The Toronto Blue Jays have had perhaps the most active offseason thus far. You cannot look at what the Jays have done and come to any other conclusion that every move the organization has made has improved their chances for 2015. First, they signed hometown product, and the best catcher on the free agent market, Russell Martin to a five year contract totaling $82 million, and in the process upgraded a position that produced just 2.2 WAR in 2014. Martin posted a total of 9.4 WAR over his last two seasons without taking into his account his ability to handle a pitching staff and frame pitches. If Martin posts a 4 WAR season in Toronto, they have doubled the productivity at a premium position without sacrificing anything but money and a first round draft pick. A position that was a weakness for Toronto in 2014 is now a strength. Then a few nights back they were able to flip the oft-injured Brett Lawrie, some young pitching, and a very young but promising middle infielder for one of the games premier players in Josh Donaldson. Once again the Jays upgraded a position in terms of WAR by more than 2 wins, from 3.1 WAR to a player that has been worth 14.1 WAR over the last two seasons. Even if Donaldson sees a decline in production by a full win he will post 5.4 WAR for a difference of 2.3 wins at third base. Even factoring in my belief that Lawrie is due to have his best season of his career, his potential is not of a 5-6 WAR player like Donaldson. You can read my analysis of the Donaldson trade here from the perspective of why it made sense for both teams if you’d like. And finally, this past evening the Toronto Blue Jays pulled of yet another trade that made them better, but this time they did it without spending any of their prospect capital. The Jays sent J.A. Happ to Seattle for left handed hitting outfielder Michael Saunders.
This move really made little sense for the Mariners in my estimation. The Mariners have been in the market for an outfielder all offseason and they swapped one of their better ones for a below average starting pitcher. Reports out of Seattle are that Saunders wasn’t a “[Manager Lloyd] McClendon guy” whatever that is supposed to mean. If I am a Mariners fan I want good ball players to be exactly the kind of player my team’s manager likes to have on his roster and not to be the kind of player he wants to send packing. No matter, the trade happened and the Blue Jays benefitted from the Mariners issues with Saunders. This is an upgrade in multiple ways for the Blue Jays, so we are going to focus on how this move benefits the Toronto ball club and not the head scratching nature of the move for Seattle.
Saunders is young,while entering his age 28 season he should also be right in the middle of his baseball prime. Saunders is only going to make around $2.9 million in arbitration according to MLBtraderumors.com. While the obvious alternative was bringing back Melky Cabrera, entering his age 30 season, for much more money and a player entering his declining years. Saunders has posted above average offensive numbers in both 2012 and an injury plagued 2014 with wRC+ numbers of 108 and 126 respectively. Even Saunders’ 2013 wasn’t anything but exactly average offensively where he posted a wRC+ of 100. Cabrera had a solid 2014 at the plate and is probably the better offensive player right now, but that production difference would be diminished by the contract he is going to command. It is safe to say that the Blue Jays acquired an above average offensive corner outfielder that provides significant value due to his low salary instead of bringing back a slightly better offensive player in Cabrera. According to the only published projection system, Steamer, Saunders is primed to produce 2.4 WAR and a slash line .244/.324/.405 with 16 homers and wRC+ of 110. That slash line should be looked at as something that will improve as he moves from one of the least friendly offensive environments in Seattle to one of the friendliest in Toronto. As a comparison, Steamer projects Cabrera to post 1.7 WAR, a slash line along the lines of .291/.340/.430 with 13 homers and a wRC+ of 116. So where does Saunders provide more value than Cabrera if Cabrera is the better hitter? Let’s take a look.
First, I don’t think any projection system is gospel, and Steamer is no different, and I would argue that a player like Saunders has a chance to be just as valuable as Cabrera offensively. However since Steamer is the only projection that is available for 2015 we will just stick with the assumption that Cabrera is the slightly better offensive player. Where Saunders is the far superior player to Cabrera lies in their defensive ability.
I am going to get into some defensive metrics here, so let me explain a little bit about the numbers I am going to use. UZR is a statistic that is measured as runs prevented in runs above average for a particular position. So, UZR measures how valuable a player’s defense was when compared to his positional peers. There are some detractors that don’t value these numbers but when they are viewed as a guide instead of hard and fast concrete statistics, UZR provides a good reference as to a player’s defensive ability. I am going to take it a step further and use UZR/150 which is a player’s UZR rating based on 150 defensive games played. You also don’t want to look at UZR or UZR/150 as a single season snap shot because there are variables such as defensive opportunities that can vary drastically from year to year. Personally, I like to use an average of three years for comparative purposes. Hopefully that explains how I am going to evaluate both Saunders and Cabrera and makes it easier to follow my evaluation.
