Where Does Billy Butler Fit Into the Blue Jays Trade Rumors?

Sep 13, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Kansas City Royals designated hitter Billy Butler (16) breaks his bat in the second inning against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The Toronto Blue Jays have been exceedingly quite on the hot stove front here at the Winter Meetings, so when we see something like the following rumor floated, it perks our ears up a little bit.

Wow, that one comes right out of left field doesn’t it?

Now, don’t get me wrong, Billy Butler is a fantastic player, albeit one coming off of a down year, as his numbers show below. Butler is also relatively affordable at $8 million in 2014 and a team option for $12.5 million in 2015.

My question though is where Billy Butler fits into the grand Blue Jays plan that Alex Anthopoulos is currently hatching? Seems to me that we have an over abundance of First Base/ DH-type players already in the fold with Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion. Adding Butler would just further add to that supply.

Unless one of them is involved in a separate deal.

Earlier in the week, Anthopoulos mentioned that the team was likely to carry their entire roster of position players into the beginning of the season, but he also mentioned that the team was working on a trade with a three-team component that looked promising. Encarnacion, with his steal of a deal, would be a tremendously tradable player in a market that lacks a power component. By adding Butler, in the aforementioned three-team deal or in a separate deal, would allow for the Blue Jays to move Encarnacion without completely losing the power from their own line-up. Encarnacion could certainly then be flipped to help land a pitcher of consequence for the Blue Jays.

Granted, that’s a lot of speculation on my part, based on a 180-character tweet citing the infamous “sources”, but it seems feasible.

Let the intrigue begin!