Toronto Trades Corey Patterson!

To make a long story short, the Jays have acquired CF Colby Rasmus, relief pitchers Brian Tallet, Trever Miller, and PJ Walters from the Cardinals along with 3B/OF Mark Teahen from the White Sox. In exchange, they sent OF Corey Patterson, SP Edwin Jackson (who they acquired from the White Sox earlier today in exchange for Jason Frasor and Zach Stewart), and relievers Marc Rzepczynski & Octavio Dotel to St. Louis.

This is literally a huge trade for the Jays. Three teams and 11 players were involved. First off, the fact that the Jays actually found someone to take Corey Patterson off their hands is absolutely awesome. Also the Jays now have a bonafide young centerfielder in Colby Rasmus. He seems to be having an off year, but hopefully most of that can be attributed to his souring relationship with Tony LaRussa. Now just think about this, all of a sudden Toronto has a young, exciting outfield with tons of potential. Other than Jose Bautista, and excluding Rajai Davis (because I don't think he'll be with the team long term) the Jays outfield is 25 or younger.

Also, I wonder if Mark Teahen was just a throw in, or if he's insurance for the Jays in case Brett Lawrie can't cut it defensively at 3rd base. Unfortunately this year, he's having Jayson Nix-esque numbers at the plate.

As for the relievers that the Jays got in return, Brian Tallet and Trever Miller are on the wrong side of 30. On the bright side, they'll be free agents at the end of the year, so it's not too big of a risk. Not too sure about PJ Walters, since he's only pitched 4 innings this year...

All in all, acquiring Colby Rasmus is a huge move for Alex Anthopoulous and I'm looking forward to watching him play this year. Also 2012 is beginning to shape up nicely.

And finally, it looks like the Giants are going to win the Carlos Beltran sweepstakes...

Blue Jays Trade Deadline Conspiracy Theory

I was just reading a post over on Getting Blanked about the Jays being in the talks to acquire reliever Heath Bell from the San Diego Padres. I'm in complete agreement that it would be an ill-advised move, but could this be a part of an even larger master plan of evil genius GM Alex Anthopoulous? Is it possible that he's jumping into as many trade talks as possible just to raise the value and maximize the return for the winning bidder?

Hear me out...

A team like the Padres probably expect to receive minor league prospects in exchange for Heath Bell. The Jays have begun to invest heavily in their minor league system. An easy way to further raise the value without investing real dollars would be to dilute their competition's farm system. So if the Yankees, Red Sox or even the Rays get into a bidding war, they've got a plethora of valuable assets to dangle in front of the Padres. Losing those valuable assets will raise Toronto's value. Get it?

An Aaron Hill Prediction

So there's been lots of talk about Aaron Hill's future in the blogosphere recently, so I figured I'd jump into the mix. So let's rip the bandage off quickly: Aaron Hill will not be in a Toronto Blue Jays uniform after this season. Guaranteed.

Why? It's simple: The Jays recently extended Yunel Escobar's contract at $5 million per year for the next 2 years plus another couple of option years at the same price. Aaron Hill has 2 option years coming up at $8 million for each year. There's absolutely no way the Jays are going to pick up those options or convince Hill to take a drastic pay cut to stick with the team. It would also be a slap in the face to Yunel Escobar. Also, there's no way that they'll get any decent return before the trading deadline, so I expect him to be placed on waivers some time in August. It's possible that Anaheim a desperate team would be willing to pick him up to help a late playoff run. Even if that doesn't happen, they'll let him walk after this season.

Should Romero be traded?

I read a thread recently over at the Sportsnet forums wherein a fan suggested that Romero is overrated and shouldn't be projected as the team's next Ace.  If Ricky-Ro is indeed an overrated player, shouldn't it follow that now would be the best time to trade him?  Living up to the name of the blog (I am even less knowledgeable than my blogging co-hort), let's examine the case for (or against) trading Ricky Romero.



Let's make a deal!



Looking at Romero's stat line, his ERA is slightly less than his career average at the moment with a losing record (though of course, the W-L record isn't everything, right?).  So far this year, he's only earned 45 runs, good for roughly 10% of the runs allowed by the Jays this season.  His K/BB is 2.25:1, which doesn't look fantastic but it's not terrible (either way, it's more strikes than walks); and his WHIP is 1.26.  Overall, from my perspective, Romero's numbers indicate that he is giving the Blue Jays ample chance to win and not costing them any games.



Obviously he is highly-regarded, or else he wouldn't have been named to the All-Star team.  People are indeed looking past his sub-.500 W-L record and see that he has some pretty good numbers in a very tough AL East division.  The point of this blog post, however, is not to ask whether or not Romero is overrated as a player.  The question is: should he be traded now?



I think that's a complicated answer, and one that depends mostly on Romero's place within the organization and the direction of the Blue Jays overall.  Technically, now is the perfect time to trade Romero.  His perceived value is high, and the Jays would receive a nice bounty in return for him from any team willing to take him on.  They would quickly discover that in a few years Romero will slot in the 3 or 4 spot in the rotation, and that the Jays have fleeced them (maybe that's a bit of an overstatement).