Over the last three seasons Melky Cabrera has accounted for an average of -7.6 UZR/150 as an outfielder, which is well below average. Over those same three seaons, Michael Saunders has accounted for an average of exactly -2 UZR/150 as an outfielder. However, in both cases Cabrera and Saunders both logged innings in centerfield, and neither of them should ever play there because neither is athletic enough to play the position, and in both cases their misadventures in centerfield greatly weighed down that number. If we drill down to just the innings logged in corner outfield spots Saunders scores higher in every defensive component while Cabrera still performs to a below average level, while Saunders is markedly above average. I doubt the plan in Toronto is to play Saunders in centerfield at all, which would allow him to take advantage of the defensive skills he possesses. For his career, Saunders has played almost exactly average defense (UZR 1.5) in left field while playing a total of 1335 innings and above average defense in right field (UZR 10.2), so there is some definite upside to Saunders as long as he stays out of centerfield. Contrast those numbers with Cabrera who has played below average defense at both corner outfield spots in his career (UZR -13.3 in left and -0.3 in right) and you can see that numbers support Saunders being the significantly better defender.
Hopefully, you’re still with me after nerding out on sabermetrics. In the end, the numbers conclude that the Mariners received a comparable offensive player with upside and the superior defender, while also getting younger and cheaper to replace a player who has probably already peaked offensively and has never been a plus defender in Cabrera. Saunders is also left handed which will help balance out the massive right handed power already in town in the form of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and the newly acquired Josh Donaldson. And they acquired this player by only giving up a below average starting pitcher in J.A. Happ. In my opinion, there is no way to look at this latest move as a win for Toronto, but there is still work to be done on this roster or at least questions to be answered.
Currently, the only established Major Leaguers in the Blue Jay starting rotation is Mark Buerhle and R.A. Dickey. Buerhle is the ageless wonder and there is no reason to suspect he won’t continue to be a well above average pitcher entering his final contract year. Dickey is Dickey, a league average starter that will also eat 200 innings. Health is a skill and both Buerhle and Dickey have proven to be workhorses and they can be counted on to accumulate between 5-6 WAR as a duo. There is also Marcus Stroman, who I love as a starter, and should have no trouble building on his impressive rookie campaign, with the potential to be a legitimate #1 starter in the future. Drew Hutchinson was also impressive in his first full Major League campaign and should continue to be a solid mid-rotation starter. Stroman and Hutchison combined for 5.8 WAR and are both entering their age 24 seasons and will continue to be mainstays in the Toronto rotation for years to come. That means the Blue Jays appear to have 80% of their starting rotation set, but in this day and age of elevated injuries to pitchers you need to be six or seven deep when it comes to starters.
Internally, there are two options that jump out to fill in the 5th starting spot in the rotation in Toronto. My first choice would be top prospect Daniel Norris. I am quite bullish on Norris as a prospect are many scouts and prospect evaluators. Norris already possesses two plus pitches in his fastball and curveball and an average slider and a developing changeup. Norris should continue to develop making his fastball and curveballs plus offerings, his slider above average, and his changeup slightly above average. Mix the potentially extremely impressive repertoire and average command and you have the makings of a potential special pitcher in Norris. Right now, Norris should be able to use still developing ability to be an above average starting pitcher at the Major League level that produces well above average strikeout numbers. The other internal option would be another youngster with electric stuff in Aaron Sanchez. Sanchez has stuff that makes scouts drool but to be an effective starter in the Show you need at least three pitches and the ability to limit walks. Sanchez currently only throws two fastballs and a curveball and he has walked too many batters throughout his minor league career for my liking. Sanchez is best suited in the bullpen as a Major Leaguer but he can fill in for a starter in a pinch. I don’t see the Jays having any other really effective arms that are ready for Major League action, so I think we could see the organization add a starter. If the organization is truly moving “all-in” for 2015 James Shields would be an extremely interesting signing. That would make Buerhle, Dickey and Shields the three innings eaters and letting the Jays limit wear and tear on Stroman, Hutchison and Norris. Then once Buerhle reaches free agency in 2016 the three young arms can increase their workload and take their spots within the rotation for the foreseeable future.
Finally, there is some work to be done in the bullpen. In 2014 the Blue Jays pen was pedestrian so there is room for improvement, but they have some interesting pieces already in place. I like Brett Cecil, and I really like the previously mentioned Sanchez and I think Sanchez has the potential to be a really effective high leverage reliever.
Currently the price for high-end relievers is much too high thanks to the run of the Kansas City Royals and the nature of Major League Baseball teams to try and replicate what was seemingly successful in October. Because of that I don’t support paying the money that guys like David Robertson and Andrew Miller are going to command, there’s just no value there, because no reliever will be worth $40 million over four seasons. Bullpen performance fluctuates wildly year to year for pretty much every reliever in history not named Mariano Rivera. I would suggest the Jays kick the tires on some names like Jason Grilli, Luke Gregerson, Neal Cotts, Francisco Rodriguez and Sergio Romo where some value can be had.
No matter how the rest of the offseason shakes out I see good things for the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays as long as they’re not crushed by the injury bug again. This is probably the final season that Alex Anthopoulos will have to build a winner and make a playoff run and so far the front office has done nothing but improve the team in the immediate future.
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