Incorrectly ranking the Blue Jays' major transactions since the trade deadline
Now that we mostly know how all the pieces of the Jays' offseason fit together, how we feelin' 'bout them deals Blue Jays fans???
The Blue Jays’ offseason work is probably — hopefully! — not quite done yet. But with the daily countdown until pitchers and catchers report now approaching single digits, I think it’s safe to say that enough of it is complete, and enough time has passed since the biggest moves were made, for us to sit down and really have a think about where the 2023 Blue Jays roster is at, and exactly how it got here.
Obviously that’s not to say that I think it’s reasonable to pass any kind of final judgment on the moves that the team has made. It just seems like a good time to reflect — and possibly reassess — now that we have a better understanding of how all the pieces actually fit. Besides, what else are you going to do in the middle of a polar vortex? Go outside??
To accomplish this I’ve decided to rank the major transactions the Jays have made dating back to the trade deadline. Why rank them? Why go back that far? I don’t know. Seemed like a good enough way to do it.
And what methodology have I used to rank them? Friends, I assure you that it’s completely feel-based and wholly unscientific. Sometimes it will be about what a deal told us about what the Jays were trying to accomplish, other times it will be about a shrewd use of assets, the degree of difficulty, or the fact that I really like Teoscar Hernández. I think you will find, though, that it is nevertheless incorrect.
OK, probably not the last one.
So… uh… yeah. Let’s talk about some deals!
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1. Signing Chris Bassitt (three years, $63 million)
Because it was more about floor than ceiling it will not go down as the splashiest of long-term signings the Blue Jays have made in recent years, but there are a number of things about it that make me really love this deal. Let’s look at four.
First is the fact that the Jays went from strength to strength. Ross Stripling had a great season for them in 2022. There was plenty of reason to want to reward him for how valuable he had been for the team, and to say that — even though his overall track record of success is light, and you can’t really allow him to pitch deep into games — the organization believed in him and his ability to think and pitch beyond the pure quality of his stuff. That would have been a nice story and plenty deserved.
Unfortunately, it was hard to feel tremendously confident that Stripling could repeat his success. In 2022, after two seasons as basically a replacement level pitcher, Stripling’s walk rate jumped into the top five in baseball (among pitchers with at least 100 IP; he ranked 72nd in 2020/2021), his chase rate suddenly became elite, and he did a significantly better job of keeping the ball in the ballpark than he ever had before.
Having him emerge as a viable number three over 130-odd innings in 2022 was great. Penciling him in as potentially your number three going forward? Quite a bit scarier. So, instead, the Jays went out and got a straight-up better pitcher.
Secondly, they didn’t just go and get a better pitcher, they used their financial strength to go and get a better pitcher. Even with the much stronger commitment we’ve seen from Rogers in recent years, it remains understandably difficult for a lot of fans to believe that the Blue Jays are really going to throw money around until we actually see it. This, then, was yet another signal of just how serious they are. I mean… they’re over the luxury tax threshold a year after Mark Shapiro downplayed the idea of ever taking payroll that high. It’s wild!
Third, the Jays also showed a win-now mentality by forfeiting their second-highest draft pick and some international bonus pool money in order to get the deal done. Now, obviously giving up additional assets isn’t great in a vacuum, but in addition to the commitment it shows, their willingness to do so allowed the Jays to get Bassitt at a pretty friendly price relative to other pitchers in the same tier of the market — something the will be very important going forward as the club tries to manage dollars and term to keep their competitive window open.
Though he's a few years older, meaning it's not the greatest comparison, Bassitt signed for a year less and for less guaranteed money than both Taijuan Walker and Jameson Taillon. And, as I noted at the time of the deal, of the three Bassitt has the best strikeout rate, has been more consistent at avoiding free passes, does the best job of keeping the ball in the ballpark, and produces the best outcomes in terms of ERA, FIP, and WAR. And not by a slim margin, either. (Quick and extremely dirty math: if we combine fWAR and rWAR over 2021 and 2022 and average it into one number for each pitcher, Taillon ends up at 1.9, Walker at 1.75, and Bassitt at 3.3.)
Fourth, Bassitt is tremendous José Berríos insurance. Reasonably durable, consistent, averaged over six innings per start in 2022, and can comfortably be handed the ball in October. It sucks that we should even have to think about needing insurance for a pitcher the Jays gave all that money to just a year ago, but the fact that the front office recognized it was necessary, and paid the price to get the cover they needed, is a great aspect of the deal that shouldn’t be overlooked. I’ve been around long enough to be able to assure you that in previous Blue Jays eras they’d have added a cheap four to replace Stripling then crossed their fingers and hoped for a Berríos bounce back. Not anymore. Huge.
