Deadline Day: Lunchtime Update!
On Ian Happ, Cubs relievers, Buster Olney, Frankie Montas, Noah Syndergaard, Raisel Iglesias, Carlos Rodón, Soto chaos, today's 6:30 PM live edition of Blue Jays Happy Hour and more!!
Happy trade deadline day to those who celebrate! Of course, at the time I’m writing this a lot of Blue Jays fans don’t seem to be in the mood to celebrate. Patience is wearing thin as clubs the Jays have yet to make a big move, or any sort of move at all, while the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners have taken the two most talked-about starting pitchers off the market. Not great!
But also: not over.
The idea that the team with the third best playoff odds in the American League won’t do anything major remains as silly as it is strangely pervasive on Twitter, but the clock is starting to tick a whole lot more loudly as the deadline approaches. The anger a vocal minority of fans have that the Jays haven’t done anything yet may be incredibly dumb, but it does give one a sense of how ugly things will get if nothing happens by six o’clock — when reasonable people will rightly join that chorus.
Fortunately, the front office surely knows that can’t happen. Not because of its effect on the mood of the fans, but because of its effect on the mood of the clubhouse. So now we wait.
Here’s the latest that’s out there…
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Ian Happ
At the time I’m writing this the focus seems to be on the Cubs’ Ian Happ. MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets that the Jays have some interest there, noting the value of the fact that — given George Springer’s, uh, issues — Happ can play in centre field.
He hasn't been asked to do that very much this season (just 12 innings out there), and was unmistakably below average over the previous two (-4 DRS and -2.8 UZR over nearly 800 innings), but he's not going to kill you out there.
Maybe just as valuable, from a Jays perspective, is the fact that he can also play a little second base — or, at least, won't completely kill you out there. I don't think it could hurt to have someone who can give Santiago Espinal (68 wRC+ in July) a breather who isn't Cavan Biggio (72 wRC+ in July). I don't know that Happ's presence would mean the end of Bradley Zimmer's time on the Jays' roster — carrying Zack Collins as essentially just an emergency catcher is all kinds of wrong — but either way, he'd be a great add.
A switch-hitter, Happ's got a 122 wRC+ on the year — a bounce back after last year's 103 mark — which is a rate ZiPS projects he'll continue to hit at through the rest of the season. His career mark is 114.
Making the idea of a Jays-Cubs trade all the more appealing is the fact that Chicago possesses relief options. Not only is there the market’s top rental reliever, David Robertson, but former Oriole Mychal Givens. (Unfortunately the Dodgers have already poached Chris Martin from the Cubbies’ ‘pen, while the stupid Yankees got stupidly good Scott Effross.)
There does seem to be a sense out there that the Cubs would like to package a player like Happ — or catcher Wilson Contreras — with a reliever today. And by “sense,” I mean ESPN’s Buster Olney literally said exactly that in a radio hit on TSN 1050 this morning.
Buster Speaks!
That wasn’t all Buster said, either. He conveyed some not-so-great opinions on the Jays farm system that he’s heard coming from rival executives.
Here’s the quote in full:
“What I'm hearing about the Jays, and I got this from a bunch of teams yesterday, is they are wholly focussed on adding a starting pitcher and a reliever. I'm sure you guys saw the reports last night that they're in conversations with the Angels about Noah Syndergaard and bringing him back.
“Part of the issue, I think, for the Jays, what I'm hearing from other teams is that folks from other teams just don't view their farm system with a lot of enthusiasm. They don't look at them as being a team you want to go to necessarily. They're not at the top of the list.
“We're seeing all these conversations about Juan Soto — the Cardinals' farm system is loaded, the Padres have guys at the top that folks are really excited about. The Jays, what I'm hearing, beyond the top guys, they're not the go-to place for teams that have pitching to sell. And so, what this means is, for the front office it's probably a question of how much money you're willing to take on?
“This time of year teams typically take no more than $3 million to $5 million in salary/additional budgetary room. Noah Syndergaard by himself is owed about $7 million for the rest of this year, and maybe the Jays can work out some kind of deal where the Angels eat some of that money, but that's one of the concerns we have.”
