So, now, maybe the free agent period really is transitioning into the trading portion of the off-season. Oakland closer Andrew Bailey, rumored to be dealt to about 10 or 12 dfferent places since the '11 season's end, is now a member of Red Sox Nation.
The Sawx acquired Bailey,who compliled 24 ssaves in 2011, and outfielder Ryan Sweeney in exchange for OF Josh Reddick and minor leaguers 1B Miles Head and P Raul Alcantera.
Bailey's in Boston? Let the "Irish Cream" pun contest begin!
Bard is going to spring training as a Starter, not bullpen guy.
Interesting return for Bailey. To compete with that offer, Toronto would have needed to discuss something like Thames, Jenkins, and Crouse. Considering that Bailey is awesome, and has three more years of control, I would have been tempted to pull the trigger on that.
If Oakland is looking to dump more players, I agree that Balfour would be a good fit for us, if a good trade can be worked out.
I would be thrilled if the Jays were somehow able to get Balfour from Oak. The righty is under contract this year at $4M and $4.5M next year (FA in 2014). I also really like Joey Devine who made $557K last year and is arbitration eligible this year and next (FA 2014).
Boston's acquisition of Bailey may bite them in the butt if he can't stay healthy.
Of course, signing a Quality Outfielder, whose main asset on offense and defense is speed, and playing him in LF (Green Monster can ruin good defenders) is stupid .
I never understood the Lackey signing, he was an average pitcher that LAA was happy to see leave.
Dice-K got them a World Series, anything else is gravy.
It must be nice to be able to afford mistakes. Generally anything less than 10% of Payroll can be eaten (not seriously affecting payroll). Boston can afford 25-30%, while NY can afford 35-37.5%.
With AA there seems to have been an inverse relationship between the amount of transaction rumour and said transaction actually taking place. I wonder how many of these other commentators are simply repeating Bowden's speculation.
4-6 WAR for a #2 starter would certainly be a nice thing to have. Only 24 guys made it to 4 WAR last year (bbref, the one that doesn't think Morrow has been as good as Romero), and several teams do have more than one (Boston, Tampa, LAA, Philadelphia). I'd settle for a few 2-4 WAR guys (by bbref, Toronto had Romero at 5.9, and then....Villanueva at 1.9, Janssen at 1.7, Morrow 1.4). Considering how utterly disappointing the pitching was last year, the .500 record looks more impressive. I think it's more likely an internal option gets to the 4-6 WAR level than any guy the Jays could trade for.
Also, nailed the players for the banner pic.
Bailey on Boston merits a yawn. How much better can that bullpen be late in games? Bard and Papelbon were both great last year, late September adventures aside. Bailey has given 90 innings in two years - I don't think any non-Rivera reliever is of much note at that level of usage.
Today John Sickels released the White Sox Top 10 Prospects. Ranked #1 was Nestor Molina who he ranked as a B+. In his words...
"Acquired from the Blue Jays for Sergio Santos, and immediately became Chicago's first or second-best prospect. I think he can remain a starter."
So far Sickels has released 23 team prospect reports. The seven remaining are Athletics, Indians, Yankees, Cubs, Giants, Reds, & Rockies.
Some of my observations so far are shown below (I have adjusted teams for the Nestor Molina, Cahil, Latos, and Gio Gonzalez deals).
- There are 8 "A" ranked prospects who are Profar(Tex), Trout(Angles), Machado(Orioles), Miiler(Cardinals), Teheren(Braves), Bauer(Dbacks), Cole(Pirates), & Harper (Nats)
- There are 11 "A-" ranked prospects who are Starling/Myers(both Royals), Walker/Hultzen(both Mariners), Bundy(Orioles), Turner (Tigers), Parker (A's), Skaggs/Bradley(both Dbacks), Rendon (Nats), & Tallion(Pirates)
- There are 41+ "B+" ranked prospects with the Jays leading the way with 7(excluding Nestor Molina), followed by the Padres with 6(still need to add the prospects they received from the Reds once Sickels releases the Reds list), Cardinals with 4, and Braves with 3. No other team has more than 2 so far
- So far only 5 of the 23 teams have all of their listed prospects ranked as "C+" or higher. This means the rest of the prospects that were not highlighted individually in the Sickels ranking may also be C+ ranked. These five teams are the Jays, Red Sox, Rays, Rangers, & Padres
I gave each prospect a score as follows (like a school grading system):
A: 0.85
A-: 0.82
B+: 0.75
B-: 0.72
C+: 0.68
C: 0.65
Using this formula I rank the top 5 systems (from the 23 listed so far) as follows:
1) San Diego Padres (after the Latos deal)
2) Toronto Blue Jays
3) St. Louis Cardinals
4) Atlanta Braves
5) Texas Rangers
6) K.C Royals
7) Boston Red Sox
8 ) Arizona Diamondbacks
9) Seattle Mariners
10) Tampa Bay Rays
The grading scores I used may be a bit simplistic but it still should give a pretty good idea of each team’s prospect ranking.
