Hopefully the party is just getting started.
The past six days have been about as wild a six days as I can remember in Blue Jay land. Here are a few thoughts on all the mayhem.
-- A big question that's been asked about these big moves has been one of timing. As in, why now? This is a Toronto squad that has hovered at about or below .500 for much of the season, an eleven game winning streak the obvious outlier. An argument could have been made that they should've been sellers, not buyers, at the trade deadline. Much like the Detroit Tigers were, who despite having a W-L record a couple games below Toronto's when the Tulowitzki trade was made, have since traded away multiple stars from their roster.
The two key differences in my mind between the 2015 Blue Jays and the 2015 Tigers are as such. First, we can all agree Toronto is a much better team than their record suggests. I don't need to get into a Pythagorean W-L or a record in one run games discussion to make that point. (That's pretty much what we've been doing here for the last two months, and many of you are more versed in that stuff than I). The Blue Jays have underachieved, sure, but unlike the Tigers there is one thing that this team is better at than any other: scoring runs. Which is a pretty big deal. The second difference is roster construction, and this I think is why the Tigers did what they did. Losing Miguel Cabrera for that long a period I believe is what changed things here, which has really exposed many of their flaws. Aside from Price their starting pitching has been bad: Verlander has been hurt, Anibal Sanchez is giving up to many home runs and Alfredo Simon is Alfredo Simon. Think back to those Jays teams of a few years ago when Bautista would get hurt: It changed the team completely, much like what losing Cabrera has done for the Tigers. Losing the soul of your offense, your best player, while middling around .500 with a bunch of pending free agents? It's understandable that Dave Dombrowski did what he did.
-- One of my favourite moments of the trade deadline involved Marcus Stroman. Apparently he got in trouble during one of his lectures at Duke because that happened to be when the Price trade was going down, and he was unsurprisingly excitedly glued to his cell phone during all of it.
-- Speaking of that, it's going to be genuinely weird to see David Price in Blue Jay Blue later this afternoon. I imagine a lot of you long time fans of the team probably felt the same way seeing Jack Morris for the first time in 1992. Similar feelings.
-- I like to think Alex Anthopoulos went back to the team history books for inspiration on the two big trades. He saw Gillick get Cone in '92 and then add Henderson to an already great offence in '93 and thought: "That seemed to work both times. I'm gonna do both of those things!"
-- One of the best things about the Price deal in my mind is that people can stop complaining about Drew Hutchison (myself included!). I know people are still going to, but he is now in effect the fifth starter on this team. I think most teams in baseball would gladly take a Hutchison as their fifth guy.
-- The Price trade is now the splashier move (aside: I'm amazed "splashier" is even a word) but I find the Tulowitzki deal much more interesting. First that Anthopoulos was even able to pull it off, as I assumed Reyes was untradeable and that the Rockies would be nuts to trade Tulo at all (it does now seem that they are indeed nuts). It is very much a challenge trade in my mind, swapping two stars who play the same position in a hope that a new setting will rejuvenate their respective careers. They're very different players, Reyes and Tulowitzki, but even Reyes at his best isn't as good as Tulo. For one, the defensive difference is enormous. The question for both is health, which is indeed the major question which I think will determine who gets the better of this swap. Or if Jeff Hoffman turns into Adam Wainwright or Miguel Castro turns into Kenley Jansen. Also, I think Tulo is going to like hitting in the Dome just fine...
-- Here are Price's career numbers against some notable teams:
vs. LAA -- 4-5 (3.73) 11 GS - 72.1 IP
vs. BAL -- 7-4 (2.73) 18 GS - 115.1 IP
vs. BOS --11-6 (3.08) 23 GS - 152 IP
vs. MIN -- 8-3 (2.21) 13 GS - 93.2 IP
vs. NYY - 10-7 (4.41) 26 GS - 165.1 IP
His numbers against the Yankees aren't particularly impressive, though they are actually better at Yankee Stadium (6-2, 3.52, 13 GS) oddly. The problem against the Bronx Bombers has been, well bombs. He's allowed 19 HR in those 165.1 innings, which is a rate of 1.03 HR/9, a shade higher than his career 0.8 HR/9. Stadiums where he has an ERA over five: Texas - 2-2, 7.36 in 5 GS (understandable), Colorado - 0-2, 5.93 in 2 GS (again understandable), and the Florida Marlins (wherever they played) - 0-2, 5.68 in 2 GS.
-- As for prospects, again a lot of Bauxites know more about the
details of these players than I do. I liked Norris a lot, both as a pitcher (young
lefties with stuff like that are rare) and as an interesting character
within the game. Boyd looks like he could have a nice career in some
capacity, and there's no questioning the power arms Jeff Hoffman and
Miguel Castro have (though I feel bad for those two. Pitching in Denver?
Ouch). The team traded away something like eleven thousand pitchers in
these trades and the problem with that is quantity. Odds are at least
one of those arms will develop into something, quite likely more. But
these are the chances you take. Nobody ever said this job was easy, and
I'd rather have a guy in charge willing to take those chances and put
himself on the line than a guy who wasn't. Maybe this is the Blue Jays year, maybe it isn't. But this way we'll find out for sure.
All right, ladies and gentlemen. Two months to go. Lets ride.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20150802234113792