Blue Jays rumours and things: Saturday, February 13th
The Blue Jays didn’t do anything especially massive on Friday or Saturday, but there were just enough little things going on to distract me from finishing this week’s mail bag — which is still coming, and you can still submit a question for if you’ve got one (and, as always, are a paid subscriber) — and to compel me to round it all up for you in a post that, for some reason, I’m publishing on a Saturday night.
But it’s not like time really matters at this stage of the global pandemic, right? So let’s talk Blue Jays!
Joen’t Panik
The Jays announced on Friday that Joe Panik, who was somehow allowed to make six plate appearances for the club in two playoff games last fall, is back on a minor league contract. The deal will pay him $1.85 million if he makes the team, with another $400,000 in performance bonuses available as well.
It was a move that on the surface maybe seemed a little bit puzzling, especially as it came amidst a flurry of deals given out to similar players.
Late on Thursday, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand tweeted that the Red Sox had come to terms with Marwin Gonzalez, who I wrote about during the week, one a one-year deal worth $3 million (plus “a little more than $1 million in incentives”). Though it has still not been confirmed, Jon Morosi tweeted early Friday that the Phillies and Brad Miller were closing in on a deal between $3 million and $3.5 million. And later that morning, Ken Rosenthal tweeted that Brock Holt had agreed to go to the Rangers for $1.85 million with another potential $750,000 in incentives.
Among that group, I'd have been most interested in the Jays taking a look at Miller, who seems to finally be beyond the major surgeries he had in 2018 (bilateral core surgery after he played "the whole year with my adductors torn off the bone") and 2017 (hip surgery for a torn labrum as well as microfracture surgery to address cartilage damage). Miller was released by Cleveland at the start of 2019, ended up in Triple-A with the Yankees, tweaked his approach, and has looked really good at the plate ever since. Panik, on the other hand, may have been my last choice.
If you want to be optimistic, you could say that he fell apart in mid September, but had been a league average hitter for the Jays up to that point. You could point out his .340 on-base, or the fact that his xwOBA on pitches above 95 mph was one of the best in the league (with a .475 mark, he ranked 23rd of 368 hitters to see at least 25 pitches at that velocity). You could note that his down years in 2018 and 2019 were propelled by BABIPs in the .260s, or that the Jays liked him enough to use him in their playoff series against an excellent Rays pitching staff, suggesting that they obviously have a good deal of trust in him.
Uh, but the thing is, his wRC+ in 2020 was 83, he had the worst strikeout and contact rates of his career, his results against good velocity are utterly meaningless because we’re talking about a sample of just 25 pitches, his BABIP bounced back to .283 yet he still only hit .225, and who else were the Jays going to give those plate appearances to? Travis Shaw and Jonathan Villar?
For me, as the 26th man on the roster, he was probably just on the wrong side of fine. Not a disaster, but no more than a placeholder. You’d prefer the Jays have a better option in that spot, but there’s time for them to figure that out. Panik is on a minor league deal, so can definitely play himself off the team over the next six weeks. Internal options could emerge for that role, either in the spring or over the course of the season. The trade deadline will give the Jays another opportunity to improve the spot from outside the organization — and they may not even wait that long, as Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet, in his piece on the Panik pick-up, that “the possibility of a trade for bench help still exists and the Pirates, with Colin Moran and Adam Frazier available, could be one team to watch.”
If the Jays chose to save some money here in order to be able to ensure they can fit one more free agent starting pitcher in under their budget, then it makes perfect sense. If weren’t offering up the kind of playing time required to attract the best options for this role, I think that’s entirely fine.
If they come up short in the bidding for a starter, if Panik isn’t replaced or plays more than “hardly ever,” or if Miller turns into a steal for the Phillies, I think it will be fair to complain about this one. For now, though? Meh. OK. Let’s see how it goes.
Other camp invitees
On Friday the Jays announced a slew of non-roster players who aren’t Joe Panik, yet will nevertheless be with the club this spring in Dunedin.
To wit:
There are 28 players on the list, meaning the Jays will have 68 of the maximum 75 player officially in camp. Hopefully this means they’re still aiming to add at least couple more, or — like I say — at the very least one more in the rotation.
Several names stand out on the list.
• A.J. Cole and Francisco Liriano are a pair of veterans on minor league deals who have very real opportunities to pitch their way onto the Jays’ opening day roster, depending on how the club wants to handle their large collection of young pitchers with minor league options still remaining.
• Tyler White is a name I keep forgetting whenever I point out how much the Jays seem to like guys who played for the 2017 Astros.
