Taking Stock for September

 
As we have now flipped the calendar to the final month of baseball's regular season, it seems like a good time to take a look at where the Blue Jays stand with regards to an ever-elusive playoff berth. Spoiler alert: it ain't real pretty, but it also isn't as hopeless as all the ridiculous #GarbageClowns out there would have you believe. 

As of this writing, the Jays' record is 71-67 and they are 10 games back of the Orioles for the division lead and 5.5 back of the second Wild Card. It's not quite time to stick a fork in their season and call it done, but one bad week is all they need to torpedo their unexpectedly strong 2014 campaign once and for all. 

That being said, it's September and watching the standings is not yet a futile endeavour. 5.5 games with 24 remaining is a lot of ground to make up, but it's not impossible either. However, where once the Blue Jays were masters of their own destiny, they will now be at the mercy of what the teams ahead of them do as well. It's not a comfortable position to be in, but let's remember that it's a much better one than most would have predicted when the season started. 

Blue Jays Make Immediate Improvement with Danny Valencia

Well the trade so many were hoping for was hardly a blockbuster, but it was definitely something. In Danny Valencia, the Blue Jays have hopefully acquired the lefty masher they have needed since the beginning of the season. He should be able to slot in at third base or designated hitter against left-handed pitching, providing Gibbons one more piece to work with when setting up the infield platoons he's employed to great effect this year.

Friendly Reminder: Things Are Still Pretty Okay

So it's been a while, eh? To anyone that cares enough to check in regularly (hi Mom!), my apologies for the longer than usual layoff. The frantic conclusion of a school year leaves little time to spend hours writing about such inconsequential things as your FIRST PLACE TORONTO BLUE JAYS! At least that's what the principal keeps telling me. Besides, as exciting as all that winning was, it's much easier to find things to write about when things are going poorly than when they are going so well. Now that things aren't looking quite so rosy, I feel the need to wade back into the fray. I'm not sure what that says about me. I'll let you decide.

You see, I've been noticing some near-hysteria creeping back into the discourse around the team, and I think a little bit of perspective might do a few folks some good right about now. All the usual disclaimers about it still being early apply, and yes the Jays have done a fine job of squandering a chunk of the lead on the division that they held a few weeks ago, but they still sit in a far better position than anyone had a right to expect before the season. 

Let's get the bad news out of the way first. It seems to be all anyone wants to talk about, besides mostly ludicrous trade scenarios at least. Since running roughshod over baseball for a month or so, the Jays came back to the pack rather quickly with a disappointing few weeks. Their winning percentage peaked on June 6th at .613, but since then they have gone 6-12 for a winning percentage of just .333. There have been cases of regression and a couple of injury scares along the way, but the way some fans and media folk seem ready to press the panic button and are begging for some sort of farm system depleting, win now trade deadline move that is like... totally, super seriously, 100% critical for the Blue Jays to remain competitive strikes me as just a little bit premature.

Goins Gone, Chris Getz a Shot

In a somewhat shocking display of good sense, the Blue Jays organization seems to have realized what right-minded Blue Jays fans have been saying for some time now. Ryan Goins is not a major league starter. Having finally come to this realization, the Blue Jays sent him packing to Buffalo with Chris Getz getting recalled to take his place. 

Goins had to go, that much is clear. Despite the talk from the front office and all the fans that swallowed it, no glove is good enough to carry a .218/.243/.302 batting line, which has given him a 45 wRC+ since the Blue Jays called him up last August. If you only look at what he's done in 2014 it's an even uglier picture, as that batting line falls all the way to .150/.203/.217 and a pitiful 14 wRC+. That is the very definition of a black hole in the lineup, and the Blue Jays had to do something to wring more production out of second base, especially with the slow starts some of the bigger bats have been experiencing. 

