Jays Trade Nestor Molina for Sergio Santos

Tuesday, December 06 2011 @ 01:50 PM EST

The Jays complete their second trade in a week, shipping out Nestor Molina, the team's 6th best prospect according to, well, us. Molina goes to the south side of Chicago to join the White Sox. In return the Blue Jays reacquire Sergio Santos, who hit .183 for the team in AAA in 2008 before being claimed on waivers by the Twins. He then signed with the White Sox who converted him to a pitcher, a role in which he's been very, very good.

Molina has had a very good two years, making the transition from low-A to double A while excelling at every stop. Batter's Box ranked him as the team's 6th best prospect this past offseason; John Sickels had him second. The relevant section from our report:

Year	Age	Level	G	GS	IP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9	ERA
2010	21	A	37	2	76.2	7.51	0.47	2.35	7.16	3.17
2010	21	A+	2	0	4.1	14.54	0.00	0.00	6.23	2.08
2011	22	A+	21	18	108.1	8.47	0.66	1.16	9.55	2.58
2011	22	AA	5	5	22.0	4.91	0.00	0.82	13.50	0.41

The Jays organization has a seen a few success stories in recent years regarding prospects that have converted from hitter to pitcher, or vice versa. Molina began his career in the Dominican Summer League as a hitter but struggled with the bat. The team made the wise decision to make use of his arm strength on the mound rather than cut bait entirely. Despite his relative inexperience as a pitcher, Molina displays almost extra-ordinary command of the ball. His control helps his average (87-93 mph) fastball play up. His best pitch - his out-pitch - could certainly be his change-of-pace, which is a big-league-caliber splitter. Molina, 22, also features a decent slider/cutter. In 2011, the right-hander began the year in advanced A and posted a 2.45 FIP (2.58 ERA). He displayed his outstanding control with an other-worldly walk rate of 1.16 BB/9 and missed a lot of bats as witnessed by his strikeout rate of 9.55 K/9. He then made five dominating regular season starts in AA, as well as a few post-season appearances. With his fielding glove now with a heavy layer of dust on it, Molina broke the 100-inning barrier for the first time in his career with 130.1 innings pitched between high-A and double-A. The Jays organization is starting to stockpile and impressive group of minor league arms and some of those prospects are starting to reach the Majors (Henderson Alvarez, Joel Carreno, Luis Perez, Chad Beck, Danny Farquhar, etc). Molina could very well join them at the MLB level at some point in 2012 and it will be interesting to see if the club challenges him with an assignment to the launching pad known as triple-A Las Vegas. More than likely, though, he'll begin next year back in double-A New Hampshire.

While it hurts to lose Molina, the Jays undoubtedly have a very strong collection of arms in the low-minors, and the player they are acquiring, Sergio Santos, immediately slots in as the best reliever on the team. In 115 innings spread out over two years with the White Sox, Santos struck out three out of every ten of the batters he's faced, which is top ten amongst pitchers with 100 innings pitched. In 2011 he was even better, striking out 35% of the batters he faced, good for top five amongst pitchers with 50 innings. He also cut his prodigious walk rate slightly in 2011, posting a very strong 3.17/1 K/BB ratio. Santos also does a reasonable job keeping the ball on the ground, and while he's gotten a bit lucky with home runs, he's only allowed eight in two years. Perhaps most importantly, Santos is under contract for an extremely reasonable amount going forward.

Per Cot's: 12:$1M, 13:$2.75M, 14:$3.75M, 15:$6M club option, 16:$8M club option, 17:$8.75M club option ($0.75M buyouts for each option)

Given that Heath Bell, who is likely to be an inferior pitcher over the next three years, got $27 million over that time span, and other top tier relievers like Ryan Madson and Jonathan Papelbon both got over $11 per year for four years, Santos grades out as a huge bargain, as he is guaranteed $7.5 million (+750k buyout) over the next three years combined. While he isn't as good as Papelbon or Madson, it's not an orders of magnitude difference, and he immediately becomes the best Jays reliever since the glory years of BJ Ryan,

Is the cost overall worth it? It depends on how Molina does. If he becomes a good major league pitcher, then the Jays probably lose out - Molina is liable to pitch five times as many innings over his six years of team control as Santos will over the next three the Jays have him for. But given that the team is dealing from a position of surplus, Santos' reasonable cost, and the fact that TINSTAAPP, this seems like a very reasonable win-win deal for both teams.

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