Blue Jays Rumors

AL East Notes: O’s, Cobb, Red Sox, Pomeranz, Blue Jays

By Connor Byrne | March 21, 2018 at 5:07pm CDT

The Orioles officially signed Alex Cobb on Wednesday, but they weren’t serious suitors for him as of February because his asking price was too high, Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com hears. But Cobb told Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun and other reporters Wednesday: “They didn’t stop bothering me the whole offseason. They were very persistent, and I think that you notice that confidence they have in you just by the way they speak to you, and the questions they ask and not questioning anything that’s gone on.” The Orioles’ insistence on signing Cobb came from John and Lou Angelos, sons of owner Peter Angelos, according to Connolly, who reports that the duo recently made “a hard push” to add the right-hander, who landed a four-year, $57MM deal.

And now the latest on a pair of Baltimore’s division rivals…

While Red Sox southpaw Drew Pomeranz has recently made progress in his recovery from a mild flexor strain, odds are that he’ll start the season on the disabled list, Ian Browne of MLB.com writes. Meanwhile, Browne relays that there’s more hope for Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodriguez and righty Steven Wright, each of whom underwent knee surgery last year. If they’re both ready to open the season on time, they’ll follow Chris Sale, David Price and Rick Porcello in Boston’s rotation. Otherwise, the Red Sox’s top fallback choices are lefty Brian Johnson and righty Hector Velazquez.
The Blue Jays have informed left-handed reliever Craig Breslow that he won’t make the team, Jon Heyman of FanRag tweets. Breslow will have a chance to opt out of his minor league contract Thursday. The 37-year-old has struggled in spring action, having allowed five earned runs on 10 hits and four walks, with five strikeouts, in 6 2/3 innings.
Blue Jays righty Joe Biagini is likely to begin the season at the Triple-A level, per Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com. In doing so, he’ll continue developing as a starter. The Jays, with Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, J.A. Happ, Marco Estrada and Jaime Garcia in their rotation, don’t have room for Biagini in their starting staff. Biagini was a key component of Toronto’s bullpen in 2016, his rookie season, but he went backward as both a starter and reliever last season.

AL East Notes: Marrero, Holt, Swihart, Machado, Morales

By Mark Polishuk and Jeff Todd | March 20, 2018 at 10:28pm CDT

Alex Cobb’s agreement with the Orioles is the day’s biggest news out of the AL East, but here are some more notable items from around the division…

The Red Sox seem to be inclined to carry the out-of-options Blake Swihart on the active roster to open the season, Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston reports. While the club obviously feels it doesn’t want to lose out on his upside, that decision would also create some constraints elsewhere — perhaps forcing the Sox to make a move instead with one of their utility infielders. Indeed, as Sean McAdam of the Boston Sports Journal writes (subscription link), the Sox have begun putting out feelers with other organizations regarding Deven Marrero (who is also out of option) and Brock Holt. While it’s not clear that either has drawn significant interest, it seems the team is preparing to move one of them or another similar player as part of its roster-maintenance efforts at the tail end of camp.
Manny Machado’s move back to shortstop was inspired by his love for the position, the Orioles star tells ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick, not as a way to better position himself for free agency next winter. “I think a lot of people are saying, ’He’s going over there because he wants more money or more value.’ It doesn’t come down to money or more value,” Machado said. “I’ve already established myself as a player. I’m worth what I’m worth already. It doesn’t matter if I’m at short or third. The transition over there is because that’s where my heart is. That’s what I do.” Machado’s preparation for the position switch included changes to his diet and offseason training regimen, and scouts have given promising early reviews about Machado’s defensive prowess at shortstop.
Kendrys Morales lost weight in the offseason and is hoping to adjust his swing so that he hits fewer grounders in 2018, Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca writes. Due to his lack of speed and opposing fielders playing the shift, Morales grounded into 22 double plays last season, which helped contributed to his below-average 97 wRC+ despite 28 homers and lots of hard contact. The subpar offensive performance and Morales’ lack of defensive contributions made him a sub-replacement level (-0.6 fWAR) player in his first year with the Blue Jays.

AL Notes: Rays, Miller, Stroman, Ellsbury, Tigers

By Connor Byrne | March 17, 2018 at 11:42pm CDT

The Rays are likely to continue with first baseman Brad Miller, which would seem to rule out potential pursuits for either free agent Adam Lind or just-designated Twin Kennys Vargas, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. It’s unclear, though, whether Miller will primarily occupy first, second base or the designated hitter spot this season, Topkin adds. Miller on Saturday saw his first action since Feb. 23 (he was out with a toe injury), so he may not be ready for Opening Day. He also struggled mightily a year ago (.201/.327/.337 across 407 plate appearances) and is on an arbitration awarded salary of $4.5MM that the Rays would be able to escape without much consequence prior to the season. Nevertheless, it seems they’ll stick with Miller.