Well they did something, but it's uhh... well at least it's something. Just last week I was stumping for Munenori Kawasaki, who is already on the 40-man roster, and has at least one stand out skill (his ability to get on base against right-handed pitching) that the Jays could leverage to get something more than the absolutely nothing Goins was providing from the second base position. However, I can get with the decision to go with Getz instead of Kawasaki.

The Case for Kawasaki

Photo by James G via Flickr

Jose Reyes is back you guys! That's fantastic news for for the Blue Jays' middle infield which, since Maicer Izturis' unfortunate run-in with the dugout steps, has consisted of various combinations of Ryan Goins, Jonathan Diaz and fan-favourite Munenori Kawasaki. It's a pretty unspectacular trio, and that's if I'm being generous. Reyes' return certainly helps the cause now that he'll be manning shortstop pretty much every day, but that still leaves Ryan Goins and Jonathan Diaz as the only keystone options now that Kawasaki has been sent back to Buffalo. Quite frankly, I'm still not convinced that Muni isn't the best of a bunch of pretty unpalatable options.

I know I'm going after some pretty low hanging fruit by continuing to harp on the club's second base situation, but it remains the blackest hole in the lineup and the one for which we should have the least hope of positive regression riding to the rescue. For whatever reason, the club seems insistent on riding out the Ryan Goins experiment for the time being, with all indications pointing to him remaining if not the every day second baseman, at least the "strong" side of a platoon. I just can't help wondering how much rope he'll be given when there's a potential upgrade (as underwhelming as it may be) toiling away in AAA.

What the What?: Players Willing to Defer Salary for Santana Signing

A disconcerting Blue Jays story made the rounds on Twitter last night, courtesy of the very credible Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. In it, Rosenthal writes that:

"Several Jays players discussed deferring portions of their salaries to clear payroll for Santana last month, according to major league sources.  

The discussions, which apparently did not progress past the conversation stage, raise new questions about the Jays' payroll flexibility for 2014."

I'd bloody well say so! Now, I don't know if it really raises "new" questions about payroll flexibility, but it certainly suggests a few answers to the questions that fans have been asking all off-season. Specifically, why did the club seem so disinterested in pursuing upgrades on the free agent market despite having such obvious needs and supposedly occupying a commanding position in comparison to other teams? Was Anthopoulos unwilling to exceed his own valuations of the available players and spend money that was available to him (as he and Paul Beeston have always claimed it is)? Or had Rogers, as we've seen them do in the past, yanked the purse strings shut, forcing the front office to resort to shuffling around the clubhouse with a battered Tim Horton's cup hitting the players up for whatever they could spare?

I'm probably going a bit too far with that last question because:

"It is not clear whether the impetus for the talks about deferring money came from the players or from the Jays' front office. The players, however, likely would not have engaged in such discussions unless they believed the team was unable or unwilling to pay Santana $14 million."

And yes, it's really, really, really hard to believe that the topic of salary deferral would have been broached by management, although given Rogers' previous willingness to hang the team out to dry by withholding the financial resources necessary to hold a competitive window open longer than a single season it might not be as hard to believe as it should be.

Obviously the situation is worse if the front office were forced to ask players to restructure their contracts than if the players proposed the idea themselves, but the PR implications of this story getting out are pretty disastrous either way. 

The generous reading of the situation might be that core members of the team (John Lott has reported it was Edwin, Bautista, Reyes, Dickey and Buehrle) believe so strongly in the team that they selflessly volunteered to put some of their own skin in the game in what can only be considered the ultimate team-first move. How's that for "chemistry"?

The less generous and probably more realistic reading is that the players were just as frustrated by this off-season as fans were, and when it seemed the team was on the brink of landing Santana the players threw up their arms in exasperation, turned to the faceless corporate monolith that is Rogers and shouted "Well if you're not willing to do what it takes to make this thing happen we'll just do it ourselves!" Obviously that's bleak enough without even considering the possibility that the front office has been put in such tight spot with regards to payroll that they were forced to consider rolling a hand grenade into whatever remaining free agent appeal they have left and blowing it all to smithereens by asking the players to shoulder more than their fair share of the burden of putting a competitive team on the field. 