However, I believe that Romero is definitely a part of the long-term Jays plans.  I don't think that he will figure in as an Ace pitcher as some may think, instead fitting in as a #3 starter.  I don't know who in the Jays organization would land ahead of Ricky, but I think that's where he'll end up.  While it would be beneficial now to cash in for high-end players/prospects, that would just end up weakening the starting rotation. 

I'm cautiously optimistic that the Blue Jays have some of the pieces to put together a good run for the post-season in the near-future, and they're going to need to hold on to Romero - whether he projects as an Ace starter or falls down to the #3 spot.

Alex Anthopoulos is a Genius

I just found out that the Jays traded Juan Rivera to the Dodgers for either a player to be named later or cash. Considering the fact that Juan Rivera was a throw in player in the Vernon Wells deal and that he was just filler in the lineup, I'm amazed that a team was even willing to take a chance on Rivera. I'm even more amazed that that team was the Los Angeles Dodgers. I would have thought that they want to dump salary instead of taking on more. My guess is that the Jays will be sending cash to the Dodgers... Anyways, Alex Anthopoulos continues to amaze me, finding new and innovative ways to trade the untrade-able. I guess Corey Patterson and Edwin Encarnacion are next on the list...

The Expos Luddite

Apparently the Conference Board of Canada has released a report that says Montreal can support a Major League Baseball team. I never was a huge Expos fan when they were playing, but after reading the article I was immediately hit with a feeling of regret. I wish that I would have paid more attention to the Expos. They were only a 2 hour drive away from Ottawa and like many, I never took advantage of the relatively short commute to see a Major League Baseball game. Could you imagine what could have been if the folks in Montreal would have built an open air stadium for the Expos? I've been sort of following the Nationals recently, and although it's not the same, it'll have to do. And it's truly a longshot for baseball to return to Montreal. First of all you'd need an owner/corporation with pockets as deep as Rogers, then you'd need either Tampa Bay a team to move or MLB to expand, and finally you'd need a new stadium. There's absolutely no way a baseball team could exist in Montreal without a new stadium and we all know how that worked out the first time around...

Is Rajai Davis the Odd Man Out?

I'm currently watching the Jays vs. Red Sox game. So far Toronto's leading 7-0. Travis Snider is seeing some early success with two doubles and some heads up baserunning to score a run off a bloop single. I doubt Corey Patterson would have scored on that play. I was somewhat surprised to hear that Travis Snider got the start today. The talk yesterday was that he'd start tomorrow's game, but I'm not complaining.

I think that we all can agree that once Brett Lawrie is fully recovered from his hand injury, he'll be called up to play 3rd base, which will move Bautista back to right field. Assuming Snider has found his swing and regained consistency, he'll be placed in center field and Thames seems to be making a case to be playing every day in left field. My guess is maybe they'll platoon Davis and Thames in the DH role, but it might be a worthwhile idea to see what return they could get from Davis before the trade deadline. He could be a useful player to a contending team looking for some depth. I'd rather they trade Corey Patterson, but I think his trade value is quickly diminishing. I'm also assuming that they'll have a hard time finding a taker for Encarnacion before the trade deadline, which means he'll see lots of time at DH.

Halladay's Return

I just got back from Toronto today. I went to see Roy Halladay's return yesterday and it was a pretty entertaining game. First of all, it was awesome to see so many fans at the game. Apparently the attendance was about 44,000. There was a contingent of Phillies fans at the game as well. You could tell just by listening to their accents that they were American. We were in the 119 section at Rogers Centre, so the seats were pretty good. Right below us were a couple kids who made the trip from Winnipeg and they were fascinated with the Americans sitting behind them, comparing the cost of cases of beer. I kept on wanting to scream at them "yes, beer is cheaper in America, this is not a novelty!". Anyways back to the game...

I realized that I've taken watching a game in person for granted. You really notice the defensive shifts when you're at the ballpark. The TV coverage usually only shows the pitcher and the batter and only quickly reveals the shifts, unless it's something exaggerated. My point is that it'd be neat to see more overhead shots of the infield defense.

So far I've seen Jose Bautista in person twice and he's homered in each game (granted one of those games was versus Baltimore). But it was pretty amazing to see him launch one off Roy Halladay. Speaking of Halladay, I think he got something like 8 standing ovations yesterday...

I didn't see any replays, but I thought that the Phillies player beat Rauch's tag in the ninth. He went crazy arguing with the ump, it was pretty fun to watch the Jays players trying to hold him back.(I just did a bit of research and Jon Rauch was arguing some of the umps calls on Ryan Howard) I thought John Farrell's argument afterward was pretty calculated too, buying his reliever some time to warmup and it was also an attempt to light a spark under the Jays bats for the bottom of the 9th. Unfortunately it was too little too late.

Even though the Jays lost, it was an extremely entertaining game to watch. Obviously the crowds this weekend were not typical, but I can't wait to see the day when the Rogers Centre is packed with these energetic fans on a regular basis.

As I write this, word out of the Jays postgame show is that Juan Rivera's been designated for assignment, which means that Travis Snider is being brought back up from Las Vegas. I'm glad he's back, but will this push Thames out of the lineup again? Hopefully John Farrell will do the smart thing and take Patterson out of the lineup instead.