The Jays add Brandon Belt!
Just a quick one on the Jays' latest (unofficial) signing, as they continue to balance their lineup, picking up a veteran slugger from San Francisco.
The Blue Jays have (unofficially) made a transaction! Kind of rude, if you ask me, considering that I have yet to finish the mail bag that I intended to have posted by the end of last week! But it is nonetheless a pretty intriguing acquisition.
According to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, Brandon Belt — who has spent his entire 12-year big league career with the San Francisco Giants, including being a key part of their World Series victories in 2012 and 2014 — is headed north to be a righty-smashing 1B/DH/bench bat for the Jays.
The deal, per the Athletic’s Kaitlyn McGrath, is for one year and $9.3 million. That’s a pretty good chunk of money for someone who lacks defensive versatility and will find himself in and out of the lineup a lot — which is actually one of the most encouraging things about it.
We’re through the looking glass here, people. The Blue Jays are definitely over the luxury tax threshold now. But how exactly will the pieces all fit? Probably pretty well, actually. So let’s talk bout it!
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OK, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Brandon Belt didn’t have his best year in 2022. In fact, he had his worst. At the age of 34, he was only able to manage a 96 wRC+, which set a new season-low for his distinguished career. That’s an undeniable red flag for a player of his vintage, though it comes with plenty of reasons to believe in a 2023 bounce back.
Or, at least, one very big reason: he seems to be healthy.
Belt entered 2022 on the heels of a fractured thumb suffered in late September 2021, then spent almost the entire year dealing with knee pain — to the point where he was forced to end his season early, going under the knife to remove cartilage and scar tissue on September 3.
Per NBC Sports Bay Area, here’s how he described the situation to local radio station KNBR back in September:
“I was just in pain the entire year and there was nothing we could do to get rid of it,” Belt said. “The most important thing for me was the swelling, we couldn't get the swelling to go down. We did everything imaginable, we drained it multiple times ... we did pretty much everything you could outside of surgery and the swelling would go down for maybe a day or two and then it would come right back. So at that point, I felt no strength in my knee, no strength in my leg and I really got to a point where — even if I wanted to and swung as hard as I could — I couldn't hit the ball out of the ballpark. That was kind of the moment where I was like you know what, I don't think I have any more in me this year, it needs to be taken care of.”
Following the surgery, Belt gave himself a clean bill of health during a segment on a Giants telecast. “My knee honestly feels great,” he told Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, per the Athletic. “I feel like a brand-new person.”
Now, saying he feels great and actually crushing baseballs are two different things. And it must be noted here that this wasn’t Belt’s first time having his knee surgically repaired.
“Belt has had the same knee repaired twice surgically,” NBC Sports Bay Area explained back in August. “In 2018, he had season-ending surgery with his meniscus getting cleaned up for the second time in four years. He also had a microfracture procedure done to help repair damaged cartilage.”
It’s also not the first time there has been optimism about how he would bounce back, either. In describing why Belt failed to reach his lofty pre-season projections by the end of his 98 wRC+ 2019 season, Sami Higgins of McCovey Chronicles explained that “although he played a full, non-injury shortened season, the lingering knee pain is absolutely evident in his numbers.”
The good news is that, in between those down seasons of 2019 and 2022, Belt put up a 139 wRC+, powered by his 151 mark in 669 plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. And, for his career, he's a 124 wRC+ hitter with a 130 mark against RHP.
In other words, when he's healthy, he's really good.
With his health being such a question, if the idea was to bring him in as some sort of offensive centrepiece, or if the cost of 1 WAR on the free agent market was where it was in 2010, this would be a pretty eyebrow-raising deal. Fortunately, it's not.
Belt played a handful of times in the outfield up until 2019, but is firmly a 1B/DH now. He's not here to take at-bats away from Vlad at first. He's not here to hit against left-handed pitchers. And he's not necessarily here to play DH every day — Vlad, George Springer, Alejandro Kirk, and Danny Jansen will all still see plenty of at-bats there, I suspect, though they should now tilt even more heavily toward being against LHP.
No, Belt is here because Daulton Varsho's ability to catch has opened up a bench spot, because the departure of Lourdes Gurriel Jr. made the Jays' backup 1B situation even murkier, and because the addition of Kevin Kiermaier — despite his being a left-handed hitter — was more about defence than it was about balancing the lineup.
A name that springs to mind here is Michael Brantley. Though nominally an outfielder, Brantley’s addition would have been almost entirely about the bat, and I think Belt will fulfill much the same role that he might have played if the Jays had managed to get him signed. And Belt will do so with just about the same amount of injury risk, something like the same amount of upside, and at a cost of $4-8 million less than Brantley's incentive-heavy deal with the Astros.
That’s good!
Also good is the fact that the onus is no longer on the still-young Varsho to be the Jays' only tough out from the left side. And with Belt now the 12th "lock" among Jays position players — the other 11 being Varsho, Springer, Bichette, Guerrero, Kirk, Chapman, Jansen, Merrifield, Kiermaier, Biggio, and Espinal — they still have room to add one more.
Presumably this will be a right-handed hitting outfielder. So, presumably, Brendon has it just about right here:
If Belt can be the guy who had the 164 wRC+ against right-handers in 2021 again, he could be an absolutely transformational piece for this lineup. If not, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other DH options hanging around.
Though, on that last point, I think Brendon probably has it right here, too…
I don’t want to overstate any of this, because clearly he’s old, is coming off a rough year, and there is absolutely some pretty obvious risk here. But this is the kind of risk that a team like the Blue Jays should be taking at this end of their roster. There is enough offensive firepower in the lineup without Belt that they can withstand it if he doesn’t bounce back or gets hurt again. But the reward if he hits the way that he has for most of his career could be tremendous.
When asked about further spending after the Chris Bassitt deal, and whether the club would only be looking at minor moves thereafter, Ross Atkins explained: “We're not thinking about anything as minor. So, anything we can do at this point, when you are 90 to projected above — 90-plus win team — the value of improving your team at that point is so significant that we will work hard to do that.”
There are no sure things to be had on the free agent market for $9.3 million, yet rather than shy away from that route altogether at this point, the Jays have backed up Atkins’ words. Belt was worth 2.0 WAR in the shortened 2020 season, and 3.4 WAR over 97 games in 2021. Adding a player like that could be incredibly meaningful in the standings for these Blue Jays. Adding half of that could be meaningful.
In one sense, the cost, and the fact that they’re now clearly going over the luxury tax threshold to make it happen, makes a risky play even riskier. For another team, or in another Blue Jays season, that would be cause for concern. But for this team, for this season, it’s exactly the kind of move that a big-market, win-now team makes.
And hopefully it’s an indication that they see the value in going out and spending just a little bit more, too. They don’t necessarily need to, and there isn’t a ton left out there to pick from, but getting that right-handed hitting outfielder and one more starting pitcher sure would make this roster look awfully complete, wouldn’t it?
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*fist pump*
thanks for the great piece and quick turnaround..... hoping this signing means little to no DH at bats for Jansen. He could use the rest.