The list of disadvantages that Blue Jays general managers must overcome to acquire free agent talent is already long enough; playing in a strange frozen land, having to deal with customs every road trip, the turf, the twenty year run of achieving little but A.L. East also-ran status. Pile on yet more evidence of a corporate owner with only an occasional interest in actually winning baseball games, and the uphill climb the team already faces every off-season gets just a little bit steeper.

I really hope that Andrew Stoeten is onto something when he suggests here and here at Drunk Jays Fans, that the front office is letting this stuff to get out there in hopes of shaming Rogers into investing a bit more into fielding a winner, not that we have any reason to believe that the soulless corporate entity that owns our favourite ball club has any capacity to feel shame. It would give me great comfort to believe that the people making baseball decisions are as frustrated by this kind of crap as fans are, because even with their missteps I still believe Anthopoulos and Beeston are too smart to have knowingly put themselves in this kind of situation when they shoved so much money and prospect capital into the pot last off-season.

Whatever, though. I'm not going to let Rogers ruin what should have remained a day of optimism and excitement for Jays fans. It's the home opener! Ol' Dusty McG back on the bump as a starter for the first time since... well it's best not to think about it anyways. We get to witness Masahiro Tanaka's major league debut, and for reasons I've yet to really put my finger on I'm still more optimistic about these Blue Jays that most. This is supposed to be fun, and it should be. So for now let's forget about a bunch of Rogers bean counters doing their damnedest to once more shatter the dreams of Blue Jays fans everywhere.

Enjoy the game everyone.

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A Couple of Mostly Meaningless Predictions

WARNING: Dubious statistical pseudo-analysis ahead!

'Tis the season for boundless optimism, and it's often delivered in the form of predictions based on tiny samples of spring training performance. We all know that spring training is all but meaningless when it comes to predicting a player's regular season performance, but that doesn't stop us from trying anyways does it? It's just too tempting for fans (and content starved writers) to find meaning in the meaningless, and as long as it's presented as exactly what it is, mostly unfounded guesswork, I don't think there's anything wrong with giving in to the urge from time to time.

Making Lemonade Out of an Eight-Man Bullpen

It's seemed for a while now that the Blue Jays' search for a fifth starter will go right down to the wire, with Drew Hutchison likely having secured one of the two available spots, but with none of the other candidates for the rotation really having done much to separate themselves from the pack. It is also appearing as though, due to a number of pitchers' lack of options, the club may again start the season with an eight-man bullpen. Let me be clear. I don't like the eight-man bullpen. I think the Blue Jays are a better team with a fourth bench player than with an eighth reliever. That being said, I was watching Todd Redmond's start against the Tigers on Saturday and I started thinking that carrying an extra pitcher might be exactly what the Blue Jays need to squeeze every last shred of production out of that fifth starter's spot.

If you recall the game in question, Todd Redmond cruised through the first five innings without allowing a run. In the sixth inning he allowed a lead-off home run to number nine hitter Ezequiel Carrera. As the lineup returned to the top, Victor Martinez hit a double and was pinch run for by Hernan Perez. A fielding error allowed Steve Lombardozzi to reach, and advanced Perez to third. The next batter, a young upstart by the name of Miguel Cabrera, scored Perez on a sacrifice fly. Clean up hitter Don Kelly smacked a double that advanced Lombardozzi to third, and then Tyler Collins smacked another double that scored both Kelly and Lombardozzi. Redmond retired the next two batters to get out of the inning, having allowed four runs on six straight batters reaching base, albeit one on an error. He was replaced by Steve Delabar in the top of the seventh.