2. Trading Jordan Groshans to Miami for Anthony Bass, Zach Pop, and Edward Duran
It's not that Jordan Groshans is a non-prospect or a bad player — this deal could absolutely still come back to bite the Blue Jays — but this was a player with fading prospect shine who faced increasing internal competition at his one viable position and was going to be Rule-5-eligible in December. That the Blue Jays got two seasons of a very good reliever, several years of control of an optionable reliever with a really intriguing 96.5-mph arm, and a lottery ticket for him? That's a pretty incredible haul.
Yeah, overall it's just near-term bullpen help, but the context matters.
Between Buffalo and a short rehab stint for Dunedin, Groshans came to the plate 299 times in the Blue Jays organization in 2022 and hit just a single home run. He looked more like the very good 2021 version of himself after moving to the Marlins org., but the power still leaves you wanting. The "Josh Donaldson starter kit" stuff we heard at the time he was drafted 12th overall in 2018 just isn't materializing. And while I'm sure the Jays would have been happy to take another year or two with him to see how he develops, that was probably just too much of a luxury.
Groshans would have needed to be added to the 40-man roster back in November, otherwise he likely would have been taken in the Rule 5 draft and lost for nothing. Thing is, those spots were at a premium, and it would have been especially difficult to add another 3B-type, with Orlevis Martinez already occupying a 40-man spot, and Addison Barger on his way to snagging one as well.
Add in the fact that Matt Chapman may well be the long-term answer at third for the Blue Jays anyway — though, despite what I wrote back in December about the many reasons why the Jays may very much want to make that happen, the question is likely complicated by Scott Boras, Chapman's extension-averse agent — and I think it's clear that from an asset management perspective the Jays did extremely well for themselves here.
They didn’t have to trade Groshans, but you could see the diminishing returns coming, it made managing the roster easier going forward, and they got genuine win-now help. Nails.
3. Signing Chad Green (two years, $8.5 million)
I’ve written about this deal already this week, so I’ll try to keep this relatively brief, but there’s very little downside to this one, and a whole ton of up. The worst case is that the Jays get nothing for their $2.25 million this year, and nothing for effectively taking a $6.25 million flyer on Green next season. Compared to the upside of potentially getting one of the better relievers in baseball for this year and then at a below-market rate for two or three years afterwards? That’s nothing. Love it.
Apparently they managed to beat out a whole lot of other clubs in the process, too.
And that’s not all. I also love that, as Arden Zwelling noted on this week’s At The Letters podcast, this essentially accomplishes what we know will always be one of a contending team’s trade deadline goals — upgrade the bullpen — six months in advance. Annnnnnd I love that the Jays are showing such creativity regarding options. Being open to this type of deal potentially creates different paths toward an agreement that may not be there were they insistent on a more typical contract structure. And while this particular deal may be a mere reliever signing, it’s worth noting that another recent contract that was similarly option-laden was the mega-extension the Mariners gave to Julio Rodríguez back in August.
Could this have also been little practice in getting creative for the front office before throwing some weird ideas at Vlad or Bo or Chapman or Manoah or Romano? Sure, let’s go with that.
4. Signing Brandon Belt (one year, $9.3 million)
Much like the Jays are, I'm taking a risk by ranking Belt so high, but I really loved this move. After spending the few weeks following the Varsho trade believing that the Jays had made sound gains overall this winter by sacrificing offence for lineup balance, outfield defence, and a very good bullpen piece, they went out and potentially added back a whole bunch of that missing offence while giving their lineup even more balance. At least for as long as Belt is able to stay on the field.
That's obviously the huge question hanging over this one, because Belt has had all kinds of injury trouble in recent years and is coming off knee surgery that ended his 2022 season prematurely. But look past his 2022 numbers, which were out of whack because he attempted to play through the knee pain, and you see a guy who was a genuine force at the plate in 2020 and 2021. He struck out at a higher rate than ever before in 2021, but managed to maintain his elite walk rate while offsetting the Ks by topping his career high in home runs by 11. The selling-out-for-power thing worked, as he slashed .274/.378/.597. His 157 wRC+ that season was tied for fifth in baseball among players with at least 350 plate appearances.
Now, the fact that I've set the plate appearance threshold fairly low there must be noted. Health and the fact that he rarely faced left-handed pitchers means that he wasn't a 157 wRC+ hitter in the same way that someone playing everyday was. But the Jays don't need him to be anything more than that. In fact, they don't even need him to be as spectacular — just a plain old dangerous middle-of-the-lineup hitter against right-handers will suffice. Frankly, even just taking the pressure of being that guy off of Daulton Varsho is a win.