Good point about Darvish but he has not signed yet. I realize that my post should have read:
I gave each prospect a score as follows (like a school grading system):
A: 0.85
A-: 0.82
B+: 0.78
B: 0.75
B-: 0.72
C+: 0.68
C: 0.65
Who would I move in an A.A. deal?
1) Kyle Drabek: If someone still thinks he's a Stud, or has a chance of being a good pitcher, he would be a main piece or the centerpiece of the deal. He's also in danger of being bypassed by the pitchers coming up, who are less than 1 year away.
2) Anthony Gose: (Is he on the outs with the Jays? Not doing what they want him to do?) Jake Marisnick is hard on his butt, and already has the 'Bat' that Gose is trying to develop. Colby Rasmus is under contract for next three years and was an important acquisition by A.A. Behind and with Marisnick are Marcus Knecht (CF-capable), Michael Crouse (CF-capable) just to name a few. Too many outfielders ready to play at MLB means you must trade someone (lowering that prospect's value). Let's clear the backlog before it occurs.
3) In AA, Drew Hutchison, Deck McGuire and Chad Jenkins are not all making it to the majors, or they might be blocked. These guys could be at least a year away. Keep Drew Hutchison, if you must, and put Deck McGuire and Chad Jenkins up for trades.
4)In A/A+, Justin Nicolino, Noah Syndergaard, Asher Wojciechowski, and (sneaking in) Aaron Sanchez are not all making it to the majors. If they are, they're at least 2 or more years away. The way A.A. is drafting pitchers, they are replaceable.
Now I would consider acquiring Matt Garza from the Cubs, because he can pitch in the A.L. East. But I would like him to agree to an extention before a trade, just two years of contract is not enough.
I think the scale on the prospects is off in the high school grading.
Fair enough. Sickels defines C players as the most ``common type`` prospects whereas he defines B prospects as ``prospects who have a good chance to enjoy successful careers. Some will develop into stars, some will not. Most end up spending several years in the majors, at the very least in a marginal role``. He says ``almost all Grade A prospects develop into major league regulars.``
Since there are very few Grade A prospects I think it is more fair to rank each organization on their A and B ranked players. If we do it this way and rank each category from A to B- as mentioned before then we get the top 5 teams ranked as follows:
1.Blue Jays (7B+,1B,8B-)
2.Braves (1A,3B+,2B,9B-)
3.Red Sox (2B+,4B,9B-)
4.Padres (6B+,2B,6B-)...but definately will jump ahead to number 1 once Sickels ranks the players they got for Latos
5.Rangers (1A,1B+,7B,5B-)
Followed by Cardinals, Rays, Twins, Royals, and Diamondbacks
I think most that have commented on this thread would prefer it be ranked only on the premium players (B+ or better I think is fair). Doing so we get:
1.Blue Jays (7B+)
2.Padres (6B+)...but definately will jump ahead of Jays once Sickels ranks the players they got for Latos
3.Cardinals (1A,4B+)
4.Royals (2A-,2B+)
5.Braves(1A,3B+)
There is a considerable drop off after the Braves (Diamonbacks, Pirates, Mariners followed by another large dop off).
Anyway you look at it the Jays have to be mentioned as one of the top three teams when the prospect discussion is brought up. As mentioned before these rankings are based on Sickels rankings up to date (7 teams still to come) using scores that would typically be given to each grade in a school setting.
bpoz, you want to be looking here.
It will give you the official MLB version of 2010-2011 spending, and I bet if you search the site you can find previous years too. The figures shown are the ones MLB used to determine luxury tax penalties.
Sorry meant to include link http://trsullivan.mlblogs.com/2011/12/30/oliver-agrees-to-a-one-year-deal-with-blue-jays/
It seems that Laffey was hoping to find an opportunity to pitch as a starter. If that's true, I hope he enjoys being a starter for the Las Vegas 51s, as I can't see us ending up with another Eveland / Reyes situation. He did sign a split contract, so I expect he'll end up in AAA to start the season, and he could end up providing some useful depth for us.