I'm not faulting anyone for this situation. It's spring training, so it makes all the sense in the world that they would allow Redmond to try and pitch his way out of trouble in the sixth inning. I'm sure that in a game that actually counts for anything there would have been a much quicker hook. In any case, drawing conclusions from one spring training start would be idiotic. Still, it got me thinking, and led me to tweet this:

Pretty much no 5th starter should go through the lineup a third time anyways. Like ever. #BlueJays
— Blue Jays Blackboard (@BJaysBlackboard) March 22, 2014

Belated Thoughts on the Santana Saga

Well that was fun wasn't it? Feeling, for one Saturday afternoon at least, as though the Blue Jays might actually land one of this off-season's most sought after free agent pitchers? And on a one-year deal? And for just the same $14 million that they must have had earmarked in the budget for qualifying Josh Johnson, and which they still thought long and hard about offering him despite a 2013 season that was even worse than Ervin Santana's 2012?! Sigh...

I can barely even bring myself to feel feelings about this to be perfectly honest, but if I could I'm sure they'd be of the darkly negative variety I'm almost constantly railing against here and on Twitter. I'm still trying really hard not to let myself go down that rabbit hole by focusing on all the reasons that I didn't want anything to do with Ervin Santana back in November when the entire free agent market was the Blue Jays' oyster. It's doesn't seem to be working though, because pretty much all of those reasons went right out the window the second it became clear Santana would sign a one-year pillow contract to try to build up his value and cash in on a multi-year deal next off-season.

The Winter of Our Discontent

"What're we doin' here Paul?"

 
"Apologist" has become my least favourite word in the English language, and I'll tell you why.

Many sports fans see the world in black and white. Every team decision is either brilliant or indefensible. Every trade must be won or lost. Every contract is either a "good contract" or a "bad contract". Fans are also very fickle. Their judgment on the moves teams make is often passed with the benefit of hindsight, which is of course unavailable to the front office executives who are required to make decisions without the benefit of the crystal ball we all wish we had, but which none of us really do. Outcomes are pointed to as proof of good or bad process, as if a series of sound decisions have never before been rewarded with nothing but disappointing results.

As someone who often tries to navigate the shades of grey and layers of nuance in the types of decisions front offices make, and who considers it a public service to point out the flaws in this kind of hind-sight empowered, dichotomous thinking, I get called the A-word all the time. No, not that one (but sometimes that one too). I'm talking about "apologist". As though a willingness to consider the pros and cons of any particular move and, even if I don't always agree with the final decision, at least acknowledge the thinking behind it as defensible makes me some sort of propagandist (been called that too) for the Blue Jays, Rogers, and most commonly the Alex Anthopoulos regime.

Fillin' Holes Free Agent Style

It's been an odd hot stove season this year, in that it's dragging right on into spring training with some of the biggest names on the market remaining unsigned. Now that Ubaldo has signed with the Orioles (which probably sucks for more reasons than just necessitating a re-write of this post's preamble), the list of players still wondering where their next pay cheque will come from includes Ervin Santana, Stephen Drew, Nelson Cruz, and Kendrys Morales. There are some serviceable ball players still out there, but so far nobody seems to have been willing to offer them a contract in line with what they feel their services are worth. In these cases, the draft pick compensation their previous clubs saddled them with is definitely hurting their value

Of that group, the only players remaining that might fit with the Jays are Ervin Santana and Stephen Drew now that he's reportedly open to playing positions other than shortstop. The Blue Jays haven't been shy about letting their desire to upgrade the rotation be known, but they also have a gaping black hole slated to start at second base. If the season started today the Jays would be going with some combination of Ryan Goins, Maicer Izturis, Munenori Kawasaki, Chris Getz, and Brent Morel. According to FanGraphs' projected depth charts, all those names project to provide a big fat pile of replacement level "production" (0.4 fWAR to be precise) which, while still an improvement over last year's -2.1 fWAR from the position, is not exactly what any team with competitive aspirations should be willing to settle for.

