship-deprived. Their proximity to Boston and New York make them even more irrational and desperate.
Championship deprived? Didn’t the Eagles win the Super Bowl last year?
Yeah, their first in franchise history.
Keuchel makes no sense in Toronto. They don’t have a strong defense that would help him and they aren’t close to competing. I see a national league team… maybe nationals or Braves being the best choice for him.
Most likely won’t happen, but it’s at least possible. In addition to the Nats and Braves, the Twins could also be a possible fit, especially since they’re on the market for a left handed starter.
This smells like Boras having a hard time selling his guy. First the Reds and now the Blue Jays? Best of luck Dallas…..
Agreed the Boras machine might be putting this out….
would be weird since he bashed the jays front office earlier this season.
1 year deal with the Nats confirmed
I could see the Phillies maybe being interested, but the defense would have to improve behind him. Phillies young guys hit wall last year around August, and then too many guys playing out of natural position bit them in the buttocks last year.
Yes, one of the reasons Nola was, by some measures, more valuable than deGrom last season was because his FIP numbers were so good – he was let down heavily by the Phils’ historically bad defense. I’m not sure what they’re doing to fix that, but if they can, a guy like Keuchel could be a good fit.
trying to put Hoskins back at 1B, and targetting Segura/Machado is a good start.
“Soft-contact genius” Boras is one of a kind. Keuchel will get a good contract. But he’s been mediocre two of the last three years, and I’m not sure that translates to money that could have been justified by his 2015 season,
Please watch out when “punching back” – yes, Boras is corny as hell with his selling points, but Keuchel was in no way “mediocre” – you only are saying that because Boras raised the ceiling absurdly high when talking about him. DK had a 3.6 fWAR last year, along with 2.4 and 2.6 seasons (where he missed chunks of those seasons – he would have been 3.5 every year had he pitched 34 games a year), which is worth a lot in FA. No, he’s not the 5.9 Cy Young level, but that’s a solid rotation member right there and FAR from “mediocre the last three years”. He win gold gloves too. He is totally deserving of $20M+ a year.
I love Keuchel for Oakland being that they’re contending now and had all 4 INF get nominated for the Gold Glove (along with Laureano who made play of the year and was on-target for a GG nom if he played all year), with Chapman winning the Platinum Glove, so Dallas’s stuff would play extremely well with that defense, but no one thinks they will pay him that money (even though they’ve repeatedly said they would spend this offseason, and have offered big deals in recent past, only to get turned down, like Encarnacion).
OK, but I didn’t say mediocre for the last three years, I said two of the last three years. As for his Gold Gloves, putting aside the occasional crazy awards, his fielding is already reflected in his WAR. And missing innings in 2016 and 2017 is just a part of his record as anything else…projecting is dangerous, particularly with pitchers. I have him as 0.4 BWAR in 2016, 3.9 in 2017, and 2.6 in 2018, with ERA+ of 86, 141, and 108. His 2018 year is that of a solid starter, and if 2018 is his present true talent level, someone, if they don’t give him too many years, will be signing a real contributor. I would be a little worried about his falling K rates,
I get what youre saying regarding projection, but he’s hardly a flash in the pan type, he’s a type who can be easily projected as long as there’s solid D behind him. We have enough data on him to know what he is, a 3+ WAR guy if healthy, those get $20M now.
A 2.6 WAR in 26 games is 3.4 over 34
2.4 in 23 is 3.5 over 34
He was 3.6 in 34 in 2018
So 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 if healthy. Also those two were his only injury season and he hardly missed massive amounts of time.
I disagree in that his 2018 was solid, it was great, he had the 22nd highest WAR of all pitchers. That’s not elite but still very good to great.
This happens it seems like every offseason, Boras tells a reporter that the Jays are interested in one of his clients in the hopes that it will drive up his client’s market, same reports came out last year with JD Martinez.
I would like to see the Jays take a chance on Shelby Miller and some guys like Fiers, Cahill or Matt Harvey. One starter I can see the front office going for is ex Cleveland starter Josh Tomlin
Harvey and Miller are very wise choices, the Jays always act like they aren’t as far away from the Yanks and RS but they’re almost always SO far away from them.
They cant be taking big leaps in one single FA before VGJ, Bichette and Biggio come up. Wait for them to get here, then see how far away you are. In the meantime, stock up on high ceiling/high risk SPs who have trade deadline value if they’re doing well. Not Keuchel.
