Transactions

This page will keep an updated list of Jays players that were traded, and attempt to analyze whether it was a profitable trade or not for the Jays and the other teams involved. Since Alex Anthopolous intends on keeping his cards close to his chest, chances are that this is the best way to cover Jays Trades. Trying to work out all of the rumors would just drive people nutty, as the Doc trade rumors proved in December.

• 16.12.2009: Traded Roy “Doc” Halladay (32) to the Philadelphia Phillies in return for OF Michael Taylor (25), SP Kyle Drabek (22), C Travis d’Arnaud (20). Analysis: under the circumstances he was given, Alex Anthopolous did the absolute best job that could be expected. He got the Jays 2 players that slot in as their #1 and #2 prospects, and added another that is easily a top 7. Even before the second part of this trade, the Jays end up with more youth, depth, and ability to grow a very decent pitching staff with Bret Cecil, Marc Rzepczynski, Ricky Romero, Kyle Drabek, and Brandon Morrow making a probable 2011 pitching staff.

• 16.12.2009: Traded OF Michael Taylor (25) to the Oakland A’s in return for 1B/3B Brett Wallace (23). Unlike many others who have voiced opinions about Taylor being the better player, I tend to side with Brett Wallace. I can foresee a 2-3-4-5 of Hill-Snider-Lind-Wallace that will terrorize pitchers in the AL for years. If the Jays can add speed atop the lineup and in the bottom to compliment these power hitters, the Jays will be potent offensively. Although Taylor is definitely more mature and ready to produce in 2010, Wallace gives us a younger, more powerful bat.

• 07.01.2010: Picked up SS Brian Bocock off waivers from SF. He’s 24, measures 5′10″ and 185 lbs, and most people around baseball see this signing as meaningless. However, you have to say to yourself that there’s a real reason he made it all the way to MLB at 23 yrs old. There is: his speed is tremendous. While his OBP and AVG really leave something to be desired, he did miss a lot of time in 2008/2009 due to injury and can still improve. He’ll be just 25 this season and can eat up the space left open by Joe Inglett in AAA since he can also play 2B and the OF. It’s a decent depth move by Alex.

