Blue Jays rumors: R.A. Dickey next on the move?

With the Blue Jays moving out Ben Revere for Drew Storen, rumors are swirling that veteran starter R.A. Dickey could
be the next player on the move

The Blue Jays front office got the ball rolling on Friday night by landing Drew Storen from the Washington Nationals, but according to some tweets by Jeff Blair of Sportsnet, Toronto may not be done.

There’s a line that runs between this rumor and the recent Revere-for-Storen trade, as the addition of legitimate back-end help will allow for the Blue Jays to stretch out Aaron Sanchez without hesitation. This was the plan of attack already, but now the organization can allow themselves to make that move with zero hesitation.

Doing so would allow Sanchez to further develop his secondary offerings, a critical piece of his long-term development if he hopes to stay in a starting role longterm. Of course, a return to the ‘pen is by no means out of the question if he does not win the fifth job. Stretching out Roberto Osuna is also an option, albeit significantly less likely than Sanchez.

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Despite his strong performance down the home stretch in the 2015 regular season, Dickey is still held at a fairly low value by the majority of Blue Jays fans. In his three years with the club, however, the knuckler has averaged over 215.0 innings per season with a 1.7-2.0 WAR. For any Major League team facing uncertainty in their rotation, Dickey does still hold serious value for his ability to guarantee the stability of a back-end spot.

Blair has since responded to an inquiry of the likelihood of a Dickey trade as being ’60-40′. He’s alluded several times over the past few months to the fact that John Gibbons isn’t particularly in love with the knuckleball, so there could be some logical traction there, as well.

It’s been reported that Washington will be sending back cash in the Revere and Storen deal to balance out salaries, so any potential move with Dickey shouldn’t be seen as a counteracting financial deal. He’s an extremely difficult player to establish a market value on, however, so Toronto’s preferred return package here will be interesting to see, as their starting rotation is still far from a position of excess strength.