The Jays, of course, are aiming for more. They're hoping that the knee is indeed at full strength, that the sell-out-for-power thing continues to work, and likely that the new outfield dimensions at Rogers Centre give him a bit of a boost as well. There is a wide range of potential outcomes for this one, but the cost was modest and the ceiling is so, so high. Loved it.
5. Trading Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Gabriel Moreno to Arizona for Daulton Varsho
I know we know all about what the Jays’ needs were heading into this winter, but I think it’s worth going over here anyway.
It had been theorized for at least a couple of years that, despite having right-handed hitters who generally succeed against right-handed pitching, the Jays needed some better balance in their lineup. The 2022 season really seemed to drive home the idea that their struggles in that regard in 2021 were not an anomaly.
The Jays had the third best offence against right-handed pitching overall in 2022, posting a 118 wRC+ in the split. However, if we isolate just plate appearances against RHP from the seventh inning onward — which we can do using FanGraphs’ splits leaderboard — we can see that while the league average wRC+ dropped by seven points in those late inning situations against right-handers, the Jays’ wRC+ dropped by 17.
This wasn't nearly as bad as in 2021, when their late-inning wRC+ vs. RHP dropped a staggering 26 points compared to a league-wide drop of five points, but clearly there is probably something to the idea that it has been too easy for opposing relievers to dial in against their righty-heavy lineup.
Simultaneously, the Jays learned the hard way that, even though George Springer is an unbelievable player, he obviously requires some everyday-calibre cover in centre field. Or, better still, someone to push him off the position entirely and into right field. You know, things the Astros recognized more than three years ago!
And, of course, related to this — as was made plain during the calamitous exit from the playoffs, as well as in the season-long use of glove-only defenders Bradley Zimmer and Jackie Bradley Jr. — the overall level of the outfield defence needed to be raised. And related to that, their general lack of speed and poor instincts and outcomes on the bases also needed attention. The Jays’ outfielders, as a group, ranked 17th in MLB by Outs Above Average in 2021, then 18th in 2022. And in 2022 they ranked 25th as a team by BsR (base running runs) at -10.5.
At the same time, with Gabriel Moreno ready for MLB duty, it was very obvious that the situation behind the plate was untenable. Sure, the club insisted that Moreno could have been used in more of a utility role, and clearly Alejandro Kirk could have been pencilled in for a lot of at-bats at DH. But to optimize that part of their roster someone needed to be moved.
So what do the Jays manage to go out and do? They add a young outfielder who can cover for Springer in centre or push him off the position entirely, and whose elite glove raises the calibre of outfield defence overall. They add a powerful bat from the left side. They add a player who stole 16 bases in 2022 and ranked in the top 25 for BsR over 2021 and 2022 combined. They solve their catching logjam by moving one of their incumbent trio out, while also adding a guy who can catch part-time, allowing Kirk to more comfortably be used in the DH spot. And they do it all in the form of a single player taking up a single roster spot.
The deal was a spectacular example of needle-threading, and of trading from a surplus to straight-up make your team better. So why don’t I have it ranked higher?
Well, for starters, parting with Moreno obviously hurts. I know they can’t all be Steven Matz for a bunch of guys, and I have to give it to the Jays for being willing to take such a big swing, but giving up that level of prospect rarely happens, and — for good reason — even more rarely is that kind of prospect moved without getting a truly elite player in return, which… well…
Varsho is one of the better players in the game — definitely an elite defender at a premium position, clearly outstanding on the base paths, 4.6 WAR last year — but he may not be able to face left-handed pitching, and he’s really probably not a true middle-of-the-order bat either.
The Jays tacitly acknowledged this with their acquisition of Brandon Belt later on in the offseason, which should often slide Varsho down to somewhere like sixth or seventh in the order. That is a much better place for him to be against most right-handers. As Arden noted on the At The Letters podcast I referenced above, even Varsho’s numbers against right-handers are somewhat “Grichukian.” And looking at the slash lines vs. RHP from his last two seasons — .228/.304/.426 in 2021, .240/.317/.484 in 2022 — makes that a difficult point to argue.
The fit is so perfect and the high cost so mitigated by the surplus the Jays were trading from that I can still say I like the deal a hell of a lot, but it is undoubtedly a major risk. If over the next few years those numbers against right-handers look more like 2021 than 2022 he’ll still be a very valuable player because of everything else he does, but the hot takes about this one could get pretty ugly. Especially if Moreno really blossoms. (Or if Gurriel has a strong season, though he’s such a wild card from year-to-year and week-to-week that I’m perfectly happy to have moved on — and still not convinced that the Diamondbacks really insisted that he had to be in the deal.)