Sounds about right, let’s make the tanking complete.
I hope the Braves don’t sign Keuchel. I’d rather they trade some of their prospects for a front-line starter already under contract. Although, they do have the defense to support a pitcher like Keuchel.
I feel for the starting pitchers in the AL East. Too many good hitters in that division.
Why not sign Keuchel and trade for a front end starter?
Jays are a joke.
Not for long though, Vlady Jr. about to turn MLB on its ear. Bichette and Biggio look possibly elite-level talents too.
I respect, if not understand, a rational response to an obvious hallow troll comment.
Got to disagree JTO, Vlad Jr is elite, Biggio will be very good, Bichette will be a below average major-leaguer.
“Dallas, here’s a whole bunch of money that comes with virtually zero chance of having to deal with ANY post-season stress at all! How about it?” – Toronto (emulating Boras)
I have no idea why everybody is sleeping on the Jays. (1) They Do have a ton of money; Rogers might be the richest owners in sports. (2) They have GOBS of young talent coming, and it’s not all Vlad Jr.
Ya, it’s probably a transition-type year in Toronto. Let’s face it, the Sox are qualitatively better than any other team in MLB, not just the AL East. The Yanks/Rays/Jays are all just chasing the wild card. But that situation isn’t going to last forever; maybe only one year. It’s not irrational for Toronto to start adding pieces that will put them back into the hunt as soon as 2020.
As of rn the red sox bulpen is probably the worst in all of baseball. So that gives yanks and rays a chance..
And your theory is that because they have a bad bullpen (agree completely BTW), DD and the rest of the brain trust will sit there and say “Oh well, our pen is bad, guess we’ll finish third this year”…..This is the Red Sox, not the Rays……they may not do SMART things, but they’ll react…..
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Sox win total drop a bit. They had mvp caliber seasons from 2 players and a cy young season for a good chunk of the year from another. They also stayed pretty healthy for most of the year which is always a tough thing to replicate. They will still probably win upwards of 95 games, but I expect the division to end up much closer than 2018, especially if the yanks can actually beat up on the GD orioles like they couldn’t last year.
I’d agree that they had health and career years. But I think the win total, if anything, was misleading more from the negative than the positive. Everyone knows Cora’s foot was definitely off the peddle in September.
I can see the arrow pointing up for Benetendi and Devers (both still developing), and their contract situations working to their advantage; nothings going to inspire Boegarts like watching Manny get his millions. Betts? May be the incredibly rare circumstance when the best get better.
Jays are 3 years away from truly competing under this regime of Shapiro and Atkins. If Cashman or DOmbrowski had this club they would have tanked it after the 2015 season and be ready to tru;ly compete again in 2019.
With the farm builders Shaprio and Atkins 2022 is the first shot at truly winning unless there are front office changes and they sign some well evaluated stars.
Cashman tanks teams? How many Cashmen are in the league?
Don’t even try with this guy
yep Scouteyes is more like BSeyes . He is a hopeless idiot
Rogers might crack the top 10 but not close to the richest owner in sports.. They are one of the cheapest though, and spend like they’re small market. (when it comes to the Jays anyway).
Rogers is loaded. At least Top 3 richest ownership in baseball. But yes, stingy with their spending.
Bob, the Jays do have a ton of money. They should be all in for Harper the same way the Nats spent on Werth or Cubs for Lester. Giving Vlad another superstar helps him, and Vlad would help Harper. But rumblings persist quietly over when Vlad is called up. Also hearing Bichette won’t be until 2020 unless he tears up Buffalo. Biggio might hit .220 in AAA and won’t get a call. Nobody’s sure what to expect from Gurriel and Tellez.
So at this point the aim is 2021.
The Jays’ logic (if this reporting is accurate) is more solid than most seem to give credit for. 2019 will be a trial run but it’s not unreasonable to see 2020 as a contending year given the absurd talent at the upper minors and money coming off the books (followed by the Tulo contract dropping for 2021).
There’s also logic in seeking a veteran starter to help the young arms – Stroman and Sanchez aren’t there yet as vets or mentors but a guy like Dallas could be.
The Sox will be a force for a while but a 2020 Jays with Guerrero, Bichette, Biggio, Jansen, Tellez (assuming most pan out as projected) would be very good offensively for a while.
