A ton of stuff to report.
Albert Pujols is signing with the Angels for 10 years at $25 million + per year.
Evidently the Vernon Wells contract isn't hampering them too much, as they are also reported to be signing CJ Wilson for 5 years, $75 million.
Miami/Florida continued its busy offseason by signing Mark Buehrle to a 4 year, $58 million deal.
In Toronto news, the Blue Jays DFA'd Brian Jeroloman again in order to make room for Kelly Johnson, who accepted arbitration.
The team also rumored to be involved in negotiations around Gio Gonzalez. (h/t @mlbtr)
The Jays also didn't take or lose anyone in the Rule 5 Draft, though they did select three players in the minor league portion of the draft - Gabriel Jacobo, Hector Alvarez and Javier Avendano
More as it develops.
Getting to the Jays first:
Alex Anthopoulos indicated that he was happy no matter what Johnson decided; while he may have ultimately preferred the draft picks, Johnson is a strong candidate to bounce back in 2012, and figures to be a much better player than Luis Valbuena. He had a terrible 2011 and was still worth more than 2 fWAR, and he has consistently walked and hit for power. The only thing that has really fluctuated is his batting average on balls in play, and his 2011 mark was .40 points below his career average. If he can play decent defense and hit .250/.350/.450, a slightly optimistic mid-point between his 2010 and 2011 seasons, he will be a valuable piece at second base.
No one should be too surprised that the Jays lost Brian Jeroloman, as the team has made it abundantly clear that it does not really consider him a long term piece. The writing was really on the wall when the team acquired Jeff Mathis, although I feel sorry for Brian, and this must have been quite a roller coaster.
Lastly, it makes sense that the Jays would be interested in Gonzalez. He is relatively young (26), relatively good (6.7 fWAR last two years),
and relatively cost controlled - he is a super two player, meaning he
is under team control but arbitration eligible for the first time this
year. The asking price
is reportedly two top prospects and two mid-range prospects, and while
the Jays certainly can pay that, it's not clear that they would want to.
Oakland's stadium is also a fairly generous park for pitchers, and
Gonzalez has out-performed his peripherals by at least half a run in
each of the last two years. This type of player is always extremely valuable, and Anthopoulos could just take his lumps and sign a veteran for the year as a bridging measure. Also for what it's worth, I don't think a single AA Blue Jays trade has ever
leaked beforehand, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
In the Minor League Rule 5, the Jays took three players. Gabe Jacobo is a 24 year old first baseman in the Angels system who hit .270/.309/.419 last year in AA. He doesn't walk much or hit for much power. Hector Alvarez is a 20 year old catcher who's had 330 sub-.700 OPS PA spread out over two years of Rookie Ball with the Mets. Javier Avendano is a 21 year old right handed pitcher from the Cards system with fewer than 100 professional innings spread out over two years. He's posted big K numbers but has control problems.
The Angels moves meanwhile make them a stronger team with one of the best rotations in the Majors, with Wilson, Jered Weaver, Dan Haren and Ervin Santana (who the team may be trying to trade.) However their payroll is now officially approaching ridiculous, with some $130 million committed to 8 players in 2012 (Pujols, Wilson, Vernon Wells, Torii Hunter, Bobby Abreu, Santana and Weaver.) All of those hitters are on the downside of their careers, though only Weaver and Wells go beyond this year. Are they better than the Rangers though? I'm not sure. Nevertheless they should be pretty good in 2012.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20111208105835133