Basically, all of this got me thinking about where the Blue Jays could make the bigger upgrade if they are only able to sign one of the remaining free agents that seem to fit. It's been taken for granted that their biggest need is in the rotation, but they are much deeper in back end starters to fill in behind Dickey, Buehrle and Morrow than they were last season. Drew Hutchison and Kyle Drabek are both back from their Tommy John surgeries, and Marcus Stroman is by all accounts ready for prime time in either the rotation or bullpen. J.A. Happ, Todd Redmond and Esmil Rogers are also still around and can presumably still be counted on for some solid if unspectacular innings. Could it be possible that the team would actually be better off making an improvement at second base and standing pat in the rotation? I clicked on over to those same FanGraphs depth charts to see what I could see.

Three Blue Jays Make Baseball Prospectus' Top 101

The fine folks over at Baseball Prospectus released their list of the top 101 prospects in baseball yesterday, and for all the talk of the Blue Jays' decimated farm system (albeit mostly among the uninformed, irrationally negative set) they do fairly well. Three Jays cracked this year's list. Two of them will be no surprise, but the third is a new name that many fans will no doubt start paying more attention to due to his inclusion on lists like these.

I'm sure you've already guessed the first two nominees, Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez, but right-hander Alberto Tirado has been getting more and more buzz this year, and made it onto the BP list at #76. He's still a long way off, and a lot could happen between now and us ever seeing him in the bigs, but if you follow the excellent work of Jason Parks at all his presence on the list shouldn't be a shock. The Professor is very high on the young Dominican and has been singing his praises for months now. 

Without lifting too much pay-walled material (go get a BP subscription!), let's take a closer look at the trio of Jays prospects and BP's scouting reports on them. 

Trading for David Price: Fun With Surplus Value

One of the hottest commodities on the potential trade market these days is the Tampa Bay Rays’ ace lefty David Price, and fans of many a franchise are understandably salivating at the prospect of seeing him don their team’s uniform. It’s not every season that a player of Price’s caliber becomes available while still in his salary arbitration years, which Price will be for the next two seasons. Trade speculation is obviously a favourite off-season pastime of fans everywhere, so there has been rampant speculation in all corners of the media and internet about where Price might end up and what it might take to get him there.

With the winter meetings now concluded without having provided much excitement for Jays fans, I wanted to do a bit of a pivot off some of the analysis I’ve seen recently that is either directly related to the Blue Jays’ quest for starting pitching, or at least very closely related to it. Much of the analysis regarding trades these days has to do with the notion of surplus value, which is calculated by finding a player’s value in $/WAR terms and subtracting their salary ( WAR * $/WAR – Salary ). The difference between the player’s on-field value and their salary is their surplus value. This is significant for obvious reasons. The less you pay for wins from one player, the more money you have to allocate to buying wins from other players. Trades can be analyzed by comparing the projected surplus values of the pieces involved to see which team ended up “winning” the deal from a value perspective. As mentioned, surplus value is at the heart of most transaction analysis, and for good reason.

It’s important to consider surplus value when considering trading close to the majors prospects and their six affordable years of team control for established major leaguers, even very good ones like David Price. For example, in a recent FanGraphs piece, Dave Cameron shows how six years of a top prospect like the Pirates’ Gregory Polanco, projected to provide six years of league average-ish production starting in 2014, provides about $120 million in surplus value against just $30 million in surplus value from Price over his final two arbitration-eligible years for a difference of about $90 million. You can quibble with any of the projections and $/WAR figures, but no matter how you slice it, a prospect like Polanco is likely to contribute far more surplus value over the remainder of his team-controlled years than Price is. Cameron concludes that even in a one-for-one swap, a prospect like Polanco who is ready to step in and contribute for league minimum salary is an overpay for David Price.

That's certainly one way of looking at a trade, but the market doesn't always behave in such a coldly logical manner. In a vacuum, a transaction analysis based strictly on projected surplus value makes perfect sense, but as we know, teams don't operate in a vacuum. Teams have a tendency to overpay in long-term surplus value for players they believe can help them in the short-term, usually when they consider themselves right on the verge of playoff contention. Intuitively, we know this to be true, even without the numbers to back it up. This is where I feel that a lot of transaction analysis based on a comparison of surplus value falls short, in that it compares players as if their values exist in a vacuum. It's a great analytical method, but doesn't necessarily paint the full picture. A team's perception of its own situation, its needs, and the supply of players to fill those needs in any given year all affect a player's value on the trade market in ways that aren't necessarily well accounted for by a strict surplus value analysis.