AL Notes: Ohtani, Sipp, Red Sox, Rangers, Jays

By Connor Byrne | March 17, 2018 at 6:01pm CDT

While there have been questions over whether the Angels will demote Shohei Ohtani to the minors to begin the season, it seems they do plan to have him open 2018 in the majors, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports. In terms of results, it hasn’t been a good spring for the 23-year-old Japanese phenom, who has yielded 15 earned runs against 25 outs as a pitcher and collected just two hits in 20 at-bats as a hitter. However, on the pitching side, Ohtani has struck out 19 batters and issued only three walks, which has encouraged the Angels, according to Fletcher. They’re also confident he’ll turn it around at the plate. “The track record gives us the confidence to move forward with him as a two-way player,” general manager Billy Eppler said.

Blue Jays Claim Sam Moll

By Kyle Downing | March 17, 2018 at 2:48pm CDT

The Blue Jays have claimed lefty reliever Sam Moll off waivers from the Mariners; both teams’ PR accounts have announced the move.

It’s been a busy year for the 26-year-old Moll, who began last season with the Rockies, end it with the Athletics, and has since been the object of a waiver hot-potato game between Pirates, Mariners and now the Blue Jays. Seattle GM Jerry DiPoto had spoken back in September of plans to convert Moll back to a starter even though he hasn’t pitched in that capacity since his professional debut in 2013. Instead, he’ll join his fourth team of the winter and hope he can earn a shot in Toronto, presumably in the bullpen.

The Athletics gave Moll his first taste of MLB action last season in the form of a September call-up. He make 11 appearances with the club, although he recorded one or no outs in six of them. Moll ended the season having allowed eight earned runs in 6 2/3 innings, though he did manage to strike out seven hitters. There’s some upside for Moll. He throws a fastball in the mid-nineties, which he mixes with a slider.

After being selected in the third round of the 2013 draft by the Rockies, Moll rose steadily through the minor league ranks. He managed to exceed a 50% ground ball rate in two consecutive seasons with Colorado’s Triple-A affiliate before the Athletics acquired him in August of 2017 for cash considerations.

Blue Jays Sign Danny Espinosa To Minor-League Deal

By Kyle Downing | March 17, 2018 at 8:33am CDT

The Blue Jays have signed infielder Danny Espinosa to a minor-league deal with an invite to spring training, Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com reports. Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports was first to report that Espinosa had been spotted in the Jays’ camp.

The Yankees signed the 30-year-old switch-hitter to a minor-league deal earlier in the offseason. At the time, he seemed to have at least an outside shot to crack the Bombers’ roster as the team’s second baseman or utility infielder. That door closed to a sliver, however, when the club acquired Brandon Drury from the Diamondbacks, and slammed shut when the club signed veteran Neil Walker to a one-year, $4MM deal. With safer options in place, the Yanks released the veteran infielder; they had little reason to keep Espinosa around, who struggled to a .197/.286/.344 batting line with a 31.6% strikeout rate across the past two seasons.

A week ago, it would have seemed that Espinosa had even less of a chance to break through with the Jays. But following the news that Troy Tulowitzki is unlikely to be ready for opening day, there’s at least an opportunity for Espinosa to compete for an infield job in Toronto. That competition will be stiff, though; Devon Travis, Aledmys Diaz and Yangervis Solarte would seem to be firmly ahead of him on the depth chart.

Espinosa’s best seasons came with the Nationals from 2011-2012. During those seasons, he amassed 1,316 plate appearances and hit .242/.319/.408 with 38 homers and 37 steals. He was worth 6.8 fWAR during that span in part due to his sparkling defense at second base.

AL Notes: Alford, Bard, Vargas, Fiers

By Steve Adams | March 16, 2018 at 9:16am CDT

Blue Jays outfield prospect Anthony Alford will miss the next three to six weeks with a Grade 2 hamstring strain, writes Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet. Obviously, that takes the highly touted 23-year-old out of consideration for a spot on the Opening Day roster, though he was likely facing an uphill battle in that regard anyhow, given the crowded outfield mix in Toronto and a presumptive desire for Alford to get everyday at-bats. A third-round pick in 2012, Alford has been lauded as one of the game’s top 100 prospects by virtually every major outlet in the past three seasons. He’s viewed as a key piece of the Blue Jays’ future, although despite making his MLB debut last season, he still has just three Triple-A games and 68 Double-A games on his minor league resume. The injury could cost him as much as a month of the season, but it still seems quite plausible that he could return to the big leagues late in the 2018 season with more minor league seasoning.

