from the Jays’ point of view, this budget-breaking deal makes sense in baseball terms only for 2013–the idea (IMO) is to load up on expensive contracts for a single year and compete with the big boys in the division (NYY and BRS) for that year on equal terms.
Win or lose, they’d unload Reyes et al. for better or equal YOUNG talent to that they traded to acquire Reyes et al. Actually, if they’re smart, and they’re not leading in the AL east about Mid-July, then that’s the time to unload all the expensive talent they got signed up. A team without a quality shortstop just a bit out of first place will pay through the nose for Jose Reyes in mid-seasonm with a real chance to lock him long-term. I wouldn’t be surprised if Toronto views the talent they’ve acquired as a MEANS to get back better younger stars in the long view rather than as an end in itself.
Reyes is already locked up long term. He has five years and $96 million left on his contract. I think the Jays believe they could contend for the next few years if the Red Sox are rebuilding and the Yankees are looking to cut their payroll.
If they win, attendance will soar, and it would make sense to keep payroll high. Toronto’s attendance patterns are well demonstrated; win and the fans come in droves, lose and it’s chopped in half. At $130 million in payroll, Rogers will still make a lot of money if the team wins, so if they win, Reyes will remain a Blue Jay.
If they don’t win in 2013, Anthopolous will probably be fired and the team will rebuild.
Here’s why I disagree: even with a very successful 2013 (which means making the playoffs), they will need to beat out either the Yankees or the Sox, both of whom will be competitive, at least financially and probably on the field. But that’s a ceiling for Toronto: they’ll never (in our lifetimes) be able to dominate the AL east, simply because these two franchises are built to be strong every year. The best the Jays can hope for is to win once every few seasons. (And remember that we’re not even discussing the Orioles for the moment.) That’s with a 135+ M payroll.
If their approach is to go balls-out in 2013, they’ll have an interesting decision to make in July: if they’re in the mix, by which I mean in first or second place, or at least within 4 games of AL East, then maybe they’ll roll the dice. But say their record is 57-51 at the two-thirds point, and the standings look like this:
NYY 63-45
BOS 59-49
TOR 57-51
BAL 56-52
they face the very real possibility of getting shut out of the playoffs, with a payroll that’s too big for them, and several unhappy players on their team, with the market calling out to them to trade those players for prospects.
There will be a team begging the Jays to swap Buerhle for top prospects, and Reyes for top prospects, and several other stars whom they can’t afford to keep over the off-season anyway, probably a better group of prospects than they just traded to get Reyes and Buehrle, which means if they choose right, they’ll improve their roster for 2014 and beyond and maybe compete that way.
I think a strategy of boom-or-bust is a risky option–if they choose poorly, they simply gut their organization. But for an organization that is as disadvantaged as they Jays are now, and look to be for the near term, it’s one of the few they have.
Is Ontario’s no-pit-bulls laws going to allow Buehrle’s family (very attached to their pit bull) to live there, btw?
I don’t think much of the Red Sox right now, but I’d generally agree it’s unlikely Toronto will dominate the AL East. But they don’t have to; they just have to win something. A World Series appearance would cause attendance to max out in 2014, and a playoff appearance of any stripe would push it past 3.
If they don’t win every year you’ll still see attendance explode if they win some years. It’s unquestionably a risk, but I think it’s probably the best possible time in the foreseeable future to take it; Toronto probably has a better shot in 2013-2014 than they have had in years. New York is very old, Boston is not good, and Baltimore, IMHO, was a fluke and isn’t really that good a team. I’m not sure what to make of Tampa, who every year loses someone good and then somehow finds a way to win games anyway. But the old days of New York/Boston dominance are clearly at an end. Boston needs a few years to rebuild what appears to be a really shitty team, and New York, barring some nifty moves, will probably decline.
Again, it’s all on 2013. 2013 is Toronto’s best shot. If they win, attendance will skyrocket and it will make sense to attempt more winning in 2014.
If things flop I agree they’ll probably deal Buerhle and Reyes, and depending on the nature of the flop they may or may not keep Johnson; hs contract ends next year. But if they are on the cusp, I absolutely guarantee they will make a run for it. The GM’s job rides on making the playoffs in 2013, full stop.
He cannot sell ownership on a rebuild. I assure you Rogers Communications will accept nothing less.
The pit bull law is a joke. Apparently the team has already made arrangements, which, from what I have heard from other sources, involve simply saying the dog isn’t a pit bull. I imagine they just got a letter from a vet saying the dog is actually some other breed. How can you prove otherwise?
In any event, that’s even assuming Buerhle decides to move his family to Toronto.
It’s amazing what someone with a shit-ton of money can do to overcome a law he doesn’t like, huh? If he was really smart, he’d get a vet to certify that the fucking thing was a cat.
Speaking of money, I think that will prevent the Sox from being really bad for a long stretch. They sucked last year, that’s true, but don’t forget they were also crippled with injuries. This year, they’re younger and maybe less unlucky. I wouldn’t quite dismiss them yet. They Yankees are old, but they’ve still got a good core. The O’s and the Rays have decent teams. The Jays are in one tough division. If was them, I’d back up the truck in July if I wasn’t leading in the division.
Yeah, but they dumped their first baseman on Los Angeles.
There isn’t a lot of free agent pickings out there. I don’t like their roster at all; I know it was an injury-riddled year, but look, honestly, at what they’re going into 2013 with as of now. The only player likely to crack the starting lineup who is under 27 is Will Middlebrooks, who is a talented young man but had a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, a ratio enjoyed by precisely no good hitters in major league history; he can improve of course, but other than him where’s the improvement coming from? Who the hell is their first baseman, or their shortstop? The pitching staff has more room for improvement, but it sure does have to improve.
