I'm just going to hope the Red Sox at least tried.

The deal remains contingent on the Jays' ability to sign Dickey to an extension within a 72-hour negotiating window which expires Tuesday at 2pm et.

There has yet to be confirmation on the players involved besides Dickey, but according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the deal between the two clubs could see seven players switch teams, with Dickey, catcher Josh Thole and a prospect heading to Toronto for catching prospect Travis d'Arnaud, pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard, recently acquired catcher John Buck and another prospect.

Mixed emotions

I'm just going to hope the Red Sox at least tried.

LOL.

Literally the first post. Amazing.

The reported cost in talent for the Jays, d'Arnaud + Syndergaard, is roughly equivalent to Bogaerts + Barnes. (I would prefer the Sox prospects, but I don't think it's a categorically different package.) I would not have wanted the Sox to do that. If earlier reports are correct, the Jays are giving up a lot.

Well, the window is now for the Jays. Plus if this deal goes through it's because they're getting a #1 starter for under market value, as I would suggest that no matter what Dickey will be underpaid relative to his value since he's a knuckleballer.

Oh, I'm not really criticizing the Jays. I respect what they're doing. The most important wins in baseball are wins 87-92 or so, and the Jays are right at that point where every added win has a ton of value.

I do wonder if it might have been possible to get Dickey without shipping Syndergaard too, but the overall plan the Jays have executed is a good one, and this should be a lot of fun for their fans.

I keep thinking Anthopoulos & Alderson could have great fun trolling the press: "Ha, ha! No, it Mejia & Harvey for Rasmus!" "No, it's Dickey & Duda for Lind & Romero!" "No, get this, it's a three-way with Vernon Wells going to New York!"
Heh.

Re Thole: How do you come in second in passed balls, and throw out a lower pct than league average...and still get a 1.1 dWAR? Plainly I don't understand how it works.

the Jays are right at that point where every added win has a ton of value

Indeed, it looks like they are waking from their long slumber. The rise of the Rays didn't seem to spur them on, but the Baltimore F. Orioles charging into the playoffs this year means they're out of excuses. Go out and get some players and win something, already :)

How do you come in second in passed balls, and throw out a lower pct than league average...and still get a 1.1 dWAR?

A big chunk of that is positional adjustment - just credit for playing C. dWAR is structured so that you can compare players between positions based on relative difficulty of the position.

The reported cost in talent for the Jays, d'Arnaud + Syndergaard, is roughly equivalent to Bogaerts + Barnes. (I would prefer the Sox prospects, but I don't think it's a categorically different package.)

Who would be an analogous Red Sox package in the Marlins deal? [Hechavarria,Alvarez,Nicolino,Marisnick] <-> [Iglesias,Doubront,Webster,Bradley] ? I'm trying to figure out what it would have looked like for the Sox to have done both deals instead.

Do the Jays make their move this year if the Yankees didn't lay down and die in the playoffs, AND the 2nd wild card wasn't introduced?

With Boston imploding, Baltimore looking like a fluke (if they see it from that point of view) and the Yankees crumbling fast (ARod/CC surgeries), maybe AA said "Well, it's now or never!" and convinced those holding the purse strings that it was time.

If this batch of wheeling and dealing doesn't work out for the Jays (and they don't make the playoffs in 2013/14), then I don't think the Jays fans (like myself) can really be that upset.

Indeed, it looks like they are waking from their long slumber. The rise of the Rays didn't seem to spur them on, but the Baltimore F. Orioles charging into the playoffs this year means they're out of excuses. Go out and get some players and win something, already :)

After playing a wait and see game coming into '12 with Alvarez, Hutchison, McGowan, Cecil and Drabek and all of those players either blowing their elbows out, continuing to be broken down, or not improving much at all, the rotation had two holes in it with no one to fill them in the Org except J.A. Happ. Moves had to be made. Coinciding with Encarnacion's breakout, Anthopoulos has said, he does not want to waste the prime of Bautista and Encarnacion's peak.