Roy Halladay Signs With Blue Jays! Promptly Retires...

It certainly wasn't the Roy Halladay signing a certain sentimental (read: stuck in the 2000s) segment of the Blue Jays fan base was hoping for, was it? All snark aside though, there was a certain warm fuzziness about Roy Halladay's decision to retire as a member of the team he began his dominant career with, and I say that as a pretty unsentimental sports fan. So, that even I was a bit moved to learn that Halladay was announcing his retirement, and had signed a one-day contract so that he could do it as a Blue Jay, should say something about the significance of Roy Halladay to Blue Jays fans and the organization.

It would be really easy for me to just stuff a post full of the Doc's career numbers, accomplishments, and great moments and call it content, but quite frankly if you care enough to be reading this I'm sure you know all that stuff already. In fact, many of you probably have more vivid memories of some of them than I do.

Confession time. There was a period in my life when I just wasn't much of a baseball fan. Lacrosse had become my summer sport of choice. Somewhere along the way I decided that when it came to hitting things with a stick I was much better at hitting people than hurled projectiles. If you don't see how this fact is relevant to my baseball fandom, I have a challenge for you. Try to find a minor lacrosse tournament that isn't selling "The Boys of Summer Play Baseball, The Men of Summer Play Lacrosse" t-shirts. Yeah. It was like that.

Hijacking a FanGraphs Chat: Pitching, Price, Marginal Wins and the "Dickey Effect"

I'm not sure if this will become something I do regularly or not, but there were a few Jays-related tidbits in last week's FanGraphs Chat with Dave Cameron that I felt were worth unpacking a little bit more. The format of the chat doesn't really lend itself to lengthy responses so Cameron can definitely be forgiven the brevity of some of his answers. I just thought it would be fun, without pretending to know Dave Cameron's mind of course, to expand on what he was saying a little bit. 

Comment From Tom
Shark gets traded or extended? Whats your gut tell you?

Dave Cameron: Traded.

Comment From Jays fan
As a Jays fan am I wrong for not wanting to give up either Sanchez or Stroman for Jeff Samardzija?

Dave Cameron: No. Only two more years of team control.

Obviously these two comments sort of go hand in hand, and if you've been paying attention I'm sure you're already familiar with the trade rumours that have been swirling around the Cubs and Blue Jays. Basically, the Cubs have been having trouble getting a contract extension done with Jeff Samardzija so he may be available in a trade. The Jays were rumoured to be "putting together a package of young players" to land the Shark, which of course sparked a lively debate in Blue Jays circles about whether the Jays should be willing to part with one or both of their prized pitching prospects Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman in order to get a deal done.

I sided with Dave here, pretty much deciding that parting with either of Sanchez or Stroman would be too much for Samardzija. Unlike Cameron though, my primary concern wasn't the Shark's two remaining years of team control.

A Sad Day for Fans of Handsome Catchers...

... but a great day for fans of winning baseball games! We can finally get off the pins and needles, those of you who, like myself, have been nervously watching the catching market grow thinner and thinner without the Blue Jays having upgraded at the position. But now, at long last, this from Ken Rosenthal:

Sources: #BlueJays in agreement with free-agent catcher on Dioner Navarro on two-year deal, pending physical.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 2, 2013

Signing of Navarro likely will lead #BlueJays to trade Arencibia. Team needs Thole to catch Dickey. Navarro could grow into everyday role.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 2, 2013

Sources: #BlueJays’ deal with Dioner Navarro is two years, $8M. Pending physical.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 2, 2013