The Oliver signing makes sense, and it looks like he'll be a good fit here. The bullpen has six positions filled now (Santos, Janssen, Oliver, Litsch, Perez, Villanueva), so unless we can add someone really good for that last spot, then I think we should just leave space for Carreno or another young pitcher.
It looks like the shopping list is now down to a starter and possibly a big bat.
MD, what were you holding your breath about?
Fair question, and maybe a now-unfair reaction on my part. I have been through all the various iterations of Oliver in North Texas and even as he was effective here the last year and a half, couldn't let go of the experience of watching Oliver-the-starter. Lots of outings with 6 9 7 6 5 3 type lines.
I can't see Laffey helping the Jays, and i really don't want to see him on the big league team. He's AAA depth in my books. He managed to produce a good ERA in limited time in 2011, but his secondary stats were pretty much the same as his previous years'. He gives up a lot of hits, doesn't strike out many, and his control is not exactly stellar.
Oliver, on the other hand, has consistently put up good numbers as a reliever over the last 6 years (only 1 start in that time). His ERA for the 6 years is 2.97, his WHIP is 1.15, he gave up only 8 hits per 9 innings, while striking out 7.4/9IP with only 2.4BB/9IP. Baseball Prospectus had an interesting comment on him in the 2011 edition. They asked which was more impressive, Eckersley going from being a very good starter to a great reliever, or Oliver going from being a terrible starter to a very good reliever.
I make the Bullpen (6): Closer: Sergio Santos; 8.I.G.: To be announced / acquired; 7.I.G.: Casey Janssen (who gets out both Right-handed and Left-handed batters reasonably well); ; L.O.O.G.Y.: Darren Oliver (who gets out both Right-handed and Left-handed batters reasonably well); Long/Short/Spot Start (2): Carlos Villanueva and Jesse Litsch.
I do recall, in the acquisition of Ben Francisco, A.A. said they would be carrying 5 Outfielders on the Team. R.F.: Jose Bautista; C.F.: Colby Rasmus; L.F.: (under competition); 4th O.F. (Bench): Rajai Davis; 5th O.F. (Bench): (under competition). Bench (5): 4th OF: Rajai Davis, 5th OF (?), 2nd C.: Jeff Mathis: INF: Luis Valbuena; IF/OF: Mark Teahen.
I make the Rotation 1) Ricky Romero; 2) To be announced / acquired; 3) Brandon Morrow (still hasn't got it); 4) Henderson Alvarez (working on a 3rd pitch?); 5): (under competition). Those competing for one, or possibly two, positions in the Rotation are: Kyle Drabek (lost all his confidence, control and pitches - AAAA?); Dustin McGowan (has not pitched more than 5.0 innings since 2008, amongst many other things); Brett Cecil (loss all fastball velocity and was badly out of shape); and, Aaron Laffey (his advantage: LHP - unhurt - in shape - still breathing).
As Mike Wilner, and others of more or less importance, have said, over six weeks until Pitchers and Catcher report for Spring Training. Plenty of time to hope A.A. does something else.
If A.A. doesn't sign / trade for an E.I.G., or another good reliever, by Spring Training, we will have one Bullpen opening. Until I hear different from A.A's or John Farrell's mouth that they'll have only four Outfielders, or, a 4-man Bench, or, a 7-man Bullpen. Nothing in my article will be different - baring the"Ninja".
I've noticed http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/12/blue-jays-sign-three-to-minor-league-deals-1.html the Blue Jays recent acquisitions: Jerry Gil (RHRP) http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2207&position=P (his Baseball Reference site says SS, Fangraphs says Pitcher), Robert Coello (RHP) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coellro01.shtml and Brian Bocock (SS) http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bococbr01.shtml . They are depth signings, but a better class than last year.
A 4 man bench and 7 man bullpen is fairly standard these days. I think that's what we should expect, regardless of the pros and cons of such an arrangement.
We have a couple of extra outfielders right now, but that will likely sort itself out. There should be a good chance for Teahen to be DFA'd (by the end of spring training), and one of Snider, Thames, Davis, or Francisco will be traded, sent to the minors (perhaps Thames starts there), or just released at a low cost (Francisco). There's also a good chance that all four of those players will be needed at the MLB level right away; a single injury to any hitter other than a catcher or middle infielder would open a spot.