Those lottery tickets involved in deals matter, even if they don’t matter as much as the headliners. If the Jays are lacking in that department, it’s not a surprise that they missed out on a guy like Castillo (who went to the Mariners last week) or Frankie Montas — who, ICYMI, went to the stupid Yankees.
Frankie Montas
It absolutely sucks that Montas went to the Yankees, but there are a few things worth noting here. One, though New York has managed to make some outstanding moves without giving up their most high-profile prospects — namely Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza — that doesn’t mean that they haven’t given up some of their best prospects.
According to MLB Pipeline, Ken Waldichuk now slots in as the number three prospect for Oakland — three spots ahead of sixth-ranked Gunnar Hoglund, who the A’s received from the Blue Jays last winter for two years of Matt Chapman. According to FanGraphs’ current top 100, Waldichuk is the number 35 prospect in baseball, and Medina is number 58. The only player the Jays have above 58 is Gabriel Moreno (2).
It also needs to be considered — and would have if he had been acquired by the Jays, I should add — that Montas is coming off a very recent shoulder issue. He was pulled from a start in early July in the middle of a very noticeable velocity drop. An MRI revealed no structural damage, but he did receive a cortisone shot. He was back to normal, velocity-wise, when he returned to action, but the velocity faded a little bit in his second start back.
That second start back — his most recent — produced the second lowest velocity average of his season, though it was still pretty close to being in line with where he was early on.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d still have been thrilled if the Jays had landed him, and am mad that the Yankees pulled it off. I’m also sure that if he’d been a Blue Jay the shoulder would have been a problem, but now that he’s going to be a Yankee it will be fine! Either way, it’s a reason why the Jays may have not been willing to go far enough with their offer in order to get him. Hopefully they helped bid the Yankees’ cost up, at least!
Thor
So, then. Noah Syndergaard.
His would have been an incredibly sexy name for the Jays to add as recently as a year ago, but that’s before the new version of the once-mighty Thor emerged.
With a fastball that now averages just 94.5, down more than 5 mph from his 2017 peak, Syndergaard has lost much of his ability to generate swing-and-miss. Through 80 innings he has just 64 Ks, and though he was up to a more normal-for-him 10.4 K/9 in July, that improvement came at the expense of walks and some home runs. His FIP has ranged from 2.88 in April (5.8 K/9) to 4.89 in July, and really — sadly — at this point he's really just an innings-eater with a litany of issues in his health history.
That's the bad news.
The good news is that he's still very much worthy of a rotation spot (3.83 ERA this season), is tremendously fun, and has been pitching in a six-man rotation this season in Anaheim. That last bit is important, because it's possible that the Jays would use a six-man configuration of sorts were they to land Syndergaard.
No, they wouldn't be looking to take many starts away from Kevin Gausman and José Berríos — if any. But there's no harm in reducing the amount of pitches thrown by Yusei Kikuchi, even if his last outing was somewhat encouraging. Ross Stripling has been great and doesn't deserve to be sent back to the 'pen, but still isn't quite a guy that you have to have out there every fifth day.
And Alek Manoah? Well, the Jays have said that there won't be any restrictions on his innings this year, but with two months to go in the season he's on pace to smash last year's AAA/MLB total of 129 2/3, and Eno Sarris of the Athletic recently noted him as one of the 15 pitchers with the biggest decline in "Stuff+" over their last 400 pitches. It might behoove the Jays to lighten his load a little bit.
Adding Sydergaard — even in this diminished version — as a sixth starter would be a great way to help do that, even if it would complicate the bullpen picture for a month by switching a relief spot to a starting one.
Or maybe they really would send Stripling back to the bullpen! Or Kikuchi.
Either way, there seems to be real smoke here.
How about Raisel Iglesias too?
For those of you who don’t know Brendon from Twitter, you’ll likely remember him as the guy who broke the George Springer deal while getting a hair cut. There are a few folks out there like him who seem to get clandestine information like this, and while he may not be a journalist by trade, reporting isn’t exactly rocket science. I trust that what he says is true.