Here's what I don't get. Why didn't the Mets just sign Dickey to whatever extension they could agree to, and then trade him?

Here's what I don't get. Why didn't the Mets just sign Dickey to whatever extension they could agree to, and then trade him?

I assume that Dickey was only offering the Mets a below market $26M/2 year deal if it included strict no trade provisions.

72 hours? This is taking forever.

So the Jays trading d'Arnaud and Syndegaard for Dickey is smart while the Royals trading Myers for Shields and Davis is not smart mainly because the Jays are otherwise better than the Royals? Or is it because Shields isn't as good as Dickey? Or is it because Myers is better than d'Arnaud and Syndegaard?

yes.

It makes sense to trade prospects for a front-line starter if it gets you from 86 wins into the playoff zone. It doesn't make much sense if it takes you from 75 wins to 80 (or whatever.)

Myers might not be better than d'Arnaud and Syndergaard, but Myers and Odoeizzi are

So the Jays trading d'Arnaud and Syndegaard for Dickey is smart while the Royals trading Myers for Shields and Davis is not smart mainly because the Jays are otherwise better than the Royals? Or is it because Shields isn't as good as Dickey? Or is it because Myers is better than d'Arnaud and Syndegaard?

Yeah, as Shock is saying. The Jays are actually situated in their division to win it, unlike the Royals. Dave Cameron did a tidy Fangraphs article on this this morning, actually.

the Jays trading d'Arnaud and Syndegaard for Dickey is smart while the Royals trading Myers [and Odorizzi] for Shields and Davis is not smart mainly because

... Thole/Arencibia are better than Francoeur

Shields is nowhere near as good as Dickey. Myers for Dickey would have made more sense. Plus if Dickey gives the Jays the same offer as he gave the Mets, the Jays will get 3 years of Dickey at the same AAV as the Royals are getting two years of Shields. I'll let the prospect mavens weigh in on the packages. On the surface looks like the Royals package was a bit bigger mainly because Syndergaard is so far away from the majors (19 year old coming out of A ball) compared to Odorizzi but then he probably has the higher ceiling (it was a pretty dominant 100 innings). Also Myers is a couple of years younger than d'Arnaud.

But I'm not sure either trade is all that good. Compared to other "ace" trades, looks like the Jays are giving up more than most. The Jays got one of the better looking packages when they traded Halladay 3 years ago. Two of those guys bombed out (Drabek could still pay off) and now d'Arnaud is shipped out in an "ace" trade. Other than saving money, they might as well have held onto Halladay. :-) Mainly it comes down to Syndergaard I guess ... and I don't have a lot of faith in 19-year-old pitching prospects.

But the big winner in all of this is JP Arencibia -- d'Arnaud and Buck gone in one trade.

Re Thole: How do you come in second in passed balls, and throw out a lower pct than league average...and still get a 1.1 dWAR? Plainly I don't understand how it works.

Silly boy. dWAR doesn't tell you anything about how good of a C he is, it tells you he would be as good a CF as Colby Rasmus.

dWAR is just Rfield + Rpos (converted to wins). Comparing players at the same position, you can use Rfield or dWAR, dWAR having the advantage of a little extra playing time adjustment plus handling the case where one of the players spent some time elsewhere (e.g. Posey). Comparing players across positions is the main purpose of dWAR.

Rfield -- compared to average at your position
dWAR -- compared to mythical average defender

Now, how Thole finished with positive Rfield is a question I can't answer.

I hate losing such a profoundly entertaining player, but I can't complain about the package the Mets got.

... Thole/Arencibia are better than Francoeur

Agreed. By not playing Myers in RF, the Royals are almost certainly worse off at that position in '13. IIRC, the Jays was not even planning to have D'Arnaud on the big-league roster in April.

Nice to see the Mets actually bite the bullet and do what they are supposed to do for once, rather than stringing things out as long and as painfully as possible, and in the end being left only with a missed opportunity (see Reyes, Jose).