White was the Astros' opening day starter at first base in 2016, after hitting absolutely everything as he blazed through the minors despite being just a 33rd round pick. Unfortunately for him, any time he’s had in the big leagues has never gone nearly so well. After bouncing between Fresno and Houston for a few years, White ended up dealt to the Dodgers in July 2019. He was outrighted off their 40-man that winter, following the Mookie Betts trade, and found himself excluded from their 60-man player pool when the season restarted last summer. To try to salvage the season he signed on with SK Wyverns of the KBO, but ended up slashing just .136/.367/.318 in just nine games in Korea.
He’s running out of time to prove there’s anything there, but at least should be an asset for Buffalo? I don’t know.
• The names that will most jump out, of course, are all the top prospects the Blue Jays will have in camp.
Alek Manoah, Simeon Woods Richards, and Adam Kloffenstein have established themselves as the club's best pitching prospects not named Nate Pearson, and highlight that group, while 2020 second-rounder C.J. Van Eyk is on his way into that conversation as well. Then we have not only Jordan Groshans and Austin Martin on the position player side, but young Orelvis Martinez and Miguel Hiraldo as well.
Hey Rogers, get as many spring games as possible on TV, please!
• Then we have a name a lot of people are probably not all that familiar with: Yosver Zulueta.
Now that is a great name. And while I’m not going to pretend that I’m especially familiar with him, I can at least tell you that he’s a prospect I’ve noticed getting some love elsewhere of late.
Both Scott Mitchell of TSN.ca and Keith Law of the Athletic have him as their number 15 prospect for the Jays, noting that he’s been touching the high 90s on the radar gun now that he’s fully recovered from Tommy John surgery. Zulueta went under the knife immediately after signing out of Cuba back in May of 2019 for $1.5 million in international bonus pool money the Jays had acquired in deals for Kendrys Morales and Dwight Smith Jr.
The surgery explains why we hadn’t heard much about him until now. The heat explains why we’re starting to.
• Over at Sportsnet, Arden Zwelling has gone through the entire list of invitees and given us a sentence about each. It’s definitely worth checking out, and I appreciate it even more so because it means I didn’t have to do it!
Cooked fish
Turns out it was a big day for easily aggrieved Blue Jays fans on Thursday, as in addition to the departure of Shun Yamaguchi, the club also designated Derek Fisher for assignment and removed him from their 40-man roster Two of fans’ least favourite members of the club gone in one fell swoop!
These were both, objectively, indisputably, in baseball terms, good moves. Yamaguchi was a mistake locked inflexibly into a bullpen spot at a point where the Jays can no longer afford to hid anyone back there. Fisher was the fifth- or sixth-best outfielder on a club likely to run a three-man bench. The Jays evidently decided that both were going to lose their jobs at some point, and because neither could be easily sent to the minor leagues anyway — with Fisher being out of options and Yamaguchi having a clause in his contract preventing the Jays from sending him down without his consent — they decided to simply cut bait.
Symbolically, they may have been even better moves. A year ago the Jays were understandably willing to take a chance on these guys, giving them roster spots to see what they could do. And while both had trying seasons in 2020, the upside the team thought they saw in both of them a year ago can’t possibly be much different from what they see now. Yet the way they’re constructing their roster has obviously changed. In 2021, the Blue Jays have much less room for hope. They’re serious about maximizing everything they can get from this roster, even if it means having to overpay for free agents, or paying guys to go away.
Jake is maybe being a little facetious there, but it’s not hard to understand the sentiment. Partly, though, it’s not just about getting rid of bad players, but getting rid of these specific players.
Personally, I couldn’t help but feel bad for these guys as humans over the course of their Jays careers. Fisher, through no fault of his own, became the living and breathing avatar of a trade a lot of Jays fans absolutely hated — and a front office they wanted badly to despise for making it. Neither his reputation among a whole lot of fans, nor Yamaguchi’s, seemed to be able to recover after some serious ugliness in their earliest days with the club (i.e. Fisher taking a ball to the face while trying to make a catch in the outfield on the very day Aaron Sanchez and Joe Biagini, the pitchers he’d been traded for, helped combine for an Astros no-hitter; and Yamaguchi blowing a save in the 10th inning against Tampa after walking José Martinez on eight pitches, six or seven of which were nowhere near the strike zone, then one miss later throwing a ball right down the dick that Kevin Kiermaier smashed for a game-winning triple).
Thing is, it’s not exactly like either of them did anything to endear themselves after that. Jays fans weren’t missing anything. Some maybe weren’t trying as hard as they’re willing to with other guys to see the potential that might have been there, but there wasn’t a lot of reward in that anyway, I can assure you.
I won’t miss the barely concealed vitriol that seemed to follow their names around whenever they were mentioned online. But that’s far from the only reason it’s a good thing that they’re gone.