It’s not saying this is a WEAK division - Boston is, IMHO, the only bad team - but it is a division with no obvious winner. This is Toronto’s shot. It’s a risk, but it beats not taking the risk and losing, which is what would have happened.
I’m still bitter Toronto traded him for whichever old fat reliever it was. I believe that was Fat Frankie Francisco, as opposed to Fat Frankie Cordero.
The Red Sox signed Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino for 3 years and about $39 million each. Russell Martin goes to the Pirates and the Rangers picked up Jokiam Soria. And the hits keep on coming for Miami: they just traded Yunel Escobar to Tampa for a minor league infielder. I assume their remaining money-making players will go eventually but it sounds like they want to slow down because they know how bad this looks.
Well, the Royals just gave away their future for James Shields and Wade Davis. I thought we learned our lesson back in the '89-'90 off-season that acquiring pitchers named Davis was a terrible idea. I don’t mind losing Montgomery - he wasn’t projected to do much besides eat up innings. I don’t mind losing Odorizzi, despite his bright future - we needed to make some hard decisions for some upgrades. But Will Myers?!? You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Listen - James Shields is a stud. But we get him for two years. We had a franchise player on our hands with Myers. And now he’s going to make the Rays’ offense so much better, and do it for the next 10 years. This was desperation at its finest. At its worst, it shows a complete disregard for the Royals’ fanbase. We’ve been waiting and waiting for Myers to come up and help this offense out. And we’ve been hearing for 3 years how we have the most ridiculous amount of depth in pitching prospects that we’d be able to make significant upgrades on a consistent basis - that we were the envy of every GM in baseball in that regard. And so we deal from weakness to help where we’re deep? Great. Great fucking idea. Yeah - we don’t have starters ready at the MLB level. I get it - so trade from depth. Trade from our stable of talented arms.
Or, I dunno - spend a tiny fraction of that ridiculous Wal*Mart fortune and buy a fucking starter.
Edit: Saw on twitter that the baseballarati think this is easily one of the worst trades they’ve ever seen. I can only imagine that it ranks right up there with David Cone for Ed “Fucking” Hearn. Well done, jackasses.
Trading Escobar actually makes sense, since they also got Hechevarria inthe deal from Toronto. Hechevarria is the real deal, and if I had both, I’d get what I could for Escobar so Hech could play shortstop every day. Apparently they asked Escobar to play third, and he refused. Escobar does not have a good reputation to start with so his refusal to do something perfectly logical gives the Marlins a second excuse to dump his ass.
What is concerning here is that the Marlins are now reaching the point where they will be under the salary floor (which I think is not a clearly defined thing, but they’ve done this before, and made a deal wit hthe MLBPA not to do it again.) Ricky Nolasco has made it very clear, to the point of unprofessionalism, that he wants out of Miami ASAP - I’m sure the Blue Jays would trade for him too if they had more prospects they were willing to trade - and God only knows how the team can sign any free agent worth a damn now.
In other news, rumor has it the Yankees are shopping Curtis Granderson. I can’t understand if Brian Cashman is having his hands tied by upper management, or if he’s panicked the team is on the verga of collapse and he knows he needs to clear the decks.
Big exciting Astros news is that they traded Wilton Lopez, who’s been a pretty consistently successful reliever, for Coors Field victim Alex White and some minor-league pitcher who was drafted in the 11th round last year and apparently didn’t sign in time to get any innings in. The Astros are now almost out of major-league players they can trade (pretty much just Jed Lowrie and his 60-80 games when he’s not injured).
That’s true, and if they’re going to trade for him I guess they may as well find out what he can do since it’s not as if the team will be competitive. But my understanding is that Hechevarria is an all-glove no-hit guy.
They went through this nonsense with Ramirez and Reyes last year and it worked about as well. Maybe they should stop acquiring guys who play the same position in the first place.
I thought they’d also made it clear they wanted to trade him since he is their last player making any significant salary. Logan Morrison, who isn’t making much money at all, was also supposed to be on the block.
I don’t get it either. I think this is just part of their effort to cut salary, but despite the drop in average and very bad 2012 postseason he’s been very productive. He’s also 31, which makes him one of their younger big pieces.
Munch: total agreement here. When I first saw the headline on RoyalsReview, I thought it was a satire. That’s how absurd this trade is.
The only thing that makes sense regarding this off-season is that Dayton Moore no longer cares about the franchise’s long-term health, he’s only working to keep his job past 2014, which will only happen if the Royals make a good show of it in the next two years. If they can’t, then the Royals of 2015 and beyond - Myers and Odorizzi gone, the newly-acquired Shields and Davis likely gone, the team burdened with a $9M commitment to a 36-year-old pitcher - will not be his situation to deal with.
I think Hechevarria has offensive upside. He didn’t look too bad last year. He’s not Derek Jeter, but I think he’s got the potential to hit well enough to be an MLB regular. Could get seasons of .280, 50 walks, a few homers.
As to the Shields trade… yeah, it’s weird. I understand the trade if taken out of the context of the teams involved. James Shields is a Grade A starting pitcher and no mistake. A pitcher of his quality commands a high price. But are the ROYALS one starter away from the playoffs?
Well, let me construct an argument in faour of DAyton Moore’s thinking here:
The Royals went 72-90 last year but that was a disappointment. Few people think they’re that bad.
The Royals are a very young team and have legitimate major league ballplayers under 27 at multiple positions. This is a team with a chance to dramatically improve.
The AL Central is weak.
I could quite easily see the Royals going 85-77 next year without Shields. Why not? They have top flight ballplayers who are 22-26 years old - Hosmer, Perez, Escobar, Butler. They have holes you can replace with cheap, quick signings. Maybe Shields means 90 wins and a playoff spot.