This trade is necessary, but it really sucks, too. As stated by others above, D'Arnaud and Syndergaard is a really good haul.

Two of those guys bombed out (Drabek could still pay off) and now d'Arnaud is shipped out in an "ace" trade. Other than saving money, they might as well have held onto Halladay.

Anthopoulos later traded Brett Wallace for Anthony Gose, whom he wanted in the Halladay deal, but the Phillies wouldn't trade him at that point. So, actually only Drabek has "bombed out" at this point from the Jays end of the Halladay haul. Who knows, maybe he someday provides some value to TOR. He's definitely not counted on for anything anymore, at least by myself.

Yeah, as Shock is saying. The Jays are actually situated in their division to win it, unlike the Royals. Dave Cameron did a tidy Fangraphs article on this this morning, actually.

Thanks for the Fangraphs article tip. It was interesting. The counter-argument might be that with the 2nd WC, the Royals might actually have a better shot than the Jays, because they get to play the Indians and Twins and a White Sox team that may be worse than 2012, while none of the AL East teams is really terrible, and the Yankees and Rays are better than any AL Central team except the Tigers. If the Royals are an 85 win team playing a schedule of a 95 win team, a 75 win team and 2 65 win teams, that might lead to a better record than a 90 win team playing 2 other 90 win teams and 2 75 win teams. Or it might not, I don't really know. Those estimates of how good the other teams are might be wrong of course.

So the Jays trading d'Arnaud and Syndegaard for Dickey is smart while the Royals trading Myers for Shields and Davis is not smart mainly because the Jays are otherwise better than the Royals? Or is it because Shields isn't as good as Dickey? Or is it because Myers is better than d'Arnaud and Syndegaard?

Yea, the prospects the Jays gave up are worse, Dickey is both better and costs less than Shields, and the Jays are closer to contention. It's only a superficially similar deal.

I assume that Dickey was only offering the Mets a below market $26M/2 year deal if it included strict no trade provisions.

As revolting as all of this is, I'll be interested to see what Dickey and the Jays agree to, now that the hometown discount is not in play.

What if Dickey hems and haws but never signs an extension with any team the Mets want to trade him to? Does he stay put, or can the Mets still get D'Arnaud? Is Snydergaard the value of the extension to the Jays?

I hate losing such a profoundly entertaining player, but I can't complain about the package the Mets got.

I'm going to grumble about Buck, who the Mets could DFA for all I care, but yeah, if you're going to trade your ace, get high ceiling guys; now's not the time to reload on middle relievers.

The counter-argument might be that with the 2nd WC, the Royals might actually have a better shot than the Jays, because they get to play the Indians and Twins and a White Sox team that may be worse than 2012, while none of the AL East teams is really terrible, and the Yankees and Rays are better than any AL Central team except the Tigers.

It seems highly likely the WC will come out the West (more than likely) or East though.

The Royals have to finish first, no AL Central team is finishing 4th or better in a group of Texas, Anaheim, Oakland, NYY, Toronto, Tampa Bay and Baltimore to get a wildcard birth.

Yea, the prospects the Jays gave up are worse, Dickey is both better and costs less than Shields, and the Jays are closer to contention. It's only a superficially similar deal.

If the Royals were foolish to trade for a pitcher they will control for only two years, how would it be better to get a pitcher they would control for only one year?

By negotiating a window to sign an extension, as TOR did.

The other thing about the KC trade is that if your goal is to compete in 2012, it was the worst possible way to "improve" the team.

A much better solution would have been to

Start Myers ahead of Francoer.

Add JakeO to your rotation (as good if not likely better than Davis )

Spend the $14M a year Shields/Davis would have cost on another starter, either Sanchez (making up for low first 2 years with a backloaded deal, say $85M/(oops) 5 years) or more likely Jackson.