I don’t know his source, or the sources of any of the other accounts you sometimes see breaking Jays-related things before the big guys do, but what I have noticed is that such things don’t happen as much when it’s information on minor moves, or more straightforward baseball things, and more when there’s a financial component involved. A Syndergaard deal, as Buster noted, certainly comes with financial details to be worked out. But is the money involved there enough to have taken these conversations beyond the scope of baseball operations? I have no idea — I have no idea how any of this process works! — but some amount of the $7 million still owed Syndergaard this year doesn’t exactly represent a huge chunk of the Jays budget. Bringing Angels closer Raisel Iglesias, however, and his contract — which will pay the 32-year-old $16 million per year for each of the next three seasons — along with Syndergaard certainly would.
That's a lot of money, and Iglesias's 4.04 ERA doesn't exactly sparkle this season, but 48 strikeouts in 35 2/3 innings with just nine walks? That's exactly what this Blue Jays bullpen could use.
I'm not sure if the Angels are even looking to move him. If they're not dealing Ohtani and are going to give it one more shot with him next season, they'd need to fill an Iglesias-sized hole in the bullpen if they did. But colour me intrigued.
Of course, maybe the Jays could get something out of Syndergaard as a reliever in October — maybe the velocity ticks up in short stints — meaning they don’t quite have to go as hard for a guy like Iglesias (seeing as they’re also going to add at least one other reliever, right? RIGHT????)
Carlos Rodón
Also intriguing? Carlos Rodón of the Giants. He is easily the best starting pitcher left who could potentially be dealt. I’d love for the Jays to get this guy, but as I’ve said before — definitely on Twitter, and maybe here, but I can’t remember — I have a really hard time seeing how a front office would stick their necks out to land him given the shape of his contract.
Rodón has a $22.5 million player option for 2022 that vested when he crossed the 110 inning mark last month. He can, and will, opt out of the deal this winter. Unless he gets hurt.
We’re talking about a guy whose health history was the very reason the Giants structured the deal the way that they did. A guy who made just 47 starts over four years from 2017 to 2020. The likelihood of him, in particular, getting hurt over the next couple of months isn’t, like, astronomical. But it’s higher than for most, I’d say. And that makes taking him on, and potentially being on the hook for $22.5 million next year, very risky.
I’m not sure how you negotiate a trade package for the guy with that potential $22.5 million elephant in the room, though I’m sure plenty of smarter folks than I are trying to figure out just that. If the Giants, who sit just 4.5 games back of the last NL wild card spot, are even interested in moving him.
Soto chaos!
Just as I was about to publish this, with a little note that Jon Morosi reported earlier that the Jays had checked in on Juan Soto in July, but were officially out as suitors. The Padres, Cardinals, and Dodgers were the three finalists, he said. And it turns out he was right!
The Padres have a deal in place to get both Soto and Josh Bell in exchange for an enormous haul of prospects.
There’s only one problem here. The Nationals are on Hosmer’s no-trade list, so he’ll have to give approval to the deal. I sure as hell wouldn’t if I were him! Unless there was an astonishing amount of money coming my way to do so.
There might be! And there might be a way to work this out, too…
In fact, it may have already been worked out as I’m typing this…
Probably more a matter of when than if. And not just on the Soto front. The market should become real unstuck now!
At least, once it’s official.
Dun dun dun!!!!
As for what the Padres will be giving up if it goes through? I’m seeing a whole lot of years of control — like I was saying, Bichette wasn’t much of a fit — and some seriously outstanding prospects.
Per FanGraphs, the Nationals just got four of the Padres’ top five pre-season prospects, Abrams (1, 60 FV), Hassell (3, 50 FV), Gore (4, 50 FV), Wood (5, 50 FV), plus their number eight prospect. Gore has since graduated, but on their current iteration of The Board, all those values have held.
The Jays had just two guys above 50 FV, per FanGraphs, at the time: Gabriel Moreno and Orelvis Martinez. Even now they just have two, with Martinez having dropped to a 50 FV from 55 pre-season, and Ricky Tiedemann only rising so far to 45+. Puts the level of talent moving to D.C. in perspective, huh?
Lastly..
I’ll keep an eye on this throughout the day, and may update this post if something changes really quickly. Otherwise, watch for at least one more post like this today — unless I end up too busy doing posts on Jays-specific moves. More content is coming, either way!
And there will be even more content coming your way at 6:30 PM ET, as that’s when Nick and I will be going live on Callin for our post-deadline edition of Blue Jays Happy Hour!
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