Links!
• Spread the word — and the COVID! — the Blue Jays will be allowing limited numbers of fans into TD Ballpark in Dunedin this spring. The club made the announcement in a media release Friday afternoon that also included a revised Grapefruit League schedule. According to the release, the Jays will cap attendance at 15% of the park's capacity of 5,509 fans, meaning that 826 fans will be allowed in per game, though there will be several protocols in place to help keep everybody as safe as can be while still maintaining this revenue stream.
• Speaking of minor league ballparks, it appears as though they’ll be hosting baseball again in 2021. Back in December, MLB teams extended invitations to their minor league affiliates, and on Friday the league announced that all 120 affiliates who had been invited have signed 10-year agreements with their parent clubs. Vancouver, of course, will move up to full season High-A ball, while Dunedin moves down to Low-A, and Buffalo and New Hampshire remain at their levels (as will the club’s pair of Dominican Summer League affiliates). A look at how all the U.S.-based “Player Development Leagues” will shake out can be found here.
• Even with spring training around the corner it’s still very much rumour season, and Robert Murray of FanSided had some fresh-ish ones on Friday, telling us that the Jays have kept in touch with Taijuan Walker “for most of the offseason, but the two sides have not lined up on the length of a contract.”
Murray also links to a report from SNY’s Andy Martino, who says that the Jays remain interested in James Paxton as well, though apparently “Big Maple” is “seeking more than $11 million annually.” That probably something the Jays would pay on a one-year deal, but I’m not sure how comfortable they’d be going to two years. Maybe an second year option with a high-ish buyout is where this is going? Paxton is intriguing, but maybe the Jays will look to Walker instead — or, *GULP*, just wait until the trade deadline to address their rotation further. (UPDATE: Paxton has signed with the Mariners! It’s a one year deal and he’ll make $8.5 million, with bonuses that could take the deal up to $10 million. That maybe suggests the Jays weren’t terribly interested? Hope so!)
• There were several Jays-adjacent moves made this week that are worth taking a look at, which I’ll simply do by pointing you toward the MLB Trade Rumours for each:
Ken Giles has signed a two-year deal with the Mariners. The former Jays closer is, of course, recovering from Tommy John surgery and won’t be able to pitch in 2021. Plenty of fans wondered earlier this winter if this was a route the Jays might have explored with Giles, who clearly enjoyed his time here. I understand why they chose not to commit and 2022 dollars to a guy who might not be able to help them. I understand why the Mariners, who would undoubtedly get a bargain if Giles came back as good as ever, would.
Third baseman Justin Turner is apparently down to either the Dodgers or the Brewers, though other teams may still be in the mix. Apparently it is “less likely” that he’ll end up with the Braves, Mets, or Jays. Not surprising, but I’d sure rather see him as the Jays’ third baseman and Cavan Biggio in more of a utility role than I would Biggio and Panik in those spots. (UPDATE: And now Turner’s return to the Dodgers has been made official.)
The Jays have been on the lookout for a left-handed bat, and though Jay Bruce seems to get linked to the team every winter, once again they’ll be missing out. He’s been signed to a minor league deal by the Yankees, who, if nothing else, know how to make use of their joke stadium’s short porch.
The Orioles have signed Matt Harvey to a minor league deal, meaning both he and Félix Hernández could be in Baltimore’s rotation this year. That will be, I think I can safely say, extremely weird.
Rich Hill is a starting pitching option that we hadn’t heard connected to the Jays very much (if at all) this winter. It doesn’t matter now, as he’s signed on with the Rays — thus all but ensuring that he’ll be a thorn in all of our sides throughout 2021.
• It’s been an awful week in sports media circles, with layoffs at TSN, whole radio stations put out to pasture, and big changes to the social media teams working at MLB.com as well. It truly sucks out there right now, which is why it was so nice to see this: Mike Wilner’s debut column for the Toronto Star. (OK, technically he did an introduction piece on Thursday as well, but I mean an actual baseball piece. Rogers’ loss is the Star’s gain.)
• We’ll go back to Scott Mitchell at TSN for a second, as he spoke this week to prospect Jordan Groshans. Or, I should say, extremely confident prospect Jordan Groshans. “I think I can play in the big leagues at third this year,” Groshans says. “That’s the goal, that’s the plan.”
• Lastly, Alejandro Kirk has arrived in Dunedin ahead of spring training, which begins next week. Looks to me like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. may have some competition in the Jays’ most-weight-lost-this-winter contest.
Wow, Kirk looks great. Good on him for putting in the work to transform his body. Oh man, I’m so excited for spring training!
Man, Kirk is a solid dude. Like a brick with eyes. I really hope he can share catching duties this year.