Even if its Jackson, Myers makes up for the difference with Shields and you get to keep the other two lottery prospects in the minors (or trade them for other needs), and have 5 years of cheap control over Myers and Odruzzi.

Similar win expectancy in 2012 with much higher win expectancy in 2013+..

These two trades certainly make the Jays better, but 20 wins better? I wouldn't crown them just yet.

To me it makes all the sense in the world for the Mets to trade Dickey now - while his value is at an all-time high and his age will never be lower -- and also with his acquiring team getting him and the right to negotiate with him for a song ($5 mil owed).

Anthopoulos later traded Brett Wallace for Anthony Gose, whom he wanted in the Halladay deal, but the Phillies wouldn't trade him at that point.

After trading Taylor, who he got in the Halladay trade, for Wallace and getting in on essentially a 3-way with Houston and Philly involving Oswalt. Too removed to be part of the Halladay trade.

If the Royals were foolish to trade for a pitcher they will control for only two years, how would it be better to get a pitcher they would control for only one year?

Obviously Toronto is only giving up this much if they get RA on a $30M-$35M/3 year deal.

But even if Dickey refused to sign an extension, Toronto wouldn't be getting him on a 1 year deal. Dickey is actually available on a $19M/2 year deal, because Toronto will almost certainly make him a qualifying offer, which will probably cost $14M next year. If Dickey declines, they'll get a draft pick probably worth as much or more as Dickey's excess value on a qualifying offer. And there is also value in the optionality of it, not being forced to make the offer if Dickey collapses/gets hurt.

To me it makes all the sense in the world for the Mets to trade Dickey now - while his value is at an all-time high and his age will never be lower -- and also with his acquiring team getting him and the right to negotiate with him for a song ($5 mil owed).

It's exactly te right move for the Mets because they are broke.

If they had the budget of days past, they snap accept Dickey's offer and actively add help in FA market and taking on other teams payroll (Reyes might have been back in town).

So yea, the Dickey trade is perfectly fine, the manner in which they did it is sadly not..

To me it makes all the sense in the world for the Mets to trade Dickey now - while his value is at an all-time high and his age will never be lower -- and also with his acquiring team getting him and the right to negotiate with him for a song ($5 mil owed).

It's exactly te right move for the Mets because they are broke.

If they had the budget of days past, they snap accept Dickey's offer and actively add help in FA market and taking on other teams payroll (Reyes might have been back in town).
Even if the Mets were not broke and just moderately cash-strapped, Sandy is sober enough to realize* that the Mets have little chance of competing before 2015.

* Jeff's mileage may vary.

I wonder if the owners thought that the extra wild card would be a financial bonanza - for the players.

When will we get the first Toronto article lambasting RA Dickey for shameless self-promotion and effective brand management? If hockey stays in lockout mode, the Sun sportswriters will have too much time on their hands.

These two trades certainly make the Jays better, but 20 wins better? I wouldn't crown them just yet

Absolutely. Still have to play the games. Remember though, TOR had a ton of injuries last year, lost Bautista for over two months, Morrow for three, etc etc. They were at the top of man games lost to injury in '12. The WAR tally of players shipped to the Marlins compared to their counterparts coming in was about 8 WAR. Cabrera is almost a 4 WAR improvement over Gose/Snider/Thames. Dickey is about 5.5 WAR guy replacing guys like Villanueva who are around 1 WAR. So, it should be a considerably better team W-L wise.

I'm going to grumble about Buck, who the Mets could DFA for all I care

He's just a placeholder until d'Arnaud is ready, he didn't really cost anything (other than money).

I may take back what I said about this being a higher price than most "ace" trades. I've got to bring money into that and most aces, when traded, are already making something close to $20 M. The trading team is usually getting players and at least one year of salary relief. Here the Mets are really getting no salary relief so it makes sense they'd get better value in talent. Similarly from Toronto's angle given they're likely to get Dickey at a lower AAV than Sanchez, they're in line to get very good value out of Dickey and should be willing to give up more.

