{"id":1805,"date":"2016-11-11T19:23:27","date_gmt":"2016-11-12T00:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=1805"},"modified":"2024-12-28T10:36:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T15:36:14","slug":"report-blue-jays-sign-kendrys-morales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/11\/11\/report-blue-jays-sign-kendrys-morales\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Blue Jays sign Kendrys Morales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Major League<\/b> <strong>Baseball<\/strong>&#8216;s<b>\u00a0<\/b>free agency period has gotten off to a quick start, and now one of the bigger bats on the market has found his new team. Former <strong>Kansas City<\/strong>\u00a0<b>Royals<\/b> first baseman and designated hitter\u00a0<b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/moralke01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kendrys Morales<\/a> <\/b>has agreed to a three-year deal with the <b>Toronto Blue Jays<\/b>,<b>\u00a0<\/b>according to <b>Christopher Meola<\/b>.<b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JimBowden_ESPN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@JimBowden_ESPN<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLBONFOX?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MLBONFOX<\/a> Done Deal: Blue Jays Sign Kendry Morales for 3yrs 33 million<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Meola (@ChrisMeolaTalk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChrisMeolaTalk\/status\/797168444709990405?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 11, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This deal brings the power hitting lefty bat north of the border; contract considered, this is a great deal for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n<p>Morales is a career .273 hitter that has topped the 20-home run mark five times. After debuting with the <strong>Los Angeles Angels<\/strong> in 2006, it took him only three seasons to become a key cog in the middle of the order. Morales went deep 90 times from 2009-2013 before experiencing a dismal 2014 with the <strong>Minnesota Twins<\/strong> and the <strong>Seattle Mariners<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/m.mlb.com\/player\/434778\/kendrys-morales\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last season, Morales hit .263, with 30 home runs, and he drove in 93 runs.<\/a> In what is a very weak free agent class, many players are bound to be overpaid, so\u00a0Morales at $11 million per year is a steal. He also represents insurance in the scenario that Toronto loses some big bats of its own.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, first baseman <b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/encared01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Edwin Encarnacion<\/a><\/b> and outfielder <b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?results=bautijo02,bautijo01&amp;search=Jose+Bautista&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jose Bautista<\/a><\/b> are on the free agent market. While it&#8217;s likely that the Blue Jays will be able to re-sign one of the two power bats, Morales provides a fallback option for one of the two, or even both in the scenario that they both take their talents elsewhere. However, if they both re-sign, he will serve as the team&#8217;s designated hitter and beef up an already beefy lineup. All things considered, Morales&#8217;s three-year deal looks like a steal for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 10px 0; max-width: 550px;\"><a id=\"ld-3504-7889\" href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\/9112744049813528\" data-width=\"100%\" data-height=\"auto\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Should the one game play-in Wild Card be expanded to a three game series?<\/a><span id=\"ld-3504-7889-equiv\"> in <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\/6169841350483521\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LastWordOnSports&#8217;s Hangs<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/lockerdome.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LockerDome<\/a><\/span><script>(function(d,s,id,elid) {window.ldInit = window.ldInit || []; ldInit.push(elid);if (d.getElementById(id)) return;var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];js=d.createElement(s); js.id=id;js.async=true;js.src=\"\/\/cdn2.lockerdome.com\/_js\/embed.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}(document, \"script\", \"lockerdome-wjs\", \"ld-3504-7889\"));<\/script><\/div>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/612067848\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.835017% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/612067848?et=KgyJ4HT7RH1qkJvD6zZE_g&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=Tx_vGoeW-ZxylvxMNBfoS4qyVXgZBiO1ggoA114XML8=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"397\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major League Baseball&#8216;s\u00a0free agency period has gotten off to a quick start, and now one of the bigger bats on the market has found his new team. Former Kansas City\u00a0Royals first baseman and designated hitter\u00a0Kendrys Morales has agreed to a three-year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays,\u00a0according to Christopher Meola.\u00a0 @JimBowden_ESPN @MLBONFOX Done Deal: Blue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1631,"featured_media":1825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,7],"tags":[68,371,414,233,69,2262,36],"class_list":["post-1805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-bluejays","tag-baseball","tag-edwin-encarnacion","tag-jose-bautista","tag-kendrys-morales","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}