Bautista won’t get as much as Wells does and frankly, if he loses 25 homers a year I bet he’ll still be a better deal.
This is a sensational trade for Toronto, as I really strongly suspect Wells is going to get worse, fast. Napoli will be useful in 2010, but the major benefit here is the team isn’t crippled by the Wells deal.
I cannot believe anyone would accept Wells in trade for anything. I’m positively stunned the Angels did this.
Well, as pointed out Pena wasn’t especially good last year, so I think Damon or Ramirez can replace him. They probably won’t be as good as Crawford, but they will certainly be better than the carousel of DH options last year. Let me rephrase. Ramirez + Damon +Jennings/Dan Johnson can equal Crawford + Pena + black hole at DH at least offensively.
Napoli projects to catch. Toronto has only one catcher now who’s expected to be on the big league roster, and first base is all full of Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion. Unless another move happens, someone has to back up Arencibia or fill in if he can’t learn the strike zone.
Have the Angel’s lost their minds? Wow, just wow. Congrats RickJay, this will speed the Jays return to serious competition by years.
Minor in the history of Steinbrenner* vs. GM history and the Yanks have actually shucked more payroll than almost any other team this year so it is one exception.
Reds GM Walt Jocketty was on my plane from Cincinnati to NYC today. Maybe there’s going to be a trade between the Reds and the Mets and/or Yankees?
Yanks are definitely shopping for a starter.
At least one, I’d say. The Joba experiment is totally over. Trade the guy while he’s worth something.
Well too much invested in AJ not to see him through. Ivan Nova is penciled in as the 4 and looks like a solid 5 at least.
No sense trading Joba now, he is worth very little, might as well try him one more time. But if a solid started could be picked up without giving up key pieces, I know Cashman is looking.
That’s also the problem. All the decent names that are on the starting block are already picked up. It’s always an odd proposition picking up a 4th or 5th starter. The Yankees aren’t giving up Montero (well, they’re wedded to him now, I suppose) either.
Joba needs to hope the experimentation with him (not The Experiment) is over. With the way he’s been pinballed around, it’s a wonder he can even find the plate. Just make him one thing - a starter or a setup reliever, doesn’t matter which - and let him get used to it.
Agreed. Any bumps in the road would be magnified in New York, too. He really needs to get out.
For all the “New York, New York, Oooh, New York” nonsense, Chamberlain is, after all, not even the tenth most famous guy on his own team.
It’s been said already in this thread and said in other threads and said in other places, but the main problem with Chamberlain has been the totally inexplicable way he’s been handled, from the stupid Joba Rules to the pinball role change (it was a perfect metaphor) handling. If they’d just put him in a damned role and stuck with it he probably would have turned out okay.
And he probably still would be okay. Last year he finally did one job all season and he pitched fine; 77 strikeouts in 72 innings. just 22 walks, 6 homers allowed. It was kind of a fluke his ERA was as high as it was. What’s the rush to get rid of him? He was okay last year and every indicator there is says he’ll get better if they just let him pitch.
My feeling is give him a try out for the starting staff again. He is now relegated to a 6th or 7th inning role and the Yanks have a really good pen with two top closers and Robertson and two good lefties in Boone Logan and P. Feliciano and probably Marte making a third lefty. Either Joba or Mitre will be in the pen and possibly both.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Blue Jays blogosphere react so positively to a move the team has made. Ever.
The general consensus in the media about the Wells deal ranges somewhere from “Are they insane?” to “They aren’t insane, but they’re acting out of a sort of PR desperation.” Which isn’t a good range.
Honestly, I’ve tried to understand this deal from an Angels perspective and just cannot come up with a positive explanation; I think the “PR panic” explanation is spot on. I understand Mike Scioscia doesn’t like Mike Napoli for some weird reason, but the acquisition of Wells is the sort of acquisition that almost never works and has burned team after team after team.
For the Blue Jays, things are now kind of complicated; they have a lot of guys who can sort of hit and no clear depth chart. For some reason they are positively, 100% opposed to playing EE at third; I don’t know why, he’s not THAT bad over there and it would prevent a logjam, but as it stands they have enough first basemen and DHs to staff two teams and, excluding EE, the only third baseman is also their right fielder and it’s hard to play those positions at the same time.
So the general consensus is that the team will trade again, quite possibly retrading Napoli.
Toronto now trades Mike Napoli to Texas for Frank Francisco. I’d say I called it but I was approximately the 169th person to do so.
This trade makes sense for both teams. Toronto had a logjam at 1B/DH and needed a good arm in the bullpen, which Francisco is. Texas could use another bat, especially one who can play catcher (Napoli isn’t a GOOD catcher but you can work around that.)
Yanks got some good news. Added Freddie Garcia on the cheap to a minor league contract. If he makes the team he gets around $1.5m with incentives that could take it up to $5.1m.
He seems likely to be the #5 for the Yanks over Colon & Mitre and others. He had a fairly good year last year. I like this pick up.
He was 12-6 last years with a 157 IP and a 4.64 ERA
Reports are that Andy Pettitte will retire tomorrow. It will be interested to see how he will fair in hall of fame voting. To me he was a very good pitcher who got a lot help from pitching nearly his entire career for the Yankees, and thus a little bit short of the hall standards. I’m particularly curious about how much voters care that he admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs.
Does Mariano get the saves record this year? Hoffman’s retired and 42 saves is not a lot when you pitch for the Yankees. How close will Wagner and Rodriguez get? Wagner’s 38; Rodriquez is only 28 and only needs to average 28 saves per year for 12 years to catch Hoffman. Of course Mariano will probably be approachinig 700 when he retires. The saves race will provide a very interesting and intriguing distraction the next several years.
It is oddly appropriate he needs 42 to tie. The last man to wear 42 and all.
I don’t think Wagner is likely to catch Hoffman or Mo and I really think Francisco Rodriguez is already waning. His arm does not seem to be close to the same as it was. Endurance in closers is rare. Hoffman, Wagner and Mo are three of the best endurance closers of all times.
As to Pettitte, I think he has the second most wins for a Yankee after Whitey Ford. I need to check into that. He also has his 18-9 post season wins to boost the 203-112 Yankees Record. He was 1-1 with Houston in the postseason.
I thought Wagner retired… and looking at his wikipedia article, he did.