Back to Royals-Jays ... while I prefer this trade I will say I'm also not sure the Jays playoff chances are that much better than the Royals. The Shields trade is not the only move the Royals have made this offseason, also picking up Santana and resigning Guthrie and those moves cost them nothing but money. Moore was having a pretty good offseason prior to the Shields trade (which could of course still work out). The entire Royals rotation last year gave them 1 WAR. They've retained the most valuable guy (Guthrie 1.7 WAR) and added 3 guys who who could give them another 5-7 WAR and (since nobody seems gone) actually have a good amount of SP depth. Hosmer was a disappointment and could certainly add 3-4 WAR (he was -.7 last year). They'll hopefully have a healthy Perez. 72 wins, 74 pythag wins last year but they look like at least a 500 team right now and you might squint to get them to 85. And that's a weak division although, yes, it will take some luck to top Detroit.

Whereas I see a bit of a bloodbath of mediocrity in the AL East. I think they're all decent teams (even the Red Sox) and I don't think any of them are dominant. Even if the Jays are pretty good, I can easily see them being the Rays. And the Jays last year won only 73 with 74 pythag. Another 60 games from Bautista would help and Reyes and Buehrle and now Dickey add a lot. Josh Johnson has always been fragile -- if he and/or Romero are healthy and effective, they should be very good. Anyway, even if Reyes, Dickey, Buehrle, Johnson and Melky add 15 wins, that still gets you only to 88.

The Jays do look like the better team and even if they don't project much better, the rotation of Dickey, Buehrle, Johnson and Romero has massive upside. But they're in a division with a bunch of other teams projected to 80+ wins and, as I understand it, they have to play the games!

Early guesstimate says I think the Jays could finish anywhere from 1st to 4th in the ALE and they'll probably need to be top 2 to make the playoffs. The Royals could finish anywhere from 1st to 3rd and they'll probably need to finish first to make the playoffs. Given it's just a 1-game WC playoff, I'm not sure the Jays are in that much better a spot. The odds of the Royals winning the ALC have to be pretty close to the odds of the Jays winning the ALE.

The Mets are obviously punting 2013 so the goal is to get some major league caliber players in the outfield for 2014. The rotation looks about set for 2014 as does the infield. The outfield and bullpen continue to be complete messes.

Two questions: When can the Mets seriously be considered a team that can make the playoffs? And how low is the payroll going to get in 2014? There's a chance that the Mets will be at less than half where they were in 2009 when they were at about 150 million. It's pretty amazing.

Cabrera is almost a 4 WAR improvement over Gose/Snider/Thames.

Why does anybody think this can be counted on. At that price it's certainly worth a gamble (he's being paid only for about 1.5 WAR) but Melky stunk until 2011, "magically" transforms himself, tests positive. Even if "natural" Melky is as good as "magical" Melky, I would view him as hard to predict.

I think the Jays could finish anywhere from 1st to 4th in the ALE

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Jays finish 5th.

I wouldn't pencil Melky in for 5 WAR either, but he last stunk in 2010, not 2011. He put up 4 WAR in KC in 2011.

No one yet, has written his improvements the last two years were solely to do with PED's except maybe you. He had a 2.6 WAR once upon a time fwiw. Only one way to find out. Lotta upside with the roster, and lotsa risk too. Have gotta play the games to find out.

Cabrera is almost a 4 WAR improvement over Gose/Snider/Thames.


I was very confused when I saw this. Couldn't fathom what Cabrera was a 5+ WAR player. I was pretty sure Toronto didn't get Miguel w/o me noticing it, and I was really shocked they were moving him to the OF.

Do the Mets have any outfielders in their system that could be ready to help in 2014?

@48 I assume that was snidely put, perhaps not, but each WAR provided by the three last year is not pretty, and Rajai Davis who got 487 AB's because of the injures also provided nothing:

Davis .5
Gose .4
Snider .2
Thames -.8