6. Trading Samad Taylor and Max Castillo to Kansas City for Whit Merrifield
Similar to Groshans for Bass and Pop, here we have the Jays giving up a couple of guys who likely weren't long for this roster and turning them into actual big league help. More than that, Taylor, in a way, was practically found money. The Jays had left him off their 40-man heading into the 2021 Rule 5 draft, and coming off of a breakout campaign at Double-A, he likely would have been selected had the draft not been cancelled because of the lockout. His 2022 season wasn't as loud, but the Royals still felt the need to add him to their roster ahead of this year's version of the Rule 5 — something I suspect the Blue Jays wouldn't have done, meaning they'd have lost him for nothing.
And then there's Max Castillo. A lot of Jays fans were disappointed to see him go at the time of the trade, given how admirably he'd filled in over 20 2/3 innings of work, including a pair of starts, in the middle of last season — particularly considering the tire fire that was their rotation depth at the time. But, like Taylor, Castillo had been exposed to Rule 5 selection by the Jays before. And while it's not nothing that Castillo's strikeout numbers ticked up in 2022, or that he pitched extremely well for Buffalo and held his own in the big leagues, I suspect that if he had stayed he would have, at best, been on the fringes of the 40-man this winter. The Jays may have ultimately held on to him, but at the expense of someone else they liked.
Instead they got a real big leaguer. Or, at the very least, Whit Merrifield. HEYO!
I kid, I kid. But colour me not super swayed by Merrifield's hot September. Even it — a stretch of 68 PA over 25 games in which he slashed .338/.361/.588 with four homers and a 168 wRC+ — wasn't enough to prevent his wRC+ for the season from dropping for a fourth straight year.
The Jays are going to rely on him quite a bit in 2023, I think. He's a versatile veteran defender who can even play centre field in a pinch, he's great on the base paths, he can face lefties because he doesn't have much of a platoon split, he — as Nick Ashbourne pointed out in his latest for Sportsnet — handles high velocity quite well, and he suddenly fits a need as a right-handed bat. There's value there. But the fact that the Jays have chosen to give him a sizeable role doesn't mean anyone needs to like that turn of events — or the trade, even if the prospect cost was minimal. In fact, I would submit that asking too much of a 34-year-old coming off an 88 wRC+ season is probably bad!
Prove me wrong, Whit!
7. Trading Teoscar Hernández to Seattle for Erik Swanson and Adam Macko
Look, it was a perfectly logical trade. Teoscar is undeniably an incredible hitter — since his breakout began in July of 2019 his 133 wRC+ ranks 26th in baseball, just ahead of Brandon Nimmo, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa — but he had just one year left on his deal, and a whole lot more going against him than I think a lot of Jays fans wanted to realize at the time. Or at least than I was ready to accept.
The Jays wanted to improve their outfield defence; Teoscar has been one of the worst defensive right fielders in the league by OAA over the last two seasons. They wanted to get better on the base paths; Teoscar was in the bottom 25% of qualified hitters by BsR in 2022. They wanted to get less right-handed; Teoscar hits from the right side. They wanted to move George Springer to right field; Teoscar plays right field and has never looked especially comfortable in left.
They wanted to help their bullpen; Teoscar could help them get a sneakily elite reliever — which Swanson is, or at least was in 2022 — with three years of control remaining.
They wanted to change the culture perhaps?
The team won’t say, but it would be hard for anyone to conclude otherwise given how often, as Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun pointed out last month, club executives have spoken about accountability this winter. Plus the fact that Don Mattingly, a Hall of Fame calibre player and veteran manager with an authoritative dugout voice, has been brought in to be the bench coach (and perhaps the bad cop to manager John Schneider’s good). And, of course, the players who have been shipped out.
I hate to say it, because I love Teoscar, but it’s no secret that he has suffered from more than his fair share of lapses in judgment over the years. For example, costing the team a run in a close August game against the Angels by failing to beat David Fletcher to second base — either because he slowed up expecting the throw to go to first, or because he was insisting on playing despite an injured foot, or both…
Or being doubled off on a pop up in a June game against the Red Sox by getting back to first base much too casually…
Don’t get me wrong, plenty of other Jays players get brain cramps. Other guys hit from the right side and play poor defence, too. It’s just that Teo, because of his contract situation and because he’s not Bo or Vlad, was much more expendable — and still able to bring back a very impressive haul.