Just what I want to hear, Interest and no action.. works for me
Good to see the Jays checking in, but the organization needs to remain focused on a full rebuild.
Like my Jays would really sign Keuchel .. Please. We’ll end up signing some trash pitcher on a minor league deal. Atkins (GM) will add a couple of those “depth pieces” as his low IQ self likes to always say, and how important it is to have. Yes, Atkins, it’s great to collect trash that will never contribute to meaningful, winning baseball. I’d be ecstatic if we somehow bring Happ back, let alone Keuchel.. If it was the old front office led by Anthopoulos, who’s now the gm of the braves, then maybe. But with Shapiro and Atkins at the helm, signing Keuchel? My Jays? Lol. Please. Just hope he doesn’t go to the Bronx, in the same division.
Your Jays? Outta here with your pretentious and somehow concurrently trollish BS.
And stow the AA love. The reason the Jays have $40m in albatross contracts is because of him.
Go back to tongue-cleaning your windows.
The Shatkins haters can’t help themselves with these ridiculous takes.
Okay clown. So what has your little Atkins/Shapiro tandem done in Toronto ? Other then sign the useless Kendyrs Morales, and wait until Donaldsons value is nothing to trade him.. when we could’ve gotten a haul for JD last winter from the Cardinals. You don’t know baseball stop talking… Anthopoulos brought us a division championship and nearly went to the World Series in what over 20 years ? Please, even our highly touted prospect in Vladdy Jr was signed by Anthopoulos. Let me tell you something, smart one. This is the A.L East bruh… this is the best division in baseball don’t care what anybody says. This isn’t Cleveland, where you could collect prospects for 5 years. Anthopoulos was a way better GM then Atkins ..
And another thing, yes, my Jays. You uneducated clowns. Do you even remember what the hell the Blue Jays were before Anthopoulos got there ?…. are you a jays fan ? Do you remember those days? It was a complete and utter sh** show. Say what you want about the bad contracts, that’s what happens when yoh have great players. Yankees have always had bad contracts, because at one time those bad contracts were one of the best players in baseball.. smart one … but of course players getting old. But don’t dare compare Atkins to Anthopoulos.. Toronto Blue Jays were a borderline expansion team when Anthopoulos took over. Other then Roy Halladay, our team was complete and utter trash wish probably the worst farm system in baseball. In 3/4 years we were nearly competing for a World Series. In Toronto, in the AL East, in over 20 years. What you do in the A.L east, is 5x as valuable as what you do in Cleveland. Please. Only uneducated troll here is you.
^Marlo, you can bash Shapiro and Atkins. But AA love? Really? When the same Tulo and Price and others were on the trade table in 2014, did AA think about going after them? No. He waited until he needed a new contract to blow up the minor leagues.
Let’s look at the minors; very few prospects came out of the Jays system during AA’s tenure. AA’s best move was signing a legacy in Vlad Jr. AA can thank the likes of Keith Law for overrating the farm system, allowing AA to use them as bargaining chips to fleece teams in trades. Let’s also not forget AA’s lack of trade deadline deals during rebuilds to secure supplemental draft picks – only to NOT SIGN THEM!!!!
Let’s stop rewriting history over Anthopoulos’ amazing farm system. Let’s also not forget the numerous missed assessments of talent at the top level. Anthony Gose, the love for Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus, JoJo Reyes, the “we don’t see Yan Gomes as a catcher” crap, JP Arencibia is our catcher of the future…we can go on. Point is, AA had his faults too. Glossing over it is typical Jays fan forgetting the hard times of the past. That said, you’re the uneducated one for overlooking the negatives.
not to mention the fact that this fanbase was calling for AA’s head (the same way as they are with Shapiro/Atkins) before AA went all in, in July 2015. He was getting crucified by this fanbase but all of a sudden he is this saviour because he threw all the cards on the table for one short kick at the can.
BREAKING! Unconfirmed team interested in widely available player!
Updates every hour I hope.
That is one ugly beard.
I knew it was a joke since I saw the news! Probably if he was like 39-40 years old when tampa and the pirates passed on him. Yap my jays! go jays go (sarcastic)
Kuechel would make no sense given where the Jays are heading. Again, if they are in on Keuchel they may as well be in on other arms and Bryce Harper. They aren’t, so forget Kuechel.
As for those thinking the Jays could contend for a WC….keep dreaming.