• 09.01.2010: The Jays GM completed a deal for Zach Jackson, who was originally drafted by the Jays in the 1st round of 2004 (32nd overall). The deal is for a player to be named later, but it shouldn’t amount to much since the Jays are taking Jackson on to see if they can revamp his approach and get real value out of him. He’ll reportedly being the year in AAA, taking the spot that had been taken up by Mike Maroth in 2009 as the possible plug-in starter when injuries occur. Zach Jackson is a big boy at 6′5″ and 220 lbs, and is only 26 years old, so he has plenty of time to get better. He has just over 100 IP in MLB so far, but never really got enough time to prove himself and get comfortable. However, even his minors stats are horrible as both lefties and righties are hitting over .305 against him and he had a 6.05 ERA in 2009 overall in AAA. I did find one statistic very odd, however, in that Jackson had a 2.59 ERA in the 5 games he threw during the day, whereas his ERA ballooned to 7.17 in night games. Could it be that his vision is the reason for the downward spiral once the lights are on? I’m not sure if he’s ever has laser eye surgery, but some people get blurred vision after the fact when bright lights are around. It just doesn’t make sense that hitters would hit just .242 against him during the day and .333 against him at night. Whatever the case, it’s a decent depth move and make-work-project for the Jays who obviously know him very well since they drafted him. It will be interesting to watch his progression in 2010 and see if he can pull a Ricky Romero type turnaround. I wouldn’t bet on it, but weirder things have happened.
• 15.01.2010: The Jays added the following 3 by way of minors league contracts. William “Willie” Collazo is 5′9″ 170 lbs and hails from Puerto Rico. He’s a left hander who was drafted by the Braves in the 10th round of the 2001 draft. The Angels picked him up from the Braves as a rule 5 draftee in 2003 and kept him until 2005 when he was released. The Mets signed him in March of 2006 and released him in November of 2008, when he was picked up by the Marlins and released in September 2009. Needless to say he’s a minor league journeyman who got all of 5.2 innings of MLB play with the Mets in 2007 with little success. Over 5 seasons in AAA, Collazo has 425 IP, 424 hits allowed (1 per inning), 252 Ks, 111 BBs, 3.85 ERA and a 1.258 Whip. Not too bad overall, but he’s never been given a chance to prove whether he can translate these numbers to MLB success. I’m not sure whether he could, and doubt he’ll get much play in Toronto with all of the competition he’s facing, but he’ll get a chance to throw in spring training and prove himself worthy of a depth chart spot in AAA Las Vegas. He could be seen as the replacement for Fabio Castro, who is of similar stature and was picked up by the Red Sox but had spent 2009 with the Jays, making it from HiA to AAA. Jesus Merchan is 6′0″ 185 lbs, bats right-handed, and hails from Venezuela. He was signed by the Twins as an international FA and spent some time int he minors with the Twins (to age 23 up to HiA), the Phillies (age 24 to 26 up to AAA), Arizona (age 27 in AAA), and Cleveland (age 28 in AAA). He has only hit 10 HRs once in 2007, but then again only got more than 400 ABs in a season once in all of his minor league career. He hits for average and gets on base very will, averaging a .330 average in AAA over 3 seasons (549 ABs) and .365 OBP over the same period. He doesn’t have much speed, but interestingly has spent a lot of time at 2B (193 games), SS (465 games), 3B (98 games), and only 5 games as an OFer. So I’m not sure why the transaction was listed as acquiring an OFer, except that it may be the Jays intention to play him there the majority of the time if he makes the AAA squad. All of these 3 players were added to complete Alex Anthopolous’s vision of lots of competition at each position, including the filling of positions in AAA Las Vegas. While JP Ricciardi seemed at times to have more interest in filling spots with the big club, tried to acquire as many seasoned vets as possible to fill the ranks on AAA, and ignoring the impact that versatile depth can have over the course of the season, Alex seems to want to change that and make sure the talent there compliments the needs of the big club as much as possible by adding flexible pieces that can play 3-4 positions and to add as many quality arms as possible.
• 15.04.2010: The Jays acquired LF Fred Lewis from San Francisco for a PTBNL or cash considerations in hopes of resolving their lead off issues. Fred Lewis is a 29 year old 6′2″ 200 lbs outfielder who was drafted in the 2nd rd of the 2002 draft by the SF Giants. He hasABs to his credit. He has 931 ABs to his credit in MLB between 2006 and 2009, but the majority of these have come in the last 2 years. His best attributes are his ability to get on base, his ability to play all outfield positions very well, and his speed with is a tick above average. Baseball America writer Andy Baggarly ranked the SF prospects in 2007 and placed Fred Lewis 7th best SF prospect that season. He talks about the fact that it took a while for Lewis to develop as a baseball player because he had concentrated on being a wide receiver before he took baseball seriously. A quote from the book states that:

  “he has the raw skills (bat speed, strength, speed) to hit .300 with 20-25 homers and 30-40 steals annually.”

  We can only dream of such numbers now, as it seems fairly evident that Lewis will not have that kind of impact in the majors unless he really turns things around in Toronto. He had his best season in the minors in 2006, when he had 439 ABs, had 11 triples, hit 12 HRs, stole 18 bases, had a .375 OBP and kept a .276 average.

  In the majors, his best season by far, and maybe not a coincidence that it occurred the only year he got steady playing time in SF, was in 2008 – the only year he had over 300 ABs in the majors. His line that season:

  468 ABs, 132 hits, 25 doubles, 11 triples, 9 HRs, 40 RBI, 21 SBs, 51 walks, 124 SO, .282 avg, .351 OBP, .440 slg, UZR 3.5, WAR 2.4

  You can add a bit to those stats to get his line at 500 ABs, but it’s likely that he’ll be fighting all year to get playing time in Toronto. The announcement posted by MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk correctly states that he’ll most likely be used in LF and could take time from Jose Bautista when righties are up. I’ve always pointed to that being a weakness for Bautista and that it should result in someone else leading off when righties start on opposing teams – well, it seems the Jays have their guy to do just that now.

  For those wondering about how long Fred Lewis will be under Toronto’s control, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts he has 3 years of arbitration eligibility remaining (2011, 2012, 2013). At the contract size he has, $455,000, and control time, it’s quite a nice value grab by Alex “The Great” Anthopolous.

  Fred Lewis joins Merkin Valdez as ex-Giants on the Jays roster and should so well in Toronto in my opinion. When we take into account the fact that he played on some horribly offensively challenged SF teams when he was brought up, and the fact that he got minimal playing time, it bodes well for his “primed for a breakout candidate” status. I’m not going to make any silly predictions, but Lewis should excel in what it a much better offensive lineup in Toronto. When Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, and Vernon Wells usually hit behind you, you know that you should get a few pitches to hit.He surely didn’t have that much talent behind him in SF.