On that note, don’t sleep on Adam Macko as part of this deal. In his recent Jays top 50 prospects piece for TSN, Scott Mitchell had Macko ranked eighth — higher than Sem Robberse, Dahian Santos, Gabriel Martinez, and the kid who just broke the club’s international free agent signing bonus record, Enmanuel Bonilla.
Given all of this, I could absolutely have pulled a troll move and ranked this deal really high. I think there’s some justification for it, to be honest. It’s just… you know… screw that!
You’re telling me the Jays couldn’t have found a way to pay the difference between Teoscar’s salary (he’s going to arbitration with the Mariners so will make either $16 million or $14 million) and Kevin Kiermaier’s $9 million while still adding Varsho, Bassitt, and Belt? That a reliever with one good year is worth the difference between a Teo-Varsho-Springer outfield and a Varsho-Kiermaier-Springer one??
I understand that opportunities change as the offseason unfolds, so they couldn’t have known a Varsho trade was coming. I also suspect the Jays were probably always going to move Teoscar — as I said in my most recent mail bag, you don’t trade him for a reliever at the very start of the offseason by accident, especially if you know you have plenty of money to use to add to your bullpen if you wanted to go that route. It felt like they intentionally knocked over that domino in order to open up a number of paths they felt were going to lead them to a better roster overall — and there’s a pretty good argument that they actually managed to pull it off. But that doesn’t mean I have to like this trade!
Teoscar is cool and fun. And validating “that play was unacceptable!!!!” types really sucks.
8. Signing Kevin Kiermaier (one year, $9 million)
According to a tweet from Bob Elliott late last month, Buck Martinez is going to be returning to the broadcast booth for Sportsnet in 2023, at least in some capacity. Not sure why that’s a thing I immediately thought of when writing about the Jays’ acquisition of Kevin Kiermaier!
Seriously though, I’m very glad to hear Buck is back, even if I’m not necessarily looking forward to constantly being reminded what an incredible and savvy veteran Kiermaier is. Fortunately for me, if Kiermaier’s year is going to be anything like his last seven seasons he’s only going to on the field 63% of the time anyway.
I do like Kiermaier well enough in a vacuum. It’s impossible to deny that he’s is as good a defensive centre fielder as there is, provided he bounces back from hip surgery at 33 years old. But just as the Teoscar trade looks better now that we’ve seen how the rest of the offseason has unfolded, it’s hard to say that anything except that this one looks worse.
Obviously that’s easy to say from here. As established above, the Jays needed elite outfield defence and a way to move Springer into right field more often. Adding Kiermaier accomplished that and, probably more to the point, ensured that they wouldn’t fail to accomplish that.
But the cost was high. Not just the $9 million contract, but the amount of playing time he’s going to be expecting.
“There were no platoon talks or anything like that,” Kiermaier told reporters on a Zoom call after his signing was announced. “It seems like it's my job to lose, I guess you could say.”
Like, it’s fine. They Jays will have exceptional outfield defence when he’s on the field. It helped them get more left-handed. He’s a very good baserunner. He’s a fun personality who I think people will like. They’re not going to be forced to play him every day if it isn’t working. It’s just… if they had made the Varsho trade first, do we think they still would have gone after Kiermaier and told him centre field was his to lose?
If the answer is no — and I’m pretty sure that for me it is — it’s hard not to view this one as a swing and a miss. And I didn’t particularly like it in the first place.
9. Trading Moises Brito and Nick Frasso to the Dodgers for Alex De Jesus and Mitch White
I'm not here looking to pick on Mitch White too much, because we all know what happened after the deadline, and we know how desperate the Jays were for rotation depth at the time they acquired him. We know.
But man alive... Nick Frasso? Heading into the Dodgers player development machine? White being out of options?
This has disaster written all over it.
Let me put it this way: In White's career so far he's produced a 4.78 ERA with a 3.84 FIP, 7.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, and 0.9 HR/9 in 148 2/3 innings. For Zach Thompson — who the Jays acquired last month after he was designated for assignment by the Pirates — those numbers are a 4.44 ERA, 4.42 FIP, 7.1 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, and 1.1 HR/9 over 196 2/3 innings.
Not that far apart! Designated for assignment by the Pirates!
Oof. Prove me wrong, Mitch!
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Nice write up! On the Teoscar move, I won’t miss his casual approach to a fly ball that he stops, and let’s drop 5 feet in front of him. I’m looking forward to the new outfield defence.
Belt is one of those guys who I feel if the Yankees signed would put up like a .900 OPS and infuriate the Blue Jays all season so I'm pretty stoked we got him.