A bit more from around the American League:

Right-hander Luke Bard is turning some heads in Angels camp as he vies for a spot in the big league bullpen, writes Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times. The younger brother of former Red Sox setup man Daniel Bard, Luke was selected by the Angels out of the Twins organization in the Rule 5 Draft back in December. The 27-year-old was a supplemental first-rounder back in 2012 but has had his development slowed by shoulder and hip surgeries. Finally healthy in 2017, Bard turned in a 2.76 ERA with 13.6 K/9, 3.3 BB/9 and a 32 percent ground-ball rate in 65 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. Bard’s spring ERA is skewed by one outing where he was rocked for five runs in just a third of an inning, but he’s impressed manager Mike Scioscia in the remainder of his outings and expressed a willingness to work multi-inning stints out of the ’pen. “His stuff is good, he spins the ball well, and hopefully he’s going to be a multi-inning guy,” Scioscia tells DiGiovanna. “With the makeup of our club, multi-inning [relievers] are really important.”
The signing of Logan Morrison made switch-hitting Kennys Vargas somewhat of an odd man out with the Twins, writes MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger. According to Bollinger, Vargas is expected to be placed on outright waivers at the end of camp, and the Twins are hopeful that he can clear and stick with the organization. The switch-hitting 27-year-old is listed at a towering 6’5″, 275 pounds in this year’s media guide, and while he’s shown some power in the bigs (.185 ISO, 35 homers in 859 PAs), he’s also whiffed at a 29.2 percent clip and posted a meager .311 OBP. Given the manner in which clubs have begun to devalue OBP-challenged sluggers with limited defensive capabilities — Vargas is strictly a first baseman/DH — there’s perhaps a possibility that he could make it through waivers and remain with the club.
Right-hander Mike Fiers’ struggles this spring haven’t yet put his rotation spot in jeopardy, though Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire suggested that the 32-year-old offseason signee would be well-served to show some positive signs in the final weeks of camp (via Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press). “We’re planning on this guy being in,” Gardenhire said of Fiers, who has been torched for 12 runs (including four homers) in 11 1/3 frames this spring. “…But at the end of the day, when we get down to the end here, we have to make some decisions and we’re going to go with the guys that are getting it done and right now, he’s just gotta fight through it because he’s a veteran.” Gardenhire later added that Fiers’ veteran status will buy him a bit more leeway than the team’s younger arms. As Fenech notes, Fiers has been unequivocally outpitched by lefty Daniel Norris, but Norris has a minor league option remaining and could head to Triple-A to open the season.

AL East Notes: Tulo, Axford, Clippard, Torres, O’s, Cobb, BoSox

By Steve Adams and Jeff Todd | March 13, 2018 at 10:58pm CDT

Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons signaled on Monday that Troy Tulowitzki won’t be ready for Opening Day, writes MLB.com’s Jon Morosi. “I think you can write Tulo off [for Opening Day] right now,” said Gibbons of his shortstop, who is currently dealing with a bone spur in his right heel. Tulo’s lack of availability likely means the Jays will carry just seven relievers to open the season Morosi notes, which will allow the team to bring four middle infielders — Devon Travis, Aledmys Diaz, Yangervis Solarte and Gift Ngoepe — when they break camp.

Meanwhile, both John Axford and Tyler Clippard are likely to make the Blue Jays’ bullpen after signing minor league deals, per Morosi. Gibbons praised a new two-seam fastball that Axford has been utilizing as well as improved control from the veteran righty. “What’s jumped out at me is he’s keeping that thing in the zone,” said Gibbons. “What little I’ve known in the past, at times he could scatter, but really that hasn’t happened at all this spring. That’s encouraging. And he still throws really, really hard.”

Alex Anthopoulos On Jays Tenure, Braves Future

By Jeff Todd | March 12, 2018 at 9:56pm CDT

Current Braves and former Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos joined MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand for a wide-ranging podcast chat. It’s a great listen in full for fans of either of those organizations or anyone interested in learning more about Anthopoulos’s path in the game.

Anthopoulos opened up on some key elements of his time in Toronto now that a few years have passed. He served as GM there from 2010 to 2015 before moving on to a stint with the Dodgers front office and then landing the GM gig in Atlanta last fall.

While the end to his perch atop the Jays’ baseball ops department was obviously bittersweet, particularly as it came right on the heels of a bitter ALCS loss, Anthopoulos also made abundantly clear that he feels no ill will at all toward current club president Mark Shapiro. Rather, he says, the fit just did not seem optimal and he elected not to sign a five-year offer to remain.