Ricky Nolasco Signs With Twins, And That's Alright

Well, it seems as though the dominoes may start falling in the free agent pitcher market, with Ricky Nolasco having just signed with the Minnesota Twins. According to Jeff Passan on Twitter:

Ricky Nolasco's deal with Twins is four years, $49M guaranteed with a 2018 option. Gets $12M a year in 2014-17 with $1M buyout on option.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 28, 2013

 There have been rumours the Blue Jays were also talking to the right-handed innings eater, who has been the very model of consistency over his career. I wrote about him back in my free agent pitching piece, saying:

Over his career he's pitched to a 4.37 ERA, but a much better 3.76 FIP. By ERA- he's been 8% worse than league average for his career. By FIP- he's been 8% better. Regardless of how you feel about FIP, that's odd, and it does make me concerned that whatever it is that sees him posting such mediocre ERAs despite such solid peripherals would be exacerbated by a move to the AL East with its elite offenses and band box stadiums.

I mean, if there was anything to the rumours and there were any kind of serious talks going on there perhaps this is a bit of a blow to their off-season plans, but I would hope their sights are set a bit higher than Nolasco at the moment. Whether they were actually after him or not, there might be a glimmer of hope in the Nolasco signing, as at the time I wrote that piece, the word was that he was seeking a contract worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of $80 million. Obviously that was never realistic, but it also didn't sound quite as crazy as it probably should have. Everyone expects this off-season to be a little bit silly, so that he signed for something not far off the Edwin Jackson-style four-year $52 million MLB Trade Rumors projected him for is almost comforting.

Nolasco signed for a little less guaranteed money than Edwin Jackson, who was also younger when he signed his current deal, but Nolasco has a $13 million player option for a fifth year that vests based on innings pitched in 2016-17. It's a lot of money and term for a dependably mediocre pitcher who will be on the wrong side of 30 for the entirety of the contract, but the fact that he was traded mid-season means he wasn't attached to draft pick compensation, and that certainly has a value that might be worth paying a little extra for. It basically pays him to be about a two win pitcher, which he has been by FanGraphs' FIP-based WAR, but not by Baseball-Reference's RA9-based version. Your favourite flavour of pitcher WAR will colour your view of this contract significantly, but either way Nolasco is likely to decline over the course of it.

The point is, it wasn't something completely insane, and given the salary explosion many seem to be predicting this off-season, maybe that can be considered a small victory. It's too early to say that Nolasco's contract will set the market, but maybe it gives a bit of hope that absurd salary inflation won't make wading into free agency any more difficult for the Blue Jays than it already will be. In fact, it's possible that the structure of Nolasco's contract might provide a model for the Blue Jays to look to.

It seems the market is open to some interestingly structured contracts this off-season, as Dan Haren signed an incentive and vesting option-based deal with the Dodgers this week. The Blue Jays will no doubt be hesitant to offer five year deals to any pitcher, given the inherent risk of injury. A vesting player option like Nolasco's might be a way to mitigate the risk, as he at least has to be reasonably healthy for it to vest. It might also be possible to back-load a free agent deal for the sake of the payroll in the short term, until a ton of money comes off the books after 2015. I'm open to some creativity, and I think a bit of it might be necessary for them to help themselves in free agency.

So yes, this deal seems a rich one for a pitcher like Nolasco, but it's probably right about the going rate, and the option year isn't terribly scary to me due to the fact that he has to remain healthy for it to vest. Basically, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was a lot worse,  and it's a model I wouldn't be scared to see the Blue Jays offer to some other free agents out there. Frankly, that's more hope than I was expecting to get when the big name free agent pitcher shoes started dropping.

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Blue Jays Looking to Explore Shark Infested Waters?

