The Blue Jays sign Tyler Chatwood!

Who? Who cares, it's a transaction!

Oh my god, the Blue Jays have actually made a transaction. With a big leaguer. Get the tickertape ready!

On Monday night, Jon Heyman of MLB Network stunned the baseball world by announcing that the Blue Jays had finally landed a pitcher. Namely, Tyler Chatwood, formerly of the Chicago Cubs.

Cue a million Twitter dudes making the same joke pretending that this is the Blue Jays’ big move this winter.

Adding Chatwood is certainly not a big move. It’s an interesting one, though. And for a number of reasons.

Chatwood spent the last three seasons with the Cubs, starting 20 games in 2018, then throwing 76 2/3 innings over 38 appearances (five starts) in 2019, then making five starts during an injury-riddled 2020.

His 2020 "season" was by far the most interesting of the three. He took two turns in the Cubs' rotation at the start of the year, striking out 19 over 12 2/3 innings while walking just four and allowing only six hits and a single earned run. He was great!

In his next start, however, he got chased after 2 1/3 innings by the Royals, having given up eight runs on 11 hits. He was scratched from his following start because of back tightness, then got lit up by the Tigers late in August in his return from the IL. After that, in what would be his final start of the season, he lasted just three innings against the Reds on August 30th, having to leave the game because of an elbow injury.

On one hand, that sure doesn’t sound like a very impressive season! On the other, maybe you look at his two outstanding healthy starts, look at how injuries wrecked his other outings, and — if you think he’s actually healthy — dream on what might be.

You have to squint pretty hard to see it, but I think that’s likely what the Jays are doing here. And, honestly, there some genuine reasons to do so. The amount of swing-and-miss Chatwood generated in 2020 jumped by three full percentage points, from 9.3% in 2019 to 12.3%, a career high. He also got batters to chase more than he ever has in his career, and also produced his lowest-ever rate of contact on pitches in the strike zone.

In other words, batters were having a harder time than ever squaring him up. And those numbers cover his entire season, not just the two good starts.

That could definitely be small sample variance, yes. But it’s worth noting that Chatwood also had a rather different pitch mix in 2020 than in previous seasons. He threw his fastball just 51.4% fof the time -- a career low, and way off his 68.6% overall career rate. He also threw his cutter more than ever, at 29.7% of the time.

Shi Davidi reports that Chatwood has signed a $3 million, one-year deal that could rise to $5.5 million with incentives, meaning that the Jays are clearly taking him on as a reliever. And what I think they're seeing here is the success he had — when healthy — with changing up his pitch mix in 2020, plus the fact that as a reliever in 2019 he was throwing hard enough to regularly max out 98 and 99 on the radar gun. Plus this:

Chatwood sure knows how to spin it, and I’m sure that has a certain appeal to the bleeding edge Blue Jays as well.

It also puts a little more space between guys like Anthony Kay, Thomas Hatch, or Patrick Murphy and roles in the Blue Jays’ bullpen. We knew last year that it was a bit of a COVID-related anomaly to see those young depth starters getting work out of the Jays’ big league bullpen, and adding a guy like Chatwood now makes that even clearer. The Jays will now have him, Ross Stripling, Shun Yamaguchi, and (because he’s out of options) Julian Merryweather as multi-inning options in relief, which will make it a whole lot easier to resist the temptation of bringing up Kay or Hatch or Murphy before they’re ready. The team, and their development, is best served by those guys being in the minors a while longer.

Sure, the Chatwood Experiment may spiral out of control fairly quickly and force one of the Jays’ more precocious arms into the bullpen mix, but for the price it’s easily worth a shot. Especially considering the Jays’ recent track record at turning straw into relief gold. (Or, at least, bronze.)

It’s a cheap, one-year deal with a guy who may legitimately work out well. And if not, it’s not exactly like the Jays are up against the luxury tax threshold, is it? Seems to me like an interesting flyer to take.

Top image: "Tyler Chatwood rehabbing for the Cubs" by Minda Haas Kuhlmann is licensed under CC BY 2.0