Anthopoulos answered a bevy of questions about some of the key deals swung during his tenure, going all the way back to the organization’s admitted good fortune of landing of pre-breakout stars in Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista. Of note, he acknowledged — as he was not really willing to do at the time — that Bautista might not have been extended in early 2011 had it not been for the earlier swap that took Vernon Wells’s extension off the books. (Anthopoulos also acknowledged feeling some unease after many big moves, including the Bautista extension and even the acquisition of Josh Donaldson.)

There’s plenty more historical examination in the chat, including the recruitment of Russell Martin. That deal went down when the Jays decided to offer an additional season and $8MM in guaranteed money, boosting the organization’s offer over the four-year, $74MM scenarios that other teams had dangled. Among other memorable moves, Anthopoulos explains the trade deadline double-play that landed Troy Tulowitzki (link) and David Price (link). That mid-season, go-for-it maneuver came about because the team (correctly) believed it had a rare chance at a big run if only it could shore up its run prevention.

Anthopoulos says he received interest from a number of clubs after deciding to leave the Jays, but his decision ultimately boiled down to one between the Astros and Dodgers. In the end, he cites his longstanding relationships with president of baseball ops Andrew Friedman and GM Farhan Zaidi as the primary decisions to choose the opportunity presented by the Dodgers.

Likewise, in moving on to Atlanta, Anthopoulos said he was convinced not only of the state of the organization’s resources but also that it’d be enjoyable to work under team chairman Terry McGuirk. The international signing scandal that opened the GM seat cost the organization some prospects, but Anthopoulos suggests that does not change the overall trajectory of the team, which he says is loaded with young talent.

The Braves certainly have not engaged in a ton of momentous dealmaking since Anthopoulos took over, but he did discuss the massive salary-swapping arrangement he worked out with the Dodgers. It helped, he acknowledged, that he had just been with the Los Angeles organization, as he knew its intentions and had plenty of trust with its leadership. While both sides explored other possibilities before pulling the trigger on the deal, Anthopoulos says it was the “only deal that was going to make sense” for the Braves involving Matt Kemp.

Moving Kemp to clear the way for the eventual call-up of Ronald Acuna was the “number one priority from a player standpoint,’ says Anthopoulos. Reallocating salary commitments to the 2018 season functioned to create ample “financial flexibility” for the organization moving forward. It seems the goal for the coming season is to develop and assess young players before deciding whether and how the organization “might need those dollars” it freed for the future.

At spring camp, Anthopoulos says, he’s focused on getting to know the young players who are vying to become parts of the organization’s future. Some, he acknowledges, may end up being traded. The spring offers a chance to gain new insight on the “human element,” Anthopoulos says, calling that one of the many elements he has gained additional appreciation for over his decades in the game.

Blue Jays Release Ezequiel Carrera

By Jeff Todd | March 11, 2018 at 9:52am CDT

MARCH 11: The Blue Jays have now elected to release Carrera, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet (Twitter link).

MARCH 1: The Blue Jays announced that outfielder Ezequiel Carrera has been outrighted after clearing waivers. He had recently been designated for assignment but will now return to camp as a non-roster invitee. That’s the best possible result for Toronto, which had to expose Carrera to the waiver wire in order to add reliever Seung-hwan Oh.

It appears that Carrera has accepted his assignment, as he would have had the right to opt instead for free agency. The fact that the remainder of the league passed on claiming him isn’t promising, though that would’ve meant stepping into a $1.9MM arbitration salary.

It is not immediately clear whether Carrera is still playing pursuant to that arb agreement, or whether instead the team now controls him on alternative terms such that he’d earn at a different rate if he stays with the club into the start of the season. Regardless, the Jays will owe Carrera at least thirty days’ worth of termination pay (just over $300K).

The Jays are obviously fond of the 30-year-old, who has appeared in 332 games with the organization over the past three seasons. He has never been better than 2017, when he turned in a healthy .282/.356/.408 batting line in 325 trips to the plate while also adding eight homers and swiped ten bags.

Still, later developments in the offseason evidently led the club to go in a different direction. The signing of Curtis Granderson — the only other left-handed-hitting outfielder who seems likely to be in the mix in the early portion of the season — certainly didn’t help Carrera’s cause. And the acquisition of Randal Grichuk likely took away the possibility of a strict platoon scenario. With the switch-hitting Dalton Pompey and lefty-swinging Dwight Smith Jr. also in the mix, the Jays obviously felt they did not need to keep another southpaw bat on the 40-man roster.

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