So there I was Saturday night, trying to enjoy a 60^th birthday party that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be 50’s or 60’s themed, hoping against hope that baseball would cooperate and allow me to ignore it for just one night. However, that was just too much to ask on this particular Saturday, with Brian McCann signing with the Yankees for a potential six-year, $100 million deal depending on what happens with a vesting option. The average annual value is a bit surprising, but might not be by the end of an off-season that will likely be full of surprising contracts. "McCann Signs With Yankees For All The Money" was such a foreseeable headline that I don't even feel the need to spend any time looking at it. Everyone knew it was coming, and if anything is most surprising it's that it even took this long to happen. 

As if that weren’t enough excitement in baseball land though, this also happened:

Teams have inquired about StarterJeff Samardzija. Source: Toronto putting together package of young players.
— Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) November 23, 2013

Twitter-Inspired Thoughts on the Tigers/Rangers Trade, Alex Anthopoulos, and Pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator

Obviously the big news in baseball this week is the blockbuster trade between the Texas Rangers and Detroit Tigers. With the notable names involved, the enormous sums of money moving around, and the near-immediacy with which it went from rumor to reality, it should be absolutely no surprise that the Twitterverse was abuzz with opinions from experts and amateurs alike on who had "won" the trade, because obviously somebody had to. In today's social media driven climate of armchair analysis there must always be a winner and a loser. If the trade was good for one team it must have been bad for the other. Shades of grey cannot exist in an environment that demands something be either black or white.

That's not my intent here though. I think that trade was perfectly acceptable for both teams. I like it for the Tigers a little bit more, not so much because of the players involved, but because of the domino effect it has on the rest of their infield and the cash it frees up for them to either re-sign core players like Max Scherzer and/or go out and upgrade in other areas through free agency or by taking on more salary in trades. The Rangers needed some offense though, and in that stadium Prince Fielder should provide it in spades. It allowed them to clear a spot in their middle infield for the much cheaper Jurickson Profar to play every day. They even got the Tigers to send $30 million their way to make paying Fielder for the next several seasons a little bit more palatable.

Both teams traded something they had a surplus of (in Texas' case middle infielders, in Detroit's slugging 1B/DH types) for something they needed more of. A lot of salary moved around, but neither of those teams are short on cash or afraid to spend it. It's not my money, and neither of the contracts is likely to cripple the finances of either team, so whatever.

What caught my eye in the midst of the maelstrom of opinion, however, was this little nugget from Toronto Star baseball columnist Richard Griffin:

It worries me that #bluejays GM Alex Anthopoulos suggested it would be a late-developing off-season market. #rushtojudgment
— Richard Griffin (@RGriffinStar) November 21, 2013

This Week in Things That Just Won't Go Away: Jose Bautista Trade Rumours

In all honesty I've been trying to ignore this topic all together in the hope that it would just burn itself out and go away. Instead, it just seems to be gaining more and more "traction", if that's even the word for the ceaseless troll jobs we've seen coming from mostly American media outlets in recent months. You know the topic I'm talking about. It's the one where the Toronto Blue Jays, in a fit of hopeless despair after the crushing disappointment of the 2013 season, trade star slugger Jose Bautista and his ludicrously team friendly contract to [insert team of the week here] for a back of the rotation starter and a B level prospect.

The suitors for Bautista are most commonly the Rangers, Mets and recently the Phillies, but make no mistake, there are 29 teams in the league that would all love to get Bautista's bat into their lineup. What's more, there is an incomprehensibly large and vocal segment of the Blue Jays' fan base that seems not only willing to entertain the notion of trading the franchise cornerstone, but are ready to drive the all-star outfielder to the airport themselves. 

Now, I don't doubt for a second that there have been inquiries made on Bautista, as I'm sure there have been on Encarnacion, Reyes, Rasmus, and probably others too. The Jays are a team with several desirable pieces, a large payroll that may not have a lot of room to grow, and multiple holes to fill. It stands to reason that rival GMs might see them as ripe for the picking, and that Anthopoulos might be willing to listen to offers. It's his job to listen. I don't really believe in players being untouchable, should the right offer come along. However, that doesn't mean trading one of the best players in franchise history while he's still under contract for two more seasons with an option for a third should be seen as a desirable or likely scenario.